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Siger: Lambang Lampung nan Feminin dan Misterius

Provinsi yang terletak di ujung paling selatan pulau Sumatera ini bak mutiara yang terpendam. Keindahan alam serta kekayaan budaya Lampung kurang terekspos di panggung budaya nasional. Simak cerita singkat Astri Agustina dalam lawatan singkatnya ke provinsi multikultural ini untuk pertama kali.

Meskipun terlahir di tengah keluarga Jawa (Ayah dari Probolinggo dan Ibu dari Surakarta) -menghabiskan sebagian besar masa hidup saya berada di Pulau Jawa, dan bangga terhadap kebudayaannya- saya memiliki ketertarikan dan keingintahuan yang tinggi terhadap atribut-atribut budaya dan sejarah, baik di wilayah dalam maupun luar negeri Saya sangat senang berkeliling mengunjungi berbagai wilayah, terutama daerah-daerah di Nusantara. Selain menghabiskan masa kecil di Banjarmasin, Kalimantan Selatan, saat ini saya sering mengadakan perjalanan kerja ke berbagai tempat. Di tengah-tengah keterkejutan kita akan buruknya taraf hidup gajah di habitatnya yang selama ini kita banggakan, Way Kambas, kali ini saya akan berbagi sedikit mengenai pengalaman saya ketika mengunjungi Lampung.

Kesan pertama yang saya dapatkan ketika beberapa bulan yang lalu mendarat di Bandar Udara Radin Inten Lampung adalah betapa panasnya Lampung. Udara panas terik khas wilayah laut layaknya Surabaya dan Jogjakarta. Tetapi, begitu memasuki kota Bandar Lampung, saya mengamati ada yang sangat menarik dari atap gedung-gedung di Lampung. Di ujung atap bangunan-bangun di kota Bandar Lampung, baik itu kantor pemerintahan, rumah penduduk, sampai ke rumah makan-rumah makan terdapat hiasan yang berbentuk seperti mahkota atau hiasan kepala mempelai wanita. Yang menarik dari hiasan tersebut, selain keberadaannya yang dimana-mana, adalah bentuk yang belum pernah saya lihat sebelumnya. Berbentuk seperti bunga teratai yang memiliki lima kelopak berujung lincip dengan kelopak tengah yang berperan sebagai poros berbentuk paling besar seperti segitiga.

Tugu Siger di Bandar Lampung. Sumber: Wikipedia

Berangkat dari ketertarikan ini, maka saya pun bertanya ke tuan rumah, teman-teman saya yang berada di Lampung. Selain bahwa benda berbentuk mahkota itu disebut sebagai Siger, nyaris tidak ada yang mengetahui informasi lebih mendalam mengenai fungsi maupun makna dari keberadaan benda tersebut. Rupanya, menurut dugaan salah seorang teman, pengwajiban Pemerintah Lampung kepada warganya untuk memasang hiasan tersebut merupakan salah satu bagian dari kampanye budaya yang sedang digalakkan pemerintah. Pemerintah Lampung merasa bahwa generasi muda di sana nyaris kehilangan identitasnya. Sangat sedikit generasi muda yang menggunakan atau bahkan sekedar mengerti Bahasa Lampung asli yang dekat dengan Bahasa Melayu. Walaupun saya kemudian menjadi sedikit kecewa setelah mengetahui bahwa hiasan tersebut diwajibkan, bukanlah kesadaran pribadi warga Lampung, tetapi saya juga memahami apabila terkadang memang kesadaran harus dibina secara top-down, diawali dengan kebijakan pemerintah baru kemudian menjadi kesadaran individu. Lebih baik daripada tidak sama sekali, bukan?

