Where are the Betawi headed?

Where are the Betawi headed?

Jakarta, which celebrated its 468th anniversary last week, is
a melting pot of various ethnic groups from almost all parts of
the country. Can the Betawi, its indigenous people, compete with
the migrants who keep flowing in? Is it true that the Betawi
natives have fallen victim to the development drive? In an
effort to answer these questions, The Jakarta Post talks to
several native people of Jakarta and experts on the issue.

JAKARTA (JP): Many people might have lived in Jakarta for
decades but very few are curious about the native people of this
sprawling capital city, who are called the Betawi. For them a
Betawi man or woman be a gado-gado (vegetable salad) seller or a
fruit peddler who lives at the outskirts of the city. The general
picture most people have of the Betawi is that of uneducated
people untouched by modernization.

Those who look at the Betawi people this way are not entirely
right, but they are surely not alone.

Betawi people are stereotyped as poorly educated, or socially
and economically behind the members of other ethnic groups living
in this sprawling capital city, said Yasmine Zaki Shahab, a
demographic anthropologist from the University of Indonesia,
Jakarta.

This stereotype is reflected in Si Doel Anak Sekolahan (Doel
the Graduate), a popular television comedy about a Betawi family.

The central theme of the story is that unlike the other
members of the family Doel studies at a university and graduates
from it. The story also speaks about the problems of Doel and the
people around him, and how they handle them.

"The spectators enjoy watching how lugu (simple and naive) the
characters in the story are," Yasmine said.

However, in the world of reality, there are elite Betawi
people who are affluent, well-educated, and active in the social
and political fields. Former city vice governors Asmawi Manaf and
Maj. Gen. (ret) Edy Marzuki Nalapraya, city councilor Amarullah
Asbah and rector of the University of Indonesia M.K. Tadjuddin
are among the well-educated Betawi.

Perhaps many people are simply unaware that out of the 75 city
councilors, eight are native Jakartans. There are also more than
100 general practitioners of Betawi origin, Amarullah said.

"More and more Betawi people now go to colleges," Amarullah
said. "The parents might be uneducated, or even illiterate, but
the children now have enjoyed good educations."

According to Yasmine, the distance between what is Betawi and
what is non-Betawi is "slippery". There are different parameters
used to identify Betawi people. Those who have done research on
the Betawi dialect believe that the native people are those who
speak the dialect in their daily life. But others say that the
natives are the ones who promote Betawi arts.

"Therefore, there are people who claim to be Betawi, but are
not categorized as Betawi by some experts," said Yasmine, who got
her doctorate degree from the University of London last year. Her
thesis was on Betawi people.

In her researches, Yasmine used the subjectivity approach,
accepting people as Betawi if they felt they were Betawi. She
found out that many people regarded themselves as Betawi, even
though only one of their parents had Betawi blood.

It seems impossible to find anyone who is 100 percent pure
Betawi because many Betawi have married people from other ethnic
groups.

"The highest rate of mixed marriage is found right here among
the Betawi people, not among other groups," she said. Yasmine
added that between 70 percent and 80 percent of the Betawi people
have intermarried with other ethnic groups.

It is also impossible to know just how many Jakartans have
Betawi blood, but Amarullah claimed that the number could reach
2.5 million from among Jakarta's population of nine million.
Greater Jakarta, which includes Bogor, Tangerang and Bekasi, is
the home of some 11 million people.

Amarullah, who is the secretary of the Betawi Discussion
Forum,, saw no problem with mixed marriages, because "what is
important is that you are committed to Betawi culture."

Ridwan Saidi, the writer of Orang Betawi dan Modernisasi
Jakarta (The Betawi People and the Modernization of Jakarta),
said that the Betawi were originally the people of the Taruma
Nagara Kingdom. This Hindu kingdom covered the area from the
Ciliwung river, the border for Krawang, Bekasi and Bogor in West
Java, and Marunda, a coastal village in North Jakarta, between
the fifth and the eighth centuries.

