Betawi try to regain identity

Tantri Yuliandini, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The band played a melancholic stream of keroncong (Portuguese influenced Malay music) music and a Betawi leader began, shakily at first, to sing a few lines of the well-loved ballad Aryati. The audience laughed and applauded and the singer sang on more confidently.

Laughter and genial banter marked the gathering of Betawi leaders on Friday night at Setu Babakan Lake, the center of the Betawi cultural village in Srengseng Sawah subdistrict in South Jakarta.

Organized by the Betawi Culture Foundation (LKB), no less than Jakarta Deputy Governor Fauzi Bowo lent his voice to the event, which was organized to give Betawi leaders some respite from their hectic daily routine, and to break the tension that is building up over preparations for the upcoming Jakarta gubernatorial election in 2007.

"Betawi people are by nature boisterous, open and friendly people," LKB secretary-general Ahmad Syarofi, also known as Yoppi, told The Jakarta Post.

He said that while the foundation had so far focused on the arts side of the Betawi tradition -- including the organizing of the cultural festival Gebyar Budaya Betawi 2005, the Jakarta Abang None pageant and Betawi Cultural Week -- it will give more attention to nurturing the positive aspects of Betawi culture beginning next year.

Positive Betawi traits that the foundation wanted to highlight more in the future include their egalitarian nature.

"Betawi people are egalitarian by nature, they consider everybody equal. There's no class distinction, meaning we have no kings and our language has no hierarchy," Yoppi said, adding that Betawi people only look up to those who are highly religious.

"Just like Islamic teachings, Betawi people don't judge people by color, race or creed, but by religious devotion, and we particularly look up to teachers of the Koran," he said.

Although they are known to be loud, the Betawi are also generally honest and peaceful.

"There's never been a case where Betawi people incite violence, they are never provocateurs," Yoppi said, explaining that if a Betawi was involved in a violence it was usually in reaction to others.

Having emerged from a melting pot of race, ethnic groups and cultures in the 19th century, the Betawi are usually friendly toward new people and sometimes naively open.

Fiercely religious, many Betawi parents prefer putting their children through religious schools rather than a public school, and as a consequence they are often thought to be uneducated.

But thanks to the popularity of Betawi entertainment on national television, the Betawi people have regained their pride.

"The younger people especially are now fiercely protective of their culture, it was never so in the past but now people are proud to be Betawi," Yoppi said.

The impression that Betawi people are uneducated is also being determinedly changed and it is now no longer strange for a young Betawi man or woman to have a university degree.

"It's now the belief that success in this world is equally important as success in the afterlife, and parents now also view public school education as necessary," Yoppi said.