In the best 'pose' of the children

How many times, in a day, you see children? How many times, in a week, you interact with them? Answers will be vary. Have kids on your own, most probably you have to deal with them every day. A teacher? Monday to Friday.

Again, how many times in a day, when you are surfing the magic world of internet, you stumble upon some pictures of cute children with all their cheeky grins? Crying, playing, laughing, bathing, eating, sleeping. And in second, you found yourselves, like me, going, 'Aaaaah...' with eyes softened and eyebrows curving down. They are just so adorable, aren't they?

Images of children are everywhere. TV (most ads now use kids, even for product that children don't use or has nothing to do with children), radio, newspaper, magazine (how many magz are now dedicated to 'smart and sensible' parents? With glossy pages of proud good-looking mom and dad pose with their kids in oh-so-adorable-outfits), pamflet or business logo or NGOs' reports (from the appeal for war-torn kids in Afghanistan to NGOs' new hips of smiling African girls), and of course, your daily supply of online media.

On my facebook, I have some friends who are (recently) taking role as mothers (and it seems that the number grows exponentially every year, higher speed and soon I'll be attending christening rather than wedding -alone *sigh). Everyday, there'll always be two or three of them post pictures of their children doing stuff. Cute!!! I have to admit, although sometimes it gets too much. One of my friends irritates me (no I don't storm it out at her) by posting almost every single move of her son, from getting up in the morning, sleeping peacefully, crying, fighting, eating, sitting idly after eating, opening the gifts. Really, the same expose MJ's children or Surie Cruise would get, had the paparazzi be given full access. Oh ya don't forget mum's comment to stuff the context!

But why bother? Surely 6yo Bonnie is her son? It's not like all these moms are trying to do harm to their children. And it's facebook, where your friends are supposedly people you know, right? So what's the harm? Most comments on the pics came from close friends (because only close friends bother to sneak into your page hahaha). No weirdo would going to copy the pics and what? distribute? using them for dodgy stuff? Well, god forbids so, but who knows?

But no, my argument against posting your cute ones pics on facebook is NOT based on rare-but-it-does-happen act of phedophils. It's about privacy, that your kids are individual who have rights to privacy, just like you, me, your husbands, and billions others adults. Want something solid? Well, the Convention on the Rights of Children (as contestable as it is) stipulates the children's rights to privacy. And CRC, my friends, is the only human rights convention, all the countries have signed and ratified (except, our beloved US and Somalia).

Contrary to some would insist, children do understand privacy, although not in mainstrem-adult-way of defining or understanding it. Children, too, have their comfort and private zone. Remember, the time when you have that cheesy flowery diary with that smell of cheap-soap and you'd rather die than someone (esp. parents) have a look and read it?? That's privacy. All the secrets things that children hide (although parents insist on openness and honesty). They might not be things that matter for adult (how many times as a kid, your parents laugh at your best kept secrets when you were eventually game enough to share it?), but they do matter to us as kids, no less matter than they are to your children.

In current social media, privacy is a big and constantly debated concept. New social media like facebook or twitter that connect digitally-literate people of all ages (as you can always defy your age. my two youngest siblings, age 10 and 12, have facebook), and share information captured in words and pictures to all your friends. And they are there for only Mark Zuckenberg (and few others) knows how long. In facebook, with current higher privacy setting, you can control whom you share information with, and if your friend mind enough to pay you the luxury of courtesy, they'll tag you and inform you when shared information are posted. And you can either reject it or not. Although, what happen if they're not sensitive enough (some ppl think they own the complete rights to shared pictures just because their faces are also captured)? Similarly, adults are considered well-informed of the consequences of their presence in public spot or at least, when someone take your picture. Taking someone picture in public spot is another issue to discuss, something that I don't have enough knowledge.

So, imagine 1 yo old daughter and I, as a happy proud mom just want to share the joy of me having her to my friends. Facebook is the place, isn't it? And how, being mindful of the my daughter's privacy, do I ask for her consent? After all, she's only 12 months, the only word she can utter is 'mommy'.

