Young, Proud and Indonesian

Cyber connections and cheaper international travel are blurring national identities. But in this shrinking world, Indonesians have a newfound “yes, we can” attitude.

By Maggie Tiojakin

Fira Millston is a Yogya-born woman who has spent three-quarters of her adult life living in the United States. Millston is her husband’s surname, which she adopted when the two got married in 1984, in the backyard of a friend’s house in Newton, Massachusetts.

Today they are the proud parents of Chase, Adrianna, and Justin – three young adults whose national identities are split between continents. To their friends, they are full-fledged Americans, but, at home, they speak Indonesian with their mother and often eat dinner while sitting on the floor, lesehan-style – something Fira used to enforce every Sunday when they were little.

Recently, the youngest of her three children, Justin, graduated from Boston College, majoring in archeology. He plans on visiting China and Egypt sometime soon to join several ongoing projects there. Fira jokes she hopes he finds himself a decent Egyptian woman, preferably a belly dancer.

“I think it’s important for young people to travel and discover the world,” says Fira. “Because, in my opinion, that’s the fastest and most efficient way for them to know who they are and how they fit in in such a large and diverse world.”

Diversity is the only social concept that Fira accepts. Coming from a family of mixed culture and heritage, Fira likes to describe herself as “an eighth of everything” – her maternal grandmother is half-Dutch, while her paternal grandfather is part Vietnamese –and therefore the embodiment of the terminology “citizen of the world”.

“I grew up in an environment that opens itself up to a multitude of cultural influences,” says Fira. “And then I came to the United States and was exposed to an even bigger melting pot. But the funny thing is … the more diverse the society, the better I get to know myself. Pitted against the vibrant and intoxicating mesh of other cultures, I have grown to appreciate my own.”

Nevertheless, it takes more than mere appreciation for one’s culture – including language – to make up a whole nation, or create an identity; although, it’s fair to say that in a world of highly mobile societies, identity is as elusive and adaptable as a chameleon. But it’s there all the same.


A New Generation

Not too long ago, when a neighboring country was accused of claiming certain cultural and traditional arts originating from Indonesia, a tense reaction ensued. The public outcry led to saber rattling, and before long everybody started pointing fingers. Some contend the “stealing” of a nation’s cultural heritage is not unlike forging someone’s identity; while others were of the opinion that the atrocious debacle over what-belongs-to-whom was nothing more than a ploy by the powers-that-be to divert attention from more sensitive problems at home.

There also were those who thought it was a much-needed wake-up call for Indonesians, who – until the news broke – appeared to pay little attention to their cultural legacy.

“We take things for granted,” says Tarwan, one of curators at the Wayang Museum in West Jakarta. “This country has a very rich history, and an even richer sense of tradition and culture.”

“If it were up to me, I’d set up a special government division to monitor everything we have and then develop it into something the people will love,” says Tarwan, who is about to retire. “Because it’s not enough to have an amazing culture, you have to know it, love it, take good care of it. The best part is it all starts here with each and every one of us.”

Seeing the way young people carry themselves in public nowadays, one might be prompted to think that our sense of tradition and culture is either misplaced, or simply replaced. We appear like citizens of a different society, fresh graduates from the school of Western civilization; and less like the citizens of a nation whose values are rooted in Eastern culture.

The truth is there are two sides to everything, belying the public show. It’s true that we have the tendency to take things for granted, but there are many Indonesians, especially younger ones, who are continuing to not only “preserve” their traditions  – an ambivalent term which smacks of keeping something unchanged and rigid  – but promote and incorporate them as part of their modern identity.

Call it the new laid-back nationalism.

Yes, this new generation of Indonesian urbanites loves their mod cons – those ubiquitous BBs and foreign branded goods – but they also are proud to listen to local bands and watch locally produced movies, from the critically acclaimed art-house Indonesian slapstick humor to horror flicks that tap into the ghouls and goblins of the superstitious past and present. They follow the unwritten urban conventions of the world, but they also keep to traditions in the main rites of passage.

Not so prevalent today are the once common self-deprecating raised eyebrows about our culture, nor the defensive knee-jerk reaction to anything critical of what we have to offer. It’s a more even-handed sense of identity  – no need for breast-beating slogans and professions of nationalism, this young generation is confident of its place in the world, while realizing its deficiencies and that there is much more potential within. We just need to reach it.
 
Two big success stories are batik and the resurgence of Garuda Indonesia. It has become accepted to wear batik – once so formal, so “old” – as a fashion statement, but also a statement of pride, on the so-called batik Fridays, and on any day and occasion that the wearer wishes. It took a few designers – most notably Edward Hutabarat – to show that this traditional fabric was not so five centuries ago, but truly here and now.  

