Archive for September, 2007
SURABAYA - Kompleks Pemakaman Belanda yang lazim disebut dengan Makam Peneleh di kawasan Undaan segera dipugar. Pemkot berencana merombaknya menjadi kawasan wisata bernilai historis.
Saat ini, dinas kebersihan dan pertamanan (DKP) sedang menggodok konsep wisata di kuburan yang aktivitas pemakamannya sudah vakum sejak 1955 itu. “Konsep desainnya kami lombakan untuk berbagai universitas,” kata Tri Rismaharini, kepala DKP.
Dia menjelaskan, Pemerintah Belanda bekerja sama dengan PBB sudah memberikan sinyal akan mengubah fungsi makam menjadi public space. Sinyal itu disambut DKP dengan merumuskan konsep wisata historis.
Risma menerangkan, makam peninggalan Belanda tersebut kini sudah tidak lagi bisa dijadikan pemakaman. Sebab, makam yang luasnya mencapai 4,5 hektare itu sudah penuh. “Belanda dan PBB ingin merevitalisasi Makam Peneleh. Kami sepakat, perubahan wajah makam itu dilakukan untuk membawa manfaat lebih bagi warga sekitarnya,” paparnya.
Rencana tersebut diperkuat catatan tulisan tangan peninggalan Pemerintah Belanda yang disimpan DKP. Dalam catatan itu disebutkan bahwa tidak semua makam diisi jenazah. Untuk makam yang terisi jenazah, rangka akan dipindahkan ke sebagian tempat. Sebagian tempat yang tidak digunakan itulah yang akan dimanfaatkan.
“PBB juga bersedia mengeluarkan dana untuk menghubungi ahli waris dari makam-makam yang sudah terisi. Mereka sangat mendukung,” jelasnya.
Mungkin, makam itu akan dipugar dengan penambahan taman, sudut-sudut penjualan suvenir hasil usaha warga, arena jalan-jalan, dan perlengkapan rekreasi pasif lainnya, seperti tempat duduk. “Paling tidak, dengan rencana pemugaran tersebut, kondisi makam bisa lebih terawat. Saya yakin, keluarga penghuni makam juga menyambut baik langkah itu,” terang Risma. (ode)
Source: Jawa Pos
September 10th, 2007
SURABAYA: Lydia Kleven, an archaeologist from Koln University, Germany, said Tuesday at a seminar in Surabaya she was doing her thesis on the Panji stories of East Java.
The stories date back to the Majapahit kingdom era.
“I’m very much interested in the Panji stories because the characters have uniquely East Javanese traits and are not influenced by either the West Javanese or Indian styles. In fact, in those days, Indonesian culture was heavily influenced by Indian culture,” she said.
Kleven said she first got to know the Panji stories in 1996, while on a visit to Kendalisodo Temple, which is situated on the slopes of Mount Penanggungan. She saw in the reliefs of the temple that the main character, Panji, was wearing headgear. This depiction, she added, had also been found in a number of other temples in East Java.
“It seems that during the times of the Majapahit kingdom wearing headgear was the prevailing trend, not only among the nobility but also among commoners. The same is true of the accessories worn by a number of characters in these stories. They are unique and cannot be found in other temples outside East Java,” she said.
The Panji stories of love and heroism spread following the expansion of the kingdom’s power to other countries in Southeast Asia. –JP/Indra Harsaputra
Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/
September 10th, 2007
Indra Harsaputra, The Jakarta Post, Surabaya
Yuyung Abdi, 38, a photographer for Jawa Pos daily, launched early this week a book chronicling life in the brothels of Indonesia, Singapore and Las Vegas, the U.S.
Sex For Sale: A Factual Portrait of Prostitutes in 37 Cities in Indonesia was conceived with the aim of heightening the government’s interest in sex workers’ problems.
Scattered throughout the 248-page book, published by Jawa Pos Books, are short descriptions about the subjects and their experiences, providing a unique perspective on the examination of sex workers’ lives.
A selection of Yuyung’s photographs are also on display at Royal Plaza Surabaya until Sept. 7.
