A Free & Democratic Gathering
Jakarta, Indonesia
Look at this: a crowd of spirited young Muslims—many dressed in Islamic clothing—men in topi hats & dishdashah robes, women in colorful hijab, even a few in burqas—all facing forward with great intensity at a kind of political rally: smiling & laughing.
The smiling & laughing crowd of young Muslims is not an image I tend to see reported. Not even here.
In April we spent a wild evening at a ‘free & democratic’ gathering around Emha Ainun Nadjib, a self-styled man of the people. Emha—which is a nickname for Mohammad—is many things. A public intellectual, poet, musician & sastrawan (a man of letters).
Emha was a major literary player in the 1980s, counseling artists to keep their work politically relevant at a time when the regime was de-politicizing everything, censorship—even self-censorship—was at its height, & civil society stripped of its teeth.
Now, some describe him as a kind of Islamic self-help guru. He carries himself with the battle-worn calm of someone accustomed to decades of political rallying amongst The People—the kooks & the conscientious alike. To most appearances, he’s an older hippie & to listen to his straight, scrubbed young crowd, he’s hilarious. These meetings go all night.
Several hundred came to see him at this monthly Jakarta gathering, most seated on tarps laid out before an unevenly lit, low stage. Cross-legged around him sit Emha’s merry band of disciples, ranging from clownish punks with guitars who seem there for comic relief, to an intense, blond Englishman who follows Emha everywhere, writing his biography.
Some wore Emha’s signature t-shirt: “Kafir Liberal”—Liberal Unbeliever. This is a rare appearance of irony in typically unironic Indonesia, for Emha is decidedly, even ardently religious, as are his crowds. The t-shirt is making a point that we might make here in the US: That being a liberal doesn’t mean you are godless; that being a believer doesn’t mean you are a hard-line conservative.
On the Spot: a cultural exchange
Then Emha recognized our companion, DCK, ‘the American music-girl’ (ethno-musicologist) who’d once traveled with him, observing him academically as a kind of cultural phenomenon. With fond enthusiasm, he brought her up onto the stage to sit with the cool kids. She was the only woman up there. The only woman to speak all evening.
This was sort of fun until he handed her the microphone, asked her to stand up in front of the entire crowd, & extemporize—as an American—her thoughts on Democracy in Indonesia, on this 'free & democratic' gathering, on religion in Indonesia as compared to America... Yeah. Ready, set: go.
The audience fell silent & leaned forward.
I nearly imploded with sympathetic stage fright.
He might like DCK, but it’s well known that Emha is no fan of America. The word “America” came up a lot all evening. HOWEVER, I couldn’t help but notice that Emha had now flanked himself with a fawning Brit & a very pretty, bona fide American, both hanging on his words. No coincidence, that. His street creds had just shot sky high.
It’s clear why many people are here. For one, they’re brimming with the ideals of a young democracy (recall Indonesia made its own transition from dictatorship to democracy in 1999), & they want to be part of making their country work. There’s a lot of frustration with the ways their own newly decentralized government is struggling.
Also, many are dismayed at the image of Islam on the world stage, feeling themselves grouped by association with terrorists. They're eager to show by their efforts that Islam--real Islam--is a genuinely higher path. To remain uninvolved is to give the violent images unrivaled reign.
“Islam,” one tremulously earnest audience member on his turn with the microphone informed us Americans: “Islam is a religion of peace. Thank you.” Then sat down.
We all want to be good citizens of our respective countries. We want to make things better in the world, but at the end of the day that’s a hopelessly vague desire. How can we be constructive when the people making headlines are the people setting bombs? How can we be active when the world is this big & complicated? We are looking for leaders---for heroes---in a world where a hero’s perfection is both required & impossible.
Not that Emha is giving them much of a roadmap. This is a democratic gathering, remember. He’s intentionally avoiding the dictator-father figure, who tells us children what to do. Much as we might appreciate it.
