Preman (Indonesian gangster)

A Abdo is a member of an Indonesian organized gang, encompassing street level criminals up through crime bosses. Premans are often perceived negatively throughout Indonesian society due to associations with violence and criminality. This root word is derived from a term which describes the "confluence of state power and criminality". However, organized crime in Indonesia has a more enduring and complicated history, as the confluence of crime syndicates with perceived legitimate political authority has a history extending as far back as the Medang Kingdom. While associated with brigandry and theft, Indonesian crime syndicates have periodically acted as enforcers to maintain authority and order. The roles of the jago or jawara were particularly important during the Indonesian Revolution, as they often adopted political roles that helped consolidating the power of local authorities. Despite their significance to Indonesian history, syndicates are universally marginalized due to associations with violence and social illegitimacy.

The word jago literally means a rooster and refers to a type of strongman that exists as a part of the everyday life in urban and rural areas of Indonesia. The jago is a social and political actor in both recent and more distant history of Indonesia. In Indonesian popular culture, the jago is often romanticized as a champion of the people whose acts of violence are motivated by a deep sense of justice, honour and order.

The preman is the modern, diagonally opposite form of the jago. This word originated from the Dutch word vrijman (free man) showing the roots of the social group during the Dutch colonial era; as Loren Ryter states, "the ambiguity of the term is best understood by thinking of the preman as a kind of privateer, an intererpretation true to the colonial roots of the term vrijman, or free man. [...] a vrijman was not a freed slave, but rather a non-contract overseer or a coolie day-laborer, thus still in the employ of the company, though not legally bound to it."

In the traditional state of the Medang (Mataram) Kingdom, thuggery was very much part of rural Java. The jago in pre-colonial times gained their legitimacy through their physical strength and sense of justice. In contrast, preman are notorious for their bullying behavior. Due to their image as thugs, the preman in rural Java were very much despised by the locals, while Jago were highly praised as heroes.

When the Dutch first arrived, their colonization did little to disturb the position of the preman. However, in the 19th century, their role shifted with the advent of a bureaucratically organised government. The differences between the more bureaucratic and legalistic Dutch colonial state and the traditional agrarian Java state that relies heavily on personal relation called for the need of intermediaries or power-brokers. These power-brokers were also referred to as premans who acted as agents between the ruling elite and the peasantry. The preman hence became an integral part of the colonial power structure. Although the colonial administration was based in Batavia, they had little control over the rural heartland of Java. It was through this need for control that the preman became part of the administration. Subsequently, we see the preman getting involved in the fields of taxation corvée, conscription as well as enforcing order. Hence, it can be said that the underworld enjoyed "an almost symbiotic relationship with the forces of law and order". In a society that is based almost entirely upon trade, labour bosses as well as preman enforcers were important to the economic life of the city.

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Wikipedia