Controlling land use
Controlling land use
President Soeharto's call for stricter control of the use and
ownership of land is nothing new. Officials, from the President
down to local administrators, have made such calls on many
occasions in the past.
However, the President's strong comments, reported yesterday,
seem to indicate that things must have gone too far, or that
perhaps the problem has become a serious threat to our national
development efforts. Why else would the President issue such
stern warnings?
That the situation is serious and that it warrants our
greatest attention can be understood by anyone who has been
reading the newspapers. For the last several years practically no
day has passed without one report or another appearing in our
newspapers on land disputes. Those cases range from the public's
reactions to appropriation plans to villagers demonstrating
against forcible eviction from their land.
Nobody has the right to own or control excessive amounts of
land, the President said just the other day. True enough. But the
reality is, as one can easily see or read in news reports, that
certain people own hundreds of hectares of land, seemingly
without any fear of being reprimanded by the authorities.
The President said further that the government must plan
things in such a way that all land is used for the welfare of the
entire populace.
There is probably not a soul who would refuse to fully support
President Soeharto's stance. In fact, our Constitution and the
Basic Agrarian Law stipulate these principles clearly.
The problem, however, is that our capability to enforce such
moral and legal principles is often quite poor. And to judge by
the worsening land use and ownership situation in this country,
it is apparent that for some time now we have been suffering from
a lack of genuine will to tackle this problem seriously and with
sincerity.
In the last two decades, since the market economy has become
so dominant in our lives, an apparently unrestrained market-
oriented way of thinking seems to have gradually taken hold of
many of us. Greed and profit making have turned many of us into
economic animals, whose sole purpose is to accumulate wealth with
total disregard for existing laws and moral values.
The result of the gradual, almost unnoticed changes, which our
value system has undergone is easily seen in society. Officials
who stay poor because they prefer to be led by moral principles
and remain incorruptible are considered stupid. In fact, their
behavior is regarded as downright aberrant. Petty corruption is
considered a matter of course.
Thus, if President Soeharto's call for stricter control of
land use can be interpreted as a renewed political will -- and as
an official instruction -- to clean up the mess, the only
sensible thing one can do is to welcome it.
Still, considering the experience gained in past years, one
could surely be excused for taking a wait-and-see attitude. It
just seems natural to want to see how things are going to be
handled.
In any case we do believe that President Soeharto's call is
timely. We believe it is not exaggerating to say that without
proper correction, the greed and the decline in ethics that has
come to pollute the minds of many of us could lead our nation to
the brink of collapse.
It is the duty of all of us to safeguard not only our national
development efforts, but also of our national self respect from
the danger of such moral bankruptcy.