Indonesianists in Indonesia

After the ceremony of the Anugerah Budaya in Senayan, 9-10 October, Paule and I visited our old friends in Ciputat (like we most of them retired, some very weak and sick) and took a wonderful train to Yogyakarta. Much space in the luxury section of the train. Landscape was somewhat dry. We seem to be in the longest dry period since memoryever: 176 days without rain in Yogyakarta, which is similar to nearly six months. But still we could see all phases of rice cultivation: from ploughing to planting and growing till harvesting.

 In Yogyakarta we stayed in Hotel Novotel, nicely located for the big universities. The first day we started already with a seminar for 'Indonesianists', organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In order to enhance the international ranking of Indonesian education they invited students from abroad to study for several years in Indonesia. We talked to 4 female students who studied Indonesian at Universitas Wahid Hasyim in Semarang, but also seveal from Jemen who were busy with Civil Engineering. Some from Tanzania, Nepal, quite many from Malaysia: as if the great Soekarno-dream of solidarity of Asia-Africa had come to reality! They were happy with their scholarships and also with the invitation to gather in Yogyakarta at UGM for this meeting.
They received talks from much older people who had been trained more in a true Indonesianist style. Azyumardi Azra was here to talk about moderate Islam. He did not look healthy, needed a wheel chair in the airport, because he could not walk the great distances. He stressed that Indonesia has a culture of accomodation (bisa diatur) and does not like too strict and dogmatic religious rules. 'Life is more relaxed than in other Muslim majority countries.' A little bit propaganda for moderate Indonesia!
Very moving was the talk by Dr. Siti Ruhaini Dzuhayatin, a former student of mine at the Yogyakarta IAIN and now advisor to the President for (inter-)religious affairs. She saw the last few years a strong movement towards stricter Islamisation and separation of the religious groups. Something like the communalism of India. There is much attention for busana Muslim. In December 2016 (during the protests against Ahok) FPI entered also her kampung in Yogyakarta. There was much propagation for hard and separatist viewpoint through Whatsapp for hidup Islami. How nice it is when all people go to the same mosque, when everybody is nicely dressed and live according to shariah. (Elga Sarapung told that she saw a 'Pompa Bensin Syar'i' and thought whether fuel for cars should be halal as well). Siti Ruhaini also told that the WA group held a debate about the rule that men should not shake hands of women at the celebration of the end of Ramadan! She was very angry about this development.
Philip Buckley from McGill was here as well, making a detour from a China trip. Max Lane gave an impressive talk promoting the writings of Pramoedya Ananta Toer. Dr. Reevany Bustami from Malaysia gave a talk about the spirit of Nusantara, trying to combine Indonesian and Malaysian identity. I talked about 'Magic Realism or when pujangga write history', combining the spiritual world and fantasy of the writers of babad with Ayu Utami (the paper will be put n Academia.edu).
A very interesting lady talked about ACMI: Aku Cinta Makanan Indonesia.

 The students were entertained with grand performances of gamelan music and dances. At the opening evening with a mixed group of Indonesian and foreign players. The  second eveningwas for Wayang Wong, Ramayana story of Hanuman discovering the place where Sinta was taken as prisoner by Ravana. Fantastic!  Thank you Deplu for this.
Talking about pluralism: in our hotel Novotel in Yogyakarta the bartender was dressed in Bavarian style, supporting the Oktoberfest, and its beer. Expensive here as well!