| http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/MJ19Ae05.html Oct 19, 2011 PEAKING FREELY Indonesia: Among the happiest people By Zeyneb Temnenko Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have their say. Please click here if you are interested in contributing. For many people, Indonesia is associated with Bali, resorts, 2002 bombings, and tsunamis. I was lucky to see a different Indonesia. Indonesian people proudly say that they have more than 300 languages. They proudly point out their Javanese, Balinese and Sudanese identities; yet some of them are afraid of diversity and want to stay homogenous. Indonesian people often refer to themselves as being open-minded, at the same time some of them are afraid of trying new things, eating new food and looking at the world outside of Indonesia, or even accepting the fact that things can be done the other way, not necessarily their way. Some make premature conclusions about you, just based on the fact that you are a white foreigner or "boule" - that's how Indonesians commonly refer to foreigners. The boules and Indonesians usually have different entrances to cultural sites. It is the largest Muslim country with Muslims making food sacrifices to Mount Merapi, and Muslims working at Buddhist temples. It is a country of diversity and tolerance. At the same time it is a country of covert intolerance and internal fear of new things that seem alien to this culture. It is a country where rice is served at every restaurant and with every meal. If you go to a Western pizzeria or pasta restaurant, some Indonesians wonder why rice is not listed on the menu. It is a country of predominantly devout pious Muslims that co-exist with a population of 20 million non-Muslim. It is a country where 20-year-old girls want sharia law to be implemented. It is a country where during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan some restaurants and bars are open, and alcohol is sold. Islamic Defenders' Front (FPI), an organization fighting for pure Islam, is known for its attacks on clubs and bars that stay open during the holy month. Islam in Indonesia is unique. While religious parties and politicians who put Islam on their political platform lose elections, sharia law is practiced in Aceh, and Abdurahman Wahid, the third president, came from a family of Islamic clerics with his own father being a founder of one of the most influential religious organizations Nahdatul Ulama, and Wahid himself was the head of this organization. Islam in Indonesia, in Java especially is very closely merged with local religions and traditions. Food sacrifices to Mount Merapi, and only white rice fastings (nasi putih) are still practiced. Popular Islam This summer I had an opportunity to spend two months in Indonesia on a Henry Luce Fellowship. I lived in Indonesia's special province, sultanate of Yogyakarta, which is located on the island of Java. A lot of Indonesians complain that Java is unofficially considered to be the dominant island. The capital Jakarta is located here with the entire state government. The Indonesian government is thought to give more attention to Java. A lot of my Balinese, Acehnese and Sulawesi friends now living in Java were pointing out on that inequality of Java de-facto acquiring the status of the very important island in Indonesia. A special province sultanate of Yogyakarta, is headed by Sri Sultan Hamengkubuwana X, who is both the sultan and governor. Currently there is a political debate about abolishing Yogyakarta's status of a special province. In addition to that, the current sultan does not have sons who could succeed him. He has daughters and a brother who technically could become the next ruler of Yogyakarta. I ran into his daughter at a restaurant opening where she was invited as a distinguished speaker. With Muslims being a dominant majority of 77%, Indonesia is the world's largest Muslim country. According to the Gallup 2009 Survey of top five most religious countries in the world, Indonesia is ranked third. Ninety-nine percent of Indonesians answered that religion plays an important role in their daily life. After declaring its independence in 1945, the first Indonesian president Sukarno introduced an ideology of Pancasila (five principles: belief in one god, democracy, social justice, civilized humanity, the unity of Indonesia), which is still practiced and plays an important role in the society. Apart from Pancasila, Sukarno with his desire to join the communist bloc laid foundations for the atheistic state, which the next president Suharto further developed and ingrained in his policies. Headscarves and Islamic parties were banned, daily Islamic practices became clandestine. Despite its communist past, people in Java are highly religious. Doing a five-time obligatory Muslim prayer salat, fasting during Ramadan, and wearing headscarves for women are wide-spread. Pork and alcohol are not easily accessible, and Allah-related phrases are deeply entrenched into daily language. According to Indonesian constitution, Indonesia is a secular state. However, there are only six recognized religions - Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism and Hinduism, and not long ago Confucianism was acknowledged as an official religion. One of these six official religions must be on the KTP (identity card) of every Indonesian citizen. When one gets an Indonesian cell-phone number, one