No easy way. Back to CRC, acknowledging that children might not have all that it takes to make sound decision (this is too, debatable) considering the complexity of decision one can make sometimes, CRC provides the (overly-abused) principle of 'the best interest of the children'. This principle, although contestable and vague, is probably the only venue of guidance I can think of now. This principle lends space for adult to make decision for children, done in the manner of utmost consideration of (1) children's opinion and (2) their best interest. Assumptions are the one who make decision, knows better and has good intention. Remember the way your parents said to you, 'This is for your own good!' That's it, they're using the same justification, i mean, principle. But again, the principle begs the question of interpretation. Adult and children, no matter how close is their relationship, have different interpretations. And not to mention, the difficulty in defining 'interest' and measuring the scale of 'best'.

Best interest of children and their opinions. If your children are smart enough to comprehend the internet (and what it means by mommy putting your singing pictures in her facebook), ask their opinion or rather seek their permissions!! If your children, are too young to understand or for some other reasons cannot understand, think twice, deeply! Would this picture embarrass my son? Now, three years or thirteen years later? If I were him, at his age (or later) would I be happy if someone share my picture in my swimmer to 600 others people that I don't know (think hundreds times if you are a narcissistic person)?

Sounds too much, or too progressive. Not really. Children by the age of 4 or 5 can understand that anything with their image on it is, to some extent, their possession. They have opinion of what to do with it, which pictures are okay to show to people (not the one I wore that stupid bunny outfits), and to whom. So chances are, three years from now, the picture of your 1 yo daughter will still be accessible (remember no one knows how long facebook and internet keep all our information) and they might disagree on your decision putting the pics on facebook. After all, it's the token of their lives that you are sharing, something that they have full ownership of.

-that way, next time i procrastinate by flicking your children's picture, I don't feel guilty hehehehe-

Narratives and advocacy

It was slightly out of expectation. Policy Advocacy would not provide their devotees with practicalities of advocacy. There would not be tips and tricks in effective persuasion. Rather, it taught us different attempts to make sense advocacy, to dissect it and its assumptions, to look beyond what is seemingly an obvious matter. Before, I always thought that advocacy was straight forward. Advocacy for me was demonstrations, strikes or boycotts. Advocacy is telling the reality that your government is too blind to see! Indeed, they are examples of persuasion at play. However, advocacy is more complex and subtler than those examples. One thing for sure, advocacy is so pervasive in our lives that we are actually advocates, often unconsciously.

Yesterday, I met my boyfriend and talked about the military violence that is happening in West Papua, Indonesia. I told him how paralysed I felt for not being able to do anything. His suggestion is for me to start gathering support from Indonesian students and plan a protest. He suggested that I should write articles, to persuade the Indonesian Student Association to release an official statement to the Australian and Indonesian media. The key, he said, is to wait for the right moment, when the condition gets worse, to execute all the strategies he mentioned. Aha! That's what John Kingdon's calls 'window of opportunity'! All the strategies he formulated are perfect examples of persuasion as 'manoeuvres' of an advocate. He understood that I, an ordinary student, do not have a 'claim to a hearing', a prerequisite of Kingdon's policy entrepreneur. Organisation like the Indonesian Students Association and the media will help me to grab attention. Intelligent as he is, he never heard of Kingdon’s eloquent idea of policy entrepreneurs. But we can see how ideas and practical ways of persuasion are every day’s conversation. One grieve observation is, often to ‘sell’ your cure you must wait until your patient is about to die. Is that a justified trade-off? How can we tell the right moment to push our prescription?

Come to think of it, what he did is an advocacy in itself. He was persuading me of what he thought was the best ways to advocate my cause. He was performing an advocacy on how to execute my advocacy. The way he did it was to appeal to my reason or ‘logos’. He laid out the argumentative analysis of how those moves he suggested are the best ways I could possibly exhibit. He also has that ‘ethos’ dimension as an ex-journalist in Australia. He knows how the media works and to utilize it. Add to the ethos his charms and we can tell now whether I was convinced or not.

