What We Really Mean When We Say 'Eastern Values'

Indonesia has a pretty complicated relationship with the West. We love Western music, movies, and fashion. Hell, a lot of Indonesians put a lot of weight on speaking English too. I mean you're reading this right now, aren't you?

But once something gets "too Western," it's immediately derided as something that's "against Eastern values." This phrase, that something is threatening our Eastern values, is the easiest way to get people to agree with you. I mean just look at how many people showed up to protest an annual EDM music festival that's been happening, in some form or another, for more than a decade. The anti-DWP (Djakarta Warehouse Project) crowd said the festival was immoral and a sign of the erosion of local Eastern culture. The Jakarta government responded by saying that they would make sure DWP respected "Eastern values," including trying to ban bikinis from the stage.

Now take a step back and think about this for a second. What, exactly, are Eastern values anyway? Is there really a shared value system for all the countries and peoples considered "Eastern"? And, if there is such a thing, does it really mean that people shouldn't show too much skin at an EDM festival? Are Valentines Day, same-sex relationships, and nipples really part of Western culture?

I asked some friends what they defined as "Eastern" and "Western" culture.

"What I often hear from people is that 'Eastern' means a set of norms that is more in line with Arab culture, at least based on the clothes you're supposed to wear, the gamis and the hijab," said Adelia Ningrum Puteri, a 19 year-old student. "This 'Arab' lifestyle is considered polite, while 'Western culture' is the opposite, like how the Americans dress and live."

I called up a sociologist to see what they thought.

"The claim that there's an East and a West is valid, as long as it doesn't also suggest that one is superior over the other," said Yusar Muljadi, a sociologist from Padjadjaran University.

But that doesn't mean that "Eastern values" are some kind of monolithic thing. The term is malleable, and it's been used for years as a catch-all for conservative values that keep shifting, not as the definition of a code of conduct all of us agree is actually part of our culture. Take the LGBTQ panic going on right now. Some people say that same-sex relationships are a threat to Eastern culture, but the Bugis people have long accepted the idea that there are five genders. The Warok people of East Java think the same thing.

And when a local television station became a source of ridicule over the censoring of a man's bare chest, he was wearing a traditional Javanese outfit. That's not even mentioning all the indigenous communities who saw nothing wrong with women walking around topless for centuries.

So what's it mean when our own culture is also opposed to these "Eastern values," people keep talking about? Here's the thing a lot of people don't talk about when this whole "Eastern values," conversation rears its head— it's all political. The idea that there are Eastern and Western values only exists in a conversation where Western values are clearly being defined as a dangerous and damaging import. It's a way to cast something in shades of inferiority and "foreignness."

"This dichotomy is liked to cultural prejudices that associate Eastern culture in Indonesia with noble values, especially when it's compared to the West," Yusar told me. "Indeed this prejudice against cultures other than the East exists. The dichotomy is also a highly political one, one that justifies the idea that 'foreign values' are inferior to 'local values'."

The whole thing gets even more complicated when you realize that the West, too, has its own views of what constitutes Eastern culture. In the West, the East is often stereotyped as more spiritual, traditional, and conventional. This spiritualism is both the source of exoticism and pity in the West. Our Easternness is exotic and wonderful, but also less advanced than the secular West, or so the idea goes, explained Katrin Bandel, a lecturer on post-colonialism at Sanata Dharma University.

And then you need to also take into consideration that there is no one "East." East and Southeast Asia aren't a singular thing with a shared culture. The Philippines is right next door, but President Rodrigo Duterte has stated his support for the LGBTQ community, even joking that it sounded more fun to be bisexual so you could "have fun both ways."

“Why impose a morality that is no longer working and almost passé?" Duterte told the press when discussing his support of same-sex marriage. "It’s leftover rice."

In Taiwan, lawmakers have already legalized same-sex marriage, beating many Western countries to the punch. And in Thailand, the trans community has long been seen as a vibrant part of local culture. Could you imagine such a thing happening here right now?

“It’s very possible that those countries did not want to interfere with the rights of their citizens,” Yusar told me. “You got a choice to support it rather than repressing it.”

So if there is no such thing as a standardized Eastern value, is there a Western one? Yusar thinks that "Western values," is just a convenient way cast arrows at anything that challenges the dominate structure of society, even when it's a bunch of EDM DJs.

"Religious values are still the dominant structure of our society and their agents are actively maintaining this structure,” Yusar told me. “Unless there is a shift in our society's dominant structure, 'Western values' will always be used as a scapegoat."