Black Magic in Election (in Indonesia, in Asia, Africa, Carribean)
Jakarta 7.55pm / DC 8.55am
Shamanism has once again returned to haunt South Korean politics. This time around, South Korea president Yoon Suk-yeol and his wife Kim Kun-hee have been accused of having a close relationship with religious practitioners and allegedly letting them advising on administrative decisions.
Korean shamans’ role is to serve ghosts, predict fortunes and perform exorcisms. Shamans and fortunetellers have been a regular feature in presidential elections since the 1992 election. As uncertainty spread amid democratization and liberalization, many politicians visited shamans, who had previously been silenced by the military dictatorships.
Some politicians allegedly moved their parents’ graves to win elections after listening to shamans.
Former President Kim Dae-jung, who lost three presidential elections, was elected on the fourth try in 1998, before which he relocated his father’s grave. Former Grand National Party leader Lee Hoi-chang caught the public eye for the contrary -- he lost presidential elections even after moving his ancestors’ graves several times.
In a recent radio interview, former Environment Minister Yoon Yeo-joon said politicians and businesspeople almost universally consulted shamans.
“Politicians take out their notebooks and ask for their phone numbers when someone says there’s someone who is brilliant in fortunetelling,” he said. When the host asked, “Are almost all politicians doing that?” Yoon said, “They do that with almost no exception.”
Eom Kyeong-young, chief of Zeitgeist Institute said the reason politicians try to get close to shamans was because “their future is very unclear and the characteristics of elections or politics are somewhat related to luck especially in Korea, where democratic experience is short and politics is undeveloped.”
“(Politicians) tend to leave their future to luck or fate rather than experience or career,” he said.
Yoon Suk-yeol is being investigated over allegations that he rejected a raid on religious group Shincheonji in connection with the spread of coronavirus after hearing the words of a shaman when he was prosecutor-general. Yoon’s wife Kim Kun-hee has also been under fire for her close relationship with shamans. According to a phone recording with a local reporter, Kim said she would move the Cheong Wa Dae guesthouse if she became the first lady because shamans had advised her to do so.
Political critic Park Sang-byeong said shamanism had naturally permeated Korean institutional culture since it combined with Buddhism, which came to Korea during the Three Kingdoms period and went on to become the state religion. Even now, at some temples, there are mountain spirits depicted alongside Buddha statues.
“Visiting a shaman cannot be prevented because it is an individual’s freedom,” Park said. “However, it is problematic and causes public distrust when the supreme ruler of the state or the person challenging the ruler relies on shamanism (for decisions).”
Yoon’s “gunjin monk” also reminds the public of former President Park Geun-hye, who was secretly advised by her longtime close aide Choi Soon-sil. Cult leader Choi Tae-min and his daughter Soon-sil accumulated a fortune worth hundreds of millions of dollars over several decades by manipulating Park Geun-hye and state affairs.
But, the shaman(s), black magic, actually is typical in a lot of countries, mostly Asia - Africa also Carribean.
Including Indonesia.
Indonesia shaman Ki Kusomo says he has had a gift for seeing the future since he was a young boy. Growing up in the city of Indramayu, West Java, he would tell people what he believed lay ahead of them, from whether they could be involved in an accident to the chances that their marriage would end in divorce.
From the age of five, when he often played in a cemetery near his home, he has also been able to connect with creatures from the unseen world, he claims. In the graveyard he would meet “friends” who were not visible to the children from his neighbourhood whom he brought along.
Popular Indonesian shaman Ki Kusomo at his office in Bekasi, West Java. JEFRI TARIGAN
Now a renowned shaman, Kusomo, 49, makes a living tapping into the long-entrenched importance many Indonesians place on the spiritual world. The signboard above his office advertises his talents in solving business issues, household troubles and affairs of the heart, as well as spruiking his status as a traditional healer offering medical and non-medical treatments.
Like many other such operators across the archipelago, among them those engaged in the especially dark arts of sorcery and exorcism, he is visited by people from all walks of life seeking a helping hand from the supernatural.
However, as Indonesia gears up to vote next February 2024, it is another service Kusomo expects will be highly sought after, with serving and aspiring politicians knocking on his door.
“When it comes to business like this [election], people are looking for me. In Indonesia, for every single event that needs a gathering of masses or that is related to elections, my place will be crowded because many people come here,” he said in an interview in the satellite city of Bekasi, east of Jakarta.
“Some come a year earlier, some come within half a year [of the polling date]. They can come three to four times before the voting day. To win means to get the most votes and in order to have that, they must go through a process to cleanse the body of bad luck. When they are clean, they proceed to the energy charging process. We give them strength and increase the energy of fortune.”
Indonesia’s elections are the world’s largest held in a single day. Its 204 million registered voters dwarf the 168 million who were registered in the United States for its 2020 presidential election poll and India, the most populous country, stages its elections over a month.
In a nation where warding off bad spirits is taken seriously enough that rain shamans are hired to stop wet weather dampening weddings, politics and the paranormal have been far from foreign bedfellows.