The question then is how to persuade the bulk of mainstream Indonesian students to support my cause to stop violence in Papua? Their ignorance frustrates me. For me, it is obvious that what happens in Papua are human rights violation, developmental failures, and structural discrimination by the state. The evidence is crystal clear. How could most people be blind to those facts?! The answer seems to lie in the narrative approach on advocacy. In fact, the concept of narrative significantly changes my understanding of policy advocacy.

Politicians often say, ‘Let me tell you a story’. Indeed, to understand the policy, we need to ask the story first. Narratives help us make sense of a problem by encompassing and interweaving disjointed ideas and values and justifying the decision and policy action (Feldman et al 2004; Fischer 2002). In doing so, narratives blur the boundaries of personal stories with grand theme of a policy and the grand narrative of identities. In narratives, we find a complex interaction between the personal, professional and the public stories. Narratives serve as lenses to filter the ingredients of our construction of 'reality' and truth; so called facts and evidence. Facts and evidence only serve as justification for our narratives; ideas of ‘reality’.

Born in an activist family, I have a different narrative from most of my Indonesian peers. My father was a labour activist during Soeharto era. He told me stories of workers who suffered under Soeharto’s policies and his military atrocities. When I was 12, my father told me that my grandfather, his father, was murdered by the military in 1967 because he joined the communist teacher’s movement. So I grew up with deep antagonism toward the government, the military and the dominant narrative of Indonesia as a national identity and a nation. My story is part of the big narrative of struggling victims of government, including Papuan rebels (or heroes?). Now we see how my narratives shape my previous understanding of advocacy. Individuals are the culmination of public and personal stories, a dynamic negotiation of many interrelated narratives.

In advocacy, often we need to change the narrative which neither easy nor quick. We need to persuade people to step outside their narratives in order to observe and analyse the narratives onto which they attach personal stories and public roles; to identify and question the assumptions of the plots and values embedded in the grand story. The next step is to convince them that our counter-narrative is worth adopting; that this version of reality will make sense of the problem, and solve it.

In Papuan case, this means questioning the grand narrative of Indonesia. What is Indonesia? Who are Indonesians? How did we come to this idea of Indonesia? How do ideas of Indonesia shape my personal story, my identity and political stance; my opinion on Papuan issues? What is my version of Papuan story within the story of Indonesia? The advocacy continues by offering, and convincing people to adopt the counter- narratives where Papuan rebels are the brave protagonists against cruel authorities; that current ideas of Indonesia and being Indonesian are misleading and need to be redefined.

Most people will refuse to confront their narratives, let alone change them. To question our narrative is dangerous, both at individual and collective level. At personal level, it shakes our self-definitions and construction of reality; the meaning of our personal lives and roles in public domain; our identities. At collective level, it disturbs our foundation of our imagined collective identity, collective actions and its ways of making sense of our changing environment.

At this point, I am so perplexed. If policy heavily depends on narratives, where that leaves advocacy? How to change deeply pervasive narratives? If evidence, truths, facts are instruments of our narratives, what can justify such advocacy to convince others that our narratives, thus our ‘reality’ and evidence, is better (or more real)? Policy Advocacy course leaves me incompetent in answering those provocative questions; questions that might never be answered, or maybe, should not be answered.

Stigma, Hambatan untuk Berkawan

Writer: Ardi Nuswantoro
Contributor: Chandra Siagian
Edited by Clara Siagian
will be published in 1st ed. of Rumah Impian Buletin
english translation to come ^^

Stigma, Hambatan Untuk Berkawan

Stigma adalah pencelaan terhadap karakteristik personal. Sebagai tahap awal bagi munculnya marjinalisasi dan diskriminasi, stigma menjadi sebuah hukuman berat bagi mereka yang terpaksa mempertahankan hidup di jalanan.

Belakangan, anak jalanan di Yogyakarta semakin menjamur. Kemunculan mereka menambah semrawutnya lalu lintas kota dengan wujud dekil, kostum kotor, dan bau yang kadang tidak mengenakkan. Jalan-jalan raya dipenuhi mereka mencari uang di jalanan dengan berbagai cara seperti menjadi pengamen, pengelap kendaraan, penyemir sepatu, penjual koran, bahkan beberapa disinyalir menjadi penjaja seks komersial. Lalu bagaimana masyarakat melihat keberadaan mereka?

