Editorial:

Today a city comprises the complexity and the ambiguity of human tendencies. If in terms of physical environment and institutions  cities are now undergoing rapid transformation, so are human selves and their ways of looking at things. Various sentrifugal tendencies are in contestation with sentripetal instincts.  This is palpable especially in certain areas such as sexuality, problems of gender, religion, culture and literature. In developing countries like Indonesia,  for example,   sexuality and gender are quite susceptible to political manipulations,  particularly when they are connected to religious  affair.  In  the realm of religion itself the dilemma  oftentimes occurs around the problem of stereotyping, namely  between the stereotype of the so called ‘fundamentalism’ on the one hand  and  of the  ‘secular’ modern tendencies on the other. And when it comes to  culture, the problem is, among other things, on the way ‘tradition’ is to be conceived of : for instance whether it is purely repetitive or transformative.  But urban life is also characterised by the  burgeoning of  its literature, which is one of the most intimate outlets of  its inner struggle, concerning what is considered good and evil in particular. Melintas of this issue  puts all these into perspective.   

Editor.