HOW A BULE FAILED HIS WIFE’S GRIEVING
When my brother-in-law Edhy Pri Hutomo died last year leaving a widow and two adult children his family went into shock. He was the youngest and only son, preceded by five girls. Four were around the bed (one lives in the US and watched on a live feed) as the paramedics’ defibrillator was defeated by the call of the deity.
He’d been unwell for a few weeks and was being treated for kidney stones, but seemed to be on the upswing when he collapsed in the bathroom. He was 49.
The family is Protestant and the church took over formalities with unhurried efficiency. Edhy died at 4 am – within three hours he’d been washed, dressed in a suit and at rest in an open coffin in his mother’s lounge. Friends and neighbours came to peer, pray and photo. By noon he was lying in a public cemetery just before the daily tropical downpour sluiced mud into the grave and chased mourners back to their cars.
The suddenness hit hard. At other times and places a few of us had been through Dr Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ Five Stages of Grief, so knew what to expect. Some of the Swiss psychiatrist’s colleagues reckon the stages are ‘relevant only to those coming to terms with their own impending death’. Indonesian families rarely discuss the ending of life lest speaking out invites the grim reaper.
As a bule (Westerner) who likes to think he reasons logically, I once suggested a test of the theory: We should talk about money and wait for riches to arrive. My jest was not well received.
To better appreciate the responses to Edhy’s death, some background is necessary.
Some might find this story’s references to creeds unnecessarily intrusive, but religion isn’t a private matter in Indonesia. It plays such a critical role in everyday life that it’s necessary to tag a citizen with a faith to try and understand who they are and where they fit. Across the archipelago, even in public transport and passing encounters at supermarkets, the question ‘what’s your religion?’ is as common as the ‘what’s your job?’ inquiry in Oz.
Government stats show around 88 per cent of the nation’s 273 million say they follow the Prophet, making the Republic the world’s most populous Muslim country. Although Indonesia is constitutionally secular and guarantees religious freedom including the right to non-belief, acceptance is a tough task.
Citizens must choose from one of six government-approved monotheisms (some theological gymnastics have been performed to include Hinduism) and have their selection stamped on their ID card. Objectors have challenged the practice with no success.
One Christian writer who’d battled the bureaucracy to preserve his privacy commented: ‘There is no appetite among politicians or law enforcers to uphold this intrinsic right (to freedom)’.
Apostasy can be a social crime splitting families to the point of divorce and shunning those once held close and precious. Agnosticism is considered a Western evil, even synonymous with Communism. A kafir is an infidel, a pagan, and may not be allowed across the threshold –though fortunately that extremist reaction is rare.
My mother-in-law Detty comes from North Sulawesi, a largely Christian province. Her father Paul was a minister and missionary but she married Oentoeng, a Muslim Javanese government architect who converted to secure his bride. That meant all the kids had to be Protestant.
That was during the era of first President Soekarno when religious tolerance in mainstream society was more common than today. The family’s Christian and Muslim sides live 80 km distant but stay in contact and share a meal most years.
Such togetherness is now rare as cashed-up Saudi zealots have exported the arid Wahhabism movement, shouldering aside Java’s she’ll-be-apples syncretism. Journalist, poet and intellectual Goenawan Mohamad calls this the ‘Arabisation’ of Indonesian Islam.
On strict interpretations of Islamic law an apostate should be executed, but my late father-in-law not only kept his job but was promoted to head a government department – such was the liberalism of the time - and stayed with Javanese culture. He had a kris, the wavy-blade dagger which is supposed to have magical powers, meditated, fasted twice a week and followed other practices of Kebatinan aka Kejawèn.
This spiritual system pre-dates Islam and Christianity, a ‘Javanese religious tradition, consisting of an amalgam of animistic, Buddhist, and Hindu aspects, rooted in Javanese history and religiosity.’
