Wednesday, April 15, 2009

The 4:15 A.M. Wake-up Call from Allah

In a country where close to 90 percent of the population is Muslim, it’s hard to miss certain religious symbols. They’re especially hard to miss when a mosque is situated directly outside of your window, and the muezzin starts the call to prayer over the loudspeakers at 4:15 a.m.

The call to prayer comes though melodious Arabic songs five times a day, but none is more noticeable that first one before dawn. We’d certainly hear the call even without a mosque next to our building. Loudspeakers are mounted on mosques in neighborhoods all across the city (we can see two from our balcony, and there’s another one around the corner). These voices sound almost like flutes, and it’s proven a very peaceful way to start the morning at least for the time being – perhaps because with jet lag we’re waking up at 3 in the morning anyway. We’ve brought earplugs in case the charm of the 4:15 a.m. wake-up call from Allah wears off.

These prayers mark Indonesia as distinctive from many of its neighbors—you might have the crowded streets in Bangkok, spicy cuisine in Saigon or street vendors in Manila, but the prevalence of Islam makes Indonesia seem in some ways more like the Middle East than Southeast Asia.

Islam’s influence is also apparent in the number of women who wear headscarves. The fashion varies from neighborhood to neighborhood — I saw more near the Al-Azar Mosque and schools in southern Jakarta, where girls playing soccer in green PE uniforms had their heads covered. But there are also plenty of women wearing heels and make-up near the business district in central Jakarta. I don’t get the sense that there’s much tension about the different choices people make about religion—perhaps that’s possible in a society where it’s presumed virtually everyone is serious about religion and most people share the same one.

Much of our day was devoted to making sure Danielle remains on the good side of Indonesia’s notoriously Byzantine state bureaucracy. There were trips to the Ministry of Research and Technology, the Jakarta Police Headquarters, and the Department of Immigration (all in different parts of the city) and there’ll be return trips tomorrow.

Danielle’s adviser back in Berkeley says the Indonesian bureaucracy makes Russia look efficient by comparison. All I know is that after waiting an hour with 20 other people in an 8-by-12 room in the Jakarta police station, I’ll never complain about the Department of Motor Vehicles again. It was heartening, however, to hear the state employees processing foreign visas in the science and technology office listening to Carlos Santana and Van Halen. One of the Sammy Hagar fans was wearing a head scarf.

I managed a side trip to Indonesia’s National Monument, a 137-meter tall answer to the Washington Monument. One set of Indonesian college students insisted on having their picture taken with me – I had assumed the group wanted me, in the typical tourist fashion, to take a picture so all three friends could be in it. But no, they found me enough of a curiosity to want to have a picture to commemorate the occasion. You see the occasional foreign tourist in Jakarta, but being white is still enough of an anomaly to warrant attention in some quarters.

In the vast, dingy and dimly lit basement at the base of the monument, there are more than 50 dioramas devoted to important moments in Indonesian history. It feels like something of a cross between a 4th-grade History Day exhibit and the poorly maintained Post Office lobby. There are many paeans to anti-Dutch colonialism, but they might benefit from some attention to presentation. Frank Gehry, Jakarta is calling you.

The view from the top of the monument offers wonderful vistas onto Indonesia’s skyline. Well, to be more candid, you can make out the silhouettes of the national telecom headquarters and Supreme Court building when you squint your way through the smog. Smog or no smog, it’s hard to miss the massive dome of the Istiqlal mosque near the center of downtown—it’s the largest in Indonesia.

We concluded the day over at Jalan Sabang, home of Jakarta’s most entrepreneurial and aggressive street vendors. With carts and stalls set up on all sides of the sidewalk, there’s barely enough room to squeeze your shoulders between newspaper stands and satay skewers. Even the slightest hint of eye contact will bring forth a roadside cook who offers to whip up some chicken fried rice in a skillet.

While Jalan Sabang is the most well-known and most extensive of Jakarta’s street vending sections, it’s clear many Indonesians enjoy spending their evenings out on the streets. Some play pick-up chess games on the ground, others swap stories and cigarettes from stoops outside their houses. In a place where the mercury rarely dips below 75 degrees Fahrenheit even in the evenings and where most people don’t have air conditioning, the evenings can be more pleasant with the occasional breeze outside.

Tomorrow, Danielle braves the bureaucracy once again before we head out to Kota, the old Dutch section of the city that still has some 17th-century buildings.

1 comment:

  1. Carlos Santana and Van Halen may account for some of the delay you've been experiencing. Maybe you could direct state employees to some more enjoyable music to increase their efficiency. Perhaps you and Danielle have some Bon Jovi to share?

    ReplyDelete