Several days before Lebaran I visited my husband's home, a small, beautiful and peaceful village at the foot of Mount Merapi in Central Java, to spend time with family and friends. Being born and brought up in the center of Jakarta, having to struggle everyday with worsening traffic jams in the metropolis, I like the slow pace of life in the cool, green and pollution-free village.
The main reason for returning to his hometown was actually not to celebrate lebaran, but to see my mother in-law, who was recently diagnosed with an advanced form of cancer. In her late fifties she is relatively young and remains active, teaching in the village's public primary school. Naturally, it came as quite a shock to us all. We were wondering, how could she get cancer, considering that life in the tranquil village is so healthy compared with life in Jakarta?
However, more surprises -- unfortunately not good ones - were waiting for us in our hometown. We learned that some of our relatives and family friends, living nearby or in other villages, are suffering from various chronic illnesses that urban dwellers are familiar with. They have kidney stones, osteoporosis, liver problems and other internal organ abnormalities -- even strokes. The worst part? Most of them are in their thirties or early forties.
While the air is much less polluted than in Jakarta and the water relatively clean, and while people still walk and exercise more compared with urbanites, they still contract such diseases. Could it be possible that the food they eat is causing these illnesses?
Only several weeks before Lebaran, the world was jolted by news of melamine-tinted milk products. Coming from China, they caused serious illnesses and death among infants. In Indonesia, meanwhile, we are all too familiar with contaminated meatballs, tofu and artificially colored snacks.
In today's world, not only in big cities, but in small, even remote villages, many things -- if not everything -- that we put in our bodies contains something detrimental to our well-being. It can take any form; our daily rice, our beloved instant noodles, even a seemingly simple and innocent mie ayam (chicken noodles). Yet, still, very few Indonesians realize that the simple act of eating can be risky.
More than a decade ago, in the early 1990s, Ulrich Beck, a German sociologist, proclaimed that contemporary society was moving into a phase he dubbed the "global risk society". This, he said, was when modern institutions became globally integrated and everyday life broke free from the hold of tradition and custom.
This "risk society" is one way to conceptualize the consequences of globalization, which affects all aspects of the social world and produces outcomes that are often difficult to predict or control.
The risks we face today can be defined as either "external risks" or "manufactured risks". "External risks" are risks that come from the natural world and are unrelated to human actions. We have known these types of risks -- earthquakes, droughts and other natural disasters -- since time immemorial.
"Manufactured risks", on the other hand, are risks created by the impact of our own development and technology on the natural world. These risks result from human intervention into nature. Today, many environmental and health risks (global warming for instance), including those that used to fall under "external risks", are "manufactured risks".
With the advance of technology and science, new risky situations are created, which are often more difficult to measure.
What we are facing with issues such as melamine-tainted milk or formalin-contaminated meat balls are clear and present "manufactured risks" to human health. Meanwhile we should not forget other types of "manufactured risks" which include chemical pesticides and herbicides that can poison rice and vegetables, hormone-pumped chicken, bone-weakening drinks and other chemical ingredients.
According to Ulrich Beck, in the contemporary world, individuals are presented with new choices, and, at the same time, new risks, every single day. Risk today derives less from natural dangers, and more from uncertainties created by our own social and technological development. So, in our global "risk society", the nature of risk itself is changing. This presents challenges in our day-to-day life, as there are no definitive answers to the causes and effects of risks.
What once was a simple question: should I eat mie ayam? -- is no longer. One must now consider: does it contain formalin-tainted noodles, hormone-pumped chicken or veggies tainted with chemical herbicides? Your decision will depend on the often conflicting information and opinions you have obtained from various sources. But what we must not forget is that not every person in Indonesia has access to this, or any, information.
Very few of the young people with chronic diseases I mentioned earlier can get information about the safety of the food they eat -- unfortunately, this is generally the case across the nation.
The writer is an urban sociologist in the Department of Sociology, University of Indonesia. She can be reached at raphaella.dwianto@ui.edu
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