The Regent of Pangandaran Knocks down the Statue of Karya Nyoman Nuarta
This is a story about the carelessness and ignorance of those who destroyed a work of art, but it is also about the sustainability of art to function in society:
TRIBUN-MEDAN.COM - Nyoman Nuarta, Indonesia's famous sculptor, said he was disappointed after his fish statue was torn down by the government of Pangandaran Regency, West Java.
The TRIBUN-MEDAN report covers how the sculpture referred to as "The Fish Statue" was torn down on Thursday 7 July 2017 (06/07) in situ on the site of a roundabout in Pangandaran City.
The Pangandaran regent, Jeje Wiradinata, said the demolition was carried out because the statue was about to be replaced by a new statue that showed the spirit of Pangandaran 'advancing and developing'.
Responding to news of the destruction of his artwork, Nyoman Nuarta said he was disappointed.
"Yes, I am obviously disappointed, who would not be disappointed. Nobody tells you this is going to happen, and then suddenly someone sends you a picture of the demolition. It turns out to be my sculpture. It was a work from a long time ago, the 1970s or 1980s, part of the beginnings of my practice as an artist", Nyoman said to BBC Indonesia.
According to this report the Pangandaran Regent, Jeje Wiradinata, claimed he did not know that the fish statue in the Pangandaran roundabout was the work of Nyoman Nuarta.
"We didn't have a reference on who the artist of this sculpture was, and no one knew who it was. It was only after the work was dismantled, that we received a complaint from Pak Nyoman Nuarta."
Tearing down the artwork in ignorance of the fact it is an early work of a now famous Indonesian artist shows a careless disregard of the artistic qualities of the work, as well as the destruction of the economic value of a public asset.
The artist, who is well known for his works that include the recent Statue of Garuda Wisnu Kencana in Bali and the Jalesveva Jayamahe Statue in Surabaya, wondered why the regent of Pangandaran did not contact him before knocking down the fish statue.
"Ethically, especially as an Eastern person, if they are not pleased with the statue, it is better to tell the artist. Because I am still alive. This was not done, and the work was suddenly dismantled," said Nyoman. "If the regent is bored with the work, he could have notified me and I would have removed it and brought it to my gallery," he added.
Art situated in public locations, such as a roundabout, often becomes taken for granted, seen as something that decorates the environment, but with a value that diminishes as it competes with the notion of something new. The work becomes "tired". This is not an appropriate way to understand the function of art, but it is very common to see art as functioning in a form of propaganda. In this case the regent wanted replace the fish statue with something new, even though, as Nyoman Nuarta has said, Pangandaran District was actually losing money with the demolition of a fish statue that was a symbol of Pangandaran's natural resource wealth.
"Indeed it is not mine, theirs. But they lost assets. Sorry, my statue costs billions. They just throw it away," he said.
After the demolition the regent offered some expression of regret:
"We are also shocked, but it has happened. Of course I also want, on behalf of the government and the community, to apologize to him." Jeje said.
The report asks:
Why was the fish statue taken apart? Jeje said that the statue no longer fits Pangandaran's current conditions, which four years ago split from Ciamis Regency. "The statue there was built in 1987 or 1988. We see that it does not fit the current conditions. It was first (Pangandaran) still joining the Ciamis Regency. We, as a new district, want to design something for Pangandaran's gateway entrance showing the spirit of Pangandaran that is progressing and developing," he said.
Asked how he could judge that the statue did not fit the current conditions, Jeje answered that the assessment did not come from him. "Not my word", he said. "The community must be built better, adapted to current conditions. People see this as inappropriate."
After the fish statue by Nyoman Nuarta was torn down, Jeje said the Pangandaran Regency government had prepared a replacement. "There we will wake up again, we have prepared it. There are statues of fish, nets and fountains made by local sculptors," he said.
For Nyoman Nuarta, as we shall see, losing a statue in a public area is the third such incident in a long career. The first loss was a large sculptural work at Borobudur in 1993.
Nyoman Nuarta has a special regard for the Buddhist temple monument at Borobudur. In an ABC report on the ongoing construction of the Garuda Wisnu Kencana statue located in Garuda Wisnu Kencana Cultural Park, Bali, Indonesia, one of the people behind the project, Ida Bagus Gede Budi Hartawan is quoted as saying the project is important for Indonesia:
"Culture is a big thing for our country, our civilisation. When we talk of technology, we may not be there yet. When we talk of economy, we may not be there yet either. But when we speak of culture, we can be equal," Mr Gede said.
