Being Malay in Indonesia: Histories, Hopes and Citizenship in the Riau Archipelago

Chapter 8: Achieving Malayness

206 Being Malay in Indonesia 206 8 Achieving Malayness Khaidir looked great in his costume. He at least thought so, and I was inclined to agree. An 18-year-old who had recently graduated from senior high school, he was about to take part in a cultural parade (pawai) with a group of his old school friends. To make sure they looked the part, they had all rented luxurious Malay clothes from an expensive local salon. Before taking to the streets, however, he wanted to give his grandparents, aunts and uncles a sneak preview . Speaking from behind the curtain that covered the doorway to his changing room, he asked us if we were ready and then stepped forward, his head held high and his hands in the position associated with traditional Malay gait: his right hand in front of his stomach, fingers closed, and thumb pointing upwards, and his left hand in a similar position behind his back. Not usually someone to show his emotions, the faint smile on his face spoke volumes of his confidence and happiness. He walked forwards, gave a gentle bow, and began a dignified catwalk-like turn. He was barely halfway through when his grandfather interrupted. “Idiot!” the old man spluttered. “What are you wearing?!” Combining lustrous chocolate satin with a few sparkly silver trimmings and a stylish silver and maroon silk waistcloth (songket), Khaidir’s costume suited him very well. For his grandfather, however, it exemplified everything that he loathed about the current taste for wearing “modified” versions of traditional clothes (baju Melayu). “Do you call that Malay dress?” continued his grandfather relentlessly, very upset. “There’s nothing Malay about it! It’s all modifications. You don’t even know how to wear the waistcloth properly.” Achieving Malayness 207 Khaidir never finished his catwalk turn. His confident posture turned into a deferential hunch, his eyes fixed on the ground, as he explained that he needed to get going: the parade would soon be starting, it would be awful if the others were kept waiting. After hurriedly bidding us all farewell, he slunk out the door. His grandfather discussed the matter no further but remained agitated and distracted for the rest of the evening. This episode stuck in my memory because Khaidir’s initial confidence, his grandfather’s anger, and the awkwardness with which their difference of opinion went unresolved shows just how much affective charge can surround the performance and display of Malay culture. This is not a trivial concern. Countless dances, parades and “traditional’ theatre performances are staged every year in the Riau Islands and at considerable expense. They are important events in people’s lives, and a principal means by which the Riau Islands administration presents its vision of Malay culture to citizens. They are therefore events with high affective and political stakes, which may ostracise, exclude or unsettle some audience members, but also generate new recombinant expressions of what Malayness is or can be. The stakes are heightened still further by the fact that most instances of cultural performance are not mere “displays” but contests . Even Khaidir’s parade pitted participating groups against one another for the titles of best costumes, and best contribution to the parade — and this was one of the least competitive cultural events I observed in Tanjung Pinang. Malay culture thus became intertwined with the imperative to improve “human resources” and the pleasures and pains of achieving (Chapter 7). At the heart of this chapter is the question of how these two aspects of cultural performance interact. Certain combinations of achievement thinking and cultural performance can prove thoroughly “unsettling”, with the visions of Malayness and achieving citizenship that they articulate being both troubling for and troubled by the alternative notions subscribed to by competitors, audience and judges. Yet other cases have a rather different effect. Building on the observation of Renée Bergland’s (2000: 12) that “the uncanny” may, in certain circumstances, serve as a source of pleasure, I propose that emerging forms of cultural performance, which emphasise entertainment, strategy and achievement at the expense of adherence to codified “traditional culture”, unsettle categories of region and ethnicity in ways that actually offer their audiences new opportunities to feel “at home”. 208 Being Malay in Indonesia Creating Regional Culture The children’s book Loving the Land and Sea: Getting to Know the Cultures of the Indonesian People (Rahimsyah 2005) is widely available in bookshops throughout...