Siskel: A life's journey from scholar to philanthropist

Chisato Hara, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

After almost 30 years in Indonesia, Ford Foundation Indonesia representative Suzanne E. Siskel is leaving to take up her new post as Director of Community and Resource Development at the foundation's headquarters in New York. The Jakarta Post spoke to her about some of the defining moments of her time here and the experiences she will take with her.

The beginning of Suzanne Siskel's journey to Indonesia takes place in the most unlikely of places, in the Mayan highlands of Chiapas, Mexico, deep in the heart of Zapatista rebel country.

It was 1973, and Siskel was on an extended summer program as part of her anthropology major at Harvard University. Siskel had chosen to major in anthropology because she wanted "to do research in a completely different world", but did not yet know what kind of anthropology in which she might work.

In Chiapas, she conducted field work on shamanism and indigenous healing for her undergraduate thesis. She lived with the shaman, a woman of the same age as her, in a ramshackle hut.

The highland Mayan, in accordance with their indigenous beliefs, said each person had an animal soul, although all were church-going Catholics.

On her very last day, the shaman took Siskel to see the church -- which was forbidden to "outsiders" -- in disguise, with the two women donning a scarf over their heads and a head-bag, which was the customary dress in the area. The two snuck into the church after waiting for it to empty of worshipers, and inside, the shaman showed Siskel around the many statues of saints that stood in alcoves.

"She went to each one and lifted up their skirts, and underneath was an animal figure, representing the soul of the saint... So while the local Mayan were all Catholics, they were practicing both religions. It was my first exposure to syncretism, and I knew then I was going to be an anthropologist."

When she graduated in 1973, her Harvard professor encouraged Siskel to apply to a new scholarship that had just been announced by the Henry Luce Foundation, and which was managed by the Asia Foundation. The scholarship was a new initiative that sought to cultivate an appreciation of Asia, which was still rather unknown in those days.

"(TIME magazine founder) Henry Luce was raised in China, which obviously had a great impact on his world outlook. The idea was to select 15 students ... from college graduates to graduate students. It was an opportunity to send American people -- non- Asia specialists -- who had the potential to contribute to the area... Basically, we (first-year scholarship students) were guinea pigs," she laughed.

Meanwhile, several people in the Harvard anthropology department urged her to apply for a scholarship to Indonesia.

"I had read some (Clifford) Geertz, but didn't really know anything about Indonesian then. But I had decided that I wanted to come to Indonesia."

Fortunately, noted Indonesianist James Fox, the Australian National University anthropologist, was at Harvard at the time. Siskel consulted him, and Fox recommended that she spend her preparatory summer with an Indonesian friend of his.

The "friend" turned out to be sociologist and intellectual Arief Budiman, who was in the U.S. as an exile for his critical views of Soeharto's autocratic government.

"(Arief) gave me a list of his friends to look up once I was in Indonesia," she smiled at the recollection. "You wouldn't believe the reactions I got when I showed someone here the list. They said, 'Where did you get this list?' Of course, I didn't know it at the time, but it was a list of all these people who had been exiled or were about to be banned."

Siskel first set foot on Indonesian soil in October 1974 as a Henry Luce scholar with Airlangga University in Surabaya. There, she worked for a year with medical and dental students in the field to evaluate the social impacts of public healthcare services on a community.

Two events occurred during that year that bound Siskel to Indonesia.

"A friend invited me to spend Christmas at the family's plantation -- they thought I might be homesick. I even remember the name, Kali Klatak plantation in East Java. They were a Muslim family, but they celebrated Christmas, and they had put up this Christmas tree and held a huge feast for the community -- turkey, duck, chicken, I forget now...

"It was the first time I saw rubber tapping and processing, and a whole variety of spices, including vanilla. I'd never seen vanilla growing before then."

"And they had real candles on the tree you could light. I just couldn't get over those candles. It was one of the moments I fell in love with Indonesia.

"Everyone was so nice to me. I was young and (in Indonesia) by myself, and people took me in."

The second event began as a simple road trip with five Airlangga friends, one of whom was from Blitar: "His name was Djoko, and he wanted to show me his father's kris collection and the Singosari temples."

