The infamous area of Kalijodo is in the media spotlight at the moment after 24-year-old Riki Agung Prasetio got into a deadly crash that claimed four lives early Monday morning, supposedly after a night of drinking in the notorious nightlife spot.
Kalijodo is one of Jakarta’s open secrets, an area that is well-known to be full of activities such as drinking, gambling and prostitution but is generally tolerated under the Indonesian system of lokalisasi in which neighborhoods filled with vice are allowed to exist as long as those vices remain within its boundaries.
But just like what happened to the notorious Stadium nightclub, which managed to exist for years as an infamous den for drug users and prostitution until a police officer died of an overdose within its darkened halls and Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama shut it down for good in 2014, it looks like Monday’s deadly accident has signed Kalijodo’s eviction notice.
Governor Ahok seems to be using the accident as a catalyst to push forward the government’s long standing plans to shut down Kalijodo that had been delayed until now.
“We’ve read all of the various news [about the deadly accident]. My God, we better just tear it all down, before it causes more harm,” Ahok said today as quoted by Tribunnews.
Ahok went on to say that the area, which lies besides the Ciliwung river, would make a good place for a park.
“Make it into a park and give it a proper road. It would make a great banana garden.”
While shutting down Kalijodo may seems like a no-brainer to most Jakartans, we hope that Governor Ahok acts carefully in cleaning up the area. Unlike a single club like Stadium, thousands of people depend on the shady businesses in Kalijodo for their livelihoods, and, if the government simply shuts them all down without helping those affected, those people will have no bring their vices to other parts of Jakarta in order to make a living.
There’s also the question of whether the government actually will be able to shut down all of Kalijodo which has managed to survive for so long and is likely controlled by a certain kind of powerful and dangerous businessmen.
As one sex worker in the area told Kompas, “The only way Ahok could destroy [Kalijodo] is if he used a tank. Ha ha ha! Go ahead and come if you are brave.”
