Friday, 18 January 2013

The Toughest Place To Be A Binman

It all started when my English teacher had my class to watch this particular documentary film by BBC about a binman from London who visited Jakarta to experience his job in another country and with a 'whole new level' of being a binman (or maybe "trash picker" would be the right term here in Indonesia). As an Indonesian, I know that people are actually aware of the fact that Jakarta has now becoming a trash dumpster. Not only that, about 10 million people are also depending on the capital to be able to fulfill their needs.

Though we are all aware of it, I sense no action is coming from all of us--ahemgovernemntahem. I'm not only referring to the people of Jakarta here since we are all the ones who are going to decide the future by the decisions that we're making. I'm not going to have my country deserve a title as 'one of the top 5 dumpsters in ASEAN.' I mean that's just silly for a country who seems to be the largest among the 10 (you see, we Indonesians are always so proud of our country, geographically).

What caught my attention is a particular scene that involved an 'unknown' trash truck (is it the right term for trash-carrying trucks?) came to this rural place where the British bin man was staying, in a complex where all of the people there are mostly fulfilling their life needs as trash-pickers, thus the place it self is also filled with filthy trashes. What saddens me is that the fact that those trashes came from other places too, big companies who just want to get rid of their trash for instance. 

Then some people said that the truck was sent by the government.

We all assumed that maybe because BBC was doing a documentary about the whole rural place and trashes, the government wanted to have this sort of 'good impression,' and so they sent a truck to kept away the trashes. The local people there were all started to say things like "there has never been a single truck from the government being sent here."

One important thing that these Indonesian trash pickers are lacking of, is equipment. Since they aren't being recognized by the government as official "binmen," they must provide all of the equipment by their own.

Let's compare this one


With this one


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But then again, ranting and yelling at the projector won't solve the problem, and so we decided to list several possible solutions.

I came up with these (the ones that I could still remember):
  • Make a community
  • Write a letter to the government
Yes...... only two so far.

The first solution was actually one of the questions being asked by the British bin man to the Indonesian bin men. I think their conversation sounded sort of like this:

"How about making a community for trash pickers then?"

"We've tried, but no one listens."

I'm still wondering though, what if they really made a community consisting of binmen? That way I suppose they could at least try to have the government attention being diverted to them. For real.

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Anyway, I suppose this documentary was made when our mayor wasn't the current mayor (Mr. Fauzi Bowo was Jakarta's mayor from 2007 until 2012. If I'm not mistaken, this documentary was made in early 2012). Jakarta now has Mr. Joko Widodo as its new mayor, was once a mayor in a city called Surakarta and he's quiet famous for his achievements and how the city of Surakarta changed rapidly (in a good way of course) under his leadership. I think one of his power is because he's always making communication to the local people as his top priority, because a mayor who makes his people as his top priority is always kool.

Well then, Jakarta is now the biggest water park ever since it's already raining season here in Indonesia and floods are everywhere. So bring your swimsuits if you're going to visit Jakarta and prepare to ride a kayak among the skyscraper buildings.

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Somehow I'm beginning to think that democracy is just a thing that is currently among those trashes in the dumpsters, here in Jakarta--or maybe the whole Indonesia.

The pictures are rightfully belong to their owners by the way.


Dadah

-Nibras Sakkir



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