indexBy Dyah Merta. English translation by John Irons (based upon the Dutch translation by Siti Wahyuningsih and Albert Hagenaars)
“The cultural system. Blacker and tackier than a roasted coffee bean. So things were in 1842. And Douwes Dekker does not slow down his steps at the sight of a stolen turkey that possibly belongs to Colonel Michiels. 1856, he is in the thick of the problems in Lebak. 1860, Max Havelaar appears. Emancipation gets underway in the Dutch East Indies: Tjipto Mangunkusuma, Ki Hadjar Dewantara, Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana. 1972, the novel has just been translated into Indonesian. A new country, which you earlier called ‘Insulinde’, has come into being.”
The wind drops, precisely at the moment that one of the suspension bridge cables is no longer able to bear the weight. The river hisses like a snake, ready to devour the small bodies that are about to tumble down into it. Gentho cries out in panic. He swallows a shriek of horror just before the seven children realise the danger that is threatening them. His hearing is as acute as that of a dog: he hears the iron chafe and the cable snap wire by wire. Deadly dangerous. His scream becomes a siren.
“Get your brother to keep his head!” a classmate of Rukmi says.
Rukmi glances in the direction of Gentho, who is standing on the far side screaming unintelligibly. They gesture him to stop. Gentho is unable to stop. The little girl senses that there is something wrong in what Gentho is trying to make clear to her, but how can she understand him? Nobody in the village can even communicate with him. And they have only got halfway across the bridge. Only their mother, the epitome of patience, always knows how to get him quiet. Once Gentho almost set their house on fire by lighting dry coconut leaves that always lie behind the house. That shrieking and wild leaping about from that incident looks like what Rukmi now sees. This is not good news at all.
“Why’s he kicking up such a row?!” the child at the front shouts. Gentho’s voice sounds as shrill as a bamboo wood when the wind chases through it: the swishing and creaking now even comes across as doleful. For an instant, a blood-curdling moment, it is as if some great breath is being held in.
“I don’t know. Perhaps he’s seen a snake!” Rukmi answers, while involuntarily shifting a foot.
He’s not scared of any animal. Rukmi once saw him play with a snake that they had discovered in a field. But what is she to say now? She can hardly react to something that makes her brother so upset
if she can’t see it herself. The only thing she knows is that his shouting and jumping up and down signifies danger. Her heart pounds within her.
At the crack of dawn, it was still dark, Gentho had stood washing himself under the bamboo pipe that morning behind the house. He does that every morning when Rukmi has to go to school. He wants to keep an eye on his little sister as soon as he had got dressed. He needs quite a long time, however, to get his clothes on. There is no one who helps him. He is already fifteen, seven years older than she is. Gentho was born with water on the brain. He hasn’t even learnt to write. His speech is stammering, he can only laugh or babble away in an own language that no one else understands, the slobber sometimes hangs from his lips and he is the perfect victim for nuisances.
When the little girl came outside, Gentho was already sitting sprawled by the door. She took his hand.
“Do you want a sweet?” Rukmi asked. Without waiting for his reaction, she added “I’ll give you one.” Sweets made from fermented rice he was mad about. Rukmi smiled kindly, took his arm and took some enthusiastic dance steps. Gentho followed her, sometimes leapt sideways, sometimes pranced behind. Rukmi found this amusing – sometimes he makes her laugh. On her way to school she feels an intimate bond with her brother, someone who was hardly ever tolerated by other people.
There are people like Gentho here too, just walking around. There are enough of them. They do not need any special space and treatment. People simply let them get on with life, just like sheep and goats, although they sometimes make use of their physical strength, as one does with a horse and cow when they are in the prime of life. They do not have to be paid, it is sufficient to give them some food and simple clothing. In that way, Gentho already acquires some recognition. He is tall and sturdily built. His mother says “that child eats like a horse – and it makes no difference what food it is!”
And Gentho also likes carrying out all sorts of tasks himself.
Two days earlier, an official had inspected the old suspension bridge: the village children used to go over it every day, moving between ‘life and death’, but they dared to do so in order to get to the other side. It took some courage to go over the bridge between school and home each time – it really was in danger of collapsing.
The official, a specialist in the solving of educational problems, was of Arab descent, a personable young man, quick to laugh, with a strong charisma. He had already sent many of those who had completed their studies off to remote places via an organisation that he himself had set up. And he probably prayed that this country, with plenty of well-educated young men, would make progress in this way.
