Scarecrows

The year 2019 is the Year of the Pig. This Year of Pig is the last year in the twelve-year cycle of the Chinese calendar. According to the myth, pigs are put last in the order because the animal finished last in a race held by the Jade Emperor to determine the order of the years in the calendar cycle.

There are several reasons why the pig came last. According one version of the story, the pig was sleeping soundly until it was too late to wake up. Another reason is that its dwelling was damaged by wolves, so the pig had to repair it. Whatever the reason, its achievement was praiseworthy. The pig was known to be lazy, yet managed to reach the finish line. When it reached the finish line, while gasping the pig asked “Is there delicious food here?”

Pigs are considered animals that bring fortune. Astrological predictions have identified the zodiac signs that can reap the benefits of this Year of the Pig. According to the foretelling, the Buffalo and Dragon zodiacs will be lucky. The zodiacs of the Horse, Tiger and Snake must be careful because they will be shunned by luck in the Year of Pig.

We must be optimistic during this Year of the Pig. However, remember that 2019 is not just the Year of the Pig, but the Year of the Land Pig. This means the pig cannot be separated from the nature and reality of the soil element, which is dark, strong and hard. Moreover, the Year of the Land Pig happens to coincide with the political year of the presidential election, which has many people afraid and discouraged.

This anxiousness was expressed by Yogyakarta artist Hari Budiono in his exhibition at Bentara Budaya Jakarta this February. In his work, Land Pig, 2019, Hari depicts a brown-haired pig. The pig is pictured in a dark and gloomy land. In this gloomy atmosphere, various writings, which cannot be clearly read, are displayed.

The writings are a mumbo jumbo of various uncontrolled conversation and false news. So watch out, this Year of Land Pig will be a dark and gloomy year because it is full of false words. Like pigs, which do not move because of the darkness of the ground, it is difficult for the truth to sneak through in the darkness of lies.

Because of widespread lies, the truth becomes futile. Finally lies become worshiped as truths. Those who are good at lying will become rulers. The most effective means of justifying lies is the lies themselves. It is no longer surprising that people are competing to arrange lies to be able to build the truth on their lies. Actually, the truer a lie is, the more dangerous the lie will be. What can we say, now lies from lies keep coming. It is no longer possible for the truth to overtake it. As Mark Twain said, lies have circled the earth three times, even before the truth puts on its shoes.

The market of fear

Hari Budiono placed the painting Land Pig, 2019 within the theme of his exhibition "Memedi Sawah" (Scarecrow). More than 100 scarecrows were installed in the Bentara Budaya exhibition room. The message was that memedi sawah are no longer scarecrows made to scare rice-eating sparrows, but are now humans who scare their fellow humans. It is obvious that memedi sawah symbolize the fear that is gripping many people in this political year.

Memedi sawah emerge anytime, anywhere, in various expressions: terror, burning political campaigns, false news, slander, incitement, intolerance and violence. There is nearly no area it cannot enter. Social media has been made its colony of fear. Memedi sawah can infiltrate into religious wisdom and piety. Under religious piety, it can impose absolute truth. If the truth itself has become absolute, other truths only exist to be eliminated and run over.

To imagine the fear caused by memedi sawah, Hari Budiono displays several other paintings, including masked humans. These humans have many masks, with faces that are calm, patient, wise and even pious. They can change masks according to their needs and situation. However, this time they wear scary masks, as this year, fear is the best seller on the market.

In the market, fear can be imposed on the masses to make them panic. However, the masses cannot only be objects of fear. The masses can be used as subjects or sources of fear. The trick is easy, simply by igniting the fire of their anger. It is like, as depicted by Hari Budiono, by lighting matches in a balloon. And when "the green balloon is explodes, bang!", mass aggression can no longer be managed.

Meanwhile, those who ignite the matches are unknown. They are just like hands without faces, whose origins cannot be traced. Mass aggression does not come from strength, but from the weakness of the people, who are provoked by fear. This kind of provocation is usually done by hidden hands, populist memedi sawah that like to ignite the emotions of the masses.

Emerging out of an aggressive crowd, people will return to being individuals, who are alone and in a state of fear. Individually, he is no longer a strong being. He is afraid and bites his own fingers with anxiety. He does not know how to escape his anxiety. That is the existential situation of man amid the fear of memedi sawah.

Fear is power

Fear is existential. Therefore, fear can be used as political material by many populist figures. President Donald Trump, this first-class populist, clearly uses that fear as his political tool. As quoted by writer Bob Woodward, Trump once said, "In reality power -- actually I don\'t want to use this word -- is fear."

Populist figure Adolf Hitler also used fear to cultivate his brutal and cruel political power. Unfortunately, Hitler seemed to find his political justification in the teachings of esteemed philosopher Martin Heidegger. According to Heidegger, this human existence is directed at death and negation. Therefore, fear is the essence of its existence. Because it is essential, fear can be utilized for anything, including power. This opportunity was the one used by Hitler to authorize his fascist and authoritarian regime.

Fear can clearly be used as capital for political power. This had been studied by philologist and philosopher Martha Nussbaum. According to Nussbaum, the most basic and earliest layer of human emotion is fear. As a baby, humans are gripped by fear. A baby depends on its parents. In fear, the baby feels instinctively that it will die if it cannot master its parents to meet its needs.

Therefore, with political language that might be a bit excessive, Nussbaum said, humans start their lives not with democracy, but with a monarchy. Later, the baby will slowly become an adult and mature, after it learns to establish a relationship with its parents not as agents who have to satisfy its needs, put on as persons who must be respected. It begins to abandon the monarchical tendency to rule toward a democratic attitude that could cultivate its fear in a mature way.

