Siskel: A life's journey from scholar to philanthropist<\/p>\n
Chisato Hara, The Jakarta Post\/Jakarta<\/p>\n
After almost 30 years in Indonesia, Ford Foundation Indonesia
\nrepresentative Suzanne E. Siskel is leaving to take up her new
\npost as Director of Community and Resource Development at the
\nfoundation's headquarters in New York. The Jakarta Post spoke to
\nher about some of the defining moments of her time here and the
\nexperiences she will take with her.<\/p>\n
The beginning of Suzanne Siskel's journey to Indonesia takes
\nplace in the most unlikely of places, in the Mayan highlands of
\nChiapas, Mexico, deep in the heart of Zapatista rebel country.<\/p>\n
It was 1973, and Siskel was on an extended summer program as
\npart of her anthropology major at Harvard University. Siskel had
\nchosen to major in anthropology because she wanted \"to do
\nresearch in a completely different world\", but did not yet know
\nwhat kind of anthropology in which she might work.<\/p>\n
In Chiapas, she conducted field work on shamanism and
\nindigenous healing for her undergraduate thesis. She lived with
\nthe shaman, a woman of the same age as her, in a ramshackle hut.<\/p>\n
The highland Mayan, in accordance with their indigenous
\nbeliefs, said each person had an animal soul, although all were
\nchurch-going Catholics.<\/p>\n
On her very last day, the shaman took Siskel to see the church
\n-- which was forbidden to \"outsiders\" -- in disguise, with the
\ntwo women donning a scarf over their heads and a head-bag, which
\nwas the customary dress in the area. The two snuck into the
\nchurch after waiting for it to empty of worshipers, and inside,
\nthe shaman showed Siskel around the many statues of saints that
\nstood in alcoves.<\/p>\n
\"She went to each one and lifted up their skirts, and
\nunderneath was an animal figure, representing the soul of the
\nsaint... So while the local Mayan were all Catholics, they were
\npracticing both religions. It was my first exposure to
\nsyncretism, and I knew then I was going to be an anthropologist.\"<\/p>\n
When she graduated in 1973, her Harvard professor encouraged
\nSiskel to apply to a new scholarship that had just been announced
\nby the Henry Luce Foundation, and which was managed by the Asia
\nFoundation. The scholarship was a new initiative that sought to
\ncultivate an appreciation of Asia, which was still rather unknown
\nin those days.<\/p>\n
\"(TIME magazine founder) Henry Luce was raised in China, which
\nobviously had a great impact on his world outlook. The idea was
\nto select 15 students ... from college graduates to graduate
\nstudents. It was an opportunity to send American people -- non-
\nAsia specialists -- who had the potential to contribute to the
\narea... Basically, we (first-year scholarship students) were
\nguinea pigs,\" she laughed.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, several people in the Harvard anthropology
\ndepartment urged her to apply for a scholarship to Indonesia.<\/p>\n
\"I had read some (Clifford) Geertz, but didn't really know
\nanything about Indonesian then. But I had decided that I wanted
\nto come to Indonesia.\"<\/p>\n
Fortunately, noted Indonesianist James Fox, the Australian
\nNational University anthropologist, was at Harvard at the time.
\nSiskel consulted him, and Fox recommended that she spend her
\npreparatory summer with an Indonesian friend of his.<\/p>\n
The \"friend\" turned out to be sociologist and intellectual
\nArief Budiman, who was in the U.S. as an exile for his critical
\nviews of Soeharto's autocratic government.<\/p>\n
\"(Arief) gave me a list of his friends to look up once I was
\nin Indonesia,\" she smiled at the recollection. \"You wouldn't
\nbelieve the reactions I got when I showed someone here the list.
