Stories of yesterday, for today, for tomorrow.
(Slightly more than 5000 words long, so get a cup of coffee or tea and some cookies while youâre at it)
The anthropologist Michael D. Jackson once wrote in his both poignant and life affirming book, Life Within Limits: Well Being in a World of Want:
âIt is a universal human failing to think that the world was a happier place in the past, and that things have fallen apart since one was young. Memory is fallible, and the original is irrecoverable except as a partial trace. Undoubtedly, this idealization of the past is born of present dissatisfactions and reminds us that well-being is less an attainable goal than a necessary fiction without which we might conclude that we have little to live for.â
My memory is of course fallible, much like what has been said above, but Iâm not entirely convinced if I see my life as somewhat happier in the past. Even if my dad was still alive in the not too distant past. Having not yet succumbed to the thunder clap of an unexpected death and I was living a lesser burdened life when I was young(er). All this does not make the past necessarily a happier moment in time. There are things that I have now which I yearned for in the past. A widened experience of life in general - socially, politically, existentially, spiritually, a fervent intimacy and warmth towards myself and those around me, and most prominently a greater understanding of the self, which undoubtedly is connected with the previous points. Â
Itâs innate of us to see the past as something to be constantly ruminated on. My mind would automatically do so quite often. To see what I have done or did not do, the things that made me sad or angry but no longer do, the things I miss and perhaps still continue to miss. The things I regret or was told Iâll regret but eventually did not. To look at how I have both progressed and regressed and what can be done to maintain this progression and rectify any regression.
To contemplate on the past is, I reckon, to also envision a future and see what has been made of the now.
It was definitely before 2005, but no definite date that I can remember. However, I remembered that I was young, very young. As this memory was placed in my old house and we moved out of that house in phases starting in 2005. If my memory serves me correctly it was on a weekend evening, either a Saturday or a Sunday evening, because I remember my dad was home all day. My brother, sister and mom were away, canât quite remember where they were. So, it was just me and my dad.
It was about 6:00 pm, probably after. The sky was bluish black, fading fast, and the fluorescent lights outside in our front lawn and patio were already lit. I remember this because living near the equator the sun almost always sets at a similar time, every day, every evening and my dad had a routine of feeding our dogs at about 5:30 pm followed by flicking on the lights around the house before 5:45 pm or asking me to do so. Often the latter.
Evening winds broke the constant chirping of the brown crickets in our backyard. My dogs made a few abrupt attempts at barking, as usual into the poorly lit backyard. Nothing there I thought, or perhaps I just couldnât see what they see. I tried, to no avail, to hush them up. Granted it was a half-hearted attempt, I was curious of where their barks were headed. Itâs easy to be superstitious in Indonesia.
We were huddled around the TV. The evening news was on, but I wasnât paying attention. TV was, and actually still is, only interesting enough for me to dwell on during the Sunday morning colourful cartoons, the National Geographic and Discovery channel programs or for the B rated action movies which I eventually learned to understand its allure. Blood sport, American Ninja 1-5, Rambo just to name a few. Prime example of American hubris and machismo at its best, saving the day through relentless punching, kicking and a few head-butts here and there. These movies sell well in Indonesia, it goes well with our own brand of machismo and addiction to heroism. Iâm still hoping though that someone from the film industry would come out and say that all of it was in fact just satire on the American society. This probably shows the extent of my naivety on my end.
I was laying down on the sofa, diagonally facing the TV and my dad was sitting beside me on a rocking chair on my right, attentive to the news while of course rocking his rickety chair. You could hear it creak as it swayed back and forth. I always thought that it would break anytime soon now, but to my surprise we still have it with us today. Being used almost every day. My hands were fiddling with something. I canât remember what but it was fascinating enough for me to remember the fiddling. The TV volume was three quarters near maximum, I could probably hear the news anchor from outside my house. Looking back at this, I think dad had a hearing problem but never wanted to admit or even at the very least talk about it. I think, I asked him once about this but he immediately diverted my interrogation. Heâs good at hiding things.
