A question of Identity<\/p>\n
By Richard Mann<\/p>\n
Budi was a news reader with the state television company in
\nJakarta, Indonesia's teeming capital city. After university it
\nwas a job he very much wanted. His father was an ambassador so he
\nhad been able to use his parent's connections to try to get the
\njob. Although he was only a reporter, reading the news gave him a
\nsense of power over his listeners and viewers. From him and from
\nhim only they learnt something that they had never known before.
\nTo him they looked not only for news but also for explanation. He
\nwas their link to forces which were affecting and shaping their
\nlives.<\/p>\n
Budi was not so young any more, already 40, but the program
\ndirectors liked him because he had an authoritative voice, look
\nand manner peculiarly appropriate to the government broadcasting
\nstation. Sometimes he allowed himself a faint smile but mostly he
\nwas grave and dignified.<\/p>\n
Broadcasting had changed out of all recognition since he had
\nstarted work 20 years ago. The people covered by the broadcasts
\nhad changed too.<\/p>\n
You could say that Budi was at an age where he was receptive
\nto reflection. It wasn't reading the news that unsettled him, yet
\nhe felt unsettled. Every day, as he queued in traffic, looked at
\nthe shops, read magazines or just looked at people passing by, he
\nfelt unsettled.<\/p>\n
What finally identified the problem was the television monitor
\nin front of him in the studio and on which, every night, he could
\nsee his performance.<\/p>\n
The news had ended and, as usual, there were a few seconds
\nwhen he just sat still gathering his papers, waiting for the
\ncameras to stop rolling. On this particular night, instead of
\nlooking down to signify the end of his broadcast he looked at
\nhimself in the monitor, a full color image.<\/p>\n
Who was it on the screen in front of him? He saw a brown
\nskinned man with sleek dark hair and a moustache, wearing a white
\nWestern style shirt with a perfectly tied Western style tie with
\nthe whole ensemble framed by the lapels of a Western style suit,
\nhe had become a brown Westerner.<\/p>\n
When he first started work, he didn't feel nearly so Western
\nbecause almost everyone wore safari suits. Before that there
\nhadn't been a government television company. But before that
\nthere had been his grandparents. They wore sarongs and thong
\nslippers which were more often on than off. The women of those
\nfar off days wore kebayas and the men loose jackets. Tops and
\nbottoms were of different colors and of designs peculiarly
\nIndonesia, often characteristic of a specific area or even of the
\nrank of the wearer.<\/p>\n
Budi felt irritated by what he saw on the monitor and he went
\nmoodily to the washroom, ignoring the usual comments from
\ncolleagues. He looked at himself in the washroom mirror. It was
\ntrue. He had lost his identify. He was no more than a brown
\nWesterner.<\/p>\n
With uncharacteristic anger, he pulled loose the tie and flung
\nhis tailored jacket onto the wet floor. In the West, at this
\npoint, he would have stormed into the boss's office and roared \"I
\nquit\" but being Indonesian he simply left the building and went
\nhome.<\/p>\n
Budi was in a strange mood that night. He told his driver to
\ngo home while he took a bajaj, a little three wheeled vehicle
\nlike a motor bike with a canvas or plastic covered cabin at the
\nback, big enough to seat two or three people.<\/p>\n
What a difference it made. No glass and metal box to keep him
\nfrom the sights and sounds of Jakarta, the warm night air on his
\nhot face, the engine spluttering with almost human frailty,
\nclouds of smoke belching from the exhaust.<\/p>\n
A few blocks from his house he told the driver to stop and he
\nwalked the rest of the way through streets lined with dimly lit
\nhouses, looking cool and full of life and activity rather than
\nsilent with the onset of night.<\/p>\n
In the cool of the night, neighborhoods, like villages, come
\nto life. People flood onto the streets. They sit under trees.
