Who are “Dancing between Elephants”:

The Mousedeer, the Leader, the Victims and / or the Survivors? 1

By: Nelden Djakababa, PhD Candidate, University of Amsterdam

First, please let me express my appreciation to the UN-Habitat for letting Aryo make and distribute this
film. Not only did they commissioned and produced “Playing between Elephants”, but also, through this
documentary the UN-Habitat has permitted quite an honest depiction of the situation, even when at
times it casts the UN-Habitat itself in a light that is not always comfortable, to put it diplomatically.
Thanks to this, we can have a glimpse into the external and internal challenges of organizing a post-
disaster reconstruction / development project.

“Playing between Elephants” (2007) touches so many interesting and important points regarding the
intricate, multi-layered situations in the aftermath of a complex disaster. In this case, it was the
December 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami in Aceh, which was also under the DOM (Daerah Operasi Militer,
the Military Operational Zone) at that time, enforced by the central government to suppress the Free
Aceh Separatist Movement.

Of the many aspects that can be discussed out of this film, there are two main points that I would like to
raise here. The first is regarding leadership in a post-disaster area. The second point deals with the
power dynamics between the so-called “elephants” and the “mousedeer” or, to put it in a different way:
the politics of “victims” and “helpers”.

1. Leadership in a Post-Disaster area

One can be quickly drawn towards the figure of Pak Geuchik Abdurrachman, the village coordinator of
East Geunteng followed in this film. Seeing him is quite refreshing, even almost touching. He does not
seem to enjoy his role. He looks more reluctant and overwhelmed than eager to be the leader of the
village. One cannot blame him, as his position is not an easy one. Post-disaster, the leaders are often
faced with situations he or she has never had to face before as leaders, without similar previous
experiences that could be made as points of reference. This is not extremely unique to post-2004 Aceh,
but can also be found in many different post-disaster areas throughout the world.

Pak Geuchik Abdurrachman is literally caught in the middle. He gets pressure from both sides: from the
UN-Habitat, and also from the villagers. He often finds himself in a dilemma to appease both sides. At
the same time, both the UN-Habitat and the villagers seem to suspect him of corruption.

1
Presented as pointers for discussion at the screening of “Playing between Elephants” (2007) by Aryo Danusiri; the
discussion was titled “Youth, Politics and Reconstruction in an Indonesian Conflict Zone” on March 29, 2011 at the
Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge, MA, USA. The event is organized by the Harvard Kennedy School Indonesia
Program / The Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation.

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 One of the most telling scenes in this film is the one showing the foreign construction experts
who descended to East Geunteng to inspect the house projects. They found that the houses were being
built not up to standard, and they instructed them to be dismantled and re-done. Here we see revealed
that the UN-Habitat itself is not a simple and unified entity either: the foreign experts urged the
Acehnese UN staff to convey the instruction to dismantle the half-built houses to the workers and the
villagers, and the Acehnese UN field staff seemed reluctant to be the messenger of this unwelcome
news. “Don’t just ‘ok’! Tell them!” exclaimed the expert. And then in another occasion, another expert
stated in a manner that has been described as neo-colonialist by James Bourke Hoesterey (2007) 2: “I’m
afraid it’s gonna have to be a carrot-and-stick approach… Once you start rejecting work, they will listen.”
Then we see the frustrated PakGeuchik’s face: he’s smiling but with clenched teeth, shaking his head,
muttering: “Unbelievable…” He was reprimanded by the inspectors for not guiding the workers to build
up to standards, whereas the said standards seem to be not communicated well beforehand. At the
same time, he and also the local UN field staff have to receive the anger of the builders, who lashed at
them. The power relations and difficulties in multi-layered communication are quite evident here.

Preliminary findings of a study on humanitarian workers who responded to the 2006 earthquake in
Yogyakarta and Central Java also found some tensions stemming out of the issue of leadership. During
the interviews I had conducted, some of the humanitarian workers have attributed the problems in and
with leadership as one of the significant stressors they face when working after the earthquake. For
example, the humanitarian workers are usually organized to get to the locations in smaller teams,
consisting of a team leader and team members. The team leaders are usually seniors with more
experience than the others. The team leaders reported stress due to the chaotic situation, which was not
helped when line of command might had been pre-defined, but when the disaster happens, it does not
always function as well as necessary. They have to report to their superiors at the regional and / or
central headquarters, who then will give the team leaders further instructions. But those who are higher
in the command rank often do not have enough understanding of the ongoing situation on the ground,
and may give instructions that may not be the best responses at that time.

On the other hand, the team leaders also receives demands and pressure from his team members (to
lead them into actions in response to what they find on location), the affected communities, and other
parties including the local authorities, responders from other organizations, paramedics at the
overcrowded medical facilities, to name a few.

