Religious modelling of a natural disaster: a cultural semiotic analysis of the post-disaster emergency and recovery processes of the 2004 earthquake and tsunami in Aceh, Indonesia

Muzayin Nazaruddin

Universitas Indonesia Conferences, The 8th International Symposium of Journal Antropologi Indonesia

Muzayin Nazaruddin

Last modified: 2022-05-27

Abstract

This study investigates the interrelations between natural disasters and religion through three major questions: how religion shapes disaster interpretations and the post-disaster emergency and recovery processes, how a disaster transforms religious practices, understandings, and institutions, and how religious interpretations may be contingent with scientific explanations of the same disaster event. Taking the case of the Aceh society after the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami, this study applies the Lotmanian cultural semiotic approach, especially his ideas on the semiosphere and explosive changes. This paper argues that, on the one hand, Islam is the central modelling system of the Aceh culture that provides two interrelated post-tsunami functions: explaining the inexplicable disaster and guiding the subsequent actions. On the other hand, the tsunami has changed the form and structure of the religious Aceh society, indicating an explosive change within Aceh culture. The post-tsunami explosive moments in Aceh were characterized by the cultural self-reflection concerning three fundamental questions: what is the meaning of the tsunami, why did it happen, and how to continue living after such a catastrophe. Several alternative trajectories of development were available in post-tsunami Aceh, but only some of them were selected for the sake of the integrity and stability of the society. Such cultural decisions were grounded on two major choices: selecting the dominant interpretation of the tsunami as a trial from Allah and choosing the Sharia system to attain a better Islamic Aceh society in the future. This paper also finds the contingency of religious and scientific interpretations of the tsunami among the Acehnese, showing that those two interpretations have different social functions. Moreover, preserving this contingency in tsunami memorials indicates that Aceh culture has highly valued such compound understanding.

References

Abubakar, Alyasa. 2008. Syariʿat Islam di Provinsi Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam: Paradigma, Kebijakan dan Kegiatan. Banda Aceh: Dinas Syariat Islam.

Aceh Aktual. 2018. Gali ilmu pengetahuan, ada kebaikan Allah dari bencana. https://www.acehaktual.com/2018/12/28/gali-ilmu-pengetahuan-ada-kebaikan-allah-dari-bencana/

Adeney-Risakotta, B. 2009. Is There a Meaning in Natural Disasters? Constructions of Culture, Religion and Science. Exchange, 38: 226-243.

Ahimsa-Putra, H.S. 2000. Peringatan, cobaan, dan takdir: politik tafsir bencana Merapi (Warning, temptation, and destiny: the interpretation politics of Merapi disaster). Masyarakat Indonesia: Majalah Ilmu-ilmu Sosial Indonesia, XXVI (1): 27-54.

Lubis, Ahmadi. 2018. Sekolah Islam Terpadu dalam sejarah pendidikan Islam di Indonesia. Jurnal Penelitian Sejarah dan Budaya, 4 (2), 1077-1095.

Akasoy, Anna. 2009. Interpreting earthquakes in medieval Islamic texts. In Christof Mauch and Christian Pfister (eds.), Natural Disasters, Cultural Responses: Case Studies Toward a Global Environmental History (183–196). Lanham: Lexington Books.

Aksa, Furqan I., Sugeng Utaya, Syamsul Bachri, Budi Handoyo. 2020. The role of knowledge and fatalism in college students related to the earthquake-risk perception. Jàmbá - Journal of Disaster Risk Studies 12(1), a954.

Aspinall, Edward. 2009. Islam and Nation: Separatist Rebellion in Aceh, Indonesia. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Barnett, Michael. 2011. Empire of Humanity: A History of Humanitarianism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Chester. 1998. The theodicy of natural disasters. Scottish Journal of Theology, 51 (4), 485–505.

Chester, David K., Angus M. Duncan, Christopher J.L. Dibben. 2008. The importance of religion in shaping volcanic risk perception in Italy, with special reference to Vesuvius and Etna. Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, 172, 216–228.

Chester, D.K., Duncan, A.M. 2010. Responding to Disasters within the Christian Tradition, with Reference to Volcanic Eruptions and Earthquakes. Religion, 40 (2): 85-95.

Clarke, M., Fanany, I., Kenny, S. 2010. Post-disaster Reconstruction: Lessons from Aceh. New York: Earthscan.

Daly, Patrick, R. Michael Feener, Marjaana Jauhola and Craig Thorburn. 2016. Blueprints for Change in Post-Tsunami Aceh, Indonesia. In Patrick Daly & R. Michael Feener (eds.), Rebuilding Asia Following Natural Disasters: Approaches to Reconstruction in the Asia-Pacific Region (181-209). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Dibben, Christopher J.L. 1999. Looking beyond eruptions for an explanation of volcanic disasters: vulnerability in volcanic environments. Ph.D. Dissertation. The University of Luton.

Dove, Michael R. 2010. The panoptic gaze in a non-western setting: Self-surveillance on Mt. Merapi volcano, Central Java. Religion, 40 (2). 121–127.

