LIBERAL? MAYBE... BUT THERE ARE LIMITS

 
Help! What would Gus have done?

They’re idealists working out of the center of Javanese arts, culture and education. They want to promote harmony, but are bumping into difficulties with the acceptance philosophy of their guru.

The fourth President of Indonesia, the late Abdurrahman Wahid, was better known as Gus Dur. So his followers have dubbed themselves Gusdurians. 

Asian Currents teased out a few sometimes-taboo ideas with a group of sharp and bright young Gusdurians at their national headquarters in Yogyakarta. 

When asked if they’d marry a person of another faith they found a score of excuses; most centered on the hurt it would cause their extended families and separation from friends and community.
They had lists of negatives; the joys of discovering difference and compromise seemed of little importance. 

So better to marry a bad Muslim than a good Christian? “Well, not so easy.” said Ahmad Aminuddin, 26, who recognized the possibility that love can smite in unplanned ways. “There are other factors of customs and culture. We want to keep our identity. It’s complicated.” 

Though not to someone brought up in the secular West where families often leave faith choices to their kids when they reach the age of discretion. But this is Indonesia where the question: ‘What’s your religion?’ is as common as ‘cold enough for you?’ in Hobart or ‘this one’s a scorcher, eh?’ in Sydney.
The organization has 110 branches around the archipelago and a few overseas, including Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand. It was established to keep Gus Dur’s nine values alive.
These are respecting and practicing faith, humanity, justice, equality, liberation, simplicity, brotherhood, chivalry and local wisdom. 

The internationally famous humanist was 69 and in ill health when he died in late 2009.
His 19 months in office between 1999 and 2001 after the fall of the long time dictator and former army general Soeharto, followed by the brief Presidency of B J Habibie, were chaotic.
The near-blind Islamic intellectual and all-round funny man often diffused tensions by starting meetings with a joke, frequently poking fun at religion.  He was a bad economist and administrator, but a good social reformer.

After being threatened with impeachment he yielded to deputy Megawati Soekarnoputri. To his biographer, Australian academic Dr Greg Barton, Gus Dur was a ‘non-politician politician’ who refused to make deals with the army, so gathered enough enemies to bring about his downfall.
He supplied ample ammunition by liberating the ethnic Chinese minority of racist controls, reforming the police, forgiving former Communists and preaching harmony. 

The Gusdurians say they are a community network; their HQ is a small and sparsely furnished kampong house owned by Gus Dur’s eldest daughter, psychologist Alissa Qotrunnada. She was overseas when Asian Currents visited. 

His activist second daughter Yenny runs The Wahid Institute research center in Jakarta.
Few Gusdurians ever encountered their hero, only his essays; they’ve translated 13 into English in the just-published Gus Dur on Religion, Democracy and Peace ‘to share his words with the world’.
Caricatures abound, showing the plump scholar looking more like Semar, the wayang character in Javanese mythology. At one level he’s a clown, but is also divine and wise. The name translates as ‘mysterious’. 
 

Seated – Jay Akhmad; standing from left Rifqiya Hidayatul, 

Ahmad Aminuddin and Nofa Safitription

The Gusdurians in Yogyakarta are all Muslims but in other centers like Malang, Catholics and Protestants are in the front ranks. Last December an unnamed group in the East Java city lined roads with posters urging Muslims not to wish Christians a Happy Christmas; the Gusdurians organized a rapid removal. 

Gusdurians push multiculturalism but their concept would be better labeled  ‘multiethnic within the Republic’; it’s not the definition used by nations with massive migration programs like Australia where people from across the world have settled. 

For Aminuddin the term means Acehnese through to Papuans living together within the archipelago.
The more cosmopolitan Akhmad Agus Fajari, aka Jay Akhmad, national coordinator of the Gusdurians, has traveled overseas where Islam is the minority faith, so understands the broader interpretation. 

At a 2018 convention which drew 650, he said the Gusdurians were not a fan club or supporter of the former president, just the new generation wanting to spread his ideas. 

