The anatomical model these young female Muslim students are studying has its origins in the anatomical knowledge and development of anatomy and modern medicine. This modern knowledge has its origins in the European Age of Enlightenment during the 18th century. However, the use of the term the Enlightenment refers to a body of thought rather than to this specific period in European history.
The "figurative system of human knowledge"
This European, or "western" knowledge, has shaped modernity on a global scale, often in the wake of colonial occupation and exploitation. THE VISIBLE WOMAN Assembly Kit is an American product of the 1960's. As an image that encapsulates a set of concepts and their histories, it provides a useful place for the beginning of an exploration of how modernity is the context capable of transforming social realities, through the promise and possibility of emancipation.
Various cultural, social and economic factors, all of which have their origins in the eighteenth- century Enlightenment, help explain the development of modern medicine.
"Underpinning this intellectual movement was a strong emphasis on reason rather than belief, superstition or even religious thought. The Enlightenment is traditionally associated with rationality and the search for evidence. On the basis of rational, reasoned and evidenced thought, traditional institutions and ideas could be replaced with ‘modern’ practices."
"This element of the Enlightenment paved the way for a secular understanding of society and of people’s place within it."
"The application of reason to human life, it was argued, opened up the possibility of the advancement of the human race by uncovering the massive potential of science and reason."
Concepts of health and medicine
The human right to life, liberty and to health in Indonesia have some boundaries. The practice of modern medicine in Indonesia has been shaped by the developments within a medical science that is a product of "western" scientific knowledge. Modern public health care was begun by the Dutch to safeguard plantation workers. It expanded to hospitals and midwifery centers in towns and some rural health facilities. The modern health-care system continues the Dutch colonial pattern of low levels of investment in health care. The Dutch did relatively little in the field of public health prior to 1910, with the exception of giving smallpox vaccinations. In the 1930s, however, the government devoted increased attention to health education and disease prevention, particularly in rural areas. An elaborate public-health infrastructure had developed by 1939, including a particularly sophisticated model program in Purwokerto in central Java. But this public-health system collapsed after the Japanese invasion in 1942. During World War II, the mortality rate rose dramatically, and the general health situation of the country deteriorated.
FACTS AND DETAILS: Today, the use of modern forms of health care has increased. For example, in 2003 the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that 68 percent of births in Indonesia were attended by a trained midwife or other health specialist, compared to 58 percent in the late 1990s. Recent studies show a correlation between the rise of education levels and the increased use of hospitals, physicians, and other health resources. The government introduced a national health insurance program in 2014.
However, health care is woefully inadequate in Indonesia. Even the most basic treatments are prohibitively expensive for ordinary people. Corruption is widespread in the health care. Doctors demand bribes for treatments and people have to pay for “free” medical care. Many elite Muslim families go to Christian hospitals because they offer better health care.
One of the most notable features of Indonesia’s health-care system, in comparison with those of other Southeast Asian nations, is the low level of government support. For example, in 2006 the Philippines expended 3.3 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on health care, Malaysia 4.3 percent, Singapore 3.4 percent, and Timor-Leste 16.4 percent. That same year, only 2.2 percent of the GDP of Indonesia was devoted to health care, far less than the 5 percent recommended by the WHO. Of these percentages, however, as of 2006, the Indonesian government provided 50.4 percent of the total national expenditure on health care. This compares favourably with Malaysia’s 45.2 percent, Philippines’ 39.6 percent, and Singapore’s 33.6 percent but not with Timor-Leste’s 88.8 percent.
The cost of chronic disease in Indonesia
Buy cheap? Pay twice!
Islam and modernity in Indonesia
Islam is the most adhered to religion in Indonesia, with 87.2% of Indonesian population identifying themselves as Muslim in 2010 estimate. Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world, with approximately 225 million Muslims.
In terms of denomination, absolute majority (99%) adheres to Sunni Islam, while there are around one million Shias (0.5%), who are concentrated around Jakarta, and about 400,000 Ahmadi Muslims (0.2%). In terms of Islamic schools of jurisprudence, based on demographic statistics, 99% of Indonesian Muslims mainly follow the Shafi'i school, although when asked, 56% does not adhere to any specific school. Trends of thought within Islam in Indonesia can be broadly categorized into two orientations; "modernism" which closely adheres to orthodox theology while embracing modern learning, and "traditionalism" which tends to follow the interpretations of local religious leaders and religious teachers at Islamic boarding schools (pesantren). There is also a historically important presence of a syncretic form of Islam known as kebatinan.
