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Can Indonesian youth win the “David Vs. Goliath” fight against "Big Tobacco"?
A growing number of organizations led by young Indonesians are taking tobacco companies to task. But it has not been an easy fight.
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Smoking problem: Indonesian youths smoking cigerettes at a park in Jakarta, West Java, on May 28, 2010. (AFP/Romeo Gacad) (AFP/Romeo Gacad)
A growing number of organizations led by young Indonesians are taking tobacco companies to task. But it has not been an easy fight.
For many young Indonesians, their first encounter with cigarette smoking is something of a fork in the road.
As a teen, Margianta Surahman J. Dinata (Gian) was frequently bullied and called bencong (a disparaging term used to refer to men with supposedly feminine traits), ayam (chicken) and other insults.
The 27-year-old also suffered from physical harassment — all because he refused to smoke cigarettes like his peers. For him, it was a big part of why he never belonged to “the boys club” who saw smoking as a manly endeavor.
Gian is today the CEO of youth-based group Emancipate Indonesia, an NGO which focuses on modern slavery and young workers' welfare.
For anti-tobacco activist Ucu Saepur Ridwan, smoking was a childhood addiction that required drastic events to let go of.
“I started smoking kretek [clove cigarettes] when I was a junior high school student in my home town in Pangandaran, West Java. I used to smoke two packs of cigarettes every day, until I fell ill and decided to quit 11 years ago,” the 28-year old said.