There’s another partially similar NGO operating in the Republic. Islam Nusantara seems to be better funded, producing well-made films promoting indigenous culture-based Islam as opposed to the puritan Saudi Wahhabism version that’s long been dominant. Akhmad said Gusdurians were “in line” with Islam Nusantara. 

MORE IMPORTANT THAN POLITICS IS HUMANITY

“Gus Dur is the tree – we’re the twigs,” he explained. “We need to see language and definitions in context. This is one of the challenges.” It’s a word that jumps into many of his statements along with “struggle”.
Another notion that sparks much heat and little light: What’s a liberal? 

For fundamentalists it’s a synonym for Western decadence, for others it means freedom to think independently and be open-minded, difficult when some faiths demand rigid acceptance of their scriptures. 
They were surprised to know that in Australia the major conservative political party is called Liberal. 

Nofa Safitri, 24, plays with these ideas like the academic she’s probably destined to become. Raised in Bukittinggi in West Sumatra she chose Yogyakarta’s Jesuit Sanata Dharma University for her education, dismissing relatives’ fears she’d be converted. 

“I remember going into the classroom and seeing a cross on the wall,” she said. “I was at first concerned but five minutes later I’d accepted this was the environment. I never suffered discrimination. 

“One lecturer joked about pictures of Jesus showing him with a ‘six-pack body’ and saying he needed to be fit to carry the cross. We couldn’t talk like that about our Prophet.” 

Rifqiya Hidayatul, 25, has found that being a Gusdurian carries unexpected responsibilities. The night before she’d been contacted by a family seeking help for domestic difficulties; they assumed she’d inherited the former leader’s reconciliation skills. 

Gus Dur’s thinking on the rights of minorities looks unassailably reasonable – till real events intrude. The Gusdurians were nonplussed by the idea of same sex weddings and gay clergy, unthinkable in the Republic but now accepted even in countries as deeply religious as Ireland. 

Values shift. The wisdom of the elders doesn’t always answer dilemmas unforeseen last century. The Gusdurians have a model, but will have to till their own field.
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(First published in Asian Currents 14 December 2028.  http://asaa.asn.au/help-gus-done/

UNESCO WORLD BOOK DAY IN INDONESIA

Book me a future                                          

Today (23 April) is UNESCO World Book Day.  Duncan Graham reports from Yogyakarta on a community initiative to encourage reading,

When university administrator Heny Wardatur Rohmah was pregnant with her first child she went into debt.

Not to buy maternity gear or baby clothes, but books.  “I believed that if I read aloud to my unborn child then she would also develop a love of reading,” Heny said. “I wanted her to be clever.”

She is, most certainly.  Syakiri Divany Wijaya (Diva), now 11, is an exceptional child, known locally as Ratu Buku (the Book Queen).  She could read by age three, is a chess champion and public storyteller with a remarkable handle on English.

Her sister Nayahani Imara Wijaya (Naya), 7, is also smart and equally curious.

Whether the girls could hear their Mom’s voice while in the womb is a matter for medical science to ponder.  What’s not in doubt is the environment in which they’ve been raised. 

The girls’ parents started a free local library in a room at the back of their building materials store in the village of Tegal Manding, about 14 kilometers from Yogyakarta.

It proved so popular that it attracted government support.  NGOs and corporates keen to discharge their community service responsibilities on a worthy cause also got involved by donating books and equipment.

Now the original book room has expanded sideways and upwards to create areas for reading and playing games, principally chess.  Outside is a red tree house where individualistic kids can read in peace and let their imaginations soar.

Hanging from a branch is a sturdy swing for those who can’t sit still while their heads are in a book.

Below is a motorbike-powered van that tours kampongs and villages.  The outfit was donated by a company to the local government for use during the 2010 Mount Merapi eruption, then repainted and fitted out as a mobile library.

This is Mata Aksara (Seeing Letters) and it’s the creation of Diva’s father Nuradi Indra Wiyaya (Adi) and his uncle Badruddin, a man with a talent for inventing and making educational toys and puzzles.

