Senin, 29 Desember 2008

City Syndrome

Last Saturday morning, I went to Sumber Pinang to visit one of my friends. His name is Fawaid. I went there with my bicycle at early morning. Riding bicycle in the morning—I always truly miss it. I arrived before seven minutes from my departure from my house.

We talk about various things, from national and actual issues to academic or personal matters. Three hours passed, and it seemed that we just had already discussed a little while. I nearly forgot that I had an appointment that morning in the school.

In fact, he lives in Jakarta with his wife and his first daughter. He worked in a kind of non-governmental organization for about five years, and he went home to take part in the selection of governmental employee as a lecturer in State Islamic College Pamekasan. Having passed for the selection of administration, he went home to do the interview and personality test in Pamekasan.

He had some interesting stories about the test. One of them related to the problem of “city syndrome” (that is to say “Jakarta syndrome”). The interviewer who is an official from the institution asked my friend: “Why do you want to go home and leave your position in Jakarta?” I think the interviewer feels that he asked a good problematic question to my friend. But he was wrong. Instead, my friend gave a counterattack to the question. “Sir, isn’t going home to the motherland normal? I suppose that you must ask the people who don’t want to go home to their motherland and settle in the city,” my friend responded.

The dialogue reveals general inclination of contemporary people to believe that living in the city is more better than living in the rural community—even though it is the homeland. People who decide to return home is perceived as unusual. Our society struck by the city syndrome so that urbanization became a common phenomenon. This is not only relates to physical issue. Many policies of the government focus on the city and its derivative. Development concentrates in the city. And the gap between urban and rural community become more and more wide.

Can we say that many people and development tend to betray the homeland? What are the consequences if this is true?

1 komentar:

Anonim mengatakan...

bagi sebagian orang memang aneh meninggalkan perkerjaan di kota. Tapi juga salah para orang tua yang ngapusi akan membawa anak kecilnya ke kota kalau lagi rewel, ini kan menanam imej bahwa kota adalah tujuan impian