W

e were standing in a small town called Sanggau at the edge of a large palm oil plantation, just an hour’s drive from the Malaysian border in West Kalimantan. A young man said: “My parents were coconut farmers and they once had money. I am a coconut child.” It was a strange thing to say.

There were layers of meaning in this comment made by the local young man. When one started peeling these layers back, a picture emerged about the fate of traditional communities in a modernizing Indonesia. It was a picture which indicated that in this era of democratization, post reformasi, the basic quality of life of these traditional communities had not improved. If anything, these traditional communities were harping back to the old New Order times, where they felt they still had control of their lives. At the center of this angst are land rights.

The man at Sanggau, who was in his late 30s, explained that his father produced copra (dried meat, or kernel, of the coconut). He was educated, and even went to university in Java, thanks to their income from copra. Today, he explains, the local palm oil farmers are lucky if they can pay for their children to finish high school. All the people in his village know one thing: That the children of palm oil farmers do not go to university, as the money they earned from being palm oil farmers is insufficient.

There was a gap in the Sanggau area between the older generation that managed to acquire a good education from the income derived from selling copra, and the new, young generation of palm oil farmers’ children who could only afford to complete high school.

This was causing a snowball of social problems, engulfing in its path many issues like unemployment, urban and semi urban poverty, lower quality of life, social dislocation, loss of identity among youths. This was in turn resulting in an increase of violence all over Indonesia (as reported by the media).

I asked whether this was because the consumptive behavior of younger generations today — preferring to buy motorbikes rather than paying of university tuition. The young man explained that there wasn’t enough money to pay for university, but there was enough to buy a motorbike. University was far more expensive than a motorbike. He went on to say that if his people knew that they would end up in this situation, they would have strongly resisted selling their land.

At the time his father sold their land, they had hundreds of coconut trees producing copra. But the temptation of receiving a large sum of money was irresistible. Everyone in the family had been educated and the thought of retiring was enticing. It was, however, an economic miscalculation in the long term. The money only lasted a few years, and his father is not living as comfortably as he thought he would.

Who is at fault here?

When traditional communities negotiated and sold their land to large corporations — whether those involved in palm oil production or mining — they in fact let go of much more than their land. They entered the modern way of Indonesian life, and this is the domain of the Republic of Indonesia (RI).

There have been tensions between adat communities and the RI since independence, with traditional communities acknowledging the RI, but still hanging on to their traditional way of life which was centered on land ownership. In some instances, communal land, known as adat land (belonging to a village) is still an area where the State of Indonesia does not have control. Villagers all over Indonesia will tell you firmly this is ancestral land and has nothing to with the RI.

When young villagers leave the adat way of life and begin the sojourn into the modern Indonesian way of life (and therefore entering urban life) disappointment awaits. For many it has been a journey into uncertainty and inequality. Their hopes and dreams disappeared into a puff of smoke.

Many of these communities today are still living in their small rural towns and villages, but without the benefits of the land they used to own.

Further, regional autonomy, which handed over responsibility of communal services like education and health services to the local people supported by a local budget, has failed. The most concerning fact is that the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) recently announced that there were 173 local heads of government (one third of all local government) — governors, regents and mayors — implicated in corruption. (Kompas July 28).

The democratic way of life, promising access to opportunities for all, has not materialized. This dream would require local governments to be the providers of public services and be the social bridge for these young villagers. Instead, local elites are busy focusing on getting elected, with serious allegations that local elections are being funded by local regional budgets. Some national politicians are now saying that local, direct elections must be canceled in order to curb corruption, and appointments of local governments to be decided by the national legislature and executive.

Can you imagine the reaction of these young villagers, who are already been disappointed with modern Indonesia, post reformasi? They have experienced the freedom of electing their local leaders, and this has certainly been a conduit to express their grievances. If this taken away, what is left? They are now stuck on this journey of modernization and cannot go back to the adat way of life.

The problem here is not democracy. The fact remains that the Indonesian government has failed to think, plan and take care of young Indonesians living in rural and semi-rural areas. Taking care of Indonesia’s future means nurturing young Indonesians.

The writer, a former journalist, is secretary-general of the Indonesian Community for Democracy (KID). She was a recipient of the Nieman Fellowship for Journalism at Harvard University — class of 1994.