Old Historical Edifices in Salatiga Will be and have been Demolished?

Salatiga dwellers have gotten used to living adjacently with the old historical colonial edifices in this small mountainous cool town, so apparently it is hard to make us think of Salatiga without the image of its historical old edifices that have been inherited by The Dutch colony for more than 350 years coming to show up in our mind. It is truly lovely to life our lives in this city surrounded by many old historical edifices.

Have you heard the recently released issue and as well as the fact that in some spots of Salatiga, several old historical edifices that still exist are going to be and have been demolished with the reason of developing and growing this city into kind of metropolitan? If you have not heard about it, let us pick up some real data related to this issue we have just browsed from several websites

1. One neglected old historical edifice that is going to be brutally demolished is faded-off white house that were built with colonial style by the side of pancasila square (Pakuwon). It actually means so much for Indonesia since one agreement (perjanjian Salatiga) that linked to indonesian independence struggle were signed there.

www.suaramerdeka.com

2. The second example of other demolished edifices is the building that used to be an Army Base on Diponegoro street (KODIM Kodim 0714 Salatiga). Salatiga city mayor, John Manoppo, confessed that he did not have any objection due to the demolition of this building that used to be Blommestein Hotel because he considers that edifice cannot be functioned properly any longer due to its age that is more than 100 years. He also said that that building did not have significant architecture as other edifices have.

www.arkeologi.web.id

3. An old Dutch house located in Sayangan, Salatiga also had been totally demolished and replaced by a modern gas station.

www.arkeologi.web.id

From those three examples I have given to you, I would like to raise your concern about this situation because,

1. Based on a facebook group called “I love Salatiga”, founded by Edy Supangkat, in fact, this city has been named as one of many heirloom cities in Indonesia regarding varied old edifices it has.

2. Second, our first president, Ir. Soekarno, had ever said that as a big nation, we should NOT forget our histories and our people who struggled to gain the momentum of independence that lead us to this present situation. And it’s hideously known that sometimes their struggle is reflected in those old edifices.

3. It is very likely to be hazardous for our future, as the next generation will never ever witness how their city had ever looked if it constantly goes on and on.

How is such a case responded by Salatiga City Major and his staff? Let we see his reaction toward this kind of case.

Quoted from …

1. www.arkeologi.web.id

Salatiga City major John Manoppo, just simply gave the green light to the demolition. Nonetheless, his staff stated that there has been no legal permission given from Indonesian cultural and tourism department. As we know,every demolition should be under this department’s permission and authority.

2. www.kaskus.com

“There is no exact regulation toward old building maintenance “Valentino Haribowo, public relation staff of salatiga city straightforwardly said.

How is it true then Indonesia can be called as a big nation if the people can’t appreciate their history and what surrounds that?

Let us just look out!

Here, we are picking up an example of a country on the contrary , which praises much its history. Just in case, imagine we happened to be in a trip, say, to a 109,38 ha island , Penang(Malaysia), that have recently claimed itself to be the Unesco World Heritage City. You might have seen old edifices like Benteng Cornwallis, Tugu Perang, Balaikota, Gedung Pengadilan, Rumah Pribadi Yeap Chor Ee, Kathedral Assumption, and many more are well maintained and preserved from being wrecked or even demolished. In fact, Malaysian government deliberately budgets the income that they obtain from Penang district for the building maintenance. Two thumbs up for Penang. J

We are trying took look a bit closer to Jogjakarta now. With Jogja skyscrapers scraping jogja’s sky, Jogja can still preserve and maintain its old building and even commercialize them as tourism spots which are marvelous. Let us just say traditional house of central java, Joglo still we can see there. Why such phenomenon could happen? It is all because Jogja governor always supports all effort entails to historical asset maintenance.

Now how are we supposed to react Salatiga people!!!???