Schooled! in Bahasa Indonesia

I have had some very impressively intellectual encounters with Indonesians lately. I cannot claim to be a person who naturally gets into deep political or socio-economical conversations unless the setting is ripe. Say, four years at Carleton. But these opportunities to discuss politics or inequalities have become even more rare in Indonesia. I skim the surface of cheating and corruption when I talk with teachers at my school. This skimming the surface is partially because their response is often “This is Indonesia, Miss” (many people I know express this fatalism) and partially because I lack the vocabulary to express myself well. I explain to neighbors that yes, there are poor people in America but it is manifest differently. (But when they hear that some poor people in America still have cars, I lose them). As for in-depth conversations about the things that should really matter, I haven’t really gotten the chance to do that with many people. Namely, these conversations take place during the few times a year I gather with other PC volunteers.

However, last month. Oh man, last month. I woke up on the first day of Ramadhan break and I was like, “Man, I gotta get outta here for a few days! 2 weeks of sitting in the desa (village) with not much to do and people fasting for one of those weeks = brief prospects of interesting things for me to do.” So I hit up my activist feminist friends in Mojokerto and asked if I could come stay with them for a few days.

 

Nining

Nining and Risky

This blog post is dedicated to the Indonesians mentioned in the stories below. To Nining, Risky, Hari and Faridi. Thank you for humbling me and keeping me on my toes. Just because the USA is a powerful country and I have a top US education doesn’t mean that I am better than you or necessarily know more about what is really important. After all, who gets to decide what is really important, anyways?? 

INTELLECTUAL ENCOUNTER #1

I travelled around Mojokerto with them, including observing a demonstration of theirs. Some background about them first. Nining is 34 and married to Hari, also in his mid-30s. They are both working on their Masters Degrees in law. They work with Risky, a 19 year old currently in college. Nining and Riski are in charge of a women’s empowerment group in Mojokerto called Perempuan Mahardhika. It’s an NGO that gathers a few times a month to discuss women’s rights and educate women on a range of things, including their rights, health, etc.

In addition to leading this NGO, Nining, Hari and Risky are full time activists. AKA they have no jobs. They attend school, work at a café that Nining just opened (in order to employ the other activists, not for her own profit) and demonstrate around the county.

Now I have known only a very few activists in my time, specifically at Carleton. They do a wonderful job of raising awareness about current political, social, racial, sexual, economical issues on Facebook and in conversations around campus. But ask me if I have friends who protest frequently, and my answer would be that I don’t know a single person really who has protested. Like with signs and a megaphone in front of a governor.

But that’s Nining and Risky! They gathered money from a couple people and rented a house for 8 million rupiah ($800 USD) for a whole year to act as a home and the headquarters/office for organizing people. 10+ people regularly sleep there on 2 mattresses that they all share. (Risky stays here, but Nining and her husband are building their own house across town. Mom would say that makes them “independently wealthy” despite not working…) 

Family shot! 

The people that live there each contribute what little they can for cooking and buying supplies. They work for a few days here and there when then need to, but mostly they are meeting day in and out with factory workers around Mojokerto, organize them for the next protest, and educate them about their rights. There are labor unions at the factories but clearly they are not 100% effective if minimum wage is 1.4 juta sebulan ($140 USD a month) but people are only being paid 450,000 Rp sebulan ($45 USD a month).

So here I found myself, a 24-year old American at her very first Indonesian protest (just observing, not participating, Peace Corps! Not allowed for PCVs to be involved in political protests) for factory workers’ rights. Nining, Risky and a few other friends first drove around Mojokerto to factories to remind the people that the protest was happening that day. 

Gathering the people

People rode on bikes and motorcycles to the meeting point in town (some of them had to bike about a half hour to get there, but that’s nothing when you consider a man I met that bikes 15 km one way to work each day because he can’t afford to buy a motorcycle). Next, about 12 bicycles and 20 motorcycles made their way down the main street, honking and stopping traffic (note: they did get permission for this protest first!). Some of them were wearing red and 2 women had red flags with the organization’s name on it, but otherwise it mostly appeared to be a small group of passionate protesters making their way through the crowded streets of a small city indifferent to their woes.

They stopped in front of the bupati’s office (see the bolded part of the table below for who the bupati is). They had signs about their income, a chant about fair wages, and 2 megaphones.

Making the signs

Their protest lasted about 40 minutes, the group of 30 or so protesters monitored very closely by the handful of security guards/policemen in front of the bupati’s office, and then they biked/motorcycled home.

Indonesian bureaucracy:

Indonesia area	American equivalent	Indonesian leader	American equivalent
RW (rukun warga)	a few houses on a neighborhood block	Pak RW	no equivalent
RT (rukun tetangga)	a neighborhood block	Pak RT	no equivalent
Dusun	a neighborhood or sub-village	Kepala Dusun	Maybe the equivalent is the head of a neighborhood organization that plans events like neighborhood picnics **Note that in Indonesia, the kepala dusun would also take care of minor political, social, and economic problems, not plan picnics!
Desa	village/very small town	Kepala Desa	City mayor **Note that our mayors are usually representing a town that has lots more people than an Indonesian village. Our villages/towns tend to be about the same size as a whole Indonesian kecamatan.
Kecamatan	a group of villages, usually centered around one town	Pak Camat	no equivalent
Kabupaten	a county	Bupati	no equivalent
Provinsi	a state	Gubenur	State governor
Negara	the USA	Presiden	USA President

I asked Nining the specific goal for the day. In addition to her standard goal of empowering people to use their voices, today they wanted to bring the bupati’s attention to the people being paid below minimum wage, and also demand their Idul Fitri bonuses. (Every year, many companies give out the equivalent of a Christmas bonus during the biggest holiday here, Idul Fitri, which marks the end of Ramadhan and fasting. However, most factories were not giving out bonuses unless the workers protested.)