And then the team leaders also have to convey those instructions from the leadership above him to
these other parties on the ground, even though these instructions (perhaps made from a distant place
like the province capital or further) might not be the best ones to aptly respond to the immediate
situations on the ground. On top of that, the situation is usually still changing rapidly within the first
week or two, and the team leaders might not be able to always update the distant leadership with the
newest situation in real time.

2
Hoesterey, J.B. “Playing Between Elephants’: The U.N. and Acehnese Reconstruction.” Review of: Playing Between
Elephants, ethnographic film by Aryo Danusiri. In The Jakarta Post, December 13, 2007.

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The following questions that come to mind then include: what kinds of disaster-relevant policies and
framework that can help these leaders to do their work better in responding to disasters and rebuilding
their communities?

2. The “Elephants” and the “Mousedeer”

A friend (non-Indonesian) who had watched this film has confided with me one day, that while he did
like the film and found it quite interesting and stimulating, he did not understand the title. Because, he
said, “I have watched this film closely from beginning to end, but I did not see a single elephant.”

I suppose the title was inspired by an Indonesian metaphorical saying, which is: “Dua gajah bertarung,
pelanduk mati di tengah.” This expression can be translated as: when two elephants fight, the
mousedeer(s) would die, crushed in the middle.

In the case of East Geunteng Village, who are the elephants, and who are the mousedeers?

On the surface, it seemed clear-cut that the elephants are the so-called big players: the international
NGOs, UN agencies (including the UN-Habitat), funding agencies, and the central and local government 3.

And then the mousedeer would be the “little people”: the villagers themselves, who are generally
labeled as “victims of the tsunami,” “victims of the DOM 4” and later on, “survivors of the tsunami and
the DOM.” The opening scene, in which the villagers are seen to show fear in facing a hurricane, seems
to reinforce this notion of helplessness and thus in need of assistance. Also included in the big
category of the “mousedeer / little animals” are Pak Geuchik himself, the building contractors, and also
their workers (many of whom are ex-GAM combatants).

But upon closer examination, the distinction between “the elephants” and “the mousedeer” are not as
clear-cut.

Another telling scene which I think is a defining moment in the film apart from the “building inspection”
event described before depicts the village meeting, in which part of the village people got angry at Pak
Geuchik and the UN field staff. They walked-out of the meeting, and then took it to themselves to go to
the UN-Habitat office to lobby for their cause. In this, they totally bypassed the Geuchik.

3
Interestingly, in this case we do not see much of government agencies. They seem to be almost non-existent in
this micro-universe of East Geunteng village; except perhaps to some extent in the figure of Pak Geuchik
Abdurrachman, who was elected to become the village coordinator (geuchik). But it seems like he was left to his
own devices, including in having to face the UN-Habitat with its 13 million US Dollars grant for building 265 houses.
We do not see any other governmental structure above him who are working with him and sharing this
responsibility, and very little about the cluster coordinators under him.
4
DOM = Daerah Operasi Militer, the Operational Military Zone enforced by the Government of Indonesia in Aceh
prior to the tsunami, to suppress the movements of the GAM (Gerakan Acheh Merdeka, the Free Aceh Movement)
through military deployment.

3
 The villagers of East Geunteng had driven away another organization before the UN-Habitat came to the
area, because they had promised to build them houses but in the end did not deliver. To me, these two
incidents (driving away the other organization, and going directly to the UN-Habitat) had shown to us
that the villagers are not merely helpless mousedeer who can only react, but they are active actors. If
they are indeed mousedeer, they are of the type that have made their presence clear and who stand
their ground with a loud voice. Perhaps the villagers are a breed of their own, somewhat a cross
between mousedeer and elephant.

In the end, they reached a compromise with the UN-Habitat, who delivered the agreed solution to the
satisfaction of the villagers. And after all these challenges and tensions, Pak Geuchik Abdurrachman
eventually got re-elected as the village coordinator. The villagers still need his agency after all, to play the
difficult role as the mediator and negotiator with all these different stakeholders.

“Playing Between Elephants” have succeeded quite effectively to portray the rebuilding a post-disaster,
post-conflict area. It brings to mind once again the questions on “victims” and “those who came to help
the victims”, about survival-hood rather than victimhood, the power relations at play, and all the
complexities related to them. Similar situations have happened many times over, in Aceh and in so many
post-disaster and / or post-conflict areas in Indonesia and elsewhere. As portrayed quite clearly in this
documentary, the “victims” are not simple, unified entities who are totally helpless and who would
unquestioningly abide to whoever are taking up the role of “helpers.” They are also undergoing their
own process of evolving from “victims” into “survivors” in varying degrees of recovery, each with their
own agendas, preferences, historical baggage, cultural predispositions, and also their different personal
quirkiness. Then the question that will be interesting to discuss on this point is: how can the affected
communities be best facilitated to go through their process from being victims to becoming survivors in
the manner best suited for them?

New England, March 2011.