Dear Mr. President

Now, still based on domestic violence on Global TV this morning, where a woman is killed by her husband. Witnesses say that this woman questioned her husband about their poverty. She was sick of being poor. I said it is vertical violence, between the state and its people.

Why are they poor? Is it their fault to be poor? I recall a friend of mine, whose father is a former government officer and she marries to a wealthy lawyer abroad. She told me how much she was fed up with poverty stories. She believes that the poor haven’t done enough to change their lives. I do agree that we have to try, fight to survive (not a social Darwinist though…it makes me sick). But hey…how look at how different our situations are. What about those kids who are malnourished? How many Indonesian children die because they do not have anything to eat (once my Mum and I watched news on TV, a mother carried her malnourished daughter to a community based clinic—Posyandu to get services, what interested my mum is that that woman wore jewelleries). How many children have to work instead of go to school? We all have choices, sure I do agree, but for some people their choice more based on their basic survival needs.

How can the poor send their children to school? It is bloody expensive here in my lovely country. Some even are ridiculous I guess. The government launched a BOS programme to cover school’s operational cost, but what happens in real? Students still need to pay this and that (well I personally met and chatted with students, parents and teachers in some places in Indonesia). If it is truly free what about out of school children? How to send them back to school? If they return to school, they don’t help parents to make money, and how will they survive? No work, no food on the table. That simple. Is it truly the poor’s fault? Do they really not try enough to change their lives?

What about the state’s responsibility? Hey Mr. President, I would like to ask you some questions. Indonesia produces crude oil, we have Shell, Unocal, BP, Conoco, Exxon (who just got the Cepu block), and our lovely Pertamina, etc here, why do we lack of oil in this country? Where does our oil go to? The oil price per barrel is rocketing (it was fall but rising again) then why we do not make more money? Sorry but it is too complicated for my tiny brain Mr. President. All I understand is, we produce oil, and the price is rocketing so we should have made more money, not vice versa. Then this question continues with some stupid questions I cannot answer by myself. If we should have made more money from oil, why the fuel price is increasing again and again?

Then Mr. President, why telecommunication in this country is bloody expensive? Why it is much cheaper in other countries? Don’t you want your people communicate with others? Do you know how many percentage of your people’s income goes to this area? Oh I understand that you might not know how expensive it is. Perhaps you never pay your bills by yourself, and even more I believe it is paid by the state now, which means paid by us the tax payers.

Mr. President, I saw on TV last night that you had approved to give more money for local representatives to pay their communication bills, even more they can have it since January 2006. It costs double than your allocation for earthquake survivors’ housing in Jogja. One person, Daeng Something I cannot recall his name explains that this communication budget is needed to support this local representatives to meet and communicate with the people their represent. My questions are Mr. President, whom do these respected people represent? That Daeng says that they need to meet and communicate to their people. Well, meet who? I never meet my representative at all, never see them go to disaster, conflict, poverty areas. So I didn’t and still don’t understand what that Daeng talked about. He said that communication with people will support the works of DPRD members. Frankly speaking Mr. President, I do not know what DPR and DPRD do. Will you please kindly tell me? If they don’t do any good, why don’t we simply eliminate them? We can save much money and allocate this on social service. You don’t need to spend 1.3 billion rupiahs (gosh how many zeroes we have here 1.3*1,000,000*1,000,000 divide with 9,006 now to convert to US $) and you can feed more children. It is more useful I believe.

Since I do not have any idea on what our politicians do Mr. President, I admit that I am plain stupid and ignorant (yes, but I don’t know who’s worse, me who don’t know what my representatives do, or they who acclaim as people’s representatives, ask more money for their phone bills which we don’t know whom they call while they make more money than most of us and it is our money). But Mr. President, if I, a woman who is well educated, well informed, and has food on the table (ok not now, I still have to cook) do not know what our politicians who named themselves as our representatives, do you think it is more likely your people who do not go to school, less informed, have to struggle to survive, know what their representatives do? Why do they remain silence? If I were them, I might be not aware of this issue either….sorry to tired to find something to eat, my kids are sick, flood in my house, the roof is leaking, and a loan shark looks for me.

Mr. President, where is the responsibility of the state to provide sufficient basic needs for its people? I know it is difficult, feeding 200million people (well we are like rabbits no?), provide schools for children, affordable health system for us. Do you know how much it costs at community health centre aka Puskesmas Mr. President? Ah maybe you never need to go there. You have your own sophisticated health providers. Do you know there was a father carried his dead 3 years old daughter on a cart, she passed away because her parent couldn’t afford hospital bills. No ambulance for her to take her to her eternal sleep because her parent couldn’t pay that. I am not asking a fancy health system, advanced education system, nor luxurious condominium, Mr. President. I beg you to see your people.

I strongly believe that deep down you are a nice person (well hopefully). I believe that you not only have head to think but also heart to feel. You have your consciousness. All I ask is don’t give a damned shit on what my representatives demand, they are too much. THEY DO NOT REPRESENT ME. Or else, you abuse your people too. You don’t allocate the money (our money) wisely and let your people die because we don’t have food on the table. You let your people die because we cannot afford extremely expensive health services. You let your people fool because we cannot afford to attend schools. This is violence too Mr. President, more complicated to proof. Let your consciousness leads you and blessings.

References: Galtung’s on violence (I like him and I think his ideas help me to understand violence better, a real kicking piece of works), well I got some ideas from Foucault too though, like how we look at marginalized groups, and sure his insane ideas. Sure Papa Freud with his inner conflict and id, ego and superego stuff. Let me think about Chomsky, what do you think? Got his trace here? Nah I don’t think so.