“As a family we’ve always been keen on reading, and we wanted to share our enthusiasm,” said Adi, who studied child psychology at university.

“My father Ki Wahyu Pratista, who used to teach in  a madrasah (Islamic school) wrote a book on philosophy and also helps as a library volunteer.

“Neighbors liked the idea and started coming in to read and borrow. The interest grew and here we are spending much of our time on the project.”

Once a week he drives the motorbike to six villages and asks what sort of books they want.  In one case this has had an astonishing economic impact. (See sidebar)

The 4,000 volume collection is eclectic.  There are giant picture books designed for class reading and given by the US-supported Asia Foundation, news magazines donated by journalists, comics from Japan, an encyclopaedia and a wealth of other material.

There’s even a critical analysis of Karl Marx’s writings by Jesuit Franz Magnis-Suseno. This sits alongside biographies of first President Soekarno, his deputy Mohammad Hatta and shelves full of volumes on other national and international famous names.

“I like reading about these people,” said Diva. “One of my heroes is Marie Curie (the Polish / French physicist and first woman to win a Nobel Prize), and Leonardo da Vinci (the 15^th century Italian polymath).

“I also enjoy legends and funny stories, but I don’t like comics because there are too may pictures. However my friends want to hear ghost stories, so that’s what I have to read to them.”

Also in the library is a separate room with two computers linked to the Internet and a TV monitor. Rules prohibit watching anything other than documentaries on DVDs.

Adi said he gets frustrated by official attitudes towards reading. He rejects the idea that Indonesians put money for food before books, pointing out the high uptake of costly cellphones, even among the poor.

When Mata Aksara started to expand Adi’s friends thought he was wasting his time and should concentrate on selling cement and loading lumber.

“Only a minority like books, yet these are the key to education and our future,” he said. “They are so important, yet so ignored.  Too many think libraries are for the elite but we’re showing they’re for everyone.

“Orde Baru (Soeharto’s New Order administration) stopped the development of reading habits through tight censorship and printing restrictions. Now we have to catch up.

“Free libraries do work in Indonesia – we’ve only lost about 50 books, and what does that matter?  If they’re stolen it means they’ re being used. I hope that in the future everyone will be able to have books in their homes.”

Said Diva: “I don’t know what I want to be – it changes every day.  Sometimes a doctor, maybe an archaeologist.” Then she went back to her book.

(Breakout One)

Comic start

Indonesian literature graduate, film maker, blogger, author and self-confessed impulsive book buyer Lutfi Retno Yahyudyanti, 30, came across Mata Aksara through a radio program about books and her book club.  Her day job  is communications manager with an NGO concerned with forestry.

To justify her love of books she quotes a verse from the Koran: ‘Read, in the name of your Lord who created.’

“Some parents prohibit their children from reading anything other than  text books because they think literature will distract from schooling,” she said.

“I tell my radio listeners that the culture of reading has to start early, but not with serious books.

“When I was young I enjoyed comics, even against my parents’ wishes, but I grew out of them.  Now I’ve moved on and read a vast number of topics. I read to learn how the world works.”

(Breakout Two)

Knowledge is profit

The well-paved roads of the Central Java village of Nglebeng Margorejo Tempel are flanked by low stone walls.  Without them the dense salak palms, which already arch across the lane, would surely take over like some mutant science fiction plant. 

The people wouldn’t be able to flee and the vicious thorns would shred their flesh.

Salak, also known as snake fruit because of its scaly brown husk, has long been grown in villages around Yogyakarta.

When the Mata Aksara mobile library first visited Nglebeng several years ago the community asked for books on plant breeding and organic farming.

According to Adi the village has since stopped using artificial fertilizers in favor of organics and now harvests three times a year instead of two.  Growers have also developed a variety called salak madu (honey snake fruit) that sells at a premium.

“All this came about because the people started reading books that gave them information appropriate to their needs,” he said.

