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A Sinking
Giant?
 In Graham Greene’s
Our Man in
Havana, the British secret service demotes an agent by reassigning her to the
dreaded posting of
Jakarta. It is no surprise: For much of the last century,
Jakarta was
saddled with a reputation as a poverty-ridden hellhole. Andre
Vltchek believes nothing has changed.
Today, high-rises dot the skyline, hundreds of thousands of vehicles
belch fumes on congested arteries and super-malls have become cultural
centers of gravity in this fourth largest city in the world. In
between these colossal super-structures, humble kampongs house the
majority of the city dwellers who often have no access to basic
sanitation, running water or waste management.
While almost all major capitals in the region are investing heavily in
public transportation, parks, playgrounds, sidewalks and cultural
institutions like museums, concert halls and convention centers,
Jakarta remains brutally and determinately “pro-market”: profit-driven
and openly indifferent to the plight of a majority of its citizens who
are poor.
Most Jakartans have never left
Indonesia,
so they cannot compare their capital with
Kuala Lumpur
or Singapore, with Hanoi or Bangkok. Comparative statistics and
reports hardly make it into the local media. Despite the fact that the
Indonesian capital is for many foreign visitors still a hell on earth,
the media describes Jakarta as “modern”, “cosmopolitan”, a “sprawling
metropolis”.
Newcomers are often puzzled by
Jakarta’s
lack of “public” amenities. Bangkok, not exactly known as a
“user-friendly city”, still has several beautiful parks.
Cash-strapped
Port Moresby boasts wide promenades, playgrounds, long stretches of
beach and sea walks.
Singapore
and Kuala Lumpur compete with each other in building wide sidewalks,
green areas as well as cultural establishments. Manila, another city
without a glowing reputation for its public amenities, succeeded in
constructing an impressive sea promenade dotted with countless cafes
and entertainment venues while preserving its World Heritage Site of
Intramuros.
Hanoi repaved its wide sidewalks and turned a park around
Huan-Kiem Lake
into an open-air sculpture museum.
But in Jakarta, there is a fee for everything. Many green spaces have
been converted to golf courses for the exclusive use of the rich. The
approximately one square kilometer of Monas seems to be the only real
public area in a city of more than 10 million. Despite being a
maritime city, Jakarta has been separated from the sea, with the only
focal point being Ancol, with a tiny, mostly decrepit walkway along
the dirty beach dotted with private businesses.
Even to take a walk in Ancol, a family of four has to spend Rp 40,000
in entrance fees, something unthinkable anywhere else in the world.
The few tiny public parks which survived privatization are in
desperate condition and mostly unsafe to use.
There are no sidewalks in the entire city, if one applies
international standards to the word “sidewalk”. Almost anywhere in the
world (with the striking exception of some cities in the
U.S.
like Houston and Los Angeles) the cities themselves belong to
pedestrians. Cars are increasingly discouraged from the centers. Wide
sidewalks are understood to be the most ecological, healthy and
efficient forms of short-distance “public transportation” in areas
with high concentrations of people.
In Jakarta, there are hardly any benches for people to sit and relax,
no free drinking water fountains or public toilets. It is these small
but important “details” that are symbols of urban life anywhere else
in the world.
Most world cities, including those in the region, want to be visited
and remembered for their culture.
Singapore
is managing to change its “shop-till-you-drop” image to that of the
center of Southeast Asian arts. Monumental Esplanade Theatre reshaped
the skyline, offering first-rate international concerts of classical
music, opera, ballet, but also performances of the leading artists
from Southeast Asia. Many performances are subsidized and are either free
or cheap relative to the high incomes in the city-state.
Kuala Lumpur
spent US$100 million on its philharmonic concert hall located right
under the Petronas Towers, the tallest buildings in the world. This
impressive and prestigious concert hall hosts local orchestra
companies as well top international performers.
The city is presently spending further millions to refurbish its
museums and galleries, from the
National
Museum
to National Art Gallery.
Hanoi is proud of its culture and arts, which are promoted
as its major attraction: Millions of visitors flock into the city to
visit countless galleries, stocked with canvases which can be easily
described as some of the best in
Southeast Asia.
Its beautifully restored Opera House regularly offers Western and
Asian music treats. Bangkok’s monumental temples and palaces coexist
with extremely cosmopolitan fare: International theater and film
festivals, countless performances, jazz clubs with local and foreign
artists on the bill, as well as authentic culinary delights from all
corners of the world. When it comes to music, live performances and
nightlife, there is no city in Southeast Asia as vibrant as Manila.
 Now back to Jakarta.
Those who have ever visited the city’s “public libraries” or National
Archives building will know the difference. No wonder: in
Indonesia
education, culture and arts are not considered to be “profitable”
(with the exception of pop music), and are therefore made absolutely
irrelevant. The country has the third lowest spending in the world on
education (according to The Economist, only1.2 percent of its GDP)
after Equatorial Guinea
and Ecuador (there the situation is now rapidly improving with the new
progressive government).
