In developing countries, there are two main sectors. They are urban sector and agricultural sector[1]. For the urban sector we do not doubt that the development is going rapidly. People have good job, high salary, they can send their children to the high quality school, and all access of facilities and modern technology are available. But what is in rural sector? The villagers live in remote area, lack of facilities and access, there is no firm where people can work, no school where children could study comfortable, and also no public health even doctor. That’s why a lot of villagers are infected by many diseases like malaria, cikunghuya, diabetes, etc. They have no good job and no enough income for feeding their family. Consequently, poverty could define in rural area[2] (See table 1). It means larger the number of rural area, more poverty that can be found. To reduce poverty, we have to reach the remote area and build facilities there, so villagers can live equal with urban people.
Ethnic minorities can also be a factor of poverty[3]. This paper will focus on one of Indonesian ethnic minority, it is Minangkabau tribe from West Sumatra. Many years, West Sumatra people who live in remote area do not reach by the government. They have no public services like hospitals, schools, or any government offices such as in town or other famous villages. To go to school, children must walk tens of kilometers and also the parents have to work in a place which is far away from their house. That is why some local people work as a farmer in a small piece of land and the outcomes are taken by themselves to fulfill their daily needs. But they even do not have their own land. They cultivate land that own by other people which usually come from urban area. It is called ‘maro’, the system where farmer and the owner share the crops. The number of share[4] is 2/3 for farmer and 1/3 for the land owner. Although farmers get bigger share than the owner, but they buy seeds and fertilizer by themselves , it means they only get smaller income compare to the owner which is only doing nothing. The main problem is almost all of land in Padang, capital city of west Sumatra, is owned by one people. Think how much profit that he/she can take from their land. It is very contrast with the living of petani garap (‘Maro’ farmer is usually called by petani garap). Whereas research[5] said that crop production statistics are vitally important in developing countries. If we don’t give attention for the producer, how this developing country could grow up! People in west Sumatra especially in remote areas, also have limited access to accept all information from outside, so when the price of hulled rice increase, they usually don’t take the profit from it, they are played by them who bought their crops. Rural areas also don’t have enough facilities such as school, public health, and transportation. It causes people who want to get high education must move to the city, and when they are graduating from their school, they are not coming back to rural areas to developed it. In sum, rural areas also lack of high quality human resources.
West Sumatra Earthquake
September, 30th 2009, most of area on Padang, was hit by a huge earthquake which is 7.6 richter scale. This quake causes many people death, and those who have been lucky enough to survive have lost their loving people, their homes and also their personal belongings. While some who have lost everything have simply left the area, many others are either still trying to live on the ground floors of their cracked, dangerous homes or have constructed makeshift plastic tents outside their houses (though they fear leaving their possessions open to looters).
A huge earthquake was not only making people get hurt and take all their belongings, but also destroying all the public facilities in Padang including most of the building which causes many people was buried and died under there. Most of the buildings were either collapsed, cracked or leaning to one side, and the few remaining hotels are overflowing with frantic aid agency staff. National Disaster Management Chief Syamsul Maarif said that the 7.6 magnitude earthquake destroyed 135,488 buildings, 65,380 homes, 2,164 schools, 51 hospitals and 1,003 mosques and churches. About 30 bridges collapsed and roads in the province suffered damage in 178 locations. The official death toll was about 603 people, most of them (about 276 people) was live in Padang Pariaman and the hurt victims were about 2505 people.[6]
People are homeless, jobless, and susceptible to sick
After this disaster, thousands of people were not having house anymore, they were losing their job because the office or the building where they work were broken and they also easily getting sick because now they live in plastic tents at evacuation area which is lack of clean water and full of virus, mosquito, and any other things which could infect them. They eat food that less of nutrient which is delivered by outside people. The baby had no milk to drink and they were susceptible to sick. Their condition was very apprehensive.
What the problem is how to create a job? Because of the damage building, many firms were decided to cut off the employees until the building are completely recovering. But the employees of course need job to make money for feeding their family and also repairing their house. Padang’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KADIN) expects that at least “200,000 people will be out of a job” in retail, hotel and other tourism-related businesses. For instance, what is left of the Bumi Minang Hotel will soon be torn down, leaving 200 people unemployed. The same will happen to about 130 employees at the Ambacang Hotel and another 120 at the Rocky Plaza. The Ramayana Shopping Mall was able to reassign 76 employees to another location, but has had to let go all temporary employees[7].
