What should have been a routine afternoon watching a live football match ended tragically for one young man today. Purwo Edi Utomo, a high school student, died following the Indonesian Premier League match between Persebaya (from the country’s second city, Surabaya) and Persija (from the capital, Jakarta). As I write this I am unaware of the exact cause of his death, but having attended the match in Surabaya’s Gelora stadium I can report that I witnessed the indiscriminate firing of rockets from armour-clad riot police into a crowded corner of the stadium shortly after full time.
For those of you not in the loop, allow me to offer some background information. Indonesian football suffers from routine crowd disturbances ranging from the throwing of plastic bottles onto the pitch, to the gang murder of fans wearing the wrong colours who defy warnings to commit the sin of attending away games. Persija player Precious Emuejeraye warned this week, ‘“You don’t wear an away team’s jersey to the stadium unless you want to die.” Last Sunday, May 27th, 2012, three young fans lost their lives after the 2-2 draw between Persija Jakarta and Persib Bandung. More information is available about the fate of a man named Lazuardi than the two other victims, Rangga Cipta Nugraha, 22 and Dani Maulana, just 17. Lazuardi was in the Tiger’s Den (as Persija Jakarta’s Gelora Bung Karno stadium is known) watching the game when some surrounding fans noticed his lack of excitement following a goal by the home team. It is worth noting that in fixtures featuring rival teams, there isn’t an ‘away’ end for travelling fans to occupy, so any die hard opposition fan has no choice but to go undercover. Not the wisest decision, but one surely not deserving of capital punishment in twenty first century one would hope? The victim was beaten unconscious and casually dragged out of the stadium to suffer his fate by the neck of his shirt against a backdrop of cheering Persija fans. Although not in anyway excusing this horrific attack, the field of crowd psychology is nothing new. The actions of large groups of people in any number of situations often differ from what those same people would decide to do as individuals. Actions like this can therefore be explained to some extent, though certainly not justified. What is more difficult to explain however is that over the following few days, one of the perpetrators - either acting alone, or at best in a small social gathering with his Blackberry in hand but certainly not in an eighty thousand strong crowd, posted some sickening updates on his facebook page about the incident. The first was a matter of fact description of what had happened, just as if he was describing his day so far, and the second said that he prays to God that the victim’s corpse be eaten by dogs. This seemingly remorseless killer, who from his online profile appears barely an adult, removed these posts the next day, but they had been noticed. Many people who had seen them took a screenshot of his page before the killer deleted them and re posted them as comments on other areas of his profile. I am relieved to report that seven people have today been arrested.
This incident, far from being isolated and purely as a consequence of crowd psychology, highlights a deep rooted problem in Indonesia’s football fan culture. Rivalry reminiscent of warring tribes is deeply embedded between fans of rival clubs. Online debates and discourse from various sets of fans in the aftermath of violent occurrences show this. Among the concerned and often vocal few who condemn such actions are others who justify them, some wholeheartedly and others with the pathetic defense along the lines of, ‘He should have known better and not gone to the match’. Although such careless, narrow minded utterances are often submitted by fans and internet trolls from Britain and elsewhere in the comments pages of articles covering various less serious incidents, never would we expect fan pages to focus debate on the media victimising them, which has been the case this past week, rather than on the tragic deaths of three fans. You can watch a clip of what happened below, but be warned that you will see the victim’s body dragged away by the gang.
Now, where was I? I was at the game between Surabaya and Jakarta (Persebaya and Persija - seemingly most of Indonesia’s teams begin with ‘Persi’ or ‘Perse’ which can get confusing so I am just going to refer to the name of the cities from this point on). I would like to add something positive to this post and say that before a mood of intimidation gradually enveloped the stadium as full time approached, it was a very enjoyable experience, made better that I was expecting to see a dreadful display of inept sporting efforts. You might rightly ask why I bought the ticket in light of this, the simple answer is that it costs the equivalent of between one and three pounds for a ticket and I went also expecting a fantastic, if at times unnerving atmosphere thanks to the reputation of the ‘Bonek’ - literally ‘Reckless People’ - the name of the Surabaya supporters as a whole. The Bonek create an atmosphere you would expect in an Argentinian league match - flares, drums and cheerleaders in full body paint are some of the things that spice up the occasion. The atmosphere lived up to my expectations, and to my surprise, thanks in part to an awful performance from Jakarta who somehow scored three goals, one of them a real peach, Surabaya played some brilliant football. However, as the game reached the midway point in the second half and with Jakarta having taken a sudden two goal lead, completely against the run of play, things started to get more than a little tense. At first a few, and then a few more and eventually a hail of bottles were thrown onto the pitch with every decision granted to the opposition, regardless of its validity. It is easy to assume that there are a hardcore element of young angry hooligans behind this but the situation was made clearer for me when I noticed to my left in the 1st class stand (still only three quid a ticket - or free for me because I met an Indonesian guy once three months ago in a bar who I messaged to see if he was going to the game; he wasn’t but he knew the Surabaya physio who was very happy to hand me two free tickets as him and the players entered the stadium in front of the crowds before the match, such is the bizarre but endearing will that many Surabayans have to be friendly with a ‘bule’ - ‘foreigner’ in English) a father of two young girls joining in with the bottle throwing fun. What an example to set for a man who must have been about forty. It seems that most or all of the bottles were plastic, though I suspect it wouldn’t make much difference if they were glass. Surabaya eventually came back to level the game at two goals each before a counter attack and excellent 20 yard finish gave Jakarta the lead 3 minutes into injury time. This really riled the crowd and now there was no let up from the hail of bottles - many fans, disappointed at what looked like an impending defeat leaving despite some of the bottles failing to even reach the pitch and landing on the spectators. By the sixth and final minute of injury time about a third of the fans in my end of the stadium had left when Surabaya equalised again just before the final whistle. However, this didn’t placate the Bonek and the Jakarta players had to be escorted off the pitch by police in full riot gear. Such an odd sight for what in most other countries would have been a routine league match against a team based around 400 miles away.