Modernism or modernist Islam, in the context of Muslim society in Indonesia, refers to a religious strand which puts emphasis on teachings purely derived from the Islamic religious scriptures, the Qur'an and Hadith.
The term Modernism is used in a context that is related to the modern history of Islam. The term Modernism is often definable by the way the term is contrasted with what is understood as traditionalism, which upholds ulama-based and syncretic vernacular traditions.
Modernism is inspired by the reformism movement that took place in the late-19th to early 20th century and based in the Middle East, such as Islamic modernism and Wahhabism. During the recent history of Islam in Indonesia, this particular modernism has produced various religious organizations, including Muhammadiyah mass organisation (1912), a political party, in the Masyumi Party (1943), and the missionary organization Indonesian Islamic Dawah Council (1967).
Islamic Modernism is a movement that has been described as "the first Muslim ideological response" attempting to reconcile Islamic faith with modern values such as nationalism, democracy, civil rights, rationality, equality, and progress. This new approach, which was nothing short of an outright rebellion against Islamic orthodoxy, displayed astonishing compatibility with the ideas of the Enlightenment. It featured a "critical reexamination of the classical conceptions and methods of jurisprudence" and a new approach to Islamic theology and Quranic exegesis (Tafsir).
It was the first of several Islamic movements – including secularism, Islamism, and Salafism – that emerged in the middle of the 19th century in reaction to the rapid changes of the time, especially the perceived onslaught of Western Civilization and colonialism on the Muslim world. Founders include Muhammad Abduh, a Sheikh of Al-Azhar University for a brief period before his death in 1905, Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani, and Muhammad Rashid Rida.
The early Islamic Modernists (al-Afghani and Muhammad Abdu) used the term "salafiyya" to refer to their attempt at renovation of Islamic thought, and this "salafiyya movement" is often known in the West as "Islamic modernism," although it is very different from what is currently called the Salafi movement, which generally signifies "ideologies such as wahhabism".
Modernism differs from secularism in that it insists on the importance of religious faith in public life, and from Salafism or Islamism in that it embraces contemporary European institutions, social processes, and values. One expression of Islamic Modernism, notably expressed by Mahathir Mohammed, the prime Minister of Malaysia, is that:
"only when Islam is interpreted so as to be relevant in a world which is different from what it was 1400 years ago, can Islam be regarded as a religion for all ages."
Many of the studies, debates concerning Islam and politics, perhaps necessarily, tends to foreground events, trends, developments and ideologies, as they occur in the so called "Middle East". Whose "middle" we should ask? Indonesia is, however, the country that contains the most populous Muslim communities. Political Islam in Indonesia shares some of the aspects of Political Islam across Africa and the Middle East, but Indonesia has its own complex and particular realities. It is not a good idea to generalise concerning Islam and politics and the religious actors involved in shaping modern Indonesian society.
Indonesia: The battle over Islam
THE MOTHER MONSTER Modernity in Indonesia
Lady Gaga cancels Indonesia show after threat from Muslim extremists
Lady Gaga has cancelled her sold-out show in Indonesia over security concerns after Muslim hardliners threatened violence if the pop star went ahead with her Born This Way ball. The Islamic Defenders Front said the US singer's clothes and provocative dance moves would corrupt youth in the world's most populous Muslim country. The group said supporters had bought tickets to the concert and planned to enter and force it to be stopped. It also threatened that thousands of protesters would confront the singer on her way from the airport.
Police said they would only issue the required permits for the concert if Lady Gaga agreed to tone things down. Instead, she pulled the plug on the show, which had sold out with more than 50,000 tickets.
The Islamic Defenders Front focused their campaign against a "foreign" artist, an artist willing to lay it all down to support minorities and the LGBTQ community with her song Born This Way.
It’s easy to be cynical when it comes to the motivations of pop stars, but there’s an earnestness to Born This Way’s message of equality that, underneath the hectic production and high concept video, touched on something real. The socio-politics of the song aside, with Born This Way Gaga helped LGBTQ kids all around the world, and aided the quest for equality’s jump to the mainstream.
It’s a decade since Lady Gaga burst into the charts with Just Dance, and showed a new generation how to create a vivid identity for yourself, anywhere
Some years earlier, beginning in 2003, the Islamic Defenders Front had campaigned against some Indonesian dangdut performers. In particular they criticised the performances of singer Inul Daratista, which they described as pornography, and that led to an anti-pornography bill passed in 2008 by the People's Consultative Assembly, that introduced a broad range of catch-all activities described as pornography.
