Enemy is not Always Different; Commonalities between Aremania and Bonekmania

Khoirotul Amanah/109221422444

“Salam Satu Jiwa!” “Salam Satu Nyali!” Those are greetings from two hostile football supporters in Indonesia, Aremania and Bonekmania. Aremania are the supporters of Arema Indonesia Football Club (FC), while Bonekmania are Persebaya Surabaya’s great fans. The reason why they are discordant to each other is unclear, but still, those two bunches loathe one to another until now. As two wrestling group, they are very different in many things, such as in coalition partners, anarchism, and attitude. Take for an example, Aremania have at least three supporter friends; Persija Jakarta’s Jakmania, Persis Solo’s Pasoepati, and Persela Lamongan’s La Mania. On the other hand, Bonekmania have only one comrade; The Viking, the supporter of Persib Bandung. This is just one of the differences. Actually, there can be more dissimilarity to talk about from the two groups; yet as we observe them without prejudice, actually they have several commonalities.

Firstly, their similarity is in anarchism aspect. Most people recognize that Bonekmania are anarchist supporters, but we cannot say Aremania are not anarchist either. Aremania were the most terrifying troop for society in 90’s because of their rude deeds; fighting, looting anything, etc. The last defacement by Aremania came about two years ago. In 2008, Arema-nia defaced Brawijaya Stadium, Kediri; one of the supporters ran down to the field and hit the referee, before the crowd of Aremania followed him down and burned the goal. Although the position as the most terrifying bunch is taken by Bonekmania lately, Aremania are still ac-knowledged as radical supporters. Similar to Aremania, Bonekmania are not better in brutal-ity. Nowadays, Bonekmania are one of the most unwelcomed groups in the society. They do the same thing as Aremania do; defacement. The last Bonekmania’s tour to Bandung is the example. In that tour, they take away anything in any shops in the station without paying. Be-sides, they did not buy the train-tickets and broke the train facilities like the seats, windows, and toilets. Therefore, PT. KAI got about Rp300 million loss; a big financial loss.

Secondly, it deals with attitude aspect; the two supporters are bad-mannered fans. In the stadium, Aremania and Bonekmania always yell swear words. They do not only offend the opponent in that particular match, but also their true rival; Bonekmania for Aremania, and the other way around. Take for instance, when AremaFC is having a match versus Sriwi-jayaFC, Aremania would not shout their backing to their club or sing hostile songs to Sriwi-jaya FC only; yet, they are also yelling anti-Bonekmania and Persebaya words. This is the same as what Bonekmania always do. They affront AremaFC and Aremania all the time, no matter what team is playing against Persebaya at that time. Moreover, when the supporters converge with their comrade in one stadium, as in Persebaya-Persib or AremaFC-Persija match, their yell will become more discourteous.

The third is their loyalty aspect. Aremania and Bonekmania are both very loyal to their club. They show their fidelity by many actions; the easiest one is by wearing the club’s attrib-utes like T-shirt, scarf, cap, and other attributes in ordinary days. When you are in Malang, Arema and Aremania attributes will dominate the surroundings; in the same way, when you are in Surabaya, you will easy to find people wear Persebaya or Bonekmania T-shirts. That is just a simple thing. However, they have behaviour, which is more fanatic as supporters; tour. When their club has away match in their comrade’s zone, they will escort it there. Bonekmania have yearly tour to Bandung when Persebaya has away match versus Persib. Like Bonekmania, Aremania also have a same yearly tour; the tour is to Jakarta and entitled as Aremania Tour de Batavia. What very interesting about the tour is that each year, many supporters are killed because of travel-accident like train accident or street crush, but still, those aficionados want to get involved in the tour to support their club. Those are the exam-ples how loyal supporters are.
Even though Aremania and Bonekmania are well-known as antagonistic bunches, if we look them impartially without preconception, we can recognise several similarities of them. They are both anarchist, bad-mannered, and very loyal. Their anarchism has been proved in some occasions and their bad manner can be seen in every matches. About their loyalty, we should not hesitate about it anymore; they not only sacrifice their money, but also their lives. All in all, I think they are not that different.