has to answer the question what their religion is, and choose one of the six religions. This official acknowledgement of six religions creates a lot of problems in daily life. Pak Suhadi, a lecturer at Gadjah Mada University, wrote a book on inter-religious marriage. When I met him and asked about his research, he immediately quipped that he only researches on interreligious marriage, and that he does not practice it. You cannot marry someone of opposite religion. Some inter-religious couples go to Singapore to get married, others change their religion and get a new KTP. Existence of the identity card with a religion on it created an expression in Bahasa Indonesian about non-practicing Muslims. They are called a "Muslim KTP". Daily practices of Islam One of my Indonesian friends, who spent his exchange year abroad in the West, confessed that while being abroad, he often missed the obligatory salat, not because he forgot to do it, but because he did not feel pressured to do it. In Indonesia you are not obliged to do salat. The communal pressure turns out to be stronger than any laws. As my friend explained, if he does not do salat in Indonesia, his friends and family will judge him. The society makes you follow certain regulations and moral standards. It is fear of being judged and categorized that makes you do what everybody does. If everybody prays, or all your friends go to mosque on Fridays, you have no other choice but follow the majority. There is no law that imposes wearing a hijab, but one can find a lot of veiled young and middle aged women. At the same time some Indonesian people assert that hijab does not represent belief and religiosity, rather it is a symbol of fashion. After spending two months in Indonesia, I came to think that hijab is not about fashion. It is more of an escape from social judgment. If you wear a hijab, it means you are a pious Muslim, and nobody will dare to question your level of religiosity, and nobody will say that you are too liberal or too Western. Although generally people in Java are very friendly toward people from the West, sometimes being too Western might possess a negative meaning. Hijab protects you from gossips and judgments, something that you cannot usually protect yourself from because in a communal society it is rarely appropriate to stand up for yourself and speak up. At a restaurant opening, I asked my friend Hari looking at the Indonesian women all dressed in short cocktail dresses: "Where are all those women in hijabs that I see in the streets of Jogja everyday?" My friend replied: "They do not attend events like this. The society will judge them. They will be considered party girls". Some Indonesians put people into categories: you are from the West, it means you have never eaten rice, and you do not like hot weather; if you are a female Muslim who is not wearing a hijab, it means you are not religious enough. If you prefer a shower instead of pouring a bucket of water on yourself, it means you are a spoiled Westerner who likes to find an easy way of doing things Allie has been wearing a hijab since she was in high school. Her mother is highly active in Yogyanese religious life. She would like her daughter to follow her path. Allie at the same time thinks that she does not belong to Indonesia. She wants to go to Canada, to do anything, just for the sake of being in Canada. She has applied a few times for a Canadian visa, always unsuccessfully. She sincerely does not understand why she was denied a Canadian visa. She thinks in the future she will get unveiled. She already did not wear hijab when she was in Bali. The first reason was because she wanted to try to exist without a headscarf. The second reason was that she again was afraid of public judgment in Bali - women wearing hijab are seldom found in Bali. Lea, a young law school graduate, is wearing a hijab as a part of her experiment to see how women dressed in hijab feel. She doesn't wear hijab to some job interviews because the employers can be prejudiced. In Indonesia some hotel and beauty salon owners prefer hiring unveiled women, or if a girl is veiled, she has to take off the headscarf at work. Lea feels that her life became more restricted because there are only certain things she can do with a hijab. Obviously, she cannot go to a club or bar. Her mother also wears a hijab. Lea said that in Java some people would question your religiosity if you do not wear certain religious symbols. She wears it on and off, but people judge her because of that. Not all Indonesian women with a hijab feel restricted to do certain things. Asya, a sophomore in international relations, has been wearing a headscarf since she was in junior high school. But this does not hamper her business endeavors. At nineteen she already owns a store that sells cell-phones and other electronics. She considers herself being rather liberal, but at the same time, she does not want to join an English club at her school because "most of the guys there are gay". In the future, she wants to go to the United States for studying. Recently, one of my Indonesian friends, a Religious Studies graduate student, made a post on Facebook concerning a contemporary meaning of a hijab. The meaning of his post was that "in the past wearing a jilbab [that's how generally hijab is referred to in Indonesia] was a religious obligation, but today a new concept of wearing a jilbab developed. Muslim