Indonesia: Enough to be poor people!

By Choo Chon Kai

On 29 August 2007, about 2500 people gathered at the heart of Central Jakarta for a mass action. These people are urban poor from all over Jakarta, mainly women, with young and elderly.

The mass action was called by Urban Poor People’s Union (Serikat Rakyat Miskin Kota, SRMK), and the main demand of the action is to urge the government to realize allocation of 20% of the national budget to education. Besides urban poor, there are also workers from labour unions and students participate in the action as well.

The current government of Indonesia under the administration of Susilo Bambang Youdhoyono (SBY) which came into power 3 years ago, had promised implementation of free education. There were a lot of talks about providing Indonesian children with accessible and quality education with 9-year compulsory learning program. Yet, this is just much as talks without concrete actions that showing the commitment of the government. As what Robix Maulana, an activist with SRMK said, “It’s really hard to hope for realization of pro-people policies from a government which is anti-people and more enslaved by the foreign interests.”

Allocation for education in 2007 government’s budget is only 11.8% of the total. Yet, according to Article 31 in the country’s 1945 Constitution, that the state would prioritize at least 20% of the national budget for the usage of education. More ironically, allocation to pay foreign debt in the budget is higher than allocation for education and healthcare. Despite previous mass protests from teachers to demand for better treatment and 20% budget for education, the government still stubbornly refused make any progress.

29 August Action

Hence, SRMK which organised urban poor across the country, had decided to call for a cross-sector mass action on 29 August. The masses gathered in front of the National Monument, then marched to Presidential Palace. After that, the crowd moved to Ministry of Education and staged a protests there. Finally, the crowd went to the Parliament and converged with workers who demand for protection of labour rights.

SRMK had come out with demands on education:
1.Free and quality education from elementary school until higher education
2.Realisation of 20% of budget for education
3.Stop commercialization of education
4.Stop paying foreign debt until the welfare of the people has been ensured.
5.Charge against corruptors and confiscate their properties for free education
6.Creation of an education system which is based on the humanized vision.

The mass action was quite well organized. It took weeks for the SRMK organizers to go to each organized communities to discuss about the issues of education and preparation for the mass actions, including getting the number, collecting money for transport etc. Compared factory workers, urban poor are less “discipline” and more difficult to organize, as most of them are very poor, unemployed and struggling to survive in the slums. But the young organizers have been taken lots of effort and patience to organize these marginalized communities.

Because of lack of allocation for education, most of the children who grown up in the slums are hardly to access quality education. As a result, they’ll end up becoming thugs or beggars. Those children from well-off families can attend private schools and attain much more quality education. This has further widened the gap between the poor and the rich, and social tensions are increasingly worsened throughout the year.

About SRMK

I was staying most of the time at SRMK learning centre in Kampung Guji Baru, West Jakarta, during my trip to Indonesia. The centre located in the middle of a slum which is just next to a medical school.

It is estimated about 100 million urban poor spread across slums in Indonesia, while 2 million of them are staying in Jakarta. Among 230 million populations in Indonesia, almost half of them live in poverty, with daily income less than 2 USD (equivalent to 20,000 rupiah). 40 millions are unemployed and under employed. This has created a vast area in big cities like Jakarta is covered by slums.

SRMK established in 2004, after a big meeting among groups from 12 provinces. These groups represented urban poor affected by eviction, street artists, street vendors and young people. Currently there are about 20,000 people participate in SRMK, with 5,000 of them are in Jakarta.

The history of SRMK can be traced back earlier. After the fall of Suharto in 1998, social movements have gain a lot from the opening up of democratic space, including freedom of organization. Many organizations being set up since then, including all kind of urban poor organizations. A group of youth formed LPRM (Laskar Pemuda Rakyat Miskin, which means Poor People Youth Troupe) in 2000 and organized among the young people and urban poor communities around Jakarta. LPRM had put its concerns in issues affected poor communities, including fuel price hike and neo-liberal policies.

In 2002, government under the administration of Megawati, had announced a plan for “city without slum”, and how to realize it was by conducting massive evictions of poor communities. Victims of evictions have to move to another slum when their house demolished. Some of these people became organized.

With the consolidation of groups at local level, in 2004, LPRM had initiated a joint national congress among urban poor groups from 12 provinces. The meeting decided to form a national organization of urban poor to move forward the struggle for a better living environment.

Issues have been taken up by SRMK include demand for free education, free healthcare and against force eviction. SRMK strives to establish structure at different kampongs (communities), and introducing popular welfare program (education and healthcare). Through welfare program, SRMK politicized its members in the process and mobilized them for mass action. “Poor people’s government” is the idea adopted by SRMK where ordinary poor people take the power through communal councils.

An interesting observation is, though most of the organizers of SRMK are young people, 90% of its members are women. And many of these urban poor women are very brave and militant when confronting with those in power.

The urban poor are among the people who most affected by the anti-people policies of the government. Recently, administration of Jakarta introduced a new law to forbid begging in the streets. The new laws will not solves the root problems of beggars in the streets, but will further victimize these people and create more abuses of power. It is the system which creating inequality and breeding poverty, that contributes to the mushrooming of slums and increasing of crimes and begging in the streets. As long as the oppressive socio-economic system still exists and the power still in the hand of the few political elites who never listen to what really the poor want, there will be hardly any change to the lives of millions poor people in Indonesia. SRMK has taken a small step to make a meaningful change in the struggle of urban poor for a better future.