Jakarta Demopolis
[...]
A unique mass protest happened in May 2003 when Indonesia’s Islamic clerics and organizations banned Inul Daratista, a singer, from performing because her gyrating hip movement, which Indonesians call “drilling,” is considered to be pornographic and forbidden by Islam. Inul is a young woman who has taken dangdut, a unique cross-cultural blend of Arabic, Indian and Malay music – once denigrated as the music of the lower classes – to the center stage of national entertainment. By singing songs primarily identified with the “little people,” she captured Indonesians’ imagination, making her an instant icon of the people and a symbol of freedom. When she was banned, many social groups stood up to defend her and protested against those clerics and organizations (Suryakusuma 2003). On 3 May 2003, with mobilization mainly taking place via the Internet and cellular phones, one feminist group called upon hundreds of people to gather at the main roundabout of Jakarta – the HI roundabout – to support Inul. A number of Indonesian women even performed a three-minute “drilling” dance during this demonstration (Waspada 2003).
[...] civil society and society are plural and diverse. The city is the melting pot of diverse elements that provides the material for the otherness of visibly different identity groups. While these material manifestations of otherness can enrich the city’s social and cultural wealth, unfortunately, some of these diverse groups are each drawn into themselves, nursing their anger against the others. In this regard, nevertheless, as Sennett (1970: 162) argues, by bringing them together in the forums of expression in civic spaces, the conflicts expressed will be increased but the possibility of an eventual explosion of violence will be decreased.
Echoing Sennett’s attention to disorder and conflict in space, Lefebvre suggests that the possibility of violent dispute may well be the chief democratic virtue of city life. He argues that liberty engenders contradictions which are also spatial contradictions; “urban conditions, either despite of on by virtue of violence, still, tend to uphold at least a measure of democracy” (1991: 139). Therefore, in the chaotic demopolis of Jakarta, the awakening of civic spaces gives a sign of hope that democracy will rise; yet, there still is a long way to go. The actors in the city, especially the state and civil society, should work together in creating more civic spaces, as well as keeping existing civic spaces tolerant, safe and inclusive.
….excerpt of “Transient Civic Spaces in Jakarta Demopolis”. Click to read the whole article.
*the picture above is a courtesy of http://www.commondreams.org/views03/images/0514-01.jpg
9 Comments so far
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THANKS!
I’m going to read all of it first, digest it and come back to it later.
Jerry.
PS: Did I ever say that you’re great? No? Well, you are.
mer: you’re so generous in your comments, as always. can you read my mind? if you can, you’d be flattered to know what i think about you
By colson on 01.27.08 1:56 am
I was very proud of those ladies when they did that in 2003. It is really something to express the most basic human rights in such graphic acts.
Who is it to decide what is decent and what is not. Certainly not government, clerics or even organizations.
You are also right on the spot that democracy will exist only when tolerance and safety of expressing oneself is guaranteed.
Great post, as always.
mer: me, too! i wished to have joined them. thanks.
By Andie Summerkiss on 01.28.08 11:03 am
Language of the Body & Body Language
Compare the language of the body of Inul, Britney, Shakira, Rhoma Irama
and our daily body language……
mer: would you please do the comparative analysis, then?
By nemo on 02.01.08 7:59 pm
Your article reads like a short novel. I love it. It made me curious about the other chapters.
No doubt chapter 11 has been instructive to me. You taught me one or two things about recent history in Indonesia. And about the significance of urban space to the relation of governments, regimes, activists, special interests, popular movements, social cohesion and disruption, conflict and appeasement. This was, to me at least, a new perspective. Interesting, fascinating.
I wonder if these concepts could be applied to recent history in my home country. This made me ramble away.
I’m sorry, but I can’t stop it. So here I go.
For instance something which took place in the mid sixties. A frivolous band of playful anarchist by the name of “Provo” in Amsterdam, took the then rigid officials off guard. They did so by creating small “happenings”, like dancing around a statue at the “Leidseplein”. It changed the municipal and national establishment into an “order of distress”. They reacted violently and in the porcess lost control. Especially in Amsterdam the Provo’s stages their creative actions at any place of the city - leaving the authorities totally confused.
But some fifteen years on a new equilibrium had been established. Demonstrations get directed now to spaces which officially are for that purpose. So mass demonstrations have been directed to the “Museumplein” in Amsterdam (very much organized, very easy to control) or the “Malieveld” in The Hague ( same story: very much organized, very much under control). In the nineties a kind of new order had been re-established. Not as rigid as in the fifties, no more as flexible as during the seventies either.
