The city of Yogyakarta, in Central Java, is one of the most ethnically diverse conurbations in Indonesia. Today, the city has a population of about four hundred thousand and has become a melting pot of different religions, languages, cultures, and ethnic groups. Despite the great diversity, there have been hardly any violent conflicts, and Yogyakarta is often pictured as a community of harmony, multicultural tolerance and accommodation. In fact, this so-called ‘EthniCity’Footnote 1 has become a focal point for understanding the conditions for and management of diversity in Indonesia. Yogyakarta's governor, Sri Sultan Hamengku Buwono X, has even received an award in 2014 from the Jaringan Antar Iman Indonesia (JAII; Inter-faith Network) for his success in maintaining the city's pluralism.Footnote 2
However, since the shooting of four detainees from East Nusa Tenggara province in Cebongan Penitentiary on the outskirts of the city by the Indonesian Army's Special Forces (Kopassus) on 23 March 2013, Yogyakarta's reputation for tolerance and harmony has come under great pressure. The incident followed the death of one of the Special Force commanders during a fight four days earlier at Hugo's Café in the north of the city. The four suspects had been arrested and imprisoned in Yogyakarta's Police Area Headquarters. Purportedly because the detention room was being renovated, they were moved to the Penitentiary where they were killed shortly after their arrival by 11 Special Forces soldiers.Footnote 3
The involvement of the Special Forces in the execution of the suspects was revealed 17 days later by the head of the investigation team, Sergeant General Unggul Yudho. The presentation of the findings led to an outbreak of unrest in Yogyakarta between opponents and supporters of this ‘act of revenge’. The opponents emphasised the breaking of legal process and a breach of peace and human rights. The supporters pointed to the act as a way of eradicating gangsters from the Yogyakarta area. This idea was first promoted by an army official who portrayed the four detainees as a ‘group of gangsters’. Shortly afterwards, supporters of the extra-judicial killings organised a demonstration in the main streets of Yogyakarta. The demonstrators held up banners and posters expressing support for the Special Forces and thanking them for eradicating gangsterism in the city, with statements such as: ‘I love the Indonesian Armed Forces’; ‘The People and the Indonesian Armed Forces are united to stop gangsters’; and ‘Thanks to the Army Special Forces Commanders, Yogyakarta is safe and gangsters kept away’.
Most of the texts on the placards and banners put up in various public spaces of Yogyakarta emphasised the ‘fact’ that the four persons killed were gangsters from outside the city, or more specifically, from East Nusa Tenggara province. It was as if the murdered prisoners were public ‘enemies’ of the locals, and this somehow legitimised the killings. Following the commander's death, police and a ‘group of people’ investigating the murder also made frequent visits to the dormitory where East Nusa Tenggara students lived.
Various informants felt that this incident marked the beginning of several instances of ethnic and religious intolerance in Yogyakarta, which involved actors from all levels of Yogyakarta society and beyond, including from Jakarta. These incidents came to a head on 29 May 2014 when dozens of people dressed in gamis (long Arab-style robes) attacked a house where Catholics were worshipping and several people were seriously injured. The National Commission of Human Rights (Komnas HAM) cautioned that cases of intolerance in Yogyakarta were reaching worrying levels, and an article published in the Jakarta Post two days after the attack pointed out that ‘increasing intolerance directed at religious minorities in recent months’ was ‘undermining the region's long-held pride as a champion of diversity’.Footnote 4
So, what has been going on in this ‘City of Tolerance’? What is disturbing the long-held equilibrium between Yogyakarta's different ethnic and religious groups? Who are the actors threatening the city's long-treasured diversity? Is this just a temporary manifestation or a more enduring trend? Further, what lessons can we draw from this case to design more appropriate diversity policies, not only for Yogyakarta, but also for other cities of Indonesia?
As Francis Collins, Lai Ah Eng and Brenda Yeoh state in the introduction to a volume on migration and diversity in Asia, there are multifarious challenges and opportunities to diversity within the region's varied sociocultural landscapes.Footnote 5 Moreover, there have been insufficient attempts to understand diversity issues within the contexts of Asia's highly distinct and varied postcolonial histories, cultures, geographies and political economies.Footnote 6 Existing studies mainly centre around nation building or view the politics of diversity ‘from above’. To fully answer the above questions, we have to dig beneath the level of the nation-state.
This article sets out to investigate some challenges to diversity on a more local and regional level by discussing the emergent discourses and practices in Yogyakarta as an exemplary case study for Indonesia. Unlike most previous studies, however, we envision the city of Yogyakarta as a contested ground, where other interests count alongside tolerance and multiculturalism. Some actors involved in this contestation come from outside Yogyakarta. To some extent, Yogyakarta provides a window for studying the issues and challenges that surround diversity, not only on a local level but also for Indonesia and Southeast Asia at large. Between 2010 and 2014 information was gathered through participant observations of ritual events and academic and governmental meetings on diversity and pluralism, in-depth and oral history interviews with a dozen key informants, and tens of members and representatives of local organisations, institutes and the royal family as well as ordinary Yogyakarta residents.
The following section elaborates the theoretical idea of ‘friction within harmony’ in society, which provides the framework for what follows. The third section provides an overview of Yogyakarta as a ‘place-world’, the term used by Keith Basso to describe the result of the place-building process.Footnote 7 The final two sections portray the actors, discourses and practices that create the interwoven ideals of harmony, tolerance and difference, but also make up the core of unending friction in Yogyakarta.
