Contestation of State and Citizenship Imaginations in Interreligious Reconciliation
in Maluku,1 Indonesia: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on the Role of Civic Engagment2
Izak Lattu3
Indonesia Research Fellow at Ash Center, Harvard Kennedy School Harvard University
“The history of written ink does not speak. It is the kapata that tells the story”(Mainoro’s One Blood).4
Religious conflict has been one of the most serious challenges to democratization
and good governance in Indonesia in the post-New Order era of the Reformasi (Reform).
During the Soeharto era, conflict management was marked by the “security approach”
(Pendekatan Keamanan) that relied largely on the deployment of the Armed Forces
(reinforced under Law Number 2/1988) to resolve outbreaks of conflict, including
conflicts involving religion such as for example, the cases of Jakarta and West Java
(1975), Lampung, South Sumatra (1980s), Flores (1994-95), and Nusa Tenggara Timur
(Kupang and Soe, 1998).
Ending this policy of conflict management through military intervention has been
one of the three priorities of Reform governments after the end of the Suharto era. The
passage of the People’s General Assembly Resolution Number VII/MPR/2000, limited
the powers of the Armed Forces (article 2), in a shift away from a militarized conflict
management policy towards a greater civilian role in the management of security and the
resolution of conflict. However, this shift away from militarization has not been
followed up by consistent policies and practices, leading to a general confusion about
actual state policy in this sector. Although a series of new laws governing the military,
1
I prefer to use Maluku, the local name for the “spice islands.” In Arabic literature, Maluku was named the Spice Islands for its cloves and nutmeg production (Andaya 1993).
2
The author wishes to thank Melanie A. Nyhof, PhD., for her insights and critics on the draft of this paper.
3
Izak Lattu is also a Lecturer of Satya Wacana Christian University, Indonesia.
4
police and concepts of security have been issued (Law number 2/2002 on the National
Police, Law Number 3/2002 on National Defense, and Law number 34/2004 on the
Indonesian National Military), these continue to rely on a narrow understanding of
conflict management as related to physical security. As a result, in the overwhelming
majority of cases of religious conflict, the government has responded by deploying either
the para-military arm of the Police Force (Brimob, as in Poso, Central Celebes), or still
relying on the Army to suppress outbreaks of conflict (as in Ambon, Maluku). A
number of cases of conflict in Papua, though often considered mainly political and
economic, can also usefully be understood as being inflected by religious difference (see,
e.g. Farhadian, 2005).
A second arm of Indonesia’s management of interreligious conflict is the
cooptation of the local elite. For example, through joint regulations of the Minister of
Religious Affairs and the Minister of Interior (numbers 8 and 9/2006), the government
created forums consisting of the local elite (known as “tokoh”) such as the Forum for
Inter-Religious Harmony (Forum Kerukunan Antar Umat Beragama). Despite the
significant decentralization under the new laws for regional autonomy, article 10,
paragraphs 3 and 4 of Law number 32/2004 on Regional Governance still rule that
religious matters continue to be in the hands of the central government although they can
be delegated to the provincial or lower levels at the discretion of the central government
authorities. Current episodes of religious conflict show serious failures of the state in
this respect.
The interreligious conflicts in Maluku have illustrated the failure of the
militarized and elite approaches in conflict management. Between 1999 and 2003,
communities in the Spice Islands encountered the failure of Indonesia as a state to protect
its people. In this period, the region of Maluku, Indonesia, suffered a period of intense
interreligious conflict involving Christian and Muslim communities. The conflict took
more than 14,000 lives, wounded more or less 103,000 people, and forced 700,000
individuals to live in refugee camps. The Central Government in Jakarta deployed
battalions of the army and police (Brimob) to suppress the conflicts but this failed to stop
the outbreak of violence. Recognizing the weakness of the policy, the Central
Coordinating Minister of Politics and Security, General Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
initiated Malino Accord II for Maluku in 2002. Although a semblance of peace was
created, it mainly entailed a fragile cessation of armed hostilities with occasional
outbreaks of conflict that continue to this day. Many communities who were forced to
leave the areas have not been able to return, and those that choose to stay live in
segregated communities. The main failing of the approaches used in the Accords was
that they have not created civic engagement based on an understanding of security as a
public good. Religious conflict continues to spread in Indonesia and state response has
been thoroughly inadequate.
