Talk:Indonesian National Awakening

removal of "sophisticated"

I took out (ricklefs?') note about a more sophisticated culture... That's one person's opinion. There's no scholarly way to measure what is more or less sophisticated. Furthermore, it often implies "better." One can say that more INdonesians started to emulate ideas they considered "modern," but there's no proof that smoking kreteks, listening to kroncong and the like actually make one truly more sophisticated. MOre prone to cancer--that would be objective. Smilo Don (talk) 10:15, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Revival => Awakening...

I suggest we move this article to "Indonesian National Awakening", it seems more logical, and in my experience, the most commonly used term. thoughts? --Merbabu (talk) 12:53, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

• Agree - Kebangkitan Nasional = National Awakening, from the root bangkit. 'Revive' just isn't right - it wasn't there before. Also it is the most commonly used term, notably as the two versions of the official slogan for this year's Visit Indonesia campaign: "100 Years of Nation's Awakening" [sic] and the later correction "100 Years of National Awakening". Davidelit (talk) 13:03, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

• Agree - from David's comments - someone on the ground there now - it is a good fit (cocok) SatuSuro 13:15, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

• Agree and disagree. never heard of "revival;" and don't like it; only know the more famous "Awakening." I've seen Pramoedya use it and many, many others. I would add, though, that an "awakening" is a very loaded term. It follows the nationalist line of argument: namely that there really was a nation, and that it was merely slumbering. Most of the top Indonesian scholars (e.g. at Cornell, Berkeley, etc.) argue that "Indonesia" was more or less invented during this time. Thus "awakening" is more of a nationalist notion. From a scholarly point of view, it's more accurate to say that the nationalists radically imagined the nation; radically asserted a common tongue that was not in common use; radically insisted on some sort of common ethnic/cultural/national identity, and so forth. During this era the word "Indonesian" was used for the first time. Most "Indonesians" at the time had no friggin idea that they were part of a common nation. It was only a handful of the literate elite. Anyway, "awakening" is the nationalist word, and perhaps could be mitigated here. In the short term, "Awakening" is a bit better, but I think it's worth finding a less biased word for the future. Smilo Don (talk) 04:10, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Done

I’ve moved it, and will check any double redirects, etc, later. Please remind me if I don’t (or do it yourselves! ;-) ). Cheers --Merbabu (talk) 05:08, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Small realignment of page/topics?

Here's a thought: I think that this page truncates awkwardly at 1942. Of course, nationalism increased in many important ways during the Japanese period. First and foremost, it destroyed the Dutch hold for good, it scrambled social relations like mad, it encouraged nationalism, it brought about a new common enemy, instilled militarism, et cetera , etc.

1. Maybe snip the paragraph on nationalism from the article on the Japanese occupation and put here.
2. On Japanese occupation page make mention of nationalism rising and redirect here.
3. Adjust date of National Revival (to 1945?)

I jsut think it's a bit strangely arranged at this point. could flow a bit better this way. Whaddya think? Smilo Don (talk) 04:25, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree – in principle – with points 1 & 2 (I did write the stuff :-) ), but not 3. It’s important for all the right brain organisation of wikipedia to keep it as chronological as possible. (see template on right hand side of article where 20th stuff is reasonably chronological). But, I agree completely on having lead-ins and lead-outs connecting the preceding and the following articles. Should be the case across all articles - but nothing ever seems finished!

I've done a fair bit of work on Japan Occ inclding the nationalism but do not pretend it is anywhere yet near ideal. I would hope that much of what you just mentioned ie - it destroyed the Dutch hold for good, it scrambled social relations like mad, it encouraged nationalism, it brought about a new common enemy, instilled militarism, et cetera - is contained in Japan occ article. --Merbabu (talk) 04:58, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

New issues to tackle on the "awakening"

So now that we've got an "Awakening" , we've followed the logics of INdonesian nationalism. This manuever might lead to a number of outcomes. First, there are the obvious linkages to the official register of an "awakening." This year (2008) is the centenary of the official "awakening" in 1908. We just had the holiday here the other day (big hullabaloo in Jakarta, nothing doing here in another part of Java). I think its essential that the use of "awakening" not be used without critical commentary. Many Indonesians have chided the "awakening" (Pramoedya among them) and/or cursed the way that it has become a celebration of false/forced unity, militarism, the status quo, etc.

