Kyoto, Day 4: Farewell visits and travelling to Nagoya

In Kyoto our hotel, Westin Miyako, was close to the Nanzen-ji temple and therefore we went on our last day in Kyoto first once again to this nice place. Surprise: the shortcut walking from the hotel lead us through still another beautiful temple, again under restoration. Again famous for its gardens!

This comnstruction is an aquaduct, built in 1890 and now also looking antique alias very old, covered by trees. But it was built about nearly 300 years after the original temple. Now this is seen as part of the modernity of theMeiji period. For us it was still in harmony with the old temple. We were talking about the row of pesantren in Jombang. They are not so beautiful, far from it, but much more crowded than this grand series of temples on the eastern side of Kyoto (and there is also a large series on the western side, besides quite a few in the centre). We do not know how lively Buddhism, also in its Zen variations, or how vivid Shinto is in Japan.

From the hotel we dropped our luggage first in lockers in the central station and then walked to the national museum. Above Paule during a coffee break in a small shop. The National Museum has two buildings: one from the 1890s resembling the architecture of the Museen Insel in Berlin, very German. And one brand new building where the general collection is shown. Here we saw Buddhas, statues of other deities outside of their natural environment. Potteries, paintings, but not placed in castles. This makes the museum somewhat artificial. It does not have the status of Louvre or even Rijksmuseum which an icon of the country and an important expression of the own culture. Here it was an interesting place to show bits, small pieces of the great religious and feudal culture.

 I wondered why Japanese streets often look so clumsy, in disorder, while the whole country is one big show of discipline and order. The reason is that there is a great fear for earthquakes. Electricity with cables underground may cause much problems, fire, electrocution. Therefore it is all above the ground. This makes the neat and proper streets of Japan still looking sometimes like those of an underdeveloped country like Indonesia.

Walking back to the Central Station of Kyoto we had a nice lunch on one of the very few terraces along one of the main streets, in front of a restaurant. Paule enjoyed the nice weather, the good view and the cosy atmosphere. Nearly all restaurants where we had meals were family-business, run by husband and wife, for 10-15 people, very seldom more. No big McDonald.

From the Central Station of Kyoto: immense with moving staircases that seem to go on and on, we took the fast train to Nagoya: only 35 minutes for a distance of some 140 km. Every ten minutes a new train comes in. Wonderful: thank you, Yasuko, for organizing all this for us.

Kyoto day 3. With Rosita Dewi to the Palaces of the Shogun and the Shrine of the Traders

On our third day of visiting highlights in Kyoto (monday 20 October), our guide (suggested by Yasuko Kobayashi, the real networker who organised also this part of our trip in Japan) was Rosita Dewi, researcher of LIPI in Jakarta, the National Indonesian Foundation for Academic Research. She is writing in Kyoto a dissertation on social development in the Merauke region of Papua, focusing on the relations between local Papua citizens and migrants who arrived from elsewhere, mostly Javanese rice farmers and workers in the palm plantations. They are gradually taking over large sections of Papua and there are conflicts between the two groups. Rosita is quite keen on the developments without naively thinking that a research may immediately solve all the problems.
Our first goal was the palace (Nijo-castle) of the Shogun in Kyoto. During the Edo period (1600-1850s) the Tokugawa Shogun ruled in Tokyo, but the emperor had his court in Kyoto, the traditional centre of the empire. Only in 1868 the emperor became the actual ruler again and moved to Tokyo. We did not visit the imperial palace and garden, but retricted to that of the Shogun. Most spectacular are the gates and the gardens. The palace itself it big, but rather austere and empty. The wall paintings are beautiful, but only trees and birds.

 Truly old trees are strengthened with bamboo in order to save them. This is nature forstered and cared as if it were beloved parents in a home for elderly people!

Stones, artifical lakes, complicated structure to have waterfalls. Very different from the French and English styles we have in Europe for palaces. Maybe the waterpalace in Aceh and Yogyakarta has been taken from this Chiese-Japanese garden architecture.

