Viewing religious rituals from cultural persperctive

Kristian Tamtomo, Jakarta

I would like to comment on the article titled Spiritual Materialism in the Haj Pilgrimage written by Dadi Darmadi (The Jakarta Post, Dec. 22). The article itself is well written and well argued. Yet, in my view, it fails to explain the reason why people are consumerist during their haj pilgrimage. This phenomena, I think, can be widened to include pilgrimages of other religions).

One way of finding a reason for this is by examining the social and cultural significance of the ability of a person to embark on a haj pilgrimage, from the viewpoint of the person's community. This is something that Darmadi, as a student of social anthropology, should have seen in the first place.

Rather, he has chosen to denounce the consumerist behavior of pilgrims as a result of poor understanding of the spiritual and religious significance of the haj pilgrimage, not to mention the ever lurking effects of capitalism. This argument is understandable from the viewpoint of a religious scholar, theologian or cleric. However, coming from an anthropologist, I beg to differ.

Religion has always been a strong topic of anthropology. The first anthropological works were on, what was labeled then, "primitive" religion. My first taste of anthropology was in reading The Religions of Java by superstar anthropologist, Clifford Geertz.

From all these different works, I can sum up the distinct anthropological viewpoint on religion. Anthropologists, the discipline I was trained in, view religion as a part of a wider social and cultural system. It is inevitably entwined with society, with its different social classes and relations.

Thus, religious practices are viewed as part of the dynamic of everyday social life. I think this view can yield different ideas when compared to the religious point of view that emphasizes the normative "what is right and what is wrong".

In the case of the haj pilgrimage, a brief case analysis may obtain a different interpretation. Allow me to illustrate. I participated in a fieldwork training exercise in the Petungkriyono, a remote mountain area south of Pekalongan in January 2001. The villagers there are mostly farmers who plant corn and vegetables in non-irrigated fields (ladang).

One prominent villager rose up to become the wealthiest person in the whole area, through his crop and cattle trading business. He then controlled a substantial amount of land and cattle. Many villagers came to him to work on his land.

Others also tended his cattle on a shared ownership basis. Some villagers worked for him as truck drivers to deliver crops to town. He also gives credit and loans to neighbors in exchange for the exclusive right to buy and sell their crops.

To put it simply, he became the social and economic patron of the area. It is then not surprising that he would be the first man in the village to embark on a haj pilgrimage.

Before he left for Mecca, he arranged a big selamatan (thanksgiving dinner) and invited hundreds of guests. He also handed out gifts such as sarongs and peci (Muslim cap) to his guests. It would not be surprising if, when he returns from haj, he will hold another selamatan and give out gifts as well.

Most villagers expect him to do that. It is his role as a patron to do so, in exchange for their labor and support, also to keep good ties with the other villagers. In this context, his practice of "spiritual materialism" made perfect sense.

On the other hand, his title as a haj pilgrim would also increase his social status. Not only is he the social and economic patron, he will also be a religious patron. He will still keep the obligations and benefits of his social-economic ties (reinforced by the gifts he gave out).

In addition to that, he now commands the religious respect given to a haj pilgrim. Thus, the haj pilgrimage for this man was not simply a religious phenomenon. He might have intended it to be just a religious issue, but when it was played out in the social context that he was in, it became a symbol of his status. It affected his relationship with the fellow villagers, and it became a vehicle for a stronger social and political position.

To view the ritual (and rituals in general) as simply a religious phenomenon would be sterile anthropologically. Once we can grasp the deeper socio-cultural significance of the phenomena, then we can see why people do it, why they enjoy it, and why it makes perfect sense to them.

If we are able to look at things this way, it would not be surprising (especially for a social scientist) to see that religious rituals are divided by class. People live in a society that is divided by class, their culture is also class divided, and certainly it would not be surprising that religious practices exhibit the same trait.

Could we not dare, for once, to view religion as inseparable from culture and society? We might come up with the disturbing fact that religious rituals and practices have always had social and political significance.

They were never about spirituality per se, even if religious teachings and texts say that it should be. Clifford Geertz understood that when he saw how a simple funeral ritual could become a symbolic battleground between two different political ideologies of the 1960s.

Darmadi's explanation of spiritual materialism and the contestation on religion, tourism and capitalism is very enlightening. However, it was disappointing, as an anthropologist, to see that the analysis was briskly closed when he stated that the haj rituals have become more than a religious phenomenon. I hope that my illustration above can show that religious rituals are always, inevitably, more than just religious phenomena. It makes sense from an anthropological point of view that religious rituals not only serve religion, but also social status and politics as well.

It is easy to say "this is wrong or misleading, that is right", but it is very hard to open our minds to understand what people are actually doing and why they are doing it. Not just to "grasp the native's point of view", but also to capture further meanings that are played out in the course of social phenomena including religious rituals. The first task of a social scientist is to achieve this understanding. Then, if one feels the need, the scientist can choose to pass judgment.

The writer is an Alumnus from the Department of Cultural Anthropology, Gadjah Mada University.