 A cell phone gave out a sudden loud ring, it was my dadâs, competing with the blaring TV. It was on the coffee table beside me and I easily glanced at it, the number was not on his contact list. I suppose it mustâve been from someone he did not know. That being said, dad had a near photographic memory but was somewhere between tech-savvy and (often hilariously) utter technological ineptitude, so he probably just remembered whose number it was.
The ringing was so loud it was near deafening. Dad finally answered the phone after looking at it a few seconds. He spoke a few words in his native Bataknese language. Almost none of it I understood, except âoloâ which means yes or I agree. Why dad never really tried to teach his kids his native tongue is something Iâll never know. Maybe he thought we were just disinterested in it or maybe he saw no value in it. 21st century globalization, better teach the kids English instead, he might have thought to himself. Canât blame him if he really did think like that though, these days Indonesians are quite a pragmatic bunch of people. Most of us just want something that goes along with the current mainstream social system.
Dad got up and moved to his work room near the living room, a few meters across me, a few steps behind the TV. I could see him sitting and talking with his head down. Far enough to not be fully discernible, near enough to hear his soft murmurs.
A few minutes in, he hung up the phone and swiftly walked to me. âOpung borumu meninggalâ, âyour grandmother diedâ, he softly uttered. Â
I knew he said that not only as an attempt of providing information, but was trying to evoke an emotional response and yet to be honest this tragic news didnât bother me. I was at most, rather indifferent. In my defense, I barely knew my dadâs mother as she lived in my dadâs village, on another island, hundreds of kilometres away and we for some reason never visited her. My mother, brother and sister said that I met her once when I was a small child. Iâm guessing that I was so young when I met her that my brain had yet to have the ability to form long-term memories. I couldnât remember her in any way, shape or form.
As a result, my reaction when my dad told me about my grandmotherâs sudden death was outright superficial. She died? When? Why? How? Questions asked with only the slightest hint of empathy. I think my dad knew this. He knew that I did not know his mother, not even the slightest bit. He wasnât expecting a mother and child kind of bond. Where I think at times even the most nauseating pains of a mother-son relationship is at the very least still based on desires of wellbeing. Albeit different and contradicting views.
I believe, my dad expected, at the very least, a relationship based simply on an experiential and knowing one. Simply knowing the presence of his mother and being able to visually recall a memory with her.
I did not know her nor did I have any memories of her and thus do not have even the most minute emotional link with my grandmother. My grandmother, if I can blatantly say, simply did not exist for me. And I understand of course this was not my fault. Dad seem to understand this. I could sense a hint of guilt on his end. Maybe he was sad not only because of the wave of emotions that comes from the ferocity of grief but also due to a sense of guilt of having his son not possessing a relationship with his mother. The present has been severed from the past.
Dad walked back to his room, sat down staring at the ceiling for a few seconds and started sobbing. He saw that I was staring at him, he pushed the door with his left foot hoping that itâll close but closed only slightly.
He wept, alone in his room and I was there in front of the TV. Not knowing what to do.
I froze. Glaring at the TV, thinking of what to do, but not actually doing. It was a curious mixture of wanting to do something to show I cared but uncertain if it was needed and how I would go about it. Was letting my dad alone with his deluge of grief the best thing to do? Should I have gone over there and just be there beside him? Would that have been uncomfortable for the both of us? Should I have said something a bit more thoughtful? With the possibility that it would come off as empty as I did know my dadâs mother?
Itâs hard seeing your parents cry, to see them become powerless to the forces of nature and especially in this case having to accept the onslaught of time. That everyone dutifully expires and nothing can stop that. To see that my parents are not the superhuman people I thought they were, is not merely to bear witness but to grasp the fragility of their being that is no different than mine. That we are both in essence no different, pinned by the frailty of being human. Is this how empathy is born? Through the knowledge and understanding that suffering is universal?
But is empathy - as a form of knowledge -, including the manifestation of empathy, learned or innate? or a combination of both? If it is innate, can it be suppressed or strengthened through the everyday learning of this knowledge or lack thereof? Was I during my grandmotherâs death ignorant in understanding empathy? Was I just simply ignorant, full stop?
I only speculated my dadâs guilt ridden self when his mother died, but I am quite certain that I was (am?) guilt ridden when he died. I regretted my inaction when I witnessed him grieving for a loved one, which haunts me till today. I am convinced that this is the result of my ignorance. I did not know on how to act on my empathy and I feel I have failed my dad.
