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.