Meningkatnya jumlah anak jalanan setiap tahun ini diakui oleh Aris Merdeka Sirait, aktifis Komnas Perlindungan Anak dalam wawancara dengan Radio Netherland beberapa tahun lalu. Data Dinas Sosial Kota Bandung pun memperkuat kenyataan ini. Pada tahun 2007 menyebutkan angka 4200 untuk jumlah anak jalanan terdaftar di kota ini. Tahun 2008, jumlah berlipat ganda menjadi 8000 anak. Secara keseluruhan, berdasarkan data tahun 2003, jumlah anak jalanan di Indonesia secara keseluruhan mencapai lebih dari 50.000 anak.

Lain Bandung, lain pula Jogja. Meskipun jumlah anak jalanan di kota ini lebih kecil, pertumbuhannya tetap saja mengkhawatirkan. Dinas Sosial memperlihatkan data lama jumlah anak jalanan Jogja yang mencapai 245 anak pada tahun 1997. Setelah krisis ekonomi terjadi, jumlah ini meningkat tajam mencapai 1373 pada tahun 1999 (hasil pendataan Tim Asistensi kerjasama Universitas Atmajaya Jakarta dan Departemen Sosial). Data lama tersebut memperlihatkan pertumbuhan anak jalanan yang mencapai 500 persen ketika krisis terjadi. Artinya, kemungkinan pertambahan akan selalu ada mengingat beban hidup yang harus ditanggung setiap keluarga miskin kota juga semakin berat setiap tahun.

Lepas dari tanggung jawab orang tua, berbagai cara lalu dilakukan anak jalanan untuk mempertahankan hidup. Beragam cara mulai dari pengamen, pengelap kendaraan, penyemir sepatu, penjual koran, bahkan penjaja seks komersial adalah cara yang biasa dilakukan untuk mencari sesuap nasi. Tentu saja, cara tersebut adalah cara yang dipandang rendah oleh sebagian besar masyarakat.

Soal tempat berlindung, bermacam jenis tempat pun mereka gunakan. Sembilan puluh satu kantong anak jalanan hasil survei Dinas Sosial tahun 1999 adalah tempat berlindung yang memperkuat stigma. Lihat saja, mereka berlindung di emperan toko, kuburan, rumah kardus, terminal, stasiun, bahkan lokalisasi. Dari cara hidup seperti ini, stigma pun muncul dan berkembang.

Stigma yang muncul seakan membenarkan berbagai teori tentang stigma sosial. Berbagai literatur memperlihatkan bagaimana karakteristik dan tingkah laku personal adalah modal utama stigma. Melirik kembali pada karakteristik dan tingkah laku personal anak jalanan, maka wajar jika kemudian stigma muncul.

Lalu seperti apakah stigma anak jalanan di mata masyarakat ? “Anak jalanan itu jorok, kotor, gatrus.terjerumus ke dalam dunia gelap gitu” kata Karib, Mahasiswa Psikologi UGM ketika ditanya tentang anak jalanan. Pengakuan tersebut setidaknya mewakili berbagai stigma negatif yang berkembang dalam masyarakat tentang anak jalanan. berpendidikan, kurang kasih sayang orang tua,

Menjadi anak jalanan bukanlah hukuman seumur hidup. Dengan bantuan dan fasilitasi dari berbagai pihak, anak jalanan bisa keluar dari dunia gelap mereka. “Kalo mereka dikasih kesempatan untuk berkembang bisa jadi baik kok" ujar Karib menyelipkan harapan.

Pendapat serupa juga dilontarkan oleh Wani, Mahasiswa tingkat akhir Fakultas Hukum UGM. Wani mengungkapkan bahwa semua anak jalanan memiliki bakat unik. “Bahwa bakat anak jalanan yang difasilitasi akan memperbaiki kualitas hidup mereka.” ujar Wani. Pengakuan Wani dan Karib ini memang menyelipkan harapan bagi anak jalanan.