Museums in Jakarta are in appalling condition, offering absolutely no
important international exhibitions. They look like they fell on the
city from a different era and no wonder -- the Dutch built almost all
of them. Not only are their collections poorly kept, but they lack
elements of modernity: There are no elegant cafes, museum shops,
bookstores and even public archives. It appears those running them are
without vision and creativity; even if they did have inspired ideas,
there would be no funding to carry them out.
It seems that
Jakarta has no city planners, only private developers, with no
respect for the majority of its inhabitants who are poor (the great
majority, no matter what the understated and manipulated government
statistics say). The city abandoned itself to the private sector,
which now controls almost everything, from residential housing to what
were once public areas.
While Singapore decades ago and Kuala Lumpur recently managed to fully
eradicate poor, unsanitary and depressing kampongs from their urban
areas, Jakarta is unable or unwilling to offer its citizens
subsidized, affordable housing equipped with running water,
electricity, a sewage system, wastewater treatment facilities,
playgrounds, parks, sidewalks and a mass public transportation system.
Rich Singapore aside,
Kuala Lumpur
with only 2 million inhabitants counts on one metro line (Putra Line),
one monorail, several efficient Star LRT lines, suburban train links
and high-speed rail system connecting the city with its new capital
Putrajaya. The “Rapid” system counts on hundreds of modern, clean and
air-conditioned buses. Transit is subsidized; a bus ticket on “Rapid”
costs only 2 RM (about Rp 5,000) for unlimited day use on the same
line. Heavily discounted daily and monthly passes are also available.
Bangkok
contracted German firm Siemens to build two long “Sky Train” lines and
one metro line. It is also utilizing its river and channels as both
public transportation and as a tourist attraction. Despite this
enormous progress, the Bangkok city administration claims that it is
building additional 80 kilometers of tracks for these systems in order
to convince citizens to leave their cars at home and use public
transportation.
Polluting pre-historic buses are being banned from Hanoi, Singapore,
Kuala Lumpur and gradually from Bangkok. Jakarta, thanks to corruption
and phlegmatic officials, is in its own league even in this field.
Mercer Human Resource Consulting, in its reports covering quality of
life, places Jakarta repeatedly on the level of African and poor South
Asian cities; below Nairobi and Medellin.
Considering that it
is in the league of some of the poorest capitals of the world, Jakarta
is not cheap. According to the Mercer Human Resource Consulting 2006
Survey, Jakarta ranked as the 48th most expensive city in
the world for expatriate employees, well above Berlin (72nd),
Melbourne (74th) and Washington D.C. (83rd). And if it is
expensive for expatriates, how is it for local people with GDP per
capita below US$1,000?
Curiously, Jakartans are silent. They have become inured to appalling
air quality just as they have gotten used to the sight of children
begging, even selling themselves at the major intersections, to entire
communities living under elevated highways and in slums on the shores
of canals turned into toxic waste dumps, the hours-long commutes,
floods and rats.
But if there is to be any hope, the truth has to be eventually told,
the sooner the better. Only correct and brutal diagnosis can lead to
treatment and cure. Painful as the truth can be, it is always better
than self-deceptions and lies.
Jakarta has fallen decades behind capitals in the neighboring
countries: in esthetics, housing, urban planning, standard of living,
quality of life, health, education, culture, transportation, food
quality and hygiene. It has to swallow its pride and learn: from
Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, from Brisbane and even in some instances
from its poor neighbors like
Port Moresby,
Manila and Hanoi.
Comparative statistics have to be transparent and widely available.
Citizens have to learn how to ask questions again, and how to demand
answers and accountability. Only if they understand to what depths
their city has sunk can there be any hope of change.
“We have to watch out,” said a concerned Malaysian filmmaker during
New Year’s Eve celebrations in Kuala Lumpur. “Malaysia suddenly has
too many problems. If we are not careful, Kuala Lumpur could end up in
20 or 30 years like Jakarta!”
Could this statement be reversed? Can Jakarta find the strength and
solidarity to mobilize and in time catch up with Kuala Lumpur? Can
decency overcome greed? Can corruption be eradicated and replaced by
creativity? Can private villas shrink in size and green spaces, public
housing, playgrounds, libraries, schools and hospitals expand?
An outsider like me can observe, tell the story and ask questions.
Only the people of Jakarta can offer the answers and solutions.
The writer is an American novelist, filmmaker and journalist,
co-founder of Mainstay Press (www.mainstaypress.org)
and editorial director of Asiana Press Agency (www.asiana-press-agency.com).
He can be reached at: andre-wcn@usa.net
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