Fiction by Winston Irwin
On a scorching tropical sunny day in a very badly ventilated colonial Dutch-style classroom, my sociology teacher conveyed a thought-provoking statement: “In the journey of deciding what kind of future I want the old me and future generations to live in, I am confronted with the pressing obstacle of choosing between short-run and long-run survival. By that I mean, if I chose the former, my survival would be guaranteed, but at the expense of Earth’s longevity. If I chose the latter, the planet’s survival would be secured but at the cost of my life. Someday, you will feel it too.”
My heart raced and sweat trickled down my face, but I wasn’t sure if it was caused by the intensity of his words or just the scorching heat of the sun. Funnily, this remains personally more pressing than the looming climate change question. Nonetheless, these bodily reactions are the responses to my deep curiosity to uncover why we could only choose one of them. I wondered how I could take the first step to investigate the truth behind this choice binary.
Both fortunately and unfortunately, my sociology teacher assigned us homework to interview marginalized communities in Jakarta. It was indeed the perfect opportunity for me to unravel the mystery, but it also meant facing unpleasant environment that I decided. I took the brave step to visit the marginalized community at Ciliwung riverbanks such that even my classmates applauded my courage. Let’s just say that the level of bravery it took to visit that place was equivalent to the nerve-wracking experience of visiting East Hastings. At that time, Ciliwung was in the spotlight in many Indonesian media outlets because it was the prime example of climate injustice in Indonesia. The national and provincial governments decided to demolish houses located on the riverbanks without providing tangible alternative accommodations or resources to the residents. Popular media outlets framed the place as hostile by portraying the many conflicts between residents and authorities.
On August 9th, 2014, I stood on the edge of a bridge while fear and sadness were gripping my heart so strong anyone can clearly see my discomfort buried under my poker face. As a 17-year-old who can be considered as part of Jakarta’s middle-upper class, I was fully aware how alienated I was from this “other-worldly” place. Then, I noticed mothers residing by the polluted Ciliwung river making their way to the river’s edge to wash their clothes. As they chatted, laughed, and gossiped like any close community, that moment appeared to be like any other ordinary evening; of course, that is if you don’t pay attention to the trashes floating around the river, the flies flying around, and the pungent smell killing your olfactory sense.
The rumours that their houses would be demolished soon, added to their existing daily worries of using Ciliwung’s contaminated water, only deepened the hardships endured by these ordinary individuals seeking for a sense of certainty in their everyday survival. They were already experiencing too much anxiety, too much uncertainty, too much pain, I was so afraid that the residents became hostile if I asked them to be interviewed.
Surprisingly, they warmly agreed to my interview request. During our conversation, we discussed about the rumours with great passion and kindness, which only showed that these residents are still kind-hearted and compassionate human beings who simply seek for peace, not hostile monsters as portrayed by the media.
They had no access to clean water, clean air, clean anything. They didn’t even possess the ability to access government’s infrastructure such as municipal trash pickup. The government had truly been neglecting that area for years, such that they had no choice but to keep polluting the river for their survival. It is not a wonder then that the Ciliwung river with its abundant trash was the hotbed for disease and illness, as well as the primary source of devastating floods in Jakarta every monsoon season. The last thing these residents could do in this agonizing place is to find a sense of solace and happiness from the tight-knit community of Ciliwung.
“Are they not human, those politicians, those authorities? Are they evil, not to relate with our sufferings? Why do they need to destroy our homes and forcibly strip away our lives?” said one mother whom I interviewed. From their perspective, the government is the hostile monster in this story.
While it may be tempting to put the blame on the government at this point, it is important to note that the government’s decision was not an easy one. Without destroying the houses, the source of pollutants, the government could not proceed to revitalize the river to prevent further deadly floods in the city. The government did provide alternative housing in Jakarta’s outskirts, but the living condition was not significantly better either – it would be like asking East Hastings residents to move to the worst part of Surrey. Hence, it became understandable why Ciliwung residents refused to move and retaliated.
With no light at the end of the tunnel, the forced demolition finally commenced in late 2016. When I saw the news for the first time, I was shocked. No… not shocked. Worse than that. Even the word ‘stunned’ couldn’t describe how stunned I was at that time, given that I visited the place before and interacted with the people. I started sweating like I was in the classroom, and I tried my best to hold up my tears not knowing the fate of the mom whom I interviewed. The sound of the residents crying coming out from the TV was as loud, disturbing, and frightening as the siren of an ambulance declaring that one’s life will be over soon. Some mothers and children were seen kneeling in front of authorities and begging for forgiveness and a second chance although they knew that the authorities couldn’t do anything as the order came from top politicians. To my sociology teacher, this spectacle may not have seemed that different to Indonesians begging the Dutch authorities for mercy during the colonial period.
Yet, few years later, the whole problem of Ciliwung floods indeed got better, just like my teacher said. Few months after the demolition project finished, the authorities partially revitalized and normalized Ciliwung, and floods became significantly less dangerous. This illustrates that at the cost of these people’s lives in the short-run, nature slowly heals in the long-run. The statement unfortunately proved even truer when the COVID-19 pandemic happened. We saw with our own eyes that the limit of movements and the death of millions of people provided some openings for Earth to heal.
As climate change gets even more severe day by day, I wonder if the answer to my teacher’s question, the response to this whole climate change emergency, and the only solution to reverse environmental collapse is to doom humankind. Perhaps, I will need to live a few more years to take the next big step in unraveling this mystery.