Word: punks
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...When the punk movement first surfaced in England in 1977, its nihilistic posturing and contempt for cultural and pop-music traditions rattled both the social and entertainment establishments. Long after the movement petered out or became commercialized elsewhere, it took hold for the first time in Jakarta in the mid-1990s - at a time when the music's belligerence seemed to perfectly echo the hostility many young people felt toward the authoritarian regime of then President Suharto. Onie recalls listening to Guns N' Roses and boy band New Kids on the Block and never feeling a real connection with...
...youth were attracted to the freedom and rebellion that punk offered," says Trax magazine's music editor, Farid Amriansyah. "They were looking for an identity and punk gave it to them." Onie's friend Aca found his mood reflected in the stark lyrics of Fight Back, the 1980 protest anthem by English hardcore-punk band Discharge: "People die in police custody/ Where's the justice in that?/ Don't see none/ Fight the system, fight back." These words directly inspired Aca to join street protests in 1998, when he was tear-gassed and bludgeoned with the butts of police rifles...
...Amriansyah explains that there are thousands of punks in the country. "Through an underground network of fanzines, record trading, the growth of independent distribution outlets and the power of the Internet," he says, "the scene is widely spreading to every region in Indonesia." But these days peer support, not protest, is one of the main attractions. One of Jakarta's youngest punks, 11-year-old Doing, meets up with his friends every afternoon at a playground near Blok M. With calloused bare feet and PUNK tattooed on his fingers, he survives by playing his ukulele on buses for money. "Punks...
...this family's core are the members of Marjinal, a punk band that has helped over a thousand street kids earn cash by teaching them how to busk. "Music gives these kids a way to survive, to make some kind of living," says Mike, Marjinal's lead singer. "Punk, to me, is addressing the things that are rotten in society. It tells us that we have the ability to be independent and take care of each other...
...ones that live on the streets. How are you?" The children sing along as they pile onto the stage. "Let's share the good and the bad times together!" Mike exhorts over the roar of their voices. It may be 30 years late, but for many of these kids punk is the best thing that has ever come to Indonesia...