In English Please

Have you ever noticed a seemingly paradoxical phenomenon where regions rich in natural resources tend to have low levels of education? This phenomenon is not merely coincidental, but rather a systemic pattern that has long been rooted in Indonesia's development dynamics, particularly in the eastern regions of this country. When Education Becomes a "Threat" to Extractive Development There is a development phenomenon that is rarely discussed or avoided due to its sensitivity. Even in a focus group discussion (FGD) that I attended, featuring a social researcher from a certain university that I deliberately won't name because their recommendations seemed not to side with the people, they revealed a disturbing reality. In a region in Eastern Indonesia, there is a government plan to build a large industry that would sacrifice customary land, more precisely customary forests. The interesting part is the different responses from two different areas. There are groups of indige...

  Have you ever been considered old-fashioned because you enjoy studying history? People say, "What's the point of learning history when times keep changing?" It's true that humans continue to develop and change, but there's something fundamental that always remains the same, which is the human instinct for power. History isn't just a boring record of the past, but more like a laboratory that shows how humans behave in certain situations. Especially when we talk about political conflicts in Indonesia, patterns that occurred in the past can serve as clues to understanding what might happen in the future. Let's look at two major events in Indonesian history such as the 1966 Mass Demonstrations and the 1998 Reform movement. Despite occurring 32 years apart, both have surprisingly similar patterns. It's like watching a remake where the story is the same, but the actors are different. Both events began with economic crises that made life difficult for the p...