Abandoning a sinking city (#29)
Indonesia's moves to build a new capital city in the jungles of Borneo (yes, really) have been met with criticism and eye-rolls.
Last week, the Indonesian government passed a new law ratifying the creation of a new capital city and finalizing the decision to shift away from the current capital city of Jakarta. The bill’s passage was announced along with the unveiling of the new capital city’s name: Nusantara (pronunciation: NEWS-AHN-TAR-AH). As a born-and-raised Indonesian, believe me when I tell you that it is a pretty name. But, folks, it’s also a terrible choice to name the new capital city after.
If you haven’t heard by now, Jakarta has been slowly sinking. Some say it is the fastest-sinking city in the world since parts of Jakarta are sinking at a rate of 20 cm (or 7.8 inches) every year. Anyone who’s lived in Jakarta can tell you how bad the flooding has gotten over the last decade. Combined with Jakarta’s hellish street traffic, it can trigger absolute chaos during hard rainfalls (I suspect this is also subconsciously why I have a deep dislike for rainy weather). But why the heck is Jakarta sinking in the first place?
Well, long story short, Indonesians inherited a flawed and segregated city water system from our Dutch colonizers, which has led to inequalities in water distribution throughout Jakarta that still exist today (here’s a more in-depth video explainer on this history by Vox if you want to know more about it). The continued extraction of groundwater from under the city is now causing Jakarta to literally sink, prompting this grandiose plan to move Indonesia’s capital somewhere else, preferably someplace that won’t drown under seawater in the next couple of decades.
President Joko Widodo (better known by his nickname Jokowi) had announced plans to kickstart the process of the capital’s relocation in 2019 but—like a lot of things in this world—that plan was stalled when the pandemic hit. However, the idea of relocating the capital city had actually been floated long before Jokowi’s presidency. Former President Sukarno, Indonesia’s founding father and its first president as a unified republic after gaining independence during World War II, had also considered moving the capital from Jakarta to another city in Kalimantan.
[Note: Kalimantan is the Indonesian part of Borneo island, which is divided territorially between Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei.]
Although Sukarno’s plan obviously never materialized, the consideration was that Kalimantan was a “central” island within Indonesia’s massive archipelago, an argument that has become the basis of Jokowi’s own decision to relocate the capital there. If we want to talk about decentralizing things from the overpopulated island of Java, where Jakarta is located, it kind of makes sense—the 2020 Census recorded 152 million people or 56 percent of the country’s population live in Java. By contrast, only 6.15 percent (!!) of Indonesia’s massive population (it is the fourth most populous country in the world, behind China, the U.S., and India) live in Kalimantan even though, geographically, Kalimantan is four times the size of Java. Beyond this argument, Kalimantan is also not as prone to natural disasters such as earthquakes, making it a pretty alluring choice as the new capital site.
Indonesia isn’t the only country that’s gone through the somewhat messy process of relocating its government center to another city, though a lot of these relocations throughout history are complex and less straightforward because history itself is often messy. Russia, for instance, had its capital shift repeatedly between Moscow and St. Petersburg as it moved from a monarchy to the Soviet Union to, finally, a Federation. The U.S. capital moved EIGHT TIMES—mostly due to wartime challenges—before it was finally designated to the District of Columbia. Some countries, believe it or not, even have two capitals today.
But the most comparable example to Indonesia is Brazil, which in the late 1950s moved its capital from the coastal city of Rio de Janeiro to a newly built-from-scratch-in-the-jungle capital city, Brasília. There are so many parallels between Indonesia’s capital relocation plans and Brazil’s that it seems obvious the Indonesian government is trying to emulate what the Brazilians did.
While plans to build the new capital city of Brasília weren’t carried out until the 20th Century, the idea to relocate the country’s capital to a more “central” part of Brazil had first emerged in the 18th Century. According to Architectural Digest, Brazilian revolutionary Joaquim José da Silva Xavier (also known as Tiradentes) was the first to propose the idea in 1789. It took another century before the plan was fully ratified into Brazil’s Constitution and another 65 years before the first physical developments for the relocation were carried out.
