`Mudik`, Beyond The Ritual

By A‘an Suryana

As in years past, millions of people are set to return home this year to celebrate Idul Fitri. The government estimates the number of homebound travelers will hit 27.25 million, with 16.25 million people going by public transportation and the rest by private car or motorcycle.

The sheer number of travelers, who will mostly return home from Jakarta to smaller cities and towns in Java, will pose headache for travelers themselves and the government, as main roads leading to those areas, especially along the northern coastal area of Java, will be clogged during the annual event. Moreover, many stretches of those roads are still damaged due to bad weather and the constant traffic of overloaded trucks, dashing any hope that the exodus this year will be the smoothest one ever.

Besides the expected heavy traffic, safety has been a daunting challenge for travelers, especially those who are set to travel by motorcycle, tipped as the most vulnerable means of transportation. At least 616 people died in traffic accidents during the homecoming festivities last year, a good number of them motorcyclists. And although the figure is predicted to be much lower this year due to better roads and traffic management system, it remains a cause for concern, knowing that the number of people set to return home by motorcycle is expected to shoot up to 3.9 million this year, up from 2.5 million last year.

Despite being confronted with heavy traffic, long distances and traffic accidents, why do so many people still insist on undertaking the annual exodus? Foreigners may be confused to see many motorcyclists risk their and their families‘ lives riding motorcycles for hundreds of kilometers to enjoy the annual holiday.

But there are several reasons why these people think that the long and winding journey is worthwhile.

First, for many people working in Jakarta and other big cities, the homecoming exodus is an event not to be missed. They have worked hard for nigh on a year and have been waiting this moment, when they can break themselves free from routines.

The Idul Fitri holidays allow them to meet with parents, relatives and hometown friends, and so can revive bonds among them that evaporated during their stay in the big cities. They will have plenty of time during Idul Fitri to eat meals together, share stories and experiences in a joyful atmosphere - something that rarely occurs in a fast-paced environment such as Jakarta.

Second, the event is used not only as a moment of solace, but can be expanded as an event where holiday travelers, friends and neighbors can network to boost their careers or businesses. This networking event can end in new business deals or the creation of employment, and if that happens, it will eventually strengthen social bonds among the persons involved.

Third, the annual exodus rejuvenates bonds between parents and their children. For many parents who have been left at home by their children seeking money for a living in big cities, meeting once a year with the children and grandchildren has been most sought-after, following months of deep yearning. In order to fulfill that need, many parents request the children to return home every year to perform sungkem (show respect by kneeling and pressing one‘s face to an elder‘s knees) as a sign of homage to their parents.

For the children, returning home during Idul Fitri gives the signal to their parents that they still care about them. This is very meaningful for the parents, and boosts their spirit to stay alive, and can enhance bonds between parents and their children.

Fourth, the annual exodus is an event to share wealth with needy neighbors, friends and relatives back home. The amount distributed is normally small, but at the very least, it shows that the holiday travelers still care about less-fortunate friends or relatives living in the countryside, and again, it is a good way of enhancing social bonds.

The event has long been an arena for the redistribution of economic resources, as people from Jakarta spend money on food, handicrafts, clothes and other items in the capital, in areas along their way home, and around their hometowns; certainly all these consumer activities help spur economic growth in all the areas.

Fifth, the annual exodus is an event where people exhibit their success to others. On the one hand, it is deemed extravagant, cocky and useless, and therefore, to avoid social jealousy, it is not supposed to be done. However, if we look at it from another angle, the habit could be a source of inspiration for the hopeless and unemployed individuals living in the countryside.

It has been common practice for people living in the countryside to join their friends or relatives who are already successful in nurturing professional lives in big cities. It poses a big headache for the Jakarta government, as the number of the city‘s inhabitants swells after the Idul Fitri holidays and enhances problem of urbanization, but at least the migration has helped reduced the number of unemployed people in the countryside, who can now fetch a regular source of income for relatives and families left back home.
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The author is a staff writer at The Jakarta Post.