However, despite this campaign by religious conservatives, dangdut music and performance thrives in popularity. This is an indication of the tolerant and progressive cultural attitude of most Indonesians, including the majority who follow Islam.
Modernity and the Americanization of the world?
"Modernity arose in Europe, beginning in the Renaissance, as a break with the traditional culture"
So, Samir Amin writes in his preface to the re-publication of his seminal work Eurocentrism (2009), originally published as L'eurocentisme: Critique d'une idéologie (1988).
He continues:
"Modernity is constructed on the principle that human beings, individually and collectively (i.e., societies), make their own history."Furthermore, he says:
Up until that time, in Europe and elsewhere, responsibility for history was attributed to God or supernatural forces. From that point on, reason is combined with emancipation under modernity, thus opening the way to democracy (which is modern by definition). The latter implies secularism, the separation of religion and the state, and on that basis, politics is formed.
Today, modernity is in crisis because the contradictions of globalized capitalism, unfolding in real societies, have become such that capitalism puts human civilization itself in danger. Capitalism has had its day. The destructive dimension that its development always included now prevails by far over the constructive one that characterized the progressive role it fulfilled in history.
The crisis of modernity is itself the sign of the obsolescence of the system. Bourgeois ideology, which originally had a universalist ambition, has renounced that ambition and substituted the post-modernist discourse of irreducible "cultural specificities" (in its crude form, the inevitable clash of cultures). As opposed to this discourse, I suggest that we begin with a view of modernity as a still incomplete process, which will only be able to go beyond the mortal crisis it is now undergoing through the reinvention of universal values. This implies the economic, social and political reconstruction of all societies in the world.In The Liberal Virus: Permanent War and the Americanization of the World, I emphasized the extreme form taken by the ideology of contemporary capitalism, what I call the "liberal virus". The latter reduces the content of social organization to two and only two principles: liberty (mainly viewed as freedom of private enterprise) and property. This reduction, which I analyze as being the product of the involution to which the ideology of modernity was subject in the historical formation of culture in the United States, is at the heart of the impasse that threatens to imprison civilization.
(pages 7-9)
Samir Amin ends his chapter on Modernity in his seminal work Eurocentrism with these powerful thoughts and questions:
I do not know if the culturalist opponents of the real world and its evolutionary trends, understood as Americanization by some and Westernization by others, can be described as rational. Confronted by the threat of Americanization, some defend unique "cultural values," without throwing into question the general trends of the system, as if reality could be sliced like a salami, in order to keep a morsel for tomorrow. Others, having previously confused capitalism and the West and then forgotten the decisive reality of the former and replaced it with the gratuitous and false assertion of an eternal "West," think they can transfer the confrontation from the terrain of a constantly changing social reality to the heaven of an imaginary transhistorical cultural universe.The heterodox mix of this hodgepodge - the pure economics of imaginary markets, falsely egalitarian liberalism, and transhistorical culturalist imaginings - pompously sets itself up as new thinking, so-called postmodernist thinking. Since the bourgeois modernist critique has been watered down and reason has given up its emancipatory role, has contemporary bourgeois thought become anything then but a system that has seen better days?(Samir Amin Eurocentrism: Modernity, Religion, and Democracy. A Critique of Eurocentrism and Culturalism Pambazuka Press, Oxford, and Monthly Review Press, New York, 2nd edition 2009, pages 20-21)
A secular space for the recreation and reinvention of universal values?
In Amin's chapter called For a Truly Universal Culture in his book Eurocentrism, he addresses the issue of Americanization in the context of the homogenization and standardization of everything. The text used is also quoted in an article Modernity? Enlightenment? Equality? Emergency? Class consciousness and democracy in modern India? The Americanization of India . . . and the World? found on the Information Wrap for the cargo from Puri, India.
He writes:
Cultural life being the mode of organization for the utilization of use-values, the homogenization of these values by their submission to a generalized exchange-value tends to homogenize culture itself. The tendency toward homogenization is the necessary consequence not of the development of the forces of production, but of the capitalist content of this development. For the progress of forces of production in pre-capitalist societies did not imply the submission of use-value to exchange-value and, hence, was accompanied by a diversity of paths and methods of development. The capitalist mode implies the predominance of exchange-value and, hence, standardization. Capitalism's tendency to homogenize functions with an almost irresistible force at the level of industrial techniques of production, trends in consumption, lifestyle, and so on, with an attenuated power in the domains of ideology and politics. It has much less influence over language usage.
