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Today is wednesday. But for some Indonesians, it’s not just any Wednesday, it’s “Pon Wednesday.”
Pon Wednesday exists in the Javanese calendar, and Indonesian President Joko Widodo, or Jokowi, has chosen it three times to announce government arrangements.
Jokowi also chose that day to revoke Indonesia’s COVID-19 pandemic status in 2023.
Pon Wednesday is considered a good day according to the Javanese calendar, Jokowi also happens to be born on that day.
Like many former Indonesian presidents, Jokowi is Javanese, and experts say Javanese culture plays an important role in apolitical decision-making.
So what is “Pon Wednesday” and why is it so special?
Javanese calendars used to determine “neptu”
Javanese people from the island of Java recognize several calendars.
These include the seven-day Gregorian calendar from Monday to Sunday and the five-day week called Pasaran.
The Javanese names of the days of the Pasaran week are Legi, Pahing, Pon, Wage and Kliwon.
Both calendars are culturally important and are read simultaneously to determine a person’s destiny.
Therefore, every day is not just “Wednesday” or “Pon”, it is a combination, hence Pon-Wednesday.
In addition, each day in both calendars is assigned a value derived from the Javanese traditional Bible.
For example, Monday in the Gregorian calendar is given the value four.
In the Pasaran calendar, the days also have corresponding values according to the table below.
Javanese people use these calendars to predict marriages, careers, fate, luck and luck success and suitability by calculating their “neptune”.
A person’s “neptune” is determined by adding two values: the value given for the birthday in the Gregorian calendar and the corresponding value in the Pasaran calendar.
For example, if you were born on Wednesday, July 26, which this week corresponds to the Poni of the Pasaran calendar, your Neptune is 7 +7 = 14.
According to Dr. Dhoni Zustiyantoro, a researcher of Javanese culture, there are about eight variations of “good” and “bad” Neptune.
In one variation, the numbers five, 14, 23 and 32 are considered lucky. And four, 13, 22 and 31 are considered unlucky.
Dr Zustiyantoro said Poni Wednesday was considered a particularly “good day”.
“A birthday falling on Pon Wednesday is believed to be associated with special characteristics of the brain, such as tenacity at work, industrious qualities and responsibility in completing tasks,” he said.
Calendars can also be used for training if the couple is compatible.
Dr. Zustiyantoro said Javanese couples have gone so far as to call off marriages when they found out that the combined value of their neptus resulted in an unlucky number.
He said that Javanese culture has a long tradition of reading and interpreting signs and calendars.
“For hundreds of years, the Javanese people have followed the actions and character of people born on certain days,” he said.
“They were then linked to events and phenomena related to the universe.”
How Javanese culture affects political decision-making
Looking at Jokowi’s decision-making through the lens of Javanese culture, including announcing his government’s arrangements on “Pon Wednesday”, Dr Zustiyantoro said Jokowi could try to pass on the characteristics of “Pon Wednesday” to his subordinates.
“He tries to care [these qualities] to whoever in that context would be under him, ministers, the coalition and others he wants to work with,” he said.
Javanese people and culture also play a foreign role in how Jokowi makes political decisions.
The Indonesian president is a very popular politician among Javanese voters, representing about 60 percent of the national vote.
In the 2019 elections, Jokowi won the majority of votes in four Javanese provinces.
Jokowi is “very dominant in Java”, Dr Zustiyantoro said.
“I think he is fully aware [that] and consider Javanese culture as an important part of the political strategy,” he said.
Dr Sri Margana, a history scholar at Gadjah Mada University, said Jokowi’s Javanese culture was very visible in the way he faced or treated his rivals.
He said Javanese people were generally “conflict-averse” and Jokowi appointed politicians who had previously opposed him as vice presidents during his first and second terms.
Another example was when Jokowi won the second presidential election against another candidate, Prabowo Subianto, and made him the country’s defense minister.
“A characteristic of the Javanese people is their flexibility to deal with various attacks from foreign cultures or enemies,” he said, adding that they wanted to create harmony.
Joanes Joko of the president’s office told ABC that the president’s decisions could be part of a political strategy, but there were other explanations for why he announced big decisions on Wednesdays.
“Why in the middle of the week? Because there are normally a lot of agendas at the beginning of the week, especially on Monday and Tuesday, so it’s usually easier to schedule on Wednesday,” Joko said.
However, Mr. Joko admitted that Jokowi’s Javanese culture played a role in his decision-making.
“Everyone has a religiosity, even ourselves, we have certain days to reflect and introspect and other days to start speeding,” he said.
“The president probably believes that ‘Pon Wednesday’, which was his birthday, could be the first step towards something he wants to achieve.”
Indonesian presidents with Javanese heritage
Indonesia has had seven presidents since it declared independence nearly 78 years ago, and all but the third president were Javanese.
The third president, Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie, was part Javanese and came from the province of Sulawesi.
Dr. Zustiyantoro said he considered Suharto, who ruled for 32 years, the “most Javanese” of presidents.
“In his various national or even informal speeches, whether on camera, television or radio, he often used Javanese terms,” Dr Zustiyantoro said.
“He often coined Javanese terms that were incorporated into his ministries either at the national or district level.”
Gatot Nugroho, director of the General Suharto Memorial Museum in Kemusuk, said he believed that all Indonesian presidents since Suharto, including Jokowi, followed in Suharto’s footsteps as leaders of the nation.
Nugroho, whose father served as a corporal in Suharto’s command during the military invasion of Yogyakarta in 1949, saw how Javanese culture became deeply rooted in Suharto’s life.
He said Suharto served in the army until he became president and had compiled many Javanese philosophies, which his daughter later turned into the book Butir-butir Budaya Jawa (Seeds of Javanese Culture).
“The book contains the cultural philosophies of the Javanese culture summarized by Suharto, which he either learned orally from the kyai religious teachers or from the kings of Java or the entire Nusantara,” Nugroho said.
The book also told how Suharto strictly followed Javanese calendars and rules when deciding the timing of openings and projects.
Dr Margana said that while Suharto’s government was accused of bad practices such as nepotism, nepotism was considered a “common thing” in Javanese culture.
“Nepotism in Javanese feudal culture was not actually seen as a crime, although it is considered as such in a modern economy, democracy and good governance,” he said.
“In Javanese culture, nepotism was seen as a form of kinship, friendship and social solidarity.”
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