Bandung of today<\/p>\n
After reading the editorial of The Jakarta Post on Oct. 14,
\n1995, I pondered for a while the Post's motive for such profound
\nconcern about the grievous fate of Bandung, since the editorial
\ndubbed the city as No longer (the) Paris of Java. I surmised that
\nthe nostalgia of seeing Bandung preserved as a worthy tourist
\nresort in Jakarta's hinterland must be one apt reason.<\/p>\n
In Dutch times, the inhabitants of Bandung were called
\nBandunger and I happened to be one of them. During both the Dutch
\nperiod and the Japanese occupation, Bandung was a marvel. I
\nremember that the streets were always clean, since the workers
\nswept them every morning and water wagons sprayed away the dust.
\nMy Dutch schoolmates, like Dunki Jacobs and Sven van Rijswijk,
\nare surely witnesses to Bandung's beauty of the time, if they are
\nstill alive somewhere in Holland. To me, Baraga street at that
\ntime looked just like a street in a Dutch town and definitely
\nlooked more radiant than the Ginza street of wartime Tokyo, where
\nI first set foot in 1943.<\/p>\n
Marshall Von Blomberg, ranking fifth in the hierarchy of the
\nHitler regime in pre-war Germany, visited Bandung in 1937 on his
\nhoneymoon. The local Dutch travel agency Bandung Vooruit (Bandung
\nForward) interviewed him at the glamorous clubhouse Concordia
\n(the auditorium of which hosted the famous Afro-Asian Conference
\nof 1955). In response to the question as to how Von Blomberg
\nliked Bandung, his historic answer was: Es ist ein Paradies auf
\nErden (It is a paradise on earth). As Bandung youngsters, we were
\nproud of the town being liked by foreign dignitaries.<\/p>\n
The King of Siam (now Thailand) in the 1930s used to visit as
\nfar as Pengalengan in Southern Bandung.<\/p>\n
Then, in April 1955, Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, a Democrat U.S.
\nCongressman, who confessed of being of Negro descent but looked
\nmore like a Latin American Don Juan, visited Bandung as an
\nobserver of the Bandung Asian-African Conference. Upon returning
\nto Washington, D.C., before a black congregation in a suburban
\nchurch, to which I was invited, the congressman in his sermon was
\nfull of praise for Bandung. Naturally I felt my heart filled with
\npride as I listened to his address.<\/p>\n
Now the city's fate reveals the conditions tersely illustrated
\nin the Post's editorial. To me, the striking passage was the
\nobservation touching on the people's mentality and perception,
\nwhich seems incompatible with the rapid trend of growth in the
\ncity. Such an appraisal hits the point squarely.<\/p>\n
The general opinion is that the responsibility for the present
\nunruly situation and land use lies with the municipality and
\nprefecture bureaucracy.<\/p>\n
Never is too late. We will never budge in our keen hope that
\nBandung's bureaucracy will become aware of the need to save the
\ntraditional charm of the city and its environment, with a view to
\nthe next century, tourism and public welfare.<\/p>\n
It is tragically ironic for Bandung to pride itself with
\nhousing ITB (Bandung Institute of Technology) which generates
\ncity planning graduates. No sign is visible that such planning is
\nworkable under the present bureaucracy. The epithet "City of
\nChaos" given by the Post hurts the heart and mind of Bandunger of
\nbygone days.<\/p>\n
SAM SUHAEDI<\/p>\n
Jakarta<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/bandung-of-today-1447893297", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }