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Cultural heritage and international cooperation: Keeping things in perspective

The general public should keep in mind that UNESCO inscribing an element on the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage is not about exclusive ownership, but rather about sharing them toward inclusiveness and integration among humanity.

Lona Hutapea Tanasale (The Jakarta Post)
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Los Angeles, United States
Thu, December 12, 2024

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Cultural heritage and international cooperation: Keeping things in perspective Women in kebaya and sarong take part in a parade on May 5, 2023, to celebrate the 476th anniversary of Semarang, the provincial capital of Central Java. (Antara/Aji Styawan)

A

t a recent annual meeting in Asunción, Paraguay, 63 new practices and traditions were inscribed on UNESCO’s List of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) at the initiative of 90 countries, including the successful inscription of three Indonesian elements: kebaya, kolintang and Reog Ponorogo.

Kebaya and kolintang were added to the Representative List of ICH, and Reog Ponorogo to the List of ICH in Need of Urgent Safeguarding. Kebaya is a traditional blouse worn by women, kolintang is a traditional wooden musical instrument of the indigenous Minahasa people of North Sulawesi, and Reog Ponorogo is a performing art from Ponorogo, East Java.

It’s worth noting that of the three, kebaya and kolintang were inscribed through a multinational or joint nomination, which applies when a cultural element exists in more than one country.

Kebaya is listed as a heritage shared among the five Southeast Asian countries of Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, while kolintang is registered as a cultural practice and expression that has links to the balafon in Mali, Burkina Faso and Côte d’Ivoire.

Previously, the notion of a joint nomination had caused some misunderstandings among the Indonesian public, although it was not the first such case. In 2020, pantun (four-line rhyming poetry) was inscribed as an ICH from both Indonesia and Malaysia. In 2019, pencak silat was designated jointly as a traditional sport from Indonesia and a combative art of self-defense from Malaysia.

Prior to the inscription of kebaya, Indonesian media outlets were full of news about protests against a possible joint nomination. A movement called Kebaya Goes to UNESCO, established a few years before, apparently had ignited a nationalistic spirit that, unaccompanied by proper knowledge, unexpectedly created the polemic.

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In November 2022, while Indonesia was still undecided on whether to accept the invitation for a joint nomination or to keep pursuing a single nomination, its four ASEAN neighbors declared their collective effort to submit kebaya as a shared heritage. An Instagram post by Singapore’s National Heritage Board to announce this decision was flooded with thousands of comments from Indonesian netizens, mainly expressing their disagreement and disappointment due to their belief that "kebaya was originally from Indonesia", so "other countries have no right to claim it".

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