Eryan Ramadhani
Word Count: 1916/PIN: 10329
Kretek (Indonesia Cloves Cigarettes): Between Culture and Economic Case Study on Cultural-Economic Pattern of the ‘Unique’ Smoking-Kreteks Culture among Indonesian
Eryan Ramadhani
Kretek: The Indonesia’s ‘Impressive’ Cultural-Economic Pattern It has been a difficult question to answer what the relations between culture and economic are, since both things are stand on a very different side. In this essay, I would like to try to make an easy and understandable explanation on relations between culture and economic with the case study on a pattern of smoking-kreteks culture in Indonesia. For generations kreteks has proved its existence and for long times it always stand next to Indonesia economic development. There is no such hesitancy about that for government and society also. It is an unusual event when we witness how important the influence of a culture for the existence of the-fourth-biggest population country in the world (in term of the economic sector). Another ‘unique’ phenomenon the people of Indonesia showed is how a ‘bad’ culture like smoking has an enormous effect on many sectors. In our mindset, a culture must be something unique and represent the daily life of their people. A culture must be something ‘good’ and in fact that Indonesia has lots of culture that agree with the requirements of a ‘normal’ culture, it appears another new phenomenon what exactly the definition of culture itself for Indonesian is. Those three questions are the core of this essay. Kretek: The ‘New’ Culture of Indonesia Indonesia is famous for its wonderful natural resources, including the plants. Nature of Indonesia has more than thousand and hundreds of plant’s varieties. One of the most popular is cloves. Indonesia provides the first class cloves with the first class taste. Cloves have been existed for more than a hundred years in Indonesia’s society. In early 1880s a man in Kudus, Central Java named Haji Jamahri used cloves as a mean to deliver the medicinal eugenol of cloves to the lungs, as it was thought to help asthma. Jamahri used the traditional ‘recipe’ by rubbing clove oil on his chest and smoked his hand rolled cigarettes after adding dried clovebuds. Without any predictions, it cured his chest pain and asthma. Thenceforth, he told everyone in his village to use cloves as a ‘medicine’ and soon clove cigarettes became available under the name of clove cigarettes (Indonesian called it rokok cengkeh). The word kretek will not be found in, either, any Indonesian or English Dictionary. It comes from the sound of crackling (tek..tek..tek..) of burning tobacco leaves, and people, 1
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for easy, called it kretek. Kreteks have become one of Indonesia’s cultures, especially in Java, which has the largest population of Indonesian (the people of Java in majority are Javanese). Kreteks were born in Java by a ‘pure’ Javanese. Since the time of its birth, kreteks suddenly became so famous that everyone around Java (co centrally in Central and East Java) knew it and assumed it as a new phenomenon in Java’s society. In the late of 18th century and the beginning of 19th century, no one ignore the existence of kreteks, whatever their status. It seemed like in that time when kreteks took a part in relations among the members of society, no one cared about one’s status whether he/she is Priyayi (a designation for the Javanese Kingdom family) or those who just held the status of slave. That kreteks have been able to unite the Javanese society without any objections; most Indonesian throughout the country, not including Javanese, also perceive the same way and easily kreteks walk in the new line of all Indonesian life (also become a part of Indonesia-rich culture). Culture is something patent on one’s society. A culture(s), however its influence, will always be sent down through generations. A Thing(s) defined, as culture must be firmed up by society. It means that before kreteks categorized as a culture, it needs the concurrence from society. Kretek: The ‘Dangerous’ Ingredients In simple ways, we can say that kreteks are made of up of approximately 60 to 80% tobacco, 20 to 40% ground cloves, clove oil and other additives. Usually machine-rolled, clove cigarettes come with or without filters. Actually, it is not as simple as that to determine the exactly formula of kreteks. Taken for the paper made of Agus Taftazani and Chomsin S.Widodo, the formula of kreteks, from the study of heavy metals content of seven kreteks (with cloves) of East Java product using Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA), consists of heavy metal such as Hg (Mercury), Cd (Cadmium), Cr (Chrome), and Co (Cobalt). The concentration of heavy metals Hg, Cd, Cr and Co smaller than Accept Daily Intake (ADI) of FAO (Food Agricultural Organization) and WHO (World Health Organization). The Hg concentration was from 0.0096 to 0.1565 ppm and smaller than tobacco of Pakistan, Netherland and Iran (3.001 ppm). The Cd concentration was from 0.3967 to 1.4226 ppm. The Co concentration was from 0.4042 to 0.6426 ppm and smaller than tobacco of Pakistan and Netherland, but higher than Iran’s tobacco (0.2100 ppm). The concentration of Cr of samples was from 8.1432 to 11.2746 ppm and higher than three countries above mentioned. The result of F-test with confidence 95%, that the concentration