What position should be taken toward this tendency toward standardization? The historically irreversible , like the Gallicization of Occitania or the adoption of Coca-Cola by the Cuban people, cannot be regretted forever. But the question arises with respect to the future. Should the tendency of capitalism toward standardization be welcomed, the way progress of the forces of production is welcomed? Should it be defended, or at least never actively opposed, keeping in mind the reactionary character of the nineteenth-century movements that sought to destroy machinery? Is the only cause for regret that this process operates through the prism of class and is, as a result, ineffective? Should we conclude that socialism will move in the same direction, only more quickly and less painfully?
(Samir Amin Eurocentrism: Modernity, Religion, and Democracy. A Critique of Eurocentrism and Culturalism Pambazuka Press, Oxford, and Monthly Review Press, New York, 2nd edition 2009)
The "Official Music Video" of the song SALDUT performed by Fabio Dita with his chosen artistic partner Dewi Perssik, is an example of the creation of a secular space that works at both the universal and local level, perhaps as a crossover, possibly even a touch hybrid, but certainly a heterotopia, where the sensual, the real, and the difficult, come together as differences able to inhabit a different place.
What is the value of such a different place?
This is a secular space, one that can be shared by the many, but "the many as one". Pancasila without those exclusions, and other difficulties and problems, often associated with religious identity.
Fabio Dita, is a professional dancer from Colombia, who has been a dancer working with Shakira, and has recently started his singing career in Indonesia. Salsa Dangdut is the translation of this latin style into the space of Indonesian style dangdut, and in this video becomes fully realised with the presence of the Indonesian dangdut artist Dewi Perssik. Fabio Dita chose to work with Dewi Perssik because she has a good voice and an attractive stage presence.
"At first glance, she looks like Shakira," said Fabio Dita, when talking with reporters in Jakarta, recently. For him the reference is to the context of Colombia and the Americas, but "Dewi Perssik has many talents", he says. And, she is part of something important in Indonesian popular culture, dangdut!. She can sing and dance with a style that has been shaped by an Indonesian heritage, but resonates with those sensual qualities also found in the music and dance of Colombia. And, most importantly according, to Fabio Dita, "she has an attitude," The video has been designed with a choreographic concept that combines salsa with belly dancing, and of course, "the dangdut shake". The lyrics are a mixture of Indonesian, English and South American Spanish. This is dangdut creating a new space, a secular space, in a setting that is at once local and global, a synthesis, with a capacity to combine differences into something new, and with a freedom and openness that is at the heart of modern Indonesia. Is this, in part, a reinvention of universal values, a vitality that belongs to Indonesians, but also to all sorts of people across the wider world?
The Durango Herald has a different agenda, prompted by the cancelling of Lady Gaga's concert, under the pressure of intimidation and threats made by the Islamic Defenders Front (Indonesian: Front Pembela Islam (FPI).
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Titin Karisma parades onto the stage wearing a rhinestone bustier and matching bottoms, with sequin fringe that jiggles wildly to the rhythm of the beating drums. Preteen boys watch the singer wide-eyed as she straddles a speaker, whipping her long hair wildly. She licks the microphone and drops to the ground, repeatedly thrusting her pelvis toward a camera.
Lady Gaga’s onstage antics are almost tame compared to this act, known as dangdut, the most popular genre of music in this predominantly Muslim nation of 240 million. But while the pop star’s show was effectively banned from Indonesia, tens of thousands of young women here put on performances like Karisma’s every night. They shake and grind in smoky bars, ritzy nightclubs, at weddings, even circumcisions. In most cases the hosts say the sexier the better.
The apparent double standard highlights divisions between Indonesia’s largely tolerant majority and a vocal minority of Islamic hard-liners. The conservatives hold outsized influence in government, and have successfully picked high-profile battles like the Lady Gaga show, but they haven’t been able to stop dangdut, which has a long tradition here. Karisma’s stage shows have gotten nearly a million hits on YouTube. Julia Perez, an actress and wannabe politician, is dubbed the “sex bomb” for her racy act. Another performer, Dewi Persik, is known for her powerful back-and-forth hip thrusting “saw move” and public acknowledgments that she had surgery to become “a born-again virgin” to please her future husband. The up-and-coming “Trio Macan,” made of three Gaga look-alikes, with dyed hair and catlike poses, often simulate sex with male customers on stage.