Other definitions include ‘the cultivation of inner peace’ and ‘an ethic and a style of life that is inspired by Javanese thinking’. As Kebatinan is a matter between the individual and the eternal there are no temples, holy books or intermediaries like priests. That’s made it easy for the government to refuse recognition as an official religion and downgrade it to a cultural conviction.
Though Detty and Oentoeng’s children prayed daily and were regular churchgoers, the family’s maids were traditional Madurese from an arid island off Java’s north-east coast. While Dad and Mum were busy the helpers filled their young charges’ minds with creepy stories of phantoms and sorcery.
Even now some of our crucifix-wearing, Bible-flaunting relatives and friends sleep with lights on, share beds on juma’t legi – a special night in the Javanese five-day calendar - and avoid using our toilets because we have wayang (puppets) and masks on the walls.
Though tertiary educated and holding professional positions they openly believe in guna-guna (black magic), confident they’ll not be mocked.
The liberal US theologian John Shelby Spong’s reinterpretation of the Scriptures has yet to take root in Indonesia where God is not dead, nor religion in retreat, and to suggest otherwise is risky.
Heaven and hell remain destinations for the departed - but where had Edhy gone? The question gnawed at the bereaved as they sought meaning.
The way he died, the time of his departure, the comments he’d made, the dreams and predictions were pooled and probed. Commonplace events were upgraded to revelations. Correlations became causation.
For this Western thinker, mixing mysticism and the paranormal with structured Christianity seemed like a lurch back three centuries to the pre-Enlightenment world when faith trumped reason.
Then there’s communication. Bahasa Indonesia is official across the archipelago, but for those outside Jakarta their first tongue is regional. In Central East Java it’s the stratified Javanese used by around 100 million, though not this writer.
My wife Paulin speaks English better than I handle BI, but found few words in either language adequate for revealing her emotions after her brother’s death. She had to confide but I couldn’t meet her needs however much we talked.
I kept my cynicism to myself, consoled and empathised, but soon realised a sad truth: The language and intimate thoughts we share daily and help our love thrive were of little help with Paulin’s grieving.
My empathy couldn’t quench the tears. Her feelings could only be expressed in Javanese with friends who’d been raised from birth with the same cultural certainties. She got more comfort from her Muslim hairdresser than her husband.
What was my wife thinking? For once I didn’t know. At other times we’d finish each others’ sentences, respond to questions moments before the asking as many couples do after bonding for decades.
I’m intrigued by Javanese culture, have written about the Majapahit era (1293 – 1527) visited scores of temples, been present at curious (though not frightening) ceremonies and find many traditions worthy . That’s as an observer, not a practitioner, always conscious I stand on soil watered by the blood of dissidents.
My cosmopolitan wife has camped in the Australian backblocks, sleeping under the stars unspooked. She’s lived in New Zealand for a decade, an active parishioner with the Dominion’s most progressive Presbyterian congregation which then had a lesbian minister. Regularly in the pews was one of the world’s foremost theologians, Sir Lloyd Geering.
Although she found the church’s openness liberating, her new views were not tolerated back in her homeland where homophobia is on the rise, and frank discussion of religion risks charges of blasphemy. To fit in she’s had to accept the local convictions. Back in Java the ghosts were waiting, and everyone knew they were real.
Forty days after Edhy’s death there were more ceremonies, flowers cast on the grave and prayers aplenty. Discussions rolled on for hours, the questions unstoppable, the reasoning baffling, though I said nowt.
Living in Indonesia is more than language, funny foods, a few whacky habits and comedies of errors. Much of what we believe is not formally learned but unconsciously absorbed. The roots go deeper than we imagine, drawing nutrients from divers soils, growing or withering, fruiting or barren.
Before Edhy died I thought I was moving slowly towards the outer edges of Javanese thinking. I was wrong. I could relate to the event and respond to the emotions only as a bule. Mixed marriages can be wondrous and enriching, yet wanting when death reveals differences so profound, and which we never knew were lurking below.
Loving is easy, whatever the culture. Handling grief is not.
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