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of Hg, Co and Cr of all cigarette samples have not significance different, but for Cd concentration has significance different.1 Smoking is dangerous. Lots of scientific research has proved how dangerous it is, but still it does not influence the smoking-kreteks culture among Indonesian society. Why it can happen? One possible and reasonable factor is the pattern of smoking-kreteks as a culture itself. It is painful as reality, but when thing(s) become a culture, it automatically will be eternal and accepted without any hesitance. Kretek: The Economic Beneficial Perspective As a culture, kreteks give lots of benefit for the government of Indonesia. According to the data from Indocommercial (1999; 2002), the total production number of kreteks has increased significantly from 159.500 million in 1996 to 168.071 million in 2001 (although the total production decreased between the year of 1998 and 1999). Besides consumed inside the Indonesian society, kreteks has also been exported to other countries such as United States of America (USA), Malaysia, and Thailand. The highest total number of Indonesia’s export on kreteks is in the year of 2000 with total production of 22.473 tons, which is equal to US$139.222 million. The main co-partner of Indonesia in exporting kreteks is Malaysia with the total export of 5.041,217 tons equal to US$61.184.464. In the year of 2003, kreteks industries contribute US$2.25 billion (total counting of tobacco taxes and export-foreign exchanges). Normally, the total national income from these industries ranges from US$2,6 to US$8,3 billion per year. Those numbers are tremendous for a development country like Indonesia. Kretek: Challenges and Opportunities Smoking-kreteks is Indonesian culture. It is a ‘tragic’ reality and we cannot blame it to the government or society, even to H. Jamahri, a founding father of kreteks. In recent years, an irreplaceable place for kreteks faces an insistence from the government, that says smoking is harmful especially for health and threaten one’s life, and Muslim society, that presume smoking as something proscribed. The fatwa of MUI (Majelis Ulama Indonesia or Indonesia Ulama Council) brought on smoking as something sinful. Albeit not a hundred percent people agree on this fatwa, it is still become a magnitude challenge for the existence of smokingclove-cigarette culture. Another potential challenge emerges from the international system. 1
Agus Taftazani and Chomsin S.Widodo, “Study of Heavy Metal Content in Kretek and Non Kretek Cigarettes Using INAA Method”, accessed from http://nhc.batan.go.id/agus_taftazani1.php, March, 11th 2009
Bliss or Misery? Contemplating the Engagement of Cultural Forms and Economic Progress
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Since the unhealthy ingredients that arranged kreteks have already been published, most export-destination countries, mainly USA, tighten their import policy on Indonesian kretek. It is a huge challenge means that the number of Indonesia’s export automatically will be decreased, so will the national income from foreign exchange. The challenge I have mentioned above mostly on economic sector. It is said so because the smoking-kreteks culture, immensely, interrelated to economic. The critique also emerges outside the economic point of view. It is spoken by the international organization, which has the highest ‘authority’ upon the international system, United Nations (UN). UN is divided into some different sub-organization with their own concern on one sector and in this case. UN has WHO (World Health Organization) as an accomplice that focused on health issues, including smoking. For long times WHO has warned Indonesia to limit her kreteks production under the reason of endangers people’s life. It is one of the biggest non-economic challenges that must be faced by the government of Indonesia. Although faces some unassailable challenges, the ‘unique’ smoking-kreteks culture, at least, still have some opportunities to survive. The fact that Indonesia’s economic almost rely on kreteks industries, there is a chance for these based-on-culture industries to keep their existence on. It is hard to let a culture go because the society as a safeguard will always keep an eye on it. There is a peculiar reality in the economic pattern of Indonesia that brings about some new questions. If this culture proved to give disadvantages to society, why does the government still keep it going? If the excuse is economics, should the government sacrifice its own people to live in such an unhealthy lifestyle? What does the government have to do? In the last part of this essay, I would like to give some suggestion to the Indonesian government in facing this problem. 1. There is no other way to escape from this cultural-economic vicious cycle. Society has their own privilege rights to sustain their belief on culture(s), so that the government cannot suppress its desire to society. We cannot easily erase a culture from, what socalled, civilization, so does the government. Nevertheless, in some ways, the government ‘intervention’ is needed. In the case of kreteks culture, the most possible way the government can do is by reforming the culture itself. Smoking is a ‘bad’ lifestyle and it will not easy to change a lifestyle, but it can be changed into a new healthier lifestyle by modifying the component of kreteks from hazardous contents to 4
Global Initiatives Symposium in Taiwan 2009
Word Count: 1916/PIN: 10329
safer one. Recently, there is a great innovation of herbal cigarettes that made of ‘friendly’ components, for instance betel vine, siwak (bundle of young twigs or roots used to clean teeth, usually grow in Middle East), and honey. One of the best things this cigarette has is its zero percent (0%) contents of nicotine. This notion on herbal cigarettes probably is not the best settlement of this case, but at least it is effective enough to change the ‘bad’ culture to the ‘good’ one, in term of health. 2. There is no need to doubt that smoking-kreteks culture gives a fascinating impact on Indonesian economic. This fact, unfortunately, makes the new economic dependency on this culture. It will emerge another vicious cycle that difficult to be cut off. From this smoking-culture, Indonesia national income increases steadily and the industries relates on this smoking-culture welcome million workers to lessen the lack number of jobless in Indonesia. It helps the government very much. How do if the condition suddenly becomes the opposite? Does the government ready to face the condition when smoking and kreteks industries are totally prohibited? Indonesia’s government for long times has tended to hang on everything relates to kreteks. That is why I suggest the government not too depend on billion-dollar tobacco taxes and kreteks foreign exchange. Indonesia has lots of potential income source from thousand sectors, such as fishery and agriculture. With those formidable potentials, Indonesia has more opportunity to keep the economic growth on a constant rate without tied on tobacco taxes and kreteks industries.
5 Bliss or Misery? Contemplating the Engagement of Cultural Forms and Economic Progress
Eryan Ramadhani
Global Initiatives Symposium in Taiwan 2009