First things first. Jeremy Allan’s book Jakarta Jive is very readable, so much so that I read it all in one go. And it wasn’t until I had finished the book that I realized I had devoured a total of 225 pages. Jakarta Jive is literally a breath of fresh air after the volumes of “bad news only” about Indonesia. Allan was in Jakarta during 1988 and experienced at first hand what actually happened so has a very unique viewpoint bearing in mind he is a twenty-year veteran of Indonesia and someone who obviously cares about the country and the people. Allan however pulls no punches, he tells it as it was, especially when he describes some of the looters that he saw for himself, at the very start of Jakarta Jive:
“Nothing I had witnessed … matched the spectacle of shirtless men shuffling … across the Chicken Market Bridge, an eighteenth-century span across a canal in the heart of Jakarta’s colonial-era district. Against a backdrop of two-hundred-year-old buildings, the men could have been collies hauling wares to a Europe-bound schooner anchored at the nearby harbor. … the men carried modern consumer goods like electric fans, televisions, or readily saleable products such as computers, fax machine and office chairs. The “coolies” were in actually looters caught in the act during the city-wide riots of 14 May 1998, stripped of their shirts for easy identification … as police marched them into detention.”
But these were not the only looters that Allan personally witnessed, as even some tourists joined in:
“As I continued northward, I saw … a couple of backpackers were taking participatory tourism to new heights by joining looters cleaning out a compact disk shop.”
Allan was not in any way intimidated as he walked through the streets of Jakarta. In spite of the violent riots, it was to him very much a normal day:
“… I imagined Jakarta would resemble a city devastated by natural forces. But on the ground, I felt I had wandered into nothing more serious than an exceedingly rowdy block party. … I saw no signs of human suffering, nor did I feel any sort of menace … as I was either ignored or the object of enthusiastic greetings, no different from my customary reception when strolling in Jakarta on a normal day.”
Allan refers to this time of survival in the city of upheaval as a jaman edan (literally “mad time”),
“Some referred to the months after the fall of Soeharto as a jaman edan, a poetic term for a chaotic time when evil is rewarded and good punished. Indonesia’s only previous change in leadership was also a jaman edan, when Soeharto maneuvered Soekarno out of power during an eighteen-month period in the mid-sixties during which half a million Indonesian died in anti-Communist pogroms. A jaman edan, while a period of turmoil, is also a time of transformation. For some—the rape victims, the families of slain students—that year brought only trauma and grief. But for many others, 1998 was a year of home and renewal, a time of successful struggles to find a foothold in a new world. This chronicle of the jaman edan will be told through the eyes of those who lived through it.”
And Allan does just what he says he will do. He tells the story of the tumultuous events that happened in Jakarta during May 1998 and the following months through his own eyes and the eyes of his friends. Allan introduces us to Indonesia as he sees it.
The Indonesians Allan points out include “Indoyups,” as he calls “Indonesia’s emergent middle groups,” and their offspring the university students or “Indoyups-in-training.” Indonesians love abbreviations and there’s one group that are referred to as the OKB, orang kayu baru or nouveau riche, and another as the KKK. Nothing actually to do with the Klu Klux Klan but rather kaya karena krismon or 'rich because of the economic crisis.'
Allan’s genre of creative non-fiction in Jakarta Jive is very effective—in particular his use of juxtaposition—in creating what is a living story, one that faithfully recalls what happened to some ordinary and extraordinary Indonesians during and after the downfall of Soeharto. But as he warns at the very end of his book, “Indonesia’s surreal voyage towards a new society is far from complete.”
Jakarta Jive is a remarkable and at times touching story that you will enjoy reading, if you are interested in what’s happening in today’s “new” Indonesia. I strongly advise you to buy a copy of Jakarta Jive now, and find out for yourself more about “Indonesia’s surreal voyage.”
–George Mitrowijoyo Tempo 19 February 2002