It seems like going viral has become one of the few sure-fire ways for Indonesians to be heard by their local government.
Last week, photos of youngsters from Ogan Komering Ulu (OKU) Regency in South Sumatra posing in and around their town’s huge potholes went viral and led the provincial government to allocate billions of rupiah to fix roads in the province.
More recently, several youngsters in the Lakbok Sub-district of Ciamis Regency in West Java have gone viral with their own Instagrammable photos highlighting the horrible conditions of some of the roads in their region.
According to local news website Harapan Rakyat, the photos were only taken yesterday and highlight Manganti Lane, a road so heavily damaged its potholes look more like mud-filled ponds.
While the problem is a serious one, the photos are anything but, with the photogenic protesters satirically splashing around in the potholes’ muddy waters, pretending to fish, or just pulling off a fierce expression like a fashion model.
Alfi, one of the youngsters featured in the photos, told the media he was concerned about the poor condition of Manganti Lane, which is one of the main roads used by local residents. During rainy season, he said many motorcyclists have fallen due to the potholes.
“[Manganti Lane] is one example of heavily damaged roads in Ciamis Regency. Through our action, we want to move young people, whether online or in real life, to express that people in our area need to be noticed, not only people in cities,” Alfi told Detik today.
Another Lakbok youngster, Muhafid, said that a year before the shoot, the local residents held a rally demanding that the local government fix the road.
“We took our protest to the streets, but we got no response from the government. Now we’re taking our protest to social media. We were indeed inspired by a similar action in another region,” Muhafid said today, as quoted by Detik, referring to the previously viral story about social media activism in South Sumatra.
It remains to be seen, though, if the Lakbok government will also be low-key shamed by these youngsters’ viral photos into actually fixing the area’s embarrassingly large potholes.
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