Members of the Anti Apostasy Movement, Indonesian Mujaheeds Council and the notoriously thuggish Islamic Defender’s Front, better known as FPI, are quick to say they go after provocative dangdut performances. From time to time their followers jump in vans and ransack dangdut bars and nightclubs in the capital, Jakarta, and its outskirts. But they know this won'’t get them the kind of attention they crave, said Andrew Weintraub, a professor of music at the University of Pittsburgh and author of the book “Dangdut Stories.”
“Lady Gaga is a big name,” he said. “It’s a big stage for conservative Muslim organizations to promote their own agenda. They'’ll get a lot of attention internationally — which is also what makes the state nervous.” All 52,000 tickets for the concert Lady Gaga planned to give June 3 sold out within days, but members of the FPI had vowed to meet her at the airport if she dared step off the plane. Others bought tickets to her show saying, if it went ahead, they’d wreak havoc from inside the packed stadium.
As the weeks-long controversy raged, conservative politicians and members of more mainstream Muslim organizations piled onto the anti-Gaga wagon. And police — for the first time ever — denied a permit to one of the many Western stars passing through, citing security. Lady Gaga eventually pulled the plug.
“We hold huge concerts here all the time,” said Desi Anwar, a local television anchor, noting that crowd control is nothing new. “This is what happens when the government is perceived as weak and not consistent.”
Indonesia is often held up by U.S and others as a beacon of how Islam and democracy can coexist, and in many ways they are right. Most of the secular nation’s 210 million Muslims practice a moderate form of the faith and accept differences in others, with schoolgirls in headscarves regularly seen in shopping malls walking arm-in-arm with friends wearing tiny short shorts and T-shirts.
Sweeping reforms that followed the ouster of Gen. Suharto’s 32-year dictatorship in 1998 have allowed citizens to directly pick their own leaders, while vastly improving human rights, opening up the media and allowing artists freely express themselves for the first time in decades. But a small extremist fringe has become more vocal in recent years, using its influence to push through controversial laws banning everything from kissing in public to showing too much skin. They’ve also become more violent, going after Christians and members of other religious minorities with batons and machetes, usually without paying any price.
More recently, mobs attacked Alex Aan, an atheist, now in jail for his beliefs, and rampaged a book discussion by visiting Canadian liberal Muslim activist, Irshad Manji. That’s one reason hard-liners felt they could take on Gaga —the biggest international star in the world, said Sidney Jones, a Jakarta-based analyst with the International Crisis Group think tank. They were emboldened by a string of successes.
“These guys are on a roll,” she said, adding they have learned that by mobilizing various conservative groups and politicians, “they can set the agenda and underscore the importance of abiding by Islamic values.” Critics say President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, whose government relies on the support of Islamic parties, is largely to blame for rising intolerance for remaining silent.
But the passivity of the majority also plays a role, staying out of the debate unless their own liberal lifestyles are at stake —as was the case with Lady Gaga. Dangdut, which got its name from the rhythmic “dang” and “dut” of the drum, is an occasional target of conservatives, though Weintraub, the music professor, says there is much more to the music and dance than scantily clad female singers performing eroticized movements.
Introduced in the 1970s, the genre is partly derived from Malay, Arabic, and Hindu music. For many years, it was mostly the music that expressed the hopes and disappointments of the downtrodden, spilling into the streets and back alleys from bars and restaurants, taxis and public buses. After Suharto’s downfall, when media restrictions were lifted, dangdut made the leap to commercial TV. Once male-dominated audiences expanded to include the middle- and upper-class women, many of whom felt empowered by overt expressions of sexuality.
From that emerged Inul Daratista, a village girl from East Java province who wowed fans nationwide with her rapid-fire, pelvic “drill dancing.” Hard-liners were mortified, calling her lewd and a threat to national morals. They held protest rallies, forced her to cancel shows and dismantled a statue of her built near her home. Within a few months, the then-24-year-old largely disappeared from the limelight, in part because of legislation proposed in response to her wiggling derriere that eventually led to the country’s controversial 2008 anti-pornography law.
The law has been applied arbitrarily since than, usually with hard-liners leading the charge. It was used to jail the editor of Indonesia’s now-shuttered version of Playboy, even though there are many smuttier magazines on the streets. The lead singer of a local pop band, Peter Pan, also is behind bars after a homemade sex video of him and two girlfriends found its way on the Internet, even though several lawmakers caught in similar sex scandals are still sitting in Parliament.
Dangdut’s influences have changed over the years to include everything from American and British rock to salsa, house and remix, and styles of dance today are shaped by MTV and Western pop stars. Hard-liners cite those outside influences as another reason they don’t like it.