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Between Revivalism And Hybridism

By Achmad Munjid

Since back in the colonial period, rural areas have been central to the life of Muslims in Indonesia. Most pesantren, the center of Islamic learning and religious authority, are located in rural areas. Most santri, live in rural area. Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the largest Muslim organization in the country, is also based mainly in the rural areas.

While staying away from colonial government and then from Soeharto`s unfriendly politics towards Islam during his first two decades of power, Islam had more freedom to deeply and massively influence people`s life in the rural areas.

Consequently although politically and economically poor, Muslim life in the rural areas is rich with Islamic culture.

Through a long and sometimes uneasy process of give and take, in the rural areas Islamic values have been subtly intertwined with local traditions, norms and customs. As an expression of identity, as reflected in kenduri (ritual feasts) sarongs or qasidah songs, Islam looks more relaxed and comfortable both with itself and with others.

This is what I call "deep Islam", an Islam that is deeply internalized and maturely externalized by its people, the santri.

Deep Islam is a rural phenomenon in the sense that it has fruitfully developed and has stronger influence in rural areas. Its home is there. Certainly this doesn`t necessarily mean that every rural Muslim is part of deep Islam or that deep Islam is found only in rural area.

To point out a beautiful green garden in one area doesn`t mean that everything there is green or that the green color can only be seen in that particular place.

Unlike in rural areas where Muslim culture has been a key player in social life for centuries, Islam was not as powerful in most urban areas.

In contrast to deep Islam, since the emergence of the `suddenly Muslim` phenomenon in the 1990s in such cities as Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta, Medan, Banjarmasin and others, we are presented with an `overdone` expression of Islam: too Arab, too pretentious, too snobbish, `too much`. This is an assertive Islam that consciously presents itself as being superior, the vanguard of a newly-enlightened people.

While it is true that not every rural Muslim is santri and thus part of deep Islam, it is justifiable to argue that thick Islam is also an urban phenomenon. Why?

Thick Islam is a new phenomenon, a tide that hit swiftly since the 1990s, as a (probably unintended) consequence of Soeharto`s modernization project among the first Muslim generation of SD Inpres (Presidential Directive Elementary School, a project started in 1973) combined with the powerful wave of global Islamic revitalization after the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

As such, most of its exponents are either young Muslims in urban areas or better educated young people in rural areas who became part of urban life of some sort. They represent a social segment with better access to the modernization project - the middle class. Just like many other social groups, this `suddenly Muslim` generation is not at all a single entity.

It consists of sub-variants with different layers and degrees of Islamic thickness. In general, they can be categorized into two main groups: the core circle and the floating mass.

The core circle group, puritan in nature, is made up of young committed Muslim activists who are mostly interested in Islamic revivalism, either politically or culturally, or both.

Many of them are professionals and college students in various disciplines with strong eagerness in reinventing a golden Islamic age and converting the secular modern world of the cities where they live in, often as `quick fixe tactics` for complicated problems.

Hasan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb, al-Maududi, as well as Hizbut Tahrir, Jama`ah Tabligh and the like, are dearly aspiring and inspiring for them. They are the revivalist group.

The Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), MMI (Indonesian Mujahidin Council) and many neo-salafis are part of this group. They are relatively small, but very active and have great influence. This explains why most of their supporters are in urban areas. Their potential constituency and main markets are there. This also tells us why they grew rapidly in the beginning and are now stuck at certain point.

The floating mass, larger in number, are the `swing members`. Depending on the situation, they can be part of the revivalist group on the one side, or the cosmopolitan group on the other side of the spectrum. Or, they remain in the middle as part of a completely secular urban life.

Let`s call them the hybrid group. In many cases, they enjoy both the new market of Islam with tons of products to consume as well as the ever fascinating market of global capitalism.

They are easy going hybrid young Muslim generation who can be big fans of MTV trends and happy sympathizers of Islamic revivalism or Islamic cosmopolitanism, either separately or simultaneously.

They are young people - including those of non-santri background who share similar visions - with strong faith in the Islamic heritage and concerned with actual problems of the society and they have no hesitation in exploring new horizons and to taking part in universal global citizenship.
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The writer is president of Nahdlatul Ulama Community in North America and an associate at the Dialogue Institute, Temple University, Philadelphia, US.

