When individuals form a group, there are certain elements, characteristics, or interests that bind them together. And identity in the form of a group (ethnic, cultural, national) always exists within a complex system that cannot be recognized through individuals. Physics may discover the smallest subatomic particles, for example, but when a number of atoms are bound together in atomic groups (molecules, compounds), the resulting “form” is always different. In social studies, this complex system of individuals is identified through ideology. However, is such identification accurate?
There is one difficult thing about ideology, namely the inevitability of serving one’s own will. Every entity outside of itself is wrong, so the mechanism of growth is always to conquer the Other. There is expansive engineering—a consequence of identity politics—which, if possessed by the majority group, will be oppressive, and if possessed by the ruling group, will certainly be authoritarian.
Ideology places identity as something fixed, when in fact it is not. Any entity is essentially changeable. Even the smallest individual in a group, when they grow, can no longer be recognized through their previous identification. Why? Because every individual interacts at every moment. And because every identity interacts at every moment, it changes. So what we see as identity is actually pseudo-identity.
Identity in literature
At the Fourth Indonesian Short Story Congress held in Pekanbaru, Riau, at the end of last year, I rejected the term “local aesthetics.” Local, like ethnic, cultural, and national, because of its ideological role, always adheres to its own standards and characteristics. Meanwhile, aesthetics is nothing more than a matter of emotion and thought in relation to beauty that is not bound by moral, social, political, economic, or any other considerations. There is a diametric condition between aesthetics and locality, which makes them incompatible.
Literature agrees with the first word, aesthetics, because all literary texts deal with the question of how to become nothing. Just as aesthetics can go anywhere, literature must become nothing so that it can be enjoyed by anyone from any part of the world. That is also why literature, because it becomes nothing, is not “giving” but “arousing.” Why arousing? Because, first, it deals with the senses and, second, to place the reader as the subject.
It is not surprising that, as an author, I always want to disappear. Only with my disappearance, and also with the disappearance of the literary text (don’t forget: becoming nothing), does the reader find their complete position as a subject. Thus, identity in literary texts will always disappear, disappear, and disappear. This is different from identity in other texts, which is always concerned with being and being.
Ironic
It is with a heavy heart that I must say that the history of modern Indonesian literature is a history of ideology. It began with a fascination with the West (the Netherlands) and gained momentum through political claims (nation building) in the Youth Pledge of 1928. It is ironic that each generation in Indonesian literature is always named after a specific event in the nation-building process. There is nothing to be said about such a literary history except that the history of Indonesian literature is a history of “giving” literature.
For those of you (the subject) who are interested in politics, such literary works are certainly not a problem. However, how many of you are there? Regardless of the number, the substance of “giving” literature will also make you immediately reject it once you change your direction and switch to other interests. And what cannot be ignored is that not all “giving” literature can be accepted in every era. Salah Asuhan and Siti Nurbaya, for example, now feel outdated. Or Layar Terkembang, which now seems closed off. These works are rigid in themselves, in their ideology: local tradition, nation, modern Western.
Like buildings, this “giving” literature laid the foundation, which continues to be upheld today. Ethnicity, culture, and nation are placed in tension, or conversely, in celebration, which is essentially the same: hard, solid, closed. For example, can Pariyem Linus Suryadi AG’s acknowledgment “give” to readers (subjects) from Balinese or Batak culture? Or Paco-Paco Hamid Jabbar, can he be accepted by subjects from Javanese or Sundanese culture? Because of ideology, the richness (uniqueness) of a culture lies in one word: futile. In this type of (historical) literature, can we talk about cross-culturalism?
The wholeness of culture
Let us return to the “error” of ideology: placing identity as something fixed. And let us correct that “error”: what is called identity is nothing more than pseudo-identity. Or let us say it plainly: there is no identity, there is only interaction. In interaction, where are the atoms? They do not exist, because there are only compounds. In interaction, how can we believe in the “original”? The “original” is washed away with death, because the eternal characteristic of life is change.
The word tradition itself, in fact, comes from the English word tradition, which is rooted in the word trade, one of whose meanings is “exchange”. I must say that in Minangkabau, there is nothing authentic. Even the everyday clothing of young people is identified with the adage baju guntiang cino, sarawa batiak jao, saruang sandang bugih, which when translated into Indonesian means Chinese-style shirt, Javanese batik pants, Bugis sarong. That is a physical example. A non-physical example can be found in my village, Luak Limopuluah, where the barih-balabeh (a kind of tambo, but telling the origins of a smaller local culture) mentions Si Jambi, the son of Rajo di Ranah, who could not be circumcised with anything except the knife that his mother gave birth to with him. Another version of a story from Hindu mythology that also has other versions in Greek mythology. It should be noted that Luak Limopuluah, my village, is located in the interior of Minangkabau! How can we still dare to talk about “authenticity”?
In my opinion, it is in this interaction, in this “transcendence,” in this changeability, that literature can meet culture. When they are both “out”—culture is free from ideology and literature ceases to exist—from (the power of) identity, readers will transform into subjects, full of themselves, their world, and their perspectives. a condition (field) in which literature is not in a position of “giving,” but rather “awakening,” wherever the subject is in the world, whatever culture the subject comes from.
Indeed, nothing is more important than the subject (the reader). Because it is the subject who lives in the real world, moving through life alongside us: changing and building the world.
*) This article was published in the Kompas daily newspaper on December 9, 2006.
