Faizatu Dini Fatah

18320177
English Cultural Background – E

Should a tradition be preserved or not?

“Nobody can make a tradition. It takes a century to make it” wrote Nathaniel Hawthorne.
This statement has strong belief on how important a tradition is for a country. As we know, every
country has its own tradition or custom either it is transferred into the next generation by spoken
language or particular event. Almost every year we spend at least a week of holiday due to some
tradition that is historically happened on that day. It also can be set by the government to
appreciate or celebrate something. Now, the question is how it can become so important that
majority of people around the world would say “we should maintain our tradition”. According to
English dictionary, tradition is a part of culture that is passed from person to a person or
generation to generation. It is possible to have different detail from family to family such as the
way to celebrate holidays. Originally, the concept of tradition came from Latin that means
“something handed over”. Because of society that slowly changes, the meaning of it was almost
equivalent to inheritance. In addition, tradition also take an important role as our source of
identity, where we come from, and the history of our people. However, I believe that not all
tradition should be conserved considered the important of people’s safety along with the
importance of the tradition itself.
For a country like Indonesia, which has over a thousand tribes to begin with, the
traditions cannot be separated from the history of the country. It has more influence towards the
country because those what makes Indonesia. Unlike America that is called “melting pot”,
Indonesia is more like a pot that has already finished the melting process and become “a pot”.
For example, we know that not only tribe and the country itself that has its tradition but also
religion that exist in this country has it too. In Indonesia, every religion has been given holiday in
their own feast such as Christmas, Eid-al Fitr, Imlak, Nyepi and others. Different from Indonesia,
America does not have many holidays for religion tradition or feast day. It is caused by the fact
that other than Cristian, the religions that exist there does not have much influence towards the
country. Furthermore, there is a reason why America and Indonesia has different policy about the
holiday. Indonesia has a special fundamental constitution consist of five statements that is called
“Pancasila”. The first statement is “Ketuhanan Yang Maha Esa” which means one and only
deity. There should be a religion that is followed by people of Indonesia. The most important
thing is they should believe that the God is the one who made us and this world. They also
believe that it will make the environment filling with good deeds because religion has unwritten
rule for human morale that the law does not cover.
After reading the example and comparing two different countries and their traditions, we
know what exactly the important of tradition for a country. However, there are many kind of
tradition that has bad impact to the society. For example, in India, there is a tradition where
babies are thrown from height 15 meters. There was already rule where this tradition is
prohibited to do because it endangers the babies’ life. There is also moslem syiah in ashura day
(Muharrom 10th). In that day, the follower of syiah would hurt themselves to celebrate the death
of the great prophet Muhammad’s grandson (Husain bin Ali) in Carbala War in 61 H. The
tradition is not limited by age and gender. All of people who celebrate the tradition from children
to elders would hurt their body until it is covered by blood. This tradition is held in Iran, Bahrain,
India, Lebanon, Iraq, and Pakistan. In Indonesia, the original tribe of Baliem Valley in West
Papua also has dangerous tradition. Every time one of their family members die, they would cut
one of their knuckles. All of those traditions that have been mentioned before is dangerous
tradition that should not be conserved. The process of hurting a live being in a state where they
were or could be tortured is a huge crime wherever the country is. A tradition that lack of
relevant virtues, such as justice, truthfulness and courage, and corrupts traditions would face a
crisis. A tradition should provide both practice and individual lives with their necessary historical
context without excluding the human right.
In the end, not all tradition gives good impact towards people and their countries. The
extreme tradition might be something that make a country get isolated, judged, and even get into
controversy. So, how we delete the ‘bad' tradition? How about the historical context in it? There
are many ways to save the tradition such as stopping the practical event and change it into
spoken tradition, deleting only the dangerous session of the event and let the rest be, and even
change the whole tradition into different event without forgetting the historical context. A
tradition is really important because it is a part of culture. However, it does not mean that putting
someone’s life or sacrificing it is a good thing to do. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “it is good to
swim in the waters of tradition but to sink in them is suicide”

Source:
Graburn, Nelson H. H.. What is Tradition? Article  in  Museum Anthropology · May 2008
Rozman, Mateja Pevec. Role and Importance of Tradition in Contemporary Culture. Besedilo
prejeto: 09/2012; sprejeto: 12/2012
https://www.jstor.org/stable/41398070?seq=1
https://kumparan.com/kumparannews/asal-mula-sila-ketuhanan-yang-maha-esa
https://www.liputan6.com/global/read/3952336/5-tradisi-aneh-dan-berbahaya-untuk-bayi-di-
sejumlah-negara
https://www.ogilvyasia.com/topics/topics-features/four-reasons-why-traditions-matter/