But the real reason for the trip turned out to be very different. The group was on their way to the temples when they decided to stop by the cemetery and visit the grave of Djoko's mother, who had passed away recently.

"The cemetery was on some small side-street... Everyone had flower petals to place on the grave."

Unfamiliar with the custom, Siskel followed suit and placed petals along with her friends at Djoko's mother's grave -- but noticed they kept a few petals in their hands. She did likewise, and on the way out of the cemetery, they stopped at a small plot.

"There was no headstone, no markers. There was just this slightly elevated mound and a closed payung (a traditional Javanese umbrella) that is a sign of respect for the deceased."

Her friends placed their remaining petals on the corner of this small plot, as did Siskel, and they left.

"We got in the car and rolled up the windows on the drive back to town. I just assumed it was an aspect of grief," she said.

"When we got back to Blitar, we all got out of the car and they asked me, 'Do you know where you were?' I said, 'Sure. We went to Djoko's mother's grave'."

They shook their heads and told her that the unmarked grave at the cemetery was the resting place of founding father Sukarno.

"You have to remember that it was 1974. Sukarno's name had been all but expunged from public memory. It was taboo even to mention his name... Going to his grave was an awakening for me as a young person... a revelatory moment. I felt I'd experienced the history of Indonesia, and felt a special bond with the country."

At the time, she was living with the family of a former chief of the Surabaya traffic police, who felt close to Sukarno. Siskel told the Bapak and his wife of her Blitar visit when she returned to Surabaya, and they hugged and kissed her.

"I was really touched that my friends wanted me to understand and know about their country, that they trusted me enough... I was honored, privileged, humbled. My friends made sure that I experienced all aspects of the country."

Several years later, she returned to Blitar, but the cemetery was unrecognizable. It had become a tourist destination, and a monument now marked Sukarno's grave. In the mid 1990s, she attended an Asia Foundation reception, where she found herself in the same room as Megawati Soekarnoputri.

"Megawati was then emerging as a critical and credible opposition figure in the PDI (Indonesian Democratic Party), and being in her presence brought back a flood of emotions from visiting Sukarno's grave," she said.

Siskel entered graduate school at Johns Hopkins University in 1976, soon after her return to the U.S. from the Henry Luce program, and focused on social anthropology and epidemiology, which was emerging as a subfield of anthropology.

"I was thinking about becoming an academic ... fortunately, it didn't happen," she smiled.

In spring 1980, she took advanced Bahasa Indonesia with the "brilliant scholar and wonderful teacher", socio-linguist Dede Utomo, who is now known for his work in gay rights and HIV activism.

Siskel returned to Indonesia in 1983 as a Fulbright scholar, with additional funding from the Social Science Research Council, after several delays in procuring a visa because of the upcoming elections. In addition, her husband at the time, another anthropologist, was unable to obtain a visa as her dependent in accordance with Indonesian immigration laws. "Every anthropologist at that time has a visa horror story," she said.

Inspired by James T. Siegel's The Rope of God on Islam in Aceh that focused primarily on men's roles, Siskel planned to do "the flip-side" for her doctorate dissertation. She ended up in Madura, where she was invited to stay at a small family pesantren, or Islamic boarding school, that was run by women due to the demise of its head, a prominent local cleric.

"I was able to learn about Islam through their eyes in an intimate way... And I was able to grow an affection and appreciation for the religion." The family returned the sentiment, and even wanted her to convert -- but she did not.

Later, this experience gave her "confidence and a valid foundation" for speaking at her mother's church group and her late father's Rotary group about Indonesia and moderate Islam in post-9/11 America.

Her husband found work with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as a consultant, and upon her return to Jakarta, she was asked by USAID to be an anthropological consultant for an irrigation project that involved the Ministry of Public Works.

Siskel thus went off to the field again, conducting a socio- economic impact study on the introduction of irrigation system in rural communities in Timor. Her one year with the agency soon expanded to four, including a short sting in Flores for the World Bank on a similar project, and Siskel was thrust into the development field. During this time, she worked on small-scale irrigation management projects in South Sulawesi, West Nusa Tenggara and East Nusa Tenggara.

