It's Difficult to Implement a Smoking Ban on Trains

This is a video of Ignasius Jonan as a speaker at a forum, but it is not explained when and where. In this video, Ignasius Jonan explains how difficult it is to make a smoking ban on trains. It should be noted that Iganius Jonan was once the director of PT. KAI (Indonesian Railways) in the 2009s

He shared his experience in his efforts to make a smoking ban on trains, he had called the administrators of the Indonesian Railways and Engineers Association. He asked one of the administrators of the Engineers Association, why the engineers were still smoking while carrying out their duties. The administrator said that if you don't smoke while operating the train, you will be sleepy.

Hearing that answer, Ignasius Jonan was shocked. He thought it was dangerous if the engineer was sleepy while operating the train, he might not pay attention to the signals and an accident could occur. To overcome this, Ignasius Jonan gave compensation to the train drivers not to smoke on the train and to appreciate it, the train drivers will get a fifty percent increase in travel money every six months.

In addition, in this video, Ignasius Jonan also received a challenge from a train driver association chairman not to smoke on the train during the longest journey for the island of Java. It turned out that during the journey which took a total of twenty-four hours, Ignasius Jonan did not smoke at all, which amazed his challenger.

In the era of Dahlan Iskan as Minister of BUMN around 2012, Ignasius Jonan was called and told to meet the chairman of PB NU (an Islamic organization in Indonesia) at that time, Kyai Said Aqil Siroj. Ignasius was curious and was only told that the General Chairman of PB NU was angry, so he finally went to the PB NU office in Matraman.

While there, he saw a large ashtray in Kyai Said Aqil Siroj's office, as a sign that smoking was allowed in that room. So Ignasius smoked, when he was smoking, the General Chairman of PB NU came and was surprised that Ignasius Jonan was also a smoker.

In the conversation between the Director of PT. KAI and the General Chairman of PB NU, it was revealed that the NU Kyai (Islamic religious leaders) protested because smoking was prohibited on the train. Responding to this, Ignasius answered deftly that there was no prohibition on smoking, but smoking was not allowed on the train.

The reason for not being allowed to smoke on the train was because there was air conditioning in the carriage and smoking would disturb other people. After listening to this explanation, Kyai Said Aqil Siroj understood and agreed with the prohibition on smoking, he even wanted to issue a fatwa regarding it. The fatwa was finally not launched after listening to Ignasius Jonan's explanation.

From the video there is one interesting lesson that to make good changes, it starts from ourselves and from there we can provide an example for others. "If we are orderly from the inside, outsiders will not dare to be like us.", This is one sentence that is the core of this video, said by Ignasius Jonan in the early seconds of the video.

So in essence, before changing other people's behavior, we should change ourselves first to be good so that we can be a role model and example for others. (hpx)

Note : Translation tool using Google Translate.