Eryan Ramadhani

Eryan Ramadhani

Word Count: 1916/PIN: 10329

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Kretek (Indonesia Cloves Cigarettes): Between Culture and Economic Case Study on Cultural-Economic Pattern of the ‘Unique’ Smoking-Kreteks Culture among

Indonesian

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 clove-

buds. 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,

Eryan Ramadhani

Global Initiatives Symposium in Taiwan 2009

Eryan Ramadhani


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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

Bliss or Misery? Contemplating the Engagement of Cultural Forms and Economic Progress


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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 smoking-

clove-cigarette culture. Another potential challenge emerges from the international system.

1Agus 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


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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 so-

called, 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

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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.


Eryan Ramadhani

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Eryan Ramadhani