Part IXb: Aceh Village Survey, Last Part
Okay, so before we get to my last notes from the Aceh
Village Survey (which actually almost brings this blog up to a real-time diary
of our quest to conduct a survey of the actual lives and hopes of people in
Aceh Timur) I have 2 updates:
1.
I’ve written to Steven Shewfelt for permission
to re-print some of his dissertation here.
Remember, he’d interviewed several residents of Aceh who had either been
displaced from Aceh Timur because of the conflict and had returned, or who were
still living in North Sumatra (probably Medan).
I also asked him if I could ask him a few questions about his subject
pool (Javanese men). I’m hoping for a
lively discussion (as when am I not?) but I believe he has altered his career
path a bit and so may not still be up to date on the demographics of that
area. We’ll see.
2.
The previous blog post cited the World Directory
of Minorities and Indigenous Populations and that site, in giving an overview
of Aceh’s history, says that the culture and traditions of Aceh include the practice
of merantau: males leaving their
birthplace to make money and “gain new knowledge and experience,” while the
women are expected to remain at home and do all the work that is involved in
the caring of the home. This has meant that many men in Aceh leave the
province, marry, and do not return. We
asked the director of JMD if this were true and frankly, he did not seem to
ever have heard of this but told us he’d “look into it.” Curious, if only to reinforce the maxim: don’t
believe everything you read!
The first half of the Aceh Village Survey, as you will fondly
recall, gathered data from all districts regarding perceived and actual damage
caused by the tsunami vs the 30-year conflict.
It also began to explore questions about what residents wanted to see as
far as government involvement went.
To eliminate the suspense, however, I’m just going to say
here that for all the specific data collected regarding education (poor),
nutrition (Aceh Timur ranks among the highest in districts where people eat one
meal or less per day), or infrastructure, there was very little if any
indication that the interviewers had measured citizens’ level of faith in their
government, their outlook for the future and their children’s future, their
desire to remain in Aceh Timur (or any district), or their specific thoughts on
their own marginalization vis a vis their physical location at Ground Zero of
the conflict.
As I mentioned earlier, and actually Steven’s dissertation
also backs this up, the survey indicates that the majority of Acehnese (meaning
people who live in Aceh and have done so for a long time) by and large did not have
any negative social or political impressions of people who have either been or
aided GAM combatants and have returned to their homes of origin. The term the study used was “trust;” the term
that Steven used was “polarization.”
The study continued its subtle but effective pressing of the
point that conflict affected areas and victims have received significantly
fewer, if any, services than have tsunami affected areas. Poverty “remains
widespread” (in 2007) and “relief and recovery efforts
for tsunami-affected populations should not crowd out the need for assistance in
other parts of the province. . . . . Given
the lingering effects of the conflict and the potential for future problems,
renewed emphasis should be placed on the recovery effort in conflict-affected
and other non-tsunami-affected areas.”
Sadly, that advice has never been heeded.
While I have some difficulty with the survey’s methodology
producing accurate results (and I can elaborate on that if anybody asks me), I
do applaud the thoroughness with which they acknowledged this impediment. There are several factors mentioned that I
think are really important and practically hold the door open for our
documentary. First, the survey indicates
that responses from different people in the villages (as opposed to at the province
and district level) were all over the map, so that it was nearly impossible to
make generalizations about what was probably true regarding the community’s
economic and social condition. Second,
women, youth, the elderly, and conflict victims were usually marginalized and,
while included in the survey, were not included in many group decision making
processes and so their opinions were not as strongly reflected in village
leaders’ responses. “This lack of consistency between respondents at the
village level once again highlights the importance of programs that are flexible,
inclusive, and responsive to local needs.” In other words, Steven probably should not
believe all of what his 20 male Javanese respondents said. And JMD is
on the right track by focusing on individual responses to process-related
questions regarding life, work and future.
50% of all villagers interviewed for the survey reported
difficulty in attending meetings (and I can vouch for that, having had to make
emergency 5-hour river crossings in bad weather just to get to the chief’s
house) and because these meetings “are the main
problem-solving mechanism in villages, it becomes very important to increase
community participation in village decision-making processes to ensure that
these differences of opinion are addressed.”
You betcha!
It should be mentioned here that the survey also acknowledges
the 2007 flooding that obliterated much of Aceh Timur’s upland agriculture, and
that since the survey had already been completed, data for Aceh Timur in the “poverty,
education, and health” areas is probably inaccurate the situation being much
worse than recorded (which I believe it is).
“In order to capture the needs of different groups that
exist at the local level, it is important to give communities the opportunity
to be more involved in development activities and planning processes.”
What strikes me about this state meant is that it is being
made, courtesy of the World Bank, in 2007.
Is this a NEW idea for these international development professionals?
It seems to be.
And so, as we press on in our pursuit of information on the “real”
Aceh Timur and sustainability, we are buoyed by the thought that an originally
5-member agency operating on a shoestring in the middle of one of the worst
natural and man-made disaster combinations in history had a better grasp of how
to address peoples’ needs than the multi-billion-dollar global financial and
humanitarian network that oversaw reconstruction.
Hey, if it walks like a duck . . .
Next: updates (if any!) and how to begin planning for the
Documentary
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