Seeing The Other Side Of The Polemic Baim Wong Admonishes A Grandfather To Work: Questioning Structural Poverty

Screenshot (Youtube/Baim Paula)

JAKARTA - The public figure of Baim Wong has become the target of netizens because his content on Youtube seems to scold the grandparents who follow him and ask for money. Baim then reprimanded him while telling his grandfather to work instead of begging. Apart from being considered excessive, Baim's attitude is also considered to be indifferent to structural poverty. Maybe Baim doesn't really realize that people can't suddenly get rich just because of work, and people don't suddenly become poor just because they are lazy to work.

"It's like he's working," Baim said to an old man while visiting ojol drivers and handing out money. "Here, I was given money, because I was working. I was given money for work," Baim said in his recently uploaded video.

Thanks to the viral video, Paula Verhoeven's husband was flooded with blasphemy. Motivating people to work by sharing money is certainly not a problem. But many netizens criticized Baim Wong's way of showing no sympathy for the old geezers. After all, the old man called Baim followed him, still offering his wares. Not begging.

One of the people who commented on Baim Wong's action was Celebrity Elsya Sandria. Through his Twitter account @elsyandria said it was Baim Wong's right to refuse, expel, and reprimand. But, Elsya said "never give food to people who are full in front of people who are hungry."

"It doesn't take away hundreds of his kindness towards others. But it doesn't justify him making fun of older people," wrote Elsya.

Baim wong has the right to refuse, to expel, he wants to be reprimanded but "never give food to a person who is full in front of a hungry person." It doesn't take away hundreds of his kindness to others, but doesn't justify him making fun of older people.

— Elsya Sandria (@elsyandria) October 11, 2021

Baim Wong then clarified the issue of the incident that went viral. Baim said, at first when he left the hospital with his son on a motorbike, suddenly the grandfather approached him. "And he suddenly asked me for money."

"If my boss was in my position at that time, maybe his perception would be very different when he saw this incident. From the way he spoke, from the way he asked, it wasn't really that bad."

Baim also said that at that time he was not angry. "I said sir, not in this way. No. It's not good. And it's not angry."

After that, Baim continued his journey, the old man shouted at him again to ask for money. "I hate people like that the most. I really don't like it when they make it my weakness, and ask for money right away."

And the same thing happened again. The grandfather said Baim continued to follow Baim until a scene appeared as recorded in the viral video. From there Baim felt that he had to reprimand the grandfather. "I reprimanded him in a way like you saw in the video. I often do that when people ask, in an impolite way I often watch, in a way like that (asking) you won't get money," said Baim.

Most people who criticize Baim are because the way he reprimands grandparents is considered excessive. It's okay to motivate people to fight, as long as it's realistic. But it would be much better if Baim also educates many people about the availability of access and privileges.

Baim Wong (Photo: Instagram/baimwong)

Structural poverty

The problem of poverty that occurs in a country with a high level of inequality may not be as simple as giving someone "so work" advice. This advice may be effective in alleviating individual poverty, but it is difficult even to address the issue of structural poverty.

The first Professor of Sociology in Indonesia, Selo Soemardjan as quoted by M. Alwi Dahlan in Information Equity, Development Communications (1997) explained that poverty experienced by a person because he is lazy to work or because he is chronically ill is an individual poverty. Meanwhile, structural poverty is poverty suffered by a group of people because the social structure of the community does not provide a source of income that is actually available to them.

For example, a farmer can be poor because of middlemen. This can happen, for example, because for the planting process, farmers borrow money from moneylenders, but when harvesting prices fall because there is a price game from middlemen plus imports from outside.

In the problem of structural poverty, there are many factors that make it difficult for a group to increase their income - if not, it can be said that they are trapped in poverty. That's why people can't suddenly get rich just because they work hard, and people don't suddenly become poor just because they are lazy to work.

Anthropology lecturer at Padjadjaran University, Budi Rajab in his writing entitled Structural Poverty and Ways of Overcoming it, explained that when viewed from a structural approach, poverty occurs because of inequality in the control and ownership of production factors such as land, technology, and other forms of capital. Budi said, in the process of relations between individuals or groups when utilizing economic resources, a few people who can own and control economic resources are called elites.

"These elites then consolidate through certain institutions so that the economic resources controlled by them are maintained, even more so. This is where economic inequality begins to appear which in the course of time becomes increasingly sharp," wrote Budi.

According to Budi, the institutional access used by the elite in the context of the consolidation process is, among others, through the formation of interest groups or certain business associations, government bureaucracy, kinship ties and others. "Therefore, in the end, inequality is not only characterized by inequality in ownership and control of material things, but also points to gaps in access and control of social institutions."

"Perhaps, in the context of its relationship to social institutions, in Indonesian social science terms, such poverty is known as 'structural poverty.' Poverty suffered by a group of people because the social structure of society does not provide opportunities and opportunities to be involved in using economic resources," explained Budi.

Illustration (Photo: Irfan Meidianto/VOI)

How to cope

Meanwhile, tackling structural poverty cannot be as easy as advising people to work harder. Budi said, the main thing about structural poverty can be eliminated by making policies that directly identify and eliminate the sources of inequality.

"The poverty alleviation program is carried out through a fundamental transformation of the economic, political and social structure of society which is no longer dominated by elite groups, by establishing and developing institutions that favor the poor directly. These institutions must directly provide access and control over economic resources for the growth of business opportunities and decent work opportunities for the poor," wrote Budi.

For this reason, advising lower-class citizens to work more diligently does seem simpler than seeing the problem of poverty, which turns out to be quite complicated. After all, back to Baim Wong's polemic, if he orders lower class economic people to work harder, aren't you worried that the content will decrease?

Baim Wong is one of the many artists who often create content for money. Indeed, he is not a pioneer in creating acts of generosity as content for Youtube and social media.

This money-sharing content has always been buzzing since the 2000s. One of them is because this event always attracts people's compassion. To name a few successful philanthropy events are Help! whose concept is similar to some of Atta Halilintar's content, the Bedah Rumah program, to Uang Kaget. Instead of helping to alleviate poverty, this event actually "sells poverty" by embracing the audience's compassion.

Read other information about ECONOMY or read other interesting articles from Ramdan Febrian Arifin.

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