These gatherings are more like revivals, energizing a generation to ‘be involved’. Whatever I’m idly conjecturing about Emha’s motives in putting DKC on the spot (which he has done & she has obliged many times before) (“Once he made me dance,” she said), I suspect it does do some good letting people see & hear an actual, unpolished, Christian American.
If seeing smiling & laughing crowds of politicized young Muslims is rare for us, consider how rare it is for Indonesians to see a hip young American on the spot, one who has taken the trouble not only to come here, but to learn their language, to know their songs & heroes, & now to address them as regular people with a common interest, endorsing their free & democratic gathering.
It didn’t really matter what she said or how nervous & halting she was, or that in her stage fright she lost her Indonesian & the British biographer had to translate; just being there at all meant a lot.
Still, people also wanted to hear what she had to say. After all: everyone knows Americans are godless free-love imperialists who overthrow governments because we love oil & hate Islam, which is equivalent to saying we hate morality. Right? So no pressure. People are just a little curious about those stories, if nothing stronger. But they wanted her to hear them, too. They want to tell an American, & by extension America, things like: I am not a terrorist.
The silence for her was extra intense.
After prodding her to comment on local & global politics & religion for an achingly long time, Emha turned her straight over to questions from the audience.
The very first question was an old, indignant koan from the 1950s, essentially asking this: Indonesia is poor in technology, but rich in spirituality. It has a deep, religious understanding of how important it is to strive for a place in the afterlife. America is technology-rich but spiritually poor. Could she account for that? Did anyone in America give any thought to the afterlife, what with all our riches & holier-than-thou technology?
Hmm....
"I'm really glad you asked that," she began, stalling to collect her thoughts. Back in the day, DCK had been tracked to become a Lutheran minister. She emphasized for the audience—as a positive—that in fact America is a VERY Christian country & much more religious than people in Indonesia realize. George Bush himself, she continued, is a deeply religious man & openly concerned with the afterlife. And so forth.
All things considered, she handled it pretty well. I have to confess, though: I’d never thought of those as reassuring facts, to say nothing of ones I might offer to a Muslim crowd.
No Harm Will Come
The ideals at work here are admirable, but as the British interpreter warned us at the start: be careful. All kinds of people show up at these gatherings & not everyone is altruistic or peaceful. Emha’s dislike of America might be rhetorical & progressive, but for others it’s militant. The interpreter warned us to keep our eyes open while we were in the crowd.
I did. For a little while. Then people kept laughing & DCK got the microphone & I kind of forgot about all that.
When DCK finally left the stage, well over an hour later, Emha—in Indonesian & English—gave her his personal benediction & a careful, instructive guarantee that no harm would come to her at this gathering.
No harm would come to her? I sat up & looked around. The whole gathering snapped into a new focus. All of sudden I had to remember that even here I might be a target because of my nationality. The stage is always much bigger than the one in lights. Sometimes I forget that I'm on it, too.
Right on this cue, 2 young Muslim guys approached me on the outskirts, in the dark, & asked if I was an American. It was about 1 am. Then, as sheepishly as can be, they asked if I would please practice English with them.
One kafir liberal to another? Things like this are signs. When you receive such a sign, it is important to say yes.
I had a map of the US in my calendar & they excitedly drew a map of Indonesia in my notebook. We talked in simple language about our homes. When one drew a circle inside the blob representing the island of Sumatra, I said: “Lake Toba!” (a place I’d very much hoped to visit) & all by itself this made his day. He was so happy. He couldn’t believe it: an American knew lake Toba, his home.
Even such simple exchanges do something good in the world, I think. It’s not enough to change the course of history, but maybe it’s enough to change some minds. Tonight anyway, 3 more of us told good stories about the others' kind.
DCK was in fact gently mobbed afterwards, but only by cautious guys who wanted her autograph (& phone number), & to take her picture with their phone cameras as the famous American who knew Emha. Stars in their eyes.
Being an American is a complicated thing.
