Reflections on Indonesia: The Semantic Synthesis

Travelling to places, unknown and unexplored has always been a source of immense learning and exposure. The mere fact of encountering something and unique is exciting. So, do when you travel to a country where the language and customs are so indifferent to what have been brought up. 

Indonesia indeed took me out of my comfort zone, bringing new challenges in terms of living conditions, food habits, logistics support and socio-cultural differences as I progressed with my project in social innovation assessment. It was indeed a great learning experience on a personal front as we tried adjusting and integrating ourselves into the local fabric. Moving into far off villages helped me realize the differences and the gap that exists between villages and cities. But, it was also a humbling experience when the villagers with meagre income sources and low resources would offer us various products out of gratitude and love. It was indeed their generosity which helped us cope with one of the most disconnected areas and do a two-day survey in one of the worst weather conditions while we were in Donomulyo (South-East Java). It was also a profound and overwhelming experience to see women being empowered through small micro-interventions done by Nazava Filters.

It was also an eye opener in terms of diversity of culture that exists in Indonesia, as I travelled to different parts during weekends. And taking about languages, dialects and how they shape thoughts. I always had the image of Indonesia being a Muslim country and thus, a conservative one (a semantically induced affect of selective adjectives in speech). Yet, this assumption was proved wrong when I moved across various villages and specially to east Indonesia, which was more liberal than many democracies I have visited. Also, while having good discussions I was confronted with a unique and constructive question “Why do you call Indonesia a Muslim country; it is a republic where majority of people happen to be Muslim just like America where majority of people happen to be Christian”. This was a short yet profound thought for me as it made me think how our preconceptions selectively take adjectives in accordance to justify what we think the reality should be. It is not that the real situations govern our chosen adjectives but our chosen adjectives that do shape our perception of reality. (A conservative Muslim nation, or a Muslim majority republic; and yes, there is a huge difference between two and how the image is formed once we use any of these). 

One of the other personal learnings that I could observe is how I started associating languages with thought process and cultural development of a place. (I am not sure, if I will be able to explain that in this write up but trying is never a bad idea). Having learned English as native, and Hindi, Urdu and Magahi (while living in India), I understand how the different languages limit the mind when you think in one of them. This is because while these languages were developing different speakers lived in very different realities and had very different cultural formulations and social structures. A typical example comes in the case of Chinese and Sanskrit. In Sanskrit, every word develops from a verb root always. This is centric to the notion and philosophy of constant motion (eternal flow) in Sanskrit Literature. It focusses on action and action-related words unlike Hindi or English, which have exclusive nouns as well. When I tried to understand Indonesian people and their language (Bahasa) and compare it to the exposure I had with Indo-Germanic and Latin languages (mainly French, Spanish and Portuguese), I was taken aback by the differential that existed. To my surprise, the concept of being in the present and simplifying expression is so central to Indonesian culture (or say, East Indonesian Culture, Java) that it is blatantly reflected in Bahasa, which does not have tenses or conjugation for that matter. Also, the simplicity makes it so poetic at times that just by placement of the words you can transform an action to a noun. (Ex. Anda makan means you eat, whereas makan anda means your food). This is quite unique in terms of linguistics (as nothing ever conjugates; like Chinese yet different because of the grammar and being a non-pictographic language) and I was so excited to compare it with my prior knowledge of languages and linguistics. I am not sure whether it was a personal learning, but this reflection surely made me observe languages and cultural habits and their associations in greater detail. I think I would carry this reflection for a long time while understating people, their languages and their cultural roots.

This also made me think about the contrast and contradictory implication this can have on "Universal Grammar" of Noam Chomsky. Although, I am no expert on linguistics or semantics, yet I think using the same palimpsest to gauge every language might lead to over-simplification, undermining the complexity which is so inherent to language development. Not to sound overwhelmingly conclusive, I just think it is better to understand languages under the layers of socio-cultural fabric rather than something abstract; it makes you connect with people, places and perspectives deeply and constructively. 

Terima Kasih!

P.S. Research Background

This article has been taken from "Reflection and Analysis on Nazava Water Filter" paper submitted for the fulfilment of FACT Impact elective taken at HEC Paris in 2016-2017. The entire study involved studying the concepts of Social Impact Assessment as a part of the course for six months and then, spending six weeks on the field conducting surveys and collecting data to analyze the impact of a social enterprise, in accordance to the Impact Map and Indicators.

Disclaimer: Any quantitative analysis has been avoided due to the small sample size under consideration; which might have led to wrong inconclusive statements. The views expressed in this paper are completely personal and open to constructive criticism. It is more of an introspective article than an intention to provide any academic research on or an analysis of the social enterprise or society under consideration.