Aug. 17 in many parts of Indonesia is an occasion for joyful activities in which citizens from all levels of society participate in our traditional Independence Day games. The most popular game is undoubtedly the panjat pinang (climbing the slippery pole) competition.

The panjat pinang competition is often the highlight of Independence Day celebrations, and individuals and groups struggle together to reach the top of a greased pinang (betel) nut palm trunk where they reach the prizes which might be anything from a set of keys to a new motorcycle to towels and plastic buckets.

It is unclear where and when the panjat pinang competition originated but it has probably been a part of the Independence Day celebrations since early on. The pinang nut is very deeply rooted in our cultures. In the past, the betel nut (Areca catechu) was widely used as an acceptable recreational drug in our archipelago and practically all men and women alike in every community chewed it.

In nearly every ethnic group in Indonesia, there was a tradition of sharing, exchanging and offering betel nut as an important part of social pleasantries. Some tribes, like the Uwaulu of the Seram highlands in Maluku, have a creation myth that involves a great flood in which the survivors, who later beget the Uwaulu tribe, brought with them pinang seedlings. The betel nut is commonly chewed with lime and a leaf of sirih (piper betel vine) and is said to give a kick and a slight high.

In the Islamized areas of Java, the act of chewing the piper betel leaf is still called nginang (from the root word pinang) even though in most parts of Java the betel nut is no longer used. In its place the Islamic Javanese use the extract of the herb gambir (Uncariae Ramulus et Uncus) which acts as an astringent.

For the narcotic effect of the chewing experience, chroniclers note that after the funeral of Panembahan Senopati, the founder of the Central Javanese Islamic Mataram dynasty, the Javanese men adopted the more fashionable habit of cigarette smoking while the women would suck on a ball of tobacco called susur.

In all the islands to the east of Java, people still chew the pinang nut; this is especially true for the older generations. All this illustrates that the slippery pinang trunk competition is probably a very ancient indigenous competition which has survived through the millennia until today.

There are generally no rules regulating the pinang trunk climbing competition, but the challenge of the game makes cooperation and strategy an essential requirement of success. It is impossible to climb up the 5 to 8 meter slippery pole on your own. The only way to reach the top is to team up and create a human pyramid around the base of the pole.

In this way, the lightest member of the team can climb on the shoulders of his teammates and reach the top without having to scale too far up the greasy pole. Cheers, jubilation and chaos usually reign the moment the winner begins to throw down prizes from the top of the pole.

Many Indonesians agree that the greased pinang trunk climbing competition quintessentially captures the spirit of Indonesian independence. The struggle for independence is similar to the struggle to reach the top of the slippery pinang pole. Circumstance and necessity obliged people to team up and organize and the majority of the people happily let a small minority stand on their shoulders to reach for the prizes of independence. Moreover, those who reach the pinnacle must throw down the prizes to share with everyone on the ground.

Now we have enjoyed 63 years of independence and we must accept the fact that many of us on the bottom of the pyramid are still waiting to enjoy the fruits of our freedom. Indeed, some pundits opine that with most of this country's vital economic assets in the hands of foreign multinational corporations, our independence is only skin-deep.

In West Papua, the easternmost province of Indonesia which holds the planet's largest single gold and copper deposit, the indigenous population sees nothing of the gold. A slow-burning independence movement has been simmering there for several decades. The feeling of being the same nation as the rest of us in west Indonesia is continuously eroded by heavy-handed security approaches used to solve political and cultural problems and by the loud propaganda of Islamic movements.

The last example of this heavy-handedness was the death of Opinus Tabuni, hit by a bullet when the police fired shots in an attempt to stop people from raising the West Papuan Morning Star flag during a rally commemorating the United Nations' Indigenous Peoples Day in Wamena on Aug. 9. Islamic movements such as Hizbut Tahrir and Majelis Mujahidin are just as alienating or even worse, and we should vehemently oppose them for the sake of our Republic, just as we oppose military approaches to solving social and political problems.

Our constitution states "independence is the right of every nation" and it is of outmost importance that the people of West Papua feel they are an important and inseparable part of the Indonesian nation. If West Papuans do not feel a part of Indonesia, it means they are not.

The government alone cannot make the West Papuans feel included. The way white America included the arts and culture of the African Americans through the appreciation of jazz and blues, for example, is a much more powerful and meaningful way to make a formerly excluded part of society feel included.

In this light, the widespread acceptance of Asmat sculpture or Garin Nugroho's film, I want to kiss you just once (Birdman Tales) which sympathizes deeply with the plight of West Papua, are antidotes to the poison that military approaches and Islamic movements inject into the people's psyche.

The writer is an artist and former journalist. He can be reached at bramn4bi@yahoo.com

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