Reflection: My awakening – the fall of a dictator and the rise of a voice

*written a few months back*

My memories of Soeharto are heavy with smoke and chaos, as it was during my first return to my country that Indonesia fell from its glitz and glamour into a cloud of erupted suppressed frustration, hurling itself at any passing target, wreaking havoc all over the archipelago with Jakarta, its capital, sustaining the most damages. The May 1998 riots are still embedded in my mind as I, at the mere age of 16, was right in the middle of it.
Soeharto was away in Egypt, if my memory serves me well, and it was the day following the deaths of the Trisakti students who fell at the hands of the authorities during a protest. Indonesia was suffering from an economic crisis (krismon we called it) and the dollar was ridiculously high at 12000 Rupiah for 1 US Dollar. Prices for the basic goods sharply rose, and Soeharto had been re-elected again as President.

The people would have no more. Students came out in throngs to protest the re-election results and the rising prices. They sat in hordes atop the Parliament building in Jakarta. I remember passing them one day and begging my mom to let me join. She, of course, denied my requests seeing how I was just 16 and a female, with an American accent no less! I would become prime target should anything happen.

And something did happen.

 

The collapse of Indonesian education – are we desensetized to the plight of underprivileged children?

The photo above is of a school in Bandung, West Java. Thirty-eight years old and falling apart, its roof finally gave in to its dilapidating conditions and collapsed. Calls to renovate fell on deaf ears. This article is about conditions of schools nationwide in Indonesia. Many are falling apart, and students have to resort to be in “temporary buildings with no walls, dirt floors, and bamboo poles supporting the roof” – hardly a conducive environment to educate one’s self in.