"The latest and greatest masterpiece that this nation has is Borobudur. After that old generation, this nation never produced such creativity again."
"In the global community they underestimate us because of the violence here".
"Thus it is our goal to build something grand for our children and grand-children, for our generation and for the world."
Unfortunately Borobudur has itself been a site vulnerable to attack by "extremists"!
Borobudur, or Barabudur (Indonesian: Candi Borobudur, Javanese: ꦕꦤ꧀ꦣꦶꦧꦫꦧꦸꦣꦸꦂ, translit. Candhi Barabudhur) is a 9th-century Mahayana Buddhist temple in Magelang Regency, not far from the town of Muntilan, in Central Java, Indonesia. It is one of the world's largest Buddhist temples. The temple consists of nine stacked platforms, six square and three circular, topped by a central dome. It is decorated with 2,672 relief panels and 504 Buddha statues. The central dome is surrounded by 72 Buddha statues, each seated inside a perforated stupa.
Built in the 9th century during the reign of the Sailendra Dynasty, the temple design follows Javanese Buddhist architecture, which blends the Indonesian indigenous cult of ancestor worship and the Buddhist concept of attaining Nirvana. The temple demonstrates the influences of Gupta art that reflects India's influence on the region, yet there are enough indigenous scenes and elements incorporated to make Borobudur uniquely Indonesian. The monument is a shrine to the Lord Buddha and a place for Buddhist pilgrimage. The pilgrim journey begins at the base of the monument and follows a path around the monument, ascending to the top through three levels symbolic of Buddhist cosmology: Kāmadhātu (the world of desire), Rupadhatu (the world of forms) and Arupadhatu (the world of formlessness). The monument guides pilgrims through an extensive system of stairways and corridors with 1,460 narrative relief panels on the walls and the balustrades. Borobudur has one of the largest and most complete ensembles of Buddhist reliefs in the world.
Evidence suggests Borobudur was constructed in the 9th century and abandoned following the 14th-century decline of Hindu kingdoms in Java and the Javanese conversion to Islam. Worldwide knowledge of its existence was sparked in 1814 by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, then the British ruler of Java, who was advised of its location by native Indonesians. Borobudur has since been preserved through several restorations. The largest restoration project was undertaken between 1975 and 1982 by the Indonesian government and UNESCO, followed by the monument's listing as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
1985 Borobudur bombing
On 21 January 1985 nine bombs were detonated at the Borobudur Buddhist temple. There were no human casualties in this attack, however nine stupas on upper rounded terraces of Arupadhatu were badly damaged by the bombs.
In 1991, a blind Muslim preacher, Husein Ali Al Habsyi, was sentenced to life imprisonment for masterminding a series of bombings in the mid-1980s including the temple attack. It is believed that the attack was an Indonesian Islamist retaliation for the Tanjung Priok massacre of 1984. The targeting a Buddhist temple, as a symbol of the Pancasila based authoritarian oppression of Muslim activists by the Suharto regime, was the local focus, and being a World Heritage Site, also prompted a global response in coverage of the attack.
The Tanjung Priok massacre was a crime against humanity.
This video on YouTube uses the tragedy to continue the criticism of Pancasila in a contemporary context that is both factual and potentially incendiary. The text on the YouTube site includes this paragraph:
Pertumpahan darah sesama anak bangsa itu bermula dari penerapan Pancasila sebagai asas tunggal yang mulai gencar digaungkan sejak awal 1980-an. Semua organisasi di bumi Nusantara wajib berasaskan Pancasila, tidak boleh yang lain. Artinya, siapapun yang tidak sejalan dengan garis politik rezim Orba maka layak dituduh sebagai anti-Pancasila (Tohir Bawazir, Jalan Tengah Demokrasi, 2015:161).
The bloodshed of fellow nationals originated from the application of Pancasila as a single principle which began to be intensely echoed since the early 1980s. All organizations in the archipelago must be based on Pancasila, not others. That is, anyone who is not in line with the political lines of the New Order regime is worthy of being accused of being anti-Pancasila (Tohir Bawazir, Middle Path of Democracy, 2015: 161).
