Charity – or feeding
thugs?
The first time I gave money to a beggar was also the last.
She was a pitiful sight, maybe three years old and hunched
into the corner of the ugly overpass that links Jl Gubernur Suryo with the
forecourt of Surabaya’s Tunjungan Plaza shopping mall.
She huddled on a piece of dirty cloth and just looked, a
classic image of despair. The tin in her
lap was empty, and it was empty again a few moments after I’d dropped in coins.
An athletic young man sitting on the mall steps with his
mates had seen the offering. He sprinted
up the stairs, took the money, and then dashed back to his vantage point, proving
the warning given by locals: Beggars are
farmed by the unscrupulous – it’s a racket.
If so then the solution to the problem facing Jakarta
Governor Jokowi and all other big city leaders is easy – turn off the supply.
Then, under the ruthless law of the market, demand stops.
This tactic is being tried in Wellington, the capital of New
Zealand, a pioneer nation is supplying welfare from the cradle to the grave
under the principle that none should need.
The fortunate rich get taxed and the unfortunate poor get benefits.
But even in Lambton Quay, the city’s main street of prestige
shops and hotels, pedestrians steer past beggars hunkered under old coats,
squatting on the sidewalk.
Proving that creative minds can exist in a bureaucracy, the
arrest-and-rehabilitate approach being tried in Indonesia (never a success in
countries with an abundance of human
rights lawyers), was abandoned in favor
of an Alternative Giving Fund.
Posters urged well-wishers to stop helping individual
beggars, but instead give to a fund that registered charities can access and
distribute to applicants.
Donation boxes were installed near popular hobo hangouts, and
a smartphone app distributed for those unable to move fingers off keyboards and
into wallets.
Great idea? The
campaign cost almost NZ $40,000 (Rp 376 million) to set up. In its first six weeks only $1,000 (Rp 9.4
million) had been raised. The beggars remained, though fewer.
An enterprising journalist wondering whether scrounging was
a paying prospect disguised himself as a down-and-out and sat behind a scrawled
message of misery- NO MONEY - NO HOPE.
This took some courage as Australasian culture has devised a
special slander for the English term ‘loafer’: Bludger, with a plosive B. The
Indonesian word pemalas doesn’t carry
the same connotations of contempt.
Nonetheless, within four hours he’d netted NZ $126.20 (Rp
1.2 million), plus enough food and drink for the day.
The basic weekly unemployment benefit for a single adult
with no dependents is NZ $206 (RP 1.9 million). That’s almost Rp 8 million a
month which many Indonesians would consider a handsome wage – but in costly NZ
it’s the bare minimum for survival – hence the begging.
That’s the reasoning used by mendicants. The hard-hearted
claim there’s work for the willing if only they’d stop smoking and boozing,
have a shower and think positive.
The panhandling reporter also got advice from religious folk
- who Kiwis call ‘the God Squad’, recommending their brand of faith. But
reading the Holy Books for ideas isn’t helpful
The Koran urges believers to give charity so they will be
rewarded, which suggests that the needy will be forever present. It’s even more
depressingly explicit in the Bible, which quotes Jesus saying: ‘For ye have the
poor always with you’.
Many governments, including Indonesia’s, are more
optimistic. They’ve signed up to the United Nations Millennium Development Goal
of eliminating extreme poverty and hunger by 2015, so clearly believe in the
power of administrative action. We pray.
Since my Surabaya experience I’ve learned that though there
are vile adults who exploit kids, there are also abandoned children who survive
only through charity. Separating the two
is the tricky part, requiring vast resources and deep wisdom.
Maybe it’s easier just to clear the conscience by tossing a
few coins in the kids’ tins, even when knowing they’ll be stolen by the
thugs. At least some of it will be used
for food – the beggars have to be kept alive to keep the evil business
going. Duncan Graham
First published in The Sunday Post, 3 November 2013)
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