Can traditional cultures survive in globalized world?

By Edi Sedyawati

JAKARTA (JP): Overbearing terms and phrases appear daily in the media the world over, reverberating the words of political figures, including, among other things, "democratization", "human rights", "free market" and even "toward a stateless society" or "we are now living in a global village".

Those terms and phrases, however, are often used in discourse that implies compulsory belief. Only some scientific articles and research reports deal scrupulously with a specific situation, thus bringing about the understanding that a sense of democracy, for instance, could be present without having the outward appearances of a democratic system found in another country.

The term "tradition" is also often misunderstood. Although modernism was initially a reaction against tradition, it by no means should mean that traditions should be totally wiped out. Modernity and tradition should not be seen as encoded by complementary forms, and, thus, absolutely opposed to each other.

Modern thinking and conservation of tradition should be allocated their respective fields, hence the two can be integrated within the life of a person, a community or a nation.

Many have acknowledged that colonization and "globalization" have led to an imbalance of political power, and of the chance to make a choice, between the rich industrial countries and poor developing countries.

The "second revolution" in human civilization -- industrialization -- made its initiators leaders in the ever- expanding market. The rest of the world tends to be seen as a potential market and source of raw materials.

The instruments for the protection of their gains from exploration, exploitation, data organization and innovation have been designed and promoted intensively.

Some of the "gains", however, were originally owned by certain nations or ethnic groups. Some protection and legalization schemes regarding cultural rights favor the industrialists, with the effect that the original traditional owners lose out. Cases in point include the legal registration of traditional designs by Westerners.

Industrialization implies the creation of new needs among consumers. Many new innovations widen a person's experience, or ease life's hassles. Meanwhile, products of cultural industry are most influential since they may transform, or even alter, a person's taste, preferences and thinking. In the beginning, it was the book that constituted the most important product of cultural industry, in its capacity to broaden people's mind.

Next came the technology of sound recording, and, thence, the business of music records. This began with the contents of European culture and its offshoots in America. Next came the film industry, which began in the United States.

The worldwide dissemination of products of these cultural industries have naturally led to cultural influences, for better or for worse. Alas, the overwhelming influence in "targeting other countries" may also result in the alienation of the peoples of those "other countries" against their own traditional cultures.

Through the products of Western cultural industries (often parallel with modern educational systems based on Western models) the minds of those "target" peoples have become more or less "Westernized", even to such a level that they consider the Western model as the only proper and legitimate one in the world.

We can no more speak then of a freedom of choice, since the choice has been dictated by aggressive promotion and advertising.

The culturally counterproductive effect is the fact that the dominating, easily accessed cultural merchandise is that of the popular genre. Consequently, the cultures of developing countries mostly suffer from lack of exposure, and, hence, a problem of recognition.

Their own traditional cultural expressions, such as in literature, visual and performing arts, not to say architecture, become rarely exposed.

Knowledge and appreciation of those fruits of traditional culture have become scarce and tend to be regarded as unimportant, or even irrelevant and disreputable. Moreover, their own new cultural industries may have been developed according to the low brow popular tastes cultivated by the originally Western mass art, resulting in copycat movies and songs.

A people's cultural heritage and historical awareness constitute the basic ingredients for an identity. Advocacy for the resurgence and strengthening of such awareness is, thus, compelling.

This advocacy could only succeed if backed up by a strong visionary cultural industry in the widest sense. This industry should consist of not only the production of tangible cultural products such as books, records and films, but also a system of production of events for direct cultural encounters, such as performances, exhibitions, workshops, seminars and so on.

Decisionmakers should realize the deep impact on people's mental and spiritual life. Such impact should not be overshadowed by calculations of material and physical gains.

Once a decision has been made to support cultural and historical awareness raising, the next practical problem is providing capital.

As primary living needs would be the priority in developing countries, a system of incentives would be needed, apart from allocation from the state budget.

As a source of economic growth, industrial and trade companies in the cultural industry have made themselves more solid and powerful, more so when they have set up multinational firms.

These economic agents need a free market to develop their ingenuity. This expression of need is an economic standpoint that has become a political ideology, hoisted persistently by governments of countries with great economic power.

The imposing of deals to import products of cultural industry (including aspects of science, philosophy, arts and sports) have been, in some way, detrimental to the many local cultures.

More pressing to local cultures is that the ideology of free market comes hand in hand with that of "free flow of information".

Again, the exponential leading party within the sphere of this "third revolution in human civilization" -- the information system and technology -- is mainly that representing Western culture.

Non-Western potentials that have risen to take the challenge are still limited, mainly from the Chinese and Japanese cultural backgrounds. The abundance of cultural goods facilitated by free market principles is bringing along a cultural domination.

Indonesia has still to embark upon the raising of awareness among the population, and capacity building among industrial professionals. These professionals should speed up developing their expertise in working with all kinds of media. They should also be well versed in their own culture, be it part of the national heritage or contemporary works.

The technology and dissemination systems of information are indeed developing at an incredible speed. Indonesians need to master this to use such developments creatively: to discover new formats and technical possibilities, and to promote our own culture. Indonesia's unique cultural contents should be used and manipulated as a comparative advantage. The quality of work, of course, should be competitively viable.

The media, including the electronic multimedia and especially the Internet, has become a dominant source of information. The urgent need now is to empower users to make a good choice.

Experts on culture experts should also be challenged to place all their selected, high quality information into electronic media as fast as possible. This needs a national drive, lest we lose the battle for a national identity.

We must improve our understanding of traditional culture. Traditions are not something static or stagnant. Cultural historical facts have revealed that traditions do evolve from time to time, at a varying pace in different places and in different eras.

The last 50 years of development in the arts in Java and on Bali has shown many new creations: not only individual works of art, but also new genres of art forms, both in the visual and performing arts.

There is indeed creativity within traditions. Its growth needs a healthy and honorable forum, tended by the myriad of face to face encounters between people. That is where the life of a culture is. And the media should help by disseminating understanding, sharing values and, therefore, supporting culture as a vessel of creativity, as a code of identity.

The writer is an archeologist who heads the Research Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Indonesia.