Conservative opponents of dangdut don’'t worry fans like Imam Siswanto, who says the genre is powerful because it often touches on issues that resonate with the masses: heartache, social inequality and, sometimes, faith. He said that although critics sent Gaga packing, “I can firmly and confidently say that dangdut will never die.”
Raunchy?
"But while the pop star’s show was effectively banned from Indonesia, tens of thousands of young women here put on performances like Karisma’s every night. They shake and grind in smoky bars, ritzy nightclubs, at weddings, even circumcisions. In most cases the hosts say the sexier the better."
This paragraph nudges the reader to associating dangdut with the "forbidden" rather than the "mainstream". To quote from Wikipedia's article on "Heterotopia":
Heterotopia is a concept elaborated by philosopher Michel Foucault to describe certain cultural, institutional and discursive spaces that are somehow ‘other’: disturbing, intense, incompatible, contradictory or transforming. Heterotopias are worlds within worlds, mirroring and yet upsetting what is outside. Foucault provides examples: ships, cemeteries, bars, brothels, prisons, gardens of antiquity, fairs, Turkish baths and many more. Dangdut is certainly a heterotopia.Human geographers often connected to the postmodernist school have been using the term (and the author's propositions) to help understand the contemporary emergence of (cultural, social, political, economic) difference and identity as a central issue in larger multicultural cities. The idea of place (more often related to ethnicity and gender and less often to the social class issue) as a heterotopic entity has been gaining attention in the current context of postmodern, post-structuralist theoretical discussion (and political practice) in Geography and other spatial social sciences. The concept of a heterotopia has also been discussed in relation to the space in which learning takes place. There is an extensive debate with theorists, such as David Harvey, that remain focused on the matter of class domination as the central determinant of social heteronomy.Andrew N. Weintraub, referenced in the Durango Herald report, says of his work:
Indonesia is a major focus of my research, particularly the musical, narrative, and theatrical practices of Sundanese people in West Java. In my first book Power Plays, I wrote about the art of Sundanese rod-puppet theater wayang golek and its adjustment to political pressures and economic opportunities in a rapidly modernizing society. Several digital media projects grew out of this work including a cd-rom that accompanies Power Plays and a 6-cd recording of one wayang golek performance.
During the last decade, my research has expanded well beyond the region of West Java. In 2003, I began to explore a genre of Indonesian national popular music called dangdut. Dangdut Stories is a social and musical history of the genre within a range of broader narratives about class, gender, ethnicity and nation in post-independence Indonesia (1945-present). The book traces the history of dangdut from a denigrated form of urban popular music to a prominent role in Indonesian cultural politics and the commercial music industry. As the founder and lead singer of the Pittsburgh-based Dangdut Cowboys, I aim to bring this joyous dance music to audiences outside its home base.
My interest in music as a force for social change is reflected in a book I co-edited with Bell Yung entitled Music and Cultural Rights. Cultural rights have become increasingly prominent in discourses of human rights, international law, and struggles for social justice throughout the world. Music and Cultural Rights investigates how music has become an integral part of the languages, cultures, and social institutions of rights in diverse societies around the world.
A second edited volume of essays entitled Islam and Popular Culture in Indonesia and Malaysia shed light on the popular culture of Islam, an element that is often hidden from view in mainstream American media. Given the fact that Indonesia and Malaysia are home to about 20 percent of all Muslims, and Indonesia is the largest majority Muslim country in the world, this book will hopefully dispel notions that Islam is monolithic, militaristic, and primarily Middle Eastern.
A woman with attitude?
The use of the word "raunchy" in the Durango Herald fits with North American values and discourse and, for the sake of an argument, is contextualised by a view of the cultural roots of dangdut in the history of a south Asian cultural geography. But, maybe, this phenomenon is actually more about realities that exist "below the radar", as it were, realities concerning gender equality and identity in a modern Asian society.
Inul Daratista is a modern person!
She is a woman with attitude! She is making her own power! And this is NOT the kind of reality a patriarchal establishment can acknowledge, be it a military class, a propertied class, or a theocracy!
Inequality? Misogyny? Patriarchy? Global issues set against universal values?
"The dangdut genre is powerful because it often touches on issues that resonate with the masses: heartache, social inequality and, sometimes, faith."
