Cultural goods thievery: Bolivia v. Indonesia

It's been years that Indonesian complaining about Malaysian stealing our cultural goods. The latest one is Balinese Pendet dance being claimed by Malaysian as part of their tradition in their tourism ad "Malaysia truly Asia". They also claimed Rendang, Reog Ponorogo (I thought the name Ponorogo gives the clue that its root is definitely not Malaysian), Rafflesia Arnoldii, Batik, and that Mollucan song Rasa Sayange as part of their heritage.


According to Malaysian 1971 National Culture Policy, the national culture among others must be based on the indigenous Malay culture & suitable elements from the other cultures may be accepted as part of the national culture.

Now let's see about Malaysian ethnic groups. Their indigenous people which counted for 5% of their population has similar culture to Indonesian Dayak.
Then there are chinese with their peranakan culture and Indian ethnic. Malay are the largest ethnic group. It is interesting to point out that according to Wikipedia:

Malays (Malay: Melayu) are an ethnic group of Austronesian peoples predominantly inhabiting the Malay Peninsula, the east coast of Sumatra, the coast of Borneo, and the smaller islands between these locations. The Malay ethnic group is distinct from the concept of a Malay race, which encompasses a wider group of people, including most of Indonesia and the Philippines. The Malay language is a member of the Austronesian family of languages.

Taking this into account, I think it's safe to say that Balinese nor Molluccans are not part of the equation of Malaysian ethnic group.

I can understand when they claimed Rendang as their traditional food, it is part of share Malay culture. As for Raflessia arnoldii, although it was first discovered in Indonesia, it grows in all Malay archipelago as far as the Phillipines.

I guess Malaysia is exercising their policy of taking suitable elements of other culture as part of their own when it comes to Pendet dance, Batik, Reog and that Molluccan song. Their ambassador for Indonesia kept citing about the fact that there are really those things in Malaysia for as long as he could remember. Of course they do, there plenty of Indonesian people living in Malaysia taking their culture from back home (Bali, Java, Mollucas, etc). Just like there are plenty of Dutch people living with their culture in Australia. But, we dont see Aussie claiming wearing clogs as part of their culture, do we?

Now I dont blame solely on Malaysia for this mess. Indonesian government has done little to protect its heritage. The last time this happened, our minister promised to catalogue our culture. But is it enough just to do that while Malaysian government is already busy claiming them with patents?

Maybe we should take note from Bolivian government in its dispute with the Peruvian. It started as Miss Peru wearing a Diabolical costume inspired by La Diablada dance as her National costume at the Miss Universe pageant in Bahama this month. According to the Peruvian, the costume is part of share culture of Altiplano in the highland bordering Bolivia, Peru and Chile. However, Bolivian believes that it was originally in Bolivia and then spread out to the neighboring countries. Sounds familiar?

The Bolivian Culture minister is said would sue Peru in the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The Bolivian government is also doing tv ads at CNN en español and Telesur on this matter.


In the light of these events, Indonesian need to do our utmost in protecting our culture. We cant leave it to our government and its catalogue business. But as a nation we need to do something about it. How much do we know about our own culture? I bet most Indonesian kids nowadays are more knowledgable about Disney's characther or anime than about local folklore. How many of you could dance any traditional dance, play any traditional musical instrument?

Maybe it's time to teach ourself and our kids more about our own rich tradition before other people steals them from us again.