Friction within harmony
The notion of diversity can refer to all kinds of differences, traits or attributes.Footnote 8 Here, we draw on Fredrik Barth's use of the term diversity, by referring to the practices and discourses used in perceiving, interpreting and articulating ethnic differentiation and boundary maintenance.Footnote 9 This may include variations in language, religion and/or culture. As Anna Tsing observed, difference is both a pre-established frame for connection and an unexpected medium in which connection must find local purchase.Footnote 10 More specifically, this continuous search for connection in which diverse actors find divergent means and meanings in a cause, and disagree about what are supposed to be common causes and objects of concern, leads to friction.
Friction within harmony refers to the idea that there are always both opponents and proponents of harmony and tolerance, and that these partly cooperate and partly contest with each other to realise their own interests or those of the group they represent. According to Arie de Ruijter, contestation, conflict, difference and inequality are more likely to be an integral part of living together than harmony, peace and equality.Footnote 11 Similarly, rather than being primarily a market in which free and equal participants trade ideas, goods and services, ‘EthniCities’, and in general most modern urban societies, can be considered as a form of ‘contested ground’.Footnote 12 These contested grounds are, so to speak, the sociocultural frames in which various majority and minority groups who manifest themselves directly through processes of categorising themselves and others — thereby drawing borders — encounter each other in various domains and dimensions of life. Karl Weick states that everyone draws lines between sameness and difference, between inside and outside, between them and us, between me and the other, and this behaviour of inclusion and exclusion is both the source and an outcome of diversity.Footnote 13
The process of drawing boundaries is based on varied perceptions of reality (i.e. prevailing discourses) and experienced (self) interests.Footnote 14 These mental schemes become visible through structures, rules and routinised practices. In other words, according to de Ruijter, symbolic presentations and societal institutions are mutually connected and, by taking part in these structures and routines, the related mental schemes are imprinted on outsiders or new arrivals.Footnote 15 Through the cultivation of traditions, the construction of myths and the performance of rituals, members of a group are continuously (re)socialised in the culture of that group.Footnote 16 Through socialisation and acculturation, new individuals are integrated into the existing order. However, as de Ruiter notes, although new experiences are always interpreted within existing discourses, they are also transformed at the same time: ‘integration means change’.Footnote 17 This dynamic process does not take place in a vacuum, but is connected to other spaces and places.
Getting a grip on the friction within the ‘harmony’ of Yogyakarta thus needs to be constructed through the integration of place and the various dominant social spaces, consisting of various actors, discourses, and practices that make up the city. Following Basso's exposé on place, Yogyakarta is not just a material object and area, naturally formed or built, whose myriad local arrangements make up the landscape of everyday life, but rather the result of a process of place-making: a way of constructing the past as well as of constructing social traditions.Footnote 18 This place-in-the-making is one in which friction prevails between the various groups that inhabit the city and who use locally and globally informed discourses as weapons in their struggle for power and dominance, leading to stronger or weaker stances regarding the tolerance of diversity at different times. What follows sketches the ‘place-world’ of Yogyakarta, ‘wherein portions of the past are brought into being’,Footnote 19 before moving on to the actors, discourses, and practices that make up the social spaces that are at the core of the friction within its harmony.
The place-world of Yogyakarta
The sociocultural frame of Yogyakarta centres on two major cornerstones: the royal court or sultanate, and the university township. It is often the combination of these two that gives Yogyakarta its image as a place where high Javanese cultural and spiritual activities have been safeguarded, but also where many new cultural trends and political initiatives have originated and where militant student movements are born.Footnote 20 In other words, it is both a place built around seemingly timeless Javanese customs, arts, concepts and heirlooms — the centre of a superior civilisation — while at the same time being a highly dynamic node of sociocultural and political activism.
Yogyakarta's existence in the shadow of an ancient Javanese kingdom supports the image of the city as the centre of Javanese culture. The enormous palace, keraton, where the current Sultan resides, lies at the heart of Yogyakarta, a small walled-city within a city. Over 25,000 people live within the greater keraton walls. It is not merely a vast complex of lavish buildings, courtyards, and gardens that serves as a royal residence; it is also the court of a realm that has played a significant role in the evolution of the city's sociocultural map.
The city of Yogyakarta is located in the province of Kartamantul (Greater Yogyakarta), which includes another two districts and was formerly a sultanate. After the Giyanti Treaty in 1755, the kingdom of Mataram, located around the centre of the island of Java, was divided into a sunanate and a sultanate.Footnote 21 The territory to the east of the Opak River became the Sunanate of Surakarta Hadiningrat (contemporary Surakarta or Solo) headed by Paku Buwono III. The territory to the west of the Opak River became the Sultanate of Ngayogyakarta Hadiningrat, headed by the king's father's confidant and brother Mangkubumi, who assumed the title Sri Sultan Hamengku Buwono I. The king of the latter Sultanate ordered the construction of a palace (keraton), the heart of contemporary Yogyakarta.
When the British took over Java from the Dutch in 1812, they split Yogyakarta into two principalities.Footnote 22 Having defeated Hamengku Buwono II, who had been cast aside by the Dutch, the British rewarded their local ally Notokusumo by naming him as the head of the new independent Paku Alaman House. This principality comprised a small part of Yogyakarta city and a tiny enclave outside to the west. This arrangement was preserved by the Dutch when they returned in 1817.Footnote 23 After independence, Yogyakarta obtained the status of an autonomous ‘Special Region Province’ in 1946. The two principalities of the Hamengku Buwono and Paku Alam families were re-merged to form this administrative region.