The Wikipedia article on the Tanjung Priok massacre sets out how a sequence of events led to this crime against humanity, beginning with an arrogant and petty abuse of power, a frequent behaviour during the period known as the New Order, that would provoke and anger Muslim communities.
On 10 September 1984, Sergeant Hermanu, a member of the Community Advisory Non-Commissioned Officer (Bintara Pembina Desa) arrived at As Saadah Mosque in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, and told the caretaker, Amir Biki, to remove brochures and banners critical of the government. Biki refused this demand, upon which point Hermanu removed them himself; to do so, he reportedly entered the prayer area of the mosque without removing his shoes (a serious violation of mosque etiquette). In response, local residents, led by mosque caretakers Syarifuddin Rambe and Sofwan Sulaeman, burned his motorcycle and attacked Hermanu while he was talking with another officer. The two then arrested Rambe and Sulaeman, as well as another caretaker, Achmad Sahi, and an unemployed man named Muhamad Noor.Two days after the arrest, Islamic cleric Abdul Qodir Jaelani gave a sermon against Pancasila at As Saadah mosque. Afterwards, Biki led a protest to the District Military Command office for North Jakarta, where the four prisoners were being held. Along the way, the group's numbers swelled, with estimates ranging between 1,500 and several thousand.
Also during the trip, nine members of a Muslim Chinese Indonesian family headed by Tan Kioe Liem were killed by the protestors. The family's store, a pharmacy, was burned to the ground.
Once at the military command, the group unsuccessfully demanded the release of the prisoners. At roughly 11 p.m. local time (UTC+7), the protestors surrounded the military command. Military personnel from the 6th Air Defence Artillery Battalion opened fire on the protestors. Around midnight, eyewitnesses saw military commander of Jakarta Try Sutrisno and Chief of the Armed Forces Leonardus Benjamin Moerdani supervising the removal of the victims; the corpses were loaded into military trucks and buried in unmarked graves, while the wounded were sent to Gatot Soebroto Military Hospital.
After the riots, the military reported that they had been triggered by a man in a fake military uniform who distributed anti-government pamphlets along with 12 other accomplices; it reported having the man in custody. General Hartono Rekso Dharsono was arrested for allegedly inciting the riots. After a four-month trial, he was convicted; he was eventually released in September 1990, after serving five-years jail time.
After the riots, at least 169 civilians were allegedly held without warrant. Some were reportedly tortured. The leaders were arrested and tried for subversion, then given long sentences when convicted. Others, including as Amir Biki, were among those killed.
Initial reports suggested 20 dead. Current official records give a total of 24 killed and 54 injured (including the military), while survivors report over a hundred killed. Tanjung Priok residents estimate a total of 400 killed or missing, while other reports suggest up to 700 victims.
The Wikipedia article then covers the investigation that took place following the fall of Suharto in 1998. It makes depressing reading.
Several groups were created to advocate for the rights of the victims, including the 12 September 1984 Foundation, the National Solidarity for the 1984 Tanjung Priok Incident (Solidaritas Nastional untuk Peristiwa Tanjung Priok 1984), and the Extended Family for Victims of the Tanjung Priok Incident (Keluarga Besar Korban Peristiwa Tanjung Priok; founded by Biki's widow Dewi Wardah and son Beni). These groups pushed for the People's Representative Council (DPR) and National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) to further investigate the massacre.
In 1999, Komnas HAM agreed to investigate the incident, forming the Commission for the Investigation and Examination of Human Rights Violations in Tanjung Priok (KP3T).
The KP3T consisted mainly of political figures from the previous regime, including former prosecutor general Djoko Sugianto. The resulting report, released in early June 2000, found that there had been no systematic massacre in the incident. This was not well received by the general public. On 23 June 2000, approximately 300 members of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) attacked the headquarters of Komnas HAM while dressed in white Islamic clothing and green scarves. They broke windows with stones and rattan sticks, outnumbering and overwhelming the security forces.