The peacebuilding efforts that took place were predominantly based on
intervention by the distant central government in Jakarta making use of external
approaches.5 This intervention did not provide space for local cultural peacebuilding
processes that were informed by indigenous Malukan concepts of religious pluralism and
interreligious engagement. Though national and international formal agencies have been
working in the Maluku area ever since, conflict continues to erupt. This paper explores
the dynamic of civic engagement for pursuing peace in Maluku. The paper illustrates a
contestation of state imagination and citizenry imagination in Maluku.
Christian-Muslim conflict in Maluku began with the introduction of Christianity
by the Europeans to a predominantly Muslim area in Maluku. The Portuguese who came
to Maluku in 1513 coercively converted indigenous people to Christianity and
“westernized” their life style (Galvao 1544 (1970); Ridjali 1653 (2004); Jacobs 1974,
4-5). The Dutch converted Malukans to Christianity in order to create allies against
Muslims who refused to sell cloves and nutmeg to the Dutch, who wanted to purchase
thee spices at low prices (Reid 1993; Abdurrahman 1973). The Christianization during
Portuguese and Dutch times increased enmity toward Christianity among Malukan
Muslims (Valentijn 1858). During the age of the spice trade in 1450 – 1680 (Reid 1993),
Maluku was the crossroads of international trade and cultures as well as a “battlefield” of
religious identities.
5
In the “post-colonial” history of religious life in Maluku, Christians and Muslims
are struggling with questions about the boundary between Indonesian national ideology
and Malukan local identity. The Indonesian government tends to diminish Malukan local
knowledge including indigenous peacebuilding processes and webs of relationships (pela
gandong)6 by imposing Javanese values and lifestyle through national public policy.
Although the Malukan pela gandong (webs of relationships) mechanism has suffered
because of colonial and Indonesian government policy, 7 the indigenous mechanism of
peacebuilding and kinship relationships continues to serve and live in the collective
memory of local communities through ritual, narrative, and folksong.
During the recent Christian-Muslim conflicts—largely instigated by political
interests8--local communities provided examples of how people who maintain the pela
gandong relationships helped each other through the bitter conflict, regardless of their respective faiths. The violent conflict prompted people in these communities to
remember a common Malukan social practice. When people recollect their traditional
practices (in ritual, narrative and folksong), the collective voice of remembering helps
them reshape connections of social solidarity and collective consciousness.
My research is focused on the importance of local concepts and traditions of
peacebuilding in Maluku. As is the case with many areas in Eastern Indonesia, these
communities have lived with religious difference over many generations. In the field
work I have undertaken to date, I have studied local concepts of peacebuilding and the
management of potential religious conflict through, Pela Gandong, relationships by
which Muslims and Christians in Maluku build awareness of the local tradition of
peacebuilding. The collective memory is preserved through commemorative ritual and
6
Pela gandong is a cultural web of relationships that developed from either genealogical or non-genealogical relationships among negeri (local communities) in Maluku. This form of relationship existed in Maluku long before the coming of Islam and Christianity and has continued as the ground for
interreligious engagement. 7
The Malukan people have a strong oral community where narrative represents the core of belonging and local identity. However, the Dutch government, representing a literate-based society, imposed literacy coercively during the colonial period. Likewise, the Indonesian government has ignored and downplayed oral tradition. The Indonesian government has stressed literacy and disregarded the Malukan oral tradition.
8
these rituals can serve to shape a renewed sense of civic engagement and ontological
security. The research I have done shows that most of the areas in which these traditional
rituals were undertaken, peace has reached beyond the local elite and has been
sustainable and resilient against external provocation.