 Knowledge and ignorance
Throughout the years this memory of ignorance, guilt and failure has evolved itself into the fear of being ignorant in the broadest sense. As there is always that possibility of having me act on ignorance, which terrifies and agitates me deeply. Whether it be in my day to day life or in my socio-political life, in which to be honest the boundaries between the two have become blurred. The personal is political, the political is personal, C. Wright Mills in his book Sociological Imagination might suggest.
I guess this is why I bury myself in books, try as much as I can to experience new things, understand and learn about fresh new ideas of how the world, the society and how the self works, and see the inherent connection between them all. And thanks to the many people that have reminded me oh so often, I try to listen deeply. A skill that I am still definitely far from mastering, as I still end up listening to my own ensuing responses when having a discussion with another. I hunger for knowledge as I am driven by the fear of ignorance and the possibility of failing my loved ones as the result of that. Donât get me wrong, I am thrilled in learning new things. My mind feels as it has been electrified and jumps around in excitement after reading and/or experiencing something fresh and new. Yet at the same time, I want to also acknowledge the undercurrent of fear as a motive for my learning.
One thing that Iâve noticed being an Indonesian is that there is a certain pride taken amongst a number of my Indonesian friends in being ignorant. Of course I have no desire to generalize this, and this is all anecdotal but personally I have come across it quite often. I donât think itâs new too. There was a well-known Indonesian shampoo commercial in the early 1990s that uses the tagline âah teori!â, which roughly translates into âitâs only a theory!â. Denoting the negative connotation not only to theories in general but to intellectualism, the use of reason, especially from my experience in the fields of social sciences/social issues in Indonesia (see Social Science and Power in Indonesia ed. by Vediz & Dhakidae). Itâs a commonly used phrase in Indonesia, especially when explanations of social issues get a bit too abstract, âah, teori!â would be instantly expressed. Persuading the conversation to become a bit lighter and more generally understood. I wonder if weâve become a deeply pragmatic and technocratic society? That everything is about the technical, about quantifiable numbers and how that can be practically used right now. Personal stories, individualized stories are irrelevant.
I find the popularity of âah, teoriâ rather odd though, as it goes against an Indonesian proverb âkatak dalam tempurungâ which roughly translates into âa frog in a shellâ (on a side note I always thought the shell would mean a kind of animal shell like a turtle and that the goddamn frog stole a turtleâs shell, which can also mean that a frog killed a turtle for its shell but I recently found out people usually mean a coconut shell when using this proverb..). Indonesians usually use it when talking to someone who are seen as ignorant in a particular issue and uses this proverb to encourage people to go beyond their known boundaries, to expand their minds, knowledge and experiences. âJangan seperti katak dalam tempurung!â, âdonât be like frog in a shell!â, some would decry.
But maybe âah teori!â shows the development, the progress of culture. It was made in the early 1990s and disseminated initially through TV. âKatak dalam tempurungâ, is a much older proverb but has been used lesser (it seems, at least in my circle of friends. Interestingly Benedict Anderson in his autobiography A Life Beyond Boundaries notes of its South East Asian origins, rather than a particularly Indonesian origin). Suggesting that the development of oneâs knowledge is central in many South East Asian societies. I guess the use of âah teori!â thatâs more dominant shows that culture is most definitely not static and we can see this through the development of language, the interplays of the words used and given value to and the sayings that circulate in society.
Given that, âah teori!â was literally made by a shampoo company trying to sell its shampoos maybe sayings such âah teori!â as well as the proliferation of it, shows how the ideas of ideas of consumerism has entrenched itself deep into the consciousness of society. Consume, donât think. Just consume. That we have moved away from society that values knowledge, âjangan jadi katak dalam tempurungâ, to a society that just wants to consume, thinking should be limited, intellectualism belittled, âah teori!â.