On the sidelines of the exhibition early this week, Yuyung described the atmosphere in the town of Geylang in Singapore.
It was late afternoon, and several pimps were advertising to men the availability of female sex workers.
“Thai girl, Thai girl, do you want?” said a pimp in one of Geylang’s alleys.
The sex workers found in Geylang generally come from the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, India, Indonesia and mainland China. They charge between US$30 and $40 an hour. Depending on the client’s negotiating skills, the rate could be inclusive of a room charge of $10.
Although their rate is in U.S. dollars, many of the sex workers in Geylang cannot speak English and resort to gestures in communicating with clients.
Sex workers, Yuyung said, had various ways of getting more money from their clients than the agreed sum. For example, they might get a friend to call their cell phone late at night but tell their client it was their mother ringing with bad news — sickness, an injury or the death of a family member — and beg for “understanding”.
“Don’t be surprised if you end up paying $250 — much more than you settled on. Sex workers use the same tricks the world over,” Yuyung said.
Just like in Singapore and the U.S., prostitution is illegal in Indonesia. Still, sex work remains a significant industry here.
The economic contribution of Dolly — a 500-meter-long alley in Girilaya, Surabaya, that is one of Southeast Asia’s most famous red-light districts — is estimated to be Rp 500 million a day.
The money allegedly circulates not only among the sex workers and their pimps, but also among members of the District Leadership Assembly (Muspika), which comprises neighborhood and subdistrict units as well as district police units and military commands.
Although not all members of Muspika have agreed to accept the money, some Rp 504 million goes to Muspika every year.
More money is generated from parking, beauty parlors and laundry services.
In the Tretes red-light district in East Java, many locals have stopped farming, becoming guides instead. They get a commission of 20 percent of the rate set by a sex worker for finding her a client. Their average income is reportedly about Rp 6 million (US$667). Ojek drivers in the area often ferry sex workers back and forward between the red-light area and villas and hotels.
Sometimes the money goes to people’s heads. Once, a father “sold” his underaged daughter to a pimp in Dolly for Rp 5 million.
Many women and children doing sex work in the country come from its poorest regions. There are three main routes of women trafficking: First, the Western route, mostly from West Java, particularly Indramayu. Women and girls from these places are often taken to Batam, Jakarta, Lampung, Palembang, Bengkulu, Riau, Jambi and Medan.
Second, the middle route, mostly from Central Java. Women and girls from these places are usually flown to Pontianak, Sampit, Palangkaraya, Samarinda or Balikpapan.
The last route is the Eastern route, where Surabaya plays a pivotal role as a transit city for women from South Malang, Banyuwangi, Blitar and Jember. They will be sent to work in Makassar, Ambon, Tual (Aru Islands) and Papua.
“In my experience, it is easy to obtain pictures of commercial sex workers from West Java than those from East Java. This is rather strange since West Java people are more religious than East Java people who are known as abangan,” Yuyung said. (Abangan is an Indonesian term used for people who are nominally Muslims but still adhere to pre-Muslim beliefs.)
To take his photos, Yuyung employed the help of more than 150 people. They played a variety of roles, including introducing him to the sex workers.
Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/
September 7th, 2007
Duncan Graham, Contributor, Malang
In July, a mob of Muslim radicals reportedly forced the cancellation of an international religious gathering at the Karmel Valley Catholic retreat in West Java. There is a similar retreat in East Java based in a Muslim area. But in this case interfaith relationships are said to be good. The Jakarta Post’s contributor Duncan Graham reports from , East Java:
There are about 6,000 households in the village of Puhsarang on the slopes of Mount Klotak. Around 20 percent are Catholic and another 5 percent Protestant. That is a significant number because nationally Muslims are supposed to form almost 90 percent of the population.
Worshippers who go to the monthly midnight services held on the eve of hari jumat legi (Friday in the Javanese calendar), certainly are not short of prayer room, though hundreds of outsiders normally pour into the area. At Easter, 17,000 people turned up — many staying overnight in the hotels and guesthouses that cater for the influx. There is also a campground. For Puhsarang is a sacred place for Catholics with 14 hectares of statuary, chapels, a grotto of Our Lady, graveyards, a cave, water gushing from a rock, a columbarium and a mausoleum — the only one in East Java.
