Tebet has it all

FOR MORE than six months, from October 2002 to April 2003, the people living in the area of Tebet in South Jakarta had been fortunate because they had Lintas Tebet, or ‘Across Tebet’. The community magazine talked about issues taking place in Tebet at the time, such as fires, security issues, flooding, and rising prices. There were also articles about the history of the area. The magazine invariably used the people living in the area as their main sources, and published profiles of the inhabitants with their various special professions. They also published other interesting information regarding the area. Below is my interview with Nugroho Nurdikiawan, one of the editors of Lintas Tebet, whom I finally found after a long search on the Internet.


Why publishing a community magazine?
In 2002, all of us wanted to do something meaningful and unique, and somehow we had the idea of creating a community magazine. At the time, we referred to other community magazines which were area-based, but we didn’t want to be like the community magazines in Kelapa Gading or Kemang, which were too commercial, geared as they were for the advertisements. We wanted to make something that can be beneficial to many, and presenting correct information. The area of the community chosen was actually only an additional factor, but because I was born in Tebet and have been living here all this time, and because other friends such as Yusuf, Intan, Riana, Ika, and Yoyok had all lived long enough in Tebet, we then decided to choose Tebet as our location. At the time, we had in mind that we could talk about the issues of water or security, which would of course be better if related to the general issues in Jakarta, but even if they were not so, one thing would be clear: those social matters really happened in Tebet.

So, Lintas Tebet can actually be published anywhere? Also, besides the reason of familiarity with the area, why did you choose Tebet?
Indeed it can, as long as you know how to package the contents of the magazine and keep it entertaining—and this can only be done if you really know the area. As we picked the area according to the formal boundaries of a subdistrict, we had also considered other options such as Menteng or Kelapa Gading—but they are both too homogenous socially. If there were gaps, they were unlike ones in Tebet, which was truly heterogeneous. Whether we talk about the economic, social, or security issues, or about the professions of the people living in the area, it will be much more interesting if there are such variations as in Tebet. Also, it made us feel certain that we wouldn’t be running out of ideas. Tebet is such a varied area—there are those who are rich and ones who are poor, the ones flooded and the ones not flooded. Whether you want to talk about sport facilities, or about businesses—from running a gas station to Bajaj maintenance—Tebet has it all.

The magazine published so many people’s opinions. Was that also the social approach you meant?
Lintas Tebet was indeed about the community. We asked the people directly, including their suggestions for our next issues. One of the reasons why Lintas Tebet must be free was because we wanted the information to be equally distributed. Most importantly, every person living in the area should really have a voice. We thus had common people as our resource persons, ranging from a vegetable vendor, a housewife, to a boy playing soccer. The profiles we published were also special, as we had portrayed a grave digger, an emergency officer at the Public Health Center, a dance teacher—the people who actually played a role in the community. The profession must be a unique one, or if it wasn’t, we made it interesting.

What were you like when you went news-hunting for the first time?
From the beginning, we didn’t have any idea how long the magazine would stay in publication. Even publishing one edition would be an achievement for us, and we thought that would be the care. Just imagine, at the time we didn’t have any reference. And who were we, anyway? We came to the kampong, we visited people, we made interviews of sorts, looking for the elderly who might know something about Tebet’s history, and we knew no one. Fortunately, people eventually trusted us, and even on the first edition about the history of Tebet, we had an article written by someone from the Ward of Menteng Dalam.

What were the public reactions after you published Lintas Tebet?
People were glad, really. It was all about them, they were the ones who gave voice to the publication, and it was free (free stuff is always interesting, isn’t it?). We distributed the two thousands copies in unique places where people gathered. It wasn’t long until we had some volunteers who helped us find resource persons, and we had some people funding us. In Tebet Barat, there was a head of the Citizens’ Association who bought twenty copies to be distributed to the Neighborhood Associations in his area. There was also a time when we had an interview that went on for one-and-a-half hour, and the interviewee told us a multitude of things, invited us for a meal... we were baffled, “How can we go home?”

There were some themes that you talked about in a general context of Jakarta, such as the issue of the country’s ‘vile debts’ in the theme of the rising prices, or the story about the people from Senayan who had been evicted and moved to Tebet at the end of the fifties in the theme of Tebet’s history...
For every report, we tried to find other references, the standard thing to do would be to refer to google.com, and sometimes we were quite lucky, as in the case of the ‘vile debts’. However, people’s voice should remain dominant—although sometimes the information was unclear, as in the case of the origin of the area’s name, ‘Tebet’. There was a story about a rich husband coming from Tibet, or a story saying that Tebet was a thick forest... we published them all. To retain the heterogeneous characteristic of the area, and to ensure that people living in the different parts of the area would be represented, we also visited people who didn’t experience droughts, for example, as there would still be comments or suggestions for solutions. Simultaneously, we also mapped the area, so that we knew which area was vulnerable, and also we got to know of other interesting features that could be reported.

Including becoming the mediator between the people and the government, and among the people themselves?
We got used to going to the Police, and we were even asked to see the areas that were vulnerable for narcotics distribution, and to find Chinese people who wanted to be cops—probably for the sake of such heterogeneity [laughter]. The people from the subdistrict office were very open with their work schemes, and transparent regarding the flood funds and the development plans for the area. One thing was clear: we must be courteous, smart, and always seek confirmations. We took every recorded interview as valid. Every time a sensitive issue arose, we always asked, “Can we print that, please, Sir?” Somehow they were very open, probably due to the contents of the magazine itself. About the articles from the public, initially it seemed that it would make our job easier, but we eventually became very anxious. We had an article from the Firefighting Unit, only five paragraphs long, and there was also an NGO worker who couldn’t wait for his 1500-word article to be published [laughter].

