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Your liberal human rights make a glaring omission of universal principles
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People watch the demolition of houses on the banks of Ciliwung River in Bukit Duri, South Jakarta, on Sept. 28. The evictions in Bukit Duri will make way for the Jakarta administration to continue flood mitigation efforts. The residents will be relocated to several low-cost apartments in Jakarta. (JP/Dhoni Setiawan)
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f there was a contest to select a poster girl for diversity and minority rights, I am sure I would be on the shortlist. I am a ChineseIndonesian, I grew up Catholic and ended my teenage years not subscribing to any religion, and I am a woman.
And although my family is middle class, we are not a wealthy Chinese-Indonesian family.
I am not only still standing, exuding all my minority charms but I speak about these issues a lot. I write about it too, and not only to defend Chinese-Indonesians’ rights, but also other minority groups like Ahmadis, Shiites and Papuans.
I once considered myself a “liberal” and didn’t have any problem with it until lately when liberals, most of them educated middle-class people and my friends, have made a glaring omission of the universal principle of human rights.
These people are avid supporters of Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, a Chinese-Indonesian and a Christian, thus their rhetoric of pluralism has been cheapened by some people’s attempts to usher Ahok into victory in the gubernatorial election next year.
Their campaign that Ahok’s triumph would be a victory for pluralism leaves a bad taste in my mouth, especially because Ahok has actually done little to protect freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and pluralism. His only commendable action was saying public schools in Jakarta were prohibited from making the hijab mandatory.
Others laud him for his bravery against hard-line group the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) and many of my friends cheered when Ahok said the FPI should be disbanded without realizing that it was actually a violation of the Constitution, Article 28I paragraph 1 on freedom of assembly and expressing opinion to be exact.
But these people were silent when the FPI wrought havoc in December last year, raiding private cars in the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) cultural center in Central Jakarta to find the FPI’s archenemy, Purwakarta Regent Dedi Mulyadi. Then Jakarta Police chief Insp. Gen. Tito Karnavian (now the National Police chief ) refused to reprimand his subordinates who allowed this to happen before their eyes. And Ahok said nothing about that.
From November 2015 until March this year, under Tito’s leadership there were at least five incidents threatening freedom of assembly and expression in Jakarta, most of which involved the FPI or other firebrand groups. While Tito seemed to condone the actions, Ahok, as the No. 1 person in Jakarta, was silent.
And liberals continue to promote Ahok as a symbol of pluralism, only because he was seemingly “brave” in facing the FPI, but under closer scrutiny has actually done nothing except stand still, exude his minority charms and fire expletives from his mouth. I can see that this could be cathartic because he defies the stereotype of mousy, prostrate Chinese-Indonesians in the face of hard-liners.
But really, I could do that too if I had tanks and a Mobile Brigade (Brimob) troop at the ready every day in front of my office and three layers of security in my gated community. Actually, all my life I have been to places known for their anti-Chinese sentiment unescorted.
The liberals focus so much on the FPI, which is actually a fringe organization that should have been kept on the fringe. This focus feels increasingly wrong amid rampant evictions in Jakarta and obvious violations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which Indonesia has ratified.
Ahok’s neo-developmentalism, at the expense of an economic minority who happens to be the majority religion and ethnicity wise, has bulldozed homes and displaced children and women, who always bear more of the brunt of this tragedy. It is also a systematic dispossession of the poor.
It seems that your liberal human rights do not have the capacity to extend compassion to the city’s economic minority.
The liberals have been whitewashing all this by saying that the urban poor are treated “humanely” because they are moved to low-cost rental apartments equipped with sitting toilets, shiny mosques and garbage chutes, while dismissing the fact that these people have been uprooted from an economically strategic location to one with much less economic activity. They have also dismissed the fact that the forced evictions themselves have been brutal and done without dialogue, a requirement even in the framework of the neoliberal World Bank.
They actively vilify the poor with unjustified labels like “robbers of state land”, while at the same time taking pride in themselves as defenders of minority rights.
This is a glaring omission, very middle-class biased and dangerous for the future of Jakarta, a city already segregated by economic caste.
These are the same people who shared the World Bank report about inequality on social media and lauded Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati when she delivered a speech about inequality and structural poverty, all the while encouraging Ahok to evict more people. He has already vowed to clean Jakarta from the great unwashed before the Asian Games in 2018. This means thousands more families are to undergo dispossession and displacement and they say Ahok’s victory means the victory of pluralism.
I used to be proud of calling myself a liberal. Now, I am not so sure anymore.
The author is staff writer with The Jakarta Post. The views expressed are her own.
