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東南亞研究中心 Southeast Asia Research Centre Chiara Formichi ‘Tradition’ and ‘authenticity’: Husayni compassion in Indonesia (Jakarta, Bandung, and Bengkulu) Working Paper Series No. 126 February 2012 The Southeast Asia Research Centre (SEARC) of the City University of Hong Kong publishes SEARC Working Papers Series electronically ©Copyright is held by the author or authors each Working Paper. SEARC Working Papers cannot be republished, reprinted, or reproduced in any format without the permission of the papers author or authors. Note: The views expressed in each paper are those of the author or authors of the paper. They do not represent the views of the Southeast Asia Research Centre, its Management Committee, or the City University of Hong Kong. Southeast Asia Research Centre Management Committee Professor Mark R. Thompson, Director Dr Kyaw Yin Hlaing, Associate Director Dr Chiara Formichi Dr Nicholas Thomas Dr Bill Taylor Editor of the SEARC Working Paper Series Professor Mark R. Thompson Southeast Asia Research Centre The City University of Hong Kong 83 Tat Chee Avenue Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong SAR Tel: (852 3442 6106 Fax: (852) 3442 0103 http://www.cityu.edi.hk/searc ‘Tradition’ and ‘authenticity’: Husayni compassion in Indonesia (Jakarta, Bandung, and Bengkulu) Chiara Formichi Assistant Professor, Department of Asian and International Studies City University of Hong Kong Anywhere in the world, Muharram commemorations have to return to Imam Husayn, not even just those [carried on] by Muslims […] Any individual who has independence of thought will feel sympathy and follow in the remembrance of his martyrdom. One of the beauties of this world is cultural differences. I have noticed differences in Sumatra, but the ceremony [of Tabot] is very similar, to the point that there’s almost no differences […] differences are the result of time. We are sad, we remember [the martyrdom], but then each place is different. The essence is the same, but this is packaged with local traditions. The content is still Husayn, the expression reflects culture. It is with these words that the Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran addressed a crowd of Indonesian students at the local tertiary institute for Islamic studies (STAIN), in Bengkulu, on the sixth day of Muharram 1433 Hijri, or December 2, 2011. The ‘tragedy of Karbala’ establishes Husayn as the prototypical martyr, who faced death to defend his companions, his family, the will of Muhammad, and ultimately ‘the truth’. It is upholding this message that in 1979 Khomeini rallied thousands of Iranians to revolt against Shah Pahlevi, and a couple of years later against Saddam’s army, invoking the duty to sacrifice oneself in name of justice and truth, with the reward of Paradise. It is in a different frame, yet the same spirit, that the Embassy’s delegation was reviving the essence of Muharram, in the city of Bengkulu. This article discusses three cases of Ashura rituals in Indonesia (Bandung and Jakarta on Java, and Bengkulu on Sumatra), keeping in mind a historical and social trajectory: the repeated attempts to shape, define, and label rituals dedicated to the commemoration of Husayn’s martyrdom at Karbala on 680 CE, in the past forty years and more forcefully in the last decade. Authenticity here is mostly addressed as a commodity in the politics of culture and religion. The three case studies bring to the surface differing trends in the redefinition of Husayni compassion within authoritative, recognizable, and universal parameters. This will become clearer throughout the article, however the major points at stake here are: first, Suharto’s New Order regime’s effort to frame an imported, South Asian, predominantly Shi’i, ritual (the tabot) as a cultural and touristic event for the city of Bengkulu; second, the polarization of the ‘lovers of the Ahlul Bayt’ along a traditionalist and local frame of Alid Piety (represented by IJABI), or foreign-inspired proscriptive Shi’ism (represented by the ICC and ABI circles); third, IJABI’s commitment to preserve local manifestations of Alid devotion and leadership, and Southeast Asia Research Centre Working Paper Series, No. 126, 2012 1 ICC/ABI’s dedication to turn towards Iran for education, religious authority, and patterns of Shi’i culture and devotion, all evidently manifested in their respective events organized for Ashura in Bandung and Jakarta; fourth, the peculiar position of Bengkulu within this geography of religious trends, as the re-insertion of religion into the tabot tradition is now a priority for both IJABI and ICC/ABI, even though they have different plans on how to achieve this. It is this very latter pointer that will allow for broader reflections on the role of Iran in the re-shaping of Shi’i identities in Indonesia in the last decade. Transferring a South Asian ritual: the tabot