True independence needs

a reading people

Why Indonesians should

write about Indonesia in
English more often

In my tuition center’s library, I came across a book

titled Indonesia Etc., which was written by a British woman
Elizabeth Pisani. She found Indonesia really intriguing and
described it as a “bad boyfriend”, which seems to be an
affectionate term but it implies how strange, illogical and
exotic Indonesians are. People may have different views on
Indonesia, but such a depiction can affect the image of our
country in the eyes of many people.

In the same library, there are other books including Jakarta

Jive, Bali Blues, a novel written by Jeremy Allan,
and Contemporary Developments in Indonesian Islam by
Martin Van Bruinstein.

These books are aimed to inform others about Indonesia.

However, the fact that many books about Indonesia in
English are published and written by foreigners, it should
make us reflect on our education.
Indonesian students of schools that use English as its primary
language should be encouraged to write more about our
country. Unfortunately, the evidence that I found shows the
opposite.

There was a time when a friend of mine got a non-satisfying

grade because he incorporated some Indonesian terms in his
narrative composition and those words were encircled, even
though he had already provided a clear explanation about
their meaning. Similarly, however, I heard that a graduate
from my school used French expressions in her writing but,
surprisingly, it was allowed as it gave the story a sense of
place.

I believe that teachers don’t allow students to use Indonesian

terms because they want us to practice English, but they
cannot “ban” us from doing so when we have clearly
explained the meaning of the phrases.

We can express our concern on Indonesia through writing in

another language. One great example of this is Kartini, an
early Indonesian woman activist. She wrote so much about
her thoughts and experience living as a Javanese woman in
the colonial era. Although she wrote in Dutch, she still had a
great sense of nationalism as she wrote about Indonesian
culture and her thoughts of Indonesia

In Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s book, Panggil Aku Kartini

Saja (Just Call Me Kartini), she elaborated her view on
gamelan, “Gamelan never cheers; even in exuberant parties,
we can still hear the gamelan’s solemn voice; maybe it’s
supposed to be like that. Life is a solemn voice, not a cheerful
choir.”

Her statement implied that she was proud of gamelan, a

traditional Javanese musical instrument, as it was a metaphor
of how people’s life should be. Not only did she express pride
of her culture, she also criticized her own people.

In her letter to EC Abendanon, she made a suggestion to

improve Indonesian education, “That is what I want in the
field of education, character-molding should at least be given
attention to and most importantly the teaching of
perseverance." This suggests that Kartini was worried that
education without arts would dismiss the teaching of
character.

Pramoedya stated that culture reflected the character and

the way of life of its nation. By writing about our own culture
and tradition in English, we were introducing ourselves to the
world with our own voice.

Writings could also become a tool to influence others as what

Tjokroaminoto had done. He had written for the
newspaper, OetosanHindia, to support the movement of
Sarekat Islam. He mostly wrote about politics, law and
socialism from an Islamic perspective. His writings had
helped to strengthen the people’s support for him as a leader
and inspired Sukarno, Indonesia’s first president, to practice
his writing skills.

Looking up to Tjokroaminoto, Sukarno adopted

Tjokroaminoto’s style and wrote about approximately 500
articles that were published in the newspaper. He mostly
wrote about the colonized citizens and the greedy
government. His writings later became topics of discussion
and conversation among the people and influenced other
peoples’ thoughts and perspectives.

Schools seem to rarely introduce to their students Indonesian

literature or books discussing Indonesian history and culture.
Except once, when an American teacher introduced us to
Pramoedya Ananta Toer who turned out to be one of
Indonesia’s greatest writers. He suggested us to read his
books as he said the plots are interesting and that it could
help us understand how people of our country lived in the
past.

My teacher also often helps us practice our writing skills

while using materials about Indonesia’s history or culture.
This is how I began to understand the importance of being
able to inform others about our culture through writing. The
more I know about these things, the more I am beginning to
realize how interesting it is to learn about our own country.
There are a lot of perspectives on how someone may recount
events in the past, and I find it fascinating to be able to
understand their thoughts or imagine being in their position
at that time.