The descendants of Sultan Hamengku Buwono I still play a central role in governing the city that has grown extensively in all directions. The keraton has remained the focal point of Yogyakarta's traditional life and it still radiates the spirit of Javanese refinement. Yogyakarta, although still linked to its feudal past, has become a modern city. The Yogyanese are well known for their refined character and mild manners, and as favouring harmony over conflict. As observed by Andreas Susanto, ‘[a] rather liberal stream of Yogyanese Islam and the eclectic nature of the Javanese culture are represented in the life of the Yogyanese with the royal palace lying in its centre’.Footnote 24 Mas'oed et al. observe that the Yogyanese are often ‘portrayed as people committed to a tradition of tranquillity, calmness, and moderation’.Footnote 25
Although the character and shape of the city and region are the result of many political initiatives of the Dutch colonial and central Indonesian governments and its past sultans, Mas'oed et al. rightly note that ‘Yogyakarta today shows the marked influence of the political initiatives of the last two leaders of the royal family’ (Sultan Hamengku Buwono IX and his son, the incumbent sultan Hamengku Buwono X).Footnote 26 In the mid to late 1940s Sultan Hamengku Buwono IX undertook some of the most significant sociopolitical initiatives, resulting in the emergence of a more open and plural polity. Alongside reforming a largely feudal system into a more democratic one, with local government councils and parliaments at all administrative levels from the province down to the village, Sultan Hamengku Buwono IX introduced mass education as the main instrument of modernisation.Footnote 27 One spin-off from this development of educational infrastructure was the establishment in 1946 of Gadjah Mada University, which continues to attract hundreds of thousands of researchers, teachers, students and project managers from all over Indonesia and even internationally.
Another initiative of the previous sultan that also attracted a broad range of people from Indonesia's many cultural and ethnic groups was his invitation to the new central government in Jakarta to move to the better-protected hinterland location of Yogyakarta at a critical historical moment. The Dutch colonial troops were returning to Jakarta after the Allied victory over the Japanese and the safety of the leaders of the newly declared republic was in jeopardy. President Sukarno's move to Yogyakarta with his entourage brought an influx of migrants to the city, including government officials, military personnel, politicians, journalists, academics and artists, and the city ‘became a more plural community than ever before’.Footnote 28
The last initiative of Sultan Hamengku Buwono IX that influenced the place-world of contemporary Yogyakarta was his successful defiance of the Dutch during the Indonesian Revolution. When the Dutch reoccupied Yogyakarta in 1948, the Sultan locked himself in the keraton and remained incommunicado. He continued to run a clandestine government behind the scenes but, even when the Dutch found out, they did not dare move against him for fear of arousing the anger of millions of Javanese who still looked upon the ruler almost as a god. When the Sultan finally met with the Dutch officials, led by Central Java commander General Meijer, he refused their demands, and ‘stiffly correct if not wholly polite’, asked them to leave by stating, ‘I didn't ask you gentlemen to come to Yogyakarta.’Footnote 29 According to John Monfries, in terms of the correct behaviour of a Javanese king, subduing his enemy without fighting was the most convincing possible sign of his high standing.Footnote 30
In Herb Feith's terminology, the Sultan played the role of ‘administrator-solidarity-maker’, in keeping with most of his ancestors.Footnote 31 In doing so Hamengku Buwono IX cooperated with prominent ‘administrators’, such as Hatta, Sjahrir and Djuanda, but also gained power through the stamp of the traditionalists.Footnote 32 He had astutely used his royal status in the service of the republic during a critical period. This is regarded as an important, or even essential, element of the independence struggle, and ultimately resulted in an unusual constitutional arrangement and the establishment of the Yogyakarta Special District, which remains in place — more than 65 years later.
Today, the enactment of the garebeg ceremonies at the palace further underline the city's diversity. In accordance with Javanese culture, the Yogyakarta court is the centre of politico-religious authority, and numerous rituals and ceremonies are held there throughout the year. As such, three garebeg, or religious festivals, are organised each year.Footnote 33 At each, an impressive procession, made up of people from different ethno-religious backgrounds, circumambulates the palace to symbolically protect the sultanate against possible disaster. Each procession is an expression of the keraton's charity and gratitude towards the people of Yogyakarta and surrounding areas. The parades are a spectacle for the people of Yogyakarta: they constitute visible evidence of the sultan's openness towards the city's residents from all backgrounds. Thus the garebeg ceremonies, perhaps unwittingly, contribute to the construction of an appreciation of diversity amongst the ordinary Yogyanese. These rituals, together with the artefacts and remnants of a rich cultural past, such as the sultan's palace and the nearby Borobudur and Prambanan temples, along with the royalty's mythological and historical actions, provide the backdrop for what de Ruiter has called the basis for the newcomer's socialisation in the culture of Yogyakarta.
Against this somewhat static sociocultural framing of diversity, the place-world of Yogyakarta can only be fully understood by gaining a sense of the presence of the great number of students in the city since the construction of Gadjah Mada University in 1946.Footnote 34 Since that time, Yogyakarta has become renowned as Indonesia's ‘educational city’, or the ‘city of students’ (kota pelajar), with 5 state and 88 private colleges/universities and many more secondary schools. These institutions have attracted students and staff from all over the country. It is sometimes claimed that more than a quarter of Yogyakarta's population is involved in some way in the tertiary education sector.
