[Session 4]"Enjoying the minister's treat of warm asparagus soup in a classy hotel, which, according to our Chinese investor, he had never tasted in his own country—and indeed, there was something interesting in the Land of Archipelago, sometimes, a news was typed in a hurry, so a 'poor guy' might be possibly typo as a 'cool guy'—then investor told a story, 'In a never never time, which was of course different from today, where now man can only 'talk to the walls,' whereas on that time, man could talk to trees.Well, there was a man, walking languidly among the trees. He had walked here and there, begging the trees for help, but he was always rejected. Talking to the sugar cane tree, rejected; talking to Bougainvillea flowers, rejected, talking to Patchouli leaves, rejected, even talking to cacti, rejected. Finally, he sat under an apple tree. He was tired, he slept in her shade.When he awoke, the tree greeted him, 'O come, son of man. Come and climb up my trunk and swing from my branches and eat apples and play in my sshadow and therefore, be happy!''I'm too big to climb and play,' said the man. 'I want to buy things and have fun. I want some money. Can you give me some money?''I'm sorry,” said the tree, 'I have no money.'The tree felt sorry for the man. Just imagine, who wouldn't feel sorry for him, whose face looked like a 'bumpkin—when in fact, and the tree hadn't realized it yet, the man, by borrowing and combining expressions of a reformer and a philosopher, was nothing but a 'stupid prick'. Wise men said, 'Only fools rush in, so don't judge a book just by its theatrical action!''I have only leaves and apples,' said the tree. 'Take my apples, and sell them in the city. Then you will have money and you will be happy.'And so the man gathered the apples and the leaves, then carried them away. The apple tree was amazing, her fruits had many colors, , from red, which was dominant, yellow, green, and recently, there was also blue. Are there any apples that are blue? Maybe bluish, like a blue spruce.The man made the leaves into a crown and put it on his head. He looked like a theatrical play King of the forest. While leaving, he said to the tree, 'Don't worry, I'll be back! And when I come to you, all of this land, will have a right of ownership.'The apple tree proved to be true, with the apple and its leaves, the man became rich and was chosen to be the village chief. The festive party lasted seven days and seven nights. Food was served and dancing was held. The party was so magnificent that a guest from abroad commented about the meal, '...almost beyond anything Hollywood could've pulled together...' rendering our Chieftain looked blushing.While our Chieftain was busy with, 'The way of Ninja!', that's his son's slogan, the apple tree, waiting and waiting, the man didn't come. Whether it was forgotten, or deceived, certainly, the apple tree was crying. It was so sad as a storm came to hit her, causing her leaves fall, in an instant, she turned into a barren tree. Tomorrow, the days will start to get longer, but the storm, has just begun. Thus, is it possible for the apple tree will be 'Homelessness'?'""Let's pause our Investor's story for a moment," Peace lily interrupted. "Allow me to tell you about 'Homelessness.'There is nothing new about homelessness, says David Levinson. There have been homeless people for some 10,000 years—from the time when humans built their first permanent homes in the first towns of the Fertile Crescent. The historical record, novels and poems, and sacred texts tell us the stories of beggars, wandering ascetics, penniless friars, displaced peasants, lost soldiers, street youths, vagrants, new arrivals in the city, and displaced workers.Homelessness [the state of having no home or permanent residence. Whereas 'Homeless' (of a person) without a home or permanent residence, and therefore typically living on the streets] when viewed cross-culturally, is a complex issue. In many developed nations, homeless families, many of them immigrants, are the major issue. In the developing nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, the homeless are often women and their children, youths, and migrants from rural areas who have come to cities looking for work and opportunity. The emergence of many cities in developing nations as major regional or global commercial centers has made the problem even worse, by increasing the appeal of cities as employment centers to the rural poor while at the same time providing less and less affordable housing and support services for immigrants.Homelessness is one of the least understood social issues. The public image of homelessness and public perceptions of the nature and causes of homelessness have little relation to the reality of the situation. Experts have yet to agree on a single definition or criterion to measure homelessness. The homeless experience high levels of social, emotional, and physical problems.It's not easy to understand what the causes of Homelessness, because the factors that explain contemporary homelessness are so complex and intertwined. Several quantitative studies have sought to determine what factors are most associated with increased homelessness. Martha Burt found that homelessness was associated with increased unemployment, single parenthood, reduced public benefits, and high housing and living costs.One of the causes of Homelessness in India, Indonesia and Puerto Rico, is Forced eviction. Katherine Brickell, Melissa Fernández Arrigoitia, and Alex Vasudevan (2017) wrote that Forced eviction, claims UN-Habitat, is a ‘global phenomenon’ and ‘global crisis’. Figures published by the agency indicate that during the 2000s, at least 15 million people globally were forcibly evicted. According to Amnesty International (2012), between 2007–2009 alone, over 4.5 million people were affected. Forced evictions are, ‘when people are forced out of their homes and off