Art and culture important

Art and culture important

The Jakarta Post Sept. 17, 2000, Sunday issue published an
article on Batik Hokokai. Please do not stop publishing articles
on art and culture. This country does not only require high-tech
specialists and brilliant military generals, but it should also
keep introducing and giving birth to artists and men and women of
culture. We are in possession of Nyoman Nuarta and Rendra as well
as many others of that caliber.

Recently I attended an informal discussion with the Post in
coordination with the Resource Productivity Center (RPC) of the
Regent Hotel. Please let me express my sincere gratitude to all
of you for the invitation. On that opportunity I suggested that
the Post keep on maintaining a cultural mission -- what is it
like? Tell the readers and refresh their minds that our country
is pluralistic while the nation's motto is Bhinneka Tunggal Ika
(Unity in Diversity) which, incidentally, resembles that of the
Unites States, E Pluribus Unum.

In many respects during the almost wholly regimented New Order
era, what we saw was unity in uniformity. We have a certain
number of tribes, such as the Naga tribe in West Java, the
Tengger Javanese in East Java, the Baduy Bantenese in the (soon
to be) province of Banten, and many others on Java's outer
islands, whose traditions -- viewed from the tenets of
Indonesia's state-recognized religions -- can be (erroneously)
described as primitive, less civilized and superstitious. Why?
For them to be able to cut down a big tree, they have to ask for
permission from the tree's guardian spirits. Otherwise, the
spirits will get angry and cause a catastrophe.

Please do not undervalue these people; they form an integral
part of our nation. Feeling much more modern, much more civilized
and much more fortunate because we embrace one of the country's
state-recognized religions, we sometimes do not care for the
country's God-given forests and vegetation as well as its rivers,
which are now increasingly depleted and polluted, the way these
"primitive" tribes do. It sometimes appears that these
superstition-led tribes are more religious in their own way than
we are.

Starting from this experience, we have to realize that we,
followers of state-recognized religions, should learn from them.

If I may conclude like NGO activists do, there are several, if
not many, ethnic religions and "preacher-less" religions, whose
tenets make their followers care for and love the environment
more than we do.

AMIR S. DEWANA

SFER - Jakarta