Harapan Wani dan Karib membenarkan survei yang dilakukan oleh Christian Children Fund terhadap sejumlah anak jalanan. Menurut CCF, 70 persen anak jalanan yang mereka wawancarai masih memiliki mimpi untuk menyelesaikan bangku sekolah. Sementara itu, 60 persen anak jalanan masih bermimpi untuk meninggalkan jalanan. Namun stigma memang sudah terlanjur menjadi diskriminasi. Alhasil, kesempatan anak jalanan untuk melanjutkan kehidupan normal dibayang-bayangi dan dihambat stigma masyarakat.

Stigma adalah perlakuan yang terlalu menghakimi bagi anak jalanan. Dengan stigma, anak jalanan secara tidak langsung telah dikeluarkan dari struktur masyarakat. Anak jalanan kemudian dilihat sebagai makhluk asing atau ekses sistem sosial yang sebenarnya tidak diharapkan kehadirannya. Padahal, jika ditelusur lebih dalam, anak jalanan bagaimana pun juga adalah anak-anak, dan stigma telah berperan sebagai pembunuh karakter bagi mereka. Stigma yang melekat dalam jangka waktu panjang akan mengalami internalisasi, sehingga korban stigma pada akhirnya akan melihat dirinya sejalan dengan stigma yang ada padanya. Begitu pun anak jalanan, yang notabenenya masih berada dalam usia perkembangan menuju kedewasaan.

Bagi masyarakat, stigma yang berkembang akan mempengaruhi respon masyarakat terhadap keberadaan anak jalanan. Lebih jauh, program dari berbagai LSM pun akan tersendat ketika masyarakat enggan berpartisipasi. Sementara itu LSM pun kerap menggiatkan kegiatan yang hanya bertitik tolak dari pemahaman stigma yang sempit dan hanya bertujuan memperbaiki pandangan negatif masyarakat. Di sisi lain, stigma juga mempengaruhi respon anak jalanan terhadap berbagai program yang dijalankan. Setidaknya, penolakan dan ketidakpercayaan adalah respon standar anak jalanan.

Berbeda dengan Wani, Asri berpendapat lain. Menurut mahasiswa Psikologi UGM ini, anak jalanan muncul salah satunya karena eksploitasi orang tua. "Makin banyak anak jalanan, karena makin banyak orang 'murah hati', yang membuat orang tua mereka mengeksploitasi itu" kata Asri. Pendapat Asri ini kemudian dibenarkan oleh Slamet, penarik becak yang sudah hampir 15 tahun mangkal di perempatan pingit. Menurut Slamet, beberapa orang tua sering terlihat menunggui anaknya mengemis di perempatan. “Bahkan ada juga yang bapaknya punya motor bagus tapi anaknya disuruh ngemis” kata Slamet[1].

Di jalanan, banyak para pengguna jalan yang kesal terhadap keberadan anak jalanan. “Mereka mengganggu lalu lintas. Anak-anak jalanan yang masih kecil menjadikan jalan sebagai tempat bermain. Jika tertabrak lalu pengguna jalan yang disalahkan” ujar Wakijan[2], seorang tukang becak tua di Jetis. Menurut Wakijan, kecelakaan memang sudah terjadi beberapa kali di perempatan tersebut.

Pengguna jalan seperti Slamet dan Wakijan mungkin sudah tidak asing lagi dengan kondisi seperti ini. Menurut Slamet, beberapa anak jalanan yang masih kecil memang sengaja diperalat orang tua untuk mencari uang. “Biasanya mereka ditunggu orang tua” ujar Wakijan. Keadaan ini tentunya sangat memprihatinkan mengingat anak-anak hakekatnya memiliki hak untuk penghidupan dan pendidikan seperti yang tertulis di Konvensi Hak Anak yang telah diratifikasi Indonesia sejak Oktober 1989. “Mereka hanyalah korban orang tua yang tidak bertanggung jawab” ujar Wakijan menyesali keadaan.

