My personal note induced by the terrorist bombing

I miss the old Indonesian way

I remember I used to secretely admire my mother when she was fixing herself in front of the mirror getting ready for a wedding reception. She would be wearing a set of kebaya[1], with the old fashion traditional hair do of gelungan[2]. That was like 20 years ago, nobody I know is doing that now.

I was born in Kediri, a middle size town in East Java, with cool breeze and delicious food specialties. In our nearby mosque I had my afternoon religion school after morning public school. Houses from where one could clearly hear adzan[3] would all be gravitated towards this mosque for a lot more activities than just for prayers. Especially, Ramadhan was really fun. People would organize themselves to bring foods in turn for ta’jilan[4]. I don’t know why the ta’jilan foods always tasted better than foods at home. My mother joined pengajian[5], which seemed to be fun with art-related activities, such as qasidah and barzanzi.

Then we moved to Solo, bigger city where my father was born. A unique city later I know is full of contradictions. I still continued the old habit of going to ordinary public school in the morning and religion school in the afternoon for some times. But the teacher and the teaching are different. My citing for prayers would then become different than that of my parents’. Other things changed too. We are not allowed to celebrate weton[6], nyewu[7], and so on, because that would be bid’ah[8] some said.

When I was in my high school, religious student group in school was getting more influencing. So I refrained from participating in sport class when they scheduled swimming. I stopped greeting Christmas to my Christian friends, because the Islamic student group launched boycott against those things. Following these I felt like I was doing something "right" according to the religion. Religion equals God I thought, so I felt the "ghirah", spirit/enthusiasm.

My aunt on the other hand, was another kind of Solonese. I lived with her for one year or so, so I noticed she was not doing 5 times a day prayers. She was a Batik painter, and she wore kebaya and jarit[9] on daily basis. She referred God as the one who’s painting red to chilies (and I thought it was amazingly true). She was fasting in different way, not necessarily during Ramadhan like us, and she hung a calendar from Pangestu[10]. She was a really kind, gentle and loving person. But still, since we thought she was not like us, we used to feel sad about her.

Last year my big family went to Taman Mini[11], and we watched a 3-dimensional movie in Keong Mas made in 80’s. There I could not help but thinking how different we had become. We have changed so much from the 80's Indonesia. Not only the development in the infrastructure, thank God we do have it some, but we also changed the way we dress, and the way we see people around us. Nobody wears traditional clothes anymore, we even criticize about school keeping in the backward culture when they insist children to wear kebaya during Kartini day[12].

Year by year this nation is changing. I was hoping that the change somehow would lead to something more substantial, the behavior. Yet I am seeing only changing in physicality, in clothes. We still rank top in corruption, we are still consumer and not producer, not even a smart follower, of world’s culture. If we used to complain against blind "westernization", I wonder why we should feel differently for the same thing of "middle-easternization" we are having now. We used to learn in elementary school how beautiful and rich Indonesia is. A country of friendly society and a unity in diversity. I want to be able to live in that beautiful notion again.

[1] Traditional Javanese style costume
[2] Traditional Javanese style of hair do
[3] Calling for 5 times-a-day prayer
[4] Food served in mosque for breaking Fast
[5] Religious study group/Quran reading group
[6] Birthday in Javanese calendar system
[7] 1000th day commemoration after one’s passed away
[8] Syncretism (?)
[9] A traditional batik cloth usually worn as bottom pair of kebaya.
[10] A Javanese spiritualism group, who practice monotheism but is not referred to any modern/mainstream religion
[11] Miniature Park of Indonesia
[12] A commemoration of Kartini birthday, who pioneered women emancipation in Java. A Muslim, dresses in traditional Javanese costume. On Kartini day, students used to hold festival and dress in various Indonesian ethnic clothes.