INDIGENOUS PEOPLE EMPOWERMENT POLICY IN INDONESIA FROM MULTICULTURAL PERSPECTIVE (LESSON LEARNED FROM THE IMPLEMENTATION OF EMPOWERING PROGRAM OF REMOTE INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY OF SEA NOMADS COMMUNITIES IN BERTAM ISLAND-BATAM CITY)

Abstract

Indonesia is a multicultural country in terms of differences in ethnicity, religion, customs and regional differences. Sea nomads is one parth that shows the diversity of the community. Sea nomads is an indigenous tribal community inhabiting the waters of Riau Islands is concentrated in Batam waters around the Straits of Malacca, the Strait of Philip, and the South of China Sea. Referred to as the Sea Nomads because of its nomadic life by doing all the activities of life activities staying in a boat or canoe roofed a “Kajang”. Batam since 1987 designated as a strategic area of the border regions of Indonesia, grew into regional industry, commerce, shipbuilding, and tourism development of the region with authority. The rapid development of an indirect impact on sea nomads life change such as; reduced fish catch due to pollution of sea water is sourced from waste oil from shipbuilding companies, communities increasingly narrow mobility due to some point on the mainland changed to support the building industry, as well as the loss of access economic consequences of breaking haul trade through barter system with a singapore and malaysia citizen zoning result of cross-border security. The changes are posed by the government to establish a special policy for se nomads in the form of Empowerment program Remote Indigenous Communities (PKAT). With the out put in the form of placement sea nomads to settle on the Bertam island. However, the implementation of the program turned out to override aspects of culture, tradition, and social stratification in community. The impact is the emergence of dependency attitude with the help of residents, from the loss of traditions and indigenous cultures such as “Silat”, “Jung”, and the commodification “Joget” as a means of unifying the citizens, as well as environmental pollution, and land ownership conflicts. This paper discusses the approach to reviewing multicultural social work particularly in the social intervention for indigenous communities to learn from the experience of the implementation of the empowerment program has done for the Sea Nomads community in Bertam Island.