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(First published in The Jakarta Post 23 April 2014)

JOMPET KUSWIDANANTO

                                                                          Finding freedom to express 

                                

Javanese artist Jompet Kuswidananto’s hand gets a good work out in his home town of Yogyakarta.

While walking through a preview of the spectacular Art / Jog Maritime Culture art exhibition at the city’s Taman Budaya (cultural center) it seemed that administrators, curators and – most importantly – overseas critics and buyers - all wanted a piece of the man.

Although the exhibition is supposed to have a marine theme it’s a mark of Jompet’s importance that organizers included one of his installations. 

I was Hamlet is based on the ideas of German post-modernist theater director Heiner Muller’s Hamletmachine. It features old and broken sound systems, symbols of the authoritarian New Order government that dictated Indonesians’ lives and thoughts for 32 years.  It might have been naughty once, but it’s not nautical.  

Successfully jostling for prominence in the crowded art world doesn’t appear to have infected Jompet with arrogance, the virus of fickle fame. 

“It seems the definition of ‘emerging young talent’ ends when the artist reaches 35,” he joked, shortly after returning from a residency in Vietnam.

“I’m almost 37 so that probably rules me out. Being an installation artist restricts my market, but fortunately my wife Inna Deshitta is an architect in Bali.

“Having a professional partner allows me time to explore. I’ve been going alone on my motorbike into quiet places to think. I hate to be in a routine.

“For the past four years I’ve been working with my ghost figures. Maybe it’s time for new directions. Sometimes I ask myself whether it’s all been over-discussed.”

Original talent and an attractive personality aren’t the only qualities that make the self-taught artist an ideal candidate for overseas support.  He doesn’t present like the stereotyped Indonesian bohemian, no red headband and dreadlocks, no reeking of kretek smoke.

Then there’s his fluent English and easy access to a lexicon describing, exploring and covering the canvas of abstract art with ease, making him a stimulating conversationist.

But the crunch factor is that Jompet used to inhabit the once dangerous territory of anti -Soeharto social commentary.  He’s passed though the rebel stage unscathed and earned his veteran’s stripes. 

Now he faces the curse of being mainstreamed, and the need to find the next big cause.

There’s no stand-out enemy.  Poverty and corruption, dirty politics and inequality are major foes, but amorphous.  All things perceived to be wrong once coalesced in a single bogey man - the nation’s second president.

“Are we free now? That’s the big question,” Jompet said. “It’s something I think about a lot.

“We thought we were after 1998 (the downfall of Soeharto), and able to reclaim our rights. Now we can all speak but no-one is listening because it’s so noisy.

“Today the cry is: ‘What is democracy?’  It’s a destination, not a journey. But we must not let it be defined by others.

“Democracy also provides a place for radicalism, which can create the downfall of democracy.  The state is now absent from our daily lives.  So we have to learn how to resolve our own problems, see them in different ways, and be creative.

“My topics are local, but I’m pretty sure they’re also public issues. Everyone has to question their world view because we’re no longer taught what to think. Not all are happy with this situation.” 

Underlying his point are stickers and T-shirts on sale in Yogya featuring the face of the smiling general who dominated the Republic’s politics for 32 years above the caption: Piyo kabare bro ...? Enak jamanku to .. (How are you, brother? My era was good, eh…)

The son of a farmer, Jompet grew up in a Yogya kampung, played protest music on guitar and joined a theater club.  At Yogya’s Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) he studied communications and experimented with music and art, laced with anti-government action.

“We read underground news from overseas,” he said. “We already realised something was wrong with the State. I threw stones at the police, but fortunately wasn’t arrested.”

He read widely and was inspired by the work of the Cypriot-Australian performance artist Stelarc who famously proclaimed that ‘the human body is obsolete’ before taking on an academic career.

In 2003 Jompet’s work appeared overseas in a Seoul group exhibition.  It was followed by displays in Shanghai, Mumbai, Singapore, Hong Kong and South Africa.  His first solo show was in Yogya in 2008.