Theoretically, Benedict Anderson’s concept of imagined community (2006)
emphasizes the importance of print and the circulation of knowledge through print in the
shaping of a unified national imagination. This is very much in line with the concept of
“the Unitary State” of Indonesia (Negara Kesatuan Republic Indonesia) but reveals an
important difference between the way in which local communities imagine their identities
and relationships with others. Traditional strategies for conflict management and
peacebuilding are mainly rooted in the oral imagination of these communities. Although
literacy has taken hold in most of Indonesia, the deep affective level at which ontological
security takes root is still largely oral performative in nature. My study is based more on
Durkheim’s concept of collective consciousness and collective representation that
become a mile stone for the study of collective memory, orality and ritual (Halbawsch,
1992; Connerton, 2003; Alexander, 2011). Collective memory endures and draws
strength from its base in a coherent body of people; individual members of a group
preserve the memory. While these remembrances are mutually supportive of each other
and common to all, individual members still vary in the intensity with which they
experience specific events. Here, collective memory differs from imagined community
because collective memory lives in orality and ritual performance while nation as
imagined community is constituted on written regulation.
Existing studies on Maluku are relevant to compare the implementation of the
militarized and coopted elite approaches against the local dynamics of peacebuilding.
Studies by van Klinken (2001), Lowry and Littlejohn (2006), Jones (2012) and Malik
(2003), are significant to my study because these scholars conducted their research
largely on the discourse of formal elites in Maluku. Van Klinken, Lowry and Littlejohn,
and Malik provide a description of top-down elite formal discourses in the Maluku
conflict, whereas Jones does not recognize the role of local dynamics in peacebuilding in
Maluku. Studies by Aragon (2005) and McRae (2007) on Indonesia fosters a better
research has pointed out that the narrative of conflict in these areas takes the perspective
of written history; while McRae’s work maps conflict between the imagination of the
citizenry and the collective memory of the people in contestation to state justice.
This research highlights the role of collective memory for the imagination of civic
engagement in Maluku. Studies of orality as an important device of collective memory
demonstrate that folksong and other forms of folktale serve to establish mutual understanding
and respect (Ong 2003). Similarly, studies of ritual as a means of collective memory have
emphasized the function of ritual in fostering a sense of belonging among people who have
shared values and identities (Turner 1969; Goody 2010). More specifically, this research
explores local dynamics of interreligious peacebuilding in Maluku through the study of
collective memory in pela gandong relationships. The pela gandong mechanism mentioned
in previous research (van Hoevell 1875; Bartels 1977; Ruhulessin 2005) has served as a
foundation for current studies of the pela gandong relationships in Maluku, but these relied
mainly on Dutch written records produced by colonial military officers and Christian
missionaries for their own political and religious interests and ignored actual practices.
Culturally, Malukans believe that the people come from a sacred place named
Nunusaku. In this sense, the story of Nunusaku has significantly dominated Malukan
collective memory through the narrative of folksongs. Grounded on Maurice
Halbwachs’ collective memory, the narrative of Malukan social engagement in
folksongs created a realm of “imagined kinship” (pela gandong relationship). For
Halbwachs, “collective memory is a social framework that confines and binds our most
intimate remembrances to each other” (Halbwachs 1992, 53). In Maluku, the collective
memory of pela gandong relationship has functioned a collective glue to bind
communities and worked as a cultural mechanism to support reconciliation. For
Folklorist like Alan Dundes, a form of folklore that represents collective understanding
is a product of social experience. The experience infuses a sense of group identity that
helps to foster the collective memory of particular community. Using Dundes’
perspective, kapata (folksong) narrates Malukan social identity by which a member of
community is connected with other members in a sense of belonging.
Folksong helps to preserve the “shared kinship narrative” in Maluku’s collective
may find out one’s relationship with other communities through the narrative of Kapata.
In strong oral society like Maluku, Kapata is the means of historical narrative. R. Z.