Akibat rasa ingin tahu saya belum juga terpenuhi, maka kemudian saya melakukan riset online sederhana mengenai apa “Siger” ini. Sekali lagi, saya mendapatkan kekecewaan, mendapati ternyata Pemerintah Lampung yang katanya sedang menggalakkan kampanye pelestarian budaya, ternyata tidak menyediakan informasi yang memadai terkait “Siger” ini di laman resmi mereka. Informasi yang lengkap malah saya dapatkan dari blog-blog pribadi mereka yang ternyata merasakan ketertarikan yang sama ketika mengunjungi Lampung.

Hasil menyarikan berbagai blog pribadi tersebut, usut punya usut, rupanya Siger ini merupakan hiasan kepala mempelai wanita dalam pernikahan adat Lampung. Pemilihan Siger sebagai lambang Provinsi Lampung menjadi semakin menarik bagi saya karena Siger cenderung merepresentasikan feminitas. Lampung merupakan satu dari sedikit –jika bukan satu-satunya, karna saya tidak berani memberikan klaim atas hal yang belum saya teliti secara seksama- wilayah di Indonesia yang memilih “benda feminim” sebagai lambang wilayahnya. Bahkan, Minangkabau yang terkenal dengan budaya matrilinealnya pun lebih akrab dengan rencong yang cenderung bersifat maskulin (karena merupakan senjata-red).

Saya sungguh ingin memahami lebih dalam latar belakang historis maupun sosio-kultural dari pemilihan Siger sebagai lambang khas wilayah Lampung. Sayangnya, ketersediaan akses bagi saya terhadap referensi-referensi lengkap yang terpercaya masih sangat terbatas. Seandainya ada pembaca yang sudi menambah terbatasnya pengetahuan saya, bahkan mengkritisi sekalipun, saya tentu akan sangat senang.

Fight Cultural Illiteracy!

Astri Agustina Sidik, mahasiswi tahun akhir jurusan Hubungan Internasional UGM ini telah memiliki ketertarikan terhadap sejarah sejak mendapatkan pelajaran sejarah di SD. Biasa mengisi waktu luang dengan menonton film, jalan-jalan, berbelanja dan menambah pengetahuan tentang kultural-historis (membaca maupun diskusi). Aktif menjadi sukarelawan di Yayasan Bina Antarbudaya -Malang dan Yogyakarta- serta freelance pelatih maupun juri debat parlementer.

 

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Featured Galigoku

Detachment and Commitment: Amish Community and Another Moslem Story

Amish community, located in Lancaster, was, umm, unbelievable. I can’t promise you that I will be able to project how cute the people are, or how beautiful the area is, through words, probably not even through pictures. Amish people were originally come from Zurich, Switzerland. Their story began with a man named Simons, who had a little different opinion with Lutheran, Simon thought that baptizing should be optional, so that the people would be more absorbing the meaning of baptizing. Simon and his fellow made a new sect called Menonite.

Among this Menonite, however, there were other disagreements. A guy named Jacob Amman thought that the Menonite followers were sway with worldliness very fast. He wanted to return the faith of the people to the old time, when there were not so much distractions. He wanted the people to stay plain, to translate the bible literally, to stay pure. Surprisingly, the Amish moved to America with the same reasons like many other religious believers, to run away from prosecution. Because of its different lifestyle, there were many Amish priests who were jailed or even executed.

At first I thought it will be like Baduy people in West Java, but turned out that the Amish are more flexible. They live in a huge huge huge farming area. Unlike Baduy, they aren’t isolate themselves. They live among the people. They can have their houses side by side with other people’s. They go to the store, selling things to people and buying from them. They mingle with other people. The kids go to school, but only for 8 years. They learn basic things such as english, math, history, geography and so on. But they will not go to higher education because they avoid the children knowing too much about the other world that it makes them leaving the Amish culture. Amish people refused to get the picture taken. Stacy and Debra had different thoughts about it. Debra said that the reason they don’t want any picture is because the sense of worldliness, but Stacy said that the Amish believe their soul would be taken away along with the pictures. But during our trip in the area, we are allowed to take pictures of their animals, their buggy horse, their houses et cetera, just not the people. 