The protest appeared to have gone well. There were signs and some simple chants with the megaphone. All in all peaceful. I don’t know enough people passed by to say that they effectively raised the general public’s awareness, but the bupati’s soldier/policemen/security guards definitely knew the protesters were there!

I watched from across the road for abut 15 minutes until the soldiers and police officers started asking me too many questions. I was like, “Just stopping by to see the demo, see ya!” I had to walk off before people thought I was some American spy protesting…

The next day I met Hari, Nining’s husband. Despite only a few hours of sleep and over 15 hours of car travel, when he met me he directly launched into a conversation about socialism. It quickly became clear that a) I really don’t know anything about socialism, b) He and Nining are very passionate about Indonesia becoming a socialist country, and c) we disagreed that socialism was even possible. I argued that any place that had no government just won’t work on Earth. We are imperfect people and we will always be looking out for #1 and our family first. They disagreed and said that they truly believe that a socialist system is possible, where people are paid according to their work ethic. So lazy people will not be paid much and those who work hard will have lots of income. I countered that that requires someone to define what productivity and hard work and success are. He didn’t seem to think that that would be a problem…hmmmmmm.

Now if that wasn’t enough mental gymnastics (and trying to remember Professor Nadar’s Sociological Thought and Theory information at Carleton in winter 2010), consider this.

INTELLECTUAL ENCOUNTER #2

Later that same day, I got on the bus to go visit friends in Madura (result: Madura rocks, everyone should go there, especially to Brian’s beach!). I found myself sitting next to a young Indonesian guy named Faridi who just blew me away with his intelligence and oratory skills. Basically, I received a free university lecture for the hour and a half we were sitting together on the bus. While this lecture was delivered 100% in Bahasa Indonesia, he was so patient to repeat and break down his undergrad thesis. Faridi floored me. So far he wins the award for the most impressive stranger I’ve met!

We started chatting about who we were and ended up discussing his undergraduate thesis. He just graduated from UMM in Malang for international relations.

This is a summary of the potent information I learned. It’s a mixture of theory and his analysis. I couldn’t tell you which is already established theory and which is his analysis because this is the first time I’ve learned about all of this! Feel free to fill in the gaps and correct me where I’m wrong.

There are 3 traditional economic markets:

1.     Socialism

2.     Liberalism (capitalism)

3.     Mercantilism (this is like colonialism, in which one country takes control of and exploits another country’s resources)

However, there is also a fourth, less traditionally identified market.

4.     Islamic economy

The foundation of an Islamic economy is halal, the Arabic word for “lawful.” The laws are those in the Al Qur’an.

For the economic system to be halal: 

1.     Produk harus halal. The products sold must be halal. This means that meat must be raised and butchered lawfully, products cannot use pork or alcohol, etc. See here for the details. 

2.     Cara mendapat produk harus halal. The deal between two people must be halal, as in both people truly agree on the exchange of money for product or product for product.

3.     Cara menggunakan produk harus halal. The way the product is used must also be halal.

So there are currently 57 Islamic countries (according to Faridi’s calculations, with reference to the World Islamic Economic Foundation (WIEF)).  FYI according to the CIA website, there are a total of 267 world entities. A country is included as an Islamic country if:

1.     A majority of the country’s religion is Islam.

2.     The mainstream culture is Muslim.

3.     The economic system is Muslim.

4.     The country uses Islamic law.

Essentially, these 50-something Islamic countries in WIEF (established in 2006) meet and discuss how to best support other Islamic economies. After the American economy crashed in 2007, the Middle Eastern country superpowers (the 4 countries that are the wealthiest due to oil are UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait…I think. Fact check, please!) became wary of investing their money in America. So they turned to other Islamic economies. Like Indonesia.

Certain Indonesian banks are now in part owned and invested in by people/countries in the Middle East.

When I asked Faridi if the goal of the WIEF was to establish more and more Islamic economic systems (AKA to eventually convert many other countries to Islam), his personal response was no, this was not the goal. WIEF is simply a way to allow Islamic countries to trade with other countries that have the same values as they do.

I pointed out that these countries would someday permanently end their trade with the US because the US will never become an Islamic economy. He clarified that the whole country doesn’t need to become an Islamic economy. There are already (albeit controversially) cities in the US that are discussing what it would mean to implement Sharia/Islamic law in their communities. The countries of WIEF would be happy to trade with those communities.

***

The moral of the story is that Islam is growing. The power that Muslims wield to demand that their products be halal is also increasing. Non-American Muslims can either view this as a threat to our ability to trade with Islamic economies, or see it as an opportunity to improve our relationships with other faiths and other countries. While I clearly will not stop eating pork or drinking alcohol, I see no problem if there are US companies or communities that want to become halal. However, I question whether or not it is halal for a company to become halal purely for advantageous trading. Is that being respectful, business saavy, or deceptive about one’s intentions?