Reconsidering our cultural image

By Marianus Kleden

KUPANG, East Nusa Tenggara (JP): Apparently inspired by the continual rioting, looting and terror in the country, Sapardi Djoko Damono, a noted literary critic, discussed in a recent interview with TVRI the need to reconsider Indonesia's cultural image.

The problem he seemed to be referring to was the apparent discrepancy between what is constructed and what is real in our social interactions.

To some extent this view makes sense. Our cultural image is nothing but the face we use to greet and socialize with other people. This persona, everybody knows, is affected, much like the makeup people use to alter their physical features. There is a psychological fear, that our real face will be revealed as it is, and so we avoid frankness and put on our social face. While this is a universal truth as a token of politeness, in Indonesia, its absence is often seen as a sign of hostility.

This characteristic surfaces often in relations with foreign visitors, where violent encounters often occur. Indonesians have a strong sense of conformity, and expect that tourists and newcomers will conform with the local habits and behavior. This leaves almost no room for uniqueness and individuality.

They are saying, in other words, you should wear the makeup as I do. The "seven charms of tourism" (security, order, cleanliness, freshness, beauty, hospitality and memomorability), a term (read: a program) coined by the late Soesilo Soedarman, a former tourism minister, covers many of the difficult areas of Indonesian culture, that in practice have often been detrimental to the promotion of tourism itself. Some of the traits are discussed here.

Security

According to the official tourism manual, security is negatively defined as the state of "not being exposed to offense or disturbance", be it from crime, disease, accident or the social environment.

In practice, most attention is focused on crime. Security goals are increasingly realized through the night watch, that is, the patrolling of villages at night to watch for suspicious looking people and strangers. Although this gives a certain sense of safety, the patrols alone are frequently incapable of preventing crimes.

Ironically enough, it is during this time, while the watch is under way, that theft and robbery are rampant. Consequently, the night watch becomes overly protective, and often offensive to strangers and newcomers, not without exception to tourists.

One cause of this perhaps is that the night watchmen need an adversary -- someone to direct their defensive energies at. Tourists and newcomers can feel unsafe, and whenever he is treated improperly, people escape guilt by putting the blame on this poor scapegoat.

Order.

An orderly manner is manifested in an attitude conforming with the regulations, procedures and common etiquette in relation to the use of public facilities, such as public transportation, restaurants, hotels, public toilets and the like.

The repeatedly boasted Indonesian politeness in many contrasts starkly with the inclination toward vandalism found not only in cities, but also in rural areas. Even in villages we can see children slinging pebbles at street lamps or gouging out coins from public telephones. And adults having left public restrooms unflushed and write graffiti on the walls. These people, after offending and damaging public facilities, do not feel guilty because those things are anyway "public" and not "private or personal".

From a social psychology point of view, this propensity toward vandalism is generated by the fact that we are living in an enclosed environment -- a fact that subsequently originates a regionalistic and clannish mentality.

In that way, the ultimate aim of the whole development is to further the needs of "my clan", "my region" and "my people". Further implications of this mentality are that people tend to cultivate a distinctive and discriminative attitude towards 'others ' -- meaning anyone outside their immediate family or community. In this way public facilities are destroyed because they do not belong directly to that community.

Another problematic manner may also appear in a predilection to prioritize personal business over public business, and over the business of people that may in fact be more deserving. In a queue (a term that is used loosely here) we often see people squeezing forward to be the first, giving an impression that they are very important people.

In public vehicles, when the hot, stuffy bus is full of jostling passengers, many still selfishly insist on smoking. While this might be unknown to more cosmopolitan Jakarta, the scene is quite common in many parts of Indonesia.

The clannish attitude and regionalism mentioned above are some of the causes for this egoism.

In a closed group there develops an ethos or even morality, often referred to as visual morality, by which we judge something as good or bad insofar as it is seen or recognized by the community. Thus, a person living in an anonymous atmosphere can do whatever he wants without fear blame.

Cleanliness.

In Indonesia, cleanliness refers to the absence of dirt in the house and yard.

Every morning, in almost every house, we can see women sweeping their houses. But women appear to be little concerned with where the garbage is thrown immediately afterward, a long as it leaves the yard.

This attitude also derives from the clannish spirit mentioned above: The important thing is that my house is tidy, where the garbage eventually ends up -- whether in the ocean or into the forest -- is not my business.

Hospitality.

Indonesians are famous for the warm welcome to visitors and their habit of pampering guests. Yet because of the distinctive and discriminative disposition of every ethnic group, newcomers, if from a different cultural group, frequently are seen as strangers and treated as not belonging to the group.

In tribal cultures, for the guests to feel at home, they are installed as new members of the tribe and in some cases important guests become honorary tribal chiefs and are given valuable gifts. Governors and regents, cabinet ministers and businessmen all have stories of this.

What is the result of this hospitality? On the one hand guests may feel respected, but on the other hand they may have a sense of losing their identity. This means in order for the guest not to be treated as an 'alien', he must behave in a way that is in harmony and conformity with the locals -- a demand which often leads to feelings of uneasiness and a sense of restriction.

It is this demand that explains why a pair of Western lovers, sitting on the beach in courtship, is often molested by youngsters who whistle, shout or even throw stones at them. In a like manner, a female tourist who wears shorts and a singlet on hot days is perceived as being sexually permissive.

Suggestions.

In relation to the development of a new cultural image, here are some practical suggestions that have to do with hospitality (outward looking) and regionalism (inward looking).

All foreigners should respect and act in accordance with the local customs, but their own privacy also needs to be guaranteed, out of mutual respect. Presumption of innocence -- a legal term -- can be applied here in the sense that anyone's behavior is acceptable as far as his or her own cultural background is concerned.

Hospitality, when we relate it to this, means to let someone act and behave unrestricted according to his or her own culture. It is better if we do not fear to offend foreign cultures, because this anxiety results from too much romanticization of our own culture with too little affirmation of its essence.

This attitude often leads people to only see the differences their own culture has with that of foreigners, which, in the case of social problems, is seen as evidence of inferiority in the foreign culture.

The negative effects of regionalism can be curbed through the broadening of our world view -- e.g. through the study of other cultures and societies in school. One's own outlook can be enriched by viewing the world from a variety of perspectives, and therefore could see things of greater importance than his own immediate needs.

A sense of responsibility for public property and the environment would hopefully be the result of this broader world view.

More than 20 years ago, Mochtar Lubis, a prominent novelist and social critic, made a daring and controversial statement in a paper presented at Taman Ismail Marzuki Arts Center, declaring that the most outstanding trait of Indonesians is hypocrisy. So far this statement has not been negated, neither by our warm welcome to guests nor by our offensive attitude to strangers.

The writer is a social science lecturer at Widya Mandira Catholic University.

Window: One's own outlook can be enriched by viewing the world from a variety of perspectives, and therefore could see things of greater importance than his own immediate needs.