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Siami: The price of honesty

JP/Indra HarsaputraHonesty is sometimes costly, but it’s a price that Siami, 32, has had to pay to pull her family out of poverty

Indra Harsaputra (The Jakarta Post)
Surabaya
Tue, June 21, 2011

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Siami: The price of honesty

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span class="inline inline-left">JP/Indra HarsaputraHonesty is sometimes costly, but it’s a price that Siami, 32, has had to pay to pull her family out of poverty.

Her determination to ensure a better future for her children through honesty has cost her a living and a home, following public backlash against her disclosure of group cheating on the national exams.

While law enforcers struggle to expose those involved in bribery scandals, Siami’s courage to speak the truth has been a hot issue on the Internet and on the ground, leaving her ostracized by neighbors and driven away from the home she had worked so hard to build in Gadel, Surabaya, East Java.

“I’m prepared to lose my life for the sake of upholding the honesty with which I’ve been inculcating
my two children. It would be a shame for me as their mother to give only advice without actual deeds,” said the mother of Al’ifa Achmad, 13, and Enggar Galih, 3, to The Jakarta Post recently.

After marrying Widodo, 40, in 1997, Siami worked at a shoe factory in Surabaya and Widodo sold cold drinks in Magetan, East Java.

They were saving to buy a house in Surabaya, but the influx of imported shoes from China forced her employer to close shop and dismiss her while she was pregnant with her first child.

Persevering, Siami opened a food stall in the Margomulyo warehouse area of Surabaya.

However, the business was short lived due to soaring prices of basic necessities and fuel, and her husband’s income could not cover all her needs during her pregnancy.

“I never quit making every effort to provide proper nutrition for my unborn baby. In my seven-month pregnancy, I was peddling clothes around housing complexes,” she recalled. The junior high school graduate also learned to sew from her relatives. Her hard work was finally fruitful.

When Widodo got a job with a company in the Margomulyo warehouse zone, Siami had a small curtain-making business at home. “After living in Gadel for six years, we bought an 80-square-meter plot of land and built a house of our own,” she said with pride.

Siami taught Al’ifa to be industrious and honest. Al’ifa always ranked first in his primary school performance and, as a bright student, he was frequently asked by his teacher to assist in teaching his classmates.

This lasted until the sixth grade primary school national exams were held in mid-May, when he was asked to give exam answers to all of his classmates.

Al’ifa at first wouldn’t admit his involvement in the group cheating, but he finally revealed it after Siami stopped his pocket money for two days.

“Al’ifa had to do it because he was afraid of his teacher, who urged him to share his answers with his peers as a form of devotion to the teacher,” she said.

After the school Committee and the teacher involved ignored her complaints, Siami reported the case to Radio Suara Surabaya on June 1. After Siami’s story aired, Surabaya Mayor Tri Rismaharini sent a team to investigate the report.

The mayor’s team discovered attempts by certain teachers to force Al’ifa to give his exam answers to his peers for wider distribution so that all the students could pass the exams.

On June 7, the Surabaya Mayor imposed sanctions on the school principal and two of the teachers
for their deliberate actions that allowed and directed cheating on the national exams. They were denied their teaching posts and allowances and transferred to another department.

Several days after the mayor’s punishment, dozens of students protested in front of Al’ifa’s home, carrying posters that demanded evidence. The protest against Siami’s family climaxed on June 9, when residents packed a mediation meeting between Siami and students’ guardians, arranged by the mayor’s team.

The mediation ended in chaos, with angry neighbors trying to punish Siami as though she was a thief caught red handed.

Despite the tight security protection for Siami, the residents kept cursing and scrambling to beat her. When she got into a police car, some of them even hit window panes. “Kick Siami out of our village!” some of them said.

Siami, Widodo and the children are now staying with their relatives in Gresik, East Java.

“I don’t know when I can return home to continue my sewing work because there’s no government guarantee yet for the safety of my family. I may also stay with other family members in Solo, Central Java,” she added.

One of Al’ifa’s schoolmates has reportedly apologized through Facebook. So far, any support for the family has been overwhelmingly expressed through the social network.

“I’m just an ordinary citizen wishing to see my children live an honest and better life, free from poverty,” the whistle-blowing mother said.

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