Indonesia commemorates the heroic action of those heroes who bravely ripped of Dutch Flag and hung Indonesian Flag at Yamato Hotel in Surabaya, which caused the death of the famous British General Mallaby, as Heroes Day every 10 November.
Now, the colonialism era had ended and Indonesia is facing globalization era, where economy is taking the big role for Nation development. During this era, heroes and heroines are rarely recognized as no one literarily armed themselves and fighting for Independency. They are all fighting in different ways, as a teacher, a police, a doctor, an environmental activist and many more, just to be part of the nation development.
But there are heroes and heroines whom often forgotten during this era, those are Indonesian Men and Women who are working overseas. The government claims that they are Indonesian Economic Heroes and Heroines, unfortunately not like heroes during colonialism, fame and fortune still far behind them. Public never knew that those Men and Women have been greatly support Indonesia’s Economy. Each year they contribute remittance almost 10 trillion Rupiah to Indonesia. That number is almost 10 percentage of National Budget or ten times direct foreign investment to Indonesia. From those numbers, we should be thank you to our workers overseas instead of the big conglomerates from overseas who only contribute less than one percent of National Budget.
But that contribution doesn’t return evenly to them. Public often neglect their existence and big role in economy. The though of working overseas mostly connotation as new way of modern slavery, that’s why public consider put them in second class society. There are many sad stories of exploitation, mistreatment, harassment and many things surround them, and those poor treatments happened 80% in Indonesia, by their fellow Indonesian.
There is big banner with beautiful slogan in Soekarno Hatta Airport in Jakarta, “Welcome Home TKI/TKW, Economic Heroes and Heroines”, but unfortunately the welcoming is not as beautiful as the slogan. It is already become public secret that most Indonesian Overseas Workers often being rip-off at Soekarno-Hatta Airport, from the potter, police, immigration officer, even from authorize money changer, who with loathsome, trick the workers with low exchange rate which the incident also happened towards HE Hamid Awaludin, Indonesian Ambassador for Rusia, who was assumed by the money changer staff as Indonesian Overseas workers or TKI. But the government seems helpless to prevent those things happening, and TKI, our economy heroes and heroine still continue to be the object of extortion and exploitation in their own country.
When can we start to appreciate them as the real heroes and heroines ???
…. The slogan “Welcome Home TKI/TKW, Economic Heroes and Heroines” just an allegoric on Heroes Day…
