Vulnerability of Residents’ Living Space in Villages and Cities

In early April 1986, a protest over the government’s decision that would evict villages along the riverbank of Code River resonated surprisingly throughout the country. Romo Mangun who led a protest backed by intellectuals, humanists, artists, students and NGO activists, denied the reasons of the government officials and technocrats who believe that the eviction is the only way to save population from the danger of flooding and the need to beautify the city with recreational parks (Khudori, 2002).

Urban settlements, especially those regarded as pockets of poverty, often become the target of agrarian and spatial policy unilaterally. In the name of development, talks about the world of human beings who have unity relation to nature is rarely taken into account. The success and modernity of a city is measured from the number of construction of hotels, malls and various restorants as tourist attraction.

Not much different approach is also attached to the development of rural areas. Investment attraction seemed to be the only important factor that must be taken into account in spatial plans. No matter there is power of agricultural production eroded due to the “development” requires changes in land use. Also, do not care about the fact that the noise of the “development” is not leaving prosperity for life in the village, except the latent conflict among residents, that partly shift their profession into land brokers. A portrait of a pluralistic model of spatial planning and rural development which ignores the existence of the people who inhabit the region.

Sheet of layout plan which comes suddenly before the residents is less meaningful because it is far from the knowledge, speech of everyday experience, and the inner experience of citizens to the land they occupy, the land they cultivate, the river water they use, and the air they breathe. It is normal if later we still ask “for whose interest is this plan?”. The question was once really shouted by civil society when the New Order implemented development model that biassed to elite interests and the “rich”. And after nearly two decades of post-New Order is overthrown, we should have re-examined what is the contribution of the open space of freedom in gaining information and of democratic achievement today on the sustainability of residents’ living space in town and village? Are transparency and accountability of government bureaucracy giving meaning to the residents to defend their barns of life? Then how big will the guarantee of protection obtained by the residents after they have shared political participation? Before answering these questions it is necessary to explore the extent to which policy-making process takes place and the extent to which civil society is involved in the affairs of their living space zoning changes.

History of democracy and prosperity fulfillment in this country have been recording from time to time that the defense of civil society to their barns of life is a reaction of being “fed-up” on the collusion between the state and economic power owned by the investors. Therein we get a hint that reason to seek justice always works in every inequality of development. Learning from the challenges of the civil society movement led by Romo Mangun in defending against injustice that afflicts residents of urban village in Code riverbanks, indicating that the collective experience of a group of residents are often not easily understood by the outsiders. This issue is a classic, but it proves that speech of inner experience of residents is not easy to be described and understood. It is not even easy to find consensus within the membership of the residents themselves. Articulation of interests is never a single, the power structure always colors every residents communities, wherever they are located. Code villages in Yogyakarta, Dlimas village in Klaten, and Ciburial village in Bandung Regency are just small portraits to illustrate the complexities of contestation between cultural social capital owned by communities of residents with the economic interests behind them. Understanding the speech of villagers and the village is a prerequisite before we stand for giving support. Because in the end we defend not only spatially, but humans who inhabit it, those who live in unity with their space. (Ranggoaini Jahja)