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Nationalist taxi driver and Indonesia's pragmatic 'xenophobia'
On the whole, Indonesians tend to be welcoming toward foreigners.
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Stand for the rights: Hundreds of drivers of conventional taxis stage a rally at Gladag traffic circle in Surakarta, Central Java on Tuesday to protest ride-hailing apps. (JP/Ganug Nugroho Adi)
If you’re involved in a car collision, would you go into a nationalistic tirade against the owner of the car that hit yours?
Seems totally out of place right? But apparently a taxi driver in South Jakarta thought it was the best way to deal with the situation when he had a run-in with a Westerner whose CD18-license-plated car tore a hole in his taxi.
In a video that went viral, you see the taxi driver all puffed up, eyes glaring in anger, arms akimbo, shouting “Are you going to run away? You think I am scared? Hah?! Dis is Indonesia you know? No America, no England, no USA. Dis one Indonesia!”
Wow! Talk about a creating a spectacle! The foreigner on the other hand, a young man in a crisp white striped shirt who looked like he had just stepped out of GQ magazine, was perfectly calm, did not respond at all. He seemed to be trying to contact someone on his mobile phone, most likely to try to help rescue him from his heated situation.
