Indonesia's formal culture is trapped in cul de sac
Indonesia's formal culture is trapped in cul de sac
By Mochtar Buchori
JAKARTA (JP): Kompas daily carried a rather theatrical
statement of Abdurrachman Wahid, known as Gus Dur, in its May 31
edition.
It quoted him as saying that our culture is already dead,
buried in its fervent desire to serve the interest of the
existing institutions of power. As a result, we have developed a
culture of violence.
This is, in the opinion of Gus Dur, terribly wrong. Culture
should rest upon and derive its strength from morality, and not
from violence. Gus Dur reminded his audience that violence is
immoral.
This particular pursuit of culture has made our state a
vehicle or instrument for those with power to subjugate those
without power. Thus our state exists to serve power. Within our
culture this power system has developed its own absolute autonomy
which cannot be questioned by anyone. This, in the end, is the
most burdensome form of colonization.
How should we react? Gus Dur's formula is the following: "I do
not see the need to oppose this situation. I have reserved a room
in my heart in which I exercise the freedom to question the
morality of others' behavior."
How true is Gus Dur's portrait of the present condition of our
culture?
I do not believe our culture is really dead. What Gus Dur
described is true only as far as it concerns the "formal
culture", the culture of those with power. If we look, however,
at the situation among those without power, then we will see a
different picture.
In this world morality is still very much alive. The fact that
Gus Dur still draws a very big crowd wherever he speaks is
indisputable evidence to me that behind or beside the formal
culture is the "popular culture", the real culture of the people.
The existence of this culture has been obscured by lack of
publicity. No mass media makes a serious attempt to report about
life within this popular culture. Such coverage does not sell.
Who would buy it? The poor?
It is generally believed that popular culture is shallow,
abrasive and trivial. This prejudice used to be considered
absolutely true within Javanese culture. Among the Javanese,
popular culture was considered inferior in every respect to
"palace culture".
Popular culture was looked upon as a culture belonging to
those "who live close to stones, and far from kings" (cedak
watu, adoh ratu in Javanese dialect).
After independence, however, these popular cultures have
developed into autonomous cultures, independent from any trend
set by palace cultures. The East Java variation of the Javanese
classical dance, for instance, is no less fascinating than the
traditional classical dance of the Yogyakarta and Surakarta
palace varieties.
Popular culture is now heavily overshadowed by formal culture.
The current popular culture has no patrons, has no sponsors. It
is not even on the map of the Ministry of Education and Culture,
I am afraid. In time, however, it will grow into a mature
culture, independent from and equally visible as the formal
culture.
As Prof. Philip H. Phenix stated in one of his books: "Popular
culture need not be mediocre and trivial. Meaning is lost both
when knowledge is abstruse and inaccessible and when it is
commonplace and superficial." The present popular culture looks
trivial because it has no access to the best insights of our
civilization.
How to safeguard this popular culture and how to protect it
from being corrupted and co-opted by the formal culture are two
problems that must be solved. If Gus Dur has a special room in
his heart, so do people without power.
And I think there is a great correspondence between the
criteria of right and wrong that have been operating in Gus Dur's
heart and similar criteria that have been working in the hearts
of people without power. Again, the fact that Gus Dur still has a
big audience means that his feelings regarding the present
situation are silently shared by millions of people who, like
him, abhorred violence and long for justice.
Our current popular culture will be able to fight against the
corrupting influence of the formal culture, I think, if it is
given the opportunity to communicate freely. In my view, popular
culture is by necessity local in nature. There are thus many
local popular cultures which lack the opportunity to communicate
among themselves. In contrast, the formal culture is national and
has all the means to communicate with any party it wishes to
reach.
Reaching a target does not necessarily mean being accepted.
People cannot be forced to listen. They can be forced to hear,
but not to listen. As far as I know, there are many views of the
formal culture which have been rejected by the ordinary people.
They simply refuse to accept certain things which are forced on
them.
Herein lies the strength and resilience of our current popular
culture, I believe. It has its own belief, its own conviction,
its own vision. No amount of violence, physical or otherwise, can
force common people to believe what they refuse to believe or
what they cannot possibly believe.
An important variable in this case is that the language of the
formal culture is different from the language of the popular
culture. The language of the formal culture is the product of
manipulative thinking, whereas the language of the popular
culture is the product of straight feeling. The language of the
formal culture is exploitative, whereas the language of the
popular culture is emotive.
This difference of language constitutes the main reason for
the absence of genuine communication between the formal culture
and the popular culture, between those with power and those
without power. The current popular culture manages to survive
precisely for this reason. The same reason allows realistic hope
concerning the future of the popular culture.
I would say our culture is not dead. What has happened is that
the formal culture has come to the end of a cul de sac, and is
therefore practically dead. The popular culture, on the other
hand, is alive and kicking and in dire need of fresh air. It is
our collective duty to breathe fresh air into the lungs of
popular culture.
The writer is an observer of a social and cultural affairs.