 Second visit this morning was the big Toji temple with a large number of some 20 old Buddha statues and very baroque generals in two large halls, where taking picture was forbidden. The temple was built in 794, burnt down several times and the present buildings are from 1603. There is a very high pagode, highest in Japan. There is an extension to this temple where I took this picture of a Jizo, a protector for little children and pregnant women. Some kind of Pontianak, but as a good demon. Mothers who lost her children or had similar problems put the red clothes on the statue.

We took our lunch in one of the big malls, close to Kyoto Central Station. A truly modern building, here with a restaurant in German style (and good beer). With jilbab our guide and interpreter of Kyoto for this day, Rosita Dewi. She is here with husband and two children who go to a Japanese school. She could manage very will speaking and reading Japanese, although she was only for one year in Kyoto. This was the day when new President of Indonesia was inaugurated, Joko Widodo. So, our talks went from Kyoto to Jakarta, Papua and many comparative cultural issues.

This was only day we had bad weather, sometimes cold and a good deal of rain in the afternoon. All the other days we enjoyed mild, even warm, weather of the early autumn. We went by train to the Fushimi shrine. It is nearby in South Kyoto. This is the major temple for Inari, some kind of Dewi Sri: God for rice and sake. It is built for all kind of material wishes. At the entrance we find large containers for sake and the temple is quite spectacular for about one thousand of big torii, the gapura or entrance to a Shinto shrine. It goes on and on. Laughing, sometimes also praying Japanese devotees have here a mix of religion and fun, hope and a relaxed walk in this vast sanctuary.

The short ritual starts with clapping hands ('to wake up the god, who may be sleeping...'), some bowing, praying, final clapping. Sometimes one rings a bell at the entrance. It is all short visits in an individual style, although some people are specially dressed for this visit in kimono or the male equivalent and ask for the help of priests. Amazing all these temples in Kyoto and perhaps we have seen only 5% of the major ones!

Kyoto, day 2, Jafar Suryomenggolo as a spohisticated guide into artistic but simplified religiosity

During most of October and November I did not write on the blog. There were two long trips, far away: first in October, 17-27 to Japan and from 13-23 November to Indonesia (again). This blog is one of the efforts the refresh our memory of these wonderful trips.

The evening of the first day we had a meal in the crowded entertainment area of Kyoto, close to the great canal. We were invited by Prof. Okamoto and his wife Yenni Kitamura. Like so often with Japanese who studied Indonesian, conversation was not in English, but in Indonesian. Okamoto has done research on politics in Banten and Gorontalo, but now prepared a study of transsexuals, or waria in Surabaya and Malang. His wife concentrates on Chinese in Indonesia. Southeast Asian Studies in Kyoto has four Indonesian speaking staff: the largest single institute of its kind in Japan.

The second day in Kyoto was Sunday  19 November. Yasuko Kobayashi had to go back to Nagoya, but she presented Jafar Suryomenggolo to us, the guide for this day. Jafar has written a PhD in Kyoto on trade unions in the early period of the Indonesian Republic, 1945-1948 and is since working on post-doctoral research about activitists for rights of the working class in late Soeharto-period and the earli Reformasi. He is a truly leftist guy,does not like religion too much and definitely not the abuse of religion for fun or commercial or political goals.
He brought us first to the Yasaka shrine in Gion, southeast Kyoto. We found the colour of the entrance somewhat kitsch, not red but smiling orange. It is a long series of smaller and larger chapels and temples, for various material needs. Like we saw in India, some trees and other places are full with small papers with wishes.

Two quite different trees in the Yasaka shrine. Above a prayer tree, with many leaflets with individual prayers (religion is not a communal affair, with church or shrine services, lead by clergy, but an individual affair). Below there is the oldest cherry tree of Japan, still flowering every spring. Spring and autumn are the two magical seasons. Unfortunately we were somewhat early for the true colour of the autumn trees, set in fire with yellow and red.

There is a clear distinction between Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. This is a modern statue of the sleeping/dying Buddha, entering Nirwana.