During the past century, student dormitories, often housing students with a similar ethnic background or place of origin, have been established all over the city. Provincial governments financed, especially in the 1960s and 1970s, the construction of residences for ‘their’ students. Consequently, Yogyakarta has many so-called ‘regional dormitories’ for students, for example, from Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Maluku and Irian Jaya.Footnote 35 Many other students stay in boarding houses together with their families who had previously migrated to Yogyakarta. As in the early days of the present sultanate, students are free to practice their own religions, use their own local languages, or conduct their cultural rituals, while at the same time meeting and interacting with ‘others’ in their university or high school and within their own neighbourhood; in doing so, they learn to adapt and live in a socially and culturally diverse environment. More recently, exclusive housing has also been developed for certain religious groups. In some parts of Yogyakarta (notably in the north, northwest and south), there are several Muslim-only dormitory buildings, for example, Perumahan Muslim Djogja Village Plosokuning IV, Perumahan Muslim Pesona Salsahila, Puri Sakinah and Citra Hunian Keluarga Muslim.
Clearly, the presence of a great number and variety of students in Yogyakarta provides an important backdrop for framing diversity and has, since the beginning of the twentieth century, added to the dominant ideal of harmony and tolerance in Yogyakarta. This is not only because of their appearance but, as we will see, also because of their participation in the various demonstrations and protests which have become part of the city's life.
Weaving ideals of harmony, tolerance and difference
At first sight, Yogyakarta appears to be a typical Indonesian city. Government offices, Chinese and Indonesian shops and markets, Muslim and Christian places of worship are found, along with a mixture of well-to-do, middle-class, and poor neighbourhoods with public life conducted in Indonesian and Javanese. Since the late 1980s, the city has also seen the establishment of various national chain stores, international five-star hotels, department stores and fast-food restaurants, giving Yogyakarta ‘a “good-looking” image’.Footnote 36 This urban development also gives the impression of greater privatisation. Although the city cannot be compared to Jakarta, capital of Indonesia and its largest city, urban developent in both seem to be embodying a ‘big city’ ideology. Bakti Setiawan notes that this process has been criticised by officials, politicians and businesspeople as ‘closed’, ‘elitist’, and as ‘the arena of capital accumulation’.Footnote 37 Yet, unlike most Indonesian cities today, Yogyakarta is still primarily a centre for administration and education as well as Javanese culture.
Parallel to this urban development, however, are both overt as well as behind-the-scenes struggles for control, power, financial benefits and rights among officials and politicians, activists and student organisations, and the royal family (and to a minor extent some businessmen).Footnote 38 As such, it is these actors that make up the ground on which Yogyakarta's diversity is contested: each uses different symbols, discourses and practices, sometimes purposefully, and sometimes pragmatically.
Sultan Hamengku Buwono X, the current sultan and governor, and his relatives, form the most influential group of actors. The sultan is one of the most well-known advocates of diversity in Indonesia. After his father's death in 1988, President Suharto instead appointed Paku Alam VIII, the ruler of a dynasty in Yogyakarta that had split from the Hamengku Buwono sultanate in 1812, as its governor. When he passed away in 1998, Jakarta again attempted to appoint an outsider as governor. But the people of Yogyakarta took to the streets and successfully demanded that Sultan Hamengku Buwono X become the governor. The son of Paku Alam VIII then became the vice-governor. As Koji Miyazaki observes, ‘one may regard the area of Yogyakarta as still ruled by the king or the kings, though their official statuses are in accordance with the administration system of the Republic’.Footnote 39
Sultan Hamengku Buwono X has also been an outspoken supporter of reform and became a key player in post-Suharto opposition politics, primarily due to his role during the massive student demonstrations against Suharto. On 20 May 1998, about a million people gathered on the esplanade outside the palace. The sultan managed to pacify the crowd and prevent the rioting that had taken place in other cities by keeping the military and police out of sight and by telling the people what they had come to hear: that Suharto had lost his legitimacy and that Indonesia needed reform.Footnote 40 One day later, Suharto stepped down.Footnote 41
Since 2006, the royal family has been strengthening its power by taking over several of the province's prime assets, on the grounds that they were reclaiming land previously loaned to Yogyakarta society.Footnote 42 The sultan's younger brother, GBPH Hadiwinoto, has started to manage this reclaimed land.Footnote 43 The sultan's eldest daughter, Gusti Kanjeng Ratu (GKR) Pembayun, was recently granted the title GKR Mangkubumi — a move seen by many as preparing her succession to the crown. She is also effectively in charge of the economic assets on this land — the Tartumartani cigar factory, the Maduskismo sugar factories and several other companies. The palace has changed the firms into shareholder companies, with the royal family holding the majority of shares. Another of the sultan's brothers, Gusti Yudhaningrat, was put in charge of the provincial government bureaucracy, while the sultan stipulated the involvement of his wife, GKR Hemas, and another brother, Gusti Prabukusumo, in various nongovernmental and community-based organisations.Footnote 44
Once Sultan Hamengku Buwono X had served the maximum allowable number of terms as governor (1998–2003 and 2003–2008), the people of Yogyakarta again took to the streets, demanding a life-long position for the sultan, which was eventually granted by the government in Jakarta in 2012.Footnote 45 The period between 2008 and 2012, during which various demonstrations took place in the city, has become known as the struggle for ‘Status Daerah Keistimewaan’ (Special Region status) — ending with far-reaching autonomy for the Yogyakarta government, headed by the Sultan as the governor for life. As Mark Woodward explained, this call for a Special Region ‘also should be understood as Yogyakarta nationalism — as an attempt to unite the throne (the kraton) and the day-to-day administration of the Sultanate’.Footnote 46 During this time, many organisations in Yogyakarta joined to form the ‘Kesekretarian Keistimewaan’ (Special Region Secretariat), partly as a result of efforts by the Sultan's family.Footnote 47