Under international pressure, in 2003 the DPR approved the use of the 2000 human rights law to bring perpetrators of the massacre to trial for crimes against humanity; the trial began in September of that year. Those brought to trial included Colonel Sutrisno Mascung, leader of Platoon II of the Air Defense Artillery Battalion at the time, and 13 subordinates. Higher-ranking officials from the time, including military commander of Jakarta Try Sutrisno and Chief of the Armed Forces Leonardus Benjamin Moerdani, were exempted from prosecution, as were former President Suharto and former Minister of Justice Ismail Saleh. The prosecution was led by Widodo Supriyadi, and Deputy Speaker of the DPR A.M. Fatwa served as a witness for the prosecution. Several officers prosecuted were convicted, while Sriyanto and Pranowo were acquitted. In 2004 the Prosecutor General's office filed an appeal against the acquittals of Sriyanto and Pranowo, but were refused. The convictions were later overturned by the Supreme Court of Indonesia.
After the trial it came under fire from human rights groups; German author Fabian Junge argued that "prosecutors deliberately ignored substantial evidence while scare-tactics and bribery were rampant outside court". Approaching the 25th anniversary of the massacre, the victims, aided by the Human Rights Working Group and the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence, sent a letter to UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers Gabriela Carina Knaul de Albuquerque e Silva imploring her to intervene in the case; the survivors have also requested compensation in the amount of Rp1.015 billion (US$130,000) from the government for their "pain and loss".
Borobudur remains under a threat . . .
The temple has been restored, but some of the damage is irreversible.
The Straits Times reported in 2014 that:
The threat to attack Borobudur appeared first on social networking platform Facebook on Aug 15 in an account titled "We Are Islamic State". "God willing, (Borobudur) will be demolished by Islamic caliphate mujahidin!" the web page declared.
It also quoted an article from a radical website, in which cleric Hartono Ahmad Jaiz derided several statue-construction projects in the country, which he said contravened Islamic principles.
It appears unlikely, however, that the website or Hartono are involved in the planning of a possible attack on Borobudur, as the website is known for its strong opposition to the ISIS movement.
Statue construction and destruction . . .
In 2010 TIME ran this story about the removal of a sculpture that "caused offence". This was not about a community taking offence, it was a campaign against an artwork that was shaped by a use of ideas and language that was a form of "hate speech".
By Jason Tedjasukmana / Jakarta Wednesday, July 07, 2010
As Balinese sculptor Nyoman Nuarta reviews a video of his giant sculpture of three women being defaced with spray paint by a group of angry fundamentalist Muslim activists in west Java last month and torn down, a haunting parallel comes to mind. "We need to start developing a way to counter this kind of Talibanization," says the artist, one of the most prominent sculptors in Indonesia. "This is a bad precedent for artists in this country."The controversial 15-meter statue had been standing for several years at the entrance to a housing complex in Bekasi, on the outskirts of Jakarta, without any kind of protest, until a group calling itself the Forum Umat Islam, or Islamic Community Forum, decried it as a depiction of the Holy Trinity. "They also said it was pornographic," recalls a baffled Nyoman, adding that all the figures were wearing traditional sarongs.
"None of the accusations made sense." Maybe not, but on June 18, under intense pressure from the group, who believe a campaign of Christianization is taking place in the town, the local administration dismantled the bronze statue that had taken more than a year to erect.
Tiga Mojang (Three Women) may not have been standing as long as the Buddhas of Bamiyan, the 6th century stone sculptures in Afghanistan that were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001, but the sculpture is not the first work of Indonesian art to have been attacked by religious zealots. In 2004, a work depicting scantily clothed Adam and Eve was condemned by religious groups as pornographic. The subjects that appeared in the mixed-media work, by painter Agus Suwage and photographer Davy Linggar, were intimidated, and it was then removed from an exhibition at the Bank Indonesia Museum in Jakarta. And perhaps the most notorious attack took place in 1985, when extremists bombed Borobudur, the 8th century Buddhist monument in Central Java that is widely regarded as one of the world's greatest architectural wonders.
For Nyoman and other supporters of the arts, the dismantling of the work portends an ominous future for the country, whose Muslim majority is generally regarded as moderate and accepting of other faiths, and another example of fringe groups like the Islamic Defenders Front, or FPI, being allowed to take the law into their own hands.
Fighting back in the collective interests of humanity . . ."This is thuggery under the guise of religion," legislator Rieke Diah Pitaloka says bluntly. "And the people in power are just letting it happen." In June, Rieke was leading a small talk with constituents in the province of East Java when it was broken up by a local group of Islamist vigilantes who accused her of holding a meeting with clandestine Communist Party supporters. "They are trying to chip away at Pancasila by passing all of these Shari'a-based bylaws in various provinces," she added. Pancasila is the nation's basic philosophy rooted in five principles espoused by founding father Sukarno. "There is an effort to change the ideology of Indonesia."
