Tufan Kutay Boran from Indonesia!
Greetings from Yogyakarta / Indonesia,
Frankly, although I was worried that no
scholarship student had come to Indonesia before me, I was also excited to be
the first student to study the region. After I figured out that I was awarded
the Indonesian scholarship program, the first thing I did was searching for
doctoral programs here. In this context, the political science programs of
Universitas Gadjah Mada (located in Yogyakarta city) and Universitas Indonesia
(located in Jakarta city) were shown as the best programs in the ranking site
such as QS. As a person who has an interest in Foreign Policy Analysis, I
contacted the lecturers at these universities who could be a potential supervisor
to me on this subject. However, when I was searching for programs in Indonesia,
the first thing that I realized was that doctoral programs did not have
international classes. In other words, it was compulsory to learn a local
language (Bahasa Indonesia) before starting my doctoral studies.
As soon as I found out about this requirement,
I started searching for Bahasa Indonesia courses. Subsequently, I enrolled in
the Bahasa Indonesia course of Universitas Indonesia, which is located in Jakarta.
Although I had a lot of difficulty in the early stages, I finally completed the
intensive language course I took for 8 months with a degree. Meanwhile, during
this period, I also followed the doctoral application periods of both Universitas
Indonesia and Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM). Finally, the university I decided
on was UGM.
After completing my language course, I moved to
Yogyakarta, the city where UGM is located, and started my doctorate program in
September / 2019. Sometimes I think fate is also necessary to believe that I
soon started to experience the advantages of moving to Yogyakarta in connection
with my thesis title that I chose.
Yogyakarta is about 430 km from Jakarta (6-7
hours by car), it is among the most popular cities on the island of Java.
Located in the Central Java part of the Java island, this city is also called
Istimewa city, namely the autonomous or special area region, together with
Jakarta and Banda Aceh. Yogyakarta is called a special area since until now
there is still a sultanate (Keraton) in
the center of the city. Today, the sultanate, which has a more symbolic value
than politics, is as important and respected by the local people as the Head of
State. In 1950 the Ngayogyakarta Hadiningrat Sultanate officially became the
Special Region of Yogyakarta, together with the Pakualaman Kadipaten, a special
autonomous region at the provincial level as part of the Unitary State of
Indonesia. Thus the status of the Ngayogyakarta Hadiningrat Sultanate as a
state ended and transformed into a special autonomous regional government.
Meanwhile, the palace institutions were then separated from the
"state" and continued by the Yogyakarta Sultanate Palace. Apart from
being the official residence of the Sultan, Keraton Yogyakarta Ngayogyakarta
Hadiningrat currently also serves as one of the cultural heritages of the
Javanese people. As a cultural center, the palace often carries out cultural
activities and is one of the tourism destinations for the Special Region of
Yogyakarta, which is often visited by domestic and foreign tourists.
Coming from a metropolitan city like Jakarta to
a city, I soon started to see many advantages of coming to a city like Yogyakarta,
where Java culture is very intense. Especially, Yogyakarta helped me a lot to
understand many issues related to Java culture. As the most obvious example of
this, I have to start with the spoken language. As the majority of the
population living in Yogyakarta is called Javanese, the locals speak more
Bahasa Java than the native language of the country, Bahasa Indonesia. Although
Bahasa Java has the same grammatical structure, it is a very distinct language
from Bahasa Indonesia in terms of vocabulary. Although I cannot speak Bahasa
Java yet, hope to learn this language in the future is among my goals. Besides,
knowing this Bahasa Java allows you to understand the music of Dangdut Koplo
and Campursari, Indonesia's Javanese music genre, and the world cultural
heritage puppet theater (wayang kulit) shows.
When we talk about it academically, Yogyakarta
is the center of Muhammadiyah (1912), which was founded before the foundation
of the Republic (1945). Moreover, this organization had a very important share
in the shaping of Islam and its political structure in Indonesia. I strongly
believe that it is not possible for someone who will work in the field of
political science in Indonesia to make sense of both domestic political issues
and foreign political issues without understanding the traditional-modernist
Islam issue in Indonesia. Muhammadiyah is Indonesia's second-largest Islamic
organization after Nahdlat'ul Ulama, in this context representing the modernist
branch in Indonesia, while the NU represents the traditional branch. Both
organizations have actively played important roles in the political arena, both
during and after Indonesia's independence. Therefore, instead of Jakarta,
continuing my thesis in a city like Yogyakarta allows me to live deeply in this
atmosphere and to continue my thesis more motivated.
I hope I had the opportunity to share some of
my experiences with Indonesia, especially Yogyakarta. For further questions
please contact with me: boran.t.k@ugm.mail.ac.id.
I wish everyone success in their work.
Stay healthy, stay safe.
Antalya İç Mimarlık
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