Official says low cultural sensitivity breeds brutality
Official says low cultural sensitivity breeds brutality
JAKARTA (JP): The Ministry of Education and Culture is
urgently prioritizing the filling of what it says is a gap in
understanding of the humanities among people here.
Director General of Culture Edi Sedyawati said Monday that
better awareness of culture and history could help curb the
rampant violence the nation has seen this year. Without such
awareness people were unable to be critical, she said.
"Our society is lost and trapped in an unbalanced tide of
information... we are moving too fast and only care about
political and economic matters, leaving out the essence of the
humanities, which is culture and history."
Edi told a year-ender media briefing that the ongoing war of
ideologies in a country where the average level of education was
still low could be dangerous if manipulated by parties intent on
seeking the nation's disintegration.
Lack of cultural sensitivity, she said, was evident in the
regression of morality and ethics among the people. In reference
to what she called demands "to start from zero" in improving the
country, she spoke of lack of historical awareness and
understanding of the hard work of the founding fathers.
Edi pointed to the irony of history repeating itself in the
criticism of Soeharto, which she said was similar to when the
late first president Sukarno was unseated from power.
To improve understanding of history Edi, an archeologist and
former dancer, challenged students to constantly raise questions,
while admitting there was a lack of interest due to the rote
learning that dominates history teaching.
Meanwhile Director General of History and Traditional Values
Anhar Gonggong also acknowledged that history has been used to
benefit those in power, and urged an end to the practice.
"Since Indonesian independence, history has been manipulated
for the sake of the ruling party. Sukarno did it through the
Board of History Studies and Soeharto also effected it through
the Pancasila propagation board (BP-7)," Anhar said.
This engineered history created distortion and resulted in the
nation's poor historical and cultural consciousness, he said.
The directorate, he said, is doing its part in preparing a
guide book touching on controversial historical events, and would
also help teachers in making history lessons much more
interesting.
"We have prepared this with the Indonesian History Society
(MSI)," he said.
In another part of the briefing Edi said her office was
preparing for the Asian Composers League and Art Summit III.
This year the office has hosted several international events
despite financial difficulties. Among them was the month-long Art
Summit Indonesia II from September to October and the conference
of the International Association of Historians of Asia in August.
(edt)