internet only will further facilitate supervision panoptikon in every aspect of human life, and no more then a trendy tool of life, in other word they tend to be pessimistic.
In the context of democracy and democratization, the optimistic view argues that the presence of technology is able to solve the problem of participation. ICT including social-
network based media such as Facebook is often seen capable to facilitate the involvement of the citizens by reducing the communication
difficulties. It‟s said to be able to to transform the political system or policy. While the pessimistic view sees it from the opposite side, they assume
that the transformation in the society will lead to the social fragmentation and isolation, which can cause the deterioration of democracy.
18
Issue and this debate might have no way out, because ICT still continue to evolve after all and we have to accept its influence. However, the role and the benefit of those innovations of
technology must be evaluated and critize. That is why we need to look at how this kind of technology used, especially in socio-political area. The following section of this paper will
discuss the use of Facebook for social and political activities of Community Forum for Heritage Building Preservation Indonesian: Forped BCB in Salatiga
D. Story of Forped BCB and The Use of Facebook
19
Salatiga is a town in Central Java province with less than 200.000 inhabitants. The town is located next to Semarang regency. Salatiga is located 49 km on the South side of Semarang
City or 52 km on the North side of Surakarta, and is on the road that connects Semarang- Surakarta. Salatiga consists of four districts such as Argomulyo, Tingkir, Sidomukti, and
Sidorejo. The town is on the East side of Merbabu Mountain, and it makes the town used to have cool weather.
20
In this relatively small town, there is a building that used to be a Head Quarters of District Military Command
Kodim
0714 Salatiga
21
, then the office was moved because the owner of the building would like to change the function of the building the owner is a private
company.
22
Thus, the building was abandoned. It is vacant and unoccupied now. In fact, it was a building of Blommstein Hotel on 100 years ago. A history practitioner and writer: Eddy
Supangkat recorded in
Salatiga: Sketsa Kota Lama
2007 that Blommstein was one of three hotels in Salatiga during Dutch colonialism. Blommtein supposedly existed before the town was
established in June 1917 as a Municipal
Kotapraja gemeente
which led by a mayor. Blommstein is a hotel with Dutch architectur, which was accesible not only by white people
Kompas
, 31122009. Community Forum for Heritage Building Preservation Forped BCB has been
established from a discussion on the existence of the building. If we refer to the Law.No.51992 about
Benda Cagar Budaya
Cultural Heritage Objects.
,
the building was included in a category of cultural heritage building. The meeting was held after some people of Salatiga read news
18
The debate is discussed further by Lim, in Lim, 2005, particulary on the chapter II
19
In this section, besides our own involvement in Forped BCB, we also want to thank Yodie Hardiyan, Nick Wiratmoko, dan Yakub Adi Krisanto for their helps. They was willing to be interviewed and gave many materials
they had. These three people were the motor as well as the initiator of Forped BCB.
20
See, Profil Daerah Kota Salatiga
, last accesed August 30
th
2011
21
Kodim is the abbreviation of
Komando Distrik Militer
, also see, Komando Distrik Militer at Wikipedia
, last accesed August 30
th
2011
22
See, Tanah Markas Kodim Salatiga Diminta Pemiliknya
~ Suara Merdeka, January 8
th
2007
written by a journalist from one of famous newspapers in Indonesia Antony Lee from Kompas Central Java desk. The news at that time highlighted the demolition of the building, and has a
status of Cultural Heritage building which is going to be functioned as a mall shopping center.
23
Then on January 6
th
2010, a student of Satya Wacana Christian University Yodie Hardiyan, he is now a journalist of Harian Jogja took an inisiative to ask some other friends to
conduct a discussion about the reconstruction of the building. On the first meeting in Kampoeng Percik
24
11012010, it was attended by 11 people from some elements of the community. There were lecturers including us, students, journalists,
NGO activists, common people, and a history practitioner of Salatiga: Eddy Supangkat who was appointed to be the coordinator of Forped BCB then.
