Free Speech & Begging
Sep 7th, 2009, in Opinion, by Arie Brand
Jakarta’s anti begging law in the light of constitutional freedom of speech.
Free Speech for Jakarta’s Beggars
The Jakarta Post invites its readers to comment on an action of the Jakarta city government. It has to do with the enforcement of the City bylaw on begging. Both the beggars and their benefactors are penalized when caught in the act of charity.
All in the name of
public order
What is behind this? The first reason is, so it seems to me, keeping up face towards the outside world in the form of foreign tourists (who themselves are likely to fall foul of this bylaw). Outsiders to the Jakarta scene should not be able to see the widespread poverty, as if they needed beggars to remind them of that.
But the measure has also some domestic use. I fancy that it is, in a city with such flagrant differences in the possession of worldly goods, uncomfortable for the well heeled to be continuously reminded of this. There are of course people that find the spectacle of poverty a welcome additional spice in the enjoyment of prosperity. Less tough characters however probably prefer the ignorance that Marie Antoinette once famously demonstrated by asking why those who had no bread could not eat cake.
But when I was on the verge of writing that this was all ‘typically Indonesian’ window dressing, a bit of sniffing around on the Internet informed me otherwise. To my astonishment I learned that begging is also prohibited here in Australia, a prohibition that goes back to British vagrancy laws. I have never seen that law applied. On the other hand there are not many beggars here.
And, as I could have guessed, among Indonesia’s nearest neighbours, it is also not looked favorably upon in Singapore. In that city of the ubiquitous spying video eyes and piss detectors in elevators you can cop a fine of three thousand Singapore dollars or two years in jail if you are caught begging twice. Since to most beggars it will be a bit inconvenient to shell out three thousand bucks, even if only of the Singapore variety, it will be jail.
And what about the home of the free and the brave? I read that two years ago a beggar there had the misfortune to ask an undercover policeman for a dollar after which he was promptly arrested. Astonishingly his lawyer came up with a successful defense based on the First Amendment. Asking for money, said that public defender, is a form of free speech protected by that amendment to the Constitution. The court that could go back to recent jurisprudence agreed.
Earlier prosecution by the New York City Police Department had failed as well.
It could not point to a specific prohibition of begging and had to categorize it as a form of “loitering”. And to provide a rationale for its action it could only come up with its so called “broken windows theory” (its variant on Jakarta’s “public order”). This theory holds that low level signs of disorder, such as broken windows, graffiti and begging, lead to more serious crime. Applying this theory to begging doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. You forbid a person to beg and s/he is likely to look for more illegal means to keep body and soul together such as theft and prostitution.
So the courts didn’t buy this theory and the Supreme Court ultimately rejected it in 1999.
But is there a similar constitutional defense of (begging as a form of) free speech possible in Indonesia? The original 1945 Constitution was rather wishy washy on free speech. It had an article 28 that stated
freedom of association and assembly, of expressing thought by speech and writing, and so on, shall be laid down by law.
That law could, of course, either be permissive or restrictive.
The situation improved when, after the fall of Suharto, the Constitution was revised and amended. The Second Amendment, Chapter XA, Art.28E.3 now says:
Every person shall have the right of freedom to organize, to assemble, and to express opinions.
This is in agreement with Art.19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that concerns, among other things, the freedom to
seek, receive and impart information and ideas.
Scoffers have held that beggars do not seek to impart information; they just want to line their threadbare pockets. But people with a wider view of the matter thought that beggars impart information right enough, namely that they are destitute. The highest court of Massachusetts held, in addition, that prohibiting this form of information denied members of the public the chance for “self enlightenment” and the “fulfillment of moral or religious obligations”.
And what about that part of the Jakarta bylaw which also seeks to penalize the alms giver? There is a certain logic to this. If begging is an offence than those who provide the coins are accessories to it. One could go even further. I am thinking here of the 1999 Swedish law on prostitution, which makes the buying of sexual services, or even the attempt to buy it, punishable by up to six months in jail. However, the selling of those goods is not prohibited. The rationale for this is, as the commentary on the law says, that the person who sells sexual services is
in the majority of cases … a weaker partner who is exploited by those who want only to satisfy their sexual drives.
Well, by analogy one could hold that, financially at least, the beggar is in the majority of cases the weaker partner to a transaction in which the alms giver only wants to satisfy his charitable drives. So throw these charitable characters in jail, where they have all the time in the world to seek self enlightenment, and let the beggars continue imparting the information that they are destitute.
39 Comments on “Free Speech & Begging”
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Arie Brand says:
Whoever is right it seems that presently it makes little difference to the Indonesian public. The knowledge of the mass killings and Suharto’s Gulag seems to have been erased from the collective memory. What people know, if anything at all, is that generals were killed by the evil communists.
Anderson mentions that primary – and high school teachers were among the main victims of the mass killings. They were replaced by ill-educated drones who of course never mentioned what happened. Education, says Anderson, has become a ‘dreary swamp’, conspicuous for corruption rather than scholarship. He asked some ex-high school students whether any of their teachers had made an enduring impression on them. They looked at him with amazement, surprised about his apparent naivety.
