User:Setiawa2/Bonek

Bonek is a group of fanatic fans of Surabaya's Persebaya soccer club. The contraction of Bonek comes from the Javanese language, which means Bondho Nekat. It means that they support the favorite team based on their actions, such as anarchy, causing riots, and vandalism act, without thinking about the consequences. The actions of Bonek is similar to the hooliganism, which is unruly, aggressive, and bullying behavior. Bonek has a ritual when their team plays outside of the home base, they must follow their team, Persebaya, wherever it competes. They usually go by train with small budgets to the opponent's home base. Because of the tight budgets, they often looted food, intimidate people, and do vandalism acts. They always stay and support Persebaya by causing riots and fights with the opposing team's supporters.

= History = Before the name of Bonek, the Persebaya's supporters were referred as the Green Force due to the fact of the green color in Persebaya's jersey. The term bonek was first noted by daily morning newspaper, Post Java in 1988, to illustrate the enthusiasm of Persebaya's supporters to support their team to Senayan, Jakarta in large numbers. With the willpower to support their team, they went to Jakarta to make the make the Senayan's stadium green in 1988. In the same year, they climbed up the stadium's wall in order to wave the supporting banner that read "Red My Blood, White My Bone, Unity in My Spirit" during the match. Notably, almost 110 thousand supporters were going from Surabaya to Jakarta. The daily morning newspaper, Post Java praised the positive enthusiasm, determination, and spirit for supporting Persebaya to Jakarta at that time with large numbers of supporters. In the later years, nobody knows exactly why Bonek becomes anarchy and often causes riots wherever they go. They do anything necessary, even vandalism actions, in order to support their team, Persebaya. However, there were no riots involved during the match that was held in Senayan in 1988.

=Riots= There are some notable violence involving Bonek' actions. In the Copa Dji Sam Soe game that was held at Stadium 10 November, Surabaya, on September 2006 between Arema Malang and Persebaya Surabaya, Bonek destroyed stadium's glass, set fire to the television station's car, a police car, and an ambulance after 0 - 0 draw. Additionally, dozens of cars were damaged. Because of those actions, the Commission on Discipline prohibited Persebaya Surabaya to compete in East Java for a year and prohibited Bonek to enter any stadium in three years.

On the same occasion, while Persebaya was lost 2 - 1 to Petrokimia Gresik on September 2006, Bonek also caused some riots in Gresik. They attacked the journalists, looted food stalls, drugstore, cell phone shops, and damaged public facilities and private vehicles around the stadium. As a consequence of this unruly behavior and vandalism acts, the Gresik residency claimed to lost over $10,000.

Another riots happened at January 2010 when Persebaya was playing against Persib Bandung. Many fans were riding the train without paying the tickets. And, they also caused damages to the train. On their way to Bandung, the fans had thrown rocks into the residents of Surakarta, Central Java. In Bandung, after wrecking havoc while travelling, many fans forced their way in into the stadium without paying the tickets.

After Persebaya was lost 4 - 2 to Persib Bandung, the fans destroyed some facilities around the stadium. Furthermore, during the way back to Surabaya, Bonek were roundly stoned by angry Surakarta residents. The residents also hurled the rock at all trains travelling to Bandung, damaging the trains. Those actions led to two deaths and hefty financial loss for both match organizer in Bandung and the PT KAI, a train company. According to the PT KAI, they lost more than Rp 1 billion (US $ 107,000).

Those havoc and riots triggered many protests that those fans, Bonek, must be disbanded and be prohobited to enter any stadium because of their unruly behaviors and vandalism acts.