Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta: a happy end of the controversy

During lunch time, while we’re enjoying pho Vietnamese noodle soup at Baltimore Avenue, my friend asked me about Yogyakarta, my home town in Indonesia. My friend especially questioned the controversy of Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta (Yogyakarta Special Region). His question reminds me about my lovely hometown, and here it is.

The gate to the Sultan palace (Keraton)

I was born in Yogyakarta, an ancient city of Javanese monarchy as the capital of Yogyakarta Special (Administrative) Region, one of the 33 provinces of Indonesia. I graduated from Gadjah Mada University, the oldest university in Indonesia, and one of the top universities in Indonesia. I am so proud of Yogyakarta: the city of education, city of tourism, and the city of art and culture. The monarchy still actively exists (nice huh? having an active monarchy within a republic). The King of Yogyakarta (Sultan Ngayogyakerto Hadiningrat) rules the Yogyakarta Sultanate (in Yogyakarta Special Region/province) from the palace (called Keraton) in the southern part of the city.

Sri Sultan Hamengkoeboewono X and Kanjeng Ratu Hemas (The King and the queen). Ngerso Dalem, (we called Sultan: Ngerso Dalem/His Majesty) is the current Sultan from current ruling royal house of the Yogyakarta Sultanate

The controversy I’m talking about was the importance of keeping the province as Special Administrative Region. The status as Special Administrative Region was given to Yogyakarta following historical facts that show Yogyakarta’s significant contribution to the survival of Republic of Indonesian (see Special Region of Yogyakarta). The status made Yogyakarta the only province headed by a monarchy in Indonesia. The King is automatically our governor.

Yogyakarta community is very unique; the society has interesting combination of well-educated people with depth belief of Javanese culture (as the effect of the Sultanate existences). As a result, decorum and manners (in educated way) are the most important things in daily community life. People are also delighted by arts in every element of their life (I’ll tell you about this separately). And although very diverse, as a result of many students who come throughout the country, people live in peace and serenity. Everybody understands that each of them has their own place and function in the society and respect to each other hierarchically. People also have high level of humor sense in their life, and violence may not be the honored.

The Gadjah Mada University (administrative building). The campus is also well-known as Blue Campus

I recall when the debates were still up; people of Yogyakarta were totally support Sultan, fought with honor for keeping the status. People even made kind of jokes: if Yogyakarta loses its special region status, then take independence will be the only choice, and all of us (‘Yogyanese’ who’s been out of Yogyakarta) will work as expatriate in Indonesia (hahaha). Some Yogyakarta's artists had already been designing a model for ‘Yogyanese’ passport and share it in social network for protest. That was funny. 

The Logo of Yogyakarta Sultanate

We (of course) love Indonesia, our motherland, but it was kind of ‘serious’ jokes to show to the central Government about how serious the people of Yogyakarta took the issue into consideration.

'Yogyanese' don't like violence, so they protested in creative ways. You know how to deal with artists, right? They even created a comic hero named 'Pangeran Lombok Abang' (Prince of Red Chili) to protect the kingdom from injustice. Why red chili? I'll explain in later post.

Finally, August 30 2012 was a great day for people from Yogyakarta (including me). Coz, that was the day when the controversy for ‘special administrative region of Yogyakarta’ was finally ended by endorsements from the legislative assembly of Republic of Indonesia. A happy end, yay !!

Noted, I don't own all pics, just took it from Kotajogja.com