Promoting an Archipelagic Narrative
The greatest threat of the development of humanity in a nation lies in its inability to understand itself. Among the requirements of a nation’s awakening is its citizens’ literacy in understanding, learning about and cultivating the diverse cultures that the nation inherits from its past.
This was what founding father Sukarno meant when he included the principle of having strong characters of culture in the Trisakti platform that he launched in 1963.
Today, Indonesia is facing problems that may very well determine its future. These problems emerge from the spread of right-wing populist sentiments in the political stage.
Such sentiments can be seen in the rejection of minorities the clash of identities and the symbolic anger caused by the burning of a flag commonly linked to a banned organization. Such characteristics of right-wing populism bond its supporters through the cultural identifications of a superior identity-based group that subjugate other groups into inferior positions.
Populist sentiments
The rise of populism in Indonesia is part of a concerning global trend. The US, France and the UK are all facing similar worries that are connected to one another by a global social crisis that has hit the world since the beginning of the 21st century.
Situations that provoke the “precariat middle class” with a threat of social poverty. Meanwhile, in cultural social spaces under the dictations of neoliberal capitalists ethos, citizens are losing their spaces of community-based, warm social mingling. Such situations occur within the macroeconomic-political context of an abuse of social unrests in the fight between oligarchical factions for states’ resources.
Psychoanalist Erich Fromm, in its classical work The Fear of Freedom (1942), has warned the world of the threat of social disintegration and spread of hatred like what is happening today in the context of his own experiences of living in Hitler’s Germany. A combination between an economic crisis, social alienation and the absence of an inclusive social capital is perfect for a majority of citizens to choose to run away from freedom and bow before authoritarian political authority based on uniformity. Such a mindset will only get stronger as living spaces are enflamed in narratives of hatred as the fuel of its rise.
Learning from Fromm’s explanations and upon observing Indonesia’s current social realities, we can see that right-wing populism has slowly influenced our political stage with an apocalyptic narrative based on wars of identities, rumors of minorities rejecting the supremacy of the majority and hoaxes of foreign powers conspiring to control Indonesia. Hatred and urges to dominate over other groups are encouraged by the spread of narratives that are far removed from social facts and knowledge-based information.
The ghosts of dark populism that sow hatred can only be countered with enlightening stories that can hopefully drive away feelings of social alienation. Social activist and neuroscientist George Marshall, in his book Don’t Even Think About It (2015), explains that narratives have a fundamental function of forming our cognitive perspective.
Narratives are material for our emotional brain to reaffirm our belief in facts and data that our rational brain absorbs. Therefore, understanding of information, data and knowledge that are rationally absorbed will never transform into a collective belief without a convincing narrative.
Until now, the struggle against the sowing of hatred and populism has yet to be bound by a strong narrative that can gather data, knowledge and information into a strong belief that moves our spirit of citizenship.
The question is now: where do we start forming inclusive narratives for public civility? Will it not be better for us to elaborate such a narrative from the richness of our own cultures instead of taking the narratives of foreign experiences that mostly have the tendency of uniformity. This will be our first action towards getting to know ourselves better and it will be our contribution towards humanity as citizens of the world.
An archipelagic narrative, a social narrative
I got my inspiration when I was invited by Banyuwangi regent Abdullah Azwar Anas to see the Gandrung Banyuwangi colossal festival on Oct. 20, 2018. It was a cultural festival involving 1,000 dancers that performed a hybrid of local cultures and the spirit of Nusantara Islam. Behind the impressive dance performance, there is a stunning narrative in the tale of Gandrung Banyuwangi.
In the beginning, there was the tragic tale of the destruction of Blambangan civilization due to genocide by the Dutch East Indies Company (VOC), which killed 80,000 locals and leaving only 5,000 alive in 1772. It was a dark chapter that was retold by Pujangga Baru writer Sanusi Pane in his book Sejarah Nusantara (Archipelagic History, 1936).
With its civilization destroyed, the Blambangan people chose to rise again and gather what was left in their power. Many of them then created the gandrung dance. It expressed gratitude towards God amid the bitter life locals were facing. Locals traveled to villages, forests and mountain areas to console others and distribute money and goods to those in need.
Gandrung Banyuwangi is just one small part of the Archipelago’s wealth of diverse cultures that provide us with an effective narrative. Its history brings a message of rebuilding broken social bonds, embracing those marginalized by the pressures of crises and reweaving hopes amid social alienation. The narrative of Gandrung Banyuwangi is an amazing social narrative as its protagonists are marginalized people fighting to regain their spirit of life, instead of noblemen, aristocrats or members of the elite. There is an essence of democracy within Gandrung Banyuwangi.
The archipelago’s vast wealth of cultures is a spring of social narratives that awaits to be explored for the nation’s reawakening out of the dark narratives of cultural hatred and antagonism. Indonesia’s diversity must be nurtured and empowered as our path towards having strong characters in culture in this dawn of the millennial era. (Airlangga Pribadi Kusman, Political Science Lecturer, School of Social and Political Sciences, Airlangga University; Executive Director, Initiative Institute)