Whatever it was, things would turn ugly soon. He could feel it in him. He had always known when a danger approached him. His instinct always told him. It was on full alert as it had never been before. More than ever, he struggled to keep it in check. It was urging him to fight the gerasi now so he didn’t need to go to where they were heading. As if his instinct didn’t give him enough warning, the animals of the forest, that hid from plain sight, let out bereaved sounds as they passed through. They’re sending him prayers to Sebayan, the land of the dead.
Sampurai controlled his breathing to let the pure air of the forest filled him with shape-shifter power so that his instinct would not overpower his mind. He would face what’s coming to him. He had never run away from a battle, and he didn’t intend to make this his first. He might be going to the greatest battle of his life just as Inik Andan, the oracle, had forewarned him last cycle of farming. If he was meant to end up in Sebayan at the end of it, he would not go there without a fight! That’s for sure. As long as he still had breath left in him, he would continue to fight. He would show the gerasi what kind of warrior Sampurai of Panggau Libau was.
(Excerpt from ‘Land of the Giants’)
All our Panggau Warriors – Keling, Laja, Sampurai, and Pungga – embody the Iban value of ‘Agi Idup Agi Ngelaban’ (loosely translated as “As long as one is still alive, one will never surrender). It is a message that I hope to I am able to convey in every story I write about them. The excerpt above was only one of the examples.
When we started this project – reviving the ancient Iban myth – one of the challenges we had to face was how to make the ancient stories appealing to the present generation. We believe that readers like to read stories that they can relate to, that have personal meaning to them at some level. And our problem was that the original stories of Panggau Warriors happened 17 generations ago. That was a different time, a different life, a different belief system. If people can talk about how a generation gap between parents and their children could create misunderstanding between them – while both generations are living in the same span of time, what are we to do about the gap that exists between the present and the past – separated by 17 generations?
Not only that, Panggau Warriors are heavily cultural based stories. Can readers from different cultures relate to them?
Nevertheless, we believe that while time keeps on turning, lifestyles change, belief systems evolve, the core values of what is good and what is bad endure, and they are the same across cultures. That’s how we want to reach out to our present readers.
And as it happens we are proven to be right.
Two days ago, my mundane daily routine was disturbed by news a series of explosions in my hometown, Jakarta, where my family members still live.
I wasn’t there, therefore, fear for my life didn’t even occur. My immediate fear was the safety of my family members. We could easily check where everybody was, and got the assurance that everybody was safe. The next thing to do was to track down my friends’ whereabouts and asked if everyone was all right. It soon became clear that everybody I know in Jakarta was not effected by the blasts. I was relieved.
Was I afraid for their safety after that? Yes, definitely. I wasn’t there. I couldn’t see for myself what was going on. How bad was it? Of course it was bad, some people died! But how bad was it really? Do I need to continue being afraid for their safety? Should I start persuading my parents to leave the country?
I didn’t want to turn to mainstream media for news. They would only scare the life out of me. I learnt this in 1998 when a riot broke in Jakarta. I stopped reading newspapers and avoided TV news for one whole week. The best way to find out if everyone I knew was safe and sound and how they felt about what was going on was through personal channels. In 1998, I could only rely on phone calls (this channel was limited because the cost was too expensive), and emails. They gave me more accurate (and reassuring) information about what was happening on the ground.
Now is 2016, the time of internet, smart phones, and free apps. I turned to Whatsapp and Twitter to check people’s whereabouts and conditions, which I could do instantly. To get the grasp of the level of danger on the ground, I started to follow the hashtag trends in Twitter to see how the ordinary people felt about it. I should be able to know the level of threat from what Jakartans were tweeting.
And this was what I found. The twitter hashtag trends changed rapidly from #PrayForJakarta, #SafetyCheckJkt (this one was created by twitter to trace the whereabouts and safety of those in Jakarta) to #KamiTidakTakut (We are not afraid) to #PolisiGanteng (Handsome Policeman) and finally settled at #KamiNaksir (We have a crush).
The last two left me dumbfounded. Eh? Were these people for real?
My fellow Jakartans were more interested in finding out the identity of some handsome and fashionable police officer who was accidentally caught in a camera while he was fighting the bombers, rather than talking about the incident itself. And the bombers? Nobody talked about the bombers as if they never did anything. As a result, I spent the rest of the evening being entertained by the avalanche of tweets on #KamiNaksir (We have a crush). Yes, you read it right – entertained. Because all the tweets were downright hilarious! I couldn’t help but laughing. I forgot about my fear.
Why did people just experienced a series of attacks that caused the lost of lives respond by turning it into the joke of the day? Were they not capable of feeling fear?
Along with the downpour of tweets, I received another downpour of messages sent to either personal number or groups. All the messages had the same tone: do not react in any way in social media that creates the impression that Jakarta, and subsequently Indonesia, is now a dangerous zone, because this impression could harm our country’s economy.
Then, I understood. Life is difficult enough for the ordinary people in Jakarta with the present state of the world’s economy. They could not afford to have it worsen because of this incident. While the perpetrators were to be dealt with by the authorities, the ordinary citizens decided to fight alongside the government.
They fought with the only way they knew how (and boy, they were extremely good at it) with the only weapons they had in their hands – a cellphone and its apps: Twitter, Instagram, Path, Facebook. They bombarded the feeds with memes and hashtags #KamiTidakTakut (We are not afraid), #PolisiGanteng (Handsome Policeman), and #KamiNaksir (We have a crush). They wanted to show that they would not bow down to the fear the enemies wanted to subject them to. They wanted to show that the enemy failed miserably. They fought through the day and the next.
Now I can see the resemblance between the Jakartans and the Panggau Warriors.
I am sure they were afraid, they were mere mortals after all – the way Sampurai felt afraid in the excerpt above: ‘it urged him to fight the gerasi now so he didn’t need to go to where they were heading”. And just like Sampurai decided to defy his own fear by facing the life and death battle ahead of him, the the Jakartans decided to fight on rather than surrender to their fears.
They do not have antu (evil spirits), beasts, or demons to fight the way Panggau Warriors did. However, they have an enemy (in whatever form it takes) that threatens their lives and those they hold dear in their hearts.
They do not have battle gears such as parang nyabor and terabai to fight the villains the way Panggau Warriors did. They do not have Panggau Warriors’ powers to manipulate elements of nature. Nevertheless, they have their own weapons (their cellphones and its apps) and their own powers (bombarded the cyber world with their messages).
And with those similarities, the 17 generations of gap is closed with a common motto of survival: ‘Agi Idup Agi Ngelaban’ – As long as we are still alive, we will never surrender – a universal value that survives the test of time.
The Return of Panggau Warriors 