Sebagai tukang becak, Slamet mengungkapkan kekesalannya terhadap anak jalanan yang beranjak dewasa. Hal ini beralasan karena sebagian besar anak jalanan yang beranjak dewasa kemudian menjadi preman. Slamet menyayangkan otak dan tenaga kuat mereka yang sebenarnya bisa dipakai untuk memperbaiki hidup. “Anak muda yang berpikiran sehat pasti memikirkan jalan bagaimana keluar dari jalanan” ujarnya.

Menurut Slamet, sudah menjadi pemandangan umum di Pingit jika setiap malam preman-preman nongkrong menghabiskan waktu mereka. “Mereka hanya luntang-lantung ke sana kemari tanpa tujuan yang jelas. Mereka hanya senang hura-hura. Jika ada uang lebih, mereka minum-minum, lalu masyarakat pun terganggu” ujar Slamet yang mulai jengah terhadap keberadaan anak jalanan.

Perbedaan umur memang kadang kemudian menjadi pembeda karakteristik anak jalanan. Anak jalanan yang masih kecil memang memancing simpati sebagian masyarakat. Seperti diungkapkan Asri, anak jalanan kecil tampak sebagai korban tidak bertanggung jawabnya orang tua. Sementara itu, keberadaan anak jalanan dewasa terkadang memunculkan kekesalan tersendiri. Seperti pengakuan Slamet, anak jalanan dewasa hanya memperlihatkan kemalasan.

Stigma masyarakat terhadap keberadaan anak jalanan bukanlah tak beralasan. Pengakuan beberapa orang telah menegaskan stigma anak jalanan. Akan tetapi, benarkah anak jalanan adalah anak nakal, kotor, susah diatur, korban orang tua, dan sampah masyarakat?

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[1] Slamet – parsidi – tukan becak pingit 1970, temanggung, 15 tahun mbecak

[2] Wakijan – tukilan tukang becak jetis, 1943, gunung kidul, 30 tahun menjadi tukang becak

The Way They Bounce Back

"Once you label me, you negate me" Søren Kierkegaard

Today is quite a day for Ratih. She and her friends will be performing a unique musical performance in Taman Pintar; plainly but in creative sense called Musik Kaleng Rombeng. Ratih joins the rehearsal at the back yard of her school SDK Mangunan –a school best known and praised for its different approach in educating school kids thanks to its founder Romo Mangunwijaya.

With great enthusiasm and bashful smile, Ratih recites their singing, Ondel-Ondel and Cublak Cublak Suweng. They say they will meet and on stage with Dik Doank in Taman Pintar and seeing a public figure in real version is a lot for Ratih. The teacher interrupts and asks them to sing and gyrate to the music –only to make Ratih and her friends go blushing. Nothing, not even a slightest clue leads one to infer that Ratih was a street girl a month or so before.

Ratih is not the only one there. Introducing, Adhi and Kido who are already back to school a year ago. The boys and Ratih are in their 5th grade this year. This might be meaningless for many of us who regard schooling is no challenging matter, so predictable it is we take for granted all the process one must gone through to pass a semester. But for Adhi and Kido, a year pass in a school is a remarkable story (though they still have so many years to complete compulsory education).

Kido for example had to live and move from street to street for years before met his life-changing opportunity that is back to school. Having lived years practically without education, Kido had to work out his lacking of knowledge compare to that of his other classmates. Not a brilliant student but he managed to prove himself and was able to rose to the middle rank of his class.

According to Adhi and Kido’s former teacher, Bu Rumei, the kids were by no means a trouble for her. Different from her expectation, the boys were far away from wild adjective, even at first they seemed to be timid and in a closet. When being asked, Adhi who once cried in the first week of school, answered simply that he was ashamed especially for his background on the street. He saw himself in a negative way, pretty much similar with those stigmas labeled by people –wild, unworthy, dirty, no future and whatsoever-. The longer you live with those stigmas stick to your face, the deeper you internalize them, and the more you believe you are what they say you are.

