Jakarta

Kampung Bali: small steps in the big city

In a city like Jakarta, where the industrial, economic and political powers of a country converge around 10 million people, you’d think there’d be little room left for small-scale community leadership.


Yet throughout central Jakarta, in mini-suburbs called kampungs that feel like villages, gangs of screaming children play in the streets, neighbours talk with one another and community leadership is alive and well.


In the neighbourhood of Kampung Bali – a low-rise hamlet surrounded by office towers and malls – one traditional Javanese house has 39 pairs of sandals and thongs on its doorstep.

This is where Kampung Bali’s residents come to meet: the family home of Karma Widjaja Sosroatjmodjo, or Widi, a warm character wearing a traditional purple sarong and large white smile.


The son of Soemarno Sosroatmodjo, Jakarta’s first governor post-colonialism, Widi continues the leadership tradition by hosting these weekly meetings, something he’s been doing since 2000. It was then that Widi saw the need for his community to be re-engaged as the older generation of religious leaders were either passing on or losing touch.

“I approached the community and asked if we should organise a new group and they said ‘Of course, but in a different way,’” says Widi.

“In the past, groups like this were hosted by just one religious leader. But now we have a team. Sometimes we have leaders from family planning organisations, then people from drug prevention programs come and explain issues. We have people from government and even the mayor of Jakarta came here to talk with the community.”


Community decisions following meetings are relayed to local government, whom Widi is connected with through his father’s legacy and his own community work.

Membership for the lounge room discussion series has reached 120 and the scope of issues covered continues to grow.

The maxim of not discussing religion, politics or personal family business doesn’t apply in Indonesia; those having family troubles or neighbourhood quarrels are encouraged to work through their issues at the meetings. At other times the policy differences between political parties, or religious differences, are debated.

One of the most important functions of the meetings has been education and the formulation of unified responses around issues concerning the community.


Kampung Bali’s gravest issue so far has been the narcotics trade, which until recently gave this quiet suburb the unwelcome title of Jakarta’s drug capital. Many locals got caught up in illicit activity and its impacts were soon felt throughout the community.

“One of the ladies who always comes to our meetings, she had three children – two boys and one girl – and these two boys died from drug abuse,” says Widi. “Then the husband also passed away. She saw no more reason to live, so we all tried to be close to her, trying to save her.”


Social services to deal with such problems are difficult for most Jakartans to access. In response, Widi’s community group developed a drug education and family support program of its own.

When conservative religious elders began refusing to administer funeral rites or visit the families of victims of drug abuse, Widi’s community group stepped in again.

“We tried to find the right and best way for all our people, because anyway they are still our people, our community, and we have to think about the community. So when the religious leaders here knew somebody had died from drugs and didn’t want to come and do the absolution – they didn’t even want to do the prayer – I approached them and said ‘Okay, it’s their mistake to be involved with drugs, but it’s our duty to help them, especially their families.’ Our people now understand that.”

Widi credits the concerted effort of the people in his neighbourhood with bringing the drug situation under control.


With Indonesia’s elections looming, the community group is now focussing on building religious and political tolerance, an issue Widi is passionate about.

“In Islam, and in our community, we have different ways of thinking. But that’s okay as long as we always respect each other. Your religion is for you and my religion is for me, but we respect each other,” he says.

“It would have been very easy for God to make all the people in the world with the same thinking, but we have to think also why there is Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and so on. We have to think about why God made us different and what it can teach us. Our community has been making a lot of progress with this idea.”

Aussie Cheers at Jakarta Stadium

By Michael Quin

Outnumbered and outcheered, on a night when their Socceroos were outplayed, Australian fans at Wednesday's Asian Cup qualifier had a big task ahead of them in raising a cheer.

Indonesia played an attacking game, especially in the first half, stirring the local crowd into a frenzy. Shouts of "Indonesia, Indonesia" shook Jakarta's Gelora Bung Karno Stadium, while the drumming section from the cheer squad hammered out it's beats.

Australian coach, Pim Verbeek, said the Indonesians were particularly difficult to beat at home with their noisy fans.

Meanwhile, just over 100 Australians - and one inflatable kangaroo - grouped together near the gate one section to muster what noise they could. Cheers of "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oi, oi, oi" started several times but petered out quickly.

Rory Carroll of Sydney spent much of the night starting chants from his front row seat, trying to lead the group. It was a tough job.

"There's not much chanting from the crowd so far," he said at half time.

"They're trying to get into it, but there are only so many Socceroos supporters here."

Kevin Thompson of Brisbane was one of the few die-hard Socceroos fans that were there.
After 17 years in Jakarta, Thompson said he'd been waiting a long time to be there among the Australian crowd watching the Socceroos.

"The Aussie crowd's pretty small, but everyone's behind their team, it's a good turnout," he said.

At half time the mood in the Australian section was tame, reflecting not only the small number of supporters, but also Australia's on field performance.

At half time, Tina Walton of Cootamundra in New South Wales wanted to know why the apparently fit Australian players seemed so flat-footed.

