The city that throbs with fury
Malang won’t stop grieving, defiantly and messily.
Normally this would rile authorities, but their
tolerance of the banners of hate draping the historic East Java city suggests Indonesia’s
democracy hasn’t sickened so badly as critics claim.
Six weeks after one of the world’s worst stadium
disasters, crude signs slamming the police for the deaths of 135 soccer fans –
including 33 children - still hang from overpasses and trees.
In the province’s second-biggest city even the walls
of the local legislature stay defaced.
So do police boxes at traffic intersections pasted with handbills.
The translation ‘investigate thoroughly’ lacks the
anguish of the original. The mourners say their real message is telling the
police: Get your f…… act together!
‘Malang’ also
translates as ‘unfortunate’; that meaning has come to pass. The normally pretty
and green hilltown is ugly and angry. Unmoored
streamers, soaked by heavy afternoon rains and ripped by winds add to the
bleakness.
November 10 marked 40 days after the stampede at the
Kanjuruhan Stadium.
It was also Hari
Pahlawan (Heroes Day) recalling the 1945 Battle of Surabaya against British
troops trying to reinstate Dutch colonial control of the provincial capital.
The bravery of teens armed with bamboo spears fighting
for the new republic has become Indonesia’s birth-of-nation legend.
This month tens of thousands closed Malang streets to
commemorate both events, one with pride, the other with anger. They shouted: We want justice, then laid 135 black biers,
many with victims’ photos, around a circular central park before the City Hall.
The stadium calamity erupted on the evening of 1
October when upset local supporters invaded the pitch after their team Arema
lost 3-2 to its bitter rival Persebaya Surabaya.
Although the first fence-jumpers weren’t violent
police overreacted. Cellphone videos seem to show tear gas grenades fired directly
into the overcrowded stands.
Under this chemical
assault, throngs rushed to the stairs and gates, with some
reportedly not fully open. Scores were
trampled, crushed, asphyxiated.
Reuters
reported the government demoted or suspended several officers
controlling stadium security. The arena will be demolished and other grounds
audited for safety.
Listyo Sigit Prabowo heads the national force of 450,000 plus a million Senkom Mitra public order
volunteers. He’s directly accountable to
President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo who has launched a ‘fact-finding team’. This is one of at least five inquiries, some
being run by the police
There’s no evidence the police general has offered to resign, or that
he’s been asked.
The heartfelt loathing on Malang’s streets is
understandable and worrying. Trust in the impartial delivery of law and order
is essential for the just operation of civil society.
The police have slowly become more professional
since splitting from the army early this century, but remain infamous for their
‘scandals, violence
and corruption’ according
to a podcast
by Murdoch University lecturer Dr Jacqui Baker.
Widodo claimed that before the Kanjuruhan tragedy public
trust had risen
to 80 per cent. That statistic is suspect. In her Internet audio Baker asserted that
many see the police as ‘parasitic, predatory actors’ who don’t provide the
services people need.
In a staged show of resolve before a room sweating
with 559 top cops, Widodo
demanded more professionalism and accountability.
Baker, who says there’s a crisis of policing in much
of the world, was unimpressed with Widodo’s speech because the core issues of
corruption, military involvement, independent oversight and separation of
services were not addressed.
First published in The Interpreter 17 November 2022: https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/city-throbs-fury
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