A deluge paralyzed Jakarta because of a drought of reasoning. Enlightenment thinkers believe that every problem has its solution. Our failure to overcome them is due to a thought deficit.
By
Yudi Latif
·5 minutes read
The new city of Batavia was born as a biological child of a spirit of enlightenment. Steven Pinker, in Enlightenment Now (2018), identifies four pillars of the idealism of enlightenment: reasoning, science, humanism and progress. The colonial (transitional) regimes of France and Britain, and later the Netherlands, tried to practice the harmony of enlightenment, with the deficit of humanism, in managing Batavia and its surroundings.
In 1808, Herman Willem Daendels was appointed by Napoleon\'s government to become governor general with the mission of "guarding Batavia from British attack". He left old Batavia in the lowlands of the harbor. He built a new Batavia in the plateau in the south, named Weltevreden (Menteng), meaning "calm satisfying". For the convenience and smoothness of the bureaucracy, the head office of the government was moved to Buitenzorg (Bogor), which was more friendly to European tastes. All of this was an attempt to realize Batavia as the Queen of the East.
The physical development of Batavia and its surroundings was carried out along with the development of its soul. European-style clubs, schools, research institutes, scientific journals, and mass media were growing. The exclusive club -- Harmonie, established in 1815, followed by Concordia (1830) -- became a center for association, information and reading; a European elementary school was established in Menteng in 1817. The Bogor Botanic Garden with related institutes was established in 1817, followed by the Association of Indian Natural Sciences in 1850. Anticipating the growth of Jakarta-Bogor, in 1873 the two cities were connected by the first railway network in the Indies.
Recognizing that Batavia was in the flood-prone lowlands, enlightenment solutions were implemented by building water reservoirs, flood canals, floodgates, while maintaining the spaciousness of watersheds. The work has not yet been completed, occasional floods still occur. However, the spirit of enlightenment can always learn from mistakes and be open to perfection of thought. Therefore, the Dutch government prepared a flood prevention road map in a sustainable manner.
The development of the city fulfilled the shadow of Max Weber (1952), "a place planned for the \'cultured\' and \'rational\' groups." That is made possible by a capable government bureaucracy. The colonial bureaucracy was indeed repressive, but it still strived for the principle of bureaucratic rationality. Weber also required, "In a rational type, it is a principle that bureaucratic staff must be separated from the owners of production equipment and political stakeholders".
Therefore, bureaucracy can be carried out impersonally, free of collusion and nepotism. The colonial government strove for these principles through the establishment of a training center and neat employee recruitment system while being able to separate from the owners of capital even though the service smelled of discrimination.
All of this made Batavia Mooi Indie with a cosmopolitan soul. There, indeed, was a problem and we still inherit its effects. The main problem, as hinted by Clifford Geertz (1965), in the design of the colonial city, was the existence of a gap between the capital-intensive commercial sector in the hands of foreigners and the labor-intensive subsistence sector in the hands of the local population. There was a radical segregation between the economic, social and modern cultural sector and the traditional ones.
The colonial bureaucracy was indeed repressive, but it still strived for the principle of bureaucratic rationality.
Its implication, the phenomenon of "urbanization" is not a process of conversion from village to city, through gradual changes of existing values and institutions, but because of external pressure. That is a precondition that can encourage cultural inequality and shock.
Colonialism passed by leaving a physical footprint, without the continuing idealism of its enlightenment. There is a vacuum because the outward appearance of modernity is imitated without the mastery of its reasoning system. Under the skyscrapers, the mentality of "darkness" stays alive, making the city a concrete jungle without a soul. Housing is built in a modern image with little open spaces. Those who lose are crowded along the riverbanks as a lumpen-proletariat that does not care about the environment. The chaos happened due to violations of the spatial rationality and state administration. Spatial planning is not carried out in a fixed manner. The unitary state is maintained with chaotic rationality.
In a unitary state, power is essentially the authority of the central government, which in its implementation can be delegated to regional governments. As a result, although elected directly by the people, the regional heads are not in a position to challenge and oppose the central government. In reality, a lack of synchronization between the center and the regions increasingly colors the affairs of urban planning of the Reform Order.
Jakarta is rapidly changing from the Queen of the East to a "heterogenic" city, which is full of ambiguity, violence, disintegration, tragedy and anarchy. The culture of citizenship is dwarfed by superficiality and communalism. Bureaucratic rationality is extinguished by weaknesses in the employee-recruitment training system and power ambitions. Meritocracy is broken down by decreasing standards of excellence, collusion and identity politics. This situation is exacerbated by the dominance of the bureaucracy, the control of capital and the interest groups that destroy the design and sustainability of development. When the deluge hits, paralyzing the capital city, that is the reverse flow of the betrayal of the spirit of enlightenment.