B. Barendregt The sound of longing for homeRedefining a sense of community through Minang popular music In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 158 (2002), no: 3, Leiden, 411-450 This PDF-file was downloaded from http://www.kitlv-journals.nl Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 09:38:53AM via free access BART BARENDREGT The Sound of 'Longing for Home' Redefining a Sense of Community through Minang Popular Music Why, yes why, sir, am I singing? Oh, because I am longing, Longing for those who went abroad, Oh rabab, yes rabab, please spread the message To the people far away, so they'll come home quickly (From the popular Minangkabau traditional song 'Rabab'.) 1. Introduction: Changing mediascapes and emerging regional metaphors Traditionally each village federation in Minangkabau had its own repertoire of musical genres, tunes, and melodies, in which local historiography and songs of origin blended and the meta-landscape of alam Minangkabau (the Minangkabau universe) was depicted.1 Today, with the ever-increasing disper- sion of Minangkabau migrants all over Southeast Asia, the conception of the Minangkabau world is no longer restricted to the province of West Sumatra. 1 Earlier versions of this article were presented at the 34th Conference of the International Council of Traditional Music, Nitra, Slovakia, August 1996, and the VA/AVMI (Leiden Uni- versity) symposium on Media Cultures in Indonesia, 2-7 April 2001. Its present form owes much to critical comments received from audiences there. I would like to sincerely thank also my colleagues Suryadi, for his suggestions regarding the translations from the Minangkabau, and Robert Wessing, for his critical scrutiny of my English. BART BARENDREGT (1968) is currently a lecturer at the Institute of Social and Cultural Studies of Leiden University. He is working on a PhD dissertation entitled From the Realm of Many Rivers; People, places and spatial practices among two South Sumatran Highland communities, which focuses on the concepts of pilgrimage, ancestral cults and place lore. Specializing in Minangkabau dance and theatre and the sung poetry of the South Sumatran Highlands, he is the author of 'Architecture on the move; Processes of migration and mobility in the South Sumatran High- lands', in: Reimar Schefold, Peter J.M. Nas, and Gaudenz Domenig (eds), Indonesian houses; Tradition and transformation in vernacular architecture, Leiden: KITLV Press, and the maker, togeth- er with Dr. Wim van Zanten, of the documentary Told in heaven to become stories on earth; A study of change in Randal theatre of the Minangkabau in West Sumatra, 2000. Mr. Barendregt can be contacted at the Institute of Social and Cultural studies, Leiden University, PO Box 9555, 2300 RB Leiden, the Netherlands. Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 09:38:53AM via free access 412 Bart Barendregt The question arises, therefore, what 'homeland' Minangkabau communities in Indonesia's large cities and second- or third-generation Minangkabau migrants in the diaspora now share. In this article I take a closer look at some of the more popular venues in which an overall Minang feeling is evoked and questions of Minang-ness, authenticity and globalization are contemplated. In present-day Indonesia, the question of local identities and their collec- tive representation is omnipresent and seems to be addressed increasingly in the domain of popular culture. For this reason, this domain is explainable largely in terms of the interaction of two simultaneous processes. These are the increasing possibilities presented by new technologies and the many new performing practices implicit in these, and the political transition from the Orde Baru to the post-Suharto era, with its accompanying relaxation of restrictions on the media. In Southeast Asia, technological innovations have led to the launching of prestigious projects like Cyberjaya, the Malaysian equivalent of Silicon Valley, and Nusantara 21, the Indonesian nation-wide electronic network aimed at familiarizing Indonesian citizens with the information superhighway, as well as to Singapore's status as a nation with one of the highest computer densities in the world. New technologies have enabled the use of formats like the laserdisc and video CD (VCD), streaming media, and mp3/DivX2, while new listservers and regional news portals are appearing daily. Although this growing diversity of media is worldwide, the Southeast Asian region is facing challenges (economic, religious and cultural) which are unique to it (see Ang 2001), in particular Indonesia, primarily as a result of recent efforts to achieve more openness (reformasi) and to democra- tize both the national and local media. The complex processes triggered by these developments are evident from, for