Masa karantina Abang-None Jakarta Pusat 2012 meninggalkan bekas yang mendalam. Dalam suatu kesempatan, ke-30 finalis dibagi menjadi lima grup yang terdiri dari 3 pasang Abang-None mengikuti kompetisi The Amazing Race.
Salah satu destinasi dari The Amazing Race tersebut adalah Museum Taman Prasasti yang terletak tepat di samping kantor walikota Jakarta Pusat, tempat dimana karantina diadakan. Pilu begitu menginjakkan kaki ke dalam museum. Kondisinya yang tak terawat dan sepinya pengunjung membuat museum terlihat menyedihkan.
Lalu saya kembali mengunjungi Museum Taman Prasasti beberapa bulan setelah proses karantina hanya untuk mengetahui bilamana museum tersebut semakin hancur. Namun ini hanya untuk sementara karena pihak museum sedang melakukan renovasi agar museum dapat lebih baik di kemudian hari.
Berikut adalah tulisan saya yang terbit di harian The Jakarta Globe, Senin, 12 November 2012. Klik disini untuk membaca tulisan ini di thejakartaglobe.com
Gie was a Chinese-Indonesian activist who died in 1969 after inhaling poisonous fumes while hiking up Mount Semeru in East Java.
His tombstone is one of at least two dozen historical artifacts ruined in Museum Taman Prasasti (Museum of Memorial Stone Park), once an old Dutch cemetery located in the bustling Tanah Abang area in Central Jakarta. Some of the graves date back to the colonial era.
Rough weather conditions in January, where heavy rain led to flooding and trees falling down, left several pieces from the collection damaged or destroyed.
“We are now in the process of renovating the museum. The renovation started before the fasting month [July] and will be finished in December,” said Hendra Handoyo, head of the management division of the Jakarta History Museum, which also manages Museum Taman Prasasti.
While the museum remained open during the renovation, the Rp 4 billion ($416,000) project is expected to create an arrangement of old and new memorials, a redesigned park and a drainage system to prevent flooding.
“The restoration is in partnership with Jakarta’s conservation agency,” said Hendra, who added that the damaged tombstones would be replicated from quality marble and crafted like their originals.
The museum is all but deserted these days, leaving the ticket vendor with a sense of boredom.
“I think you’re the first person to come here today,” Ridwan, the museum caretaker, told one visitor last week. It was 12:30 p.m.
The museum is open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday.
Although neglected, Museum Taman Prasasti offers an insight into the history of those names inscribed on the tombstones.
“In this park, events of a long time ago are described by inspirations on the memorial stones of past generations,” states a stone at the museum, followed by the July 9, 1977, signature of former Jakarta Governor Ali Sadikin.
Ali transformed the cemetery into an open-air museum in 1975, in a bid to boost tourism to the area.
The museum tells stories about Batavia (now Jakarta) and provides visitors a glimpse of its population, which was mainly divided by the Dutch, Arab, Chinese and indigenous people. The tombstones show a variety of architectural styles covering classicism, gothic and Javanese Hindu.
Established in 1797, the site was a cemetery known as “Kebon Jahe Kober,” which was designated as the final resting place of Dutch nobles and high-ranking officials of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). It was built for the high mortality rates in Batavia early in the 19th century.
The cemetery was managed by the city’s burials agency until 1975, before the five-hectare cemetery, with about 4,200 tombstones, was closed to make way for the construction of the Central Jakarta mayor’s office. The area now measures 1.3 hectares with about 1,300 tombstones.
“All the corpses were moved to other cemeteries, such as Menteng Pulo public cemetery. Others were taken by their families,” Ridwan said.
A tombstone of HF Roll, the founder of Stovia, a school of medicine now known as the University of Indonesia, is easily spotted with its open-book gravestone. Another notable tombstone is of Olivia Marianne Raffles, the first wife of Governor General Thomas Stamford Raffles, the founding father of Singapore.
Although many of the tombstones have aged, there is one that still stands proud and tall, complete with a skull and a spear on its head. This one belongs to Pieter Erberveld, a German who was opposed to the Dutch colony. He rioted and was later captured and sentenced to death for treason.
“One of the reasons we are undergoing renovation is to dissipate the spooky ambiance and create a more museum-friendly environment,” Hendra said. “When the renovation is finished, we aim to involve schoolchildren by holding a festival on the site, with photography and painting competitions. As for high school students, we will let them perform music in the museum.”
An audio-visual room will be added, to engage more visitors including school children — one of the museum’s primary targets.
“If we successfully engage them to come, then we will shift the focus to general tourists, preferably local ones over international tourists,” Hendra said.
Only Rp 100 million ($10,400) from the city budget is allocated to the museums, with about 60 percent of that budget going to the Jakarta History Museum and 40 percent for Museum Taman Prasasti.
“That amount of money is not enough for maintenance, which is done once a year. A lot of our visitors still don’t realize the importance of, among other things, cleanliness,” Hendra said.
Even with a huge sum of money being used to renovate the museum, the historical site is often empty.
While Museum Taman Prasasti has recently been used as a place to shoot music-video clips and as a set for photo shoots, this shouldn’t be the only purpose of the site. Instead, the museum should be regarded as a valuable cultural resource for the nation.
Museum Taman Prasasti is located at Jalan Tanah Abang No. 1, Central Jakarta.
