Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's song

Yes, predictably, I'm talking about the recent Malaysian vs. Indonesian rift, the one about Malaysia's use of Maluku traditional song Rasa Sayange in its "Truly Asia" tourism campaign.

Most of the time I envy Malaysians for having much more progressive country, and feel inferior for the fact that we continuously export human resources and not taking good care of them.

Many Malaysians I met were not hesitated to show off their country's superiority.
"Wow, your salary must be in millions, eh? You're a millionaire!", said a colleague.
"Sheesh, man, is Indonesia trying to break the world record with bird flu victims?" said another colleague.
"Sure, Mahathir has flaws, but he has done a lot too. Look at Indonesia, or Thailand!!" said a Malaysian journalist next to me, responding to a Singaporean journalist's criticism on Mahathir.

I've never really been disturbed by any of those comments cause I know they're entitled to do so. I never get carried away by narrow nationalism voiced by many Indonesians on many issues related to the relationship with Malaysia. Not to say that I'm not concerned with the problem of migrant workers. I do, but I think most of the blame should be put on our side.

In the case of the traditional song, however, I consider it far bigger than a stumbling block between two neighboring countries. I see it as a classical case of a capitalistic party taking advantage of other party's ignorance, lack of knowledge, and in the case of local artisans, the unwillingness to cash in on its resources.

Indonesian government maybe ignorant and stupid, although not less greedy. But foreigners registering for the copyright of Tempe or certain Batik pattern, for mere financial motif, that's also manipulative and greedy, man. Taking what's been for many years known as a folk song in other country and using it to rake more profit, whatever you call it, that's stealing.

Posted by hera at Thursday, October 11, 2007 6:54 AM | Permalinks