The reason to establish a Forped BCB movement was triggered by the indignation against the government of Salatiga. It was because the government did omission toward the decisions
taken by businessmen, who would like to demolish the building and change it into a mall. Further, there is even an issue that the government has given them a permission to do that.
According to Yodie Hardiyan, as the habitant of Salatiga he was not willing to have his city ruined and follow the development model of other cities. Moreover, when the case is discussed, a
fact was revealed from a media that the average number of cultural heritage building being demolish in Salatiga is seven buildings per year.
25
Furthermore, in the Forped BCB meeting, we discussed that Mall is not the only solution for development and progress achieved by a town. There are some other alternative ideas which
are able to wrap various aspects of development, for example cultural park. By a cultural park, we are able to be a competitor for consumerism, as well as facilitating public space. In
accordance to maintain Cultural Heritage Objects, the cultural park can be designed to support economic aspect. Considering a context of Salatiga, a cultural park model can be developed to
have its own beauty. However, the more important thing is to discuss this kind of alternative ideas together with some elements of the community, and then to make a kind of synergy
between various kinds of needs by expanding perspective. Unfortunately, these initiatives and alternative ideas are lack of concerns from the government. Instead of thinking about those ideas,
the government fully supports the businessmen.
On his essay titled
Kasus Eks Kodim 0714 Salatiga: Antara Pelecehan Kultur Kota dan Identitas Kota,
Yodie Hardiyan writes that the demolition of ancient building on behalf of capitalism, estetics, functions, and modernity often trick us, by raising a logic of short term
development, not the long term one. He uses a term of ” urban culture abuse” -quoted on an
essay in
Pembangunan Berwawasan Lingkungan
Budiharjo and Sudanti 1993- to explain his perspective toward the demolition of this building. He further noticed that shopping excitement
with high consumerism will replace the history learning sites. If the building succeeded to be reconstructed, it will arrogantly provide a space to mourn, to regret, and cry for Salatiga, which
23
See, Bangunan Cagar Budaya Akan Dijadikan Mal
– Kompas.com, 31 Desember 2009 last accesed 30 August 2011. Antony Lee is one of journalist who was intense in writing about the problem at that time and wrote ficer in
the same newspaper entitled “Kopdar” Facebook demi Cagar Budaya
~ Kompas, 21 Januari 2010
24
PERCIK is the abbreviation of
Persemaian Cinta Kemanusian
, one of NGOs in Salatiga, which concerns in social researches and democracy and social justice issues. Also see,
http:percik.or.id
25
See, Tiap Tahun Tujuh Bangunan Bersejarah Salatiga Hancur
~ Kompas.com, December 21
st
2009
was known to be the most beautiful town in Central Java. The exotism and romance that used to be there, now is changed with the narcism of modernity.
26
Related to this problem, Salatiga actually has a beautiful example of refunctioning heritage buildings such as;
Polantas
office, the office of
Bank Central Asia
, a shop named Omah Mode and Tempo Doeloe restaurant. The examples above is an evidence that ancient buildings
moreover those which are identified as Cultural Heritage Objects according to the Law.No. 51992 is not just a building without economic value, but it has economic value. Unfortunately,
the exam ples hasn‟t been role models for the government and the bussinessmen, those who are
willing to demolish the building of ex
Kodim
0714 just for building a mall. The things above encouraged a starting point of Forped BCB movement. And it is a
manifestation of concern toward the future of Salatiga. Therefore, people do small movement to fight against the intention to demolish the building of ex headquarters of
Kodim
0714. The movement considered as important because it reveals critical responds toward the gov
ernment‟s policy, in which the government do omission toward the demolition. On the interview that we
have done with Nick Wiratmoko
27
, he stated that at the beginning, the mass media is able only to report the event of demolition. Therefore, the movement brought a fact found by journalists into
a concrete action and then get them to be involved to report the movement. It is expected that on the future, the movement will be wider and will be able to get the people of Salatiga to be
involved in the movement.