Padang’s Recovery based on culture
This disaster invites thousands of people from local and foreign to help Padang in order to recovery the city from destruction. Aid workers from at least 20 countries are descending on West Sumatra, including the largest contingent of U.S. military[8]. Assistances are coming in any kind of help, such as food, clothes, medicine, medical care, building construction, raw materials, and also psychological care. UNDP also came there and brought construction to recovery Padang such as heavy machine, beam, and also give the regional office some tools like computer so that the government province could operate faster. The branch office from outside also help to recover their office in Padang so that people can get back their job.
But we can’t forget that the recovery of Padang can’t be fully given to the foreigner, because Padang has specific values which the outside people couldn’t understand it. So MUI suggest if Padang’s recovery must be done by the aborigine, but it doesn’t close the opportunity of foreigner to help, the important one is Padang recover by give notice to the real culture of Padang itself such as Gotong Royong, kekeluargaan and the philosophy of its culture “basandi Syara’, Syara’ basandi Kitabullah”. It is appropriate with the neocolonial dependence model[9] where false-paradigm often happens in developing countries. People come from developed countries try to build the developing countries, whereas their system is totally different from ours, especially Indonesia which has many unique cultures. In short, it will be better if the recovery of Padang is done by the Padang’s government and the aborigine.
Aid reaches remote West Sumatra villages after earthquake
After the quake, the aid from local and foreign were racing to reach the remote area to give some assistances for them because in this area many hills were falling down and bear down upon their houses. Thus, hundreds of people are buried under the house and they were passed away without anyone could help them. As their corpse could not be founded, the place was decided by the MUI and the government territory as a mass cemetery.
What are the benefits from this disaster is the remote area now can be reached by the people. They realize that in those territories live hundreds of people who live under absolute poverty line which is $1 per day and also lack of facilities. We know that the new meaning of development[10] is growth and changes. We can’t achieve high economic growth without changing the poverty into the prosperity. And people in remote area are the appropriate object to do its change. Increasing the availability and widen the distribution of basic life sustaining goods, raise level of living meaning higher income, more jobs, better education, greater attention to culture and humanistic value, more equal distribution of income, and also eradicate absolute poverty are the objectives of studying development economics[11]. Therefore we must do it in remote area in order to achieve the objectives of development.
Proposed Policy Recommendation to develop remote area
What determined economic growth (Simon Kuznets) are high increase in total factor productivity, high rate of structural transformation and high rate of social and ideological transformation. It is almost same with what Todaro said about prime important factors of economic growth[12], they are capital accumulation and technological process. Those factors above must be built in remote area in West Sumatra which is also appropriated with its culture. Firstly, to achieve the goals of development in remote area, we must increase the investment in land, capital and labor. Remote sensing[13] is important for Third World social and economic growth because it supplies information (a powerful resource in itself) about the available natural resources, which must be properly understood and managed if the developing countries are to become self sustaining. Function of government is really needed in order to attain big progress in these investments, for example government can give land to each family. Because the aborigine knows surely about what the contents of the land are, they can take the maximum benefits from their land. They are also not only work for the land, but also own the land. Thus, it can increase their income because they don’t need to share the crops with the owner land anymore. Secondly, the technological process also the important thing, the modern machine for cultivate land and produce the best crops also must be supplied to the farmer, so they can achieve high quality of harvest without spending energy and time too much, and it could be more efficient compare if they work it traditionally. Thirdly, the farmer itself must be given illumination about how to be a good farmer, how to manage the land, or how to produce quality paddy (majority plant in West Sumatra is paddy). Because the most strategic factor if we want to achieve high economic growth is human resources as it is the only active factor which can manage the passive factor (land and capital). The program is not only stop until it works, fourthly, we also have to teach them how the crops can be produce until it becomes quality rice, it is better if the farmer cooperate each other to make a rice industry so that the added value of paddy could be happen in remote area, and it can increases their income. In sum, the program attains the structural transformation on the economic in remote area.
