Readers’ Outlook: Where’s the love in Jakarta?

There is a growing understanding that it is “love” that will be the prime force in the future economy of successful 21st century cities. (Larry Beasley, distinguished practice professor of planning at the University of British Columbia)

Jakarta is Ibu Kota — the “mother city” of Indonesia. Mother love is the source of all that’s good in humanity so the rakyat (citizenry) has the right to expect that the elected orang tua and bureaucrats, whose salaries come from the public purse, will provide a happy home.

Ali Sadikin, who was governor from 1966 to 1977, had a commitment to the well-being of Jakartans and would regularly walk through the alleys of slum areas to acquaint himself with conditions in order to ameliorate them. Taman Ismail Marzuki and Ancol Dreamland remain his legacies.

That his protected Tomang City Forest should now be a sea of concrete that includes Taman Anggrek Mall and Central Park says much about his self-seeking successors. The impression since then is that Jakartans have been served by a bunch of beggars competing among themselves.

It is unlikely that the governor to be elected in 2012 will do so without the machinery and machinations of a major political party, yet it is surely time for a new paradigm.

This city needs not only a visionary, but someone who has the personal integrity and courage to change the mind-sets of Jakartans and the bureaucrats in City Hall who believe that their sole responsibility is to be served by the public and those business enterprises that top up their troughs.

What is sorely needed is a system of people empowerment, a decision-making process that moves away from “top down” working, to ways of working that consider the needs and wishes of communities regarding the distribution of public resources, thus creating opportunities for engaging, educating and empowering citizens, and thereby fostering a more vibrant civil society.

Two successful models are Participatory Budgeting, first pioneered in 1989 by the mayor of Porto Alegre, Brazil, and Britain’s Sustainable Communities Act 2007.

Could either work here? The mechanism already exists in the pyramid structure of RT up to, and down from, City Hall. However, given that both models help promote transparency, with the potential to reduce government inefficiencies and corruption, I would not expect any past or prospective “public servant” to even consider them.

Terry Collins
The co-author of Culture Shock! Jakarta. He also writes the Jakartass blog