Here the bones of bishops and many priests lie close to the ashes of people who have chosen to be cremated and remembered in this lovely place.
Sounds a bit like Lourdes, the town in the French Pyrenees where five million pilgrims come every year seeking cures? You are not wrong. Much has been done to replicate that famous attraction, including several sets of paintings donated by the French.
Puhsarang has yet to produce a Bernadette Soubirous. She was the teenager who claimed to have been visited by the Virgin Mary several times in the mid 19th century and turned Lourdes from a place of no importance to a center of faith and healing. (The sesquicentenary is next year.)
Puhsarang may not have a visionary, but it does have what the locals call “holy water”. Like Moses you can smite a rock wall alongside the grotto, and out it gushes.
The cautious and concerned, who know that to keep your stomach intact you do not drink from taps or springs in Indonesia, may be wary of sipping. Fear not — it has already been sterilized by ultra-violet light. Faith is fine, but in matters of hygiene even the devout trust in technology.
Local religious teacher Maria Magdalena Kasri Evayanti said the pilgrims came from many parts of the archipelago and were mainly ascetics seeking a spiritual experience.
“We follow the Javanese calendar because this fits in with the Catholic tradition,” she said. “Though no miracles have been officially authenticated, many people say they’ve been cured of sickness after using the water.”
Inevitably Puhsarang has become a tourist spot, and the deputy head of security Jacobus Sugeng knows immediately the religion of visitors without even asking, not that he makes such personal inquiries.
“Muslims come to picnic and enjoy the surroundings,” he said. “They pay no attention to anything else. The Protestants look at some of the holy objects though not too seriously. “Only Catholics show reverence, take bottles of water, pray in public and know which way to follow the Stations of the Cross.” These are 15 sets of gold-colored statues on a long walk through the landscaped gardens showing the traditional story of Jesus’ progress from condemnation through crucifixion to ascension. Curiously it’s the final empty cave with no statues that has the most emotional impact, not the figures in frozen poses at the other 14 locations.
Each figure cost Rp 5 million (US $560) and the artists were all Muslim, according to Jacobus. Five of his 16 staff are Muslims and Muslims run many of the food and souvenir stalls that line the walkway into the complex.
So do not assume because someone is offering you a plaster saint or an illuminated missal he or she is an adherent to the Church of Rome.
There has been plenty of strife between Christians and Muslims in South Sulawesi, Ambon — and more recently in West Java. But Puhsarang has escaped sectarian violence — probably because it’s open to all faiths and supports so many non-Catholic households. Puhsarang is promoted by East Java tourist authorities who are particularly proud of what they call the antik church. Although this translates as antique it can also mean eccentric. This is more accurate because the building is only 70 years old and was extensively rebuilt in 1999 in a most curious and imaginative style.
If you are not a Catholic and find much religious art to be kitsch you may be put off from a visit to Puhsarang. That would be a mistake because the architecture and engineering of the church and adjacent buildings are well worth the trip.
For the huge roofs are unsupported by multiple uprights, beams, bearers or cross members. Instead at each corner are big steel pillars leaning back to take the weight of tons of terracotta tiles.
They do this through thin steel rods that replace wooden slats, the standard way to carry the weight of tiles. The design is known as wireframe, and it’s impressive. The rods sag between supports giving the roof a dished appearance, as though the whole structure is about to cave in. This is supposed to resemble the style of the Majapahit era, the Javanese kingdom that ruled this area 700 years ago. Some of the terracotta tiles have been replaced with glass in the shape of a cross, creating a powerful image using natural light. Elsewhere the walls and pathways have been made of river-rolled stones. A bit uncomfortable underfoot, so wear stout shoes.
(Pohsarang is about two and a half road-hours southwest of Surabaya. The route is far from the Lapindo mud volcano. To book accommodation e-mail lkd-ris@indo.net.id)
Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/
September 7th, 2007
Duncan Graham, Contributor, Malang, East Java
For Malang lawyer Sunu Setyonugroho, who has a deep and irrational fear of heights, there’s only one cure.
