A painting board was stretched on a coast. The painting inside was coastal. It was as if it’s trying to connect the views on its sides that depict a similar landscape. Ah, a refreshing breeze! But in reality, it was merely the imagination of the coastal residents of Ambon.
Then, came the sounds of pounding hammers, the roaring grumble of project engines. A helmeted worker was laboring, painting bare-chested drawing columns, the concrete of Ambon Bay reclamation, and also bridges and buildings.
Amidst his painting, a woman stole the show. At first, she danced. She stomped her feet firmly. Her eyes glared forward. At one point, the dancer started to bother the painter. At her peak, she snatched away a paint palette. The reclaimed coast painting was messed on, sprayed with paint here and there.
Hold on, why was there any need for emphasis on “the man” as the laborer and “the woman” as the invasive project opponent? Was it a coincidence? Or was there a discourse that made oppression and aggression, such as reclamation, stand on top of gender identity?
Referring to Shiva and Mies in Fitri & Akbar (2017), women as a class are the first victims of the destruction of nature. So preached ecofeminism. The political-economic system that works is capitalist-patriarchal. Capitalism allows development for the sake of the myth of economic growth even though ecological damage became its trade-off.
While their living space became damaged, household chores including raising children fell to women and made worse in a patriarchal system. There was no food security. The air was dirty, the families were ill. Who shouldered these burdens? The women!
The women are already oppressed, but so what? In a patriarchal system, the ultimate women are those who keep their heads low and accept what they’re given. But on many occasions, women show that it’s possible to strive for a better world. To leave their domestic space that seemed to be “given” by the patriarchy, they stood up and fought.
The mothers of Kendeng, for example. They organized farmers to fight against a cement factory that was about to destroy their natural irrigation system. The disappearance of water was a recipe for disaster for farmers. Sukinah, a Kendeng resident, said that when they demonstrated, the women were the front line. So the apparatus will hesitate if they want to rough the demonstrators up, she said. It’s a tactic. A resistance.
Or the Madres in Argentina, mothers of youths who were killed by the military junta. They have protested every Thursday afternoon since 1978 at the Plaza de Mayo in front of the Pink House (Argentine Presidential Palace). They demanded one thing: a certainty of fate. Where are their sons? Are they in someplace or are they in heaven? Instead of simply crying, they chose to stand up and fight.
It was the spirit of resistance that lived on the Hena Masa Waya show by Paparisa Ambon Bergerak. This performance is one of the Labuhan Programs of the Biennale Jogja XVI Equator #6 2021. It was inspired by a traditional song with the same title. The story tells about the nature of Maluku, which was hit by a big flood due to the wrath of the gods. This poem was then adapted into a series of artistic forms, from singing, live painting, dancing, to poetry reclamation.
The troublesome woman during the live-session painting was not an annoyance. Furthermore, who has the right to say which is the bothersome party and which is the bothered one? If not power, then who else? And who is the powerful one? Not individuals. The ruler is the capitalist-patriarchal system. The oppressed: women. Therefore, it’s logical if women, symbolized by the dancer, rose to fight.
In a fragment of his poem, Marten Reasoa, the declamator, read the stanzas of reproduction.
Di tiap bulan Maret / dusun kita berbunga, penuh buah //
Kita panen sampai puas /
Wangi dari pohon, turun ke hidung /
Lalu kita berciuman //
Every March / our village blooms, fruitful //
We harvest to the heart’s content /
Fragrance from tree falls to nose /
Then we kissed //
Dari ciuman / yang paling wangi itu /
Di perut Ibu / lahirlah buah harapan //
Buah-buah adalah doa-doa
From that kiss / the most fragrant /
In mother’s belly / fruit of hope is born //
Fruits are prayers
(The poem above tells the story of reproduction: the creation of fruits in mothers’ wombs symbolizing children as the fruits of its parents’ hopes)
We know that the main character in this verse is a woman. It’s a romanticization of the reproduction tale. That to be pregnant is to pray. But will the future always go according to our hopes? That through the children is where the future is entrusted? At Ambon Bay, the answer is no.
Take a little jump, enter the stanzas where reproduction romanticism finds its end. It said, seasons just came, and suddenly, went. Romanticism existed but suddenly fade.
Nyatanya / hutan-hutan diubah jadi kota /
Hutan disulap / jadi bandara //
Buah-buah berubah sampah //
Hanya ada senyum disana /
Tapi kita tidak bahagia /
In truth / forests turned to towns /
Forest spelled / into airport //
Fruits turned into waste //
There’s only a smile there /
But there is no happiness there /
(The poem above is a lament on how nature was turned into man-made creations, destroying nature’s original forms. It also tells how fruits, which symbolized children, also turned into waste or trash and that there’s only smile but no happiness.)
Children, symbolized as fruits, turned into waste. Not from the lack of effort, but due to laziness and unwillingness to learn. This is a systemic problem. Capitalism allows the destruction of the environment in the name of economic growth, and it closes its eyes to the problems it caused. It doesn’t care about the future. it cares only for today. There are only pockets of men and corporations that need to be filled.
And then the times when nations fade, as prophesied by Hena Masa Waya, where everyone can merely lament. While women rose to fight, men as the symbol of aggressors can only sing melancholic verses reminiscing the past, wishing it wasn’t done so. It’s as performed by Marten through the singing of Hena Masa Waya at the beginning of the show.
To walk on garbage covered beach, wading through the muds of reclamation, he sang his poem of death. Verses of civilizations floored by his own deeds. It became clear that the beautiful painting was merely an image and that reclamation was the reality he’s (forcibly) living in.
