TROWULAN OH TROWULAN

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The Indonesian heritage network is being fired lately by a case of Trowulan. The government body wanted to build the "Majapahit Information Centre" on the archeological site in Trowulan, Mojokerto, East Java. (For the masterplan of this Centre take a look at the above source)
The intention is good but most people thought that the logic behind the plan is ridiculous. The intention is to spread awareness about history of Majapahit Kingdom but if it is built on the site then some historical values will diminish. It is against the principle of conservation.

The Indonesia Heritage Trust tried to 'remind' the Dept. of Culture and Tourism, Directorate General of History and Archaelogy, about the mistake. In cooperation with the largest national newspaper, Kompas, the reminding seemed effective and heard. The project is temporarily stopped and nowadays several meetings are organized in Jakarta amongst various stakeholders. To follow all the discussions and opinions about this issue is very interesting. In one hand, all loud voices gave me an optimism that many people care and understand the importance of heritage conservation. On the other hand, the watchdog group is always noisy when something wrong happen with heritage conservation. It never happen that a plan is approved by all stakeholders in advance, through exchanging thoughts and expertises. This shows that coordination and cooperation hardly exist and maybe an utopia to expect this to happen but again, why in other places outside Indonesia they are possible to implement? It takes ages probably but saves all headaches and worse situation in a long run.

Since the government agency has an authority to initiate an action, I think it is time to realise for them that community movements in Indonesia is getting stronger. The community is more enlighted and responsible about their life. The government can not afford to neglect opinions of the community sector. Sometimes I get an impression of arrogancy from authority if they are already backed up by capital holders (private sector) and then as if it is not important anymore to ask what the community's aspirations. Well, development is for the community, isn't it? Community can not be use simply as justification in a masterplan draft. It is time to communicate.

(Up-date per 15 January 2009) I got news from Indonesia that finally the Minister of Culture, Jero Wacik, has asked his staff to stop the development of the Information Centre and later will move it to other place. This happened after involvement of national newspaper & a lot of input from different sectors. Well done.

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