\nThey play chess in groups. Girls giggle together. Up and down the
\ndark but busy roads flow a procession of hawkers pushing little
\nwooden barrows perched on huge bicycle wheels selling meat on
\nsticks, fried chicken, all kinds of noodles, all kinds of rice
\ndishes, many kinds of soups, spicy food, plain food, favorite
\nfood, fruits, fruit drinks, cakes and buns, cigarettes and
\ndrinks. Each vendor had his own characteristic call or noise to
\nsingle him out from the many others. Here he passed through the
\nchoking smoke of sate fires. There the perfumed aroma of clove
\ncigarettes wafted on the night air and with it the distinctive
\nalmost Oriental sound of music that sounded as if it came
\nstraight out of an Arab or Indian bazaar.<\/p>\n
This was the real Indonesia, thought Budi. Not the glass
\nskyscrapers of the \"Golden Triangle\" of the gleaming new business
\ncenter in whose shadows a few old houses still stood. They were
\nfestooned with potted plants to remind the occupants of their
\nvillages long ago, with white walls, red tile roofs with a bird
\ncage under the eaves and chickens in the garden. Simple,
\ncredulous, friendly, hard working villagers -- they were the real
\nIndonesians.<\/p>\n
He stopped at a warung, ordered some soup and, kicking off his
\nshoes and socks, sat cross-legged on a bench. He was enjoying
\nhimself to the hilt. This was the real Indonesia, not the fancy,
\nair conditioned restaurants he so often went to and which
\neveryone was crazy to try. People were crowding into brightly lit
\nWestern fast food restaurants to stuff themselves with junk while
\ntraditional eateries stayed dim and nearly empty.<\/p>\n
It was late when Budi got home. Try as he might, he couldn't
\nsleep for thinking about the image he had seen on the TV monitor.<\/p>\n
An atmosphere had been building up around him for some time.
\nEvery day, in Jakarta, he sensed another piece of Indonesia's
\ntraditional culture had been washed away in a tide of Western
\nfilms, Western clothes, Western habits, Western fast food,
\nWestern music, Western technology, Western skyscrapers and
\narchitecture and Western products.<\/p>\n
Budi supposed it had to be like this because the West was
\nmodern and the East was backward. There was no point in the East
\nre-inventing wheels. It simply had to take what others had
\nalready invented. But how then to develop one's own culture? Did
\nmodernization inevitably mean the death of all that generations
\nof Indonesians had held dear?<\/p>\n
Suddenly he had a tremendous yearning to see rice fields and
\nfruit and vegetable gardens. He decided that tomorrow the whole
\nfamily would go to the farm, and he fell instantly asleep.<\/p>\n
\"You're not going to work?\" his wife queried, with doubt and
\nalarm very evident in her voice. He had announced his decision to
\ntake the trip. \"At least call and tell them you're sick,\" she
\npleaded.<\/p>\n
Budi called, in hushed, almost whining tones to say that he
\nwas sick but then animatedly hurried everyone into the family
\nminibus for the trip to the country.<\/p>\n
It was a three hour drive but by lunchtime they were in the
\nthick of Indonesia's farms.<\/p>\n
The countryside itself was green and rich, and, in its own
\nway, clean. But how squalid and dirty some of the villages
\nlooked. And how poor. They pulled off the road and Budi forced
\nthe whole family to walk through a cluster of tumble down bamboo
\nhuts with atap roofs -- much to the loud and pressing curiosity
\nof the villagers. The dirt. The smell. He tried to imagine
\nhimself defecating and bathing in the water from an irrigation
\ncanal, as he saw some of the villagers doing.<\/p>\n
In the midst of all this he and his family looked like people
\nfrom outer space. He was wearing sports trousers and a shirt but
\neach garment was immaculately clean. His daughter was wearing Doc
\nMartin's and over the knee leg-warmers beneath culottes. His son
\nhad an American baseball hat on backwards, a T-Shirt bearing the
\nlogo \"Chicago Bulls\" and shorts so long that they made long
\ntrousers look short. His wife too was only wearing slacks and a
\nblouse but her make up and jewelry made her look like a princess
\nbeside the dowdy and penniless country folk.<\/p>\n
No, country life was definitely not for him. And his family
\nhad made it very clear that it definitely wasn't for them. As
\nthey climbed back into the \"Kijang\" the whole family had \"we told
\nyou so looks on their faces\".<\/p>\n
But so what? Something was wrong. He was an Indonesian.