That being said, I donât want to necessarily paint a disheartening picture of Indonesians and their relationship with knowledge. There have been major signs of this not being the case as well. Iâve also witnessed my generation and the generations that come after me, are just hungry for knowledge. Some of the students I taught at university were unsatisfied of the knowledge they obtain during their secondary schooling and they understood this. They knew something was wrong, that our histories are too black and white, gone are the nuances. That their understandings of society and the self is shallowed by the governmentâs attempt in indoctrinating its citizens of nationalism and what it means to be a good Indonesian human being. They sought and hoped for more elaborate forms of knowledge. Wanting to understand deeper, welcoming engaging and complex discussions. This I think is a good sign. Yet I wonder though if this is isolated in urban middle class societies, which then becomes another signifier of inequality.
Iâm just throwing ideas here and there, but this is shaping into interesting topic for a future Ph.D thesis, maybe.
While reading up a bit on ignorance I came across the word agnotology or the study of ignorance. A new term I learned in early 2017 which I first learned reading the footnotes of RodrĂguez-Muñizâs paper on the knowledge limitations of academics, in which he starts of by asking âwhat factors influence the scholarly field of vision, its illuminations and omissions?â
Taking that sobering question into mind, I thought of my own limitations. Why do I view the world in such a way? What kind of knowledge has guided if not dominated my way of being? In what way am I ignorant? I understand that there are many components that constructs oneâs worldview, so I guess drawing from my background in sociology of education and being heavily inspired by Raraâs thesis on her anthropological study of young peopleâs views of success, I wanted to know how Indonesiaâs indoctrination on the ideals of success have shaped my views of knowing and ignorance? Can we then link some forms of ignorance to Indonesiaâs education system which I went a number of years through? Has my experience in Indonesiaâs education helped me shake off that shell or have I actually lodged myself deeper as a âkatak dalam tempurungâ?
Again, this is sounding like a good topic for research..
Thereâs a book on young people in Indonesia that I come back to every now and then, to see if the authors have researched the things that I find interesting in the everyday lives of young people and young adults in Indonesia. Which I think includes me and my late 1980s generation. This lovely new-ish book is titled Adolescents in Contemporary Indonesia by Lyn Parker and Pam Nilan. Thereâs a section in the book that touches educational success and how it is often encapsulated in the Indonesian term of prestasi or achievements. I wonder if thereâs a connection of our enchantment with prestasi (as one the signs of success) with our boundaries of knowledge? That because of our obsession with prestasi it has limited our understandings of what constitutes as valuable knowledge and hence helped the proliferation of some forms of ignorance.
Let me start off by quoting a couple of passages from the book that I personally find amusing and connects well with what influences my understanding of success taught in schools and Indonesiaâs education system in general and heavily endorsed by mainstream society:
ââPrestasiâ is a key word in the everyday discourse of young people, and of schools. It is hard to find an exact English equivalent. Sometimes it is translated into English as âachievementsâ (e.g. Long 2007) and sometimes as âperformanceâ. Prestasi means both to achieve and to perform and to gain some form of public recognition for both; and it can refer to a quantity of achievements as well as to individual awards. So students commonly say that they chose such-and-such a school because it had âlots of achievementsâ (banyak prestasi); teachers showing visitors around a school will show off the prestasi, which are commonly trophies won by school students or teams for a host of academic and extra-curricular competitions.âÂ
I would be lying to myself if in the past I did not want to be that kid with prestasi or more precisely banyak prestasi (lots of achievements). But I was heavily conflicted during my secondary school years and to a certain extent, although it waned quite a lot, nearing the end of my undergraduate university years. There was without doubt deep seated jealousy towards my peers who achieved a lot, especially prior to my undergraduate years. I didnât hate them but wanted to become like them and I was frustrated I couldnât be. I felt that I wasnât smart enough or talented enough but I wanted to be like them. Especially with having my walls glittered with trophies and awards. I understood though that this wasnât particularly the achievements that I wanted, what I wanted was respect, I wanted to be idolized, I wanted to be seen as useful much like everyone else that has prestasi. Thatâs what people promised you, especially teachers and parents, when youâre encouraged to get more prestasi. This reminds me of another phrase you hear a lot in Indonesia, âberguna bagi bangsa dan negaraâ, âuseful for nation and countryâ. And while weâre on the topic of trophies and awards Parker & Nilan makes another point with prestasi:
âSome students seem to specialize in collecting prestasi. A clever student can accumulate a shelf full of gold and silver trophies, in a range of disciplines, and some carefully target particularly prized prestasi. The collective prestasi that they accumulate can be seen as cultural capital (Bourdieu and Passeron 1977 [1990]; Bourdieu 1985).â
If a studentâs focus is merely on prestasi, which in Indonesia can definitely be obtained through the emphasis of the mechanical memorization of knowledge, can we actually say that they are learning though? Learning I believe is much more than mere memorization, it is about understanding the knowledge acquired which then opens its doors to critique. I donât think Indonesiaâs education system encourages this type of learning. I might sound like a pessimist here, but I was just merely reflecting on my school years. The need to memorize dates, people, numbers, definitions, that was what my education was mostly about. Rarely more. Just typical rote memorization.
