Conspiracy And Differentiation

After the collapse of Suharto’s authoritarian regime,on the one hand,society in Indonesia walk step by step towards democracy and decentralization. On the other hand,heritage in Suharto era still left over in the transformation of Indonesia,the transformation of politic and economic were still complex and uncertain. Two factors both have a great influence on outer islands,which is a main place where natural resource is exploited.Some scholars who did some researches about resource exploitation after Suharto era said that,as the society transform,local resource communities struggled against government and enterprises,in order to fight for their own benefit and homeland,achieve a more fair and just results,if compared to the previous(Suharto era). Some researches state that local government get more power to manager the process of exploitation of natural resource,NGO(Non-Governmental Organizations) play an important role in social struggle of indigenous peoples,and local people protect their lands and life at last.But in my field site,Bangka,another phenomenon happened. Or rather,result is opposite. As far as Bangka was concerned,two kinds of unequal political and economic pattern of Post-Suharto (inner islands and outer islands pattern,Palembang and Bangka-belitung pattern) both collapsed,local governments were in face of the weak local economy,which was repressed by the political and economical pattern. Some local elites want to develop local economy, and to realize economic development in order to win elections,to be a leader of local government (new action of democratization), the local government formed a shadow state(Erwiza Erman said). Local government firstly operated in collusion with businessmen,and cooperated with the media to win more manage power of tin ore. Then issued a large number of mining licenses,and then expand team of supervision staff of tin production,and disregarded a great deal of "illegal" mining economy. This increased the possibility of conspiracy between the rich in rural community and local government,and increase the risk of tin production and promote "reasonableness" of stratification in local communities.From the micro level,the colonial regime and the authoritarian regime of Suharto were absolutely controlled tin production,tin exploitation was not included by local livelihoods of F village all the time. So F village can’t develop social organizations and institutions related to tin exploitation, but only some moral idea such an "dao li"(truth),"gong de"(merits and virtues) and other concepts which have a week effect on people’s action. When this weak state of development of local social organizations and institutions encountered logic of power of local government and market-driven system of tin ore production,power,strong social capital (In Chinese culture,we call it "guanxi") and financial capital became a dominant principle in the aspects of definition of lands ownership and tin production.The ethnographic study shows that local people of F village in Bangka in Post-Suharto era did not get a more fair and just distribution of resources,but get the opposite result:in F village, who had a more social networks and money occupied the common land of the village,through "cooperation" with local government. They had adequate conditions of tin production,and then invested the capital that from tin production to the oil palm industry. But some people who had less capital and social networks,not only could not participate in tin production and operation,but also had to swallow bitter fruit that came from occupying land,tin production and oil palm planting. Local elites of communities and local government sought to dominate resource distribution. Community itself was not as an unit to fight against power and capital,instead divided into two groups of people:one benefited from the tin production and one was opposite.In a word,based on ethnographic survey on the F village in Bangka,Indonesia,I try to describe and analyze how political and economical transformation in Post Suharto affect resource exploitation of outer Islands and the phenomenon of collusion and differentiation of benefits,to discuss the complexity and uncertainty of Indonesian political and economical transformation.