After Yasaka shrine we walked to the more touristic shopping and restaurant streets of Gion in Kyoto, but then we saw the Ryozen Kan-On. Jafar wanted to prevent us from entering this place, because it was the absolute wrong nationalist ideology. No religion at all, but a mistake and wrong. According to the leaflet that we received it was erected in the 1950s 'in commemoration of those Japanese who sacrified themselves in the last war for the establishment of a peaceful Japan..' Unveiled on June 8, 1955. It is not stone, but just concrete, but looks impressive. Below the statue there is a prayer hall where a monk was reading texts. Incense could be burnt. We had to pay for entrance. Later in Tokyo we found at the Yaskuni Shrine that they were called 'divinities'.  Here it was somewhat more sobre, though still in good memory of the war.

By far the largest temple is the Kiyomizu-temple, a huge chain of chapels and shrines. Al advertising the happiness to be found here by touching statues, drinking water, writing prayers for a god. Many young people, laughing, chatting, sometimes also for a few moments serious praying. This is a true place of pilgrimage, seriousness and fun together.

The Kiyamizu-temple is, like so much in Kyoto, places against a spectacular background of hills. From north to the south a canal/river runs through Kyoto and on both sides the valley stretches one-two kilometre before quickly changing into nice forest. Well, Mas Jafar Suryomenggolo had seen it already very often, but was patient and liked to discuss the stupidity of religion in general and especially the Japanese variant of it.Thank you, Jafar!

Kyoto, day 1, busy Kobayashi Yasuko and quiet philosophers

During most of October and November I did not write on the blog. There were two long trips, far away: first in October, 17-27 to Japan and from 13-23 November to Indonesia (again). This blog is one of the efforts the refresh our memory of these wonderful trips.

 

After a flight of 12 hours we arrived in Osaka and took our first train in Japan to Kyoto where we met Yasuko Kobayashi, the great inspiration and organiser of our trip. She had invited me for guest lectures in Nagoya and Tokyo and also facilitated our extra journey to Kyoto. We we received in the Westin Myako Hotel, according to one book also a place for Queen Elisabeth! Our first lunch was still Western style. Yasuko, always busy and fast, took us to the start of the Philosopher's Foothpath. She is always very keen on networking, keeping contact with colleagues in the three major centres for Southeast Asian studies (Kyoto, Nagoya and Tokyo), but most of all with her many students. She had to go to another meeting that first day, after lunch in the Westin Myako. She dropped us close to Ginkaku-ji, the Silver Pavillion, so called because it was planned to have a silver roof (that never was put on top of the romantic building). We followed a small canal, just like Kali Mataram in Yogyakarta: fast, clean water, streaming along the road.

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In Dutch the picture below is called aangeharkt in the meaning of well-organised, clean, neatly done. It looks like nature, but under control or even human discipline, like the tea-ceremony (for which the pavillion has been built).

The philosophers-path is 2 km. Somewhat more to the East, higher up the hills, there are small streets and many temples. In one we saw modern paintings, nearly the vague style of Rudolph Steiner, with a lady, smiling, willing to explain colours and figures. But communication often proved to be somewhat difficult, because of the lack of ability to speak English.

 

In Indonesia we would call this a becak and here perhaps a rikshah. Anyway it is for tourists. Als the kimono is not daily dress, but for ceremonies. On this southeastern side of Kyoto we saw quite a few ladies wear this dress.

Japanese temples buildings are most spectacular for their roofs. Besides the roofs there is only a structure of a gate to be seen. This is the gate to Nanzen-ji, a temple from about 1480-1600. Most famous because of the gardens and the entrance tower. It was told that a thief, some kind of Robin Hood stayed here to steal from the rich and give tot the poor, until he was taken by the police and put in cooking oil.

We had the impression of rituals like in Bali: small offerings for all kinds of spirits, deities, in many varieties. Popular religion is widespread and still practiced, although the faithful do not look too serious while paying their respect to the sacred items. Is it an ambiguous conviction. Besides, there is very sophisticated theory about meditation  and old texts as well.

Below, as proof that we heve been at the temple region a simple selfie!