women wear it to build their image and stay up-to-date with fashion." Such a post immediately received a lot of comments from young Indonesian women wearing a jilbab. Yuli, a student in American Studies, commented that "a jilbab and being up-to-date" is quite compatible. "Women naturally love to be beautiful and gorgeous. Wearing a jilbab doesn't mean that women should disregard fashion. Indonesian men should be proud of their Muslim women who are so creative in developing beautiful jilbab styles." Islamic organizations and politics Although Islamic parties do not get a considerable electoral support, a lot of Indonesians living in Jogja (that's a common name for Yogyakarta) are members of one of the two most popular Islamic movements in Indonesia - Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) being the largest Muslim organization and Muhammadiyah being the second largest. Islamic parties are not extremely popular, but NU and Muhammadiyah are respected and quite influential. The politicians running for office usually seek Muhammadiyah's and NU's support. Endorsement by these two organizations gives them a significant amount of votes. The affiliation with these organizations generally comes from families. If your family is the member of NU, you are likely to be a member of the same organization. NU was founded by the father of Indonesia's fourth president Abdurrahman Wahid who before his presidency headed NU. Before NU was mostly associated with lower uneducated class, and peasants, but Muhammadiyah was considered to be an organization for an educated middle and upper class. Now these two organizations differ mostly in ideology. NU welcomes blending in Javanese culture and religion into Islam, while Muhammadiyah strongly opposes it fighting for pure Islam. Some experts thus consider Muhammadiyah somewhat orthodox. Dicky Sofjan, professor at Gadjah Mada University, argues that Muhammadiyah is a proponent of a more radical orthodox Islam, and it might even receive support from outside of Indonesia. Indonesia is indeed a diverse country, while the state is secular, Indonesian special region of Aceh, adopted sharia law. Indonesian people call this region "Serambi Mecca" (the Yard of Mecca) because of the sharia law and the fact that Acehnese people are culturally closer to Arabs than other Indonesian ethnic groups are. Initially, the Acehnese government sought secession from Indonesia. After it was granted the right to adopt Islamic law, it remained part of Indonesia. Sri Margono, professor of history at Gadjah Mada University, contends that Aceh needs a symbol of opposition to Indonesia, and sharia symbolizes that difference. It is rather easy to adopt sharia to indicate that difference, and create a common identity for the Acehnese people. According to the professor, Aceh with the introduction of the Islamic law is unlikely to bring fundamental Islam into Indonesia, because "Acehnese Islam is more orthodox than fundamental". Indonesia: Back in time When I came to Indonesia, I felt as if I traveled back in time. Indonesia reminded me of post-Soviet Ukraine where I grew up. Perhaps not post-Soviet Ukraine, rather Muslim Crimean Tatar ethnic group that I belong to. Being in Indonesia, watching Indonesian people, interacting with them brings back the childhood memories of my family, friends, Crimea and Ukraine of the mid 1990s. Squat toilets, water in the buckets for the shower, a highly communal society, a fear of being individualistic and unexpected show-ups of friends and family. Time was not an important factor. You would feel as if life is eternal and you have so much time to accomplish everything. Nothing was planned, things happened unexpectedly. Relatives could drop by without invitation and spend hours talking. Especially when the power was out you had no other option but gossip at a tea table. At the same time people seemed happier, more relaxed and content with their life. Family used to be very important. Now it has changed. When I talk to some of my Indonesian friends I recognize myself in them - that is exactly how I used to be, that is exactly how I used to think, that's exactly how I used to feel. I look at them, and ask myself a question, whether this society will change, whether they will lose their communal culture, close family bonds, and become more stressed out about their lives, but at the same time more aware of the fact that life goes by and it should not be wasted. Indonesia is a developing country, but the Indonesian people I have met are perhaps among the happiest people in the world. Once I met an Indonesian man who I thought was the happiest person I have ever seen. The next day I found out from our mutual friend that this man was left homeless a month ago. Zeyneb Temnenko is a graduate student in Islamic Studies at Temple University, Philadelphia. She is also a Fulbright scholar. (Copyright 2011 Zeyneb Temnenko.) Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have their say. Please click here if you are interested in contributing. Articles submitted for this section allow our readers to express their opinions and do not necessarily meet the same editorial standards of Asia Times Online's regular contributors [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] |
__._,_.___
Indonesia Japan Economic Monthly http://jief.biz/news/
MARKETPLACE
.
__,_._,___
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar