Category: November 7 (Page 2 of 3)

Onion vs Oyster (Mignonette?)

Professor van der Meer visited our extended afternoon seminar on November 7th to discuss the story of Indonesian nationalism. Arnout suggested that we project a map of South East Asia to illustrate the points he would present throughout our discussion. He detailed colonial regimes in the Philippines and Indonesia, trade routes, and the subsequent religious affiliations which followed. Van der Meer explained how the narrow channel between Malaysia and Indonesia, which allowed access to Borneo and the Philippines from the West, turned areas bordering the Java Sea Sea into a multicultural trading mish-mash. The geographical overview, shown behind Arnout, was key in contextualizing the impact of external cultural forces of South East Asian nations.

Arnout, baiting the room, suggested the Onion Theory as a model for explaining Indonesian culture. The Onion theory hypothesizes that layers of cultural identity can be peeled away, much like the layers of its namesake, to reveal the core/essential identity of a people. He continued, elaborating on how Dutch colonialists, Muslim faith, and frequent external cultural influences could have formed layers atop the core Indonesian identity; which could be distilled to it’s purest form with some historical insight. Needless to say, the room flared up with discussion mostly critical of the proposed model. The notion that a core identity would lay undisturbed throughout time was not very popular. It seemed to suggest that additional layers ‘added on’ were not relevant or essential to the Indonesian identity, simply later add-ons.

Much like my peers, I disagreed with the bait-theory and quickly began pointing out its flaws (some of which eventually devolved into some degree of nonsense, as I began taking the onion analogy too literally). Considering the subject ex post facto, I would propose an alternate analogy (perhaps more ridiculous): The Oyster Theory, which in my mind aligns much more with Arnout’s deconstruction of Indonesia’s constantly fluxing national identity. The (/my) Oyster Theory postulates that Indonesia’s national identity is a product of continual ‘filtering’ of externally introduced cultural substance. Over time, the substance is converted to the flesh and shell of the oyster, building a national identity fed by selectively used foreign substance. The Oyster can never be separated back into the egg and sea-gunk that formed it. Tides change, the oyster is fed with fresh water and continues growing. The oyster exists in flux, just like the soul of the Indonesian people.

Additionally, during the evening lecture, van der Meer introduced Soemarsono as a means of linking the rich history of Indonesia to a story of a person. [Arnout argues that contextualizing history through a narrower biographical approach allows a deeper insight into developments of the time, rather than a surface level timeline of discrete events.] Soemarsono’s experience and political movements very much embody the notion that Indonesia holds pride in its many cultural influences and believes that their identity is owed to careful selection of cultural substance offered to the nation throughout time.

Recalling my Trip to Indonesia

It was last year that me and my friends decided to go to Indonesia as a destination for our graduation trip. We mainly visited Bali island and Central Java that have a lot of fascinating culture, extensive history and cultural properties.

 

Although the majority of people belong to muslim in Indonesia, they do not establish Islam as the national religion. Namely Indonesian have religious liberty. As prof. van der Meer Indicated us the religions in Indonesia with a map, the religions are varied depends on the regions in Indonesia. Despite Indonesia having a Muslim majority, Bali remains one of the islands in Indonesia that boast a Hindu majority. Likewise protestantism, catholicism, and buddhism are spread throughout in Indonesia. Though I did not know such a religious diversity in Indonesia at that time, I somehow figured out that Bali and Java have different religions because each places looked very different. For instance, as soon as I arrived at the airport in Bali, I found woven baskets filled with colorful flowers or rice on the floor. I thought it was just traditional decoration at that moment but I found many of them as well while I was walking in the city. It turned out that they are small offering baskets called “canang sari” which Balinese offer to their HIndu Gods. Also I felt Bali is one of the most liberal places in Indonesia, where people can drink alcohol and eat pork, unlike in other places in Indonesia.

 

In the suburbs of the city Yogyakarta in the island of Java, I saw many religions lived together as Prof. van der Meer mentioned in the lecture; cathedral, church, Chinese temple, Buddhist temple and Hindu temple. I actually visited Prambanan temple and Borobudur temple during my trip in Indonesia. Prambanan is a 9th century Hindu temple and Borobudur is the largest buddhist temple which is also compounded around 9th century. Borobudur is registered as one of the World Heritage and I was really amazed to see the decoration with 2,672 relief panels and 504 Buddha statues. Moreover it made me surprise to see those two different religious temples were co-existing within 40km since a long time ago. This is impressive and it also tells us the importance to respect each religions and live together harmoniously as Indonesia has proved.

 

Related to Indonesian culture and history, I remembered the lecture I took back in my college. The professor in the lecture presented us the history textbook which Indonesian high school students use. The professor explained us that the history textbook stresses on the strength of Indonesian people’s patriotic spirit which never succumb to threats of colonization.The textbook aims to foster national identity through the history education and I think this emphasis influenced by the nationalist movement under long colonization. It was interesting to see the difference in educational textbooks because I have never seen those descriptions in Japanese history textbook, where only facts happened in past are chronologically described. Despite historically Indonesia had been struggling of interference by several countries, I believe there were still something other countries could not change them, which was their own core values and cultural identities.