Falk, Monica Lindberg. 2010. Recovery and Buddhist Practices in the Aftermath of the Tsunami in Southern Thailand. Religion, 40 (2): 96 – 103.

Feener, R. Michael. 2012. Social engineering through Shari’a: Islamic law and State-directed Da’wa in contemporary Aceh. Islamic Law and Society, 19 (3). 275-312.

Feener, R. Michael. 2013. Shariʿa and Social Engineering: The Implementation of Islamic Law in Contemporary Aceh, Indonesia. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Feener, R. Michael, Patrick Daly. 2016. Religion and Reconstruction in the Wake of Disaster. Asian Ethnology, 75 (1), 191–202.

Ferris, E. 2005. Faith-based and Secular Humanitarian Organizations. International Review of the Red Cross, 87 (858): 311-325.

Festinger, L. 1957. A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Evaston Illinois: Peterson.

Fountain, Philip, Levi McLaughlin. 2016. Salvage and Salvation: Guest Editors’ Introduction. Asian Ethnology, 75 (1), 1–28.

Fukuda, Yu, and Sébastien P. Boret. 2019. “Theodicy of Tsunami: A Study of Commemoration in Aceh, Indonesia.” In Nabil Chang-Kuan Lin (ed.), Exploring Religio-Cultural Pluralism in Southeast Asia: Intercommunion, Localization, Syncretisation and Conflict (227–242). National Cheng Kung University.

Gaillard, J.C., Texier, P. 2010. Religions, Natural Hazards, and Disasters: An Introduction. Religion, 40 (2): 81-84.

Grayman, Jesse H., and Kayt Bronnimann. 2019. A Tale of Two Museums in Post-Tsunami and Post-Conflict Aceh, Indonesia. The Tourism-Disaster-Conflict Nexus: Community, Environment and Disaster Risk Management, 19: 105–117. doi: 10.1108/S2040-726220180000019006.

Hasbullah, S., Korf, B. 2009. Muslim Geographies and the Politics of Purification in Sri Lanka after the 2004 Tsunami. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 30 (2): 248-264.

Hoeberichts, J.H. 2012. Teaching Council in Sri Lanka: A Post Disaster, Culturally Sensitive and Spiritual Model of Group Process. Journal of Religion and Health, 51(2): 390-401.

Idria, Reza. 2010. Muslim Theological Perspectives on Natural Disasters (The Case of Indonesian Earthquakes and Tsunami of 2004). Unpublished MA Thesis. Leiden: Leiden University.

Iemura, H., Pradono, M.H., Sugimoto, M., Takahashi, Y., Husen, A. 2012. Tsunami height memorial poles in Banda Aceh and recommendations for disaster prevention. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Engineering Lessons Learned from the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, March 1-4, 2012, Tokyo, Japan.

Ivanov, Vyacheslav 1988 [1965]. The role of semiotics in the cybernetic study of man and collective. In Daniel Lucid (ed.), Soviet Semiotics: An Anthology (27-38). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Kemkens, L. 2013. On the Connections between Religion and Disaster: A Literature Review. Yogyakarta: CRCS.

Kendrick, T. D. 1957. The Lisbon Earthquake. Philadelphia and New York: J.B. Lippincott Company.

Laclau, Ernesto. 1996. Emancipation(s). London: Verso.

Levy, B.R., Slade, M.D., Ranasinghe, P. 2009. Causal Thinking after a Tsunami Wave: Karma Beliefs, Pessimistic Explanatory Style and Health among Sri Lankan Survivors. Journal of Religion and Health, 48 (1): 38-45.

Lotman, Y.M. 1990. Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture. Indiana University Press.

Lotman, Juri. 2005. On the semiosphere. Sign Systems Studies, 33 (1): 205-229.

Lotman, Juri. 2009. Culture and Explosion. De Gruyter Mouton.

Lotman, Juri. 2011. The place of art among other modelling systems. Sign Systems Studies 39(2/4), 249-270.

Lotman, Juri. 2013. The Unpredictable Workings of Culture. Tallinn: TLU Press.

Lotman, Juri. 2019. Culture, Memory and History: Essays in Cultural Semiotics. Translated by Brian J. Baer, edited by Marek Tamm. Palgrave Macmillan.

Lotman, Yuri M., and Boris A. Uspensky. 1978. On the Semiotic Mechanism of Culture. New Literary History, Soviet Semiotics and Criticism: An Anthology, 9 (2): 211–232. doi: 10.2307/468571.

Martin Riesebrodt, Martin. 2010. The Promise of Salvation: A Theory of Religion. Steven Rendall (Trans). Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

Merli, Claudia. 2010. Context-bound Islamic theodicies: The tsunami as supernatural retribution vs. natural catastrophe in Southern Thailand. Religion, 40, 104–111.

Meuleman, Johan. 2011. Dakwah, competition for authority, and development. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (BKI), 167-2/3, 236-269.

Morimoto, Ryo. 2015. Waves of semiosis. Is it about time? On the semiotic anthropology of change. In P.P. Trifonas (ed.), International Handbook of Semiotics (Vol. 1) (547-564). Springer.