On its first press relase, Forped BCB asked the government of Salatiga to keep its commitment, which is to make Salatiga as an ancestral town. The commitment must be followed
with an effort to conserve historical thingsbuilding which is included in the criteria of heritage buildings as regulated in the Law.No.51992. Further, Forped BCB also stated that the
government of Salatiga should arrange a local regulation about Cultural Heritage Objects to protect historical building from modernization. Forped BCB also emphasizes the importance of
people‟s participation at controlling public policy arranged by the government. Therefore, we need collective awareness that Salatiga is not on the hands of elite politicians but it is on the
public space where people are allowed to express their aspiration related on how to manage the building, which should take
people‟s aspiracy into account. In achieving their goals, this community used various strategies including creating public
opinion, distributing pamphlets, making press releases, media coverage, doing action or demonstration, and arranging meetings with the government agencies lobbying. In gaining
people attention and support, this community used Facebook social network as a medium to share information and to communicate. Through Facebook, they created a group called
“We refuse the reconstruction of Dutch collonial building ex
Kodim
Salatiga ”
Kami menolak Pembongkaran Bangunan Belanda eks Kodim Salatiga
.
28
26
Hardiyan, Yodie,
Kasus Eks Kodim 0714 Salatiga: Antara Pelecehan Kultur Kota dan Identitas Kota
, unpublish, Salatiga, 2010
27
Nick Wiratmoko is the member of advocation division in PERCIK who is also involved in Community Forum for Heritage Building Preservation Forped BCB.
28
http:www.facebook.comgroup.php?gid=253732681640v=wall . This group initiated by Agus Sulistiyo
Salatiga inhabitant who lives in Jakarta. Then, in its development, the administrator of this group started to be involved in Community Forum for Heritage Building Preservation Forped BCB, such as Yakub Adi Krisanto
Figure 1 Forped BCB Group at Facebook
The main role of Facebook in this movement besides providing a medium to share information, is also to distribute the invitations of discussion and action more easily. Group
members are also welcome to post comments, stories, or photos about heritage buildings in Salatiga. There were 1,609 members in this group, and most of them live in Salatiga. It seemed
like there was a great resistance from the group members on Facebook based on the number of members who engaged in the discussions and posted news and events. However, they were just
active on Facebook. In fact, there were only 11 people who attended the first meeting out of 35 people who gave confirmation to attend the meeting on Facebook.
29
In the first action on 12
th
January 2011 it was only attended by 6 people including us out of 54 people who gave confirmation to attend the action on Facebook.
30
29
See, http:www.facebook.comevent.php?eid=242834023599
30
See, http:www.facebook.comevent.php?eid=242834023599
The second action emphasize more on buiding the citizen awareness who saw the action and people who read the newspaper in the next day towards the issue.Before the second action, the
discussion and the activ ity of the group‟s members were quite active on Facebook but it seemed
to be unequal with activity in the direct action. Thus, there were more people joining the second action than the first action although there were less members of Facebook group who took part in
the action, this was because TUK
31
members joined the action. The number of members joining the real action was far different from the number of people joining the discusion on Facebook.
Regardless the reason described above, the lack involvement of the community members in the direct action showed that the active discussion and participation in the FB group was not
positively correlated with reality. Luckily, although this action was attended only by a few people, the mass media were still willing to publish the news related to it regularly and blew it up
because the issue was considered quite attractive. Therefore, this issue remains preserved until the process of changing heritage building into mall is completely stopped, even though the
building had been partially ruined.
The movement hasn‟t been considered as a successful movement when the succeed measurement is the succeed to encourage the government to
reconstruct ex
Kodim
0714 while the building is partly demolished. However, the movement is able to show that either the government or the businessmen can‟t do arbitrarily decision on each
development plan. Therefore, the movement can be considered successful up to this point, as at least the plan to build shopping mall is temporarly stopped to be reconsidered, and it is instructed
to renovate the building as it was even though it is very slow.
32
Until right now, the group is still on Facebook,
however, the group‟s activities have been decreased after the stopped demolition. Forped BCB right now in the middle reconsolidation phase to arrange its future
strategic planning. We expect that Salatiga in the future will be able to maintain its special characteristics and will be able to develop at the same time.
E. Analysis and Conclusion