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Malaysia`s Tourism Video And The Stolen Indonesian Culture

By Mario Rustan

At first I thought it was a slow news day. When a news program was broadcasting an item titled “Indonesian culture robbed by Malaysia”, I watched it in mute mode, admiring scenes of Chinese girls eating laksa and going shopping, in another Malaysia tourism video.

The next day, the stealing claim seemed justified. The stolen culture in question was the Pendet dance from Bali, which in no way would reach Malaysia through shared Malayan culture or through Javanese and Bugis migrants.

Until today, voices condemning Malaysia are still being aired, with professors and political scientists saying Malaysia has no indigenous culture and thus has some sort of inferiority complex, and thus is stealing Indonesian culture. Furthermore, many learned Indonesians sneer at Malaysia`s tourism slogan, “Truly Asia”, saying that it`s nonsense and proves that Malaysia has no true identity.

This newspaper, however, pointed out that “Truly Asia” means that Malaysia is a one-stop destination for tourists wishing to see Southeast Asian, Chinese and Indian cultures. Some Indonesian condemners may still be unaware of Malaysia`s multiple-ethnicities, while others may deliberately ignore it and feel more comfortable with the view that Malaysia is a Malay nation. As for the Pendet case, it turns out the video was made by a private production house that just copied and pasted several fun tourism images, without any intention of malice.

I found proof about the “Truly Asia” slogan on my arrival at Kuala Lumpur: The taxi got lost and I couldn`t get through to my friend`s phone — at sunrise on an empty suburban road. I tried to ask for directions from several strangers. The first one were an elderly Chinese couple who didn`t speak English or Malay. The second were a couple of Indian garbage men who spoke broken English. The Malay taxi driver preferred to talk in English as our Malay dialects were incomprehensible to each other.

Finally he got the address from a Malay youth. I found the house in time for breakfast, ready to feast on wonderful Malaysian food, especially Chinese peranakan dishes, such as laksa and nasi lemak, and Indian drinks like teh tarik and susu bandung.

Many Indonesians in Malaysia must consume an unfunny old joke. In the courtyard before the Petronas Tower one night, my host said we should avoid the dark spots otherwise we could be robbed by “your countrymen”.

This newspaper had received some complaints from Malaysians that said the Indonesian media and people never talked about the violent crimes carried out by Indonesians in Malaysia. We retaliated by pointing out that Noordin M. Top is a Malaysian national, and some have even gone so far to suggest that he was planted by the Malaysian government to ruin the Indonesian tourism industry.

In fact, there is no culture war and no tourism war between Malaysia and Indonesia. Malaysia`s biggest rival in attracting tourists is Singapore, and thus Malaysia`s promos offer similar things that Singapore offers – vibrant nightlife, glorious food, Formula 1 racing and great shopping experiences. Do our tourism promos cover those things? Malaysians count Singapore as their dreadful rival, and hardly think of Indonesia, which is on a different class.

Indonesia`s hatred for Malaysia has been around since the 1960s, probably earlier. Malaysia is the political opposite of Indonesia. It had good relations with its British colonizer, it is a federation, a parliamentary monarchy, and it is never interested in socialism. After peace returned with the creation of the ASEAN bloc, both governments tried to convince the people that Indonesians and Malaysians were brothers of the same stock.

This effort held until the 21st century, when Malaysian economic progress left Indonesian behind, and more learned Indonesians are embracing Sukarno-style zero-sum nationalism. The real story is still the same after 40 years — distract one`s woes by creating and hating a foreign enemy.

As often stressed by other writers, some cultural items that we have claimed were “robbed” by Malaysia are not exclusively Indonesian. Batik is a common throughout Southeast Asia, and a top batik brand wrote in its coffee table book that batik had been influenced for centuries by Chinese, Indian, Arabic, European and Japanese designs.

Musical instruments like the angklung and gamelan are also common throughout Southeast Asia.

Wayang is hardly Indonesian — the hide puppets originated from mainland SE Asia, and there are similar storytelling arts in China, Japan and Europe. When Miss Indonesia dressed as Srikandi, she dressed as a Hindu — and Indian — character still revered religiously in India and Malaysia.