For every English test, we are required to write a

composition. But why can’t we use the chance to write about
our own country’s culture and history? A lot of students tend
to infuse American views, like brands, style, events and
routines in their writing for the plot or characterization. We
should be able to talk about our experience as Indonesians as
what Kartini had done. Most of our teachers are foreigners, so
we also could influence them to understand our country
better.

Not only do students learn from teachers, but we can learn

from each other as learning is not restricted by age – it’s a
never ending process.

By incorporating a drip of our culture in our writings, we can

provide anyone who reads it a taste. This could then initiate a
cycle where more and more people will start writing using our
unique traditions, where then more and more books about
Indonesia can be published, so more and more people can
learn about our great history and culture.

As illiteracy rate lowers,

RI struggles with
reading habits
While more people are literate in the country, the country still
struggles to make reading a habit.

A recent study conducted by John Miller, president of Central

Connecticut State University in New Britain, puts Indonesia in
the second-lowest rank of 61 measurable countries for its
'€œliterate behavior characteristics'€ '€” everything from numbers of
libraries and newspapers to years of schooling and computer availability.

Indonesia sits in 60th place after Thailand and before

Botswana. The Scandinavian countries are the champions of
the research with Finland in first place, followed by Norway,
Iceland, Denmark and Sweden rounding out the top five.

Hanna Pangestu, a third-grader at the state-owned senior

high school SMAN 2 in South Tangerang, said that a one-hour
reading session is scheduled every fortnight at her school,
but the teacher is seldom present, so '€œit'€™s not conducive [to
reading] and we end up doing other stuff, but not reading.'€

Just like Hanna, who said that she only likes to read Japanese
comic books, Muhammad Akhfin, a university student
majoring in communications studies, said that he only likes
novels.

'€œI like science fiction novels, but not news or history because I think they
are boring,'€ he said.

Culture and Education Minister Anies Baswedan said that the

illiteracy rate has in fact significantly decreased in the past
10 years.

'€œIndonesia has seen its illiteracy rate decrease significantly and we have
many libraries, but the reading habit is still low because of a lack of
passion,'€ he told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.
The ministry'€™s data shows the percentage of illiterate people has
decreased from 10.5 percent in 2005 to 3.7 percent in 2015.

Anies admitted that poor reading habits are a serious

problem in the country despite the many libraries available.

Indonesia placed at the 36th rank in terms of the number of

libraries, above countries like Portugal, New Zealand, South
Korea, Germany, the Netherlands and Singapore.

The major setback in the country'€™s assessment came from data

from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) that shows
only one out of 1,000 Indonesians is passionate about
reading.

The study sets out data from 61 countries, drawing from

sources ranging from UNESCO to the Program for
International Student Assessment (PISA) conducted by the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD).

'€œThese kinds of literate behaviors are critical to the success of individuals

and nations in the knowledge-based economics. Societies that don'€™t
practice literate behavior are often squalid, undernourished in mind and
body, repressive of human rights and dignity, brutal and
harsh,'€ Miller said as quoted by The Guardian.

Anies said that the School Literacy Movement outlined in

Ministry Regulation No. 23/2015 suggested that every school
provides 15 minutes of free reading time before school starts.

But students are slow to change.

Arief Rachman, UNESCO ambassador for Indonesia, said that

besides school, regional government plays a big role in
encouraging the habit.
Indonesia'€™s Reading Movement seeks book-lover
communities on the village level, while Reading Habit
Development by the Language Centers needs regional
leaders to also revamp their provincial libraries as well as
those owned by state universities.

'€œImplementation at the regional level is the key. Leaders need to

actively seek and create bookworm communities,'€ he told
the Post.

'€œCommunities need to be imposed with popular books or magazine that

they like at the first place before moving on to the heavier themes of
readings,'€ he went on saying.

Commenting on the study results, Arief said that

Indonesia'€™s low rank and Scandinavians'€™ top positions correlates
with each of the nations'€™ cultures, as well as other factors.