The plan for Brasília was to build a forward-thinking, progressive utopia that would represent the country’s futuristic ambitions, and the country did succeed in achieving that goal in some respects. But some say that the reality of the new capital city falls short of its original vision. Notably, in the context of the social fabric, most of Brasília’s population, including those from the lower-income strata, inhabit the 27 satellite towns around it. Only less than 10 percent of its population actually live in the city’s central grid area, underlining disparities that continue in Brazil’s forward-first capital.
Will the same happen to Indonesia’s new shiny capital in Kalimantan? Broadly, Brasília’s original concept is the same as what Indonesian officials have been touting in the creation of Nusantara city. It’s supposed to be a futuristic utopia encompassing the center of government… but also, a high-tech hub of innovation! And cutting-edge medical facilities! Elaborate cultural centers for art! The top-tier of anything and everything! If that sounds confusing, it is.
All of that on top of the poor name choice. Some English-speaking publications have translated the word “nusantara” as “archipelago” but that isn’t really accurate. The word “nusantara” is typically used to refer to the entirety of Indonesia’s large island body as an entity. Naming the new capital city “Nusantara” would be like the U.S. naming a city here “Homeland.” It doesn’t really make much sense.
When I was trying to figure out the reasoning behind the naming—because I truly needed to understand *WHY*—I came across an interesting argument by renowned historian JJ Rizal, who gave another (and maybe more logically sound) reason why the new name, Nusantara, isn’t so great. A long time ago, waaay before Indonesia became the republic it is today, the island territory was made up of kingdoms. The Majapahit Kingdom ruled over much of Java, its neighboring islands and, some historians contend, its territory reached as far as what is modern-day Malaysia. Majapahit was a powerful Southeast Asian empire based in Java, making the island the so-called “center of civilization” to the kingdom’s subjects.
But according to Rizal, during the Majapahit era, the term “nusantara” was used in a derogatory sense to refer to the outer regions beyond Java as inferior; these were considered the boonies, where the “less civilized” lived. As such, Rizal argues, the historical origins of the term “nusantara” embody an elitist Java-centric mindset, which is what the Indonesian government claims it is trying to steer away from by relocating the new capital city to the underdeveloped Kalimantan, to hopefully redistribute the country’s concentrated wealth away from Java. But, alas, why was the new capital city name still taken from a Javanese cultural term when the city itself will be located in Kalimantan, which has more than 100 of its own ethnic languages?
Beyond the city’s convoluted blueprint and odd name, there are environmental concerns. Speaking to the UK’s Times Radio, Indonesian journalist Resty Woro Yuniar, stated there are clear worries about the impact of the capital’s development in Kalimantan where deforestation is already a major issue:
This is also very telling of the current administration that they actually do not care that much about the environment, because a few days after the [Zero] Deforestation Pledge was made in COP26, the Minister of Environment actually tweeted and said that the massive development under President Joko Widodo cannot stop under the Zero Deforestation Pledge. It must go on.
The ratification of the capital’s relocation has been criticized as flawed and rushed, with minimal public engagement or inclusion of expert recommendations in the development plans. Not to mention the development will likely involve private foreign investor funding, which opens up a whole other can of worms. There are rumblings there could be a legal challenge over the government’s planning process to Indonesia’s Supreme Court, though details of that are still scant.
The entire thing is estimated to cost $34 billion (yes, that is in U.S. dollars with a capital B). Indonesia’s Finance Minister Sri Mulyani has said the new capital’s development will be carried out in five separate stages running through 2045, and defended it as part of the government’s plan to spur economic recovery following the pandemic. While the issue of the capital’s sinking certainly needs to be addressed, I don’t think the current pushback will die down anytime soon unless the government adjusts its approach in its planning for the new capital city. There is obviously a lot riding on this relocation—proponents are selling it as a symbol of Indonesia’s progression into the future or whatever—and that is all the more reason why it’s important to make sure that everything is carried out properly. Without strong checks-and-balances mechanisms or public transparency throughout, this dream capital could end up a massive waste of space.
What do you think about Indonesia’s moves to build a futuristic sustainable capital city? Is it a serious endeavor or could it just end up a vanity project? Why are governments like this? Sound off in the post’s comments!
TWEET OF THE WEEK: ON UNEVEN RESTRICTIONS 🎙️
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TTFN,
Natasha