Being Indonesia, for me, is to look into ourselves, knowing our identity as an Indonesian, be it in terms of dishes, batik and woven clothes, nature, forests, and even its wounds as well.
We have so many traumas, but we were never engaged in a dialogue and never learned to understand what happened. Consequently, we tend to blame anyone else on many things. We should have understood, for instance, what triggered the STM students to stage protests on the street, instead of blaming them. What made many demonstrations ended up with violence, is it due to improper approach by the security, or anything else?
My mother, Ann Prijosusilo, taught us to love reading. After we have done reading all of our collection of children’s books, we turned to another shelf, where there were books of Gramsci, Freire, Ilych, and a pile of NatGeo, Amnesty International, and The Ecologist magazines. Everything that I learned shaped my views and thoughts until now.
We grew up in Sekaralas, Ngawi, East Java. Mommy always set positive examples for us on her daily behaviors. She engaged women in the village in conversations. She listened, as she tried to understand what was happening around her. She initiated some programs, like savings and loans, emergency clinics, and sewing class. Even before Posyandu (integrated health services for mother and child) was established, mommy has provided services for mothers in the village to weigh their babies. Mommy left all her comfortable life in Australia, married with my father, and lived in Sekaralas.
In 1990, I graduated from the Psychology Faculty of Gadjah Mada University (UGM) and became an activist. I established a non-government organization called Gita Pertiwi, focusing on women empowerment and biodiversity issues.
We want to be a “beautiful song” for the country. Our activities were quite critical, for example, we covered a demonstration against a textile company, a demonstration that blocked the villagers’ access to the roads.
University students often visited me when they asked for pocket money before they joined demonstrations in Yogyakarta and Jakarta. Due to our critical activities, around 1997 to 1998, I was interrogated by soldiers. I was forced to confess who was the intellectual actor that controlled Gita Pertiwi. I was so angry deep in my heart, “Who’s this brat? How dare he accused me of having someone controlling me? So he thinks that I could not think and act by myself?” “Nobody, Pak!” I answered. I repeated my answers again and again as he asked the same question. I was interrogated for six hours, until the soldier got bored.
I was actively involved in the field of environment. One of the most memorable experiences for me is when I became the staff of Prof. Emil Salim in 2001 to 2004. At that time, Prof. Emil was the leader of the independent team that evaluated the portfolio of World Bank in the field of extractive industry worldwide. The Independent Extractive Review (IER) team, an important and most-awaited team.
During four years, we traveled around to 51 countries. We were engaged in multi-party dialogues, studying about the application of oil and mining industry in all those countries, including Indonesia.
At the end of the process, Prof. Emil seemed anxious. In his view, the draft of the IER report was too negative in reflecting the field findings that were less encouraging. The report would definitely offend many figures, whom he knows very well.
I am the type of person who likes to say things bluntly. I simply could not stand seeing Pak Emil restless and uneasy. On one night, it was only me and Pak Emil in the elevator of a building. I was kind of shouting a little bit to him, I said, ”Stop being stupid. You should not sacrifice the future generation just because you are afraid you would offend your friends.”
Ouch.. I felt surprised and nervous of what I just said. My heart beat faster and I thought that he would fire me straight away. But what really happened next was unexpected. Prof. Emil opened his arms widely. He hugged me and said, ”Thank you, Kiki. You are my conscience. No one has ever been so honest to me like you are.”
Later on, I found that the report of Pak Emil was very harsh and made many World Bank executives angry. His straightforwardness was beyond my expectation. The report titled “Striking A Better Balance”, released in 2004, recommended World Bank to pull out, totally back off from all the portfolio of oil and coal industry all over the world. Of course, recommendations stated in this report offended many people, including the World Bank Director at that time, James Wolfensohn. This recommendation had only been executed in 2017. This means that Pak Emil has gone further, long before it actually happened.
Pak Emil is a figure who really maintains integrity. I was so lucky to be spoiled by the universe, meeting and working together with such a formidable economist and climate warrior.
Finding my love in Utik River
Utik River, Putussibau, East Kalimantan. The forest floor was fully covered with fallen mangoes. Local people call the mango “mawang”. It tastes a little bit like kweni mango and smells like passion fruit. I asked the residents to count together how many kilos of mawang are scattered throughout the forest. It turns out that during the fruit season, according to their estimates, there are 400 tons of mawang!
The wealth of our forests is extraordinary. Unfortunately, four hundred tons of the mawang were left to rot with topsoil. There is no technology to process it. It is too far and expensive to properly access the market.
Three years ago, with the Sekar Kawung Team, I invited women in Sungai Utik to act together. We process mawang into jam. Using no artificial sweeteners and preservatives, we want these forest products to be truly natural. Now, the local women have made various products out of mawang. They have received a lot of demands from the market.
That is only for mawang, not to mention durian that is also abundantly spread in the forest. During the fruit season, we are free to take fallen durians. The pulp of these durians usually have orange, red and yellowish color.
