UNESCO Granted 12 Indonesian Culture with World Intangible Cultural Heritage Status

JAKARTA: Until the end of 2022, UNESCO has granted 12 Indonesian cultural heritage as part of the World Intangible Cultural Heritage. As stated by UNESCO's official website (https://ich.unesco.org/en/lists), the newly recognized Indonesian cultures are wayang (Puppet), keris (dagger), batik training and education, batik fabric, angklung, saman dance, noken Papua, three Balinese dance, phinisi ship, Pencak silat tradition, pantun (poem) and gamelan music.

Unfortunately, such recognition does not involve the Indonesian songket fabric despite its popularityamong general society in Indonesia. While songket fabric has the possibility of being recognized as an Indonesian intangible cultural heritage, UNESCO recognized Malaysian songket fabric in 2021. Songket itself is registered as a geographic indication product.

In addition to registering songket fabric in UNESCO, Malaysia also registered its songket fabric as a geographic indication product. According to the Malaysian Intellectual Property Office (Kantor Perbendaharaan Harta Intelek Malaysia), there has been geographic indication product registered for Songket Trengganu and Songket Malaka.

The government of Indonesia has initially approached the Malaysian government to be included in the registration process of songket as a world intangible cultural heritage. However, the application process to UNESCO has begun, and UNESCO finally decided on songket as Malaysian heritage in 2021.

Until the end of 2022, UNESCO has only admitted 7 Malaysian cultural heritage namely Mak Yong Theatre, dondang sayang, silat, pantun, ong chun/wang chuan/wangkang and songket. On pantun, UNESCO admitted it is a shared intangible cultural heritage between Malaysia and Indonesia. Like Songket, UNESCO declared ong Chun/wang Chuan/wangkang as an intangible cultural heritage shared between Malaysia and China.

Despite its absence of registration in UNESCO, songket as Indonesian cultural heritage is registered as a geographic indication product. According to the Indonesian Directorate General of Intellectual Property of the Ministry of Law and Human Rights, it has received registration Songket Silungkang from West Sumatera as a geographic indication product for songket.

The beauty of the songket, which was woven with silver and gold strings, signifies their use as the traditional fabric of the Melayu tribes in South Sumatera, Minangkabau, and other provinces where it is used as accessories/property for traditional dance. In Minangkabau itself, there are three types of songket from songket silungkang, pandai sikek and tanah datar indicating the origin of the songket.

Songket is spread all over Indonesia from South Sumatera, West Sumatera, Bali, Sambas, and South Sulawesi. In South Sumatera, songket is known as Songket Palembang, in West Sumatera is known as Songket Silungkat, Songket Pandai Sikek, and Songket Tanah Datar, while in South Sulawesi is known as Songket Makassar. All of the Songket from different regions of Indonesia have the potential to be registered as geographic indication products, similar to the registration for Songket Silungkang. (BCS/su)