Garuda, once a national inside joke for tardiness and erratic service, a symbol of old-fashioned ways and muddling through, has cleaned up its act with a major overhaul that has won international plaudits (it was named the world’s most improved airline this year by Skytrax). Today, Indonesians and foreigners alike want to take Garuda simply because it’s good.

It always helps when outsiders also show their respect. It does not hurt to have a currently healthy economy and a culture that many in the world are seeing in all its glory for the first time. A new generation of international citizens looks admiringly at this mercurial country, seeing its riches and room for growth, viewing how it has overcome disasters and problems without dwelling on its past.

“Nationalism of the past and today is very different,” says Bambang, a bank executive in his late 40s who is the father of two university students. “Young people’s nationalism today is about their creativity both in the arts and IT capability, when in the past it was about the physical struggle.

“The youth today still have nationalism, but it’s just different.”

Away From Home

Indonesians do not have a tradition of heading out of their own country to find themselves, compared to the Chinese over the centuries or Indian science and IT graduates today.  People from around Asia and the world came here for the opportunities that lay in wait. The migrant tradition within this vast archipelago has been for better work opportunities instead of a quest for personal development.

Today, though, anecdotal evidence shows that more Indonesians are heading out, whether it is for travel, work or education. Such mobility may appear to foster a sense of worldliness, rather than nationalism. After all, people are often connected with each other through their travels; and being away from home does tend to have its own effect on those who do have the courage to do it.

At the end of the day, the expatriate is bound to look homeward.  

“My first semester studying abroad was largely spent discovering something other, or anything other,” says Andrata Karnali, a college graduate in technical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

“I would let myself get carried away by whatever I discovered, such as learning how to speak French, or watching German films.”

For a while, Andrata says that his circle of friends resembled that of a group of UN delegates, connecting with people of various nationalities in a way he had never felt before.

And then homesickness hit, and he found himself looking to reconnect with his homeland.

“One day, I was walking home when I saw an ad for a school performance,” says Andrata. “The show was put together by a bunch of Indonesian students who were also involved in theatre; and they thought why not do a one-night show of an Indonesian traditional dance? And that’s what they did. It was smashing because it was done out of love.”

Andrata believes that he suddenly realized he could lose an important part of himself without knowing it.

“I lived in the US for four years, and it’s difficult not to lose yourself in someone else’s
world when you’re at that age. I was ready to lose myself. I didn’t care if that meant I had to forsake everything, because I believed who I was was whatever I chose to become.”

As it turned out, he was anything but ready. When he started socializing with people from his own country, Andrata finally came to the realization that no matter how hard he tried, he would never be able to escape himself.

“I’ve been home for two-and-a-half years now, and I’m loving it,” he says. “There are things I still hate, of course; because some things will never change – but I can’t imagine being anywhere else.” He chuckles, while tapping his own stomach. “I’m still a tempeh-petai kind of guy, after all.”

Strength in Numbers
Indonesians are known for doing things on their own terms and time. The world’s fourth most populous nation has time and again refused to conform to the ways of others and instead taken its own path. In the last decade, there is a shift in our character, or a change of mood, if you will, in the way we carry our national identity.

Naturally, it’s impossible to define love of country, or what it means to belong to a place without going overboard in using adjectives and patriotic terminologies. Not unlike the complex – yet at times overly simplistic – notion of faith, one’s national pride or loyalty is best measured by actions, rather than sentiments. And the concept of identity is as abstract as that of love and happiness.

People move because it’s in our nature, we can’t sit still like rocks, and our heart changes as quickly, if not as much, as the weather in the tropics. It’s not where we come from or where we are going that counts, but rather where we grow the most. We can’t put a label on who or what we are based on abstract values; nor can we force ourselves to define it in a sentence.

What we can do, however, is believe in the idea that we are a part of something bigger than ourselves. A family, a community, a country, a whole world. And home is wherever we feel safe, secure, and wanted.

“It’s the little things that count,” says Fira. “I may be whatever my paperwork says I am, but I have always considered myself as: first, an Indonesian; second, a mother to my children; third, a wife to my husband; and fourth, a human being.”

Fira no longer makes her children eat their meals lesehan-style every Sunday, because sometimes they are not in the mood for it. But she has made it a habit to continue the tradition, and often invites friends over to do just that.

“They love it,” says Fira. “Americans think it’s exotic, and everyone else just plays along.”

Andrata gives his definition of being Indonesian.
 
“Being there for each other, gotong royong,” he says. “What’s so wonderful about the people in this country – and it may also be its downfall – is that we don’t know how to exist without each other.

“Like bees, we do everything together. We’re so diverse, yet we’re so glued to one another. And that, I think, is the best-kept secret of being an Indonesian.”

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