Citizens take the lead in changing Jakarta

Marco Kusumawijaya ,  Jakarta   |  Mon, 12/22/2008 2:49 PM  |  Review & Outlook

Can we really change Jakarta? Of course we can, if each of us were to follow Mahatma Gandhi's advice: "Be the change you wish to see in this world."

The Great Soul, as Mahatma is known, points a sharp finger at our human weakness: We desire change but need and wait for an example or leader to follow. The only way to overcome this, paradoxically, is to become that example. If all of us just waited, who would become the example?

Gandhi also points to the fact that people do not like to change alone. Most of us think that change is effective only when everyone does it at once. Before one is willing to change, there must be the trust that others will follow.

When it comes to the use of common resources, it is often the case that one will not stop using them because they think that, even if they did, others would not and they would be depleted anyway.

The result of this thinking is that everyone competes to get as much as possible from the common resource. This "tragedy of the commons" is suggested to be among the causes of the demise of many great past civilizations by Prof. Jared Diamond in his book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.

Assuming that the government, too, will do its share to change, I put my bet on enhancing civil society's initiatives and participation to effect real change.

We know, as we read in the media almost every day, that there are actually myriads of citizen initiatives that are quietly - and, unfortunately, slowly - changing the city. "Green" initiatives sprang up with great energy long before the media and commercial sector green-washed themselves. There is a rich and diverse pool of specialized experts available to change the city. However, it is obvious that there is a need for massive and quickened change toward sustainability in Jakarta, vis-*-vis the ever present and immediate danger of climate change. Such changes require a broad-based exchange of ideas and practices among urban dwellers. To build social capital, we need to be interconnected.

First, we need a collective memory and knowledge about the city, perhaps in the form of a "book of truth" chronicling events that have significantly shaped the contemporary city.

Second, we need a collective agreement on the importance of a public virtual space, where we can exchange ideas and practices using the democratic medium that is the Internet.

Third, we need a networking space where we can register our existence and build networks and social capital face-to-face.

Fourth, we need a space where we can explore different visions, grounded on the actual spaces of the city, but imaginatively conceived to offer alternative solutions, perhaps in the form of exhibitions.

If we did this regularly, we would be a stronger society, one that takes active initiative and thinks and organizes around whatcan do, instead of telling "others" what they should do. This would give us the confidence and the know-how to generate ideas and exchanges among ourselves; we could then remain active even when the government fails.

To sustain fundamental change the government needs to reform its bureaucracy and increase its capacity to engage and mobilize available resources.

Offering solutions and opinions like this might sound pretentious because Governor Fauzi Bowo already gets his solutions from the few "experts" surrounding him. The problem is that at least some of those experts have been, arguably, ruining Jakarta for the past 20 years or more. The governor is not a president who, once elected, can appoint a fresh Cabinet to execute policy changes. Jakarta's governor has to work with an almost totally incumbent bureaucracy. However, starting this year, the governor will have the power to appoint four deputies as well as some "expert staff".

Those "experts" have made urban planning no longer spatial, but temporal. The city has begun to co-opt time. Ordering schools to start early to deal with specific issues, namely traffic congestion, is an example of this.

The capital started this regime with 24-hour banking and three-shift factories. The victims are, not surprisingly, the same every time: the poor. Under the thumb of power, they are often single mothers or recent illegal immigrants to the industrialized world and are the least skilled workers in foot-loose factories. Under the power of state, they are the nonvoting dependents, our children, in poor Jakarta.

With late capitalism, time has been co-opted because there is no more space. With nowhere left to develop, the city has turned its myopic plans to time. There was never much spatial planning in this city anyway, so why not jump into temporal planning? A similar logic is applied in creating new land by reclaiming the sea, a lack of discipline and working with what is available is demonstrated. Some people call this escapism.

Will the government manage to change its paradigm in time? I would not wait. I would bet on my own capacity to change myself long before I could become governor or hold any other position of power to change others - this is something I am most sure of. I am scared enough already. I would rather persuade my fellow citizens to join me in sleeping under a mosquito net in a room with opened windows without AC, remodeling my doors, windows, walls and roof to have more vertical and horizontal natural air ventilation, cycling to work, bioporing my open back and front yards, closing down my well. Meanwhile I will follow my friend's suggestion and take my own food container next time I buy noodles from the warung on the corner. Then, we can think about changing the government...

The writer is urbanist, currently (2006-2009) chair of Jakarta Arts Council.

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