Again, most of this fruit is left to rot into the topsoil. In fact, if it is processed into tempoyak, with good standards and packaging, it will be a great local food.
The diaspora community of Minangkabau all over the world will surely miss eating the original tempoyak with high quality, not the ones mixed with cassava that are commonly found in the market nowadays.
Borneo also has another promising forest product called tengkawang (Shorea sp) or tallow nut, as well as kluwek, from which we extract the oil. I once talked to the elderly residents of Utik River to find out what was the most delicious food during their childhood? They answered, “Warm rice topped with tengkawang butter.”
So, in the past, they made butter from tengkawang? Then I challenged local people to revive tengkawang butter. Now, this product is available in the market. Tengkawang butter has a savory taste with a soft texture of peanut. It’s very tasteful, it’s made of plant.
So, that’s my job. I have great interests in biodiversity. When we are standing in one spot inside a forest, we will find hundreds of species grow very well, from the forest floor up to the canopy of trees. Everything merges in a symbiosis of mutualism. That’s the thing that warms my heart and makes me feel proud.
For years, I have been in and out of forests, meeting local people, exploring the natural potential. Actually, the people are aware and understand that they have to protect and preserve the forests. The problem is, the villagers around and in the forests have no equipment and capital to do that. They should fight by themselves, guarding the forest in a condition far from prosperous.
It will be difficult, for example, to process hundreds of tons of mawang mangoes by hand, ordinary pots and pans. The same thing goes to durian, candlenut, and tengkawang too. It will be difficult if these natural commodities are only processed manually without any equipment. Communities need to be provided with capital and equipment, so they can protect the forest and take advantage of it in a sustainable manner. The forest is our life.
In Sumba Island, an encounter with the soulful woven cloth
As a Javanese descendant, I really love batik. We can learn a deep philosophy of various kinds of batik from every area in Indonesia. And, Indonesia has a lot more besides batik, including woven cloth.
Woven cloth exists in almost all areas across the archipelago. There are unique stories behind every strand of the cloth. The geringsing cloth from Tuban, East Java, for example, is worn when people feel sick, so as to get rid of the gering (illness). Interesting, isn’t it?
One day, I visited East Sumba, East Nusa Tenggara. A beautiful island with wonderful savanna and woven clothes. I was astonished to find that it took a very long process to create a piece of woven cloth.
Working together with local weavers in Sumba for 18 months, I learn that there are 42 steps to create a woven cloth, starting with making design of the motif, preparing the thread, coloring, making the knots until all the weaving process is completed. All the process involves men and women, all the communities.
Weaving is a cultural heritage that continues to flow, like a spring. It grows, develops, and continues to live the economic and social structure of society.
Imagine, weaving artists work with motifs that are so detailed, in the midst of an arid nature. The natural dyes they use produce extraordinary weaving, with appealing blue colors, various browns, and bright reds.
The process of coloring the weaving consists of stages that are not easy at all. A color is obtained from a mixture of various plants, ranging from noni, indigo, and various leaves. In order to obtain bright colors, the weavers need to do the dyeing process dozens of times. That is why they have certain people that are expert in each specific color. There are experts of blue color. There are also other experts for brown color, and also specifically for red color. Weaving is truly a collective work. There is love and togetherness there.
And because I have been used to the motif of batik clothes, I asked the weavers, “What motifs are these?” They simply answered that this was the motif of shrimp, and that one was flower, and the other one was corn. Ah..maybe I asked the wrong question, therefore I did not get complete answers. Then I slowly figured out the stories behind the making of a woven cloth.
Together with my team, I ‘read’ 55 pieces of East Sumba woven clothes from Kambera area. We found three kinds of clothes. The first one is the cloth filled with good prayers and wishes, advice and expression of gratitude. Secondly, the clothes that illustrate tales or stories about past events. The third one generally depicts stories about the burial of kings.
Many anthropologists reveal that East Sumba ikat woven cloth has an important role in the stages of birth, marriage and death of a person. I came to think that, is it possible, the fabric that contains paintings depicting prayers and hopes at first tends to be used to celebrate births, then those containing advice are more suitable to mark marriages? It could be…but this will require further research.
The long process and the weaving story convinced me that the approach to the weaving artists community will also have an impact on conservation. Dozens of plants for natural dyes must continue to exist, in order to be used for the coloring process. Therefore, the weaving artists must preserve the plants. They have to take care of the forest.
That is why I fell in love with weaving, going back and forth to Sumba, accompanying the weaving artist community. In East Sumba, they use more than 20 types of plants for their coloring. Indonesia is extraordinarily rich.
Anyway, I call these weavers artists. Woven fabric is a work of art. This art spirit enables them to collaborate with artists from other nations through the language of art.
A weaving maestro named Kornelis Ndapakamang, for example, once made an ikat woven cloth with the theme of raindrops ordered by the Cherokee Indians. And, sure enough, the soft raindrops appear on the woven fabric. Stout and magical.
All of this, the weaving, the forest, nature, culinary, cultural diversity, the people, are all part of becoming Indonesia.
