Eviction a primitive move<\/p>\n
Marco Kusumawijaya, Architect and Urban Planner, Jakarta<\/p>\n
Eviction, if continued, will fail Indonesia on its way to
\nmodernizing the economy, the law and urban development. Behind it
\nis the issue of state failure to organize affordable urban
\nhousing, which involves many modernization issues: land reform,
\nsocial cohesion, good governance, poverty reduction. It is
\ncounterproductive to our efforts in poverty reduction, as it
\nannuls the only accumulated wealth of the urban poor, so
\nimportant for them to take part in the creation of added value.<\/p>\n
It may also drive social anarchy as thousands of people
\nwithout shelter do not know where to go. (Some of them are now
\nstaying at the offices of the National Commission on Human
\nRights). This was part of the conclusions made by 15 noted
\nscholars from different fields in a discussion last week.<\/p>\n
We are deeply concerned, because urban housing is a modern
\nissue, a reflection of our dealing with capitalist transformation
\nthat determines our national success or failure in becoming
\nmodern. Eviction is possible only with a government that is
\nignorant of the fundamental, developmental issues involved.<\/p>\n
There is no housing issue in traditional societies. Everybody
\nhas a home. In many parts of Indonesia, that is still so. Housing
\nis a collective responsibility. It is unthinkable to let a
\ncommunity member wander without shelter. In the villages of South
\nBelu, a district in Indonesian Timor, where I had personal
\ninvolvement many years ago, building a house, as well as major
\nrepairs, are collective rituals. By modern standards, most of the
\nhouses are much better than our urban homes. (Of course, there is
\nno bathroom inside the house, because their way of life does not
\nrequire one.)<\/p>\n
It is therefore not true that housing everybody requires a
\nhigh level of wealth or average income per capita. There are
\nhomeless people in rich countries such as the U.S. and some
\nEuropean countries. There are also success stories among rich
\ncountries, such as Singapore and the Netherlands.<\/p>\n
Poorer countries have had done well in certain periods of
\ntheir history, such as Srilanka about two decades ago, or
\nVenezuela in recent years. Does wealth make it easier? I don't
\nthink so, because rising income and general wealth of a nation
\nwill also raise everything else, including the price of land,
\nwhich is the most fundamental asset for housing. For every level
\nof wealth, there is an equal level of difficulty.<\/p>\n
Among cities in Indonesia, too, there are differences in the
\nrespective capacity (or will?) to house people. The richest,
\nJakarta, is the worst. And it is not true that that is so solely
\ndue to population pressure. Jakarta's average annual rate of
\npopulation growth during the period 1990 to 2000, which was 0.16
\npercent, was the lowest of the larger cities. In the same period
\nSurabaya grew annually at 0.43 percent, Bandung 0.4 percent and
\nMedan 0.9 percent.<\/p>\n
In fact, as Prof. Tommy Firman of the planning school of
\nBandung Institute of Technology shows in his recent study, the
\nsmaller and "poorer" cities are growing at much higher rates. The
\nfact is also that Jakarta's economic growth rate is almost always
\nthe highest among other regions, and above the national average.<\/p>\n
Housing capacity of a society is, therefore, fundamentally a
\nfunction of sound and willing policy to direct and redistribute
\nthe accumulated wealth. It would be unreasonably naive and lazy
\njust to blame population growth and poverty.<\/p>\n
Any sound policy should start by recognizing that urban
\nhousing is a modern problem, meaning that it has to do with our
\nhandling of capitalist transformation. It became an issue when
\nindustrial modernization started in Europe in the late 18th
\ncentury.<\/p>\n
Modernization, in economic terms, means that cities become
\ncenters of growth, where creation of added value is most
\nheightened and intensified, and jobs are therefore relatively
\nmost available compared with the national average, even if they
\nare not so promising. About 70 percent of migrants to Jakarta
\nquote employment opportunity as their motivation. Migrating to
\ncities is therefore an act of claiming a right to the city. And
\nthis right to the city simply means the right to jobs, shelter,
\nand social mobility -- in short, a bite of the added value
\ncreated by the process of development.<\/p>\n
Since housing involves so many other fundamental issues of
\ncapitalist transformation -- land, equity, fair distribution,
\nplanning, urbanization, etc. -- it does establish itself as a
\ntest bed for our national capability in dealing with economic
\nmodernization. It has a long-term impact upon many other
\ndimensions of our national life. Prof. Maria Sumardjono, the
\nrenowned expert on agrarian law, said that the recent evictions
\nshould be used as an entry point to agrarian reform. Studies
\nprepared by the initiators of the meeting also revealed a total
\ninequality with regards to the state's handling of land use,
\nspatial planning and distribution of other resources.<\/p>\n
While the urban poor are evicted from tiny areas of state-
\nowned land that they have occupied for more than 20 years (which
\nmakes them eligible to request tenure over the land), hundreds of
\nhectares of protected mangrove forest are converted to housing
\nthe rich.<\/p>\n
Eviction is primitive because it betrays the people that any
\ngovernment should indeed serve with better solutions, and because
\nit does not solve the fundamental, modern issues that require
\nequally intelligent and sophisticated policy that only a modern
\ngovernment can craft. It raises a nagging question: How could we
\nhave deserved such a primitive government?<\/p>",
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