\nThey said, 'Where did you get this list?' Of course, I didn't
\nknow it at the time, but it was a list of all these people who
\nhad been exiled or were about to be banned.\"<\/p>\n
Siskel first set foot on Indonesian soil in October 1974 as a
\nHenry Luce scholar with Airlangga University in Surabaya. There,
\nshe worked for a year with medical and dental students in the
\nfield to evaluate the social impacts of public healthcare
\nservices on a community.<\/p>\n
Two events occurred during that year that bound Siskel to
\nIndonesia.<\/p>\n
\"A friend invited me to spend Christmas at the family's
\nplantation -- they thought I might be homesick. I even remember
\nthe name, Kali Klatak plantation in East Java. They were a Muslim
\nfamily, but they celebrated Christmas, and they had put up this
\nChristmas tree and held a huge feast for the community -- turkey,
\nduck, chicken, I forget now...<\/p>\n
\"It was the first time I saw rubber tapping and processing,
\nand a whole variety of spices, including vanilla. I'd never seen
\nvanilla growing before then.\"<\/p>\n
\"And they had real candles on the tree you could light. I just
\ncouldn't get over those candles. It was one of the moments I fell
\nin love with Indonesia.<\/p>\n
\"Everyone was so nice to me. I was young and (in Indonesia) by
\nmyself, and people took me in.\"<\/p>\n
The second event began as a simple road trip with five
\nAirlangga friends, one of whom was from Blitar: \"His name was
\nDjoko, and he wanted to show me his father's kris collection and
\nthe Singosari temples.\"<\/p>\n
But the real reason for the trip turned out to be very
\ndifferent. The group was on their way to the temples when they
\ndecided to stop by the cemetery and visit the grave of Djoko's
\nmother, who had passed away recently.<\/p>\n
\"The cemetery was on some small side-street... Everyone had
\nflower petals to place on the grave.\"<\/p>\n
Unfamiliar with the custom, Siskel followed suit and placed
\npetals along with her friends at Djoko's mother's grave -- but
\nnoticed they kept a few petals in their hands. She did likewise,
\nand on the way out of the cemetery, they stopped at a small plot.<\/p>\n
\"There was no headstone, no markers. There was just this
\nslightly elevated mound and a closed payung (a traditional
\nJavanese umbrella) that is a sign of respect for the deceased.\"<\/p>\n
Her friends placed their remaining petals on the corner of
\nthis small plot, as did Siskel, and they left.<\/p>\n
\"We got in the car and rolled up the windows on the drive back
\nto town. I just assumed it was an aspect of grief,\" she said.<\/p>\n
\"When we got back to Blitar, we all got out of the car and
\nthey asked me, 'Do you know where you were?' I said, 'Sure. We
\nwent to Djoko's mother's grave'.\"<\/p>\n
They shook their heads and told her that the unmarked grave at
\nthe cemetery was the resting place of founding father Sukarno.<\/p>\n
\"You have to remember that it was 1974. Sukarno's name had
\nbeen all but expunged from public memory. It was taboo even to
\nmention his name... Going to his grave was an awakening for me as
\na young person... a revelatory moment. I felt I'd experienced the
\nhistory of Indonesia, and felt a special bond with the country.\"<\/p>\n
At the time, she was living with the family of a former chief
\nof the Surabaya traffic police, who felt close to Sukarno. Siskel
\ntold the Bapak and his wife of her Blitar visit when she returned
\nto Surabaya, and they hugged and kissed her.<\/p>\n
\"I was really touched that my friends wanted me to understand
\nand know about their country, that they trusted me enough... I
\nwas honored, privileged, humbled. My friends made sure that I
\nexperienced all aspects of the country.\"<\/p>\n
Several years later, she returned to Blitar, but the cemetery
\nwas unrecognizable. It had become a tourist destination, and a
\nmonument now marked Sukarno's grave. In the mid 1990s, she
\nattended an Asia Foundation reception, where she found herself in
\nthe same room as Megawati Soekarnoputri.<\/p>\n
\"Megawati was then emerging as a critical and credible
\nopposition figure in the PDI (Indonesian Democratic Party), and
