Javanese culture: Scapegoat of all evils?

Javanese culture: Scapegoat of all evils?

The course of the nation in its 50-year voyage appears to have
been marked by the dominant position of Javanese culture and
people are often tempted to link all social illnesses to this
particular culture. Noted intellectual Franz Magnis-Suseno warns
us against following this line of thinking.

JAKARTA (JP): Javanese culture has become the whipping-boy for
much of what is wrong in fin-de-siecle Indonesia. Corruption,
collusion, nepotism, the hyperallergy of officials toward
criticism, feudalist language used by politicians; are they not
all clearly "Javanese"?

Are they not the precise translation into post-traditional
power structures of what Hildred Geertz once identified as
fundamental principle underlying communication among Javanese,
rukun, the principle of conflict avoidance ?

And aren't the expressions of homage to our political leaders,
the incapability to make critical views known, or even to ask
difficult questions, proof that both our power elite and we, the
people, still are in the grip of the "Javanese conception of
power"?

A conception where the king's power is actually an emanation
of cosmic energy filling the universe, where the king is the
source of all blessings like peace, justice and welfare in
society and fertility of nature (and, on the other hand, when
Merapi volcano erupts, it is, on the same premises, the fault of
the king too).

The sociologist Fachry Ali has even forwarded the thesis in a
very readable book, Refleksi Paham 'Kekuasaan Jawa' Dalam
Indonesia Modern (Reflection on the Javanese Concept of Power in
Modern Indonesia), that the Indonesian modernists which were
prominent in the national movement and in Indonesian politics up
to 1957 were some kind of a mistake, a mere historical
intermezzo, which then was redressed by Sukarno's Guided
Democracy and the power system of the New Order, which also meant
that traditional, say Javanese, conceptions and structures took
over in Indonesia again.

Thus, is Javanese culture the culprit for Indonesia's so
called neo-feudalism? But wait a moment. What did the wily Scot
philosopher David Hume write into the book of the metaphysicists?
Post hoc non propter hoc! meaning that what you actually see is a
temporal sequence, but not, as you think you see, that the first
element in the sequence is the cause of the second one.

Advice that jostled Immanuel Kant, as he himself noted, out of
his dogmatic slumber. Good advice also for us. Indeed, it cannot
be denied that the manners of communication among our political
elite smell strongly Javanese. Even warrior-like Batak from
Tapanuli nowadays try to look somehow Javanese. The Indonesian
language is full of Javanese words, Javanese palace language --
krama inggil -- permeates polite Indonesian speech in the "upper
classes". The almost obsessive use of Sanskrit words in official,
ceremonial context would hardly have taken place without
reference to Javanese history.

Back to the philosopher Hume. No doubt Javanese culture, the
culture of 40 percent of all Indonesians, and especially in its
refined Yogyakarta-Surakarta form, has heavily influenced the
culture of communication of the ruling elite.

As for corruption, collusion, nepotism and all the other
irregularities; have they gone on a rampage because of this
Javanese connection, or have they taken on Javanese colors
because this is generally the color in higher places?

The second would mean that since Javanese culture has, indeed,
a certain dominance, it colors whatever there is, good and bad.
And therefore you cannot explain corruption and others by
pointing at their Javanese color. Corruption looks a bit Javanese
because everything looks a bit Javanese. But this does not say a
thing about why corruption, etc. are so widespread, nor the
reasons for their prominence.

Or put it this way, Javanese do not only avoid conflict and
show respect to those higher up. They have also deeply
internationalized values that point in the opposite direction:
From childhood on they are brought up to be content with what is
necessary, to share what one has with one's neighbors, to never
cling rigidly to material possession, to find a source of
identity and power of existence not in exterior things but in
internal value, to avoid overdoing anything in any respect, to
always hold back a little bit, "to die within life and, thereby,
live within death", to be happy if you are able to do your duty,
to contribute a little bit to your fellow people.

And Javanese, for all their politeness and loathing for
conflict, will never renegade on their convictions.

Corruption, the greed to add and add more to the riches you
already have is alien to Javanese wisdom. It is more like in the
Greek tragedy where the hero gets blinded by growing power and
unbridled arrogance. A wise Javanese ruler listens carefully to
what his entourage has to say -- as every Javanese knows from the
shadow play where the good heroes, the Pandawa, always listens to
what their simple servants, the Panokawan, have to say. He also
doesn't seek physical possessions in excess of what is needed to
live properly because the real sources of this power lie within
himself.

Therefore pinpointing Javanese culture as the source of
corruption, etc. seems to be seriously flawed. It could even have
the side function of diverting attention from the real sources of
the predicament we find ourselves in. It is not some kind of
feudal values responsible for all kinds of abuse, but the abuses
taking on the readily available cover of so called Javanese
feudal values.

Thus where does responsibility for corruption, etc. lay? We
can also ask: why is it that the real Javanese values that would
urge upon those in power to "remember" (eling), to satisfy
themselves with what befits them, and to give their people an
example of how to live in dignity without ostentatious luxury
have become ineffective to curb rampant abuses ?

This is the real question. To shove abuses on to culture means
to conceal the problem. It also gives the impression that
corruption, etc. were a specifically Indonesian problem. But in
fact, they are the consequence of the abuse of power. Thus if we
want to do something, the control and accountability of those in
power have to be reinstated. In other words, it is time to make
Pancasila democracy the real thing.

Prof. Dr. Franz Magnis-Suseno SJ teaches social philosophy at
Drikarya School of Philosophy in Jakarta.