'€œIndonesia has a verbal culture in which people talk more to relay

information, while the Scandinavians have a more reserved
nature.'€

The case of reading and

preserving Indonesian
literature
In March 2016, a study conducted by Central Connecticut State
University (CCTU) entitled “Most Literate Nation of the World”
placed Indonesia as the 60th most literate nation out of 61 nations
on the list, above only Botswana, and below fellow ASEAN member
Thailand. A survey by UNESCO in 2012 records that only one out of
1000 people in Indonesia have an interest in reading. It might sound
meagre enough, but what if we ask this next question: how many of
the 0.1 percent read books that were written by an Indonesian
author?

In most developed countries, especially English-speaking countries,

high school students are taught to read books, being exposed to the
work of English literature greats like Mark Twain and Shakespeare
and encouraged to enjoy and find fun in reading literature. However,
in Indonesia, this practice is rare or not practiced at all. Yes, we are
taught about the history of Indonesian literature and the periods
that divide the styles of literature in Indonesia, but we are not given
time to read in class nor are we properly taught to read and
appreciate the works of our own people.

To find out whether Indonesians are knowledgeable about their own

literature, the Aksaranesia (Aku Suka Sastra Indonesia; I like
Indonesian literature) Campaign conducted a survey by asking basic
questions about well-known Indonesian literary works. The team
specifically targeted the younger generation in the age group of 15-
25 during Car Free Day Jakarta and in two universities in Jakarta.

Based on those surveys and quizzes, it found that Indonesian

youngsters are not entirely aware of Indonesian literature. None of
the respondents got a perfect score, and most are not even familiar
with some of the names of the writers being mentioned. Even a
simple question like “name three Indonesian books” was difficult to
answer. On top of that, it was easier for them to answer questions
about English books instead.

Did our writers not provide the readers with top class quality
options to read? Should the writers be partly blamed for this?
In 2015, when Indonesia became the guest of honor at the
Frankfurt Book Fair, the biggest book fair in the world, Dewi
“Dee” Lestari was invited to represent the Indonesian
literature circle. Germany, ranked 8th in the aforementioned
CCTU study, has been on the receiving end of some
translated Indonesian works, including from the likes of
Andrea Hirata, Ayu Utami and iconic figure Pramoedya
Ananta Toer, who has received global attention since the
1970s. Such accolades should be enough proof of the quality
of Indonesian writers.

Aksaranesia Campaign later interviewed Reza Pahlevi, the

writer of the book (Ex)perience and an internet celebrity, and
asked his opinion on the preservation of Indonesian
literature. He said, “Once you’ve written in online blog
platforms, there’s really no problem if you want to send your
script to a publisher. It allows your creation to be preserved in
physical form. In addition, we will have even more original
Indonesian writers, which allows us to compete with other
writers globally.”

Literature is an art form of language, with words as its tools.

Indonesian people are well known for their high level of
appreciation of any form of art, but the very basic form of art
in literature has started to be cast aside. But has Indonesian
literature really been left behind? This brings us to the next
question: Is it too late to catch up? (kes)

New book invites readers to

explore Indonesian culture

Those who are curious about how science and Indonesian

culture collide can consider reading Kode-kode
Nusantara (Archipelago Codes), a book written in
collaboration between culture enthusiast community Sobat
Budaya and research institute for complexity Bandung Fe
Institute.

Released on Thursday, the book encourages readers to view

culture as more than just a tradition. It is based on more than
33,000 data gathered by Sobat Budaya on Perpustakaan
Digital Budaya Indonesia (Indonesian Culture Digital Library),
as well as research and innovations conducted over a span of
14 years.
The book also highlights a scientific discovery behind the
country’s diverse culture, suggesting that there is a
connection between each and every one of Indonesia’s
17,000 islands, 1,200 tribes and 726 languages, which can be
in a form of health, politics, math or cultural point of view.
One example can be found in traditional houses, starting
from the form -- whether it is a wooden-stilt house or not,
using what materials -- to what influences they involve in
terms of architecture.

Other findings are also revealed in the book, among them the
mathematical aspect of Borobudur, the history behind batik
truntum, the mathematical complexity of traditional songs
and the “Tree of Life” philosophy across the archipelago, as
quoted by