Former Indonesian dictator Suharto, seen here with then-Australian PM Paul Keating in 1994, was a believer in the supernatural. MIKE BOWERS
Former dictator Suharto was absorbed by age-old Javanese kejawen mysticism forged in pre-Islamic times when Buddhism and Hinduism were the dominant religions. He was said to participate in rituals including soaking himself in a river, an act of repentance called kumkum that is aimed at purifying the soul.
The first democratically elected president, Abdurrahman Wahid, commonly referred to as Gus Dur, was another to have paid much attention to the country’s centuries-long association with animism while Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the predecessor of current leader President “Jokowi” Joko Widodo, protested during his bid for a second term that he was the subject of black magic attacks.
Kusomo, a prominent dukun, as shamans are termed in Indonesia, who is also an actor in action and horror films and is keenly involved with martial arts, won’t divulge the names of political figures who consult him. But he maintains the demand for pre-election spiritual counsel and political fortune-telling remains strong, from local to national level.
“I cannot mention their names. They usually come around 2am because they don’t want people to see them,” he said.
“That is particularly so with people who often appear on TV. They come when my security and domestic helpers are sleeping. So, nobody sees them when they come to my house. I respect their privacy.”
Few politicians are these days willing to admit to a late-night visit to a shaman, for fear of damaging their credibility.
Indonesia’s elections are the world’s largest held in a single day.AMILIA ROSA
After the f act, though, Herlambang Novian Effendi, a member of the Nasdem Party, revealed he met with not one but four shamans when campaigning for a seat in parliament in the East Java regency of Tulungagung in 2019.
A journalist by trade, he said one of the shamans placed a Michelia alba, or White Champaca, flower, in his wallet. According to traditional Javanese philosophy, such flowers can prompt people to follow those who bear them and that’s what he was hoping for on election day.
Unfortunately, in his case, it didn’t work, with the outcome determined, in his mind, by a deeply entrenched, real-world staple of Indonesian politics: vote buying.
“At that time I was confident of winning. Three of them said I would win ... but one of them said it was difficult [to win],” he said. “I replied ‘please tell me how to ease the difficulties’. He said I had to open my aura so that my face would show me as a charismatic person.
“On the day, I lost due to money politics. I also [engaged in] money politics and I went to seek spiritual powers, but my money was not as great as my rival’s.”
“In Java, one may follow Islam and kejawen at the same time.”
With his own experience in mind, Effendi contends that political shamanism is not wholly reliable and is merely to provide moral support.
Even so, he believes many candidates will continue to turn to such self-appointed masters of the spiritual realm when running for office.
“Candidates at district, provincial and national level and most government officials [seek assistance from shamans] to protect themselves, for instance, from black magic,” he said.
“Even [in the] election for village chief ... they all seek the help of spiritual consultants.”
A paper presented by German professor Judith Schlehe to Indonesia’s Gadjah Mada University in 2012 estimated that 80 per cent of shamans’ income was generated by consultations from candidates in local elections.
The practice of looking to supernatural forces to legitimise power has been around in what is now Indonesia since the Demak Islamic kingdom in the 16th century, according to Rizal Abdi, a researcher at the Gadjah Mada University’s Centre for Religious and Cross-Cultural Studies.
Indonesia Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto Djojohadikusumo has emerged as the frontrunner to succeed Widodo, who defeated him in the 2014 and 2019 elections. REUTERS
In the world’s biggest Muslim majority state, traditional Javanese beliefs in the occult prevail alongside Islamic faith for millions and some religious clerics also function as shamans. It also manifests itself in visits to the tombs of Islamic saints.
The rise of more conservative Islam has, however, sharpened condemnation of the field from those who deride its practitioners as fakes and charlatans. Electoral candidates are far more content, as a result, to make public them calling on an Islamic boarding school, for example, to receive a blessing.
“They are both alike. In Java, the people are at the same time Javanese and followers of Islam. It is not just being Javanese or being a Muslim. In Java, one may follow Islam and kejawen at the same time,” Abdi said.
“[But] the public perception is that going to a shaman is a negative thing. Islamic conservatism is getting stronger now so that [adherence to the] paranormal is regarded as idolatry or polytheism.”
The proliferation of political polling has been another factor in narrowing the role played by spiritual guidance in pre-election decision-making.
Where once a shaman might have been conferred with even in the process of selecting a candidate, more scientific means are now the prevailing political tools.
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-prada- Adi Mulia Pradana is a Helper. Former adviser (President Indonesia) Jokowi for mapping 2-times election. I used to get paid to catch all these blunders—now I do it for free. Trying to work out what's going on, what happens next. Arch enemies of the tobacco industry, (still) survive after getting doxed. Now figure out, or, prevent catastrophic situations in the Indonesian administration from outside the government. After his mom was nearly killed by a syndicate, now I do it (catch all these blunders, especially blunders by an asshole syndicates) for free. Writer actually facing 12 years attack-simultaneously (physically terror, cyberattack terror) by his (ex) friend in IR UGM / HI UGM (all of them actually indebted to me, at least get a very cheap book). 2 times, my mom nearly got assassinated by my friend with “komplotan” / weird syndicate. Once assassin, forever is assassin, that I was facing in years. I push myself to be (keep) dovish, pacifist, and you can read my pacifist tone in every note I write. A framing that myself propagated for years.
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