As for the disputed isles, I think it`s ridiculous if white collar men in Jakarta could get upset reading the news about Ambalat, and yet the next minute they are making backstabbing remarks about fellow Indonesians from outside Java. Disputed territories are hardly unique — Japanese and Koreans fight over a rock and on the naming of the sea between their nation and Cambodia had an anti-Thai riot because of a temple located nearby the modern borderlines.

We claim Malaysia has an inferiority complex, and yet the problem is our own. Of course, Malaysia is guilty of ignorance and laziness in making its tourism commercials, but it`s pointless and confusing to dwell on one objectionable frame and continue to fuss about it.

We accuse Malaysia of disrespecting us because deep inside we feel that our supposed “brother” has left us behind with its decent standard of living, global brands (e.g. Air Asia, Maxis, Petronas and Michelle Yeoh) and good investment reputation. Russians have had similar problems with former USSR states, and Chinese netizens have grudges with the Japanese and Americans. In all three cases, past history is always offered for justification of hatred, as we`re closing in to 2010.

But Malaysia is also having similar internal strife. As its Chinese and Indian populations become more politically involved, harassment and foul plays also increase. Malaysian politicians have become increasingly comical and ridiculous in acting as defenders of Muslims and Malays, and its political and religious freedoms are far below Indonesia.

Flying the Indonesian flag on your product and wallpaper, while condemning Malaysia on your Twitter and T-shirt, won`t solve anything. Malaysia never thinks about those tourism commercials and they know that Noordin M. Top is a Malaysian hiding in Indonesia because he couldn`t survive in Malaysia.

We can accept that the crime rate in Indonesia is high — so it makes sense that many Indonesians in Malaysia are involved in violent crimes.

If you want more tourists to visit Indonesia, stop sending the message that you dislike foreigners. If you want Pertamina to become a global brand like Petronas, and to have Formula One held in Indonesia, study and follow their steps. If you find an item on the Internet demeaning Indonesia, ignore it and move on with your own priorities. Stop getting so angry about trivial things so easily when we have potential to do great things for ourselves.
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The writer graduated with honors from La Trobe University, Australia.

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This Ramadan, Consider the Irony Of A Month Of Gross Consumption

By Rivandra Royono

I started fasting at a very young age. Not necessarily out of extreme piousness, but rather because I wasn`t much of an eater and was only too grateful to be allowed not to have lunch for an entire month. On top of that, by a 5-year-old`s logic, I believed I was doing my parents a big favor by cutting down on expenses for food.

That 5-year-old`s logic is turned completely upside down by reality. Indeed, household expenses in Indonesia, as well is for other predominantly Muslim economies, increase significantly during Ramadan. During the holy month, the overwhelming majority of Indonesian households increase their consumption, which pushes up demand, thus increasing price. So not only do households buy more stuff, they buy them at higher prices.

If there are still people out there who are skeptical that Ramadan induces higher inflation, governments of predominantly Muslim countries all over the world are certainly not. From Indonesia to Jordan, governments recognize the immense increase in demand and are already rushing to intervene in the market by either upping supply or imposing ceiling prices. However, even with such relatively massive intervention, the demand shift is usually too significant and higher inflation is inevitable. The Indonesian trade minister reported an 11 percent to 33 percent increase in the price of foodstuffs in Bandung a day before Ramadan started.

That price increases because of rising demand is basic economics, but the fact that demand increases during what is supposed to be the month of frugality is nothing short of ironic.

The major culprits behind this demand shift are likely to be the middle and upper classes, who have the means to consume more. What really causes the consumptive behavior is up for grabs. One explanation is that we are all too sensitive to our loss of utility — losing meals during the day — and overcompensate by consuming more in the evening and during Idul Fitri. A more common term used for this hypothesis is balas dendam — avenging for our loss.

Or perhaps it is impulse buying and herding movement — we see everybody else eating out, having feasts with friends and family, and we are compelled to join the bandwagon. It`s quite easy to justify these impulses by saying that it`s all in the spirit of strengthening bonds among the ummat .

