Evicted Pasar Ikan Residents Are Moving Back Into Their Demolished Slum

The residents of Pasar Ikan are starting to rebuild, moving out of military surplus tents into new cinderblock houses set up on top of their demolished homes after opposition candidates Anies Baswedan and Sandiaga Uno won the Jakarta gubernatorial election.

The community, a part of Luar Batang, North Jakarta, became emblematic of the controversial slum clearing policies of ousted Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama and a flashpoint in the movement to topple the governor, a man popularly known as Ahok. The governor ordered the demolition of Pasar Ikan and Kampung Akuarium—both "squatter communities"—setting off fears of evictions throughout the wider neighborhood.

The fears galvanized as one of the earliest, and loudest, voices in the anti-Ahok movement. They are now pinning their hopes on the coming Anies-Sandi administration, who reportedly promised to rebuild the demolished slum if they won the election.

"If Anies-Sandi can rebuild the area, we'll be living proof of their competence and it will spread all over," Teguh, a resident of the Kampung Akuarium, told VICE Indonesia.

Watch our full-length documentary on the Jakarta Election: "Fault Lines: Trials and Tribulations on the Streets of Jakarta" below.

It's a continued sign of how the slums of Luar Batang became battlegrounds in the Jakarta election. The residents were living in military surplus tents allegedly donated by Gerindra Chairman Prabowo Subianto, the former head of the feared Kopassus Special Forces who mounted a failed campaign against President Joko Widodo in 2014 for the country's top seat. His party campaigned heavily in the neighborhood, building support early on in a community that has long felt neglected by the capital's political elite.

The neighborhood was still covered in campaign posters and anti-Ahok graffiti when I arrived. One piece of roughly scrawled graffiti read "Ahok, where is your humanity," while faded posters featuring the smiling faces of Anies and Sandi remained tacked up on plywood walls.

Both Pasar Ikan and Kampung Akuarium have long struggled with severe poverty. But the evictions, and their decision to move back in amid the rubble of their old homes, has only exasperated the situation. Many of the more than 160 families who moved back lack electricity or running water. The Ahok administration promised them new apartments in a government-subsidized building, but many declined and decided to remain behind.

"This is home," Teguh said of his two-room, tin-roofed shack, one of the larger homes in the slum. "Another person's house will still feel awkward even if it's luxurious."

The community is hoping that the next iteration of "Jakarta Baru," ("New Jakarta") bears more than a passing resemblance to the city before Jokowi and Ahok's attempts to force order on this crowded, and often chaotic, megacity.

But some of the uglier sentiment that rose to the surface during the Jakarta election still flows through the neighborhood. Ahok was attacked for his ethnicity (Chinese) and his religion (Christianity) throughout his failed re-election campaign. The ideas, that perceived flaws in his handling of the capital's poor were somehow connected to his ethnicity, began to take root in Luar Batang during the early days of the election.

Today, some of this racism persists.

"I began disliking the Chinese after these evictions started," Etty, another Kampung Akuarium resident, told me. "They're so cocky. Ahok is a great example of this."

Anies and Sandi issued a call for unity on the eve of their election win. But, judging by the talk in the slums of North Jakarta, it's going to be a while before the wounds of the recent election fully heal.