Traditional cultures need bridge with modern world
JAKARTA (JP): Unless traditional cultures are made easier to grasp for modern society, they will vanish, Minister of Environment Sarwono Kusumaatmadja said yesterday.
"Anthropologists, social workers and other groups working with traditional communities must help to build the bridge with the modern world," Sarwono said.
Establishing clear marks on territories and documenting them to support traditional land claims, for instance, would greatly help community members meet demands for evidence from the National Land Agency.
"Marks alone may not be enough proof for land ownership, but a document is at least better than nothing," Sarwono said as he opened a seminar on Culture, Traditional Wisdom and Conservation.
Numerous conflicts between authorities and traditional communities have occurred after communities say their age-old land rights have been taken away unfairly, while authorities say the claimants lack evidence.
The discussion, at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), was organized by Sejati, a non-governmental organization, which studies traditional societies.
Economist Mari Pangestu of the CSIS is also among the Sejati's founders.
Sarwono noted that as traditions are passed on orally, they have a slim chance of surviving in a world demanding evidence in every field.
"When people say traditional communities have a rich knowledge on preserving the environment, of health and healing, we ask, what is the proof? I think such cultures, which are passed on orally through generations, cannot survive long in an age of advanced technology," said Sarwono.
While the modern world needs to learn from traditional wisdom, Sarwono acknowledged the difficulty in making possible every form of traditional culture applicable in modern life.
"Traditional wisdom in maintaining harmony with nature has developed in subsistence economies; community members may have no interest in exploiting nature for an economy like ours."
Nevertheless, efforts to link modernity and traditions would prevent "a repetition of the mistakes of other countries where their traditional communities are left behind and isolated," Sarwono said.
Speaker Mansoer Fakih, a director of the Indonesia office of the Britain-based Oxfam, said it is modern ideologies which must be understood, to comprehend the cause of conflicts to the disfavor of traditional societies.
"Knowledge used to be considered neutral, but now, knowledge is linked to power," he said.
After labeling a community as "backward," "primitive" or as "nomadic farmers," authorities and activists carry out their perceived obligation to "lift" a community out of poverty. But this leads to the deprivation of their systems of economy, politics and culture, Fakih said.
To illustrate local wisdom in environment conservation, Abdon Nababan of Sejati cited agricultural practices among the Dani and the Kimaam people in Irian Jaya; the Negeri Haruku in Central Maluku; the Mollo of East Nusa Tenggara; and other traditional communities.
The seminar concluded with the screening of a film and opening of an exhibition entitled Rhythms of A Nation: Tradition and Development in Indonesia, which will last to Aug. 15.(anr)