Three Lions of Batavia : Part II
The Second Narrative: The Invisible Lions
The establishment of Jakarta History Museum dated back to 1974, following the local government policy on the conservation of cultural heritage around Fatahillah square (1970). Information retrieved from the official website of Indonesia Tourism mentions that:
The Museum of History of Jakarta was inaugurated on 30 March 1974 for being the center for collection, conservation and research for all kinds of objects of cultural property related to the history of the City of Jakarta and at the same time becomes a center for education, study and recreation for the community. (Jakarta History Museum)
What I can infer from this information is that the museum serves as the centre for the narrative of the history of Jakarta and also the centre for community to learn about that history. Pak Kasirun informed me that “most visitors are students, coming from various cities or even provinces”. “We refer to the function of this museum as a media for education…so that students can get the information easily”, he added. This implies the important role of the museum in, paraphrasing Bourdieu, “produc[ing] and impos[ing] legitimate vision of the world” (20); legitimate version of the history of the city.
Thus, in reading the narrative, I am trying to point out how this ‘official point of view’ narrates and constructs the perception of reality toward the history of Jakarta. Fortunately, on my second visit to the museum, the museum was peopled by many visitors including a group of elementary school students, so this could provide me with rich observational data of how the museum narrated its legitimate version of the history of the city to the visitors.
During my second visit to the museum, I captured the pictures above. The pictures were captured from six collection rooms: Prehistoric Room, Tarumanegara Room, Jayakarta Room, Fatahillah Room, Sultan Agung Room, and MH Thamrin Room. Each room is constituted by collections ranging from material artefact, replicas, pictures, and posters which relate to the periods they refer to. Walking from one room to another room, I felt like I was travelling back in time and space. This sensibility was constructed as the arrangement of the room and the collections refer to the chronological timeline of the history of the city. Pak Kasirun informed me that the collection rooms “refers to chronological [timeline] …which relates to the history of Jakarta….”
The timeline is started from 1) the prehistoric time when prehistoric people flowed some areas of the city, 2) the establishment of Hindu Kingdom of Tarumanegara with the flow of India ideoscape of Hinduism and technoscape of; stone inscription, Hindu’s gods and goddess stone statues, 3) the establishment of the port of Sunda Kalapa during the Sunda Kingdom with its position as one important ports in the local and transnational trade, 4) the founding of Jayakarta by Fatahillah and the coming and settlement of the Portuguese, until 5)the heroic story of the Java Sultanate Mataram’s army in capturing the city from VOC, and 6) the existence of Betawi ethnic along with their so-called hybrid culture.
From this timeline, I can infer that this city since its beginning is always the landscape of trans-national cultural flow due to its position as important port providing commodities needed by trans-national market. Pak Kasirun showed me that “Indonesia is famous with its spices which at that time were recognized as the best in the European market”. However, in contrast with the visibility of Chinese cultural identity embedded in the ceiling and the door of each room, the narrative of the history constructed by arrangement of the collections remains silent about the existence of the Chinese ethnic. The Chinese existence throughout the timeline of the history seems to be suspended and invisible. The existence of China settlement during the Jayakarta period spotted by Cornelis Houtman, or even as mentioned before by Pak Kasirun, is nowhere in the narrative, or even the ‘Chinese Kampoeng’ spotted by Worsfold. In contrast to this, the narrative captures and displays the coming of the Portuguese and their settlement; of which Pak Kasirun gave very extensive information about this while he remained silent to give or to connect the relation with the visibility of Chinese identity. The question rises here: where is the Chinese?
The answer for this question is located in M.H. Thamrin room. The Chinese cultural identity is embedded in the collection of Betawi ethnic; whom Pak Kasirun referred as “the natives…by the time they were born even until they grow old….”. It is married to the wedding costume of Betawi, attuned to Betawi traditional musical instrument, and creolized in Betawi language. Before extending this personification, below, I am going to sketch up some notions about this narrative.