Although I wanted prestasi, yet on the other hand, the things I had to achieve, the things that I had to value in order to gain prestasi didnât really seem much of an achievement for me. This is why I was conflicted with prestasi. They were not the cultural capitals I wanted to have. Because you couldnât just gain an achievement in anything, it needed to have value in society. What is valued by society isnât automatically valued highly by me. Iâm looking at Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology Olympiads or competitions, religious competitions of doing something religious often memorizing religious verses (the contemporary development of the competitive nature of religion is also interesting to note showing how capitalist ideas have penetrated the so-called sanctity of religion), taking an active role in the governmentâs development projects, etc, etc the list goes on.
I have nothing against STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) subjects, I actually do love them. I spent my youth learning heaps about tree rings and the cosmos that is infinitely thrilling if not mind-boggling. The uneven attention given more to STEM in the recent years is what I have a problem with. There needs to be balance between disciplinary knowledges in order for both to fully function for the benefit of humanity. The imbalance causes havoc, destruction or even inaction.Â
If youâre wondering about social sciences and the arts in Indonesia, well social sciences and the arts have played a downsized role in Indonesia. It started in the late 70s/early 80s, with the education curriculum rolled out by Soehartoâs oppressive regime that wanted to produce citizens that were more in line with the countryâs development and nation building projects. Much like any other authoritarian government, the citizen must support the government, and what better way to indoctrinate this conviction and also normalizing it, other than through an education system?
This mind set has stayed on in the minds of many even after the downfall of Soeharto in 1998. One example was how recently the government scaled back the number of recipients for its notable government funded scholarships (LPDP) for social sciences and arts degrees, which was already considerably lower than government scholarships for hard sciences to begin with. Further revealing what kind of knowledge that is valued in todayâs Indonesian society and thus helping to further define the religious and technocratic nature of prestasi. I guess having socially critical citizens doesnât help especially when the government is steam rolling their capitalist development schemes. This is not the kind of prestasi the nation needs.
Here we can see again how prestasi is not simply to achieve, but to achieve within the guidelines, the framework of society and of the government. It is also not about simply gaining prestasi itself, but through prestasi it is to have us embrace what is valued by the many and scoffing at the actualizations of the self especially when it is not aligned to the ideals of the nation state, even if we see it as important if not more important than the kinds of knowledge that is pushed by society.
The sole focus on getting awards or getting good grades in school often doesnât translate into knowledge which I value and I think is needed within a society, especially in managing its social relations, even more so in a religiously, ethnically, racially diverse society such as Indonesia. To have knowledge of the inner workings of society, knowledge of the self, not just morally but also existentially, and the ability to be critical, or what the Marxist educator Paulo Freire terms as critical consciousness. To have a critical awareness towards the self and society around you. I think this is valuable and Indonesia is severely absent of this knowledge within the everyday life.