The same year Jompet was noticed when Java’s Machine: Phantasmagoria was shown at the Yokohama Triennale. It featured images of body-less Yogya kraton guards as the interface of competing cultures and the ‘war against homogenization.’

For the past five years Jompet has commuted between Yogya and Bali where his wife was practising, but there are no maidens-in-paddy influences in his work.

During the last Southern Hemisphere summer his installation The Commoners, along with works by Eko Nugroho, another Yogya artist, dominated the foyer of the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. 

The catalogue said: ‘As a pairing, they shine light on the effervescent contemporary Indonesian art scene and present a wide-ranging, yet precise snapshot of this world’.

Jompet’s major work featured ranks of ‘ghost figures’ made substantial only by boots, hats and tools.  Occasionally they beat drums and waved flags.

Like his work in Art / Jog, a buyer would need a large and lofty lounge to accommodate the installation – though Jompet is prepared to make smaller, more compact versions.

The Melbourne exhibit was acquired by the NGV whose director Tony Ellwood has been in Yogya with a chequebook.  In the past 11 months the gallery has bought seven contemporary Indonesian pieces to boost its collection of 196 works from the archipelago, though many are batik and puppets.

“There are now local buyers - not all interest is from overseas,” said Jompet. “It’s a more critical market. I’m optimistic about the future of contemporary art in Indonesia.  This exhibition (Art /Jog) proves it.”

First published in The Jakarta Post 13 August 2013

DWIKORITA KARNAWATI

 

A passion for slips and spouts                                     

It was a Saturday dawn no one living in Yogyakarta on 27 May 2006 will ever forget.  Six years ago at six minutes to six people in the Central Java city were waking.  Among them was Dwikorita Karnawati who knew what was happening when her house started to shudder.

A 6.2 magnitude earthquake centered 25 kilometers south had thumped nearby Bantul Regency with colossal force. The damage was obviously widespread and it was clear there’d be many casualties as badly built houses crashed.  (Almost 6,000 died and more than 36,000 were injured.)

Once the first shock had passed panic followed. Many thought the quake was linked to the eruption of nearby Mount Merapi.  It wasn’t, but the terrified fled south.

Flooding and great jets of water, some up to four meters high were being reported. Signs of a tsunami?  Unlikely because Yogyakarta is more than 100 meters above sea level and far from the ocean.  But people weren’t stopping to reason - they rushed north, colliding with those heading in the other direction

In her shaken but little damaged home, Dwikorita heard listeners to a radio program reporting water spouts and realised what was happening.  Not a tsunami but liquefaction, where the quivering earth squeezes wet ground, forcing water to the surface.

“I called the radio station and explained the situation,” she said.  “Even my Rector at Gadjah Mada University (UGM) and other colleagues rang me seeking information.

“Scientists have a duty to talk publicly about natural events. I tried to calm people down - no tsunami, no need to flee.

“It was a lesson I learned when I was studying for a PhD at Leeds University (in Britain) where my lecturer used the media to warn about landslides in the area and help people prepare.

“It’s different in Indonesia.  I once had to visit a distant village devastated by landslips, accessible part way by motorbike, and the rest on foot.  The people didn’t speak Indonesian and many were superstitious about the cause of the disaster.

“I had to use pictures and comics to explain the situation.  Since then we’ve developed simple, attractive and accessible materials, including a calendar showing the seasons and conditions when landslips are most likely.

“Risks can be estimated by hazard mapping and reduced so damage is lessened.  We can help improve society’s resilience.”

The ability to relate to everyone from remote villagers to the center of power (she once briefed President Megawati Sukarnoputri and her Cabinet on a devastating debris flood in Sumatra) has been a valuable extra skill for the UGM professor of geology.

If she’d been thin-skinned Dwikorita would have never made it as a scientist.  She was one of only two girls studying geology in a class of sixty – and her friend has since moved to another discipline.

“The boys joked about me a lot at first but later became protective,” Dwikorita said.  “Things have improved since, though could be better.  Around ten per cent of enrolments are female.

“A third of my staff were women when I was head of the Geological Engineering Department between 2003 and 2011. (She stepped down to concentrate on research.)