Look at this: a crowd of spirited young Muslims—many dressed in Islamic clothing—men in topi hats & dishdashah robes, women in colorful hijab, even a few in burqas—all facing forward with great intensity at a kind of political rally: smiling & laughing.
The smiling & laughing crowd of young Muslims is not an image I tend to see reported. Not even here.
In April we spent a wild evening at a ‘free & democratic’ gathering around Emha Ainun Nadjib, a self-styled man of the people. Emha—which is a nickname for Mohammad—is many things. A public intellectual, poet, musician & sastrawan (a man of letters).
Emha was a major literary player in the 1980s, counseling artists to keep their work politically relevant at a time when the regime was de-politicizing everything, censorship—even self-censorship—was at its height, & civil society stripped of its teeth.
Now, some describe him as a kind of Islamic self-help guru. He carries himself with the battle-worn calm of someone accustomed to decades of political rallying amongst The People—the kooks & the conscientious alike. To most appearances, he’s an older hippie & to listen to his straight, scrubbed young crowd, he’s hilarious. These meetings go all night.
Several hundred came to see him at this monthly Jakarta gathering, most seated on tarps laid out before an unevenly lit, low stage. Cross-legged around him sit Emha’s merry band of disciples, ranging from clownish punks with guitars who seem there for comic relief, to an intense, blond Englishman who follows Emha everywhere, writing his biography.
Some wore Emha’s signature t-shirt: “Kafir Liberal”—Liberal Unbeliever. This is a rare appearance of irony in typically unironic Indonesia, for Emha is decidedly, even ardently religious, as are his crowds. The t-shirt is making a point that we might make here in the US: That being a liberal doesn’t mean you are godless; that being a believer doesn’t mean you are a hard-line conservative.
On the Spot: a cultural exchange
Then Emha recognized our companion, DCK, ‘the American music-girl’ (ethno-musicologist) who’d once traveled with him, observing him academically as a kind of cultural phenomenon. With fond enthusiasm, he brought her up onto the stage to sit with the cool kids. She was the only woman up there. The only woman to speak all evening.
This was sort of fun until he handed her the microphone, asked her to stand up in front of the entire crowd, & extemporize—as an American—her thoughts on Democracy in Indonesia, on this 'free & democratic' gathering, on religion in Indonesia as compared to America... Yeah. Ready, set: go.
The audience fell silent & leaned forward.
I nearly imploded with sympathetic stage fright.
Emha (white shirt, left) & DCK at the microphone in Jakarta
T-shirt on the right reads: 'The Romans had their gods...'
T-shirt on the right reads: 'The Romans had their gods...'
He might like DCK, but it’s well known that Emha is no fan of America. The word “America” came up a lot all evening. HOWEVER, I couldn’t help but notice that Emha had now flanked himself with a fawning Brit & a very pretty, bona fide American, both hanging on his words. No coincidence, that. His street creds had just shot sky high.
It’s clear why many people are here. For one, they’re brimming with the ideals of a young democracy (recall Indonesia made its own transition from dictatorship to democracy in 1999), & they want to be part of making their country work. There’s a lot of frustration with the ways their own newly decentralized government is struggling.
Also, many are dismayed at the image of Islam on the world stage, feeling themselves grouped by association with terrorists. They're eager to show by their efforts that Islam--real Islam--is a genuinely higher path. To remain uninvolved is to give the violent images unrivaled reign.
“Islam,” one tremulously earnest audience member on his turn with the microphone informed us Americans: “Islam is a religion of peace. Thank you.” Then sat down.
We all want to be good citizens of our respective countries. We want to make things better in the world, but at the end of the day that’s a hopelessly vague desire. How can we be constructive when the people making headlines are the people setting bombs? How can we be active when the world is this big & complicated? We are looking for leaders---for heroes---in a world where a hero’s perfection is both required & impossible.
Not that Emha is giving them much of a roadmap. This is a democratic gathering, remember. He’s intentionally avoiding the dictator-father figure, who tells us children what to do. Much as we might appreciate it.
