Not on bread alone

Man cannot live on bread alone, says the Bible. And in the 1960s, when visiting Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev chided Indonesia's first president Sukarno for spending too much money and effort on grandiose cultural undertakings and not enough on industrial development, the latter was said to have retorted -- paraphrasing Vladimir Ilyich Lenin -- that people needed pants too in order to achieve progress, thus throwing back at his communist guest the words of the venerated founder of the Soviet state.

Indeed, over the millennia, this same truism has been stated time and time again, in different forms and by different personalities. But perhaps one of the most concrete examples of what those words actually mean was provided by Jakarta's governor Ali Sadikin in the 1970s, when he launched the first Jakarta Fair at Monas Square, setting into motion a month of festivities to mark the anniversary of the founding of the city.

Indonesia's capital city, more so perhaps than any other community in Indonesia, urban or rural, has for centuries been a major melting pot of ethnic, cultural, religious and racial groups coming from all parts of the archipelago and from the world. Out of Indonesia's hundreds of ethnic populations, there is hardly one that is not represented in this city.

In order to motivate that hodgepodge of population groups to work toward the city's advancement in those difficult years, a common sense of belonging and pride had to be instilled among all of Jakarta's residents, regardless of their creed and racial or ethnic background. The people of Jakarta, the governor reasoned, have to be made to feel that they are Jakartans and to take pride in that fact.

It would go beyond the purpose of this column to pass judgment on whether or not former governor Ali Sadikin succeeded in his drive. The undisputed fact remains, however, that even up to this day, the live wire governor is commonly regarded as Jakarta's most successful governor. Apart from a few new facilities, such as the construction of toll roads and flyovers, there is hardly one that had not been put in place by the time he ended his governorship in 1977.

All this leads us to the string of art festivals that has to a certain extent livened up the dismal social and political landscape that has prevailed in Indonesia these past few months. In contrast to similar events held in previous years, the Bali Art Festival was launched with relatively little fanfare, due, no doubt, to the memory of the Oct. 12 bombing tragedy in Kuta last year.

Similarly, the Borobudur International Festival in Central Java last week appeared to be suffering from a lack of foreign visitors, brought about by the Bali bombing incident and the subsequent travel warnings that were issued by several foreign governments. The same might possibly be said of the Jakarta Art Festival and the Five Mounts Festival at Warangan village at the foot of Mount Merbabu in Central Java over the past weekend, although the latter did enjoy considerable success locally.

One question that might possibly arise in view of all that has been said, then, is: Can it be justified, in these times of crisis and terrorist concerns, to organize elaborate art festivals whose main purpose is to draw visitors and, more in particular, their money? While it may be true that tourism revenue is the major driving force that sets the tourist industry in motion, it must be borne in mind that for the average person, art, culture or entertainment -- whatever one may call these events, even kitsch -- have a function to perform in society that goes well beyond commercialism.

It is a well-accepted fact that prolonged exposure to stressful conditions can have an adverse effect on even the most healthy of individuals. Art festivals -- or whatever is understood by the word "art" -- provides at least some relief. What's more, they also provide that other thing that every person needs besides bread, as referred to in the Bible, or Sukarno's pants for the people. In brief, if it is not tourism, then it is the people who can benefit from art festivals or performances. Let us not deny the people this means of preserving their sanity.