Not only modern technology that has to be given for the villagers, but modern information also must be introduced to them, such as how to use computer and internet, so they can update information from outside and apply in their area. High rates of social and ideological transformation could become problem if it doesn’t coincide with high education. That’s why it is very important to build school in order to prepare the new generation to filter all information from outside so they can choose which one can give them benefits and which one can broke their culture.
The other important thing in developing remote area is building public services such as public transportation and public health. At the beginning we have already studied about how important of education is. But we mustn’t forget that health is also important to build human resources. Without public health services, the society are susceptible infected by virus, the number of mortality could be increasing, and it can be threat to develop as bad health can decline the productivity of human resources.
Great urbanization can also be a burden in developing area, because people who have capability move to the city as they can get higher income than working in rural areas, the Minangkabau call it as merantau[14], the tradition of young men leaving the village for an extended period to gain experience and wealth. Merantau[15] is an ancient trend among the Minangkabau, it is intrinsic to immemorial social process and is functionally implicated in the social structure of villages in the homeland. The government should widen the distribution of income and reduce the gap income between city and village, so that villagers don’t need to go outside to achieve wealth. Therefore it is important to create more jobs in rural area not only limited as farmer, but also the other kind of job such as build handcraft industry, traditional restaurant, etc. These all implementations are expected to reduce poverty in remote area.
To develop remote area, we can use Harrod-Domar model[16], it is Capital Output Ratio, because in developing remote area we start it from zero, so we can calculate how much capital do we need to produce an output. Or if the remote area has some public services but has not developed yet, we can apply Incremental Output Ratio, it is how much additional capital do we need to increase an output.
What we mayn’t ignore of developing remote area is to keep the traditional culture as heart of national custom of Indonesia. In Minangkabau tribe we know the best-known theatre form a high-spirited combination of dance, martial arts, dialogue, and music called randai[17]. There are also many kinds of traditional dances such as piring dance, payung dance, randai dance, pasambahan dance and indang dance, and many traditional songs such as Ayam den Lapeh, Barek Solok, Dayung Palinggam, Kembanglah Bungo, Kampung Nan Jauh Di Mato, Ka Parak Tingga, Malam Baiko, and Rang Talu, and also many traditional foods which has been spread in all over the world with its famous menu likes rendang and dendeng balado. All those assets must be conserved because it differences Indonesia with other countries and it can attract many foreign tourists to come to Indonesia, especially to West Sumatra.
Conclusion
Padang earthquake brought a lot of sadness to Padang’s society. Disregarding the loss, it realizes us about some remote area that never reaches by the government or any other social organization. They really need us to help and build. They are forgotten and valuable assets which the other country doesn’t have. We must keep and conserve it carefully. It is capital to achieve high economic growth and it is also capital to unite our nation, Indonesia.
[1] Michael P. Todaro and Stephen C. Smith, Economic Development (USA: Pearson Education Limited, 2006) pp. 108.
[2] Ibid., pp. 225.
[3] Ibid., pp. 231.
[4] Number of share is defined as writer’s research by interview some farmers in Padang.
[5] Research is defined as “Remote Sensing in Development” (Science, New Series, American Association for the Advancement of Science, pp. 141).
[6] www.asianews.it (October 21st, 2009)
[8] povertynewsblog.blogspot.com (Wednesday, October 07th , 2009)
[9] Michael P. Todaro and Stephen C. Smith, op. cit., pp. 117.
[10] Ibid., pp. 16.
[11] Ibid., pp. 32.
[12] Ibid., pp. 97.
[13] Remote Sensing is defined as “Remote Sensing in Development” (Science, New Series, American Association for the Advancement of Science, pp. 139).
[14] Merantau is defined as “Widening the Circle: The Refiguring of West Sumatran Randai” (Asian Theatre Journal, University of Hawai'i Press, pp. 249).
[15] Merantau is defined as “Matrilineal Inheritance and Migration in a Minangkabau Community” (Indonesia, Southeast Asia Program Publications at Cornell University, pp. 47).
[16] Michael P. Todaro and Stephen C. Smith, op. cit., pp. 105.
[17] Randai is defined as “Widening the Circle: The Refiguring of West Sumatran Randai” (Asian Theatre Journal, University of Hawai'i Press, pp. 248)
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