What I perceive from the narrative is that the sequence of time and the constitution of collection in each timeline follow the logic of synchronization and order, which in a way represents the modern sense of time and space. Seen from this logic, each collection is a constitutive unit of a larger structure of signification.
The logic can also be abstracted from the naming of the rooms. The naming of the rooms, in some ways, leads to summarization of selected particular events into one particular representation. What is interesting here is the naming of Fatahillah room, Sultan Agung room, and M.H. Thamrin room. Out of so many events constructed by the collections, they are summarized into one centralized figure. The events during Jayakarta period of this city and the coming of Portuguese are summarized into the centrality of Fatahillah; the events during the invasion of Mataram to Batavia into the centrality of Sultan Agung; Betawi ethnicity into the centrality of M.H Thamrin. Thus, another point can be highlighted in the narrative: the notion of centrality.
So far, there are two points can be argued from the narrative: First, the modern sense of time and space which is represented through synchronization and order; and second, the notion of centrality which is represented in summarization of particularity into one central signification. Seeing from these two points, the selection, arrangement, and division of collections can be read as ‘diagnosing, directing, and prescription ’ of what people have to know about the historicity of this city. Thus, this notion may lead to exclusion and privileging certain details to fit certain purposes.
This notion can be noticed clearly from the exclusion of Chinese ethnic in most timelines except in the present timeline (M.H. Thamrin room) in its embodiment form. This may imply and construct the sense of ‘newness’ of the existence of China ethnic in the history of Jakarta, in contrast to the visibility of China cultural identity in the doors, red paint, and ceiling in every room which had already been there before the building served as the museum (pastness). This may imply the erasure of the significant position of Chinese ethnic to the cultural and identity construction of the city . The question rises here: what makes this ethnic excluded from the history?
As it is implied in the reading of the construction of the building, the Chinese was situated in a close-relation with the colonial power and given special privileges. Thus, contextualizing to the concept of nationalism, close-relation with colonial power may imply the threat to the constitution of the nation. However, we should not forget that the Chinese ethnic in this city, in the colonial era, was situated in the ideoscape and financescape of Dutch and China Empire. Thus the ‘situatedness’ of Chinese in Batavia cannot be separated from this global context. The rebuttal to these arguments may arise: what about the accommodation and translation of this ethnic identity into Betawi cultural identity? The problem with this logic is that the summarization of some particular cultural identities into one cultural identity while excluding and suspending the existence of other cultural identities is just like killing the lion and use its skin as our robe. To extend my argument, I am going to give some sketches below.
The visibility of Betawi in the present timeline can be seen as an act of privileging. Except in the present timeline, this ethnic group is nowhere to be found in the historical timeline, not to mention in the construction of the building. Information retrieved from the official website of City Information Technology Management Office mentions that “the Betawi group emerged in the 19th century from the melting pot of races, ethnic groups and cultures” (Jakarta Now-Culture). The phrase that catches my attention is ‘melting pot’.
Melting pot the information mentioned in some ways related to the summarization of many distinctiveness and differences into one new form. This point of view, in some ways, coincides with the official point of view of the Jakarta History Museum in constructing the history of Jakarta. Out of so many cultural diversities constructed along the timeline, the history of Jakarta is concluded in one room, in M.H. Thamrin. These cultural diversities are melted into one new form of cultural identity: Betawi identity, which is in Pak Kasirun’s perspective identified as “Ya….the origin..!”. Thus, the Bantamese , Sundanese, Chinese, Majikers, and other cultural identities dissolve; the multivocalities and multicultural brought by past cultural flow are translated into one, quoting appadurai, ‘homogenization’ concept, the indigenization of heterogeneity into one notion of Betawi; people of Batavia. Out of my curiosity, I browsed the City Information Technology Management Office’ website to find out how the official release regarding this Betawi identity besides the official points of view constructed by the museum. Placed in the page related to Jakarta culture, the information mentions that:
As the nation’s capital, Jakarta is able to show all the various art forms of all the regions and ethnic groups in the archipelago. And to realize this idea in line with the motto Bhinneka Tunggal Ika ( Unity in Diversity ), the regional government feels obliged to develop all traditional art forms as equitably as possible with the local Betawi art forms as host heading the rest. (Jakarta Now-Culture)
Based on that information, several points can be argued here. Put in the page about Jakarta culture, this may signify that the culture of Jakarta is referred and attributed to Betawi culture. Nowhere in the narration, does the information explain about other cultures except in their personification and embodiment inside Betawi culture. In its brief explanation, the information leads the multicultural aspect of this city into one summary of “the local Betawi art forms as host heading the rest”. The notion of local and non-local can be abstracted here. It identifies that Betawi culture as local while the others as non-local. While, when we try to look outside, not far from where the museum stands, the notion of locality may become a very complicated term.
