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Lock Up Your Daughters, Jakmania Is In Town

(Antara Photo/Puspa Perwitasari)

Societies all over the world have used the threat of evil outsiders to keep everyone else in line. The boogey man, the fairy at the bottom of the garden or even poor Tiddles, the black cat next door. Jakarta has the Jakmania.

The name itself gets people shaking in their boots. People say they cause traffic jams and public disorder allegations are thrown at them constantly. In fact, they get blamed for so many of Jakarta’s ills it’s a wonder any of them dare show their faces on match day for fear of being victims of street justice.

But what is Jakmania? The local football team is called Persija (Persatuan Sepakbola Indonesia Jakarta) and they wear orange. The supporters club, Jakmania, was set up about 10 years ago to try and create an atmosphere on the terraces at Persija home and away games. All of Jakmania supports Persija but not all Persija fans are Jakmania.

Jakmania is an actual card-carrying supporters club with membership fees and so on. Their leadership is voted on by the club’s some 40,000 members and it has an almost corporate structure, right down to the grass roots.

Given most Jakartans visceral loathing of their local football team, about the only time they are aware of football is when they see a metromini or angkot piled high with orange-clad teens, sitting on the roofs or holding onto the sides with their fingernails.

Jakmania officials would be quick to point out that such fans are highly unlikely to be official Jakmania members. Persija fans, yes, but not Jakmania. And the reason they can be so sure lies in the way their organization is set up.

At the lowest level is the korwil, or district coordinator. This is the guy responsible for ensuring transport is set up for fans going to and from games. He’s the one who will know what time the game starts and where it’s being played. Sounds daft but with only an official club Web site and the generally poor dissemination of news, it’s usually word of mouth that fills the terraces, not any slick marketing campaign.

Once transport has been secured and as many kids shoehorned inside the buses as possible, the spanduks are placed strategically around the bus (some of these banners are really works of art), and they’re on their way to the match.Inside the stadium, there are yet more club officials. They are called korlaps, and they are responsible for matters surrounding the pitch. If things do turn nasty in the stadium, a rare event despite what the media may tell you, these are the guys attempting to calm things down and cool the hot heads.

Over the long Easter weekend, Persija was forced, at the last minute, to play two of their home games in the central Javanese city of Solo. Straight away, the travel arm of Jakmania went into action and, within a couple of days, had arranged how to move between 3,000 and 4,000 Jakmania fans across the island on that busy weekend.

Oh, except for one guy whose fiance found out while he was sitting on a bus waiting to leave Jakarta. One angry phone call and this terrace legend was sheepishly forced to get off the bus in front of his mocking friends!

Travelling with the Jakmania is a lot of fun. Again, despite what you may have read, there isn’t that much trouble between rival fans in Indonesia. When games seem high risk, fans themselves make the decision not to travel or, if they do, they choose not to wear their colors.

Persija fans don’t travel to Bandung for Persib games. At least not openly. Same thing with Persib fans. They won’t, openly at least, travel to Jakarta. But Jakmania are quite happy to travel to Malang against Arema, Lamongan against Persela and even overseas to Palembang for games against Sriwijaya. One trip to Lamongan entailed a lengthy stop in Semarang, where fans from the local team, PSIS, arranged snacks and drinks for the thirsty road warriors.

The fans at Indonesian games are as big a draw as the game. Often more so. The Jakmania, Persib’s Viking and Arema’s Aremania are each a force to be reckoned with, and, if the game gets dull, watching the thousands of bodies packed onto the terraces moving around as one is a sight to behold. And, remember, they’re not all hooligans!

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