Rapid urbanization and widespread unemployment have driven millions from the countryside to seek work in Jakarta and the surrounding suburbs, often changing religious dynamics in the affected communities. Bekasi is just one of the areas around the capital that is becoming more conservative and facing growing demands to pass Shari'a-based legislation to deal with the spread of gambling and prostitution and, in some cases, the perceived threat of Christianization. "In Indonesia we have a majority with a minority complex," explains Dewi Fortuna Anwar, a political analyst at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences. "They believe that Islam is being undermined by a more liberal environment that has allowed greater freedom of expression, including for minorities."
Whatever the underlying causes may be, critics of the latest attacks point to a common thread: the failure of the government to intervene. Indonesia has long had hard-line elements committed to Islamic law, whether it was the Darul Islam movement trying to establish an Islamic state in the 1950s or the Padri movement of the 19th century trying to abolish the matrilineal culture of west Sumatra. "The difference now is that there is an enabling environment," adds Anwar. "There are also political parties that share the same goal."
Rieke, who represents the opposition Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, has called on the government and police to take action and stop the momentum building among vigilante groups, whose members already number in the thousands around the country. "A moral movement is not enough," she asserts. "People need to speak up or else they too could become victims." Others are calling on civil society to get involved. "We need to use the incident in Bekasi to build an opposition," proposes Nono Anwar Makarim, a prominent lawyer in Jakarta. "The problem is much bigger than the statue."
With the giant statue still lying in pieces, there is little hope that it will be rebuilt or relocated. Still, few expect the nation's strong arts community to take any hit to their freedom of expression lying down. "Ultimately, Suharto wasn't able to stamp out the artists or controversial art, nor could the economic crisis of 1998," says Mikke Susanto, a lecturer at the Institute of Fine Arts in Yogyakarta, referring to the former authoritarian President of 32 years. "Today's extremists are dangerous but I think our artists will survive them as well."
Bamiyan, Afghanistan
The Buddha has gone . . .
Cultural support connections along the LODE Zone
There are a number of World Heritage Sites along the LODE Zone line. In 2014 a project between Afghanistan and Indonesia was launched, that was designed to promote intercultural dialogue, and included working cultural connections between Bamiyan and Borobudur.
Visit The Collective Interests of Humanity? page
Indonesian Funds-In-Trust Project . . .
Promoting Intercultural Dialogue through Capacity Building Training for Museum Development at UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Indonesia and Afghanistan
Project Duration and Location
The project duration is from September 2014 – June 2017, with location as follows :
Project Description
- Indonesia (Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Borobudur, Denpasar, Surabaya)
- Afghanistan (Kabul and Bamiyan)
The initiative for this project has grown from the close cooperation between Indonesia and Afghanistan that has developed in the reconstruction of the country after the fall of the Taliban regime. Indonesia has already supported the Afghan government in a number of key areas including in peace-building efforts, providing scholarships for Afghan students, as well as providing training in farming, health, waste management, and disaster awareness training.
At the 2011 Bali Democracy Forum the then President of Indonesia, H.E Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the then President of Afghanistan, HE. Hamid Karzai, held talks on increased cultural cooperation. This cooperation was formalised on the 9th of November 2012 with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the countries respective Ministries of Culture.
Within the framework of the Indonesian UNESCO Funds-in- Trust, the Government of Indonesia requested the partnership of UNESCO to further develop this close collaboration between the two countries in accordance with UNESCO’s mandate to promote the building of international peace and cooperation through mutual understanding and in accordance with UNESCO’s expertise in the safeguarding of cultural heritage and museums.
In this regard, the UNESCO Jakarta and Kabul Offices conducted a detailed needs assessment involving key meetings with responsible officials in Afghanistan and Indonesia. One of the key areas of need identified was that of museums capacity training, especially around World Heritage sites.
Project Objectives
To support peace reconciliation and reconstruction in Afghanistan through strengthening capacity in World Heritage interpretation and museums management, whilst supporting cross cultural dialogue between Indonesian and Afghanistan through south-south cooperation in the field of culture.
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