Maski nieprawdopodobnego narodu. Na marginesie książki Elizabeth Pisani
Masks of an Improbable People. On the Margin of a Book by Elizabeth Pisani

Summary/Abstract: Upon the base of Elizabeth Pisani’s Indonesia Etc.: Exploring the Improbable Nation the author of the article constructs her narration about the “essence of the Indonesian spirit”, analysed by Pisani as a binder of the multi-ethnic and multi-cultural identity of the Indonesian people. In reflections founded on the experience of her journeys to Indonesia the author accepts the vantage point of a theatre expert and an anthropologist dealing with spectacles, thus placing upon the phenomenon of the “improbable people” a network of associations connected with the concept of the mask. In reference to Indonesia this conceit produces exceptionally numerous and semantically differentiated connotations. It also signifies much more than only a vast representation of “mask” artefacts and performative practices, unique for each traditional culture of Indonesia. M. Jarmułowicz treats the national identity of Indonesia as a mask based on the Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (“unity in diversity”) motto disclosed in a particularly ostentatious manner during mass-scale celebrations of state holidays. She also takes a closer look at the vividly theatralised social mask of the individual Indonesian, determined by ceremonial forms of community life and subjected to extremely rigorous self-control. A counterbalance to this identity are Indonesian trance practices described at the end of the book, freeing from the pressure of daily social roles in the safe and socially accepted conditions of the ritual spectacle.

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