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Tulisan ini ditulis Soedjatmoko di Jakarta pada 27 November 1976.
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Some reflections
The purpose of the talk is to discuss some problems and dilemmas in the cultural field which planners in Indonesia have to face when thinking about the longterm development of the country.
Indonesia’s cultural situation as it is shaped by its geography and by the variety of its historical experience. Against that background some contemporary factors that have shaped, and will continue to shape, cultural developments in Indonesia. What is Indonesian culture? Is there an Indonesian culture?
The impact of modernisation on the crystallisation of a national cultural, its differential impact on local and regional cultures. The problem of cultural integration, cultural pluralism, and national unity (the continuing but everchanging form of the problem of nationbuilding). The question of national identity, its relationship to pluralistic cultural reality (Bhinneka Tunggal Ika: Unity in Diversity), and to national goals. The search for “Indonesian Man” (Manusia Indonesia). Its importance or lack of importance.
Impact of foreign cultures. The contradictory needs for creative cultural adjusment and cultural continuity through selfrenewal. Tension between tradition and innovation. Enrichment and empoverishment in cultural change. Phase differential between national cultural development and Western culture. Xenophobia. Openness and turning outward, closedness and turning inward. The question of national privacy and freedom of information. Impact on consumption patterns and expectations and hence, on development strategy. Selfreliance and dependency.
Impact of modern electronic media: transistor, TV in the village. Communications-satelite. Who is in the saddle: man or technology. Passivity and creativity. Centralised or decentralised programming; regional cultures and TV. The capacity for self-enjoyment.
Social change: industrialisation and artisanship. Breakdown of village life. Urbanisation. Social mobility. Impact of population doubling on settlement patterns. Java an island city? An island kampung? Ecological limits. Impact of populationdoubling on employment. Impact of populationdoubling on social and cultural arrangement: e.g. shared poverty; nuclear family or three generation family? Degree of individualisation. Political implications. Capacity for cultural self-enjoyment. Meaning of quality of life at $200.- per capita.
Second thoughts about modernity: competitiveness vs. cooperativeness; acquisitiveness vs. sharing; rationality vs. the intuitive, expressive faculties: impersonality for efficiency and profitmaking vs. lifelong employment and collective decision-making process in management. Man’s relationship to nature. Awareness of environmental limits. Science and technology, and social goals.
What future for Indonesian culture? Estheticism, role of beauty in crowded competitive world. Personal space. Inner space. Intensity of personal relationship. Time management and “being human” in relations with others. Sense of harmony, balance and proportion. Man’s relatedness to nature, fellowman and the Divine. Javanese mysticism. Romantisation of Indonesian culture. Still tied to obsolete social structures. Capacity to handle information, science, technology. Development as emancipation, liberation and human growth. The future as an ethical category.
Jakarta, November 27, 1976