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