BASSE AND BAHIR

Basse and Bahir are mother and son. They reportedly died of hunger in Makassar -- the capital city of South Sulawesi Province and the home town of Indonesian Vice President Haji Muhammad Jusuf Kalla – on Feb 29, 2008. The 27-year-old pregnant mother and her five-year-old son, Bahir, died after having no food to eat for three days. Again, this is indeed a tragedy for Indonesia.

My memory flies back to June,5 2005, the day when Supriono, 38-year-old poor Jakartan, carried his dead daughter, Khaerunisa, in a cart from Manggarai to Tebet train station. With the deceased, he got into the train for Bogor from Tebet station because he had no money to rent an ambulance to take him and his dead three-year-old daughter to a village, where he could bury her.

Like Mrs.Busse and her son, Supriono also lived under poverty line and made his living from picking up and selling rubbish, such as used bottles and plastic materials. He was reportedly just able to earn Rp10,000 or less than $1,5 (Australian dollar) a day.

The negligence of government and all of us has contributed to the happening of tragedies to Supriono’s daughter, and now to Mrs.Basse and Bahir.

I don’t know whether the hearts of Vice President Jusuf Kalla and the government officials in Makassar are touched by this tragedy or not. Or the fate of ordinary people, like Mrs.Basse, her dead son, and her three other children, who currently suffer from acute malnutrition in Makassar, is no more the government’s business. The voice of ordinary people is only worthy in the general elections. After the elected leaders have been in power, they think that the power is a gift, not a people’s mandate so that they have no accountability for eradicating poverty or making the country prosperous.

What we observe from the Basse family’s tragic event is only a small part of an iceberg phenomenon because there are tens of millions of other Indonesians, who also live under poverty line. The government has main responsibility for helping the poor. Of course, neighbors also have responsibility to take care of them. Makassar is undeniably a city with Moslem majority but the Islamic values fail to functionalize in the neighborhood, where the Masse family live. May Almighty Allah SWT forgive us and open our hearts for taking more care of the poor, the orphan, and the oppressed.