He goes halfway up Mount Banyak at Songgoriti, Batu, East Java. He stands 1,300 meters above sea level, quivering on the edge of a sheer drop, far above a lovely patchwork landscape of tilled fields and ocher-roofed hamlets.
Then he runs and jumps.
Don’t try this unless you’re attached to a filigree of hair-thin cables connected to an airfoil, a long billowing pillow of polyester called a wing. It’s also useful to have a good understanding of air currents, weather patterns, thermals and cold fronts.
Useful? Wrong word. Essential? Absolutely.
Then you can just sit back in your harness on Cloud Nine for an hour or more, salivate over the view and contemplate the majesty of the universe as you pity the ant-people busy hundreds of meters below.
The only noise is the air slipping through the wing that you can steer with a gentle tug on the cables.
Eventually we all have to come down to earth. If you’re really skilled and don’t get caught by a sudden gust, you can glide precisely into the center of a 10-meter diameter circle at the landing field.
If you’re not then you can vanish into a patch of high-stalk corn or tumble into an irrigation ditch.
Only a couple of contestants at the Batu Open Paragliding international event staged in late July came a cropper. These mishaps garnered giggles, though no one sought the farmers’ opinions.
Most pilots, like the Malaysian team of five — including two women, for this is a unisex sport — managed to get impressively close to the target.
They neatly dodged the onlookers who cluttered the field, indifferent to the possibility of getting a head kicking by a pilot coming in too fast.
Although the paragliders seem serious about safety, wearing all the right protective gear so they look like First World War bi-plane fighter pilots, it’s the adrenalin rush that keeps the contestants coming.
Retired Malaysian commando Basit Bin Abdul Rahman, 56, can no longer get his kicks from a Kalashnikov so he wanders the world looking for the best launch spots.
“Peninsular Malaysia is too flat and there are too many trees in Sarawak,” he said. “I’ve paraglided in South Korea and Taiwan and at Lake Toba in Sumatra, but this site in Batu is very good.
“If not careful, paragliding can be dangerous. But if you’re mentally and physically fit and know what you’re doing, then it gives great peace of mind. You can forget your problems up there.”
Individualists, brought together
At 13 Nur S B Sahar seemed too young to have problems, but being a teenager has its own traumas. She also said paragliding helped her to get a better perspective on the world, both literally and metaphorically.
“I crashed once coming in to land and bruised my leg,” she said. “My parents support me, but worry and urge me to be careful. This is my third competition.”
Paragliding looks elite because you can spend around Rp 20 million (US$2,200) or more on the gear. Then come the training expenses, for this activity is well regulated; you can’t just fling yourself into the yonder unless you intend making an exit statement.
Radio contact with the support staff who control the field has to be maintained. It costs around Rp 200,000 a session to fly tandem with an instructor. Allow 10 days for training to a basic proficiency level.
In Batu, the local government has been smart enough to realize the tourist potential of their topography. The 3,000 square meter landing field, the paved road to the jump site and a shelter have all been paid for by the city administration.
Like nature and a vacuum, bureaucrats abhor silence. This led them to install a huge sound system at the event, blasting totally forgettable “music” across the landscape. They couldn’t understand that paragliders are nature lovers seeking to be at one with the environment.
On the positive side, a dozen little lads had been trained to expertly fold the wings for Rp 1,000 each, leaving contestants free to unzip, unwind and find their feet.
Although the winged ones from across the world who come to Mount Banyak are high-fliers, that doesn’t mean they’re big-spenders. At night they prefer to bunk down in low-budget hotels where they can swap yarns about up-draughts and down winds.
There’s a camaraderie about paragliding that brings disparate folk together. Like serious surfers, they tend to be individualists, mostly professionals, in search of a special and exhilarating experience.
They travel with a purpose and like to test themselves. When they’re really in their element, their souls also soar.
In the air they are all grace; on the ground with a 15-kilogram wing packed on their back they look like biped turtles. With a GPS (global positioning system) in their pocket they know where they are by latitude and longitude, rather than through political geography. Add a passport and credit card and the quest for freedom is under way.