Sultan Hamengku Buwono X has undertaken many actions to maintain peace and pluralism in the city, leading, as noted in the introduction, to being given a pluralism award in 2012. The Sultan and other members of the royal family often refer to ‘Javanese philosophy’ and Javanese identity as a reference point in the struggle over diversity. The people of Yogyakarta have long perceived the palace (keraton) as the centre of the world — or even the universe. As such, the keraton with all its buildings, art, trees and location, has deep philosophical meaning. Under Sultan Hamengku Buwono I, the keraton was built in 1755–56 in line with the Javanese architectural principle of Catur Gatra Tunggal, or the four elements within a single integrated entity. Each element or dimension has a function: the centre of authority (keraton), of prayer and worship (masjid, mosque), of social and cultural activities (alun-alun, square), and of economic activities (pasar, market). The keraton is built on a sacred axis that stretches from Mt Merapi in the north to the Indian Ocean in the south. Merapi, an active volcano, holds significant cosmological symbolism as it is believed to house the palace of the spirits of ancestors who died as righteous people. The Indian Ocean is home to Nyai Roro Kidul (‘the Queen of the South Sea’), an ocean deity who is the legendary consort of the sultans of Mataram and now also those of Yogyakarta. Merapi is the spiritual counterpart of the Yogyakarta Sultanate, and Nyai Roro Kidul its protector:
Interpreted liberally, the moral of the story is that a prosperous and peaceful community can be achieved only if the people are ready to live with different and conflicting groups and interest, and try to serve as a ‘bridge’ or a mediator working towards common ends.Footnote 48
Essentially, the keraton aims to maintain harmony, both in the natural (real) and the supernatural (invisible) worlds. The sultan is the personification of this idea, guided by the ‘Divine Soul’ of his ancestors.Footnote 49 Soemarsaid Moertono notes that a king (sultan) is burdened with the temptations of unlimited power and having the single and wide responsibility for keeping peace and order in this world and, as such, requires extraordinary eminence and wisdom.Footnote 50
This idea is often used in discussions on diversity, and relates closely to the Javanese philosophy of living in harmony: ‘The truth is harmony, harmony is the truth. He who lives in harmony will know the truth.’ This philosophy of harmony has been materialised by Sultan Hamengku Buwono I through the erection of the golong gilig monument. This 25-metre-tall Yogyakarta icon consists of a cylindrical bottom section (gilig) and a round top (golong), and is located on the imaginary line connecting Merapi to the South Sea. The monument symbolises the spirit of golong gilig: the unity of Yogyakarta society in emotion, mind and will, and also between its people and the sultan. The statue has often been used as a symbol or even central marker for peace, tolerance and diversity during student and activist demonstrations and protests. A former member of Yogyakarta's Cultural Council explained that the ‘golong gilig philosophy means unity beyond ethnicity and religion; the unity embraces every person, between the king and his people’. He went on to say that closely related is the philosophy of living side-by-side: ‘Javanese people with their culture have to accept and live alongside non-Javanese people who bring their own culture.’
Such ideas go far beyond cultural diversity and can be found in all dimensions of living in the city, such as professional life, physical appearance, language and religion. As an informant from the Javanology Institute in Yogyakarta explains:
The Yogyakarta Sultanate is formally an Islamic kingdom, but in reality it consists of a combination of Islam and Javanese beliefs. The title of the sultan ‘Sayidin Panatagama Kalifatullah’ means sultan as the centre of religious administration (Panatagama). As the Panatagama Kalifatullah, the sultan is leader of all human beings and able to unite every religion under his great umbrella. He cannot take sides or discriminate against other religions or beliefs but, above all, he is the protector of diversity and difference.
This statement strengthens the ideals of diversity as well as the expectations of the role of the Yogyakarta sultan as the protector and unifier of differences in the territory.
Not surprisingly, the present sultan has often referred to this philosophy in his struggle against acts of violence against religions other than Islam. In March 2012, for example, when conducting the ritual ‘Laku Budaya Taruparwa’ planting together with six religious leaders in the northern region of Yogyakarta, he expressed his concern about the many violent outbreaks in the city in the name of religion. In recent years, Yogyakarta has seen a wave of Islamisation, often fuelled by support from Islamic organisations in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Middle East as well as Pakistan. This has resulted in the preaching of radical Islam in various mosques, a departure from the traditionally tolerant and syncretic Islam of Yogyakarta.
The planting of seven different types of trees — symbolising the six officially recognised religions of Indonesia: Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism as well as Javanese animism (aliran kepercayaan) — became a symbol for the revival and growth of cultural values, including harmony among the religions, among people as well as between people and the environment.Footnote 51
Another important philosophy closely related to living harmoniously side-by-side that is often mentioned in discourses on diversity in Yogyakarta is hamemayu hayuning bawana. One of the palace's spiritual advisers explained this philosophy as follows:
What is meant by bawana is nature, but it is not external nature, rather it is spiritual nature. Hamemayu hayuning bawana refers to our own spiritual nature and, thus, if we implement it in our behaviour, it will surely lead to kindness to others and the preservation of the wider world.