Muhaini. 2019. Model integrasi keilmuan pada sekolah menengah atas negeri unggul Kabupaten Aceh Timur. Analytica Islamica, 21 (1), 59-76.

Nazaruddin, Muzayin. 2021. Contestations of cultural memory at a disaster monument: the case of the Aceh Tsunami Museum in Indonesia. Social Semiotics, doi: 10.1080/10350330.2021.1900721.

Oliver-Smith, Anthony. 1996. Anthropological Research on Hazards and Disasters. Annual Review of Anthropology, 25: 303–328. doi: 10.1146/annurev.anthro.25.1.303.

Orr, Zvika et al. 2021. Earthquake preparedness among religious minority groups: the case of the Jewish ultra-Orthodox society in Israel. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences 21, 317–337.

Pärn, Katre. 2021. Towards the semiotics of the future: From anticipation to premediation. Sign Systems Studies 49 (1/2), 108–131.

Põder, Thomas-Andreas. 2021. Religion in the semiosphere: Theosemiotics in dialogue with Juri Lotman. In Jason Cronbach Van Boom and Thomas-Andreas Põder (eds.), Sign, Method and the Sacred: New Directions in Semiotic Methodologies for the Study of Religion (29-51). Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter.

Saby, Yusny. 2018. Bencana dalam Perspektif Islam dan Sains. In Ahmad Arif (ed.), Catatan Pemikiran dari Titik Nol Tsunami Aceh: Membangun Negeri Sadar Bencana (165-168). Banda Aceh: Syiah Kuala University Press.

Samuels, Annemarie. 2010. Remaking Neighborhoods in Banda Aceh: Post-tsunami Reconstruction of Everyday Life. In M. Clarke, I. Fanany, & S. Kenny (eds.), Post-disaster Reconstruction: Lessons from Aceh. New York: Earthscan, 210-223.

Samuels, Annemarie. 2012. After the Tsunami: The Remaking of Everyday Life in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. Ph.D. dissertation, Leiden University.

Samuels, Annemarie. 2016. Hikmah and Narratives of Change: How Different Temporalities Shape the Present and the Future in Post-Tsunami Aceh. In R.M. Feener, D. Kloss, A. Samuels (eds.), Islam and the Limits of the State: Reconfigurations of Practice, Community and Authority in Contemporary Aceh. Leiden & Boston: Brill.

Sanny, Teuku Abdullah. 2008. Tsunami Aceh. Banda Aceh: Pemerintah Provinsi Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam.

Schlegel, Stuart A. 1979. Technocrats in a Muslim Society: Symbolic Community in Aceh. In Gloria Davis (ed.), What is Modern Indonesian Culture? (232-248). Athens: Ohio University Center for International Studies.

Schlehe, Judith. 2009. Cultural politics of natural disasters: Discourses on volcanic eruptions in Indonesia. In Michael J. Casimir (ed.), Culture and the changing environment: Uncertainty, cognition, and risk management in crosscultural perspective (275–299). Oxford & New York: Berghahn.

Schlehe, Judith. 2010. Anthropology of religion: Disasters and the representations of tradition and modernity. Religion, 40: 112-120.

Selg, Peeter & Andreas Ventsel. 2020. Introducing Relational Political Analysis: Political Semiotics as a Theory and Method. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

Steenbrink, Karel A. 1986. Pesantren, Madrasah, Sekolah. Jakarta: LP3ES.

Subhan, Arief. 2015. The Indonesian Madrasah: Islamic Reform and Modernization of Indonesian Islam in the Twentieth Century. In Azyumardi Azra, Kees van Dijk & Nico J.G. Kaptein (eds.), Varieties of Religious Authority: Changes and Challenges in 20th Century Indonesian Islam (126 – 138). Singapore: ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute.

Suyatno. 2015. Sekolah Islam Terpadu dalam sistem pendidikan nasional (Integrated Islamic Schools in the national education system). Jurnal Al-Qalam, 21 (1), 1-10. http://dx.doi.org/10.31969/alq.v21i1.213.

Thorburn, Craig & Bryan Rochelle. 2014. The Acehnese Gampong Ten Years On: A post-post Tsunami Assessment. Singapore: Earth Observatory of Singapore.

Turner, Victor. 1969. Liminality and Communitas. In The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (94-113). Chicago: Aldine Publishing.

Wieringa, Edwin. 2011. God Speaks through Natural Disasters, but What Does He Say? Islamic Interpretations in Indonesian Tsunami Poetry. In Arndt Graf, Susanne Schröter, Edwin Wieringa (eds.), Aceh: History, Politics and Culture (316–333). Singapore: ISEAS.

Wisner, B. 2010. Untapped Potential of the World’s Religious Communities for Disaster Reduction in an Age of Accelerated Climate Change: An Epilogue & Prologue. Religion, 40 (2): 128-131.

Wood, Gillen D’Arcy. 2014. Tambora: The Eruption that Changed the World. Princeton University Press.

Conference registration is required in order to view papers.