\nbeing in her presence brought back a flood of emotions from
\nvisiting Sukarno's grave,\" she said.<\/p>\n
Siskel entered graduate school at Johns Hopkins University in
\n1976, soon after her return to the U.S. from the Henry Luce
\nprogram, and focused on social anthropology and epidemiology,
\nwhich was emerging as a subfield of anthropology.<\/p>\n
\"I was thinking about becoming an academic ... fortunately, it
\ndidn't happen,\" she smiled.<\/p>\n
In spring 1980, she took advanced Bahasa Indonesia with the
\n\"brilliant scholar and wonderful teacher\", socio-linguist Dede
\nUtomo, who is now known for his work in gay rights and HIV
\nactivism.<\/p>\n
Siskel returned to Indonesia in 1983 as a Fulbright scholar,
\nwith additional funding from the Social Science Research Council,
\nafter several delays in procuring a visa because of the upcoming
\nelections. In addition, her husband at the time, another
\nanthropologist, was unable to obtain a visa as her dependent in
\naccordance with Indonesian immigration laws. \"Every
\nanthropologist at that time has a visa horror story,\" she said.<\/p>\n
Inspired by James T. Siegel's The Rope of God on Islam in Aceh
\nthat focused primarily on men's roles, Siskel planned to do \"the
\nflip-side\" for her doctorate dissertation. She ended up in
\nMadura, where she was invited to stay at a small family
\npesantren, or Islamic boarding school, that was run by women due
\nto the demise of its head, a prominent local cleric.<\/p>\n
\"I was able to learn about Islam through their eyes in an
\nintimate way... And I was able to grow an affection and
\nappreciation for the religion.\" The family returned the
\nsentiment, and even wanted her to convert -- but she did not.<\/p>\n
Later, this experience gave her \"confidence and a valid
\nfoundation\" for speaking at her mother's church group and her
\nlate father's Rotary group about Indonesia and moderate Islam in
\npost-9\/11 America.<\/p>\n
Her husband found work with the United States Agency for
\nInternational Development (USAID) as a consultant, and upon her
\nreturn to Jakarta, she was asked by USAID to be an
\nanthropological consultant for an irrigation project that
\ninvolved the Ministry of Public Works.<\/p>\n
Siskel thus went off to the field again, conducting a socio-
\neconomic impact study on the introduction of irrigation system in
\nrural communities in Timor. Her one year with the agency soon
\nexpanded to four, including a short sting in Flores for the World
\nBank on a similar project, and Siskel was thrust into the
\ndevelopment field. During this time, she worked on small-scale
\nirrigation management projects in South Sulawesi, West Nusa
\nTenggara and East Nusa Tenggara.<\/p>\n
\"I was basically learning about development on the spot... and
\nI found out that I was more interested in this than academics.\"<\/p>\n
Soon, she became aware of the Ford Foundation, and joined the
\nindependent, philanthropic organization in the late 1980s as
\nprogram officer for rural poverty and resources.<\/p>\n
\"The Ford Foundation is known for 'matchmaking', bringing
\ntogether unlikely actors to improve access to information and
\nresources and in helping to procure more support from government
\ndonations.\"<\/p>\n
For example, the foundation assists in networking between
\nacademics, advocacy groups, the community and hopefully,
\ngovernment, to improve living conditions and welfare at the
\ngrassroots level. It also assists in skills training and works to
\ntransfer lessons learned from similar projects across the
\narchipelago. Siskel underlines that Ford primarily helps support
\nprograms initiated by local non-governmental organizations and
\nother groups.<\/p>\n
\"It has now changed with decentralization, with more local
\naccountability to people in the area, which is the exciting part.
\nBut it doesn't mean decentralization is perfect.<\/p>\n
\"It's also interesting to see people who worked in
\nparticipatory projects from before were poised to take leadership
\npositions when the opportunity appeared with decentralization,\"
\nshe said, referring to a community of farmers in Timor that Ford
\nhad helped to establish a network for agricultural development.