“I was attracted to geology when I was a Scout and we went exploring rivers and mountains. I wanted to know more about the natural world. My father was an agricultural scientist, but I followed the example of my grandmother who was an outdoor woman adventurer.

“In my career I’ve had little discrimination.  The problem isn’t gender but age.  (She’s 48.)  Only a few men are jealous when women take the lead.

“At home I want to be clean, but when I’m in the field I don’t mind getting my hands dirty.”  Commented her colleague Iman Satyarno:  “She’s a tomboy.”

Along with three other UGM academics, Professors Iman and Dwikorita have accompanied two teams of lecturers and government officials from Padang (West Sumatra) and Palu (Central Sulawesi) on a training course in New Zealand.

After graduating Dwikorita did further research in Japan, Sweden and the UK.  In 1997 she won the World Bank’s Young Academic Award.  Other prizes have followed and she now has a formidable publishing record of books and papers in scholarly journals.

Earlier this year she was a Fulbright Visiting Professor in Geological Sciences at San Diego State University, and guest lecturer at the University of California.

Somehow the disaster reduction expert has also found time to marry and produce two children.  Her husband, Professor Sigit Priyanto, is a civil engineer who inadvertently taught Dwikorita about the difficulties of changing people’s mindsets.

The family’s house is less than 20 kilometers from Mount Merapi and 100 meters from a river flowing from the volcano.  When it started to erupt Dwikorita wanted to leave – but her husband didn’t.  (They evacuated.)

“We almost had a fight over it,” she said.  “He didn’t want to move because he had an emotional attachment to our home.  It taught me how difficult it is to change the minds of even well educated people.

“Out of that I’ve developed a new approach to research.  We have to include issues like culture, sociology and religion.

“There are earthquake codes for buildings, though often badly administered.  However there are no laws relating to land use hazards.  This is very sensitive – restrictions can lead to land prices going down, but people have the right to know the risks they face and be prepared.

“In NZ homeowners insure their houses, but not Indonesia where people look to the government for compensation.  They struggle for life, not insurance.   There have to be controls in place because some insurance companies have gone bankrupt.

“We need to persuade the government, not directly but through the media.”

Would she recommend geology to girls?

“If that’s your interest, do it,” Dwikorita said.  “You need to be fit. Geologists find it easier to accept women than other sciences - just as long as you work with passion.”

(First published in The Jakarta Post 27 June 2012)

MICHAEL ASMARA

The loneliness of the long-distance composer

An executive search for an international event organizer who could attract local and overseas funds probably wouldn’t give Michael Asmara a second glance.

Anyone who freely admits he gossips with geckos, shares his rice with the little lizards and tells them not to squabble should not be taken seriously.

Naturally the guy also looks a bit wild – certainly not a mile-a-minute man and no Indonesian army-style buzz cut. If he tried to wear a suit it would reject him. He’s so low profile he’s almost horizontal, great for a stimulating conversation through a evil fog of continuous cigarette smoke, but certainly no hustler.

Yet the 53-year old composer gets things done big time – though he says he’s not sure how.

Charisma and credibility have to be factors for the founder and director of the Yogyakarta Contemporary Music Festival. His talent is clearly acknowledged by his peers and his personal moral code means that he hasn’t used the festival to promote his works. Trust must be another for he’s not driven by lust for lucre.

Around him composers were going grey by the minute as their musicians either caught dengue fever or couldn’t catch the tempo. Committee members soothed spirits and boosted egos, sorted schedules and paid bills. Asmara turned off his handphone and lit another smoke

“I don’t know where the money comes from,” he said. “I can’t make a living through music but I survive. It’s quite difficult to explain. Birds get by without money – why not me?

“I tell the committee – don’t be ambitious. Be humble. You are nothing. Just learn, learn, learn. When they fight. I say- ‘don’t do that – live in peace.’