That human beings, individually and collectively, can and must make their own history is a claim that makes a break with the dominant philosophy of all previous societies, in Indonesia as well as in Europe and elsewhere, that God having created the universe and mankind, is the "legislator" of last resort. Under modernity, people are freed from this obligation, without necessarily losing interest in the question of faith. The social order which must guarantee the triumph of this emancipating reason, and thus the happiness of human beings, is pictured as a system of "good institutions", to use the term in use up to now in American social thought. This system, in turn, is based on the separation of the political domain from the economic domain in social life. The "good institutions," which must ensure the management of political life through reason, are those of a democracy that guarantees the liberty and legal equality of individuals.
Only a truly secular state is able to guarantee all those with different faiths, or NO faith, liberty and equality. The claim that the "market" equals "democracy" has remained a cornerstone of bourgeois ideology. The continual conflict between those in favour of extending democratic rights to all citizens of all faiths, men and women, bourgeois and proletarians, propertied or propertyless, and the unconditional defenders of a faith and the market is straight away excluded from the debate. Right across the globe, falsely egalitarian liberalism has reduced the promise of liberty, equality and fraternity to "the way it is", liberty and property, by substituting the god of property for equality and fraternity. But don't you believe them!
The Pancasila Delusion
The Abstract of Pranoto Iskander's article The Pancasila Delusion is accessible on the internet.
ABSTRACT
Rather than producing a new liberal democracy, Indonesia’s sudden democratising process that started in 1998 has produced a mere electoral democracy. This commentary argues that this situation cannot be separated from the preservation of the Five Principles, or the Pancasila, in the political reform agenda (reformasi). In this case, the Indonesian version of exceptionalism (national self-righteousness) has unwittingly legitimised some fundamental deviations from internationally well-established practices in global constitutionalism as the post Suharto Indonesia proceeds to “electoralise” its public life. Indonesia’s version of exceptionalism might best be described in an unabated conviction about the inviolable nature of Pancasila in national political life and beyond. This Pancasila delusion has gone further with the introduction of some legal efforts to prosecute any sacrileges against it. To make matters worse, this delusional conviction in Pancasila has stubbornly featured in Indonesia’s political thinking, which eventually has also prompted the process of reformasi to drift from one ad hoc response to another.
Update
People in Blitar, East Java, carry a symbol of state ideology Pancasila during a parade on May 31 in commemoration of the birth of Pancasila, which falls every June 1. (Antara/Irfan Anshori)
Role of Pancasila in Indonesian modern democracy
Steven Jonathan
Yogyakarta
Tue, June 5, 2018
June 1 marked the commemoration of Pancasila Day. The “five principles” served as a political tool to legitimize the past authoritarian regime, which sought to “revive” the ideology.
General Soeharto cemented Pancasila role as Indonesia’s national ideology, to the extent that it had served as a grundnorm, a fundamental source of norms and values that encompasses various aspects of citizen’s life. Before the eyes of the people, the regime appeared to be defending and bringing back the aspirations of the founding fathers. What really happened was that Pancasila was used to dispose of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), by capturing and killing citizens from different backgrounds – doctors, teachers, scholars, intellectuals -– allegedly affiliated to the party.
Moreover, the regime set Pancasila as the only ideology to be tolerated within its restrained political landscape. Thenceforth, all political parties were obliged to have Pancasila as a compulsory philosophical basis and ideological underpinnings on their aspirations.
The problem is that 20 years after reformasi Pancasila remains a compulsory basis in the Indonesian democratic system.
A properly functioning democracy would consist of political parties which serve as a medium for politicians and the people to bring their aspirations. Without a genuine philosophy to guide its path, a party may risk losing its own purpose and may be misused as a “personalistic” party –with the intention of solely serving as vehicle for politicians to get into office.
Due to the dominance of Pancasila, one could hardly distinguish the basis of the parties’ commitments on political issues; there’s no such thing as labor and social justice party or pro market and free enterprise party, and whether those are based on green philosophy or liberal progressivism. Even major Islamic parties have also reiterated their loyalty to Pancasila.
Existing parties could not be distinguished in that way, as Pancasila impartially serves as the common overarching ideology. It is no longer the aspirations of the party that matters, since all of them points out towards Pancasila, rather it is more of the personalities and traits of the politicians that they represent; the humbleness of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, the strong character of candidate rival Prabowo Subianto, and the list goes on.
Political parties should embrace the ideology that directs the path of the organization, which is reflected within the citizens’ aspirations. The Pancasila ideology is said to guide political parties towards values like ‘just and civilized humanity’ or ‘social justice for the people’, although in practice there should be clear measures towards achieving that common goal. In many instances, especially during the New Order, the promises to bring the aforementioned values have been obstructed to the point where it became lip service.