Not all the stories are heartwarming. Nesa, for example had gone through series of in and out schools and counsellings, only to return to the street –a place she said to be where she belongs-. She was yearning for freedom she experienced on the street. Could it be that the freedom she longed for is nothing but free from internalized stigma? “I am different. I don’t fit in the school. I was once free but in school they tried to put rules on me. In the street, the kids don’t care of what people said” she said. Sometimes the victims can turn the sense of labels upside down to become their own pride and justification.

So what can be done to make a successful school-comeback for street children? From her experience, Bu Rumei mentions several important points. The first is no other than self-will from the kid. Going back to school isn’t something we cannot force unto them. The initiative might come from outside but the kid has to believe that going back to school is their ticket for a better life. Bu Rumei finds it in Adhi and Kido. It is their self-will that would encourage them to survive the process. Next is the cooperation between the host or promoter (sanggar) and the school. School must be equipped with sensitivity to take into account the kid individual characteristic and be ready to give a comprehensive personal approach, equal with other children. While the host or promoter must be prepared to help the kids coping with the lost years that supposed to be spent in house not on the street. Good communication between the promoter and school and regular supervision are also a must.

The good news is their street background doesn’t necessarily bad. It turns out that other kids are attracted to them since they have musical ability such as playing guitar and singing, thanks to years of “mengamen”. The teacher also considers them to have more responsibility and independency, one step to great leadership. This might be the reason why all the three are selected to perform in Taman Pintar.

But as music plays both the major and the minor keys, school also brings the good and bad form of humanity. Although most of her friends in school are kind and friendly, some still keep speaking ill of Ratih and turning their back against her. “I don’t know why. I always try to be kind to them but they keep hissing ‘street kid’ behind my back” Ratih complains. It’s probably nothing more than kids’ rivalry or some kids acting drama queen, but somehow it is quite an issue for Ratih. Maybe time will tell why, or maybe Dik Doank has the answer in Taman Pintar... maybe.

Divine Inequality

“No matter how a person strives for it, the conditions of life can never be perfectly equal. Even if by misfortune, such an absolute dead level were attained, there would still be inequalities of intelligence, which coming directly from God, will never escape the laws of man”

Alexis de Tocqueville

I would say I agree that there is such given inequality in life. Those who believe in the existence of God would say it is divine intervention or preordination while those who do not believe may say it is a matter of fortune.

Some people are born blind, others with incurable syndrome, so it is not just inequalities of intelligence but also physical inequalities, mental inequalities and other issues. These inequalities lead to inequalities of treatment from other people, society, and state. This in turn means different treatment, different chances, and different choices to some extent.

There are, however, situations and contexts in which people with different needs should be treated equal. For example, in a democratic election all citizens despite their race, gender or religion have the same right to vote. There are also other basic rights for every citizen that need to be fulfilled.

But to think of a community or society or state that gives equal treatment to every single one of its members, is a utopian idea. To imagine a state in which fire department recruits paralyzed citizens to be the fire fighters is somehow unacceptable. On the other hand government of states also need to make a positive or reverse discrimination towards disadvantaged groups inside society. Affirmative actions that favor some groups sometimes need to be adopted.

At the same time, what we perceive as equal treatment sometimes is misleading. To govern, every state needs simplification. The result of this simplification is categorization of citizens with regard to taxation, conscription, and other issues. Partly as a result of neglecting the very identity of its citizens. Thus a person with lower income may have to pay the same tax as person with higher income (it is more obvious in middle-class society).

The question is do we really need to achieve a perfectly equal life. Do we need to be treated equally by state? There is a hidden trap in the idealistic view of equal treatment because sometimes the best way to treat a person (even sometimes in socio-political context) is by considering his or her background and aspects of life. Besides that society also needs some degree of competition to increase the quality of life for all and to some extent, inequality encourages this competition.

In the end, the world has witnessed failed attempts from state to create perfectly equal communities. Former USSR and the Great Leap Forward in China can be reminders of how tricky and sometimes tragic it can be when a utopian equal society ideal taken into force.