We are still a little bit confused with their technology restrictions though. Because they are not allowed to have telephones or televisions. Basically their houses arent hooked with electricity wire. But then, at one of the family’s house that we visited and we had our dinner with. The family served us with fresh bread and peanut butter, meat ball, chicken and mash potatoes, brownies and ice cream. And these meals couldnt be prepared or preserved without the helped of electricity. The meatball and chicken for example, definitely needs microwave. While ice cream needs to be kept in the fridge.

We also saw the fridge and the microwave. These equipments are apparantly ran using the diesel generator, so they are allowed to have that kind of electricity, but not having the wire connected to their houses. Saddie Mae, the Amish lady, was also telling us that she had a friend driving her to the market sometime. She is allowed to ride in the car, but not to drive it. I asked our tour guide, Jane, what was the border of what to do and not do, and she said that as long as the priest said that it is okay, then they are not in troubles. It is still confusing for me. But I guess, what is obvious in the middle of the paradox is the Amish’s detachment from the worldliness.

They might use some modern equipments, but they CAN live without it. Saddie Mae wouldnt mind if her friend cant give her a ride that day, she’ll still serve us meals withour her microwave. Amish community are basically surrounded by the modern world, you can find cafe and convinient stores nearby, and they meet tourists everyday-tourists wear fashionable clothes and show their camera and cellphones, but the Amish remain with their salad dress, strap pants, scooter and buggy horses. They are not tempted and rather to continue their simple and modest life. As Stacy said, their world might be small, but they want it that way.

We also went to the Islamic centre. I wasnt very excited at first, because we had so much about Islam since we started in Indonesia and in Michigan. But the guy we met, Pak Rizwan, was great and I liked him a lot. He came from Bahrain and just like most of the moslem who came from a country with moslem majority, he took his religion for granted. He was just like another teenager too, he was in the band and played Pink Floyd to Metalicca. And then he came to United States.

At first he said that he was pretty shy with his identity and rather not to show people about it, since he was worried that he will be treated differently. But then he decided that he wanted to learn about Islam from the very basis, and so he did, and he found that Islam is a very beautiful religion and now he dedicated himslef to be faithful. One of the very interesting parts that he mentioned was about the gender equality in Islam. What he emphasized was basically fact that men and women are created differently.

Man is physically stronger, while woman is weaker and more sensitive. But it doesnt mean that they are not equal. Each have different roles, different responsibilities and different previllages. In the Qur’an, man is responsible as the provider of the household. They have to provide foods, money, clothings and so on to her wife, her children, or even her other family members. It doesnt mean that women cant work. They can. In fact, if the women works and gets paycheck, the money is her absolute right and she doesnt need to share with anyone else including her husband. Meanwhile in husband’s money, there are included the wife’s right. This is one of the previlege that is own by women, and that to some extent, man has more responsibility. Islam does not put women as second class citizens.

So why is that we found many violations toward womens rights in Islamic country, using religious teaching as a shield? All I know is this is a major degradation in Moslem’s life. In the life of Prophet Mohammad, even in the era of 4 khalifah after he passed away, women enjoyed the chance to do what men did. They were actively involved in public. Siti Khadijah, Prophet’s wife, was a very succesful and rich merchant. In the leadership of Umar bin Khatab, a government officer who was responsible for the market conditioning also led by a women.

But after the Khalifah of Ali bin Abi Thalib, women started to be kept in the house. Some said that at the time, it was a sign of social prestige. The less likely your women to be seen in public, the more prestigious you are. Besides this odd cultural shifting, I also see that the discrimination toward women also happen because of the misconception about responsibility.

Men do have a big responsibilty to his wife and his family, it means that he needs to protect her and them and make sure that they are happy. This responsibility has absolutely different meaning with overpowering. Most people, not neccesary men, identify responsibility with previlages. Take our parliament member, for example, they feel the great importance of their role toward Indonesian society, that they used it as a vehicle to overpnd to take advantage. Greater responsibility does not justify you for being mean to people that you are responsible for. Responsibility means commitment.