I never got this in an education system which just pounded me in order to do well in my Ujian Nasional (UN) or national exams. I understood that to do good in your national exams is to have one the highest forms of prestasi. Prestasi is like money though, I understood that as well. It can get you into places, meet important people, and perhaps even exchange that into money through being able to get a job. But at the same time, I felt that the system robbed me years of my life of which I couldâve learned more, much more of the world. One last thing that is crucial in prestasi is that, in which I struggle heavily with is: âThe aspect of public recognition is important.â
âPublic recognition is crucial. The achievement of prestasi requires an audience that similarly values the achievement - âhidden prestasi is an oxymoronâ (Boellstorff 2004: 368). Further, prestasi requires competitors since these are very public performances - just achieving a good mark in an exam is not sufficient. In other words, prestasi points to culture of competition and acknowledgement. In West Sumatra, the local papers always report on educational prestasi, invariably mentioning the names of schools, principals and teachers - and of course the winning students become local heroes.Â
Prestasi is only half useful if no one knows about it. The saying âif a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?â can be aptly used here. This goes well with our self-image loving self. Thatâs why Instagram and other forms of social media is just infinitely loved in Indonesia. Social media presents us with the constant opportunity to show what weâve got. Including of course our prestasi. Is it right, is it wrong? I donât know, nor do I care but I do question of what does is it say about the things we value most? And why do we value those things? Iâm contemplating whether it only further aggravates resentment within an immensely unequal society.
Can I then link Indonesiaâs infatuation towards prestasi with some forms of ignorance?Â
If the elements of prestasi is ultimately defined by the state and society, then following from this logic, the knowledge that is gained through prestasi is also limited to what the state and society values. For instance, having the critical knowledge to look at structural inequalities would be a prestasi for me, but getting awards by supporting the governmentâs development project would be something that Indonesiaâs increasingly technocratic, religious, left fearing society would probably value more.Â
I know Pierre Bourdieu, as well as Michael Young in his book Knowledge and Control: New Directions for the Sociology of Education has slightly touched on what and why some forms of disciplinary knowledge are more powerful than others. However, it would be very illuminating if a study is conducted in Indonesia on how we value knowledge is ultimately defined by its ability to be translated into economic value within society. âShould knowledge always have an economic benefit in it?â, is a question that I often use to spring some contentious and emotive discussions.
Taking all these questions and ideas into mind (that I feel is going somewhat nowhere with this blog post), I wonder if schooling had actually taught me knowledge that I needed for the everyday relationships in life, I would have been able to act on my empathy? I would have a bit more certainty with my actions towards those around me? Would I have acted differently when my dadâs mother died?Â
What would happen if an education system emphasized heavily on empathy, issues of inequality, activist citizens and of course the arts, as a basis of what is seen as valuable and powerful knowledge? I love playing with âwhat ifsâ, with utopian thinking. I just finished Utopia for Realists and How We can Get There by Rutger Bregman and early in 2017 I read a lovely short book Four Futures by Peter Frase, so iâve been getting my utopian fix from them lately and few other short readings as well. Thereâs one quote that I like in Bregmanâs book, which he uses to open his last chapter, a quote from the Latin American writer Eduardo Galeano, âUtopia is on the horizon. I move two steps closer; it moves two steps further away. I walk another ten steps and the horizon runs ten steps further away. As much as may walk, Iâll never reach it. So whatâs the point of utopia? The point is this: to keep walking.â Thatâs a pretty encouraging quote.
When I look at how Indonesiaâs education system works I feel that there is a crisis in place. It is our approach to knowledge that needs to be looked at, to be scrutinized heavily on why we learn the things we learn in schools. What is the purpose of education and what is the logic behind the answer we give.Â
The Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser reminds us âof course, not every crisis contains in itself, of itself, the promise of a new future and liberation.âThis is not something that will pass unless a different mode of thinking is undertaken. The centrality of education is apparent in almost anything we do as individuals. Politics, the economy, nationhood, everyday lives, you name it, education is at the center along with other elements in constructing the individual.Â
We Indonesians, similar to what Eduardo Galeano has said of Latin America, are an âintimate land condemned to amnesia.â It is through education that we can remind ourselves of our humanity, what has been taken away from us, and what future we can construct together. I believe we canât achieve this with our current approach to education, where everything is simply about competition, about raising our economic value, and about blindly assimilating to a growingly conservative society. We need to think differently about the purpose of education, about our approach to what being educated means or else itâs a slow and painful death through state sponsored ignorance and weâre witnessing it live as everything burns slowly to the ground.
Iâm heading back to Indonesia in a few months, and will be there for a bit. I canât wait to mess things around again. 2018 is going to be fun.