The ever-evolving society of Indonesia will eventually need to adapt to the principles of Pancasila as the guidance for the state. For instance, the growing minorities of agnostics who sit uncomfortably with the first principle. This problem persisted for long, as followers of non-theistic Buddhism or the polytheistic Hinduism have looked for references in their religious scriptures to be able to justify their views as being not in contradiction with the “belief in one God” as explained in the first principle. This example alone pictures a failure of Pancasila in uniting the people.
Moreover, the development of certain ideologies, that of communist-Marxist in particular, have been largely restricted in Indonesia due to the unfavorable narrative constructed by the New Order. There is no room for communists in Indonesia, even scholars in present time cannot openly discuss these ideologies with such easiness. The large intolerance towards ideologies and philosophies other than Pancasila may restrict the current political parties in addressing the real challenges that face modern Indonesian society.
For the Indonesian democracy to fully develop, it is important for political parties to show some leadership to fully represent the various layers and the ever-evolving society, by developing philosophical and ideologically driven visions for the people. It is time to leave behind the unfavorable view towards certain varieties of ideology, and actually demonstrate the capacity to address modern issues, though it might give alternate views of Pancasila, so as to adapt to the modern society of Indonesia.
Political parties should take a stand, start giving a real meaning to their struggle for embracing their own philosophy, rather than serving as a political vehicle for politicians to get into office. It is time for change, for us to materialize the will of the people by acknowledging Pancasila as one of the good sources -– out of many – and not as the ultimate truth to address modern challenges in Indonesian society.
Twenty years after reform, many among Indonesia’s young generation, at least, are prepared to take this step forward in maturing our democracy.
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The writer is an undergraduate student majoring in international relations of Gadjah Mada. University (UGM), Yogyakarta
This is what Indonesian democracy needs . . .
think. act. tolerate.
Setara Institute
SETARA Institute for Democracy and Peace is an Indonesia-based (NGO) that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom and human rights.
SETARA Institute is a young research organization with core research focused on answering the actual needs of society. Its establishment in 2005 was intended as a response to fundamentalism, discrimination and violence on behalf of religion and morality in many fields that threaten pluralism and human rights in Indonesia.
SETARA Institute works in secular space (human rights and constitution based law) and does not carry out research penetrating into religious theologies.
SETARA Institute is a pioneering defender of freedom of religious belief in Indonesia. It promotes civil freedom and policy change to push for pluralism and human rights.
One more for the LODE-Zone
Here is one more reference to the work of the late Samir Amin in an article for Monthly Review. The text is focused on the way things were in the regions of the world that western European discourse calls the Middle East and North Africa in 2007 (whose 'middle'?). Many things have moved on, but not this! Many of the points he makes concerning the collusion of Islamic establishments with the preserving of the status quo, when it comes to current actually existing globalised capitalism, has relevance, by extension to Indonesia.
Political Islam in the Service of Imperialism
by Samir Amin
All the currents that claim adherence to political Islam proclaim the “specificity of Islam.” According to them, Islam knows nothing of the separation between politics and religion, something supposedly distinctive of Christianity. It would accomplish nothing to remind them, as I have done, that their remarks reproduce, almost word for word, what European reactionaries at the beginning of the nineteenth century (such as Bonald and de Maistre) said to condemn the rupture that the Enlightenment and the French Revolution had produced in the history of the Christian West!
On the basis of this position, every current of political Islam chooses to conduct its struggle on the terrain of culture—but “culture” reduced in actual fact to the conventional affirmation of belonging to a particular religion. In reality, the militants of political Islam are not truly interested in discussing the dogmas that form religion. The ritual assertion of membership in the community is their exclusive preoccupation. Such a vision of the reality of the modern world is not only distressing because of the immense emptiness of thought that it conceals, but it also justifies imperialism’s strategy of substituting a so-called conflict of cultures for the one between imperialist centers and dominated peripheries. The exclusive emphasis on culture allows political Islam to eliminate from every sphere of life the real social confrontations between the popular classes and the globalized capitalist system that oppresses and exploits them. The militants of political Islam have no real presence in the areas where actual social conflicts take place and their leaders repeat incessantly that such conflicts are unimportant. Islamists are only present in these areas to open schools and health clinics. But these are nothing but works of charity and means for indoctrination. They are not means of support for the struggles of the popular classes against the system responsible for their poverty.
On the terrain of the real social issues, political Islam aligns itself with the camp of dependent capitalism and dominant imperialism. It defends the principle of the sacred character of property and legitimizes inequality and all the requirements of capitalist reproduction.
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