Dwi Rubingi discovered paragliding in 1999 when he worked in New Zealand where extreme sports are popular. When he returned to East Java he had enough money to build a motel close to Mount Banyak, hoping paragliders would drop in.
“This is a great site because you can go out almost every day,” he said. “In NZ we could fly on only three months every year.
“Wind speeds are checked before taking off. If it gets stronger than 20 kilometers an hour you could find yourself going backwards.
“The best paragliders tend to be the French, though the Chinese are also very good. In places without high mountains paragliders add lightweight motor-driven propellers to their gear to the distress of the purists.
“The world record of covering 426 kilometers was achieved in South Africa. (The Indonesian straight distance record is 44.5 kilometers, set in Wonogiri, Central Java.)
“The sport is probably most developed in South Korea where much of the gear is now made using new high-tech materials.”
The 30-square meter crescent-shaped wings aren’t parachutes. On the leading edge is a honeycomb of cells that fill with air and provide the lift.
Anything less than 20 kilometers an hour and you could stall, anything more than 60 and you’re really moving. The safest maximum height is 3,000 meters, though going higher and faster is part of the game.
Finally, what about our vertigo-challenged lawyer who introduced this story? Sunu says he has no problems paragliding but still doesn’t like standing on the edge of high buildings.
Well, not without his wing.
Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/
September 6th, 2007
SURABAYA - Cerita Panji adalah salah satu ikon budaya Jawa Timur yang diyakini mulai tumbuh pada saat kerajaan Majapahit (13 M) berkuasa di Nusantara. Kisah percintaan dan kepahlawanan ini menyebar bersamaan dengan meluasnya kekuasaan Majapahit ke negara-negara di Asia Tenggara.
Kisah itu ternyata juga menarik minat Lydia Kieven, seorang arkeolog dari Jerman untuk menjadikannya bahan penelitian tesis doktoralnya di Universitas Koln. Hal itu diungkapkan Kieven saat seminar Tata Busana Budaya Panji di House of Sampoerna kemarin (4/9).
“Tokoh Panji memiliki karakter yang sangat menarik, khas Jawa Timur. Tidak bergaya Jawa Barat, atau pun India. Padahal saat itu, kebudayaan Nusantara sangat dipengaruhi kultur India,” tuturnya lancar dalam bahasa Indonesia.
Kieven pertama kali melihat tokoh Panji ketika dia mengamati relief Candi Kendalisodo yang terletak di lereng gunung Penanggungan pada 1996. Hal pertama yang membuat dia tertarik adalah penutup kepala yang dikenakan oleh tokoh Panji. Dan, ternyata, di beberapa candi lain, khususnya di Jawa Timur, Kieven juga mengamati tokoh dengan penutup kepala yang diidentifikasikan sebagai Panji.
Kieven menuturkan, pada relief-relief yang dilihatnya, penutup kepala tidak hanya dikenakan oleh Panji yang berasal dari kalangan bangsawan. Tapi, beragam kalangan juga memakai penutup kepala. Gaya berbusana Panji, menurutnya, adalah mode pakaian yang diusung oleh orang-orang zaman tersebut.
“Pada zaman Majapahit, sepertinya penutup kepala adalah sebuah tren berbusana, di samping aksesori-aksesori yang dikenakan oleh orang-orang pada masa itu,” ungkap Kieven.
Usai seminar, para peserta yang datang dari beberapa sekolah desain di Surabaya, seperti Susan Budihardjo, La Salle College, dan Arfa, serta dari Jurusan Tata busana Unesa, dan Seni Rupa Unesa itu diminta membuat sketsa tata busana yang inspirasinya didasarkan dari tren busana orang-orang pada masa Majapahit. “Semoga dengan ini generasi muda Indonesia dapat lebih mengapresiasi budaya Indonesia sendiri, daripada berkiblat ke kepada budaya barat,” harap Kieven. (nar)
Source: http://www.jawapos.co.id/
September 5th, 2007
Surabaya, E Java (ANTARA News) - The East Java branch of state-owned forestry company Perum Perhutani is making systemstic efforts to obtain ecolabel certicates for its products, a spokesman said.