"The Australians are looking a bit slow, a bit lackluster out there. What's wrong with them?" she said.

Rory Carroll, between attempts to raise cheers from the quiet group, admitted he too was disappointed with the the first half.

"We're not playing the total football that we've been playing during the qualifiers," he said.

Matthew Hogben of Perth was also unimpressed, describing the game so far as lackluster.

Tina Walton was more upbeat at half time.

"We can kick their ass!" she said.

"The Soceroos just need a bit of home town support. They know the Aussies are here, when they came out onto the pitch they acknowledged us. They need that little bit of support," she said.

Sure enough in the second half the mood did lift as the Socceroos took a more aggressive approach against their fading opponents.

But several tense moments in front of goal at both ends bore no results and the Australian crowd resigned to the fact their would be no victory for their small party to celebrate.

Greg Redden of South Australia said even with a nil-nil result it had been a good game, with plenty of action in the second half keeping it interesting.

"I thought we'd win but that's okay. It was well played, fast and open," he said

These Streets of Jakarta

By Michael Quin

Jakarta, still in Jakarta, where questions breed like mice. Where the end is never the end. This damp metropolis of 10 million by night, a smoky machine drawing millions more by day, is never the straight answer you may have wanted. It's a flurry of allusions and clues jumping at you in the streets.

These streets, where the air wraps around you like hot breath: old, moist, imbued with spicy scents and the smells of smoky chicken satay. Every sound, smell and taste in Jakarta is written in the air.

And it's a welcome maze to wander. Street stall diners blocking your way smile with mouths full of rice, the kids jostling in the back streets giggle as you pass, the man repairing black scooter engines says "good morning mister" at any time of day.

In these streets, so many people eke out a living where other societies don't bother to go: Small boys no older than 10, directing traffic at busy intersections on the odd chance a driver might tip spare change; A bent old lady pushing a wooden cart the size of a car, stacked high with soggy cardboard boxes, grinning at passersby; A man struggling under bags and bags of bottles; People called 'jockeys' standing expectantly along a racing eight-lane road offering, for a very small fee, to jump into the car of anyone who wants to use the passenger-carrying lane in a vain attempt to outwit the permanent peak hour jam.

Then of course are the informal street sweepers, the informal parking attendants, the wandering bands of young kids with un-tuned guitars and those pushing food carts down highways or peddling bicycle-powered ice cream stands with bell songs ringing repetitive and loud. There are those selling umbrellas and those selling balloons next to the kids with dancing monkeys on chains - the monkeys wearing cut-out doll faces as masks.

Weaving through it all, on roads spilling into the wrong lanes and onto the pavements and through front yards and over curbs, is the traffic, always the traffic. Millions of revving motors going nowhere fast.

A couple and their two young kids on one motorbike, all wearing masks for the pollution. In the next lane a businessman in his over sized 4-wheel-drive with opaque tinted windows.

Off the street are the air conditioned shopping malls, the Gucci and Armani for who knows who, bubbles from where Jakarta doesn't have to be true.

For the truth you must look down. Holes await, along every sidewalk, large enough to swallow people, deep enough to break a leg in - And there's sewage slush at the bottom. The concept of liability to the citizens seems not to have taken root here, in this fertile soil where corruption seems to flourish. If accidents happen people take care of themselves, I've been told. Keep an eye to the pavement then.

Yet it's in these tough, broken streets where the warmest smiles in the world abound. Smiles that linger. Smiles with big white teeth. Smiles with no teeth. Smiles to make you smile against your will. Smiles to make you laugh involuntarily. Smiles from Military Police in impeccable fitted uniforms, and smiles from school girls in long skirts. Smiles from those doing jobs you couldn't imagine. Smiles from someone your mother's age living in a box on the pavement.

It sometimes feels like a sin to say, but these people might be content.

So much poverty in this city and so much wealth, so many problems, so much corruption, so many broken things. Yet an air of contentedness. A happy population?

Either way, political flags flap from bamboo hoisted here, there and everywhere in the neighborhoods for the coming national election. Red flags with bulls, yellow flags, blue and white flags, green flags and a score of smiling candidates beaming from every post in the neighborhood.

In the quiet back street, what do people expect from their government?

A group of young religious men sit talking in the town square with their shoes off. Two old men watch an action film on a tv in the street, smoking pungent clove cigarettes. A skinny cat with no tail avoids a giant rat. A man walks his chicken down the street in his arms and talks to it.

The call to prayer rings out where good Muslims converge. In the Istiqlal mosque cool breezes wander and the city retreats. A bearded man reads a paper, his back against the cold marble pillar. Children trail their parents down long polished hallways. An air of peace reigns here.

Outside a university campus young law students with long dark hair and band t-shirts sit discontentedly with guitar and cigarettes their instruments. Straining as far left wing as they can imagine, these sons and daughters of authoritarianism. You won't find a group of Jakartans more discontent than these. Why them? What do they expect, this next generation of privileged Indonesians? What sounds and smells will the air carry in the streets of their Jakarta? And do they know what change they want?

Jakarta, sprawling maze where the end is never the end, where questions breed like mice.