Information Wrap - Pangandaran

JAVA

A Cargo of Questions 1992

Indonesia

PANGANDARAN

Fertile rice growing fields, coconut plantations and fishing, tourism and beacjes, and, at full moon, a unique simultaneous sunset and moonrise over the Indian Ocean.

The period of Japanese occupation contributed to the development of the nationalist movement in two ways, as yet another presence of a foreign imperial power, and as the sponsor of mass organisations based on Islam and anti-western feeling. In mid-1945, theJapanese set up a committee called the 'Investigating Committee for the Preparation of Indonesian Independence', that outlined the geographical limits of a future independent Indonesian State. it also allowed Sukarno to develop the philosophical basis of government and social structure of a sovereign state, whose boundaries would include many peoples of immense diversity. Pancasila, or the five universal principles, continue to be used today. Faith in God (any God, although the majority adhere to Islam), Humanity, Nationalism, Representative Government and Social Justice. Pancasila was conceived as a synthesis of western democratic ideas, Islam, Marxism, and indigenous village customs and traditions of government. Indonesia's national motto is Bhinneka Tunggal Ika, an old Javanese phrase meaning 'they are many, they are one', or 'Unity in Diversity'. So, in 1949, the peoples of an archipelago 5000 km wide, including 6000 inhabited islands became Indonesians.

Universal principles, or a system of social control?
A universal state, or the maintenance of existing power?
A universalism that eradicates opposition?
Dissent as destructive of social and political harmony, or resistence to a state dominated by a military and industrial establishment?
Dissenters or terrorists?
What happens to meanings when words are lies?
Diversity in religion, conformity in political education?

Information Wrap

The Indonesian government will continue to promote harmony between the various religious groups in the country as guaranteed by the state ideology Pancasila, President Soeharto told the new Vatican envoy here yesterday. "We believe that Pancasila will guarantee the integrity of our multi-ethnic nation and guarantee harmony among religious communities under the conditions of mutual respect and understanding. With Pancasila as the state ideology, we hope the religious life in our country can develop in such a way that it will strengthen further our ethical, moral and spiritual foundations." The Pancasila concept was extensively discussed between Soeharto and Pope John Paul II when the latter visited Indonesia in October 1989. ThePope, whose visit included a brief stopover in a predominantly Roman Catholic East Timor where he gave a mass, praised Pancasila as a valuable concept for promoting religious harmony. Monsignor sambi praised the Indonesian national philosophy as an expression of "the very modern sensibility of humanity in search for solid values of existence, for the respect of human lives and dignity of every human being and for social justice and democracy. Indonesia presents itself as a model in the world," he said.

THE JAKARTA POST, March 17, 1992.

Terrorism on the rise in Dili. A group of youths believed to be supporters of the Fretilin movement have reportedly resorted to terrrorism here following disappointment over the aborted mission of the Lusitania Expresso ferry last Wednesday. Some unidentified young people pounded on the door of Filomeno de Jesus Hornay, chairman of the student council of the Timor Timur University, after throwing stones at his house.

THE JAKARTA POST, March 17, 1992.

State assets are still not properly managed: Bepeka chief M. Yusef, chairman of the Supreme Auditing Agency (Bepeka) disclosed here yesterday that there were still lots of irregularities in the management of state assets. "A great deal remains to be done to straighten out the management of assets to put everything in line with the law."

THE JAKARTA POST, March 17, 1992.

Decolonize West Papua! Independence for Papua?

Racism and the "colonial mindset" in the appropriation and exploitation of people and their lands, their natural resources and their labour.

Pancasila? Identity? Politics? The challenges of modernity?

Goodbye to a sculpture of flying fish . . . Art in the front line!

     

Thuggery under the guise of religion?

Modernity and what needs to change for the realisation of a democratic Islam in Indonesia

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boundaries along the edge of the land - a headland of secondary forest, black volcanic sandy beaches, earthquakes, tsunamis, a fishing industry and tourism

 

 

 

 

A Cargo of Questions 2017

The LODE project of 1992 and the Re:LODE project of 2017 is about generating questions that begin with places along the LODE-Line.

 

 

To every place there belongs a story . . .

To every story there belongs another . . . 

 

 

Is capitalism historically inseparable from colonialism?

 

 

The invisible made visible? 

Earth sciences? 

Satellites abolish boundaries? 

 

 

 

Does capitalism function through the expansion of frontiers?

 

 

 

Profits come before carbon capture, the prevention of tree cover loss of primary forests, the human rights of Indigenous People and the future of the planet?

To every place there belongs a story . . .

This blog-post is a matrix that originates first in the context of an artistic activity that relates to this place, Pangandaran, and then connections multiply through processes of association, suggesting links, articulations and juxtapositions that the contemporary information wrap affords us, in a particular and contemporary type of consciousness, where the "loop" or "ricorso" helps the zig zagging necessary to see what is going on.

That's just the way it is . . . but don't you believe them . . .