The Yogyakarta kingdom is not pushing these normative rules as a law with clear clauses and criminal offences. Rather than the rule and management of life being controlled by external powers, they are embedded in values or philosophy ‘that can be felt by every citizen or person’, according to the spiritual adviser. This amounts to a model or frame for establishing and dealing with relationships and helps to shape or channel this philosophy into ideas of living side-by-side in harmony.
In 2008 the Hamemayu hayuning bawana philosophy was adopted by the government of Yogyakarta in a special regulation (no. 72) stipulating the ‘obligation to protect, maintain and develop the safety of the world and give more importance to the work of society than to personal ambition’.Footnote 52 This regulation is part of a package introduced to offer a framework for Yogyakarta society such that it could ‘live side-by-side in harmony and balance’. These ideals were reinforced by proclaiming Yogyakarta as a ‘City of Tolerance’ in 2011, an idea put forward by various elements of society and representatives of religious groups and adopted by Herry Zudianto, mayor from 2001 to 2011. Zudianto explained that tolerance meant harmony, understanding and the willingness to accept, acknowledge and cooperate with each other.Footnote 53 These moves had been preceded by the slogan ‘Berhati nyaman’ (lit., peaceful-hearted), used since 1992 to promote Yogyakarta as a pleasant and good place, not only to live but also to visit.Footnote 54
The Yogyakarta philosophy of harmony and tolerance equally frames its activist and student movements. Student demonstrations, especially those against violence and in favour of tolerance, are quite common, but these mass marches rarely get out of hand. Protests are generally framed by the idea of a pepe rite: reducing conflict and looking for solutions that do not destroy societal order and harmony.Footnote 55 Peaceful actions expressing one's aspirations have become more commonplace since Sultan Hamengku Buwono X and Paku Alam VIII participated in the demonstrations for political reforms in 1998 and called for peace and calm. The frequent demonstrations in Yogyakarta in the Reformasi era have synergised the philosophy and symbols of local culture in ways that are perceived as ‘unique to Yogyakarta’ — marked by calm, harmony, peace, and often artistic expression.
On 24 June 2012, for example, thousands of university and high school students, artists and many others took to the streets to protest against the increase in acts of violence and intolerance in the name of religion and ethnicity, and presented a ‘Manifesto for diversity in Yogyakarta’.Footnote 56 Notably, the sultan, as governor of Yogyakarta Special Region, and the rector of Gadjah Mada University both participated in the demonstration. This peaceful campaign also included a cultural parade in which people representing various subdistricts, and many other groups such as transgenders and those from different ethnic backgrounds, presented the city's unique attractions.
Humanists, artists, academics, and NGO and pro-diversity activists are often the engine of these mass demonstrations at the local or even national level. However, in Yogyakarta, several nongovernmental and community-based organisations and other kinds of (religious) institutions also conduct activities in the ‘shadow of the media’, most notably Dian Interfide, of Forum Persaudaraan Umat Beriman (FPUB; Interfaith Brotherhood Forum) and the Centre for Religious Studies and Cross-Cultural Studies (CRSCCS) at Gadjah Mada University. Through forums, research and workshops, such as a two-week CRSCCS course on multicultural advocacy for activists in 2013, these organisations actively contribute to attempting to maintain Yogyakarta's diversity and peace.
FPUB is probably the best-known religious institution fighting for diversity. Centred in Yogyakarta and, with its many boarding schools (pesantren) and an enormous network across Indonesia, it has had far-reaching effects. It was established in 1988 and its traditional Islamic boarding schools admit people of any faith and from any ethnic or national background. ‘Despite the school's traditional nature, it includes such subjects as nationalism, human rights pluralism, multiculturalism, gender and the environment in its curriculum.’Footnote 57 According to the founder and coordinator of FPUB, Kyai Muhaimin, Islam is basically a source of peace for all, regardless of their faith. Abdul Muhaimin, who shared the story of his childhood with us, explained that, in his time, pesantren were part of, and in harmony with, the community, while today the boarding houses tend to be in their own separate enclaves within the surrounding environment: ‘you do not know each other, which results in misunderstanding each other.’ However, for Abdul Muhaimin, ‘diversity and togetherness are not separate dimensions. The first is abstract and the second is everyday practice. They look like separate domains but actually they are two sides of the same coin.’Footnote 58 He argues that FPUB, with its school network, is strong and has a lot of power and influence. Although its communities are scattered across many territories, they are tied to one organisation and because of their active involvement in interfaith dialogues with many other religious organisations and communities, such as the Kibaith Interfaith Group and the Catholic Church, they are able to act or react quickly, by using ‘Banser or Ansor’.Footnote 59
The humanitarian performance and the contribution of Muhaimin as evinced by his boarding school have been nationally and internationally acknowledged. When the tsunami hit Aceh and the Merapi volcano erupted in Central Java [in the vicinity of Yogyakarta city], Muhaimin also mobilised relief efforts. ‘The operational costs for humanitarian activities and expenses for my visits to America, China, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and remote parts of Indonesia, including the running of this pesantren, are fully borne by NGOs, religious networks and contributors sharing the same vision, rather than by the government,’ said the recipient [Muhaimin] of a cultural award from Yogyakarta Governor Sri Sultan Hamengkubuwono X in 2009.Footnote 60
During natural disasters such as Merapi's eruption in 2006, FPUB, together with the local religious institution Kawula Ngayogyakarto, headed by the spiritual leader Suwaldji, and Sapto Dharmo, a local spiritual institution that promotes the Javanese ideals of retrospection and seeking forgiveness from the creator, have mobilised their grassroots support to hold a traditional ritual called a merti dusun (offering rite). Merti dusun is performed to bring society closer to the surrounding environment, to create mutual balance, harmony and care, specifically with regard to nature. In 2006, the crown princess GKR Pembayun approached these organisations and coordinated and controlled the merti dusun. In hindsight, this act certainly enhanced the royal family's reputation and influence.
