One of a Million

  

Well, not literally, I guess. It is because the official statistic said there are “only” 12000 street children in 12 millions Jakarta’s population number. It is far for being a million, eh? But, Honey, the number is increased like the new malls in the capital city, so high, and available on every corner of the town.

I certainly see this problem as our failed attempt to be a financially independent nation for having so much short-term economic policy. Those strategies simply give an obvious profit margin in a very short period of working for the government and its allies but in the same time kill the power of survival for the marginalized people, which in this country could be translated as our farmers and fishermen .  These groups have been losing their land and profession simply to survive their hard life, having nothing but a dream somehow there is a miracle in a big city like Jakarta like Harry Potter’s wand that could magically turn their miserable fate into a bright colorful one.

I can’t get enough of bashing those policies that in my opinion have deserted those people into sorrow ness, I mean, instead of empowering the main character of this agrarian country, by empowering our farmers and fishermen (or women ), the government have preferred to spoil the industrial community with those six-figure-US-$ easy loans, that later proved as the biggest mistake because it didn’t even pay off and instead, pulled Indonesia to its unfinished monetary crisis since 1997 with a high growing number of the getting-more-poor  society  plus 40 millions of unemployment in 2007.

Ah, what that I know about monetary crisis, I was only having a-standard-B-minus on my economic lesson in high school so I guess I am just talking nonsense here, right?

What I know for sure was the feeling of powerless when I saw this drama on my daily hectic Monday morning, from my window in the usual bumper-to-bumper-traffic-jam in town; there was a scream of a little girl. And then I saw her, being pushed by another little kid, maybe her brother, somewhere in a crowded boulevard. It seemed that she regretfully disagreed with that little boy but she had no choice. Later I saw her following him, jumping into a Patas AC Public Bus to work. Yeah, I can imagine she would sing in the bus with that little boy for a pitiful coin after coin from the bus passengers.

I am sorry, Kiddo….