"I was basically learning about development on the spot... and I found out that I was more interested in this than academics."

Soon, she became aware of the Ford Foundation, and joined the independent, philanthropic organization in the late 1980s as program officer for rural poverty and resources.

"The Ford Foundation is known for 'matchmaking', bringing together unlikely actors to improve access to information and resources and in helping to procure more support from government donations."

For example, the foundation assists in networking between academics, advocacy groups, the community and hopefully, government, to improve living conditions and welfare at the grassroots level. It also assists in skills training and works to transfer lessons learned from similar projects across the archipelago. Siskel underlines that Ford primarily helps support programs initiated by local non-governmental organizations and other groups.

"It has now changed with decentralization, with more local accountability to people in the area, which is the exciting part. But it doesn't mean decentralization is perfect.

"It's also interesting to see people who worked in participatory projects from before were poised to take leadership positions when the opportunity appeared with decentralization," she said, referring to a community of farmers in Timor that Ford had helped to establish a network for agricultural development. "This was a happy side effect of the organizational, leadership and community skills that were learned where Ford grantees were working."

Through Ford's cultural revitalization portfolio, she also came to understand Indonesian arts and culture in an in-depth way, and gained a deeper respect for the country's cultural heritage.

Siskel left Indonesia briefly from 1997 to 2000 to take up a post as Ford Foundation representative in the Philippines.

"So I missed the most exciting period," she said, referring to the 1998 reformasi movement and subsequent transition to democracy.

When she returned in 2000, it was as Ford Indonesia representative.

Since she became Indonesia representative, Siskel has been developing her personal passion, philanthropy, for positive social change.

"It has been inspiring to see the kind of giving taking place. I believe the spirit of giving in this country is not sufficiently recognized. Philanthropy in Indonesia for Indonesia has been sort of emerging as a sector ... and the strategic use of philanthropy has been heartening."

Most recently, she has been inspired by a new international scholarship program, the International Fellowships Program (IFP), which is managed by the Indonesian International Education Foundation. The program is worldwide, and targets marginalized, talented individuals -- such as physically disabled people from remote regions and those from historically marginalized areas -- for graduate and post-graduate studies in any country abroad, with an emphasis on leadership and dedication to community service.

"The program is about explicitly recognizing and providing support for people with talent and who normally don't have the opportunity."

One such individual was Subianto, who returned to his home province of Aceh two weeks before the tsunami, and perished along with his family. The response from IFP students around the globe was immediate, and they initially wanted to give up their stipend and donate it to aid and recovery in Aceh, which the scholarship management could not approve. Instead, the students have collected a modest donation, and Ford is in the process of developing an education program in Subianto's name.

"It's been gratifying to be able to support positive activities and to support pluralism" in a country with hundreds of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

"It has been a great luxury, a gift, that I was given this job ... to help direct the resources of the Ford Foundation to help people improve their lives."

When asked what she will miss most about Indonesia, she responds, "Oh, I hate this question," then pauses to consider.

"It's more about missing people, because I don't expect culture shock when I go back to the U.S. I've been shopping for cultural (items) so I can recreate a little Indonesia wherever we are."

As for her new post, from which she will be directing community and resource development programs in 13 Ford Foundation offices around the world, "It will be less direct from headquarters ... and not having as direct a connection with people makes me sad.

"(Indonesia) has felt like home for so long..."

And what has Indonesia taught her?

"Humility," she replied. "One reason I say that is because this huge country, with its tremendous diversity, fought to emerge from a stifling colonial era as a modern country. The Indonesian people stepped up to the challenge of creating their country, against adversity. I'm learning so much from Indonesians all the time -- I have so many teachers, mentors and examples."

She will also miss "really spicy Indonesian food. Especially Timorese sambal (chili paste)".

Siskel departs for her new post within a week, and it seems Indonesia is not losing a friend so much as it will be gaining one on the global scene to speak on its behalf, about the richness of its history and the generosity of its people.

Will she be back? Siskel responds with an immediate, decisive and emphatic, "Yes."