The Dancing Lion
To find out the unofficial points of view about this history, mainly related to the Chinese ethnic and identity, I enrouted to Glodok Business District. Located around one kilometre from the Stadhuis, Glodok is an oldest business district of the city and is a home for Chinese ethnic. Dated back to the account of Chinezenmoord, Glodok was “a separate Chinese quarter [which]was built outside the town” (41) as notified by Blusse. Connecting this, to the notion of locality referred to Betawi culture and ethnic meets its irrelevant reference.
My conversation with Pak Latif Yulus, owner of Warung Kopi Tak Kie (coffee shop), provided me with a different perspective in the narrative of history of Jakarta, opposed to what the museum ‘projected’. Accompanied by some digitalized Mandarin music and song in the background, boosted from the Hi-fi sound system, Pak Yulus shared his stories about this city and the people who live in it, even he gave the story and myth about the lions that I spotted in the Glodok area and in the Stadhuis.
He warned me that “beware … the lions in the stadhuis are sometimes spotted to be alive in the midnight”. He explained that the stadhuis is always haunted by many spirits and ghosts. And, he told me that he has the ability to see those things and the power to exorcize those spirits; the ability that he said he learnt from “the book of Buddha”. He then explained that the placement of the lions at the main stairs of the museum was related to “Hong sui, because ‘orang-orang bule’(the western people) also believed in it”.
From his stories about the lions and stadhuis, I can draw that for him the place is present in the form of mythical and mystical. The way he narrated the stories about the museum, ‘routed’ back to the ideoscapes of the Chinese mythologies and superstitions. The rationality that is depicted in the construction of the building, through the classic baroque architecture, is interpreted in superstitions. This perhaps, was also the familiar perspective for the Dutch during the construction of the building, as inscribed in the dialogue among the materiality of the museum. This shows that the stadhuis is the result of the cultural transactions between certain ideoscapes which are, then, materialized in certain techniques of construction (European and Chinese) that shape the building.
If the notion of locality is kept in the discussion, it should be referred to this cultural identity; the Chinese, who played important role in shaping the city. Noticing how the Chinese cultural identity is still preserved and practiced by the Chinese in this area, a part from the context of several repressions and violence befell to them; assimilation policy during the old and new regime, 1998 riot, the city is always a home for them; the city is their own sense of place. The city was and is always attached with them, which then notifies the concept of locality.
However, the point that I am trying to argue here, is not to suggest the notion of locality; as the existence of the Chinese in this city cannot be separated from the existence of other ethnics, brought by the flow of the ethnoscape into this landscape. What I am trying to suggest is that the concept of locality should include other cultural identities overflowing this landscape, not in a summarized version personified and embedded in Betawi culture.
The most problematic thing that I am trying to argue here is the notion of locality itself. Locality implies the categorization of, using postcolonial point of view, who is us and who is the other; who is local and who is not local. Related to the museum, this perception is so apparent whether in the structure of the building or in the narrative constructed by the arrangement and selection of collection. For the colonial scheme of perceptions and practices which imply the past sensibility, the Chinese is categorized local and non-local; local in a sense of the privileged, local and non-local in a sense of the different classification compared to other local ethnics.
