Fitting the village into development

Gerakan Kembali ke Desa (Back to Village Movement) and Antum A'lamu Bi Umuuri Dunyaakum -- Engkau Lebih Tahu Tentang Duniamu (You Know Better About Your World) both by H. Moch. Basofi Soedirman Lembaga Kajian Masyarakat Pedesaan, Surabaya, 1997 232 pages and 302 pages

JAKARTA (JP): It is unusual to find serving government officials writing books or articles in the mass media. Most usually write after they retire from public office, when their opinions no longer matter. Their main contribution is in giving insight into the bureaucracy and its way of thinking.

This makes Basofi Soedirman, the current governor of East Java, rare among his peers. He has been writing for newspaper and magazine columns since he was deputy governor of Jakarta.

Some of his views gathered from press articles have now been compiled into two volumes.

Gerakan Kembali ke Desa (Back to the Village Movement) and Antum A'lamu Bi Umuuri Dunyaakum -- Engkau Lebih Tahu Tentang Duniamu (You Know Better About Your World) are not his first forays into publishing. Three books -- also collected thoughts from articles -- were published previously, and he also wrote Agama dan Eksistensi Manusia (Religion and Human Existence).

Unlike most other officials, Basofi knows full well the power of ink in influencing public opinion. On his motivation to write, the governor once said that he wanted the public to know his policies. By reading his articles, the public would also have a greater sense of control over the bureaucracy, so he believed.

In Gerakan, Basofi discusses the need to move people back to the villages.

His is not proposing a communist type of twisting back time. He argues that there should be some development in rural areas to slow down the process of urbanization.

He backs his proposal with various concepts.

One of them is strengthening village markets to boost the local economy. Markets should be clean and comfortable. A comfortable and functional market place contains cash economies from moving out.

Another concept he has in mind is what he calls "technology to the villages".

He argues that regional universities or research centers should help develop rural areas. Particularly important is the application of appropriate technology.

He also believes that to boost village economies, there is no way other than to inject more capital. This he terms "capital to the villages".

Along with this, he coins the phrase "entrepreneurs to the villages". Both terms refer to a concept of small-scale capitalism.

Basofi however is not proposing a full-blown capitalist system. His next concept of "one village, one product" resembles more a socialist type of concept for rural development.

To maximize their true economic potential, he suggests that each village produce a single product. This, he says, would lead to competition between villages, but not within villages. Concentrating on a single product also means consolidating the territorial divisions of labor, he says.

Basofi's ideas are not new by any means. But they are forceful because they come from a person with authority and in a position to translate them into policies.

Nganjuk, a regency in East Java, has applied some of his concepts. A number of villages, with the encouragement of the regency administration, have been planting shallots and are already reaping the benefits for both farmers and traders.

Basofi's other book, Antum A'lamu Bi Umuuri Dunyaakum, attempts to create a national model of development.

Written in a populist manner, he likens his model with a racing car.

A new car, he argues, would not necessarily be ready for competition in a circuit. There are a lot of other requirements for a car to compete in, let alone win, a race.

These requirements must be fulfilled by society, he argues. The government, he adds, can only do so much.

Both works are clearly not intended to be scholarly. Yet, their contents and references are serious enough to merit attention.

But their strongest selling point remains the author and the insight they give to the governor, who will likely remain in senior government positions for some years to come.

-- Hermawan Sulistyo

The writer is a researcher with the Indonesian Institute of Sciences. He received his PhD. degree from the Scholarly Publishing Program, Arizona State University, United States.