When passion becomes murder! Indonesian football madness.

I was going to blog on how it feels meeting famous footballing legends on the bola@mamak show. I was going to share with you guys how I felt meeting Zola, Paul Parker, John Barnes, Andy Cole, David May, Roy Evans, Stephan Henchoz and most recently Didi Hamman. 

But just as I was to start my blog I received the email below.

The email is from Raka, a 16 year old Indonesian youth who went backpacking to Surabaya during his exam breaks. Raka, if you have read my previous blogs, wrote about Car Free Day in Jakarta.

So when his mom told me that Raka is travelling to Surabaya I got excited because the fiercest fans known as Bonek Surabaya come from there. The local Surabaya team is known as Persebaya. So casually I mentioned to him to interview some of these Bonek fans.

Below is a small part of Raka's journey experiencing football fanaticism  in Indonesia. 

Hey. So here's the situation.

On the 15th of April, a congregation of Persebaya 1927 supporters gathered in the Governor's office in Surabaya to protest their team's demise. With the national league split in two, some political wrangling led to the creation of a split. Two Persebayas are playing in the split leagues of Indonesia. One version of Persebaya, the Persebaya 1927, is considered by many to be the 'original' Persebaya and is the more popularly supported team. But in the PSSI National Congress, where the PSSI aimed to unite the two opposing leagues in Indonesia, they decided to create a united national league starting next season. Persebaya 1927, the people's club, was not recognized. They will not be joining the united national league, and the 'other' Persebaya will join the league in their stead.

Now, this other Persebaya is headed by a guy called La Nyalla. In the PSSI National Congress, he was appointed the vice head of PSSI. And at the same congress, his version of Persebaya was recognized as the original incarnation and included in the league in spite of popular backlash against him. Coincidence or political manouvering by football's 'mafias'? The masses seem to think the latter. Hence they gathered on the 15th of April, demanding that the Governor ban the 'other' Persebaya from playing in Surabaya, which the Governor duly did, releasing a letter supporting Persebaya 1927. That letter, though, was condemned as 'governmental intervention' by the PSSI.

The night after the 15th of April protests, a fan organizer named Andi Peci was attacked with knives by mysterious men. The word on the streets is, those men are sent by La Nyalla, the head of the 'other' Persebaya because Andi Peci went ahead with the protest anyway despite 'warnings' imploring him to do otherwise.

And here's where it gets funky. They kept me in the dark for a few weeks, avoiding my calls asking for an appointment over and over again. It turns out that they have agreed on a media blackout, not talking to any member of the media due to the media's perceived bias against them. They told my uncle that they will be releasing a statement soon, and they might send it to me before other members of the media. I certainly hope they will. Personally, I tried to push on and get the interview anyway. But I was stopped by members of my family. These guys are nekat, they said. They're crazy. They are not to be trifled with. Therefore I backed off.

All this, and I haven't even talked about the dead supporter beaten to death in Gresik. A supporter wearing Persebaya colours was spotted in a match between Petrokimia Gresik against Arema Malang. Arema is a big rival of Persebaya. After the match, the supporter and his friends was stopped by a convoy of Arema supporters and beaten to a pulp, eventually dying in hospital due to severe injuries. You do know that the Bonek supporters were so angry with the Malang supporters for killing the supporter, that they actually closed off a part of the highway around Surabaya looking for people from Malang? The Governor actually had to come there and implore the supporters to come home. Tear gas was used.

All I'm saying is that there's plenty to talk about. Drop me a line when you're in Jakarta.

Thanks,

--

Raka Ibrahim A