Leirissa, a Malukan Jakarta-based scholar argues that Kapata is the device of historical
mnemonic. For him, “almost all historical narratives in central Maluku are narrated in
folksong in indigenous language.” (Leirissa 1999, 77). Beside its role in formal ritual,
such as pela enactment, marriage ritual, and other forms of formal ritual, Kapata also
functioned as a “community anthem” (Tutuariama and Latupapua, 2010; Latutapua eds.,
2012). Kapata is a means of folklore that everybody in Maluku can perform and
understand. Echoing Bartels, I argue that Kapata is the shape of Malukan present,
anticipate the future through past narratives. Bartels says, “Kapata is traditional greeting
formulas and shorthand histories; generally, they consist of old songs in which episodes
of the past are told” (Bartels, 1977).
In Maluku today, Kapata as an oral tradition, has experienced an evolution from a
monotone song into a complex genre range from pop to hip hop. In my interview with
Ahmad Kakaly a Malukan singer, songwriter, and producer, it is clear to me that
Malukan modern song takes Kapata’s spirit and narrative. Peter Salenussa, a lecturer of
Music at the Indonesian Christian University of Maluku, supports Kakaly’s argument,
showing that some Malukan pop songs (modern kapata) take the narrative of traditional
kapata in indigenous language (bahasa tana) and then translate the language into Maluku lingua franca (Ambon-Malay) (Salenussa 2009, 45).
Maluku’s modern song also takes Kapata narrative to preserve the place of
Nunusaku as a topos of remembrance. As a facet of orality, Kapata functions very much
as the “storage” of Malukan local communication and knowledge. One modern folksong
by a group named Mainoro supports the idea that Kapata has been functioning as the
storage of Malukan collective memory, which is centered on the narrative of Nunusaku.
Below is the lyric of Mainoro’s “Satu Darah” (one blood) song;
Katong buka suara Pombo putih kapata damai
Seisi bahtera bersukaria sinar sejarah damaikan Maluku Sio basudara yang satu darah Nusa Ina itu rumah tua
Nunu Siwa Lima oooo Pombo putih kapata damai
Seisi bahtera bersukaria tahuri babunyi di unjung Binaya Sinar sejarah damaikan Maluku
(The history of written ink does not speak. It’s the kapata that tells the story
Cracking down the rumpled and old curtain, Nusa Ina is the historical evidence
The shadow of the Banyan tree of Nunusaku, Murkele little drum has summoned
you all
Forest and jungle are blossoming; there is a sound of tahuri (shell) in Binaya
Ooo My siblings who shared Siwa Lima blood
Voice out your tone, the Pombo bird has sung kapata of peace
All passengers of the boat (Maluku) are rejoicing, there is a sound of tahuri in
Binaya
The light of history helps Maluku be peaceful)
The narrative of Mainoro “Satu Darah” follows the same pattern of Kapata
Nunusaku in preserving the central place of Nunusaku and Ceram Island (Nusa
Ina/Mother Land) in Maluku’s collective memory. Kapata, both traditional Kapata and
modern Kapata in Malukan, is the collective memory in which people of a given society
represent their history and produce accounts of past events to reshape the present. In this
sense, Mainoro aims to reshape the present of Maluku society by incorporating Kapata’s
narrative into Maluku modern song. “Sejarah tinta seng bisa bicara, tapi Kapata bisa
carita” “written history cannot speaks, but kapata tells (Malukan) story“ is explaining
boldly the purpose of this song to rewrite the present of Maluku society.
Realizing the power of folksong for the creation of collective imagination and
civic engagement in Maluku, Doddy Latuharhary, the chairperson of Malukan Musician
Organization, insisted in an interview that I conducted with him in Jakarta, folksong is
the means to insert love in the midst of violence between orang basudara (people from
Nona Pela illustrates the use of a love song to rewrite Malukan collective memory. This
love song narrates pela relationship between Hitu, a Muslim community and a Christian
community named Galala. It describes a couple who have fallen in love and decide to
break away because of the pela relationship. This particular folksong works to strengthen
imagination of kinship entanglement that helps people to move toward civic engagement
in Maluku.
