SOCIAL AND CULTURE

The city of Jakarta was granted as special district by the government of Indonesia, which means in most aspects of the city life are administered autonomously by the government of the city. The city developed from a local town of Jayakarta as the capital of Banten Sultanate vassal in 16th century, then taken over by the Dutch and renamed Batavia which continued to develop until 1949 when it was taken over by Japanese and renamed with Jakarta. Since the Sultanate of Banten the population of Jakarta has shown many ethnic residents such as Javanese, Chinese, Arab, and Indian. During Batavia period again the coming of various ethnics groups in addition to existing groups are considerable. Various ethnics of Arab, India, and Indonesian were brought to Jakarta. Local ethnics were brought to Jakarta by the Dutch with the slave trade handled by Chinese. It was said that the departure port of this trade was Bali, which was a transit place of slave trade from east Indonesia including Bali. It could be imagine that how different tradition language, religion, and physical appearance have been assemblage on a zone like Jakarta.

By 1990 the population of Jakarta reached 8.227.746 persons emerged as one of the biggest city of Asia. This is due to the appointment of the city as the center of government administration of Republic of Indonesia. As other national capital city, Jakarta also acts as the connection of various countries where diplomatic offices, international trade offices and various affairs are installed. As a result of fast development in economy between 1960 - 1995 the city attracted more and more people from other province of Indonesia causing great depression on urban areas. Not all immigrants are equipped with enough skill to compete the opportunity of economy in Jakarta which arises serious social inequity in all aspects of life. History has formed Jakarta as a type of city that geographically as if parted into 3 sections, one is the old town at North Jakarta with resident of Chinese, Javanese, and Arabian. Second is central Jakarta with high rise building and modern life, good garden and vibrant super markets or shopping malls and government offices. And the third is modern resident and beautiful garden at the south Jakarta. Other part of Jakarta are on the sides of above three sections such as some parts of rivers, inner bridges, where poorer people live in less favorable facilities.

Before world issue of terrorism, which connect the terrorist with one group of Islam, the development of Indonesian economy had been very amazing. The tragedy of WTC, Kuta and Jimbaran Bomb, and 3 times bomb blasts in Jakarta have put the economy of Indonesia into a real cripple. Terrorists might have studied of how to damage the economy of Indonesia, so as the central government will be very weak and easy to break down the whole Indonesia. They know the strength of Indonesia only Jakarta and Bali which are the basic pillars of people base economy of Indonesia beside Batam. By damaging these 2 centers they would pretty sure to be able to break down Indonesia into many independence countries, which seems to have been prepared before such as Aceh, Ambon, Poso, Sampit, and West Papua. This is indeed giving a great impact of people of Jakarta, most companies were closed, workers are not paid for months. The most hardest victim of this conspiracy ( if writer could assume ) are those poorest part of Jakarta, as they are directly influenced by the fact of prices, income and health that are only purpose of their presence in Jakarta, what ever their religion is. According to the informal observer published on internet, 90% of those poorest part are Moslem. The birth of radical Islam such as Mujahidin, and FPI also said to have made the investors to think 100 times to built their business in Jakarta when the saw the brutal action before Ramadhan in 2005. There are many expressed opinions of world investment on the world business forums that advises not to invest in Jakarta or Indonesia in general due to the radicalism 60%, labour related regulation 25%, and bureaucracy inefficiency and corruption 15%. So the biggest problem are religious and government themselves.

Some writers on Jakarta's social, economy and history are Rees Grijns and Peter JM Nas on Jakarta - Batavia Socio - Cultural Essays. A collection 17 articles concerning the development of healthcare, social, and multiracial. Community ( Nayati Widya : SOJOURN, Oct 2002 ). Nas put forward that Jakarta's Development can be understood by first examining its natural environment and physical structure, then look at socio - cultural forces and studying the development of repressive government style. One of the essay written by Nijmijer count the " New " Asian Christian Community along with the explanation of Raben concerning the difficulty of Dutch colonial in controlling different ethnic groups in Jakarta. De Jong wrote on the history of Arab community in Batavia and provide in-depth discussion of how Arab groups have been viewed over time, the question of aristocracy among Batavia and its relationship to Shahab ethnic. Nas and Malo examined development of Jakarta's government structure by seeing policies of mayors and government of Jakarta from the emergence of the capital city. Grijns explained about the policies of the modern Jabotabek, and others. Indonesian scholars also involved in the research project that unveil the fast changes of socio - economy, socio - cultural aspect of Jakarta.