\n\"This was a happy side effect of the organizational, leadership
\nand community skills that were learned where Ford grantees were
\nworking.\"<\/p>\n
Through Ford's cultural revitalization portfolio, she also
\ncame to understand Indonesian arts and culture in an in-depth
\nway, and gained a deeper respect for the country's cultural
\nheritage.<\/p>\n
Siskel left Indonesia briefly from 1997 to 2000 to take up a
\npost as Ford Foundation representative in the Philippines.<\/p>\n
\"So I missed the most exciting period,\" she said, referring to
\nthe 1998 reformasi movement and subsequent transition to
\ndemocracy.<\/p>\n
When she returned in 2000, it was as Ford Indonesia
\nrepresentative.<\/p>\n
Since she became Indonesia representative, Siskel has been
\ndeveloping her personal passion, philanthropy, for positive
\nsocial change.<\/p>\n
\"It has been inspiring to see the kind of giving taking place.
\nI believe the spirit of giving in this country is not
\nsufficiently recognized. Philanthropy in Indonesia for Indonesia
\nhas been sort of emerging as a sector ... and the strategic use
\nof philanthropy has been heartening.\"<\/p>\n
Most recently, she has been inspired by a new international
\nscholarship program, the International Fellowships Program (IFP),
\nwhich is managed by the Indonesian International Education
\nFoundation. The program is worldwide, and targets marginalized,
\ntalented individuals -- such as physically disabled people from
\nremote regions and those from historically marginalized areas --
\nfor graduate and post-graduate studies in any country abroad,
\nwith an emphasis on leadership and dedication to community
\nservice.<\/p>\n
\"The program is about explicitly recognizing and providing
\nsupport for people with talent and who normally don't have the
\nopportunity.\"<\/p>\n
One such individual was Subianto, who returned to his home
\nprovince of Aceh two weeks before the tsunami, and perished along
\nwith his family. The response from IFP students around the globe
\nwas immediate, and they initially wanted to give up their stipend
\nand donate it to aid and recovery in Aceh, which the scholarship
\nmanagement could not approve. Instead, the students have
\ncollected a modest donation, and Ford is in the process of
\ndeveloping an education program in Subianto's name.<\/p>\n
\"It's been gratifying to be able to support positive
\nactivities and to support pluralism\" in a country with hundreds
\nof different ethnic and cultural backgrounds.<\/p>\n
\"It has been a great luxury, a gift, that I was given this
\njob ... to help direct the resources of the Ford Foundation to
\nhelp people improve their lives.\"<\/p>\n
When asked what she will miss most about Indonesia, she
\nresponds, \"Oh, I hate this question,\" then pauses to consider.<\/p>\n
\"It's more about missing people, because I don't expect
\nculture shock when I go back to the U.S. I've been shopping for
\ncultural (items) so I can recreate a little Indonesia wherever we
\nare.\"<\/p>\n
As for her new post, from which she will be directing
\ncommunity and resource development programs in 13 Ford Foundation
\noffices around the world, \"It will be less direct from
\nheadquarters ... and not having as direct a connection with
\npeople makes me sad.<\/p>\n
\"(Indonesia) has felt like home for so long...\"<\/p>\n
And what has Indonesia taught her?<\/p>\n
\"Humility,\" she replied. \"One reason I say that is because
\nthis huge country, with its tremendous diversity, fought to
\nemerge from a stifling colonial era as a modern country. The
\nIndonesian people stepped up to the challenge of creating their
\ncountry, against adversity. I'm learning so much from Indonesians
\nall the time -- I have so many teachers, mentors and examples.\"<\/p>\n
She will also miss \"really spicy Indonesian food. Especially
\nTimorese sambal (chili paste)\".<\/p>\n
Siskel departs for her new post within a week, and it seems
\nIndonesia is not losing a friend so much as it will be gaining
\none on the global scene to speak on its behalf, about the
\nrichness of its history and the generosity of its people.<\/p>\n
Will she be back? Siskel responds with an immediate, decisive
\nand emphatic, \"Yes.\"<\/p>",
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