Motocyborg, Are They Still Your Buddies?

One said that when your friend is putting his/her helmet on, have his/her ass ready on the saddle of the motorcycle then he/she is no longer your friend. He/she already become a different kind of heinous creature called 'motocyborg'.

If anyone live in any big cities in Indonesia, like myself, in Jakarta, I don't have to describe in detail what is motocyborg because they experienced it in their daily activities. Although, they could be the ones who ride or bump a ride with the motorcycle, they simply cannot be applied as one. Because motocyborg only applies to the third party's point of view. Anyone who sees someone else on the motorcycle is actually seeing a motocyborg.

There have never been a special lanes for motorcycle in Jakarta. Lately, as numerous cheap motorcycles coming from the mainland China and the easy credit given by the financial institution, the city has become the haven for the motocyborgs on every lines available on the main street. Once, a lane reserve for one car, several years back, was used up for two cars during the high traffic. But now, the lane was only able to hold for one car as several motocyborgs are there guarding each corner of every car, congesting the lanes even more. It's like watching the secret servicemen guarding the presidential car in every corner.

Now, hear this as a phenomenon. Sidewalks are worst in Jakarta. But, even worse are those motocyborgs who takes over the pedestrian as a sidewalk's occupier. It has become a common sight as well as a common sound or beep whenever those motocyborgs are honking their way for their right in the sidewalk against the pedestrians. In this case, the peds are fighting their losing side as those motocyborgs will not give in no matter what. Lastly, the sidewalk are not for it was meant to be despite the written law for it.

Coming to the written law, but when you are in Jakarta, there seem to be no rules guide the driver in Jakarta. With this flux of motocyborgs, they create, somehow, a new conventional rules. The rules that their rights must be respected. This is one instance of everyday driving experience. When you are about to make a left turn, turning you left sign on, and at the same time one motocyborg coming fast at the farther left lane, you will hear their klaxon reminding us that they want their right to go straight and you, as you are about to go your way, have to yield to their insistence. With this underlying statement in their unwritten conventional rules, day by day, the motocyborgs will rule the street of the big cities in Indonesia.

I have two infuriating real stories regarding motocyborg. First, when I was inside a car of friend of mine and saw how my friend almost killed a motocyborg and losing his friend altogether in the process. On the jammed high traffic in the middle of the day, as my friend, who was driving, about to move from its stillness, one motocyborg rammed his car. Then, in a beat, the motorcycle swerved itself to the ground. Berated, my friend stopped and got out from his car, readying himself to kick and beat the motorcyborg. As the motocyborg got up and opened his helmet, my friend ceased his temper. The motocyborg was none other than his own good friend.

The next one was the incident that took someone's occupation away from him. A chauffeur who was fired because of his employer's expensive car was scratched by motocyborg's extra helmet. I didn't witness this one, but I saw the same incidence from a different motocyborg. Still, with the jammed traffic, those motocyborgs are unstoppable, meaning if they can ride their way through the top of the stuck cars, they would have done it. This one motocyborg has an extra helmet protruding on the side. With the small slit of opening between cars, this motocyborg dared to pass in between at the cost of scratching the helmet on the surface of the black Toyota Alphard. The chauffeur reacted, getting out of the car to check the outcome. Separating the black beauty of the car's paint was the long thin scratched line of the helmet's own paint. And, what was left on the scene was the chauffeur's depressing look and the smog of the runaway motocyborg in the distance.

I remembered one time that I have to rush somewhere. No taxi could get me there quick, then the only choice was 'ojek', a motorcyclist as a means of transport. I put the helmet on and rode through the jammed street of Jakarta. On top of the motorcycle, I've had this gushed feeling to have this motorcycle fly fast to the destination. In every obstacle, there was an urging inside me to shout to the cyclist to pass them on. But, without saying it out loud, the cyclist passed the obstacles successfully as well as riskily. He knew the trick skillfully. Well, come to think of it, I had become one with the cyclist. Me, myself and the motorcycle. I had turned myself into one of the evil motocyborgs and yet, I am still your buddy.

The Consecrated Day Has Not Lost its Moment

Back in the days, we commemorate two special days, then, venerably. I don't want to mention the first day, pending the historical fact being disputed. But the day after the first day is known has something to do with the Pancasila and the belief in it. Many of us known them as the consecrated day of Pancasila. Although, roughly translated to sacredness ('kesaktian' in Indonesia), this consecrated day of Pancasila supposed to claim the story of the bold takeover by certain groups over another group. Since, the bad guys are always the losing side and cannot reclaim what have been accused by others in return, from October 1st 1965, we've had our own version of bad guy.

I was a product of the order who claimed to be the good guys (the new order). I went to primary school that bore the name of the victim, not the general, but the general's daughter, Ade Irma Suryani, the one who brutally murdered at the age of 5 by the group who chased her dad to the ground. Attended at the same primary school with me were the grandkids of the prime ruler of the nation then, the leader of the so called good guys group, Mr. Suharto. I was also enjoying seeing my father wearing an attire that conveys a unity uniform called "KORPRI" batik every month on 17th. But most of all, I've grown up on seeing "Pengkhianatan G30S PKI" on TV every year.

What October 1st to us? Nothing impeccable whatsoever only that we had to solemnly reflect those who had died guarding the bird (I also grew up knowing that Pancasila, the five pillars of this nation, is a bird) or at least that's what we had been told. In every academic book, mostly for the primary graders, Pancasila with the bird visualizes itself on the cover. What's the bird, ooops, Pancasila got to do with this movement? A lot. As I have now come to comprehend that Pancasila has been 'used' or placed as a gambit in the local political arena, I realized that if the bird, Pancasila, I meant, can talk, it will refuse to be uttered everyday by the product of the winning order.

As it comes to this, reading each pillar, I cannot blame the bird (alrite, let's call it the bird from now on) for losing its grip in defending the truth. The truth itself is not easily being apprehensible. Then, the moment to take its moment to be justified, then consecrating it would be the easy way out. Then, we'd experienced the procession of commemorating the October 1st as the consecrated day of the bird.

But, after the end of the order, literally, in 1998, I have stopped experiencing the festivities and the solemn processions of the new order in creating their manufactured fiction. No more, everything regarding the consecration to all of us is slowly fading away.

Lately, not that I miss the moment of solemn procession of the October 1st, but somehow, this October 1st has lost its touch moment. What's wrong with it? Nothing, it's just not a novel idea anymore of defending or consecrating something with no avail since it was only a make up. Well, any modern man may claim, indeed, that Pancasila have proven its revered status back then. To me, it is still is until now, but not toward what we've been taught (and re-thought) throughout the 32 years regime, but more to its sanctifiedness in handling the manufactured lies for more than 32 years. The bird is consecrated forever in guarding and witnessing the truth as it peels the lies one by one.