Preservation of Cultural Heritage

Last year, some people in Indonesia protested against the use of Cultural Works of Arts like the Balinese Pendet Dance, Reog Ponorogo and Batik by some people to promote tourism in Malaysia.

Every time they protested, I would ask myself the following questions : Would we care about those Cultural Works of Arts if others have not use them ? What have we done to preserve them ?

In order to find the answer, I would like to share with you an article that I read on Kompas (below).

I shall be very grateful if you could kindly give opinion on this matter. Thanks.

Indonesia's Cultural Heritage Needs Preservation

Minggu, 28 November 2010 | 04:52 WIB

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - UNESCO has pointed out that many forms of intangible cultural heritage are in danger of extinction. Therefore, governments, non-governmental and local organizations are encouraged to appraise, protect and utilize their national heritage in order to maintain the cultural diversity of all countries, within the overall trend of globalization.

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Eddy Silitonga, the Cultural Envoy

I always thought that anyone who is appointed to promote Indonesian  Culture and Tourism to the world should be very nice looking, passionate & know lots of things about Indonesia, and about other countries, at least their language.

Based on the above thoughts, I have always imagine that the Minister of Tourism & Culture would appoint a popular, intelligent, passionate, and strikingly beautiful lady to take the job.
 
That is why I was very surprised when I read Twitter message from BeradaDisini yesterday saying that Eddy Silitonga (59), a singer popular in 1970 and 1980 but not anymore, has been appointed as Indonesia's Tourism Envoy.
As part of his duty, Eddy will conduct an overland tour to 49 countries from16 April 2010 until 10 January 2011.

For detailed media reports, please click here and here.

Considering Eddy's old age of 59, and the long and tough overland tour to 49 countries that he should carry out, I wonder whether the promotion would reach its goals effectively.

Nevertheless, I am sure that the Minister and his staffs have carefully considered every possibilities before appointing Eddy Silitonga.

Maintaining Cultural Products

I believe that every country in the world has specific cultural products such as Traditional Dances, Songs, Dress etc. that should always be maintained.

In recent years, Indonesia has been protesting against the frequent use of it's Traditional Songs, Dances, Batik, Keris, etc. by Malaysia in their tourist promotion campaigns in international TV stations.
The latest one being the protest made by President Susilo Bambang Yudoyono against the use of Balinese Pendet Dance by Malaysia in their Tourist promotion in Discovery Channel.

In order to understand what is actually happening, I will provide a bird's eye view about Indonesia & Malaysia as follows :

Indonesia, 240 million people consisting of more than 300 ethnics living in more than 13,000 islands, has a lot of cultural products. But, considering the collective characteristics of its people, many of traditional songs, dances, puppets, etc. were regarded as collective proprietary of the society and many of their creators were unknown.
Malaysia, 28 million people consisting of Malays(53%), Chinese(26%), Indians(7%) and others, has also mixed cultures. Many of the Malay originated from various islands in Indonesia, i.e. Sumatera, Sulawesi, Java, Bali etc. who bring their culture with them when they migrate to Malaysia. As a result, their language is similar to Indonesian language, their cultures are quite the same e.g. Batik, Songs etc. and their food is quite the same i.e. Rendang, Curry, Laksa etc.

Last night, the Minister of Culture & Tourism told MetroTV that Malaysia has violated Indonesia’s right on those specific cultural products. He said that Malaysia must respect Indonesia’s ownership of those cultural products because they belong to specific regions in Indonesia, like Pendet Dance is a holy dance in Bali, Wayang puppet show in Java.
At the same TV show, Rheinald Kasali said that Malaysia was able to do that because Indonesia has not maintained and protect those cultural products. As an example he said that Malaysia has conducted 6 seminars about Batik showing that many countries have their own Batik. He also said that our government should protect those cultural products i.e. by providing them Legal Protection.
The Minister said that his office is currently making an inventory on cultural products that should be protected, and will obtain Legal Protection for them with the Department of Law & Justice.

They both agreed that Indonesia’s current budget for Tourist Promotion i.e US$ 15 million is very low compared to Malaysia’s US$ 50 million and Singapore’s US$ 60 million has caused Indonesia only able to get around 6 million foreign tourists compared to Malaysia’s 20 million. The Minister said that the budget shall be increased every year.

In reaction to the above protests, Malaysia's Interim Charge d'Affair in Jakarta said that Malaysia never intend to claim the Pendet Dance as their own.
Further, the Discovery Channel has stopped showing Malaysia's said promotional film.

For details on the above, please click here, here, here, here , here, here, here and here.

Considering the above, I felt that the use of Indonesia's cultural products by Malaysia can happen because we have not maintained them properly, this can be seen from the fact that we do not know the writers/creators of many traditional Songs, Dances, Plays, etc. Due to which fact, the government must take a leading role in maintaining ownership i.e. by finding out who are their writers/creators, and promoting them continuously in Indonesia and abroad.

Photo: Courtesy of Detik.