Once the players had disappeared down the tunnel the police approached the corner of the stadium where most of the trouble had been flaring - the section next to us. All kinds of items were being thrown at the police by now. I noticed one officer react as though he had been hit by something more serious than a plastic bottle. I can’t be sure whether or not it was, but I can be sure that his response and the subsequent response of his colleagues was shocking to say the least. He cocked what looked like a rifle into the air and fired a shot into the crowd. Although I was still shocked, I was a little relieved that it turned out it wasn’t a standard rifle. I can’t say for certain what it was that was being fired into the crowd - perhaps tear gas, but I can describe the discharge as being indiscriminate in the fact that each shot produced 5 mini fireballs that spread out evenly from the centre as they lobbed into an array of men, women and children. The officer’s colleagues followed suit. My morbid fascination ensured that I stayed put, safe - for the time being at least - in the neighbouring stand a hundred metres or so from the targets for a couple of minutes as the police fired round after round of this ammunition. The crowd moved like a stormy sea - heading in one direction briefly to avoid one piece of ammo before swerving en mass to avoid another. I eventually sensed this might only be the beginning, did the sensible thing and left the stadium. This whole episode played out in a stadium reminiscent of bygone days, where disasters like Heysel and Hillsborough happened, supporters penned in behind barbed wire fences and with nowhere to run when the police opened fire. I have yet to find out whether or not the victim died as a result of what I witnessed or if because of subsequent disturbances outside the stadium, but it seems likely that when a crowd has to suddenly dodge multiple fireballs in a corner of a stadium, built with concrete steps at a 30 degree angle for standing only and with fences around it, a tragedy is inevitable. I also believe that such actions by those with the task of protecting people (officer numbers were up after the previous weeks events in Jakarta) surely amount to manslaughter at the very least, and maybe even murder if recklessly using firearms to administer collective punishment is deemed enough justification.
It was a tragic end to an otherwise fulfilling day. Seeing the footballing culture of this country mirroring the problems that faced English football in the eighties was fascinating, and such is the wonderful warmth and friendliness of most Indonesian people that I never felt in any danger, even if plastic bottles were flying about, until the end of the game when everything suddenly seemed rather ominous. The harsh reality is though that hooliganism is not just tolerated here; it is the culture. The entire fan base seems to identify with it. Middle aged family men throw objects onto the pitch. Add into the mix an at best unprofessional and at worst violent police force and you have a vicious circle that, without a serious effort from the game’s authorities, fans and government is not likely to end. The whole scene was summed up for me when I noticed a banner as I left the stadium. It had a big ‘bonek’ logo in the middle and read “Persebaya Hooligans - You’ll Never Fight Alone”. Banners that could be said to incite violence appear at football grounds all over the world, but what made this almost comical were it not for the sporadic suffering that underpins it, was that this banner, like many others, was on the other side of the fence - pitchside. It wasn’t in the supporters’ enclosure. It was nicely framed behind many a commercial sponsor such as Nike. What would they make of their brand being associated with such statements? It could have been moved at any time by a club official, a police officer or a representative of the Indonesian Premier League. Oddly enough there are two leagues in Indonesia - one is a rebel league and isn’t recognised by FIFA despite its popurity. That is the Indonesian Super League and features in the earlier tragedy in Jakarta. Yet this is the league that is legitimate. Rest in Peace you poor souls. Sort your lives out hooligans. And learn how to administer justice without unnecessary violence you fools in uniform.
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