The complexity of nationality

As a student growing up in East Asia, other regions in this continent always seem both mysterious and somehow connected to me. Therefore, it was a great pleasure to have Prof. Arnout van der Meer from the history department to come to our class and talk about the origins and history of national identity in Southeast Asia. Particularly, I found his onion model and his analysis on the relationship between world history and regional history very inspiring, both of which reflect the complexity of the origins of national identity.

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The Onion

Haley Andonian

Origins

November 7, 2017

 

Igniting Change: In Search of the “Origins” of National Identity in Indonesia

Arount van der Meer

 

I found Professor van der Meer’s use of imagery throughout his lecture extremely helpful and beneficial to his argument.  The first image he presented was that of the oil lamp that Soemarsono used to describe the Javanese situation.  The image of the oil lamp and the understanding of its parts helped connect the foreign and novel messages being conveyed to the relatable and familiar object of the oil lamp.  Images are often useful in this way because, perhaps by connecting the novel to the familial, one can relate back to original thoughts, understandings, and feelings.

The other image that Professor can der Meer used was that of an onion.  In describing Soemarsono’s identity, he described an onion with many layers. Each layer is crucial to his identity, and to get to his true core every layer must be peeled back and considered.  However, I believe that it is very rare and extremely difficult for most to acknowledge their true and full identity.  Soemarsono does not deny any of his layers and rather embraces them all, but I highly doubt that most could say the same about themselves.

Origins are so crucial to one’s sense of self and outward presentation of identity, yet many people are not entirely open about who they are and where they come from.  Even with close friends, peers and colleagues, people tend to refrain from disclosing a full sense of identity, refrain from revealing all of the layers of their onion, and rather pick and choose who knows what about their identity.  Alone and separated from a family history known by others, one has the power to create the identity he or she wants to portray.  However, in a situation such as a small town or a reputable family, one loses the ability to shape their own history and is rather tied down by their origins.  Thus, origins can tether one to a certain identity if known by others, but can be either partly entirely irrelevant to shaping identity depending on how much of one’s origins are known by the public.

Whereas Soemarsono was completely open with his origins, such as his Hindu beliefs and his Buddhist past, others can choose to disguise their origins behind lies or simple failure to acknowledge pieces of identity such as religion, nationality, personal experiences, and family history.  I found it a shocking realization to compare Soemarsono’s openness to the at least semi-disguise most others hide behind.  Most people refrain from sharing at least some part of their origin story with others for a variety of reasons, from fear to simple shyness.  It is interesting to consider how different relationships and society at large would be if everyone were as open as Soemarsono about their origins.  Perhaps people would better understand and respect each other, or perhaps such an open society would leave people more vulnerable to attack, stereotypes, and criticism.  Regardless, the image of the onion is a valuable one to consider when thinking about origins and identity.

Nationalism in Indonesia

The nationalist movement in Indonesia traces its roots to a rebellion against colonial rule. In the beginning of the 20th century, the first nationalist group was created which rebelled against the colonial rule in favor of a true national identity which was separate from the colonial rule of the western European countries which Indonesia was previously the subject of. The professor compared the revolution to an oil lamp, which needs to be ignited by the people. He used the metaphor to incite rebellion against the colonial rule which he desired to be overthrown. This social revolution created wide sweeping changes within the country. It allowed the people to change the way that they dressed, to learn new languages, and to being their national awakening. This revolution has often been set in the context of World War One, and connected to that, but the lecturer argued that the revolution began before the start of World War One. This is an interesting argument, as it is difficult to determine what came first, as there is no obvious direct correlation between world war one and the Indonesian social revolution. However, the war would certainly have triggered changes within the society, as people become disenfranchised with the ways of Western Europe through watching them at war. As I have found with many of these lectures, I leave with more questions than when I arrive. Having known very little about the origin of anything from the universe to Italian Poetry or Novel Writing, I am repeatedly exposed to a new corner of the world which I know little to nothing about. In the brief time, it is impossible to learn the origins of anything to a satisfactory level. However, opening up these corners of the world, and shedding a bit of light on them makes me more curious, and I find myself wondering about the finer points of origins often. Can we prove an origin, or separate it from an evolution? If we can prove that it happened, but we can’t prove how or why, then is this finding really significant? Does investigating this idea bring us more answers or will it lead to more questions, as the brief lecture on it has for me? How is is possible to define the first novel except by the definition used at the time when it was written? Is it possible to define the boundaries between poetry and music, or does doing so pigeon-hole a broad art form into a claustrophobically tight academic category? It was fascinating to learn so much about both a topic that I was previously very uninformed about. It is also interesting to consider the idea of nations as a modern construct. The idea of the nation is not an age old concept, but rather a modern political concept. He cited contemporary examples of different national identity crises. The fight in Catalonia over independence from greater Spain is one that is a very interesting example of the difficulty of drawing the lines between cultures and countries and regions. Most of these boundaries were simply drawn by whoever was in power, in the case of Indonesia, the colonizers.

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