TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
When politics is a schoolyard, bullies reign supreme
Bullying has been a persistent problem in schools nationwide, but can we really blame the country's children for emulating the actions of their leaders?
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
A safety chain secures the entrance of the Constitutional Court in Central Jakarta on Aug. 22, 2024. The Jakarta Metropolitan Police deployed 1,273 officers to protect the court that week during a series of pro-democracy demonstrations protesting the legislature’s apparent judicial overreach related to electoral rules. (ANTARA FOTO/Aprillio Akbar)
I
t’s not every day that the House of Representatives decides to hold a meeting on bullying, especially regarding a case involving a little-known student from a South Jakarta private high school.
That rare opportunity came on Wednesday, when House Commission III overseeing legal affairs heard the testimony of a 16-year-old high schooler, identified as RE, whose account of being bullied by his seniors shocked even parents already weary of a long list of unresolved school bullying cases.
It was not so much the violence RE experienced that surprised most people, but the power relations that enabled the violence.
RE, who said he was the son of a businessman, told Wednesday’s meeting as well as numerous media interviews that he had been the target of physical and verbal abuse since his first day at the school.
In most cases, the wealth and social status of a student’s parents can buy friendship and loyalty in Indonesian, but a different sociocultural approach seems to be in play at this particular school.
“’Don’t mess with us. In fact, you should serve us […] Do you know who our parents are? His parent is a chairman of a political party. [That other student’s] parent is a House member. [That student’s] parent is a Constitutional Court justice,’” RE recounted one encounter with a group of 20 senior classmen that had cornered him inside a school toilet last November.
Children see, children do.