These gatherings are more like revivals, energizing a generation to ‘be involved’. Whatever I’m idly conjecturing about Emha’s motives in putting DKC on the spot (which he has done & she has obliged many times before) (“Once he made me dance,” she said), I suspect it does do some good letting people see & hear an actual, unpolished, Christian American.
If seeing smiling & laughing crowds of politicized young Muslims is rare for us, consider how rare it is for Indonesians to see a hip young American on the spot, one who has taken the trouble not only to come here, but to learn their language, to know their songs & heroes, & now to address them as regular people with a common interest, endorsing their free & democratic gathering.
It didn’t really matter what she said or how nervous & halting she was, or that in her stage fright she lost her Indonesian & the British biographer had to translate; just being there at all meant a lot.
Still, people also wanted to hear what she had to say. After all: everyone knows Americans are godless free-love imperialists who overthrow governments because we love oil & hate Islam, which is equivalent to saying we hate morality. Right? So no pressure. People are just a little curious about those stories, if nothing stronger. But they wanted her to hear them, too. They want to tell an American, & by extension America, things like: I am not a terrorist.
The silence for her was extra intense.
After prodding her to comment on local & global politics & religion for an achingly long time, Emha turned her straight over to questions from the audience.
The very first question was an old, indignant koan from the 1950s, essentially asking this: Indonesia is poor in technology, but rich in spirituality. It has a deep, religious understanding of how important it is to strive for a place in the afterlife. America is technology-rich but spiritually poor. Could she account for that? Did anyone in America give any thought to the afterlife, what with all our riches & holier-than-thou technology?
Hmm....
"I'm really glad you asked that," she began, stalling to collect her thoughts. Back in the day, DCK had been tracked to become a Lutheran minister. She emphasized for the audience—as a positive—that in fact America is a VERY Christian country & much more religious than people in Indonesia realize. George Bush himself, she continued, is a deeply religious man & openly concerned with the afterlife. And so forth.
All things considered, she handled it pretty well. I have to confess, though: I’d never thought of those as reassuring facts, to say nothing of ones I might offer to a Muslim crowd.
No Harm Will Come
The ideals at work here are admirable, but as the British interpreter warned us at the start: be careful. All kinds of people show up at these gatherings & not everyone is altruistic or peaceful. Emha’s dislike of America might be rhetorical & progressive, but for others it’s militant. The interpreter warned us to keep our eyes open while we were in the crowd.
I did. For a little while. Then people kept laughing & DCK got the microphone & I kind of forgot about all that.
When DCK finally left the stage, well over an hour later, Emha—in Indonesian & English—gave her his personal benediction & a careful, instructive guarantee that no harm would come to her at this gathering.
No harm would come to her? I sat up & looked around. The whole gathering snapped into a new focus. All of sudden I had to remember that even here I might be a target because of my nationality. The stage is always much bigger than the one in lights. Sometimes I forget that I'm on it, too.
Right on this cue, 2 young Muslim guys approached me on the outskirts, in the dark, & asked if I was an American. It was about 1 am. Then, as sheepishly as can be, they asked if I would please practice English with them.
One kafir liberal to another? Things like this are signs. When you receive such a sign, it is important to say yes.
I had a map of the US in my calendar & they excitedly drew a map of Indonesia in my notebook. We talked in simple language about our homes. When one drew a circle inside the blob representing the island of Sumatra, I said: “Lake Toba!” (a place I’d very much hoped to visit) & all by itself this made his day. He was so happy. He couldn’t believe it: an American knew lake Toba, his home.
Even such simple exchanges do something good in the world, I think. It’s not enough to change the course of history, but maybe it’s enough to change some minds. Tonight anyway, 3 more of us told good stories about the others' kind.
DCK was in fact gently mobbed afterwards, but only by cautious guys who wanted her autograph (& phone number), & to take her picture with their phone cameras as the famous American who knew Emha. Stars in their eyes.
Being an American is a complicated thing.
posted by Anne E. Campisi at 5:49 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home