The fear looks egoistic and narcissistic. Politically, this kind of fear is the opposite of democracy, which will even erode egoism and personal narcissism. Democracy will succeed if he can overcome that fear. On the contrary, democracy will collapse if it is unable to fight narcissistic and egoistic fear.

This is used as an opportunity by populist demagogues. They continue to revive fear so that their followers will get angry and see other groups simply as opponents that must be overthrown. It is obvious that fear is a serious opponent and a serious threat to democracy that wants to recognize the rights and existence of anyone, including opponents.

From anger, hatred is then born. Because they continue to be provoked by anger, the hatred eventually transforms into groups. If a group has been hit by hatred, it cannot be invited to argue against the standpoints of another group. Indeed, someone who hates does not want to compromise anymore. This hatred is clearly contrary to democracy because democracy always presupposes arguments and compromises on different standpoints. The politics of hatred that threatens democracy is sweeping the world, also in Indonesia, especially ahead of this upcoming presidential election.

Hari Budiono\'s paintings illustrate the politics of hatred. Two roosters are facing each other, ready to fight. Both of them are fierce and savage, trying to bump into each other. And both of them have extraordinarily strong claws. The claws are so strong, not like normal chicken claws. With these claws, the two roosters grip the chicks, whose feathers are colorful, red, yellow, white, green, blue, like the colors of political parties in Indonesia. Should the upcoming presidential election be like a rooster fight with claws used to grip people in fear? That is the question that arises when observing the painting The Color of the Country Chickens.

Indonesia is laughing

This pessimism seems to be deliberately raised in Hari Budiono’s exhibition. He installs eight memedi sawah, which have decorated writing attached to their stomachs. When sorted, the writing is a series of poems from the first two verses of the song "Ibu Pertiwi” (Mother Earth), which voices the grief and sadness of this beloved Mother Earth. Of course, now Mother Earth is sad, moaning and praying upon seeing the situation of her children who are angry and hate each other.

We originate from one forest, mountain, rice field and the sea, which holds the wealth, but why do we fight against each other, as if we are not brothers who know each other? This is really distressing. Everybody knows, the frightening memedi sawah as well. With all their displeasure, they also know and must admit that Mother Earth is surely saddened to see their frightening behavior.

Indeed, however minimal, memedi sawah still have a national conscience. Therefore, the other memedi sawah display the next two verses from the lyrics of the song “Mother Earth”. They want to come to worship and cheer up Mother Earth. Therefore, they sing: Ibu kami tetap cinta/putramu yang setia/menjaga harta pusaka/untuk nusa dan bangsa (Our mother is still in love / your children who are faithful / guarding the inheritance / for the nation).

Love, loyalty and excitement toward Mother Earth is the essence of the message of the installation artwork from Hari Budiono. Therefore, patiently, he searched, prepared and painted a hundred faces of Indonesian people. The faces that represent everyone. The faces of the president and his deputy, the faces of the challenger in the upcoming presidential election. The faces of ministers, governors and representatives of the people. The faces of national teachers, intellectuals and community leaders. The faces of artists, film actors, singers and comedians. The faces of cultural observers and artists.

People will immediately recognize most of these faces. However, there are also faces that may not be known, the faces of pedicab drivers, small traders and farmers. And what is fantastic about those 100 faces? All these faces laugh! In laughter, there is no difference between the president and a pedicab driver, ministers and coolies, beautiful artists and ordinary people, smart people and people with no education, those who are holy and those who do not worship at all.

Laughter makes everyone the same. Because of laughter, everyone is human. Therefore, in laughter, even though people know the name of the president, figures, or famous people, they are essentially those who are not named, like ordinary people. Laughter makes everyone the same, namely Indonesian people. That is the meaning of the pictures of the 100 nameless laughing faces.

Then, the 100 laughing faces are put on the chests of 100 memedi sawah. Therefore, this is the highest meaning of Hari Budiono\'s art installation: memedi sawah are no longer scary, they have laughed with Indonesian human laughter, from the president to ordinary people. Indeed, social fear can only be defeated by laughing together. Fear is divisive, while in its essence laughter unites.

We definitely prefer to laugh rather than be afraid. Fear makes us confined, laughter makes us free. Fear tends to make an understanding of truth absolute. Laughter never makes anything absolute. When people laugh, everything can be relative, including themselves.

For those who like to laugh reject absoluteness. They believe, the joy of life can be obtained if people want to accept that the world is always changing, that nothing fixed and definite. Fear locks the future, while laughter opens the future, because it is able to see new possibilities, a new world order, and a new way of life that will happen later.

By being skillful at laughter, people can accept their failures and limitations. Therefore, he can also be tolerant of the limitations and failures of others. It is impossible for people to be tolerant if they are struck by fear. They must dare to laugh, and escape from their fear. And those who can break away from the fear of others will be tolerant and respectful to each other.

With laughter, we can return memedi sawah to their habitat. Let them return to the fields, guard the rice of the farmers. Do not let memedi sawah wander in the world of politics and continue to scare in the Year of the Land Pig. The presidential and legislative elections should return us to a nation that laughs, a nation that is known to be friendly. If the presidential election makes us become a nation struck by fear, there is something wrong with our politics.

Before that happens, let us destroy our fear. The way to do so is by allowing ourselves to be willing to laugh and be friendly to others. Democracy cannot be built with anger, the source of which is fear from excessive egoism and narcissism. We can build democracy if we are willing not to make our will absolute. And for that we must dare to become a laughing nation. Yes, laughter has magical power. Like the adage: "With laughter among us, plain water tastes sweet." (Sindhunata, Journalist, Guarantor of Basis Magazine, Yogyakarta)