Cultural Strategy

Kompas/Didie SW

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The primary concern of this writing is not theory, but actual conditions. Societies, up to a certain point, are arenas where stakeholders compete and clash.

However, it is neither acceptable nor inevitable that a diverse society such as Indonesia’s is constantly noisy, day and night. Unfortunately, this is the life of our people, our nation and our state today, as government agencies are unconcerned with the egotistical motives of mass organizations and in particular, political parties that have no sense of manners in politics.

We must defend the freedom of our nation-state; this is non-negotiable. We have established the armed forces for this very purpose. “Si vis pacem para bellum”: If you want peace, prepare for war. No one nation-state in the world is defined merely by physical locality. A hotel is a physical locality. In order to continue to exist, it needs occupants. Nation-states are not the same. To ensure its survival, a country needs citizens; people who are deeply aware of their rights and responsibility as a result of education. A democratic government necessarily serves as both “servant” and “tutor”, because citizenship is a mindset.

State defense

Defending a nation-state’s existence until the end of days necessitates the presence of citizens and not merely occupants. Citizens have a sense of attachment and engagement, while occupants are looser by nature. A citizen’s life starts with the mind and therefore, it is here that fortresses need to be built to sustain the nation-state.

The most effective and reliable defenders are thus those people who have nowhere else to go. They feel compelled to defend the nation-state. They stay, not because they are prohibited from leaving by a government or rulers, but because they are aware that, in Indonesia, they are seen as dignified human beings with opportunities not only to have more, but also to be more.

They are asked to participate in discussions about how to develop the area where they live. They are engaged in all efforts to advance local lives. They are seen not as passive observers, but as active participants. They are invited to deliberate on issues and to reach a consensus. They must not represent or be represented by others.

Their lack of knowledge in development issues does not deny them the chance to participate in development efforts. Through their roles as servants and tutors, government officials help these people improve their understanding on what it means to be a citizen.

This awareness will lead them to be warrior patriots instead of professional soldiers. All guerilla conflicts against colonial forces have proven this. Guerillas were engaged in the war of independence because the battles were personal. They fought in the war for their own, sovereign nation-state. This spirit was reflected in the battles involving youths in Surabaya and Bandung (during the “Bandung Sea of Fire” incident), as well as the ambush by General Sudirman’s guerillas in Salatiga and the Acehnese people’s war against the Dutch in the Sabil War.

Culture and civilization

Therefore, national development efforts should not focus merely on the added value of things (in the form of gross national product), but instead the added value of human beings. The government, through its role as servant and tutor, must develop a culture of humanity. This comprises all values of life that raise humans above the level of animals and which enable humans to lead lives different from those of animals.

Culture is the system of values by which a nation exists. The Indonesian culture is the value system by which Indonesians live. These human values are not rules or regulations, but an enlightenment that openly and irrefutably delineates justice and tyranny, good and bad, right and wrong, and means and ends. These values should be seen not as abstract ideas but as the conditions, measurements and norms by which people live.

Therefore, habituating Indonesian youths to dig deep, recognize, learn, master and live by the values of their community is a cultural strategy that will be useful for them as well as for their families and the country.

Strategic culture comprises values that seek to facilitate and smooth out relevant problems. Therefore, it is none other than education; it is inherent to culture.

Indonesia can be forever by cultivating the physical world around us, as well as the intellectual and moral realms within us. Education is a moral duty, as its activities condition public attitudes and behaviors in the greater context of life and instill the people with good character.

Historian Arnold Toynbee titled his book of essays Civilization on Trial instead of “Culture on Trial”. Nevertheless, when he referred to the history of Chinese civilization, he clearly used the term civilization to refer to both civilization and culture.

Such ambiguous definitions can be cleared up when we understand that, in essence, “culture” and “civilization” represent the same concept. Our usage of these terms is influenced by habit. On many occasions, scientists – let alone laymen – rarely differentiate between the two and often use the terms interchangeably.

In order to do away with any ambiguity, German thinkers in the 19th century proposed a solution. They said that, even though Kultur (culture) and Zivilisation (civilization) both portrayed the development and progress of mankind, “culture” referred more to the spiritual aspects of human life while “civilization” referred more to its technological aspects.

Therefore, they concluded that the term “culture” comprised language, knowledge, religion, education and the arts as factors that expanded the human mind, while “civilization” was a conceptual term integral to industry, technology, economy and law that was nurtured to control nature to fulfill human needs.

Therefore, we can write about “history of the Nusantara culture” and “history of the Nusantara civilization”, so long as we are talking about the aspects of the lives of the people of the Nusantara archipelago in specific eras. Ipso facto, this will include exploring the cultures and civilizations of the Majapahit, Sriwijaya and other eras of the past. Thus, if we accept the differences between culture and civilization, we can see them as representing different approaches to the same phenomenon, wherein “culture” is more descriptive and “civilization” more valuational. The linguistic origins of these two terms help us understand their meanings.

Culture contains the same root word as cultivation, which means fostering the growth of something. Meanwhile, civilization is derived from civic and civil, which are related to city and citizen.

Cities and their citizens portray an advanced stage of successful cultivation. Animals can survive by obeying the rules of nature; only humans can cultivate nature. Therefore, cultivation or culture portrays a specific relationship between man and nature.

According to this understanding, both primitive and modern humans are culture-oriented. The difference between a primitive people and a modern one lies in their cultural characteristics. Both can be evaluated through the existence and quality of their cultivation.

Thus, in taking this approach, human society can be differentiated from other societies. Civilization is a conceptual approach involving cultivation, a culture that has been developed to a certain level. This means that culture needs to be developed consciously to qualify as a civilization.

KOMPAS/ARBAIN RAMBEY

Daoed Joesoef

History of culture

As the history of human culture traces its development from a primitive state, the history of mankind should be seen as a history of culture instead of a history of civilization. Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that, at a certain point in its development, similar prominent values on culture and civilization have arisen that can and have confused observers.

Universities have a huge potential as a place to reflect on culture in the age of modern technological developments. Educated people create objects and tools to give them more time to think and study. Let the machines do what they can do and let us do what they cannot do, i.e. genuine thinking.

However, we all know how messy our national education system is as a whole, including the state of our higher education institutions. They still need a variety of normative, relevant, scientific and technological improvements to make them reliable. If we do not resolve this academic disorder soon, we will have to deal with academic crises and intellectual chaos. The responsibility of managing all levels of education must therefore be given back to a single institution and a single minister, namely the Culture and Education Minister.

DAOED JOESOEF

Alumnus of Universite Pluridisciplinaires Pantheon-Sorbonne