their land against their will, with little notice or none at all, often with the threat or use of violence’. On 2017, forced evictions in the name of ‘progress’ are attracting attention as growing numbers of people in the Global South are ejected and dispossessed from their homes, often through intimidation, coercion and the use of violence. At the same time, we have also witnessed the intensification of a ‘crisis’ urbanism in the Global North characterized by new forms of social inequality, heightened housing insecurity and violent displacement. These developments have led to an explosion of forced evictions supported by new economic, political and legal mechanisms, and increasingly shaped by intensifying environmental change. As UN-Habitat & UNHRP have recently concluded, ‘accelerating urbanization, climate change and globalization, financial and other global crises have contributed to making forced evictions even more acute and complex’.Forced evictions, according to Brickle, et al, are themselves nothing new and that the elementary brutalities associated with displacement and dispossession must be located within a much wider historical narrative. As Stuart Elden has reminded us, ‘conflict over land, at a variety of scales, is a major factor in human affairs and […] its effects have been almost entirely negative’. According to Elden, such effects are often intimately intertwined with struggles over property and ownership and have depended on historically specific forms of allocation and distribution and equally contingent expressions of control, power and violence. These tendencies have assumed an important role within the history of capitalism and many, in this context, have singled out its constitutive dependency on the logics of primitive accumulation, violence and displacement. The relationship of eviction and expulsion to the enclosure of common lands and more recent forms of land-grabbing is thus well-established. A number of scholars have also highlighted the concomitant emergence of a settler colonialism as a conspicuously violent form of domination and dispossession.Forced evictions are far more than the result of an individual’s or an institution’s decision or action. They are also part of a larger assemblage of elements, conditions, materials and knowledges. Forced evictions are often intensely traumatic experiences, for more attention to the emotional and differentiated impacts that forced eviction brings. A critical optic is now needed that acknowledges and attends to the different affective and emotional registers of displacement and dispossession and the un-making of home spaces. As Richardson identify, ‘Although physical and economic losses are the most apparent impacts of forced land evictions, there exist serious mental health consequences for those who experience or who are at risk of losing their land.’ The violent logic contained and enacted through forced evictions is also, always, a fragile performance of power that must contend with the people and places infracted upon, before, during and after the intervention. The profound emotional and material dislocations that the loss of home produces is therefore not prefigured as a closed or final defeat, but as a generative environment for varied forms of resistance and contestation to formal organization and protest. Whether individual or collective, organized or spontaneous, any reluctance to submit to a forced eviction is continually exposed to criminalization, framed as an actual or potential security threat that must be contained.According to UN-Human Rights, 'Forced evictions constitute gross violations of a range of internationally recognized human rights, including the human rights to adequate housing, food, water, health, education, work, security of the person, freedom from cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, and freedom of movement.Forced evictions are often linked to the absence of legally secure tenure, which constitutes an essential element of the right to adequate housing. Forced evictions share many consequences similar to those resulting from arbitrary displacement, including population transfer, mass expulsions, mass exodus, ethnic cleansing and other practices involving the coerced and involuntary displacement of people from their lands and communities.As a result of forced evictions, people are often left homeless and destitute, without means of earning a livelihood and often with no effective access to legal or other remedies. Forced evictions intensify inequality, social conflict, segregation and invariably affect the poorest, most socially and economically vulnerable and marginalized sectors of society, especially women, children, minorities and indigenous peoples.The impacts of forced evictions go far beyond material losses, leading to greater inequality, marginalization and social conflicts. In the context of development, infrastructure projects, land acquisitions, urban renewal and mega events, eviction impact assessments are needed to: consider the wide range of impacts, and argue in favour of less harmful solutions and alternatives to the foreseen project; estimate the real costs related to eviction and displacement of individuals and community that goes far beyond the mere market price of physical structures; and allow for a better quantification of claims, including in regard to compensation.'We'll carry on our Investor's story on the next session, bi 'idhnillah."Peace lily then sang a song,Masih sukakah kau mendengar[Do you still like to hear]dengus nafas saudara kita yang terkapar?[the sigh of our sprawling brothers?]Masih sukakah kau melihat[Do you still like to see]butir keringat kaum kecil yang terjerat[beads of sweat of entangled helpless people]oleh slogan-slogan manis sang hati laknat?[by the sweet slogans of the cursed heart?]Oleh janji-janji muluk tanpa bukti? **)[By grandiose promises without proof?]
[Session 2]
