Unlike mothers, our love for Indonesia cannot be unconditional

Nationalism is a weighted word for the diaspora. I’ve been asked, “What is your relationship to Indonesia?” a few times, and I’ve yet to find the perfect answer.

I moved from Indonesia to Melbourne, Australia, when I was 18. The difference between the two places is a stark delineation between my childhood and adulthood.

In my family, I’m the one who “made it out” – in wider discourse, the diaspora are framed as those who leave the rest of their fellow countrymen to their struggles. If the guilt disallows me to love my home country, I do not seem to listen. I wear kebayas proudly, my batik skirts or kain scarves attracting compliments from my Australian colleagues. I listen to Indonesian music, I watch or promote Indonesian films.

But this is a heavily romanticised view of Indonesia – one enshrined in the history biopics, one baked into the taste of my grandmother's cooking; an idea of Indonesia seen only through the mediums of culture, family, childhood memories, and food. Equating nationalism to simply loving these things may be insufficient, perhaps even naive.

What we mean when we say we love our country

The diaspora experience is not monolithic. In WIUI’s first podcast episode, Abi and Andovi quoted Benedict Anderson who coined the term “long-distance nationalism”. Another researcher, Nina Glick Schiller, has extrapolated the term in a book and concludes:

“As is the case with any form of nationalism, identification with a homeland is polysemous, carrying simultaneously multiple and conflicting meanings.”

In Indonesia’s case, those conflicting meanings form the question of what we mean when we talk about Indonesia, a nation loaded with a complex history where it has liberated itself from colonial rule but also has (in some cursed fashion) regurgitated the same colonial rule onto numerous ethnic groups. Chinese Indonesians who fled during the New Order era riots were subject to racial and discriminatory attacks. In this same era of erasure, my family removed my paternal grandfather’s Chinese last name, and adopted my grandmother’s, a native Manado last name, instead.

How can we still love this country, yet mourn it at the same time?

Yet authoritarian regimes are not long behind us. Protests today are met with militant responses and little change. The currency continues to downslide. Merit is criminalised. We see reports of alleged corruption under the guise of free programs. Like Americans, I notice Indonesians, too, have been looking to comedians as our last bastions of free speech.

From this, we are forced to grapple with how one could love their country, even when the country does not merit our pride. From the tapestry of my own experiences, I raise a possible theory as to why this occurs. A hypothesis, if you will, to the questions Abi, Andovi, and many of us are asking: How can we still love this country, yet mourn it at the same time?

I propose that the answer has to do with our mothers.

Nationalism, and mothers

Paralleling devotion to country to devotion to a mother holds weight, and deserves to be explored. I argue that terms like “Ibu Pertiwi” or “motherland”, embedded in our primary-level textbooks and national anthems, may hold some explanation.

On a personal level, I see many parallels between my connection to Indonesia and my relationship with my mother. When my late father suggested we leave Indonesia and move to the States when I was a baby, it was my mother who insisted we stayed. My mother, who reads and writes and teaches Indonesian poetry, with desks and rooms full of batik and kains, and never misses a chance to catch a train to Jogja, the Javanese heritage capital – it seems to be through her that I have nurtured a love for Indonesian culture.

Mothers are not perfect, as all of us would know. But in most cases, mothers or mother figures are expected to be those who feed us, provide us a home, and love us self-sacrificially and unconditionally. We feel “warm in our mother’s arms, curled up in her embrace...” Indeed, they are not perfect, but we don’t love our mothers for their merits or accolades. We love them because they are our mother. A role that is irreplaceable, and difficult to be substituted by just anyone else.

(I use the “mother” term loosely to include mother figures, parental figures, motherly love found in other types of relationships.)

In Indonesia, however, it takes another step further:

Di doa ibuku, namaku disebut...

Translation: In my mother’s prayer, my name is mentioned...

The above is a lyric from a song written in 1995, sung nationally in classroom recitals or national Mother’s Days (Hari Ibu). Another example is the commonly known phrase:

Surga ada di telapak kaki ibu.

Heaven is located at the feet of our mothers.

I reflect even deeper on this shared language that binds our national values with the cultural, moral, and religious. We uphold the role of our mothers with deep reverence for good reason, of course – for their formative role in shaping us as individuals, generations, and even nations.

We refer to our country as Ibu Pertiwi (motherland) and bahasa ibu (mother tongue). The etymology of “mother” tongue comes from the assumption that it is the language of our primary caregiver. Together, these have led us to see Indonesia in the same way – with devotion and reverence expected of us, despite the nation’s flaws, ignorant of its accolades or lack thereof. We behold a deep sense of gratitude and appreciation for its beauty and warmth, enraptured forever by its food and cooking, and how the country is one that provides us a home, accepting us when we fall short.

Ku lihat Ibu Pertiwi sedang bersusah hati, air matanya berlinang...

I see my motherland in grief, her eyes are welling up with tears...

When we personify Indonesia as a mother, no matter our distance (as diaspora) or closeness (as residents who live there), we hurt when it hurts. We cry when it cries. The bond we hold to our land is perhaps not best described as nationalist or patriotic, but something much deeper – more emotional and soul-stricken, which makes it more impossible to shed or break. We are more like children than we are flag-bearers or soldiers.

Which all eludes, I think, to a later point made by Abigail in her podcast episode:

“A nation exists for its people, not people existing for a nation.

A nation can’t feel pain, people can feel pain.”

The beauty and the danger

While this language, this connection to our country, is shrouded in beauty and sentimentality, I would also like to point out its dangers. When my mother cries, I cry too (often instantly), and it is not rare that I find myself helpless in the situation, unable to alleviate her pain as her child.

We must recognise that this is not the case for Indonesia. For a country that has a wealth of resources, people, possibilities for change – whose change, in fact, has been historically overturned and marked by the revolutions of young people.

Reminiscing on fragments of Indonesia with a love we feel for our mothers may guide us into the illusion that we are helpless children, rather than citizens of a democracy, holding fundamental powers.

As part of the diaspora, we would be lying if we said we were utterly powerless. We are among the most privileged, well-connected, and higher educated demographic of our country – I don’t think I’m even boasting when I say that, for these are the very factors that position us to become a diaspora in the first place.

It falls on us, though, the diaspora, to acknowledge, represent, and advocate for the multifaceted and complex nature of our history and culture, with the privileges and access granted to us. To not shy away from its uglier parts, and instead question and re-examine what it means when we say I’m Indonesian. To question what it means to represent Indonesia on the global scale.

Whose Indonesia? Whom for?

And it falls on all of us to expect better. Mothers, as we know, are not frail. Neither is this country. Our duty to it, unlike childlike devotion, is to always expect better. It is not on us to weaken expectations, but on those in power to step up and meet them. Romantic, fragmented views of Indonesia’s beauty – which intensifies our admiration even more from afar – should not cloud us from the true work at hand: Recognising the power we possess to change it.