Motorcycle taxi driver Yoga Kushartanto (28) drives thirteen hours a day through the Indonesian capital Jakarta. He and his millions of colleagues became the face of the nationwide protests against the government after one of them died under the wheels of a police vehicle.
On those days, he earns the equivalent of 5 euros, he says. On bad days, he earns nothing. “Then I don’t eat for a while.”
Kushartanto wholeheartedly supports one of the protesters’ 17+8 demands, a law that would allow them to confiscate assets obtained through corruption.
“Then they too will experience what it’s like to live without money. Lapar seharian (hungry all day, ed. )!”
Text by Noël van Bemmel for de Volkskrant.