BAKRIE, a member Komite Rakyat Pekalongan (KPR — Pekalongan People's Committee) spoke to Green Left Weekly's SAM KING about his group's work organising the urban poor community in north-central Java.
Question: What motivates you to organise Java's urban poor?
For four years, there has been a high level of struggle by the urban poor. I like to work with people who fight and have the spirit to fight. The aim of the urban poor people's struggle is to win freedom from oppression.
Most urban poor have little or no capital to make a living. The tiny business of street vendors suffers from the competition of big business. While the community has little economic power, they are well informed. They have regular contact with others in the urban poor community, as well as other people in the city.
Question: Can you explain the social and political impact of the economic crisis on the urban poor?
The crisis every day erodes their tiny amount of property. Many people who could live as small vendors before the crisis can no longer sell their products because nobody can afford to buy them. Becak drivers, who pedal people short distances around the city, on routes that used to be serviced by 400 becaks, now face competition from around 1000. Many people are being forced out of their old occupations and are looking for any sort of work.
Many workers have lost their jobs. Workers who lose their jobs have no form of social security. More people have no socially useful role in society, and often many turn to criminal activity.
Politically, the urban poor are affected by seeing the job losses and increasing poverty around them. Because of their contact with so many people in the same city, they know the problems are general and that the crisis is hitting everywhere.
Sometimes the urban poor community copies the tactics of the workers' struggle. However, if the urban poor are not organised, its protest often takes the form of creating chaos.
Many urban poor people are members of Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party, and a few are members of Partai Persatuan Indonesia. But these parties do not provide leadership in the struggle to improve the conditions of the people.
Question: How does your organisation organise the urban poor community?
We have a different organisation for every level of the community; all of these organise in a semi-legal structure. We organise many workers' autonomous unions on the factory level. It is still too difficult to form a national union because of the repression from the military.
The semi-proletariat might receive some income working as illegal security guards for a shop or commercial activity. To organise these people, we have to go to the red light districts to make contact. Because the economic position of this section of society is so weak, they can only be mobilised around political issues.
The mass protests in 1996 against the government's removal of Megawati from the leadership of the PDI were largely drawn from the urban poor community.
We are organising the urban poor to mobilise against the political function of the military and unfair election laws, among other issues. Political struggle around those demands by urban poor could act as a catalyst to inspire workers and peasants into struggle. This was the case during the mass struggle last May.
Our evaluation is that the KPR failed to build a mass struggle structure after May that could last. So when the reform movement slowed down after November, we had no ongoing structure.
Question: What role do you expect the urban poor community to play in the election period in June?
We hope they openly protest against the election laws and the Habibie regime. We will educate them about the issues and try to create an organisation. We have the space now where parties can mobilise openly. This creates many opportunities during the election period.