M. Nawir
Senior Researcher, Sulisa Matra Bangsa
Keywords: Cosmopolitanism, Identity Conflict, Multiculturalism, Urban Village.
WIN Media, Opinion – The Indonesian Cultural Strategy document resulting from the 2018 Congress brought back to the surface several cultural problems, among others: national insight within diversity has been allowed to fade for too long; and the entities of cultural diversity have not been accessed widely and equitably. These two problems have thickened the seeds of primordial and sectarianism; triggering identity conflicts, intolerance, and human rights violations in the last two decades.
Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur), deserves to have his name foregrounded in thawing such primordial attitudes and sectarian sentiments. In “Universalism and Cosmopolitanism of Islamic Civilization” (1988), Gus Dur dialogued essentialist (Ash’ari) and anti-essentialist (Mu’tazilah) views.
In contemporary cultural studies, essentialism represents a classic view of the meaning of identity as an inherent (universal) nature, a heritage of belief settled within a person. Conversely, anti-essentialists (cosmopolitans) believe identity is not innate, but self-constructed, so cultural relativity determines changes in a person’s identity.
In Gus Dur’s paraphrase, identity is formed through an eclectic process towards a certain truth. One can achieve this through esoteric (monologic) as well as dialectic (dialogic) experiences, including accepting the culture of materialism which underlies the right to property ownership, one of the five basic human needs in ushul fiqh.
In line with Gus Dur’s idea is the opinion of Latief (2018) regarding national (archipelagic) identity, which is the result of cross-cultural encounters between nations. Latief argues; openness is the basic blueprint of Indonesian culture, and synthesis is the mentality of its people. That is why the 1945 Constitution guarantees diversity, and asserts that Indonesian culture is a world cultural heritage.
The idea of cosmopolitanism à la Gus Dur from a multiculturalism perspective underlies the main topic of this writing. By appropriating cosmopolitan culture, the author will address the problem of representation and the potential for identity conflict among urban village residents.
Urban village, as the author understands it (Fajar, 21/07/2025), is a historical entity of migrants from rural areas, namely the second wave of native migrants impacted by political conflict (1950s) and military operations (1960s), especially from Bugis, Mandar, and Toraja lands. At that time, the number of migrant communities reached 30-40 percent of Makassar city’s total population. They produced social villagespaces while also being shaped by city development, outside the colonial settlement site-plan (Pradadimara, 2003).
Urban village later became a collective identity, a living space for residents from various ethnic, religious, and social orientation backgrounds. Their lives are a tangible example of how cultural, religious, and socio-political orientation differences are contested to achieve mutual understanding based on principles of tolerance and respect for citizenship political rights.
Multiculturalism Perspective
Brian Fay (1996) in Lubis (2004) understands multiculturalism as an ideology or worldview that recognizes and esteems differences in equality, both individually and culturally. In a multicultural society, differences in culture, ethnicity, locality, language, race, and belief are accepted as a mosaic, not a threat.
This diversity, according to Parekh (2002), is embedded in and preserved by culture; that is a set of beliefs and practices through which a group of people understand themselves and the world and regulate individual and collective life.
Parekh (2002) formulates three types of cultural diversity in modern society: (1) sub-cultural diversity, where in cultural life, some members of society adhere to certain beliefs and lifestyles that distinguish them from one another; (2) perspective diversity, which involves taking a critical stance towards the central principles or values of the dominant culture, and striving to reconstruct them appropriately. For example, environmental activists attack the anthropocentric bias of technocrats; (3) communal diversity. Most modern societies also include several organized communities, living with specific belief systems and practices. They include migrants, religious communities, cultural/customary groups. This third type of diversity becomes the focus of multiculturalism studies.
Referring to the view above, urban village residents can be classified into the type of communal diversity, namely diversity formed from a plurality that has long existed, is inherited, and is strong yet flexible.
This argument clarifies the multicultural of residents: (1) diversity of culture, ethnic groups, religion, and social orientation; (2) living side-by-side non-complementarity, not automatically complementing each other due to differences in basic values; (3) the tendency of certain groups to dominate the trade, institutional, and lifestyle sectors potentially causing identity conflicts among residents and between groups due to ideological differences and political affiliations.
Cultural Identity Conflict
Identity conflict is a phenomenon of multiculturality among urban residents. This phenomenon is generally triggered by the negative meaning assigned by an individual or group towards another individual or group.
Negation arises as a reaction to social change. For example, communities living in the alleys of Makassar city react to government policies that favor the privatization of public spaces such as real-estate, malls, entertainment destinations over the structuring of village.
Consequently, spatial inequality is very stark, reflecting economic disparity. This development expands negative perceptions towards village entities with labels like “slum”, “poor”, including the term “marginal” (even though they are the majority). The homogenization of these labels blurs the fact of citizen cultural diversity.
The vocabulary “spatial planning”, “city without slums” is a dominant discourse, which initially contained no contradiction in meaning. In practice, this vocabulary implies repressive actions, such as evictions based on rule of law.
This provokes a counter-narrative; residents perceive the structuring policy as a unilateral definition by the government aided by planners to exclude their rights to the city (Kusno, 2000 in Bradley, 2003). This deprivation operates through affirmative power, performative discourse, and institutional policies (Butler & Athanasiou, 2013).
Social conflict in plural urban societies is triggered by the dominant political discourse of representation, although within the community, between individuals or groups, contestant also occurs to achieve understanding and equality. Barker and Jane (2006) divide two codes of political representation.
On one side, it concerns issues of discourse, image, language, and meaning. Such as in the use of the vocabulary “urban village” and “slum settlement”. Residents represent the diversity of village socio-cultural identities, which is varied; the public and government represent the discourse of planning by first homogenizing the meaning of village within the vocabulary “slum and poor”.
On the other side, representation is part of the discourse of democracy, citizenship, and public space. The discourse of citizenship is a mechanism that connects the political rights of identity (micro) with institutional politics and formal culture (macro).
As with urban village residents, their legitimacy as citizens is proven by residency status (ID card), automatically registered as fixed voters (DPT); and access to electricity (PLN) and clean water resources (PDAM). Some residents pay property tax (PBB), but the majority do not have legitimacy or certainty of land tenure rights. This means residents, besides being vulnerable to losing property, are also potentially losing representation and cultural agency within the discourse of multiculturalism.
Cultural Resilience
Political representation of citizens in multicultural spaces requires, more than equality of residency status, its integration into the legal system such as the Advancement of Culture, Recognition and Protection of Customary Law Communities.
In the urban context, strategies for sustaining cosmopolitan culture: (1) advocate for housing rights (Agrarian Reform) to ensure the continuity of communal diversity; (2) actualize the practice of village-style communing (Budianta, 2019), which is strengthening resident solidarity in facing cultural capitalization by creatively revitalizing localities such as rituals, nature schools, urban farming, and mutual cooperation in settlement arrangement; (3) broaden the perspective of cultural diversity in urban village, including practices of female and youth leadership.