The Crusades of Yusak Soleiman

Yusak Soleiman is a historian, teaching at the STT, Sekolah Tinggi Teologia of Jalan Proklamasi in Jakarta. I  now see that I did not write about his detailed dissertation on Christians in Semarang, 1750-1800 (defence of dissertation 7 September 2011). It is a story about the colonial church, many of its members were Ind-European or as we now would say Eurasian. A white church, Dutch speaking, although there were also Malay elements (but not really Javanese). Many members of this church were poor and much of the duty of the church had also to do with care for the poor.
Yusak Soleiman pleads for integration of the 200 years of the VOC as part of the history of the Protestat Church, also in Java: "My intention is to bring to the light the onknown and forgotten past of the early Christian community in Java. Historians of the Christian Mission tend to see only shortcomings in the first 200 years of Protestantism in the Indonesian Archipelago" (199)
 In 2002 Yusak held the lecture to commemorate the foundation of the STT and it had the crusades as theme. Now he has written a book of 182 pages, Perang-perang Salib, hantu dari masa lalu, bagi masa kini dan masa depan bersama Islam dan Kristen? (Preface by Prof. Noorhaidi Hasan; Jakarta: Grafika Kreasindo).

 

 This is without doubt a story of the crusades from Christian and Asian perspective. The question that is put in the first pages sounds through the whole book: is it possible to fight a 'holy war'? This is not only a question for Christians. In fact Yusak starts with the Arab/Muslim expansion around 632-750, the division of Christianity in Byzantines, Nestorians, Armenians, Syrians, Copts in Egypt. Until 1100 most of Europe was in a dark age. Should the crusades be seen as some kind of European response to Muslim attacks? These are quite general reflections for the first 38 pages.
Pages 39-130 give detailed information about the actual crusades: many waves of attacks from Europe, somewhat successful, often a disaster. For an Indonesian the travelling in Europe itself is not so interesting and this section of the common story is skipped here. Much attention is given to the better organization of the politics in Muslim lands, especially the Seljuks and Saladdin. There is also much self-criticism: Western Christian attacked the Greek Christian in Contantinople.
The book ends with two questions: "If heaven is the reward for the killing of faithful of other religions, do we then really want to enter this heaven? If my salvation depends on the destruction of other people, what kind of God will offer us this salvatioon?" (178).

Above Yusak in Jakarta in an academic gown. Below at our house in Utrecht, signing the book on the Crusades.

 

Asian Library in Leiden

We saw manypeople, but only few books at the official opening of the Asian Library in Leiden, 15 October 2014. The old theatre inthe Lipsius Building was more than fully booked for the inevitable lecturfes preceding to opening in the library building. Interest in Indonesian and Carribian Studies is still a sentimental affair and this was given 30 minutes for Adriaan van Dis who was born in the Netherlands in 1946 as the only child in a family that had dramatic experiences in Indonesia (the first spouses of father and mother died during the Pacific war; his father worked on the Pekanbaru railway). So, 'it was blood that counts' described Van Dis early society in the Netherlands of the 1950s and 1960s.

After the lecture there was a debate with David Henley, Henk Schulte Nordholt and Elizabeth Pisani, author of a book Indonesia etc. Exploring the Improbable Nation. She commented on the Indonesian Declaration of Independence: not a long and elaborated manifesto but just the fact of independence was mentioned and 'everything else will be regulated later..' bisa diatur nanti..The interest of cultural knowledge is directed towards the contemporary period, not the old books and manuscripts that made KITLV so important, but research on the modern developments. And here we saw a learned trio of people who commented in a journalistic style on the modern development.

The commentators were rather pessimistic about the possibilities for Jokowi, because his economic vision is not so clear and maybe not realistic, considered his weak basis in parliament. And Henk SH said: and still there is economic growth of 5% per year during the last decade!  Corruption: the best way tocombat corruption is to set a good example. Maybe, in fact some things cannot be beaten totally, but restricted, brought under some control.

Ambassador Retno Marsudi had nice words about the 'special relation' between the Netherlands and Indonesia.

Then we moved to the other side of the canal, Witte Singel, following the KILV books that are now in that new building. There was a nice atmosphere, some good food and more even, good people.

