Begging & Busking

With a view to cleaning up the streets of Jakarta the Regional Government of this fair city has decided that the most important targets for removal are beggars and buskers. The rationale is one of without "these eyesores" (for me and undoubtedly many others these beggars and buskers are an intricate part of what Jakarta is and in no way an eyesore) blurring the picture of beautiful Jakarta then Jakartans views as well as those of the tourists that visit here will be much improved. It is worth noting that the beggars and buskers are not the only targets here as chewing gum and its indiscriminate disposal has also been targeted, as has Jakarta's thriving sex industry (not all of it underground like some might have you believe). But unfortunately some of the other more troublesome interferences for Jakartans such as the cold calling telemarketers hawking anything and everything from credit cards to cars have remained untouched...

The regulation passed without much fanfare after a long debate in the local parliament and supposedly into the wee small hours of the morning. The biggest issue is the criminalization of these activities and the severity of the fines that are to be imposed. For giving a donation to a street beggar or presumably dropping a few Rupiah into the cup of a busker playing their soulful tunes on a bus, will expose the giver to fines and periods of detention each of up to IDR 20 million and a period of up to 6 months (depending on the offence committed). The purveyors of these activities will be subject to similar fines and terms of detention...

More importantly is the lack of criticism from the community that these legislation changes will bring...Okey dokey, the Government wants to outlaw these heinous crimes of begging and busking but the critical failure of the legislation is that it does not offer any alternative to either begging or busking...if either of these activities is your "bread & butter" income you are going to be loathe to have to give it up without an alternate source of income being available...perhaps there are arguments to be made that providing alternative is not the Government's responsibility as the Government's responsibility is only to making Jakarta the most liveable city it can be but this argument is somewhat hollow when it reeks of a crusty elite in the ivory tower making decisions that potentially devastate the lives of a great many, it would seem that natural justice would be that if you take away with one hand you provide with the other...because without an alternative you condemn the victims, the beggars and the buskers, who are generally speaking already the city's most marginalized to a live of crime, un-payable fines, and ultimately long periods of detention - Yep, there is something wrong with this picture!

But as with any piece of legislation the test is not in passing the regulation but in the enforcement of it...You would think that the police would be keen to enforce it as it is a real revenue earner not only in legitimate revenues but also for those who might seek to supplement their meagre incomes by taking an in lieu payment instead of issuing the proper citation...This is not to say that all Government officials or police officers are on the take, the reality is to the contrary, the point is merely to highlight that those with bad intentions could easily exploit the system...

Will Jakarta be better for this regulation, probably not! Removing and forcing the problems out of plain sight and underground is not addressing the root causes of poverty and nor is it providing sustainable opportunities for the most marginalized and vulnerable in our community. The regulation also removes one of the elements that is Jakarta those that sing, dance, and sell at traffic lights and the intersections of just about every single major Jakartan crossroad...Jakarta will certainly be a much less vibrant metropolis as a result!!!

One would have hoped that legislators of all persuasions would have been motivated to find sustainable alternatives to the huge gap between the 'haves' and the 'have nots' rather than sweep this important issue under the carpet in the hope that over time it would disappear on its own...

As the Great Emancipator said:

"A Government of the people, by the people, and for the people" and this I suggest to you includes all the people of this Republic - rich and poor alike...