Sunday, July 12, 2009

Sumatran Awakenings


This Friday, members of a wedding party moved into our small guesthouse in Medan. When we heard voices across the hall at 4:30 the next morning, both Danielle and I gravitated to the standard explanation of prenuptial cacophony: a tipsy groom staggering in after a last late night on the town, calming nerves with a bit of liquid courage.

That was before we shook off the early morning cobwebs and realized we were still in teetotaling Indonesia. The vast majority of people here don’t drink, even for a bachelor party. The early morning disruption turned out to be servants telling each other loud jokes as they prepared a fried-food feast just inches behind our window.

It was at that ungodly hour that I pondered the question of when it is that Indonesians actually sleep.

The equatorial climate and mosques’ amplified dawn call to prayer mean Indonesians tend to start their days on the early side. (It wasn’t a huge surprise to hear people at 4:30 a.m. on the wedding day, but the volume created an unwelcome intrusion.) Yet it’s not as though Indonesians follow the early to bed, early to rise proverb. People may not be drinking, but there’s quite a bit of activity in neighborhood cafes well past 10 p.m. And neighborhoods where houses sit on top of each other mean that chatting pedicab drivers or pushcart vendors have a greater chance of disrupting your slumber. Indonesians can seem like a nation of insomniacs.

It’s no wonder coffee plays such a central role in life here in the land of Java. And with more than three-fifths of Indonesia’s population, Java dominates much of the nation’s politics and culture. All of Indonesia’s presidents have been Javanese except one—B.J. Habibe, who briefly held the job when Suharto was ousted from power. Ancient court traditions from Javanese cities like Solo and Yogyakarta—gamelan music, wayang puppets (above), and a Hindu-influenced form of Islam—are among Indonesia’s most recognizable cultural features. After our two and a half months in Java, it was beginning to feel like Indonesia and Java were synonymous.

Our last two weeks in Medan on the island of Sumatra have helped correct that impression. In this province, the Javanese are just one of many ethnic groups, comprising about a third of the population of 12 million. Most Javanese in Sumatra came to the island to work on coffee and tobacco plantations, and many remain in lower-wage sectors of the economy.

The Batak are the province’s largest ethnic group, forming about 40 percent of the population. A warrior spirit is part of the national identity, and Sumatra was one of the last Indonesian islands to come under Dutch colonial rule. Batak are closely related to the Malay, and North Sumatra is closer to Kuala Lumpur than Jakarta.

In contrast to the Javanese, most of whom are Muslim, the overwhelming majority of Batak are Christians. The Batak’s own Lutheran-oriented Huria Kristen Batak Protestan (HKBP) church claims more than 3 million members, but Dutch and German missionaries from a variety of sects won converts here in the 19th and 20th centuries. And the Catholic Church where we attended Mass this morning featured pews full of parishioners offering full-throated renditions of hymns.

Muslims are still the largest religious group in North Sumatra, but the province is characterized by much more religious pluralism than Java. Muslims and Christians Danielle has interviewed for her research have mostly testified to positive relations between religious groups here, but tensions crop up from time to time. One source of friction comes from the government’s increasing involvement in decisions regarding how and when religious groups can build new places of worship. Several Christians have told Danielle and me that they believe it’s harder to gain approval for a new church than a new mosque.

Muslims and Christians in Indonesia respect each other’s beliefs, but view proselytization as a threat. One survey from the Indonesian research institute LP3ES shows Muslims and Christians express acceptance of conversion, but are less keen when it involves a member of their own family.

I’m fine with Muslims marrying Christians, Muslims marrying Muslims, or Christians marrying Christians. My one request is that they wait until after 4:30 a.m. before making a lot of noise about it.

1 comment:

  1. Lutheran-oriented, huh? I wonder how A Prairie Home Companion would play in Sumatra...

    And how exciting! Catholics that sing! You had to go a long way to find them, but I'm glad you did...

    ReplyDelete