Our discussion with Rizwan had to stop because we heard the adzan started to call people for prayer. I felt very touched. I went to pray. Cindhi was very happy and she hoped that I can continue to commit.

 

Anggita Paramesti, mahasiswi FISIPOL UGM yang pernah mengikuti program pertukaran pelajar AFS-YES ke Amerika Serikat tahun 2007-2008. Pada tahun 2011 Ia berangkat ke Mindanao, Filipina Selatan untuk mengikuti Silsilah Summer Course on Moslem-Christian Dialogue  bersama komunitas lokal Zamboanga. Ketertarikannya pada isu-isu global seperti dialog antaragama, hak-hak minoritas, feminisme dan budaya membuat anak kedua dari dua bersaudara ini kritis terhadap kondisi di sekitarnya. Saat ini Gita bekerja sebagai Interpreter dan guru Bahasa Indonesia untuk pelajar asing di Realia Language and Cultural Center, Yogyakarta.

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Meet & Greet LP, Ciwalk – Bandung

Dari kanan : Josefhina Chitra (Tampah Ragam), Oni Ardiansyah (DKV ITHB), Galih Mulya Nugraha (Epic Java), Ran (Lontara Project), dan Setia yang untungnya sudah duluan pulang sehingga fotonya tidak ada. hihihii

Dihubungkan oleh teknologi dan walaupun beberapa kali sempat tertunda, alhamdulillah kami akhirnya bisa berkumpul di Cihampelas Walk untuk sekedar berdiskusi ringan mengenai topik seputar kebudayaan. Saya datang agak terlambat menemui tiga orang yang rupanya sudah duduk manis, disusul oleh Daeng Oni beberapa saat kemudian. Latar belakang yang hampir sama membuat obrolan terasa menyenangkan, dimulai dari perkenalan masing-masing. Kemudian pembicaraan mengalir begitu saja, kami mulai mengenal satu sama lain.

Ada Jo dari Jakarta yang aktif dengan kegiatan Tampah Ragam, semacam komunitas konservasi kreatif seperti Lontara Project, namun lebih sasarannya lebih luas. Gadis yang sementara ini berkuliah di Hubungan Internasional Universitas Parahyangan, Bandung, mengaku masih sibuk menggali informasi dan wadah kreasi yang efektif untuk memperkenalkan hasil-hasil budaya dari seluruh Indonesia.

Juga Mang Galih, sang arsitek yang asyik dengan proses pembuatan film dokumenter non-narasi mengenai perjalanan menelusuri jejak budaya mulai dari Jawa Timur hingga Jawa Barat, yakni Epic Java (trailernya bisa dilihat di youtube) yang terinspirasi dari film bergenre serupa besutan sutradara Ron Fricke, Baraka (1992). Epic Java juga akan memperlihatkan betapa luar biasanya keragaman alam dan budaya yang dimiliki oleh Indonesia.

Tak kelupaan, Daeng Oni yang berasal dari Bugis namun kini menetap di Bandung dan baru saja menyelesaikan tugas akhirnya di bidang Desain Komunikasi Visual (DKV) dengan mengambil tema La Galigo untuk kemudian dikiaskan dalam bentuk ilustrasi.

Kalau saya dan Setia hanya bertemu untuk urusan kaos I UPS La Galigo.

Nah, lima orang ini berencana akan mengadakan diskusi rutin di sekitaran Bandung, sambil mengajak sobat-sobat Lontara Project maupun siapa saja yang berminat untuk berpartisipasi dalam gerakan konservasi budaya. Semoga dengan dilakukannya kegiatan ini, bisa menghasilkan karya-karya baru dalam rangka pelestarian dan sebagai media untuk mengekspresikan diri para insan kreatif di Indonesia.

Gimana, tertarik?