The Extinction of Makassar Traditional Games Among The Local Children

In this globalization era, there has been a considerable number of major changes occurred in the social life of the entire Makassar community. As can be seen from the recent phenomenon, one of the changes is the isolation of traditional games such as dende’-dende’accangke’, ma’guli’, bekel, and mabbenteng from the local children due to the emergence of modern games. With regard to this issue, there have been many controversies from various critics and comments which demand further analysis and good discussions.

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Indeed, these traditional games are not isolated from the children completely. These traditional games might be found in rural areas and still played by many children. In contrast, the change that signifies the extinction of traditional games gradually has become evident in many Indonesian metropolitan cities including Makassar. The wide spreading of this extinction even gradually infected the children in rural areas. It seems that the children nowadays have more tendencies to play the modern games rather than to play the traditional ones.

In response to this alteration, the generations of 19s will absolutely consider this change very pathetic. They think that their willingness to restore the ancestors’ heritage including traditional games should be practiced by the children. Besides the cultural values, it is believed that the sense of exploration will be further developed through traditional games. Far more profound, these traditional games will develop the values of creativity, solidarity, cooperation and happiness because  unlike modern games, traditional games cannot be practiced by only one person. Therefore, they will be more consolidated as they become more frequent practicing the games.

According to a research, the extinction of traditional games is due to the deviant sub-cultural socialization. The parents as the first social agent, has no serious concern to introduce their children to the traditional games. Furthermore, they are introduced to modern games such as Angry Bird, Clash of Clans and other modern games. In broader sense, the government has very less concern to promote the traditional games. They only place emphasis on promoting traditional dances, traditional clothes and other cultural objects that are considered the more influential cultural value than the traditional games. Besides, the national development causes the decreasing number of playgrounds which in turn, will annihilate the practice of these traditional games. However, in spite of the unsupportive agents, there is still a certain community which has serious concern to keep the sustainability of Makassar traditional games such as MTGF (Makassar Traditional Game Festival) which is conducted once a year so as to attract various elements of Makassar society to participate in maintaining the traditional games.

Far more profound, the impacts of modern games become tangible and they can be identified through the behavior of young generation. Indeed, there have been a number of behavioral changes concerning the social awareness of the children. Modern games do not provide social consolidation to the children because unlike traditional games, the children become addicted to play it individually and it does not need other player to play with. Therefore, one manifestation of the practice of modern games is the loss of many cultural customs such as Tabe’(giving permission) among the children. However, still it is questionable and further research needs to be conducted to clarify this claim.   

Written By: Muhammad Afdal