Bengkulu, the provincial capital of Western Sumatra, is famous across the Indonesian archipelago for its Tabot festival, which begins on the first day of Muharram (the first month of the Islamic calendar) and peaks on the tenth day, also known as Ashura, and commemorates the martyrdom of Imam Husayn, the grandchild of the Prophet Muhammad who was killed by the Caliph’s army at Karbala in 61 Hijri (680 CE). Tabot literally means ‘coffin’, and in the rituals surrounding the commemoration of Husayn’s martyrdom, the term refers to makeshift coffins used to represent the original tomb of Husayn at Karbala; in Bengkulu these are bright-coloured cenotaphs built of wood and paper on several tiers, and - accompanied by drums - these are carried across town in a symbolic pilgrimage to Karbala during the final procession, on the day of Ashura. The tabot tradition was brought to Sumatra in the 18th century as the English East India Company established its footing along the spice trade. Beginning in early 1700s the British populated Bengkulu with soldiers, workers, and convicts of South Asian origins, until they traded the city with the Dutch for Singapore, in 1825. The British were not impressed with the city, and Sir Thomas Stanford Raffles mostly developed it as a penal colony - by 1823 there were almost a thousand convicts from Bengal and other parts of British India.1 As noted by Michael Feener, neither Raffles nor Marsden mention the tabot ritual in their writings, which he explains by the fact that these administrators, interested in ‘local’ traditions, ignored this imported ritual. In fact, the earliest scholarly mentions of the tabot came from Dutch observers in the 1860s-1880s. Before moving on to more recent understandings of the tabot, I wish to introduce the issue of the ritual’s origins. In the Dutch writings it appears evident that the tabot was seen as a South Asian tradition, brought to Bengkulu through the actions of the English East Company. And this same perspective is enshrined in the ritual itself, as the most sacred places connected to the various stages of this ritual are those dedicated to Syech Burhanuddin, the Indian Sepoi soldier deemed responsible for the establishment of tabot in Western Sumatra. 1 R. Michael Feener, ‘Alid Piety and State-Sponsored spectacle: tabot tradition in Bengkulu, Sumatra’, in Formichi and feener (eds) Shi’ism and Beyond: Alid Piety in Muslim Southeast Asia (London: I.B.Tauris, 2012). Southeast Asia Research Centre Working Paper Series, No. 126, 2012 2 Yet in 1928, an article published in Bintang Hindia - a secular periodical printed in Batavia with the support of the colonial authorities, and openly stating its mission as ‘modernizing’ the Indies’ population - directly connects the tabot of Bengkulu, Aceh, and Pariaman to Persia, and whilst referring to ‘sipaji’ (read: Sepoi), India makes no appearance in the article.2 During the Mughal empire Farsi was the preferred language at court, and the cultural boundaries between Persian and Muslim India have been historically quite porous, however it is telling that the author of this article felt compelled to point to Persia rather than India to explain this manifestation of sorrow for the killing of Hasan and Husayn at Karbala. Bengkulu, and Sumatra in general, is not the only place we can find re-elaborations of South Asian rituals connected to Muharram commemorations, and a short discussion of its manifestation in Trinidad will offer valuable points of reflection. Frank Korom has worked extensively on the Hosay Trinidad as a form of creolization of Indian culture in the Caribbean diaspora. The Hosay (equivalent to tabot) was brought to Trinidad by South Asian indentured workers at the hand of the British, beginning in 1845, as slavery was abolished and plantation owners came in need of cheap labour. Korom’s description of the Hosay generally matches the tabot ritual in Bengkulu, however what in Sumatra is called tabot - i.e. the cenotaphs carried in procession and representing the tomb of Husayn - is in Trinidad referred to as ta’zijah (or tajah). In South Asia these cenotaphs are indeed called ta’ziah and all the same are ‘the focal point of the public procession … and it is this aspect of the observance that becomes the dominating material feature of the rite in Trinidad’.3 According to Korom’s own research on Muharram rituals in South Asia, and especially North India (as this appears to be the birth-area of most indentured workers in the Caribbean) Sunnis, Shi’as and Hindus alike participated in the construction of the cenotaphs and in the performance of the procession, with low-caste Hindus being entrusted with the task of drumming; but ‘on the private level … it is relatively rare for Sunnis to attend Shi’i majalis [sermons], partly out of philosophical reasons and partly out of practical fear of physical retribution by fervent Shi’ah who might hold them responsible for Husayn’s death’.