To summarise, various actors in Yogyakarta produce and reproduce a plethora of more-or-less traditional philosophies in the struggle to maintain the status quo on ethnic and religious diversity. In addition, the ideals of harmony, tolerance and difference are sometimes pragmatically and strategically woven together, expressed and presented by groups of actors for the sake of their own political or economic interests.
Balancing conflict and harmony
During the outbreaks of mass violence just before the downfall of the New Order in 1998 — with some cities in Indonesia seeing the destruction of homes and buildings, robbery, arson, rape and murder — the media commentators often wondered whether Indonesia as a nation, that is known as friendly, compassionate and polite, had lost its ‘mind’? Such a question may point to the fragility of human values in the face of a ‘real’ crisis, when the cultural symbols which guide sociocultural interactions seem not to be able to withstand the power of mass violence. Another way of looking at the events of 1998 is through historical patterns of violence that may well resurface under crisis conditions.
Every major royal or political transition in Javanese history has been accompanied by violence and intrigue. James Siegel writes that following Indonesian independence, there were various large-scale outbreaks of violence with massive loss of lives and material, most notably during the Indonesian Revolution beginning in 1945 and peaking in 1949.Footnote 61 Siegel points out that Indonesians clashed not only with the Dutch colonial forces, but also among themselves. Until the Reformasi era, most major post-Independence political transitions have been invariably accompanied by the spilling of blood (often perpetrated by the armed forces and political leaders). Such large-scale violence occurred during the establishment of the New Order (massacres of communists and suspected leftist sympathisers in 1965–66); the final phase of the New Order in 1997–98 (anti-Chinese pogroms, other ethnic or religiously-targetted killings, murders of college students), and the killings following the declaration of East Timor's independence. The list goes on, and we can add to them the massacres of Papuans and Acehnese during the state's actions against what it termed ‘Gerakan Pengacau Keamanan’ (GPK; Security Threatening Movements).
Since Reformasi, violence and discrimination have continued in some parts of Indonesia. Most of these incidents originate in communalism and fundamentalism, and include the killing of and discrimination against Ahmadiah followers, opposition to building non-Islamic places of worship, wrecking of nightclubs, and raids on shops selling alcohol.
While Yogyakarta escaped the widespread chaos associated with the downfall of Suharto, it has not been historically free from mass violence.Footnote 62 During the Indonesian Revolution (1945–49), Yogyakarta, as the temporary capital of Indonesia, became the scene of heavy fighting between the Dutch military and Indonesian guerrilla fighters. The 1965 massacre of communists that was initiated in Jakarta by the military under the command of General Suharto also had victims in Yogyakarta. Unlike these events, the mass-murder of criminals during the New Order in 1983 and 1984, again initiated by the military, actually started in Yogyakarta. In all these tragedies, there were many deaths, but without any formal prosecutions and much blame apportioned, these events polarised society.
Though the 2012 Cebongan Penitentiary attack was of a completely different scale and nature, it shows some similarities to the above-mentioned incidents. As one anonymous informant from the palace circle explained, ‘The incident of the attack on and killing of the four inmates of Cebongan Prison was actually related to an internal conflict within the noble circle as one of the four victims killed was the preman of one of these nobles.’Footnote 63 This shows that the problem does not only lie in the violence itself, but also in the efforts to legitimise violence. Groups of offenders justify themselves by using certain ideologies, values or discourses (e.g. the nation or a specific religion) to label their victims as public enemies. For example, the 1965 massacres were framed as justifiable actions against those trying to destroy the nation. Similarly, the Cebongan assassinations have been framed as the eradication of gangsterism. By attempting to legitimise their acts of violence in this way, the perpetrators have kept their hands clean, and minimised the risk of being arrested. These patterns are often used in Yogyakarta and elsewhere in Indonesia to cover the involvement of the authorities, military or police who are really behind many of these actions.
When Yogyakarta became part of a united Indonesia, it could no longer avoid interventions and interference from the central government and national elite. Yogyakarta, as an open area, faces friction in its development. Local constructions of harmony and peace under the umbrella of Javanese culture are faced with the reality of a society that is becoming more open to outside interests and interference.
A former gangster, who survived the extra-legal killings in 1982 and 1983, shared his life story and explained the role of gangsters in Yogyakarta in maintaining the equilibrium within a diverse society. After Suharto initiated the sweeping away of security guards and gangs by a ‘fully armed state vigilante squad’ in 1982,Footnote 64 the gangs that survived or emerged fell under government control or under the wing of a political party.Footnote 65
In Yogyakarta, the surviving ‘repentant gangsters’ (preman) affiliated themselves to various martial arts schools. This affiliation enabled them to play a central role in handling crime or violence: by solving them or acting as peacekeepers between opposing parties, individuals as well as whole communities. The gangsters also built good relations with the police (Mobile Brigade, Brimob) and the Indonesian Army in the early 1990s because the gangsters were recruited to train the police and army in martial arts techniques, in turn often becoming informants for the law enforcers. When the police could not find the criminals, they relied on information from the preman to find their targets. The preman were also recruited by shop owners and rich people who needed a security service. Many lower-class young men joined security groups as bodyguards and debt collectors in Jakarta, Bandung and also Yogyakarta during the mid-1980s and 1990s.Footnote 66 In the power vacuum that followed the fall of Suharto in 1998, the use of private security guards, youth gangs and local vigilante ‘mass organisations’ (organisasi kemasyarakatan, or ormas) to acquire or protect one's assets became more widespread. These people and organisations set themselves up as brokers and enforcers who represent specific political and royalist interests, and capable of and willing to use violence. Some of the organisations position themselves as NGOs, albeit with violence at their disposal, and refer to national laws as well as to public support to legitimise their activities.
