Beating the system [MAY 23th 2008]

The opening of BuGils Bali is way behind schedule and it should have been opened six months ago. One of the problems we faced, was a huge electricity pole in the middle of the area, where we had planned the bar. The PLN pole should not be there in the first place, as it is private property, but things in Bali do not work like that. It didn't take long before a whole battery of government people were surveying the property. One senior official looked up and down the pole, the kretek cigarette almost falling out of his mouth. With a painful grim on his face, the leader of the pack shook his head. ‘Ini enggak gampang, pak!’ (this is not an easy issue, sir!). I did not say anything, as I knew the magic words would soon follow. And indeed they did. ‘Kita bisa bantu....’ (we can help). The kretek was sparking dangerously when the inhaul became long and intense, just before he repeated the words. ‘Kita bisa bantu...’. The fumes of his cigarette dwindled up along the pole. It was the start of a long negotiating process in the weeks that followed, and when finally a deal was made, they suddenly had discovered that, to move one pole, two others had to be moved as well! The price went up and in the meanwhile the building had halted already for 2 months. When still nothing happened, I decided to go visit the head office in Denpasar to meet with the boss of bosses. The few words of Javanese that I know worked well on this friendly senior manager from Semarang. The talk started about Johan Cruyff, went on to quality of the old Dutch waterworks in middle java, and via the Shell history (that had started in Indonesia!) , we agreed on the difficulties PLN was facing with the increased price for oil. Then, after a short silence, he suddenly said: ‘Let me make a few phone calls...’. People were called to his office. One sub-contractor tried to say it was impossible as the rules are that the whole area needs to be informed on forehand and in writing of an upcoming 4 hour electricity cut, but ten minutes later I left with a firm handshake and the assurance that the damn pole would be moved the next day. The listrik mati (electricity cut) in the area would be unannounced.

I happily watched the workers the next day climbing in the PLN pole. They were dangerously shifting cables and putting up new poles around the BuGils Bali area. Satisfied with the result, I flew back to Jakarta and it was not until a few days that I learned that the pole indeed had been removed, but NOT the 200.000 volt cables that were still hanging dangerously low over the building site! Apparently we had negotiated a deal on the pole removal, but not on the removal of the cables! Had they been clever, or had I been stupid?

Just after this bad news came in, I received a call from the police station in Semanggi. The friendly Kapten asked when I would come and pick up the bags of BuGils shirts and caps, that had been confiscated, while we were under investigation for the BuGils copyright case. The case had been settled months ago and I never had expected to see this stuff back. The doorway into the police office was almost blocked by huge piles of illegal CD’s. ‘Yesterday we did a razia CD...’, explained the officer. I was greeted as a long lost friend by the police officers that had put so much stress on me six months earlier. They apologized for the all the time this case had consumed and they explained they had just been doing their tugas or duty. I wondered why they were so friendly and why they took their time, sharing their coffee and peanuts with me. One bowed forward. ‘Your laywer never paid us. We are not asking for it, as we are just doing our duties, but it is just to let you know...’. I remembered the song of Billy Joel, Goodnight Saigon, where he shouts ‘And who is right and who is wrong?’. And we all go down together, I thought, as I looked at the big bags that were dragged in, filled with the BuGils shirts and caps. ‘How many in your unit?’, I asked the officer. ‘Eight.’, he said. I pointed at the bags. The people in the room looked happy. ‘Thank you! Begitu dong, mister Bart! Bagi-bagi (share)!’. ‘There are actually 16 in our team’, another officer said. ‘And we like the caps as well!’ , said the Kapten. I reckoned the bags were too heavy to carry anyway, and I let them get what they wanted. As a sign of appreciation in return I received a plastic bag full of illegal CD’s on my way out of the police station.

In the meanwhile BuGils Bali is continuing with the construction and we hope to have the bar ready before the first of July. I try to be clever, by creating my own pole on top of the roof, with the idea of lifting the cables high over it. PLN is waiting for me to negotiate a new deal, but I am not going back there. Maybe I should go back, eat some peanuts, hand out some BuGils shirts and drink hot tea with a lid on it, but no. This time I want to be more clever than they are.

While I write this, I realize how stupid this sounds. Who am I fooling? Do I really think I can beat the system? When I accepted these illegal CD’s, I became part of their system. I can try to be more clever than they are, but, in the end, they handle the electricity switch. I can never win. On my next trip to Bali I will bring some extra books of Bule Gila and hand them out to everybody with a uniform and a kretek in his mouth. A BuGils bar never comes easy...

Bartele.