Culture and Privilege in Capitalist Asia - Jurusan Antropologi ...

HANS ANTLÖV 199
order for Indonesia to become an advanced nation, it is argued, it needs people like
Jamaliah, Euis, Sunarya and Cep Agus to pave the road into the future.
The patterns of consumption evident among these people have become a norm,
not only among the new rich, but for many layers of society in Indonesia. The
struggle to maintain this new standard of living is a common theme in books and
films. Consumerism is more or less openly celebrated as proof that Indonesia is a
modern and prosperous nation. But it is not a nation of liberalism: consumption
can only take place within the norms provided by the authoritarian state. The OKB
must be good representatives and display what in Indonesian is called monoloyalitas
towards the official ideology. Most of the new rich do not want to be
separated from their state protection. They might be agents of social and economic
change, but they are not exponents of a procedural democratic development. The
rights they talk about–to live in privacy, to spend money as they want–have
certain limits and are only for the rich and the powerful. Ordinary people, the
masih bodoh masses, are seen by the new rich as having different rights: to
support the present path of development, to be loyal citizens and to accept the new
ways of living.
COMMUNITY SPIRIT AND COUNTER-
MODERNITY
Given this account, one might believe that not much is left of local community
norms. But we must be cautious here. It is easy to overemphasise the globality and
modernity of social change. For most people, especially in the countryside and
smaller towns but also in the wards of larger cities, the life of the new rich is
neither common nor fully desired. Ordinary people might want the wealth of the
new rich, but they do not strive for the latter’s morality. In many ways there is a
vigorous local ‘community spirit’ that operates as a counter-image to that of
modernity. Seen from below and within, there is another picture of the drastic
economic changes taking place over the last decades of the twentieth century.
Most of the new rich in Sariendah were born in the village, and they expect to die
in the village. They belong to a richly textured community with networks of
relatives, friends and neighbours. The new rich might have taken on new moral
standards and styles of living, but they must also, in different ways, relate to the
local social texture and to community values. For most of the rural OKB, the new
lifestyles have been carved out within the confines of the village community. Few of
the new rich in Sariendah have left the village. A few have moved in, but these are
often families with relatives in the village who wish to settle down during old age,
after having lived in Bandung, Sumedang or some other city. The Sunaryas and
Cep Aguses have chosen to remain in the village, and they gave the same reason:
the social familiarity.
Social relations are strong in the village community. The bilateral kinship system
makes neighbours into kinsmen; there is always some kinship relation to recognise.
To some extent, kinship has become more important during the social changes of