According to Sudarto, a retired civil servant from the Provincial Cultural Department, certain royal family members often use the services of these preman to secure their positions and businesses. For example, some preman are authorised by royals to manage parking lots in central Yogyakarta, where they are expected to act as security guards as well as controllers of conflict. Some of them are involved in political parties and organisations. Sudarto noted that many preman joined in the mass demonstrations during the struggle for Yogyakarta's special status between 2008 and 2012. Sudarto noted that the organisations that mobilised the masses to put pressure on the central government in Jakarta to give Yogyakarta special region status sometimes used these preman as enforcers. These mass organisations were united in the Special Region Secretariat mentioned earlier. The chairman of the Secretariat, Widihasto, and some of the others involved in the struggle were appointed as courtiers (keprajan) by the keraton. According to Marjoko, one such courtier, the Secretariat met at a publishing house that provided facilities for their actions. Cultural action was chosen as a strategy for protest because of Yogyakarta's history as the ‘Cultural City’ of Java, although he admitted that violence was used at times:
We brought forward the image of the ‘city of culture’ in each action to give the impression that our actions were different from other actions that highlight violence. Although, in certain cases, we also had people who used violence when necessary.
Marjoko continued,
It was also said that the group led by Anglingkusumo (the brother of Paku Alam IX who lost the struggle for the throne after Paku Alam VIII died) and by Hanafi Rais (the son of Amien Rais, who lost the election for Mayor of Yogyakarta in 2011) was against the special region status for Yogyakarta. We needed to keep a watchful eye on them, including the mass demonstrations by organisations such as the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), to not obstruct the struggle for special region status. We were not just coping with Jakarta; there were also many groups within Yogyakarta who disagreed with having that status.
The royal family's shadowy use of preman to manage the city's parking lots allows them to be used to keep the peace, while at the same time serving as pressure groups for specific financial or political gains. Eko, a carpark guard, said that some of the parking areas are controlled by preman from outside Yogyakarta and that some businesspeople and politicians even hire military personnel alongside preman, to secure their interests. The preman are closely related to other higher, often less visible, powers and interests. They can be ‘brought out’ to cause conflict as well as keep the peace. In other words, gangsters, vigilante groups and the military are used both as instruments for producing friction within harmony, as well as tools for bridging the divides.
Everyday dynamics and the negotiation of diversity in Yogyakarta
The reality of harmony and diversity in Yogyakarta seems to be a little more complicated than it first appears. The general harmony in the life of ordinary Yogyanese is the result of negotiations between various parties, such as the police, the military, political parties, entrepreneurs and the royal family. As such, the Cebongan incident can be seen as more than friction or conflict between the military and various preman. Behind violent events, there are often hints of various kinds of ‘friction in motion’, such as friction among the nobles, among the supporters of the nobles backed by their societal organisations, rivalry among the preman or entertainment service providers, or elsewhere, between various actors with opposing interests who seek to benefit from the tragic consequences of conflict and violence. The construction of Yogyakarta as the city of tolerance and harmony, pluralism and diversity is therefore true for some, but used as a cover by others — outsiders, gangsters and nonconformists — to achieve their interests by fighting against those who oppose this ideal.
Alongside these hidden agendas of violence in Yogyakarta, small-scale clashes are also part of the everyday dynamics of urban life. The presence of so many student dormitories cannot be ignored given the conflicts and disputes between various student groups, and also between students and other groups in the city. When non-Javanese students started to appear in Yogyakarta, small-scale inter-ethnic conflicts occasionally occurred.Footnote 67 Notably, however, such disputes were often played down or resolved and neither led to larger conflicts nor a negative stance towards diversity.
In conclusion, the maintenance of harmony, peace and tolerance of diversity in Yogyakarta depends not only on everyday encounters, but even more on the power plays between major actors within the city and elsewhere and their mobilisation of student and activist groups to express support for existing frameworks of diversity. In some cases, however, major actors have even been deploying people or organisations from the ‘grey zone’ to undermine the city's diversity.
There is always friction in any diverse society and, depending on time, place and space, this will be harmonised, reconstructed, reproduced or even blown up. The attributes or boundaries of differences and sociocultural harmony are dynamic and can be changed, or redefined, depending on context and interests. Differences and similarities can sometimes be threatening, but may at times also be beneficial. Sociocultural homogeneity or differentiation is vulnerable to politicisation by ruling elites, by other powerful actors or even by the population at large. In essence, this model of ‘friction within harmony’ in the city of Yogyakarta is the result of the everyday dynamics of society or, in de Ruijter's words, ‘an integral part of living together’. It is heightened by the continuous renegotiation of harmony by various actors with different interests. Yogyakarta, through its sultan and by virtue of widely accepted values of harmony and tolerance, has given rise to many exceptional institutions, NGOs and ways of dealing with friction when it arises. To date, these have been successful in stemming conflict, violence and reworking friction into the ‘harmonious’ fabric of Yogyakarta society.
