[Nulgath]

Man in Aceh goes off on convenience store employees after only receiving IDR1,000 donation

He’s not exactly a beggar, but this man in Aceh is certainly a chooser, and an extremely ungrateful one at that.

On Saturday, a video was shared on social media showing a man in a white thobe going off on employees at an Indomaret convenience store outlet in North Aceh after he only received IDR1,000 (US$0.07) from them for an unspecified donation.

“This is harassment. You’re only looking for profit here. This store is owned by a Chinese, is it not? It’s better that you don’t donate if you only donate IDR1,000. Look at the fish seller at the market, [he gave us] IDR100,000!” the man screamed at the two Indomaret employees standing behind the counter.

The man and his friend, who tossed a few soda bottles on the floor (as seen in other versions of the video), kept screaming at the store employees while repeatedly saying they had been “harassed” by receiving the small donation. A couple of bystanders can be seen calming them down while others filmed the incident.

It didn’t take long for the police to get involved after the video went wildly viral. On Sunday, the North Aceh Police posted two videos on their Instagram page showing that they held a mediation session between the man, who was identified as Jafar Quba, the leader of a youth community at a local mosque, and representatives from Indomaret.

In the videos, Jafar, still wearing a white thobe and the same Palestinian flag scarf, read out a written apology saying he was sorry if the viral video “may have disturbed the public” before shaking hands with an Indomaret rep. In the post’s caption, the police wrote that the matter was resolved in a “kekeluargaan” manner, which roughly translates to “between family members” — an Indonesian euphemism for amicably coming to an agreement not to press charges for a crime.

The police did not specify what charitable cause Jafar and his friend were collecting for. That said, some would argue that the way they were going around and collecting money from businesses and street sellers very closely resemble the behavior of preman (thugs) collecting protection money, which is a very common practice in Indonesia.