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Lebaran and the sea of beggars
In Ramadhan, particularly in the days leading up to Lebaran (Idul Fitri), beggars rush en masse to Greater Jakarta in pursuit of good fortune
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n Ramadhan, particularly in the days leading up to Lebaran (Idul Fitri), beggars rush en masse to Greater Jakarta in pursuit of good fortune. So, the Jakarta administration, as it did last year, has officially stated a policy to eradicate begging. With a slight difference, it will now scrupulously wipe out the syndicates behind the beggars.
Yet, will it successfully cope with this systemic social problem which is deep-rooted in the black economy of the rank and file and their cultural anomies?
Let’s start with a reflection on the past.
On a Saturday, a year ago, a busker got on a public bus at a bus stop across from Wisma Bakrie, on Jl. Rasuna Said, South Jakarta. The thin young man — with his long hair and blackened teeth and lips, a guitar and a harmonica — sang a 1980s ballad of social criticism popularized by the legendary Indonesian singer, Iwan Fals.
Thus, along the street with office blocks and very high-class facilities, the passengers enjoyed a fine performance with a perceptible contrast, since the song itself is about disharmony and the destruction of natural and ancestral legacies in Ujung Aspal village, Pondok Gede, East Jakarta. Iwan Fals called the phenomenon “keserakahan kota” (the greed of a city).
Our point here, however, is that with his entertaining shows the busker might be able to make good money from bus to bus while thousands of other beggars do the same or different things. He possibly cheers us up, yet, at the same time, prompts us to reflect that they are victims of the greed of the city.
Beforehand, on the same bus, a new notice is seen everywhere, “Don’t give charity to beggars!” At Gambir Train Station, several meters from a similar notice, many were giving alms to beggars or homeless drifters.
A month later, at the presidential palace, on Idul Fitri, Sept. 10, 2010 — following some fatal incidents while giving alms during Ramadhan — a blind man died while he was queuing up to get a Rp 100,000 (US$11.7)in an Open House ceremony.
Despite the apology or “special” treatment given in the name of the President to the man and his family subsequently, the socio-economic relationship between them remains the same: Between gusti (the lord) and his kawula (the serf). Therefore, the “meeting with the president moment” became a public humiliation for the poor, an exploitation of a religious event and a way of nurturing the beggar mentality.
In 1960, Naguib Mahfouz, an Egyptian Nobel laureate in literature, published his novel Midaq Alley (1960) and told us about Zaita, the cripple maker who lives outside the bakery and aids Dr. Booshy in his theft of false teeth. Although he could make money for himself, Zaita enables the disadvantaged to beg everywhere
with their intentionally disfigured bodies.
Zaita is therefore “a hero” among the poor. He helps them to survive through a short cut since they cannot see any other available means of subsistence.
These examples then fit several points. First, the beggar mentality is actually preserved structurally by even the highest social or political strata of society. While the real beggars actualize it through begging for a little money, despite their capabilities to do something else, the charity givers make use of it through some forms of humiliating displays of charity.
Second, the availability of traditional reference values also upholds the beggar mentality in society. Certain religious teachings, for instance, have allegedly disseminated fatalism, a belief in how one’s life has been predestined.
Alongside this, alms givers think they are merely performing rituals through their charity and therefore are absolved of any blame for doing something counterproductive.
In spite of these allegedly misunderstood religious teachings, the values exist and are practiced (Abdurrahman Wahid, 1991).
We can also find traditional legitimacy for the beggar mentality in the life of homeless drifters such as in Javanese concepts: satrio lelono, bocah angon and etcetera (Onghokham, 1991). Through art performances or helping people, begging seems to be a socially legitimate way of life.
Even in the Indonesian revolution in 1948, there were guerilla groups calling themselves Laskar Kere (group of the poor) or Laskar Pengemis (group of the beggars).
Finally, the beggar mentality remains a long-lasting problem for the state. The state’s lip-service policies for the disadvantaged have only impoverished larger segments of the society. Instead of guaranteeing prosperity for the people, they lay fertile soil for the germination of a beggar mentality.
Back to our question of whether the Jakarta government will succeed or not in eradicating begging, two things must at least be considered. First, besides using an iron-fist in the short term, there should be massive campaigns to restore self-dignity to everybody in the long term, especially to those who could potentially become beggars by themselves or be recruited by the syndicates.
Formal education, for example, should guarantee students’ self-reliance. Religious or traditional figures should emphasize the importance of working hard to their followers — more than just an edict prohibiting begging.
State leaders or politicians should stop exploiting for their own interest charity that actually deepens people’s social problems.
Second, we should strengthen social charity bodies, not only by giving our alms to the recognized and authorized ones with appropriate programs, but also to monitor their activities. Providing life-skills and proper jobs for the poor, for example, is much better than feeding them directly with money or food.
Happy Lebaran!
The writer is a researcher at Paramadina Foundation Jakarta.
