T-shirts

T)t" sporting matches always end with something pretty disgusting:

f{i the exchange of T-shirts. The whistle has blown. The wholeJ.) team is bathed in sweat. All the players are exhausted, woundedor blistered from the movement and the 6ght, and then a ritual takesplace that is unhygienic but seemingly important: the winners and thelosers take off their team T-shirts and exchange them.

As a person who is not able to analyse the European Cup or othersuch matches, and who only watches soccer on television once in awhile, I 6nd this scene the most interesting out of the whole performanceon the 6eld. I always imagine just how disgusting, sweaty and stinkingthose sodden T-shirts must be ('What if Rud Gullit has a skin infection?'I think). But it seems that it has nothing to do with aroma andcleanliness. [t is a symbolic event.

When 'our' team's T-shirts are taken off and exchanged with theopponents', what is it that is being said? That 'our'team and 'them'areentities that are defined solely by the colour of their T-shirts. Thesupporters may get in a frenzy like drunk tadpoles, but thc attack andcounter-attack on the 6eld does not last a lifetime. Tomorrow Maradonawill not wear that colour, and who knows, the two players that wereopponents just now may be playing with the same colour T-shirt nextmonth.

T-shirt: a symbol of the temporary conviction of 'antagonism'.Now this conclusion is not original, of course. A few days after the

19F/2 general elections were over, all over Indonesia people were stillwearing T-shirts in the colours of the three political parties-yellow,white or red. However, as at the conclusion of a soccer match, theT-shirts \Mere no longer a statement of any serious loyalty. They hadbecome a statement of the contemporary meaning of politics.

Maybe some people (like Rojali, my neighbour) owned all threeT-shirts, and would wear one to fetch the water and another one to goto band practice. M.yb. in one morning three people wearing threedifferent coloured T-shirts would together assist in the sacriGcing of asheep on Idul Adha day, or would all together push a car that wasbroken down in a car park.

The voting is over, the winner is known, and after that-Godknows. One thing is sure-the losers are not wiped out, and what do

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the winners still want? The elections are not a choice between life anddeath, 'yes'or 'no'; they will not change history or mankind. Actually,the elections are not even intended for change at all. Just as in a soccermatch (which is also not for changing the world), the T-shirts havebeen used during the competition, then taken off and the players/participants are no longer players/participants.

T-shirt: a statement that politics has no relationship to change, andthat change has no relationship with spirit.

My neighbour Rojali's father complains. 'You go along with theGolkar campaign, then you join in the PDI, and then the PPP as well',he scolds his son. '-Where do you stand? Do you know that you are amember of the "floating mass"? You are like a used cork from a kecapbottle-without any use or weight, and therefore once separated fromthe bottle of kecap, having no worth at all.'

You should know that Roiali's father has a past: in 1955 he was thehead of the Rankasbitung branch of the Masyumi Party. According tohim, the general election in 1955 was not just an activity that one waspushed to join by the village head. At that time, the Parliament reallyhad a function. So the choice of the representatives of the people wasclosely linked to hopes for great things. Politics was a serious matter,very serious, part of everyday life.

Rojali cannot understand this, of course. He has gone off to the bandpractice at Pak Lurah's house wearing his PPP T-shirt. His friends arewearing their yellow T-shirts with the (government) banyan treesymbol, or with the slogan'Hard Rock Cafe'. During the campaign theT-shirt was part of a uniform which could gather someone into a groupthat was bigger and more meaningful than himself. But tonight, in frontof the saxophone, guitar and organ, the T-shirts reflect only the wish tolook 'cool'and to keep warm. T-shirt: a sign that this is me, my body,my manner, with or without the approval of others.

In this way the T-shirt refuses to remain a political tool until it wearsout. Polit ics (Rojali has read Max Weber too) is not a matter of 'theethics of conscience'. Politics is not an activity for achieving an absoluteresult, and for purifying mankind. Ethics are limits, not aims. Thepolit ical process is not something that endlessly debates what is morallytrue, but the polit ical process commences at the point of confl ict, it isconcerned with how we can resolve conflict without creating danger towhoever is involved.

'But we are already unified in ideology', Rojali says to his father, asthough he hai memorised it. His father feels that there are things thatare unclear, but he remains silent, and in the house he listens to thesound of his son playing on the saxophone'And it 's all in the game'inthe distance.

A game or a contest? The contest-game?

20 June 1992

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