“We want to win international recognition that our products come from forests managed in sustainable ways,” Nurgundi, spokesman of East Java`s Perhutani Unit II, said here Friday.
The company had therefore assigned its North Banyuwangi and Madiun forest management units to strive to obtain the ecolabel certificates this year, Murgundi said.
The two units were already implementing international sustainable forest management principles as stipulated by the Forest Stewardship Council and therefore had a good chance of acquiring the ecolabel certificates, he said.
Accordingly, the company`s Ecolabel Working Group and the World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF) had made an evaluation of the efforts to acquire the ecolabel certificates.
Perhutani would also encourage its Saradan and Bojonegoro forest management units to obtain the certificate in 2008 and its Jatiroto forest management unit in 2009.
“Eventually, all of our forest management units in East Java will have to strive to obtain ecolabel certificates by 2015,” Murgundi said.(*)
Source: http://www.antara.co.id/en/
September 4th, 2007
Duncan Graham, Contributor, Kaliandra, East Java
It has to be one of East Java’s most extraordinary sights: After hairpinning up and down serpentine lanes on the flanks of Mount Arjuno, through tiny villages and thick forest — to come across a 5,000-square-meter palatial Italian-style mansion.
Finding Villa Leduk is a bit tricky. This multi-columned celebration of the Renaissance, looking like the ultimate in standout opulence, is the rural estate of Jakarta architect and designer Bagoes Brotodiwirjo.
But it’s tucked away behind a conservation and education center that’s also part of his grand design.
The Kaliandra Sejati Foundation that Bagoes chairs is a collection of Javanese bungalows set into the contours of the mountain slopes. Many have been built in the pre-European wayno mortar between the flat red bricks, shuttered windows, carved teak furniture and fittings, and terracotta tiles.
Verdigris verandah posts; ocher walls and green swing doors; shade and cool breezes — it’s a place for contemplation.
Although constructed only a decade ago, the cottages look centuries old. The only giveaways are flush toilets and electric lights.
It would be difficult to find a starker contrast with the big Tuscany-in-the-Tropics palace next door.
Within the foundation’s complex are restaurants, high-roofed meeting halls, richly manicured (but seldom geometric) gardens, riverlets and ponds.
Gamelan music (there are three sets of instruments) slips through the drooping branches, the rain splashing in tune off the glossy leaves.
Kaliandra will be a principal location for the five-day Panji Festival scheduled for the first week in September, just before the start of the fasting month of Ramadhan.
The Panji stories date back 700 years to the Majapahit era and have influenced many aspects of Javanese culture, including the way crops are grown and harvested, forests maintained, sickness cured and relationships organized (see sidebar).
The Panji festival is an international initiative. It started in August 2004 with a meeting at the French Cultural Center in Surabaya. Present was East Java activist and educator Suryo Prawiroatmodjo and Javanese arts scholar Lydia Kieven. Originally from Germany, she’s currently in Australia studying for a doctorate.
Artist Suprapto Suryadarma was another key participant. He’s a spiritual dancer and wayang choreographer from the Padepokan (art center) Lemah Putih in Solo, famous for having developed a Wayang Buddha performance.
Others at the original meeting included traditional and contemporary artists, farmers, doctors and educators. All agreed that Panji culture could help recover local identity and counter globalization.
The committee has now been joined by Agus Tinus, a lecturer in tourism at Surabaya’s Petra University, and puppetmaster and choreographer M Soleh Adi Pramono. He’s based at Tumpang, a village outside Malang.
With such a diverse and dispersed group it’s no surprise that the ambition to stage a festival has taken longer to achieve than first expected. Sponsors have been found and the show will at last hit the road. Or in this case, the mountain.
Apart from theater, the idea is to recall the Panji cultural practices in land husbandry, batik design, architecture, music, medicine (through the use of herbs) and food.
Organizers hope the past can teach the present much about conservation and living in harmony with nature.
