With Pram died Indonesian culture
Features - May 07, 2006
Andre Vltchek, Contributor, Beijing
"Look what Indonesia did to me, after all that I have done for Indonesia!" These were the words with which Pramoedya Ananta Toer, or Pram -- one of the greatest writers of the 20th century -- concluded long conversations with Rossie Indira and myself; conversations recently published in English as Exile and in Bahasa Indonesia as Saya Terbakar Amarah Sendirian! (I'm enraged alone), his last book and final testimony.
Pram's Indonesia died more than four decades ago, crushed by the military boot of Soeharto's regime, disintegrating under weight of a savage, merciless and corrupt capitalist system, quashed by irrational religious zeal.
"I live in internal exile," he had said. "This is not my country, anymore."
Since Indonesian independence, Pram's was the lonely voice of courage and honesty. He was incarcerated during Sukarno's guided democracy for defending the rights of the Chinese minority. After the fascist, U.S.-backed military coup in September 1965, his manuscripts were burned and his work banned. Pram himself was arrested and thrown into prison, including incarceration on Buru island, where he was a prisoner of conscience for 14 years.
The answer to the madness outside his prison cell was to write; to produce some of the most powerful prose in the history of Asian letters. The most important Indonesian narrative -- The Buru Quartet -- was born on Buru island, a concentration camp where some of the most outstanding minds of Indonesia were imprisoned, tortured and killed.
Noam Chomsky, an American thinker and linguist who has been described by The New York Times as the greatest intellectual of the 20th century, wrote about Exile: "It is a rare privilege to be able to listen to the voice of a remarkable talent, who has survived shameful abuse with immense courage and dignity, and now shares his dreams, his struggles, and his pain at the decay of the country and the culture he fought so hard to revive from centuries of subjugation..."
For many years, Pram had been nominated for the Nobel prize for literature, but he was never awarded one, mainly due to the conservative nature of the jury.
He was often described as the "Indonesian Solzhenitsyn" -- Solzhenitsyn being a Russian writer and prisoner of conscience in Stalinist concentration camps, and author of Gulag Archipelago. While human rights violations by the Soviet regime were used by the West as part of their Cold War propaganda, Indonesia got away with invasions as well as internal and external genocide, as it was on "our side of the border".
Living in absolute isolation, Pram didn't try to hide his bitterness about the state of his nation. He openly declared that "Indonesia has no culture" and apart from him, there is not one writer in his country who can write more than five pages of decent prose. He defined "Javanism" as closely linked to Fascism -- expansionist, brutal, groupist and, at the same time, submissive to the extreme.
He didn't believe in God, but in his own strength -- in the strength and creativity of human beings.
Pram's latest thoughts were those of one immense lament over vanished idealism, creativity and striving for social justice in today's Indonesia. He felt desperate observing decay, claiming that there was nothing left from the dreams which he was helping to shape during the first years after the independence: "Even the Dutch colonial administration was better than today's government and elites."
He saw revolution as the only way to fight a system based on immorality, corruption and cynicism: "The present system can't be reformed. To reform the New Order would only create a New-New Order."
"When Pramoedya Ananta Toer goes, the last bridge between Indonesian culture and the rest of the world will collapse", said Dan Simon, legendary publisher of the Seven Stories Press in New York, after watching my documentary film Terlena: Breaking of a Nation, in which Pram is the narrator. We both agreed that in present-day Indonesia, there is no other figure who can communicate to the world tremendous moral strength and dignity through the highest level of artistic excellence.
Now Pram is gone and Indonesia is mourning. But instead of spilling tears, the greatest tribute to this extraordinary man would be to do what millions of men and women all over the world have done for decades -- read his books and understand the pain he was lately carrying inside: a burning pain born of the fact that the country he helped to build and define became nothing more than a failed state.
The writer is a Czech-born American novelist, journalist and filmmaker, co-founder of the publishing house Mainstay Press and senior fellow at The Oakland Institute of Washington, D.C. He directed and produced Terlena (Complacency): Breaking of a Nation about Soeharto's dictatorship. Recently published books include: the novel Point of No Return; Western Terror: From Potosi to Baghdad, a collection of political essays; Ghosts of Valparaiso, a play; and Exile, written with Pramoedya Ananta Toer and Rossie Indira.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Milis Wanita Muslimah
Membangun citra wanita muslimah dalam diri, keluarga, maupun masyarakat.
Situs Web: http://www.wanita-muslimah.com
ARSIP DISKUSI : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wanita-muslimah/messages
Kirim Posting mailto:wanita-muslimah@yahoogroups.com
Berhenti mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Milis Keluarga Sejahtera mailto:keluarga-sejahtera@yahoogroups.com
Milis Anak Muda Islam mailto:majelismuda@yahoogroups.com
This mailing list has a special spell casted to reject any attachment ....
SPONSORED LINKS
| Women | Islam | Muslimah |
| Women in islam |
YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS
- Visit your group "wanita-muslimah" on the web.
- To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
- Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