See also http://thejakartaglobe.com/culture/the-forgotten-history-of-1965/315358
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Odinius says:
Arie,
You should read Roosa’s book. It’s very compelling.
But yeah, you are right: neither Anderson’s nor Roosa’s arguments carry much weight in Indonesia. When I went into a sparkling new Gramedia a month ago, the only book on G30S they carried was a translation of Victor Fic’s hack job.
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dragonwall says:
It was all a game of rank propaganda to allow global capital to suck Indonesia dry and to enrich his own organized mafia.
I don’t really think so that there were anything they are able to enriched themwelves with after the 1998 mass destructions.
Even the rich that were ranked between 20 billion were now reduce to rubbles.Where are the billions he looted from his own people?
Is there any to be found? The Indonesian Government including the anti corruption watchdogs had made their very efforts but until now it is only nothing but speculations.
Suharto was a loathsome scab. He simply looted the nation
Yeah, sorry to say, now he is dead you are saying this, but when he was alive and in power, I didn’t hear you making such comments. Even the Tempo lost their case.
His minions like Wiranto and Prabowo and a whole host of others still walking the streets as free men were simply a mirror of his wishes.
On this part I definitely agree with you. Because of the background of these two bastards and the influence that they still have their loyal followers, those attempting to arrest them would think twice in order not to jeapardize their lives. Especially when Prabowo who “piara” a group of hoods ready to serve him for a few dollars more.
Whoever is right it seems that presently it makes little difference to the Indonesian public. The knowledge of the mass killings and Suharto’s Gulag seems to have been erased from the collective memory.
Not that they were erased away from their collective memory, but to the majority of them they could also be thinking that what he did was the right thing for the nation and the current threat now in Indonesia is no longer the Communist but the radical Islamics and Jihadist that are still running around with bombs strapped around their waist.
What people know, if anything at all, is that generals were killed by the evil communists.
So since you said this, do you think what Suharto had done was really necessary?
Or is there still remorse in you? -
parvita says:
Only street beggars are conned. How about government officials that ‘begs’?
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@dw blablaed:
“…1998 mass destructions….”
Wow…. Maybe for the scale of you & your cronies it was indeed a “mass destruction”. But in the larger context, even “tiny eruption” is too much of a stretch.
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mingo says:
The begging ( Aquisition ) of money to build a new Mosque. Is this now punishable by a fine and or imprisonment as well
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Maybe for the scale of you & your cronies it was indeed a “mass destruction”. But in the larger context, even “tiny eruption” is too much of a stretch.
To you that was what you wanted to consider a “tiny eruption”.
How much does it cost to build or rebuild:
1. Glodok hotel.
2. Sampoerna Mall
3. All those ruko at Tubagus Angke.
4. Tomang Plaza.
5.Those ruko at Hayam Wuruk.
6. Those ruko in Mangga Dua.And many many other buildings in Jakarta, Medan, Lampung, Padang,
Losses in excess of over 30 billion dollars is a tiny eruption.
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Purba Negoro says:
If these people are truly needy- there are thousands of well-organised and resourced charities (Yayasans) willing to help them.
I should know- I have my own Yayasan and know exactly how much it costs to establish and maintain one. It is not cheap and the process very difficult.
I also know for a fact that “God only helps those who help themselves”.
The poor must take at least some responsibility for their plight and make unpleasant changes to escape poverty.
Also keeping their legs shut and not breeding like flies would be a damn fine start.I argue for sterilization or if not- transmigration for the extreme poor.
Comment on “Free Speech & Begging”.
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Both Roosa and Anderson are excellent sources regarding the 1965 coup. Such is the historical record of the coup that differing interpretations can be inferred. I would also like to highly recommend a new book by Bradley Simpson: ‘Economists with Guns: Authoritarian Development and U.S. -Indonesian Relations, 1960-1968’. Simpson, using newly disclosed documentation, outlines quite succinctly U.S. involvement in materially supporting the PKI purges and the propping up the the Suharto regime.
The lesson of 1997-98 was that it revealed (and what people knew all along anyway) that Suharto had created an Indonesia which was simply a house of cards. To cloak the truth of this he created and encouraged a perpetual state of violence. That was his mode of operation since 1965 and through to 1998.
See also : Siegel’s ‘A New Criminal Type in Jakarta’ or Ariel Heryanto’s ‘State Terrorism and Political Identity in Indonesia’ or Kusno’s ‘Behind the Post-Colonial: Architecture, urban space, and political cultures in Indonesia’. All of these texts speak directly to this fact.
That he built roads, or that people ‘felt secure’ is beside the point. So what! It was all a game of rank propaganda to allow global capital to suck Indonesia dry and to enrich his own organized mafia. Where are the billions he looted from his own people?
Suharto was a loathsome scab. He simply looted the nation. His minions like Wiranto and Prabowo and a whole host of others still walking the streets as free men were simply a mirror of his wishes.