The other day, Ariel Heryanto wrote a great critique of "awakening" in the J. Post. I think its a must-read for anyone working on this page. http://blogs.arts.unimelb.edu.au/arielh/2008/05/22/on-national-awakening/

I think too that, following Heryanto, we should be very cautious about how we represent an "awakening," lest this encyclopedia serve as an instrument of myth-making, rather than as a resource of information. Smilo Don (talk) 05:38, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

As we must also be careful not to make the encyclopedia an instrument of personal axe-grinding. Reporting of facts are the key. Not our own “critiques”, commentary or interpretations. --Merbabu (talk) 05:56, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Opinions are one thing - critical commentary another thing again - writing online encylopedia articles another thing again - they are not in any way at all the same thing - sounds like smilo needs a blog rather than work on edits here - this is meant to be an online encyclopedia.

To repeatedly offer pram as a reference point is relatively pointless - very specific items are needed to work with specific cites and specific example of material that supports a relatively even handed approach - pram was a writer who when he was freed was able to write quite a lot - if he is invoked we need the specific refs - not raising his banner without a citeable point.

This is really not the territory of an online encyclopedia article to have any predicated 'musts', 'needs' for any article - if there was a specific event - there are the points of reference - for the nebulous notions of what and how 'awakening' is or was - is the same as pancasila, pembangunan from the pak harto era - they were multi layered, multi meaning and multi applied over time - really the issues that smilo is trying to ask for here in this article are misplaced - if he wants to indulge in his notions of indonesian cliches that come from the past and present - go write the article - this is not the article for such. SatuSuro 06:12, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Gents, this ain't about Pramoedya or about blogging: it's about lines of reasoning--whether one gets railed into a naturalizing what is ideological, or whether one carefully notes the constructedness of the language. Take, for example, the article on Guided Democracy. Well, it really could be made more explicit that this was not a democracy at all. That should be pretty bluntly stated. On the other hand, the New Order piece nicely points out that the "new" and "old" come from one authoritarian's imposition and that the term has come to be loaded with certain meanings. All I'm suggesting here (and there's no need to suggest I'm doing otherwise) is offering that we do something akin to the lead of the New Order piece. We note that "awakening" locates "Indonesia" in a certain context and has been used in various ways. There's really nothing nefarious about that. It's good information, which helps the reader to understand the radical newness of "Indonesia," which is a critical point of this essay. Smilo Don (talk) 06:51, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Satu, Reading thru yr reverts... I think we agree that the piece (1) desperately needs work, ()2) drastically oversimplifies a complex period of time/space, and (3) speaks of a complex period of time/space as if it were nothing more than the fulfillment (or waking up) of national destiny! What baloney. As I tried to say & edit, there was only a wee little cohort of folks thinking in terms of "INdonesia." In hindsight, they were really important to the history to follow.

The intellectual problem comes from writing history (and encyclopedias) in the first place: it's darn hard to boil down the complexity of million of people, thousands of islands, and a wide swath of time, into a one cute little story. But that's our lot on WP.

Seems to me that, given the constraints of WP, one "has to" periodicize a nation's history. The catch is how to do it without rewriting the mythology of one group or the other. I am concerned that the very idea of this period of history as an "awakening" follows the nationalist's mythology. On the other hand, I DO think it's vital to cover the rise of "Indonesia(n)" consciousness here. But was an "awakening" really the sum of what was going on in Ambun, Aceh, or ____ ? I think not.

So perhaps the task here is to acknowledge the very significant formation of nationalism, of "INdonesia," etc. and also to deal with contrary, contradictory, and "peripheral" events as well (e.g. agricultural issues, economic depression, religious prophet types running around, etc.). Smilo Don (talk) 06:15, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

You just gotta admire somebody who writes so much guff ("naturalizing what is ideological") and utterly misses the point. An encyclopedia is a collection of information. If somebody wants information, they look there. Following this...? If somebody wants information about what everybody seems to call the Indonesian National Waking, they look for an article so entitled. If they want pseudo-intellectual debates couched in dated and/or inexplicable terms, they need only read a blog or two. Or put another way, let's rename the Renville Agreement to Renville concessions forced by US Pressure or the subheading Independent Indonesia in the history template to Notionally Independent but dominated by wicked capitalists selling rich people what they want to buy. Opinions (even different ones) are good, but not in Wikipedia. Davidelit (talk) 09:09, 30 May 2008 (UTC)