What theme did you find difficult?
The theme about the rising prices was difficult. It was hard for us to go in-depth with the interviews. Probably we should have a resident economist for the issue. Fortunately, we had that ‘vile debts’ article, and it so happened that the publication coincided with the issue of the annual budget of the Government of the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta [laughter].

Why were there only six editions of Lintas Tebet?
At the same time, we became very busy with our other activities, such as other jobs and or having exams at the university. We eventually decided to stop the publication. We returned the money we had received for the advertisements for the following issues. Naturally, there were questions, like the ones we had from the Health Center and some of the schools, and also from a doctor who had been interested to become a sponsor.

In your last edition, Lintas Tebet had donated funds for victims of fire, hadn’t you?
Yes. In March 2003, there was a big fire in Manggarai, and this forced us to change the theme we had previously planned, i.e. about health. Before it, there had already been lots of suggestions to hold a public event, as there had actually been lots of people with good intentions who wanted to do something but didn’t know how. Therefore, when the fire struck, we helped by channeling funds to four elementary schools in Manggarai, so that the students whose houses had been burnt could still pay their school fee until the end of the school year. Rotary Club, a philanthropy club, directly contacted us and helped donate more money to cover the shortage of available funds.

What would happen had Lintas Tebet still existed?
Probably we would hold another public event, or write about entertainment, for example about the teens’ lifestyle, or about the entertainment that people seek when they go to Tebet... or about the history of Wira cinema, about why they had only porn movies there...

Had there been any response from outside Tebet?
We had visitors from Malang (East Java) and from Depok (West Java), because they also wanted to publish community magazines. Other comments were mostly positive, or intrigued as to why I wanted to spend so much of my energy publishing Lintas Tebet [laughter]. Most of the criticism we received were about the validity of our information. This was probably because people weren’t used to such a publication, where it was actually okay to doubt the information, and the doubt could be well founded, too. For us, however, everything was valid because we had gone through a process of discussions and editing, we knew our resource persons, where they lived... and it was all inline with our initial idea of making the common people—no matter who they were—as our resource persons.

How was the relationship between Lintas Tebet and its readers? Especially because the publication was free and might therefore undermine your responsibility, which often is the case with many free magazines today...
What made us different was the fact that we had a direct interaction with the people. Without it, Lintas Tebet would have no contents. That made us cautious all the time. People knew who we were, where we lived, and sometimes they also knew our mobile phone number. We were always around the area, too. Such presence made us cautious. “If we have these quotes wrong, we’d be dead—he lives in the area!” [laughter]. The Subdistrict Chief knew us, and the Police knew us even better: they had our pictures, knew where we lived, especially as every area had a spy working for the police. “You live there, right? I’ll drop by sometimes, OK?” “Yes, Sir. OK, Sir.” [laughter].

What do you think about Tebet?
As a subdistrict, Tebet has many faces. If someone tells you that Tebet is the ‘granddaddy of it all’ in terms of its ability to make you get lost... well, East Tebet and West Tebet are actually quite okay. But try going to South Manggarai. My god. You enter from the Jembatan Merah, go in a bit, go further down until you come across a mosque, then you’ll see the water tower... the streets are wide, indeed, but still they confound you. Before I published Lintas Tebet, I knew nothing of ‘Marsela’, or Manggarai Selatan—South Manggarai. But Tebet is a comfortable place, anyway. It’s in South Jakarta, but not far from the center of the city. It’s quite comfortable to walk around and bike in the area. There are some places that can’t be reached by public transportations—such as in the green belt area—but in general public transportations are quite accessible. There were oh-so-many places where you can eat out, and security isn’t a problem. There are deficiencies, indeed, but it’s normal—this is Jakarta, anyway. Compared to other places, Tebet is more comfortable, especially because it’s so heterogeneous.

After publishing Lintas Tebet, what do you think of people living in the area?
That their problems are as numerous as those at the national level, albeit in a much smaller scale. But the people whose houses had been flooded or burnt by the fire, could still smile. People living on the Ciliwung riverbed once said that they were not too concerned about the floods, because they were born, grew, had families, and find jobs there—but this is not to belittle their difficulties. They were not too sad because they were used to such calamities, their vitality is remarkable. The people here are also quite open. Imagine it; they even invited us, whom they had known nothing about, to come into their home for a chat and a friendly interview.




Jakarta, February 2007
Translated by Rani Elsanti




ARDI YUNANTO was born in Jakarta, November 21, 1980. After graduating from the Department of Architecture at the National Institute of Technology in Malang, in 2003 he returned to Jakarta, the city where he grew up. In 2004, he joined ruangrupa and has been working as the editor in chief for www.karbonjournal.org since 2007. Besides writing tremendously unproductively about the city and art, he also works as a book editor, researcher for several cultural projects, and a graphic designer, while still trying hard to write fictions.

NUGROHO NURDIKIAWAN as born in Jakarta on August 17, 1975. He finished his study in informatics at the Gunadarma University, Jakarta. He feels extremely lucky to have been able to leave the world of computers as he studied further at the department of Science Communication at the National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, Australian National University. He then worked in Jakarta as a manager for Information and Communication for the Pelangi Foundation, a research institute about the environment, until 2006. Now he lives in Paris with his wife.