World Culture Forum (WCF) was a forum held by the Ministry of Education
of Indonesia, starting from 10 October to 14 October in Bali. The
forum was attended by government officials, ambassadors, and international and
public participants. The theme for WCF 2016 was about Culture for Inclusive
Sustainable Planet. Cultural visit, symposiums, cultural performance and
International Youth Forum were some of the activities in WCF 2016.
I was lucky because I was chosen to be one of public participants to
join this forum. Every participant was given the choices to join what
symposiums they were interested in. I joined two symposiums which are the most
interesting for me. The first symposium was Reviving Culture for Rural
Sustainability and the second symposium was Cultural Diversity for
Responsible Development. In this writing I will try my best to share the
knowledge that I had gained from this forum, hope it can be useful and will
inspire many people as well.
Reviving Culture for Rural Sustainability
The first symposium was opened by the first speaker, Aleta Baun, who is
familiar to be called Mama Aleta, a lady from NTT who struggled and strived to
save her land from the destruction of mining. A very touching and breathtaking
presentation started by her quote which said “We do not sell what we cannot
create”. Mama Aleta was one of the people in NTT who rejected the coal
mining in NTT, as she witnessed how mining is so destructive and dangerous for
the nature. Together with other activists she fought against the mining company
(and unfortunately also the government) to save the nature. The struggling
wasn’t easy though, Mama Aleta was threatened to death by the company, and her
family was also physically and mentally harm. She mentioned how she had to hide
and survive in the forest for months only with her 5-month baby because the
people from mining company tried to kill her. But all the anguish, threats, torture,
and fear did not stop her and other activists. After 13-year fight, they
managed to close the mining, and now Mama Aleta is one of DPD members for NTT.
Culture which teaches people to save the nature because nature is created by
Almighty God, is what has inspired Mama Aleta to keep fighting. She knows that
people have no right to sell what they cannot create, if people cannot create
the life, then do not try to sell and harm the life. If only every human in the
world were like her, I am pretty sure world will not face climate change now
and no one needs to suffer because of the disaster created by human.