The Shifting Understanding of Earthquake
According Oliver Smith recently most natural disaster are more explainable in term of the “normal’ order things, that is’ the conditions of inequality and subordination in a society rather than accidental geophysical features of a place. This views move forward from theological and myth perspective to cultural meaning. Earthquake as one kind of disaster caused destruction of cultural structure of human beings. The poor and subordinate classes have more great effect rather than the wealth one.
This means that disaster relates to vulnerability aspect of human beings. Smith says that vulnerability is generated trough a chain of root causes embedded in ideological, social, and economic system, the dynamic pressure of demographic, socio economic, or ecological nature, hazard and produce disaster.
Vulnerability theories maintain, disasters are more a product of a society than of a specific nature, certain questions concerning the conjecture of culture, society, and nature arise. The question such as how the social production of disaster, how to interfere disaster, and how this theorize linkage to the social condition.
Probably, earthquake as product of human being is influenced by social interpretation. Because social reality changed, every time relates to the developing of people and it is positioned by location of people live. That means, there is shifting understanding from one location to other and between one generation to generation.
Javanese tradition seems escape from old understanding, which sees earthquake from relation to mystical married of Javanese king and “Nyi Roro Kidul” to the Islamic understanding of lust and sin. In the other hand, contemporary Javanese also respond earthquake with different manner form his/her ancestor.
Theologically speaking that sin and lust interrelate to salvation. Who will be saved in the dire situation? The majority of Sengon people see that earthquake will bring them to new understanding of theology.
Old Javanese understanding is different widely from the contemporary people as shown by Sengon people. Although some of them still believe to existence of Nyi Roro Kidul, but they did not sure the earthquake happened because of her. Pak Soekarno said “it’s merely God examination for people who abide Him, and punishment for heresy people.”
Majority of Sengon village was Muslim-Muhammadiyah, in which tend to avoid mystical and myth explanation about natural phenomena. Placing Nyi Roro Kidul as caused will diminish God role, whereas in Muhammadiyah understanding the only God have power to punish and bless.
Mostly Sengon people believe that dire situation is caused by sin where human people do wrong and follow lust. These sin and lust not only assault to the religious norm, but also the ways of live upon earth. Human have wrong in managing and maintain earth by natural resource exploitation out of the role of nature itself.
Not all people probably do wrong, but all people can fell dire because of him/her in the same arenas with the lust one. In this ways, disaster has two meaning. For the lust one is punishment, and for the obedience one is examination. Self-reflection will bring people to awareness where is the position of him/her actually in accordance with disaster by seeing the later conducted in the ways of religion and natural order.
According to pak Sotrisno, Sengon people were religiously enough. That ways they interpreted earthquake in relation to religious teaching. Dire situation will be saved by their closer to God, “Allohu akbar was common choir” when earthquake happened.
However, for some people earthquake arise new kind of understanding about vulnerability of life, such as viewed in house building and early warning system. In house building they build home with numbers of doors in order to make easy goes out when earthquake comes.
In the other hand, there is lost tradition in Javanese culture of early warning system. In old Javanese bird sound was sign of come situation, both for happiness or sad. As such record in serat centini. Additionally, hitting “kentongan” was used as early warning system to make sure people know everything will happens.