Regardless of what really causes demand-pushing behavior, what we really need to understand is that the significantly higher inflation during Ramadan hurts the poor tremendously. Most of them do not work as traders and would not feel the benefit of the inflation. Yet they would certainly feel the impact of increased prices, especially of basic goods. Cutting down both quantity and quality of food is often the only option.

Worse still, in the effort to reap the benefits from inflation, some traders would be compelled to sell damaged goods at a lower price; and they would certainly find buyers. Nearing Ramadan, officials from Jakarta raided a number of stalls in traditional markets that sold spoiled chicken and meat. It is the poor who would most likely buy and consume these damaged goods, and later suffer the consequences.

To be fair, demand shift and inflation are not the only Ramadan-induced economic phenomena. While an in-depth analysis of aggregate data is required to validate the following statement, anecdotal evidence indicates that the holy month also brings about increased redistribution of wealth. It is, after all, the month of charity.

However, increased alms-giving, be it compulsory like the zakat or voluntary like the sadaqoh , would only significantly benefit the poor in a low-inflation economy; and as we have seen, this is not the norm during Ramadan. Coupled with inflation, alms would most likely only help the poor maintain their purchasing power, but not increase it.

Furthermore, while inflation affects the entire population, alms tend to be targeted at only small pockets of the same population. Hence, though there would indeed be poor households that received assistance in coping with the inflation, most of the lower-class population would only feel the full-blown effect of increased prices without receiving significant support from the redistributed wealth.

In light of everything, the middle and upper classes would actually help the poor more by not spending than by giving.

So all this leads the Muslim middle and upper classes to two options. If we really wish to help the poor during the holy month, we should increase expenses for alms and decrease — or at least maintain — consumption by refraining ourselves from hosting or going to feasts at the daily break of fasting, as well as during Idul Fitri. We should also decrease consumption by avoiding eating out and refraining, or at least deferring, expenses to buy new clothes.

This would help lessen the demand shift, thus lowering inflation, and at the same time increase the poor`s purchasing ability. This would also — and perhaps this is the most important thing — be more consistent with the spirit of Ramadhan, in which frugality is supposed to trump extravagance and contentment wins over dissatisfaction.

The second option is to give in to our impulses and oversensitivity to a loss of utility. We can continue increasing our spending for food during the holy month. We can go from one feast to the next and host one in between. We can, in effect, significantly increase demand and raise prices, and justify that by saying that it`s all in the name of strengthening silaturahmi and bonds with family and friends.

During all that, we can still feel good about ourselves by increasing alms and providing meals for a small group of poor families in the evening. Opt for this, and we would at best maintain the utility of a small group of poor people at the same level, while making life harder for most other lower class households in the country.

Sadly enough, in this holiest month of the year, we would most likely observe the latter scenario.
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Rivandra Royono is the executive director of the Association for Critical Thinking and a consultant for the World Bank in Jakarta.

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Decoding The Goddess Of Java`s History

By Johannes Nugroho

On July 23, 2009, Parangkusumo Beach, south of Yogyakarta, was witness to the Labuhan Alit ceremony of the sultan of Yogyakarta. The yearly ritual is a tribute to the mystical Nyai Roro Kidul, goddess of the South Seas. The sultan sends a myriad of offerings to the sea to symbolically affirm the link between himself and the kingdom`s patron deity.

Beneath this and other Javanese courtly rituals connected with the goddess lie a staggering number of questions as to who Nyai Roro Kidul is and how she has survived millennia of cultural and religious changes. And the answer to that would undoubtedly open a gateway to the retelling of Java`s oldest cultural and belief system.

Many modern intellectuals are bound to cast Nyai Roro Kidul into the realm of myth. The goddess is these days more often portrayed in popular culture as an evil demon queen. Literary giant Pramoedya Ananta Toer once slammed the sultanate`s attachment to the goddess as a subconscious form of compensation for its supposed lack of maritime strength.

Yet the name Nyai Roro Kidul still holds sway with many of those inhabiting Java`s southern coast. To followers of mystical Kejawen, she is as real as any natural phenomenon. For mythologists, she has a compelling mythographic existence, and behind her story lies clues to pre-Hindu Javanese society.

As comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell has successfully proven, a nation`s mythology is often the key to unlocking its historical past; he says that myths are usually abbreviated and coded metaphors for historical truths.

Azd when it comes to Javanese mythology, Nyai Roro Kidul stands out considerably from other mythical characters. In his 1997 essay “Tara and Nyai Lara Kidul: Images of the divine feminine in Java,” Roy E. Jordaan proposes that the goddess is an ancient Javanese fertility goddess predating even Hinduism.

In this respect, Nyai Roro Kidul is comparable to other chthonic goddesses such as Gaia or Mother Earth, Cybele, Rhea, Nerthus and Durga-Parvati. Indeed, Jordaan also suggests that in the Hindu era of Javanese history, the goddess managed to survive by being absorbed into the Hindu pantheon, being particularly associated with Hindu deities such as Durga or the rice goddess Dewi Sri.

And when Islam became the dominant religious force in the 14th century, Nyai Roro Kidul seemed to exert her historical omnipresence by becoming the patron goddess of the emerging Islamic Mataram kingdom. In the subsequent legend, she is said to have married Mataram`s first sultan, Panembahan Senopati, and promised his descendants her blessings and protection. This is indeed anomalous in any Islamic kingdom. Indubitably, by Koranic standards, the recognition of the power of a pagan goddess almost borders on heresy.

Yet it is a ritual norm, even today, that every sultan descended from Senopati — and this encompasses all the Javanese potentates in Yogyakarta, Pakualaman, Surakarta and Mangkunegaran — must be married to the goddess. Scholars have cited that this ritual marriage symbolizes the union the king enters with the land of Java as he ascends the throne. In this sense, any ruler of Java, regardless of the prevailing religious or social system, must obtain the transference of power and prestige from Nyai Roro Kidul as the primordial metaphor for the land.

There are a few versions of the legend of Nyai Roro Kidul. The most popular claims that she was a princess by the name of Kadita or Dewi Srenggeng in the Kahuripan kingdom. The name Dewi Srenggeng, or Fair Sun, indicates that she was probably once worshipped as a solar deity. While in the Western mythical mold the sun deity is usually male, as in Helios the Greek sun god and later Apollo, in the East, female solar deity is quite common as evidenced by Japan`s Amaterasu and the Egyptian Sekhmet.

In this version, Kadita develops a skin disease. When deciphering this piece of information, we must first remember that mythology begins as an oral tradition. Then as a culture develops, these oral transmissions may be rendered in pictures or art before the invention of writing.

This iconography may also be interpreted that Nyai Roro Kidul was a snake goddess or a nagin , as also proposed by Jordaan.

In his essay, Jordaan recounts that the late Sultan Hamengkubuwono IX, the current sultan`s father, affirmed in an interview that Nyai Roro Kidul was far from a fantasy. The sultan claimed that the goddess`s appearance changes according to the moon. When the moon is young, she appears young, and when the moon wanes, she appears as a crone. The sultan also said that the goddess`s title is Retna Dewati, the word “retna” meaning “moonlight.”

In this aspect, Nyai Roro Kidul seems to also have been a lunar deity, putting her on par with the Greek Selene.

So far, the memory of this Javanese goddess lives on. Sultans continue to pay her tribute and her power is still dreaded by many. People are wary of incurring her wrath if they choose to wear green, her favorite color, on the beach.

Yet to the mythologist, Nyai Roro Kidul is a reminder of the forgotten history of the land of Java. Many modern Indonesians, out of fear of being identified as irrational, would go to great lengths to discredit stories such as Nyai Roro Kidul or Malin Kundang as mere fantasies.

Someday, Javanese courtiers may stop paying tribute to Nyai Roro Kidul on Parangkusumo Beach and Yogyakartans may cease to “imagine” hearing the jingling of her chariot passing by at night on the way to the palace for a conference with the sultan. Yet when this comes to pass, let us hope that Indonesians will have successfully cherished and decoded our own national mythology, for the deities are part of our own fundamental past.
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Johannes Nugroho, is a writer based in Surabaya.

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