example, the riots on the Glodok VCD market on 13 May 2000.3 At present, music in Indonesia is increasingly being reproduced in VCD format, so that international hits are now even more easy to pirate. Under international pressure to protect copyrights, the Jakarta police recently took action against peddlers selling pirated record- ings, ironically ignoring the more systematic sale of pirated VCDs and soft- ware in huge shopping malls like Pasar Senin and Mangga Dua. Old frustra- tions were revived and unequal power balances in the record industry cited, as poor peddlers and representatives of record companies alike complained that it was not so much pribumi as citizens of East Asian descent who had the technology to make these illegal products. Another development that is having a significant impact on the far from 2 An illegal version ('crack') of the Mpeg4 format, which is becoming increasingly popular as a medium for the illegal distribution of movies on the Internet. 3 See 'Pasar Terbesar VCD Bajakan' and 'Kerusuhan Mei 1998 Nyaris Terulang', Kompas online, 14 May 2000. Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 09:38:53AM via free access The Sound of Longing for Home' 413 transparent Indonesian record industry is the emergence of numerous e- zines - online record shops making international distribution easier than ever before - and the steady rise in online charts. These developments have introduced new mechanisms in what can be characterized as a 'highly lucra- tive commodity industry' (Wong and Lysloff 1998:101).4 Of special interest, however, is the circumstance that in the wake of these developments, as reformasi sentiments are slowly ebbing away, public discussions are offering possible loci for the construction of alternative realities and, more especially, tend to shed light on the debate about nationhood versus regional identities.5 While for the past three decades the social sciences have focused on issues like ethnicity, nationalism and invented versus authentic traditions, relatively little is known as yet about the actual processes by which newly emerging communal identities develop (Levine 1999:169). As was pointed out above, the uncertainties of a nation in transition are emphasized as the means of communication are changing with considerable speed. These uncertainties then become manifest through contradictory representations and the ways in which alternatives are discussed. 'In the minds of individual agents they become the instruments of change' (Goody 1997:238). One of the most obvi- ous tendencies seems to be for the notion of an Indonesian nation and its glorified struggle for independence to slowly become de-Indonesianized. Especially the more popular media are increasingly producing new, primarily regional, metaphors that often work at a highly conceptual level. Emotional attachment to the nation, articulated in such metaphors as tanah airku and ibu pertiwi6, and the idea of an Indonesian bangsa (identity) are coining under considerable pressure and often being replaced by regional equivalents that serve to define new communities or demarcate old ones anew. Centre-periphery tensions and the regional metaphors to which they give 4 According to recent data supplied by the Asosiasi Industri Rekaman Indonesia (Asiri, the Indonesian Association of Sound-Recording Industries), the Indonesian record business is flour- ishing again, with cassette sales rising from 2.3 million a month in 2000 to 2.8 million a month in 2001. Sales of Indonesian pop music cassettes are far higher than those of foreign music, which seems to be generally more popular on CD. Also in the year 2001, the Indonesian record industry is estimated to have lost about 5 trillion rupiah due to pirating, mostly of cassettes (200 million copies), but also of VCDs (120 million copies). An estimated fifty thousand pirated copies of for- eign albums were sold in that year ('Musik Indonesia Bergairah, Pembajak Tetap Mejarela', Media Indonesia online, 23 December 2001). With these figures, Indonesia is on the 'priority watch list' of the Unite States Trade Representative (USTR) and thus is facing serious economic sanctions (Media Indonesia online, 20 November 2001). For more recent information and articles, see the Indonesian-language forum on piracy at URL http: / / www.stopiracy.com. 5 For an overview of nationalist and patriotic student songs, especially the protest song genre that was soon popularly labelled lagu reformasi, which commented directly on this transitional stage in Indonesian politics, see Van Dijk 1999. 6 Tanah air (literally 'land and water') is best translated as 'motherland', a notion that is also reflected in the phrase ibu pertiwi, which denotes motherhood (ibu) as well as earth (pertiwi). Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021