Another expectation is that the festival will boost pride in the history of Java before the 1945 proclamation of the Republic, the point where much official teaching starts.
Activities have expanded to include an international seminar on Local Wisdom from the Panji Era at Merdeka University in Malang (on Sept. 5 and 6), theater at Soleh’s Mangun Dharmo arts center and land care studies at Kaliandra.
The name refers to a clever American acacia-like tree (Caliandra calothyrsus); it’s smart because it can fix nitrogen in the soil and — unlike many foreigners — is happy in humidity.
At 850 meters above sea level Kaliandra is a top location,and not just because of the elevation. It can accommodate 120 people and is billed as a center for studying the environment, culture and community development. Last year 20,000 visited, mainly school and university students.
Because the area is so well watered the statuary and buildings have been draped in a patina that disguises age. Are the Majapahit images squatting in the foliage priceless relics from a millennium ago, or concrete copies from an antiques-while-you-wait workshop?
If the design is the same does it matter whether it has been chiseled by an iron adze or an electric-powered angle grinder?
“This is an ideal clean and relatively unspoiled location for festival participants to learn about our culture and study East Java flora and fauna,” said Suryo.
Seventeen years ago the former veterinary surgeon established Indonesia’s first outdoor environmental education center at the nearby village of Seloliman.
“Panji isn’t just about mask dancing. It represents a way of life that includes recognizing local wisdoms and respecting nature.
“In the past, rural people understood the importance of working within the cycle of nature. Now, clear felling of forests, locating noxious industries in farm areas, and land and river pollution by chemicals and waste are upsetting the balance and killing the environment.
“Through this festival, and the young people who will participate, we’ll be able to reinforce the need to care for our resources, reforest for the future and reconnect with nature. This is everyone’s responsibility.”
Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/
September 3rd, 2007
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Hundreds of vintage car fans kicked off a weeklong rally Saturday along the historic 1,000 kilometer road connecting the westernmost and the easternmost parts of Java island.
The rally is to remember the building of the road in 1808. During the construction of the road, it is claimed that at least 30,000 people died of starvation and overwork.
The rally, which runs from Sept. 1 to 8, and is being participated in by 85 vintage cars and more than 250 passengers, will travel along the 2,500 kilometers from Anyer in Banten to Panarukan in East Java.
The 1,000 kilometer road from Anyer to Panarukan, known as “Jalan Raya Pos” (De Groote Postweg), or the Great Post Road, was constructed at the command of Netherlands Indies Governor General Willem Herman Daendles in 1808.
The construction of the road finished in 1810.
“Many people died during the building of the road. They are the heroes who laid the foundations for our development,” said the chairman of the Indonesian Vintage Car Association (PPMKI), Bambang Rus Effendi, at the kickoff ceremony at the State Ministry for Youth and Sports Affairs.
“We hope this rally will help us appreciate what our forefathers did for the people of today.”
Participating in the rally were cars produced in the 1920s, such as a 1928 Ford A, a 1927 Chevy Truck, a Chevrolet Bel Ai, and a Fiat from the 1950s.
Two cars that belonged to first president Sukarno — a 1947 Chrysler Windsor and a 1963 Imperial — also took part in the event. The cars respectively belong to Hartawan Setjodinigrat and Budiono Widodo.
Hartawan, chairman of the rally’s organizing committee, said the rally was the 27th to be held since the Indonesian Vintage Car Association had been established in 1979.
The committee had laid on everything regarding accommodation, car service and participants’ healthcare.
“We have prepared everything, but have focused mostly on engines as these cars are old,” said Hartawan.
Along the rally route, the participants will visit many heritage sites — legacies of the Netherlands Indies — including a lighthouse in Anyer that was designated by Daendels as the starting point for the road’s construction in 1808.
One of the PPMKI’s founders, Solihin GP, who is a former West Java governor said that “We want to teach the nation that we can be proud of old objects. We can travel everywhere around the country so as to enjoy our rich nature and culture.”
“We also want to teach the young generation to take risks to achieve their goals so they do not misuse the independence that we have gained with blood,” said Solihin, who is also a retired Army general. (02)
Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/
September 3rd, 2007
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