\nIndonesians had fought a war to be Indonesians. Had they done it
\nall so that they could end up living like the Westerners they
\nthrew out?<\/p>\n
Budi decided that he had to hang on to whatever made him feel
\nIndonesian. But it was difficult. The great forests of the
\nRamayana had long gone and with them their secrets, their spirits
\nand the world they protected. Modernization was wiping aside a
\nwhole way of life. Local beliefs, developed and followed in
\nisolation, were now crumbling before the impact of television and
\nworld marketing.<\/p>\n
He took a day to rest after the trip but on the third day he
\narrived at the television station, as usual, but dressed in a
\nloose traditional jacket, patterned sarong and flip flops.<\/p>\n
As he drew near to the elevators, he began to see people that
\nhe knew. The elevator was crowded with people that he knew. All
\nof them were laughing uncontrollably at his dress. One or two of
\nthe girls mixed worried frowns with their mirth. Poor Budi. How
\nhis wife must feel. Maybe he has gone mad.<\/p>\n
By the time he reached the studio quite a crowd was following
\nhim, eager to see what would happen.<\/p>\n
Disbelief was the first reaction. Then panic -- someone else
\nwould have to read the news at short notice. Then a friendly chat
\nin the boss's office.<\/p>\n
The boss was very patient and spoke slowly, like a father to
\nan errant child. He understood what Budi was feeling but the
\nstation had to project a modern image, an image of achievement,
\nabove all an image of development and progress. It had to support
\nthe national effort to motivate people, to induce them to have
\nwants and aspirations so that the economy could grow and, as a
\nresult, there need not be any poor farmers any more.<\/p>\n
While such a situation might have been clarified in a few
\nhours in the West, especially in the United States, Budi's
\nstrange behavior led to him remaining employed but being off the
\nair for weeks. He was reassigned and reassigned until he had
\nalmost the lowliest job in the studio -- one where he was totally
\ninvisible to television viewers. Indonesians are rarely fired but
\nthey are shuffled around until sometimes they just quit and the
\nproblem disappears.<\/p>\n
But Budi liked his old job and he decided to get it back. He
\nwore the hated Western suit, the badge of modernity, the passport
\nto personal and national acceptance in the emerging monocultural
\nglobal world.<\/p>\n
Soon after he started reading again, Budi began attending the
\nlocal Mosque. He talked to the Imams and read the Koran. He loved
\ngoing to the Mosque because he could wear his sarong and thongs.
\nBefore prayer he washed his hands and feet and in doing so he was
\novercome with an intense feeling of cultural cleansing. Western
\nsuits, skyscrapers and fast food couldn't reach him in the
\nMosque. As he knelt on his prayer mat, facing the Holy city of
\nMecca, with his hands spread in supplication he felt himself in
\nanother world. It was his world, a unique part of his Indonesian
\nidentity, here in the Mosque with bare feet and wearing a sarong.
\nAnd Allah was somehow specifically his God. He knew perfectly
\nwell that anyone could turn to Islam is they wished but in
\npractice, the majority of Westerners were indifferent to Islam
\nand a few even feared it.<\/p>\n
Every day, Budi prayed that Allah would show him how he could
\nenjoy a better life and still remain Indonesian. And every day,
\nhe had the feeling that just being in the Mosque was a big part
\nof the answer.<\/p>\n
Born in Buckinghamshire, UK in 1942, Richard Mann is a
\njournalist and broadcaster as well as an Asian affairs
\nspecialist. He first visited Indonesia in 1978 and began
\npromoting trade and investment in Indonesia in his magazine Trade
\nAsia published in Canada since 1982. He has also promoted
\nIndonesia at seminars organized at cities across Canada. Both he
\nand his wife Jenny Mann own and operate Gateway Books.<\/p>",
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