 Pram Sutikno, KITLV librarian between 1975-1993, stood in a modest way somewhere in the back row, surprised that watching so many people he had to conclude that he did not know so many people in the big audience. The books will remain, people change: they write new books, mostly taken from the older ones and from their own experiences. I heard that less and less books will be stored in the main building: they must be removed, in order to give more place to people. That is in some respect a nice policy and we trust that we will be able to find and borrow the books.

State Radicalism in Indonesia?

I am preparing a lecture for Nagoya (Nanzan University) and Tokyo (Sophia), where I will give some views on modern religious development in Indonesia, also seen through the eyes of Catholics. This is more or less another phase in my 'serial conversions': after finishing the third volume on Catholics in Indonesia, I will more turn to Muslim developments.

1° In 1984 Husnul Aqib Suminto defended his doctoral dissertation on  the Islamic policy of the Dutch colonial government. His main argument was that the devotional activities, prayers, pilgrimage, celebration of holidays, building, maintenance of mosques, the ‘strict religious’ practices of Muslim could be continued and even sometimes supported (religious courts for marriage, inheritance), but that political activities were severely controlled, supervised and quickly forbidden. Alfian (alsi nicknamed Alfian Alit, little Alfian, who wrote on Muhammadiyah in the late colonial period, to differentiate from Ibrahim Alfian, the tall Acehnese scholar) asked him whether there was a difference between colonial and modern Indonesian strategy towards Islam under Suharto. The audience laughed, because it was not really a question but rather a statement and Suminto politely answered that in fact there was not much difference.

                Things were changing already at that time. As I see it, a policy of distance between government administration and the life of religions made a substantial turn in 1974 with a more active role for the major religion in the administration of marriage. This increased in 1989-1991 with the law and the guidelines for religious courts. As sketched above the administration has since then taken more steps towards public support of implementation of religious rules and values, with under the period of Reformasi as major developments the introductions of shari’a rules in Aceh and about 10% of all districts, more religious education according to the religion of the pupils and in 2008 the law on or rather against pornography and porno-action. A dark development since then has been severe measures against Ahmadiyyah and Shi’a Muslims, heavily supported by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Minister of Religions Suryadharma Ali. It must be awaited how the new administration of Joko Widodo will handle this policy.

 

2° In 2006 Andrée Feillard and Rémy Madinier, two French scholars, published their book La Fin de l’innocence? L’islam indonésien face à la tentation radical, de 1967 à nos jours. It was published in an English version in 2011 with the subtitle of Indonesian Islam and the Temptation of radicalism. They seek the roots of the radical Islam in the secessionist Darul Islam movement of the 1950s, of conservatism in Muhammadiyah, since it vety beginning, in Dakwah since the beginning of the new order of Soeharto, the radical activities in the big campuses of the country (Bandung, Yogyakarta), while FPI, the Muslim Defence League from August 1998, Lasykar Jihad and similar movement were the radical continuation in the period of the Reformasi.

                In 2011 Bob Heffner published an article with the challenging title of ‘Where have all the abangan gone?’ Where are these non-dogmatic, somewhat syncretist Muslim, still seen as the majority of the Javanese Muslim in the 1960s and 1980s? He considered religious education by orthodox teachers at state schools as a major factor. In 2013 Martin van Bruinessen published a book with the title: Contemporary Development in Indonesian Islam: Explaining the ‘Conservative Turn’, where a major significance was given to the end of the centralistic Suharto government and the rise of populist Muslim orthodox parties.

3° In this contribution we take the longer period and see a continuity in the development since 1974 when the Ministry of Religion was no longer a pure administrative unit, but could start to play a more active role in one of the basic elements of daily life of Muslims: family and marriage. Until the law on pornography of 2008 this has increased. Perhaps we should even go back to the colonial period when the Dutch took over the role over the former sultans and other rulers as heads of religion, much more than the French who strongly defended a secular society and the British who held the system of indirect rule. Bousquet wrote in the 1930s already a critical, not say a nasty description of this pro-active policy of the Dutch. Is this a (not the only) explanation for the state supported-radicalism of modern Indonesian Islam?