INDONESIA -IN HONOURS- INSTANTLY : MASTER GLOBAL ESSAY

 

The World Students Society - for every subject in the world, is the exclusive ownership of every great student from Indonesia. Just as it is the exclusive ownership of every student in the world.

A very warm welcome to the students of this great nation, Indonesia.

''Indonesia's high-tech capital vision'' : And if the capital is sinking, move it. Jakarta's vulnerable future inspires Indonesia's leader to plan a sustainable replacement from scratch.

INDONESIA encompasses hundreds of languages and ethnic groups. Some of its regions are governed by Shariah-inspired rules, gripped by separatist fervor or animated indigenous traditions.

It is also a secular democracy with the world's largest Muslim citizenry, a sizable Christian minority and several other official faiths.

Although deadly sectarian conflict has  flared over the decades, Indonesia has cohered while other countries have come apart. A new capital city for a place with such disparities and diversity presents both a chance and a challenge for reinvention.

Before he led the world's fourth most populous country, the president of Indonesia was consumed by even more challenging mission : saving Jakarta.

For two years, Joko Widodo served as the governor of a capital city that seemed to teeter on the brink of ruin. Since Indonesia's independence in 1945, Jakarta's population had expanded from less than a million people to roughly 30 million people.

It had grown tall with skyscrapers built with fortunes made from timber, palm oil, natural gas, gold copper, tin. But the capital had run out of space. 

It grew thick with traffic and pollution. Most of all, Jakarta was sinking, as thirsty residents drained its marshy aquifers and rising sea waters lapped its shores. Forty percent of the Indonesian capital now lies below the sea level.

Raised in a riverside slum in a smaller city, without family ties or a military background to propel him to power, Mr. Joko derived his political strength from his connection with ordinary Indonesians.

In Jakarta, he made a habit of canvassing poor neighborhoods about their needs. Residents were unaccustomed to such consideration, but they didn't hold back. They wanted to live without worrying about the air they breathed and the water that all too often flooded their homes. And traffic. There were many complaints about traffic.

So Mr. Joko rolled up his sleeves, put on his sneakers and set about trying to fix the city.  He raised sea walls and improved public transport.

He later talked up the construction of a constellation of artificial islands to break the waters hitting Jakarta.

His entire career - first as a carpenter and a furniture exporter and then as a mayor of his hometown, Solo - had been built on building.

In Jakarta, however, his passion for construction could only get him so far.

All the Sisyphean dredging, the endless concrete inches slathered on sea walls, the duct tape solutions could not raise Jakarta above the sea's reach. And so Mr. Joko has turned to a different solution : If Jakarta cannot be saved, he will start over.

Mr. Joko is using his presidential authority to forsake the capital on the eslender island of Java and construct a new one on Borneo, the world's third-largest island, about 800 miles away.

The new capital is to be called Nusantara, meaning ''archipelago'' an ancient Javanese and befitting an unlikely nation of more than 17,000 islands scattered between two oceans. 

Mr. Joko's ambitions go far beyond saving Jakarta's residents from the sea. Nusantra won't be just any planned city, the president asserts, but a green metropolis run on renewable energy, where there are no choking traffic jams and people can stroll and bike along verdant paths.

The new capital, which is known in Indonesia by the abbreviations I.K.N., will be paradigm for adapting to a warming planet. And it will be high-tech city, he says, attracting digital nomads and millennials who will purchase stylish apartments with cryptocurrency.

'' We want to build a new Indonesia,'' Mr. Joko said. '' This is not physically moving the buildings. We want a new work ethic, new mind-set, new green economy.''

The World Students Society wishes the great president every success.   

This Master Essay Publishing continues. The World Students Society thanks author Hannah Beech.