Tereza

When I left for Indonesia, I knew I’d miss tap-water tooth-brushing, but it seemed like a fair trade for being rid of the perennial questions “so why Indonesia?”

My answers about it would go something like: “Well, it’s the fourth largest country in the world. No, really. Really! The U.S. is third, Indonesia is fourth. Honestly…”
Or: “It has the largest Muslim population in the world. Seriously. Yes, bigger than Pakistan; by far. Really; look it up.”

As my cousin puts it, Indonesia has one of the lowest I/P ratios in the world.
With I = subjective Importance (in the eyes of foreigners), and P = Population.
Bangladesh is on the short list as well and I know of a little country in the eastern Mediterranean that might be at the opposite end of the spectrum (at least in its own eyes, or if we count New York Times headlines per capita).

Turns out, however, I was wrong again. Giving up tap-water didn’t rid me of the questions; I get them here all the time. People actually seem puzzled by my interest in their mega-country. It’s not that Indonesians lack national pride or that they dream of leaving – actually, for its size and relative wealth, there are very few emigrants. But the country really is lacking in attention. For many people I meet here too, the idea that I’d leave the U.S. to study Indonesian politics seems odd (come to think of it, with this international consensus on the matter, should I be worried that it doesn’t seem odd to me?)

My last line of defense in these discussions usually comes down to: nicest people in the world (quite possibly true). But the problem with ending those discussions is that I know what’s going to follow. It’s the dreaded “And what exactly are studying?” question.

In the hatchet-job of “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” also knows as the film “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”, Tomas says to Sabina:

If I had two lives, in one life I could invite her to stay at my place, and in the second life I could kick her out. Then I could compare and see which had been the best thing to do. But we only live once. Life's so light. Like an outline we can't ever fill in or correct, make any better.
It's frightening.

It seems like much of empirical social science is really about answering that: what should Tomas have done with Tereza? Invited her to stay? Kicked her out? If only we could experiment with both.

Well, that’s sort of part of my plan here (minus Tereza.) I can’t actually create two Indonesias, trying some nationalism here, some Islamism there… but I can try and play with some methods and quite a few assumptions and pretend that I have done that. In these two Indonesias, where most people conceive of themselves as “Indonesians” or as “Muslims”, how would they interact with each other, economically and politically? How easily would they cooperate with those who are different than themselves, who speak different languages or belong to different ethnic groups or religions?

And after all, these two Indonesias exist – wrapped up in one. And so if one learns about them both, one might be able to say something meaningful about the real political competition between “Islamist” and nationalist parties and the kind of constituencies they turn to and political appeals they can use.

So there. Next time you feel the urge to write to me with “How/when did this happen? What are you doing there? Why?” remember that I/P ratios like Indonesia’s can’t last.

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I’m off tomorrow, finally, to Yogya. Will be nice to get out of Jakarta after quite a while.

In the meantime, in turns out that R.O.U.Ss are real (via this)