In the late sixties and seventies authorities were puzzled and all streets were open to those who wanted to make themselves heard (Feminists, homosexuals, antiwaractivists (Spain), anti Apartheid (South Africa) anticolonialism (Angola), antifascists (Portugal, Spain, Chile, Argentina). And they used the opportunity. Some some of them - homosexuals and feminists- very successfully. We owe our liberal laws to them.
But afterwards new structures arose. Even as early as ‘83 -when I myself demonstrated in The Hague (indeed: the Malieveld) against the deployment of nuclear weapons in the country- the demonstration was huge, but in retrospect very harmless and structured. The communication between governments and civilians had been ritualized once more - only designated places can be used for demonstrations.
Last time I participated - a few years ago- the event was in Amsterdam ( indeed: Museumplein). It was about social security. Once more it was only officials on one side ( the unions) demonstrating to the officials on the other side ( the national government) they had the support of the grass roots. A long shot from the spontaneousness of Provo.
It’s a cliché, I know. Nevertheless it seems the right conclusion: the interdependence between ( even small) changes in the relationship between government and civilians on the one hand and the use of civic spaces on the other, is of all places and all times. Whether the civil society has matured or not.
mer: thanks for sharing, Colson. what i love about your comments is that I always learn something from them. i didn’t know such stories about Malieveld… it’s interesting to see that over centuries, even with changes in political system, the state seems to always try to recapture the civic spaces, either through force or regulations / soft-control (such as by designating places to hold protests). doing historical research/analysis on civic spaces in Dutch cities would be fun — interested to be my partner?
By colson on 02.02.08 5:45 am
Thank you very much, Professor, for the link to your full paper in this blog. glad to find it and read its robustness. it is very interesting article, really i like it. and i love it, though it really made me drool a lot because of my very crude political sense with very poor of my political insight.
I can not hold on to imagine precisely how the transient nature — that’s like ’spike’ in the delta-dirac function — of civic space can transform all ‘political artifacts’ that — like tempe and tahu — evidently have a temporal extent in the history of indonesian socio-politics?
How then the indonesian ‘political artifacts’ that placed intelligently in the space and, therefore, has a very sentimental meaning and historically has a temporal extent transformed in the ephemeral, provisional, transient civic space by the short-term policy and rapid process that abruptly changes in the name of political power that evidently boosts the spatial actions?
Very interesting! Thank you very much, Prof.
By HP on 02.05.08 6:15 am
Just to review your two last posting. The only very first and impressive lesson that I got ready in thought from the study of ‘ilmu kewarganegaraan’ stated presumably that politics is context-dependent — it seems like quantum phase of the fermion particle; it can not be determined and understood by itself — because of their anti-symmetric eigen-state function :). And this becomes apparent when I read in your article that “space is inherently political; politics is inherently spatial”, etc., because space by itself — in retrospect to the theory of spacetime relativity — has no independent meaning that can reach anything by virtue of independent reality unless it express the historically temporal extent in ‘everything’ that materially embedded in it.
It seems inlined with your previous posting about tempe, and so the ‘political artifacts’ that placed intelligently in the space has a very sentimental meaning politically because it can be read in historically temporal extent on the bigger map, not only can be read in the spatially provisional manner of space.
It’s really very interesting.
It seems also very interesting to me — at the very aestetical sense or even in ontological ground, that the theory of spacetime realitivity can also be understood “in the light of hope for democracy” — the term i found from your conclusion — with the material ground can be embedded in it from the historical and socio-political phase of sucessive shifts, again suggested from your paper, etc.
mer: thank you for your comments! i’m so glad to read them.. they’re so enlightening! i found it interesting that you are always able to find a parallel of socio-political concepts in your own domain of knowledge. hey thanks for mentioning “quantum phase of the fermion particle; it can not be determined and understood by itself”. now i can understand a little bit more about it by the parallel you brought up here. i agree that ‘politics is context-dependent’ (hey, that’s a very good term!!) and by saying so, we would find that the causality between one political decision / policy with a certain phenomenon would never be static or linear, especially when projected upon the space-time dimension…. many thanks, HP… you should be in my class — co-teaching with me:)
By HP on 02.05.08 6:31 am
isnt drilling another term for sex?
mer: nope, not in this context.
By puppett on 02.06.08 10:37 pm
@mer: You’ve flattered me; it’s the first time in my (rather long) life I’ve been proposed to by a lady…In a moment when I am off guard, I just might say yes…
mer: haha…. i meant “research partner”, Hr vanden Brink
By colson on 02.11.08 1:36 am
@mer: Okay, did you really?
Well, I need not change my answer. I might be tempted.
mer: great
By colson on 02.11.08 7:29 am
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