11 - Coming Apart and Staying Together at the Centre: Debates over Provincial Status in Java and Madura

Summary

The autonomy laws of 1999 were a product of many factors, foremost among them a strong reaction against what was perceived as the New Order's rigid centralism – a centralism that was damaging to the interests of the Outer Islands. Unexpectedly for some, the laws also brought into the open centrifugal movements directed against local centres outside Java. The creation of the provinces of Bangka-Belitung, Gorontalo and North Maluku were as much expressions of dissatisfaction with local centres (Palembang, Manado and Ambon respectively) as they were expressions of anti-Java or anti-Jakarta sentiment. Indeed, in some instances the move to create these provinces has necessitated the forging of new ties, or the strengthening of old ones, between the proponents of the new provinces and Jakarta (see, for example, Sakai 2003). Perhaps even more unexpected – and certainly little noticed so far in commentary on the decentralisation process – is the appearance of secessionist movements within the provinces of the ‘central’ island of Java itself. This chapter focuses on these movements, looking at the emergence and, ultimately, the fragility of provincial ‘peripheries’ on Java. It sketches the rationales advanced by secessionist activists in Banten, Cirebon, Madura and Surakarta. It also looks at the debate over the identity and basic institutional character of the Special Region of Yogyakarta. In all the cases described, commercial and political opportunism, not to mention brute personal ambition, has shaped the debates and campaigns. But these imperatives have ridden on the powerful tides of local history, identity and chauvinism. It is these forces above all that this chapter explores.

BANTEN: THE RETURN OF THE JAWARA

With very little fanfare, the province of Banten officially came into existence on 4 October 2000. It was the first of Indonesia's post-New Order provinces and the first to be created on the island of Java since 1950 when four were gazetted. With its capital at Serang, some 70 kilometres to the west of Jakarta, Banten has a population of a little over eight million people. It consists of four kabupaten (districts), Tangerang, Serang, Lebak and Pandeglang, and two autonomous city governments (kota), Tangerang and Cilegon. These occupy the western extremity of Java and used to account for about one-fifth of the land area and population of the province of West Java.