At the 12th century, the Pajajaran Kingdom ruled the area and
built the Sunda Kelapa port, which played a significant role in
the economic development of the region.

Pajajaran established an economic link with the Portuguese in
1522. The Portuguese had occupied Malaka in the Malay peninsula
(now Western Malaysia). The relationship was marked with the
construction of a Portuguese representative chamber of commerce
Sunda Kelapa.

This upset Demak, an Islamic Kingdom located in Central Java.
That kingdom immediately sent troops under the leadership of
Fatahillah.

The day Fatahillah seized Sunda Kelapa in 1527 was later
declared as the birth of Jayakarta, which later came to be known
as Jakarta.

Jayakarta was seized by the Dutch in 1619, who changed its
name to Batavia. But the local people called it Betawi.

Groups

Ridwan Saidi, whose book does not seem to be based on serious
research, categorizes the Betawi community into two different
groups: Betawi Tengah (urban Betawi) and Betawi Pinggir (rural
Betawi).

Each group was distinguished by way of life, social and
cultural activities. The urban Betawi people were defined as used
to living in densely populated areas in the central part of city,
such as Kemayoran, Tanah Abang, Senen, Gambir and Petojo.

The rural Betawi were defined as those living at the outskirts
of Jakarta, such as Palmerah, Ciledug, Kebayoran Lama, Meruya,
Pasar Minggu, Condet, Kelapa Gading and Pulo Gadung.

Ridwan was quoted by Femina weekly as saying that the urban
Betawi people were much more open to cultural influences from
other communities such as the Arab, Chinese, Dutch, and other
local ethnic groups. This tendency played important role in
shaping the culture of the Betawi culture, including their
traditions, their fashions and their professions.

Most urban Betawi people worked as traders, drivers, and in
other ventures. Due to the influences of many cultural groups,
the urban Betawi were more open and flexible.

Their traditional costumes were quite fashionable. They had a
soft dialect mixed with Arabic words. Islamic influence was very
strong among them. This was indicated by the choice of names and
cultural forms.

Most of them gave -- and they still do -- Islamic names, such
as Fatimah, Zaenab, Abdullah and Ismail, to their children. Their
art had also strong Islamic touch as can be seen in the Rebana
(Arabic tambourine) and Qasidah music groups, which sing
religious songs.

The rural Betawi were more isolated. Most of them worked as
farmers. Unlike the urban Betawi, who enjoyed wider communication
with other ethnic groups, the rural Betawi only had contact with
people of Chinese origins.

They spoke their dialect with strong local intonation and they
wore simple garb. Most of their cultural activities, such as
Lenong, Ondel-Ondel and Tandjidor, were once rejected by the
urban Betawi, who regarded them too vulgar, Ridwan said.

As time passed, however, the difference between the two Betawi
groups became less and less distinct. As Jakarta developed
tremendously and the flow of people from other provinces
increased, the Betawi were forced to mix with newcomers.

Many of the urban Betawi have now been pushed to the city's
periphery, while the rural culture has been widely accepted, not
only by the urban Betawi, but also by other ethnic groups.

Despite the fact that the Betawi now live in the larger
heterogeneous society of Jakarta, their culture remains vivid.
For example, the Betawi wedding style is popular among both the
low-class and affluent Betawi.

These theories have not clarified why Betawi people call
themselves Melayu Betawi (Betawi Malay) and speak a variety of
Malay dialect spoken along the eastern coast of Sumatra, Malaysia
and in Western Kalimantan, while their hometown is surrounded by
the Sundanese of West Java.

There also must be some historical background behind the name
of Malaka district in the Jakarta downtown and Kampung Melayu in
the eastern part of the city, which needs explanation.

Jakarta citizens call fruit or gado-gado vendors, or fish
mongers abang (Malay for elder brother) because they believe that
these members of the underprivileged group of society making ends
meet in this fast-growing capital must be native Betawi.

Perhaps more research is required into the precise origin of
the Betawi people.(raw/sim/jsk/tis)