While, for the present narrative the Chinese cultural identity is localized, quoting Appadurai; indigenized, into the signification of Betawi cultural identity as Jakarta cultural identity. Missing and ignored from both scheme of perceptions and practices is the context of this place, which is never local. From the past until present, this city and its landscapes are always porous for the global context; in other words, this city is always global and globalized.
At some points the narrative constructed by the museum implies the global context of this city. Started from its name as Sunda Kalapa, Jayakarta, until it was named as Batavia, this city had attracted the flow of ethnic, finance, techno, media , and ideoscapes inside and outside its landscapes. However, this context is raptured and suspended in the present perception of this place as implied by the summarization, not to say celebration, of this complexity into the notion of Betawi as the identity of the city.
The logic of this summarization cannot be separated from the function of the museum in creating and shaping the notion of the nationhood, paraphrasing Anderson, to the imagination of the community; to construct the signification that this city has its own distinctive identity and people which are different from other cities, places; while actually the distinctiveness of this city lies on its multicultural aspects, not in its melting pot form as represented in Betawi ethnicity. Appadurai reminds us that “one man’s imagined community is another man’s political prison” (50); therefore, to release this city from the confinement, it is better to paint it in multicolours by letting the lions dancing along with the rhythm and rime of the city as noticed by Worsfold during his visit to Batavia :
In the centre of the town the native streets look, to the European eye, like a perpetual festival. Outside the doors are gathered in groups the various inhabitants—Chinese, Malay, or Sundanese, some clanging cymbals and other strange instruments of music, others seated round fires, eating baked cakes or fruits and other frugal dainties. (35)
and as the unfinished mural painting (painted by Harijadi Sumodidjojo) locked in the separate room (on the right wing of the museum) pictured:
Arrival
From the complex sketches above, now I am arriving at some points of arrival. First point: from the journey inside the Jakarta History Museum, there are two points of narrative related to the history of Jakarta; 1) the past perception about the historicity of this city as inscribed in the structure of the building, and 2) the present interpretation of this city as constructed by the selection, arrangement, and division of collections. Both perceptions imply the perceptions of the authority toward social realities of the city; the point of view, in Bourdieu’s term, constructed through selection of certain realities, producing realities, and imposing authorized version.
Central to both point of views is building perception on the sense of the place which complicates the status of the city as the important port and the people who live in it. The complication is triggered by the conception and perception of local and non-local which at some points put the Chinese ethnic into the ‘symbolic struggle’ over the place. Chinese ethnic in this city is always situated in conjuncture with the past ideoscape and the present ideoscape. In their ‘situatedness’, the Chinese are never materialized, as they are always mythicized: whether appear too visible (in the structure of the building/image ) or invisible and mutated into another form (in the narrative of the museum). This context leads me to arrive in my second point of arrival.
Second, connecting the flow of ethnoscape to building perception about the past and the present of the city, two contradictory constructions and significations will emerge. First, if the signification of the city is referred toward a centre to periphery relation, where in the centre is the notion of the indigenous culture referred to Betawi cultural identity and ethnicity, this will result in the marginalization of other cultural forms, which are also inseparable from the landscape of the city. Accommodating and authorizing this constructed scheme of perceptions and practices, as it is implied in the narration of the museum, will ignore the multicultural aspect of this city brought along by the trans-national cultural transaction, which I propose here as the ‘distinctiveness’ of the city. Second, if the signification of the city is referred to, in Appadurai’s term, ‘disjunctive relationship’ among ethnoscapes and other scapes flowing in the landscape of this city, the distinctiveness of the city may appear; as what binds these seemingly unrelated elements of this city is its context, which is never local.
Thus, this is where I end the journey.
References
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Administration, 2002. Web. 31 May 2011.
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