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Indonesia works on preserving heritage for world peace
Indonesia is committed to the preservation of cultural and natural heritage as a means to deliver world peace, officials say.
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Buddhist monks repeat mantras and meditate as they walk around Borobudur temple in Central Java clockwise three times as part of the Pradaksina ritual in the early hours of Sunday. (JP/R Berto Wedhatama)
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reserving natural and cultural heritage sites might not seem like an obvious way to foster world peace and security, but Indonesian officials are convinced it could prove useful as a counterweight to the country’s aggressive development agenda.
Indonesia under President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo is committed to continuing its ambitious infrastructure drive to boost the economy, even vowing to inject Rp 10 trillion (US$708 billion) toward the development of “10 New Balis” in an effort to grow local economies and develop tourism.
Such large-scale development is feared to have a detrimental impact on the environment and repositories of history and culture, but the government has vowed to pursue a national strategy that strikes a balance between preserving history and promoting overdue development.
Efforts to preserve cultural heritage sites should be able to shift the perspective of development, said Hilmar Farid, the Education and Culture Ministry’s culture director general .
“When we are [in] this race for more development, I think monuments of world [...] cultural heritage will always remind us that there are more important things than development,” he said in a discussion held in cooperation with UNESCO.
President Jokowi recently announced that the government was fast-tracking the development of five of the 10 priority tourist destinations by the end of 2020, which includes the Borobudur temple, an ancient Buddhist compound that has been designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
Now the government is keen to use the monument’s wide appeal as an asset for diplomacy.
