You matter: History as written by the people
Evi Mariani, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta
History tends to benefit the reigning power and therefore there are too many ambiguities surrounding it. It takes years after the demise of the power to resurrect another version of history.
So, why not start from ourselves. Being honest, objective and accurate are fundamental to writing history -- our own history.
A group of young people in Yogyakarta have tried out this campaign with volunteers to start by writing their own histories.
In this movement, everybody matters.
"Nowadays, the main source of history learnt by young people is from school textbooks, which are made by the government, by the reigning power," said Nuraini Juliastuti, an executive director of Yogyakarta-based Kunci Cultural Studies Center.
This has resulted in identity and cultural problems within the younger generation who experienced ambiguity, she said.
"We barely know about ourselves. Moreover, in this globalized era, we receive everything from outside. We are really open, too open in fact," she added.
"The most tangible impact is the blind consumerism of the generation who cannot identify what is essential to their lives," Nuraini added.
It is a known fact that most young Indonesians are an easy target for any marketing attempts to sell from trendy -- the taste becomes less important -- beverages to cell phones with fancy features.
"That's why we see it is important for us, young people, to know our history and write it from our own perspective. To know ourselves better," Nuraini said.
Therefore, in August last year Kunci started a small project called Community History Project.
"We started from the easiest, the family history," she said.
That month Kunci, which was established by a number of young people concerned about culture in Yogyakarta in 1999, distributed posters to schools in the city.
The poster invited the students to join a workshop on community history -- definitely not a hip prospect for teenagers.
Nevertheless, about a dozen curious teenagers came to the workshop and learned to gather information about history in their immediate environment, like the family.
At the end of the day, only three of them completed the project, producing essays and selections of old photographs.
"Others stopped in the middle of the project because they were busy with final tests," Nuraini said.
The family history and identity workshop is the first part of the community history project.
"In the future we expect these young people will be able to question the grand history fed to them by the powers that be," she said. "For example, they might start to question textbook history on events in 1965 and how they affect their life now."
She said that in certain literature she found that in other countries the documentation of oral history had helped communities restore a lost past, like the case of the American Indians.
In other cases, she added, an oral history project gave Brazilian shanty-town dwellers the confidence to mobilize and demand recognition of their landholding and basic services.
Kunci's project won a 2,000-euro grant from a Germany-based artists group, Finger in 2004.
"The grant was given to a number of groups that submitted proposals on How do you creatively shape the society?," Nuraini said.
Kunci was the only winner from Asia in 2004. Other winners were European groups.
Every year, Kunci conducts campaigns supporting critical movements against capitalist globalization and consumerism such as Buy Nothing Day and Turn Off TV Week.
On the Net:
http:www.kunci.or.id