The performance of Kapata in everyday life, pela gandong re-enactment ritual,
and other special local events as well as the extraction of Kapata in Maluku modern
songs are meant to preserve and extend Maluku’s cultural memory. In Rachel Wagner’s
words, Kapata is the “site of information-sharing.” (Wagner 2012, 11). As the
performance of Kapata as a site of information-sharing because, I am echoing Maurice
Halbwachs, the collective memory extends as far as the contemporary group preserves
and performs it regularly (Halbwachs 1992, 75). He adds, “ to remember is not to sit back
and watch, but to remember is to reconstruct the past.” (Halbwasch 1992, 75). Kapata,
including Maluku modern folksong, is the process of remembering the past as a repetitive
process by which Malukan society is tied up collectively.
Oral history in Kapata is important for Malukans to remember the past and to
reshape the present in a framework of community entanglement. Drawing on Jeffrey
Olick’s collective memory theory, without the narrative of Nunusaku and pela gandong
in Kapata, Malukans are unable to provide a good explanation of their worldview and
traditional heritage. Developed from Olick, Kapata is not just the act of remembering as
members of Maluku’ society, but Maluku society shapes its members simultaneously in
the act of remembering through the narrative of Kapata. Through Kapata Maluku
becomes a “community of memory.” (Olick 2007: 53).
In the ritual of pela gandong re-enactment and Malukan local knowledge, Kapata
helps people of Negeri Muslims or Christians to come out from religious borders
respectively to encounter people with different faiths. Kapata as the form of Malukan
oral tradition is part of interreligious dialogue for peacebuilding. When people sing
kapata as a means of social capital enlarge and strengthen the “radius of trust” in Malukan communities.
Kapata as a cultural performance creates a rasa (deepest feeling toward
something) of siblinghood among people of different faiths. The narrative of gandong
song, for instance, “one heart one soul” (satu hati satu jantonge) has played as a form of
speech in interreligious dialogue. When people of different faiths sing the song, rasa
comes along with body movements and narrative of song. The rasa, then creates a shared
story and shared values in people’s imagination via shared bodily experience. In
accordance with Bryan Turner’s somatic society, body movement goes hand in hand
when people sing Kapata together creating a somatic memory in Malukan collective
memory. Turner says, “we live in a ‘ somatic society’ in which our present political
problems and social anxieties are frequently transferred to the body.” (Turner 2003, 1 –
11). In Kapata, when people go hand in hand (baku kele), in a ritual of pela gandong
re-enactment, “rasa of kinship” integrates people into one communal identity. In “baku
kele”, a body movement people engage in when they sing kapata, all religious
differences fluids in “rasa of kinship” that emerge from the somatic memory in “baku
kele.” Therefore, somatic memory helps people from other faiths to be bold to “touch”
somebody who holds other beliefs.
Rasa of kinship, also comes out when people imagine Nunusaku as a common
ground of Malukan Muslims and Christians. As I mentioned before, all pela gandong
folksong (Kapata and modern song which takes Kapata narratives) place Nunusaku as a
vocal point. Nunusaku, in interfaith dialogue, serves as a common ground for people of
other faiths. Nunusaku could reframe Maluku as a community through song. Therefore in
the imagination as a community, Malukan Christians and Muslims find the foundation of
solidarity and collective identity. I am arguing that in this imagined siblinghood, people
of Maluku found their “imagined reconciliation.” It is imagined because, unlike Gacaca
in Rwanda and Ubuntu in South Africa when victims and perpetrators formally encounter
each other, Maluku’s formal reconciliation in Second Malino Meeting only included less
than 50 elites under government order, while the rest of the population experienced
This research calls for a significant public policy change toward interreligious
conflict and peacebuilding that is relevant to local contexts and promotes civic
engagement at the local level. The intent of my research is to provide deeper insight into
and understanding of the dynamics of local interreligious conflict management processes
that have hitherto been neglected in order to help formulate a better, working policy
towards sustainable security and peace.
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