“Perhaps I’m a dreamer. Living in peace is my dream. I’m an atheist. I want to be at one with nature – maybe this affects my music. Sometimes I want to run away from life.” This comment didn’t ring true – Asmara may seek rest but he also has zest.

If Asmara doesn’t go looking for dollars they sure come looking for him. In the past he’s been invited to Europe, Japan, South-East Asia and New Zealand where his work has been performed and he’s given lectures.

This year’s festival picked up US $5,000 (Rp 50 million) from the Asian Cultural Council and support from a chorus of other local and overseas sponsors. That sort of backing doesn’t come for a Mickey Mouse show

The proof of Asmara’s abilities was clear with the staging of the fifth festival in mid October. This drew composers from 15 nations with 41 performances over three nights. Crowds of up to 250 came to hear some challenging music at the French Cultural Center. Most were young.
“I know 80 per cent prefer pop and jazz,” Asmara said. “I don’t force people to come. They can listen or not. I hope they’re stimulated. I’m not a music missionary – I just offer ideas.”

Asmara started the festival in 2003 “because I was lonely and needed friends.” This wasn’t just a slick line in self-deprecation. Other composers, like the immaculately suited Karen Keyhani from Iran – a standout among the jeans and sandals - also confessed to loneliness, the quest for the elusive, teasing tone, the right chord, the fickle note, the need to capture and escape.

If you don’t seek perfection above and beyond all else, then making music is not for you. If your partner is a composer expect to spend torrid nights alone while your lover strives to seduce the muse.

The festival took a rest because of the 2005 Yogya earthquake but is now back bigger and, well, maybe better, though Asmara said he was still dissatisfied with the quality.

But then this seemingly happy man never will be truly content. If you’re dispassionate about contemporary music you’re in the wrong genre.

The biggest applause was given to splendid performances by violinist Rieko Suzuki interpreting works from France and the USA – though both seemed more pre 20th century than post modern.

Hair splitters turned to the enigmatic veteran composer Slamet Abdul Syukur, 75, a Toulouse Lautrec figure always surrounded by elegant women, expecting the violin work to be condemned.

Like Asmara, Syukur is a composer who doesn’t just push boundaries – he jumps them with work featuring unusual instruments.

“I loved Rieko’s playing and the compositions,” Syukur pronounced. “They had emotion – that’s all that counts.” With this verdict the disciples stopped debating whether the works pre-dated the expressionist Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg who died in 1951. His Second Viennese School is supposed to mark the birth of contemporary music..

“The criteria is that the compositions must be new,” said Asmara whose past work has included Cooking Music featuring kitchen utensils. Another had motorbikes and sirens. Those who define contemporary music as electro-acoustic have closed off the options.

“In selecting the entries we looked for music that has been inspired by tradition. It must explore original ideas.

“We particularly want to encourage women composers, the old and the young like Yuri Nishida from Japan who is doing extraordinary work with the gender (a gamelan instrument).

“I feel uncomfortable if the participants are all men. I want to hear those from Asia. I want the festival to stay in Yogya, but this is not an exercise in nationalism – I hate that sort of thing.

“Yogya is rich in composers but they don’t get noticed. They don’t know how to promote their music. Typical Javanese – just enough is enough. I want them to get exposed to other ideas, to improve.”

Asmara sheepishly revealed he’d come from a Yogya ‘blue-blood’ family; as a child he was familiar with dance and Western classical music. His father tried to dissuade him from a career in music but the lad was already playing the organ and didn’t fancy a future in medicine checking other people’s organs.

He went to the Indonesian Institute of the Arts in Yogya for three years then studied in Japan where he married, though the relationship didn’t survive. He played the guitar and piano but wanted to compose. His work started winning prizes.

“I wasn’t frustrated by Bach and Beethoven,” he said. “I just wanted to enjoy myself, to compare the gamelan with Western music, to experiment.

“I get my philosophy from Javanese culture. I never think I succeed or fail. I want to feel, to think deeply. We couldn’t have done this (run the festival) in the Soeharto era. Too much bureaucracy.”

(First published in The Jakarta Post 16 October 09)