He came by a couple of days back, inspected the bridge, but unlike the village children thought twice about crossing it – he made use of a bamboo raft that took him and several other persons, officials naturally – across to the other side, then pointed left and right, offered criticisms and instructions as to what had to be done and then smiled once more: he always had great success with such a smile.
In fact, the great majority of the bars were missing, because side-cables had snapped. The bridge now hung on a single, rusty cable. The children, searching for the remaining planks with their feet, used to clamber over it, keeping their balance with their hands on the side-cables. Unfortunately, the head of the Ministry of Public Works and Waterways was not present.
I do not know what the inspector would look like if I told him that the bridge had actually collapsed a couple of days after his visit. And what would you like to know about the genuineness of this story? That we ought to be grateful that there were no victims during this occurrence, for that is a good sign isn’t it? And with that my story is ready.
But as its narrator I make a main character out of Gentho, who, according to my directions, takes decisions. I see reality in a different way. Well then, Gentho has still not finished screaming, he is still in a state of confusion about the cable on the one side that threatens to snap. He want to tell people about that danger. The rusty construction hangs by a thread. And then seven children from elementary school in red and white uniforms are flung down and carried off shrieking by the current. Panic. Gentho spins around like a stuttering top, moaning heart-rendingly. His mouth sputters. His eyes stand out. He gesticulates wildly with his hands.
Vaguely he can make out Rukmi’s shouts from the noise of the current that roars much more strongly in his ears and in the wind which, as if attracted, gusts strong down – the bamboo trees sway, causing mournful sounds that drown out the usual chirping and cheeping of all the small creatures. Gentho jumps!
Without being able to swim, he thrashes around trying to find Rukmi in the swirling water. Two other children cling to the planks from the bridge that stick up out of all the splashing. Their faces are convulsed with fear. Their satchels have disappeared, just as have their popular red school caps.
What has taken place this morning is discovered a quarter of an hour later by people in the neighbourhood, when someone wishes to cross the bridge. Gentho is found twenty metres upstream. His body is rigid. Rukmi lies clasped in her brother’s arms, who has been pushed up onto the bank by pieces of wood. The girl had taken in a great deal of water. She is alive.
This is my story. I would like to point out that the tale is not based on fact. But you can find news in newspapers that shows a striking similarity to it. This piece of writing is one of the stories that I can report from the Lebak of today, a difference in time of 155 years since Max Havelaar was published.
Insulinde earlier and now
In my country, ‘Insulinde’ is the name that you devised for it, everything at present seems to be in order, certainly in comparison with Greece, the country of the Iliad and the Odyssey, which in the annals of history once brought to life the great ideas in the concept of democracy, and that in scarcely ten years almost went bankrupt. And yet our currency jumps in and out of the top five of the cheapest exchange rates in the world.
But, you know, there are many problems in my country that are at least just as messy as a bankruptcy. The Lebak incident, earlier, in 1856, only a short piece of writing by an assistant resident of Lebak who had a misunderstanding with the regent. History will not forget it because he recorded it in an intelligent manner in the form of a novel. This appeared four years later under the pseudonym Multatuli – I have suffered much. The reason for describing the happenings in Lebak was to gain support for a rehabilitation – it is ironic that he was never to attain it.
The novel Max Havelaar quickly gained public attention as a new trend: the refined style in which he wrote is full of living sounds, a blending of facts and documents in a mosaic of stories. For that reason, the ‘Lebak incident’ has a long string of consequences. Out of it followed all the fuss in his own country. Ideas of emancipation arose. He acquired a place of honour in the history of Dutch literature. The result of ‘The Ethical Policy’ was that the children of the elite in the archipelago gained a chance of education and new insights – the awareness of their reality as an oppressed land. His books were read by pupils in elementary school in the Dutch East Indies. The young people and officials who came here sometime took this book with them as a prestige-enhancing symbol or even just to fill up their suitcase. The students of the Science of Public Administration in the Netherlands made him into a hero who could not lose. Pramoedya Ananta Toer described Max Havelaar as the book that gave the coup de grâce to (Dutch) colonialism. However, the story that was first translated into my mother tongue, by Bakri Siregar, is the piece about Saidjah and Adinda in 1954. The complete version appeared in 1972 in the translation of H.B. Jassin, a century or so after the original publication.
In the school history books in my country, Max Havelaar is presented as a sort of myth, as a literary work that can influence the political establishment: by it the eyes of the Dutch politicians were opened to the circumstances in the Dutch East Indies, which was groaning under the Cultural System. The novel though was never taught and used as reading material in class. That means that the students’ knowledge of Max Havelaar is solely based on the values that by mutual agreement were formulated by the writers of educative history books. That is how I see it.
Saidjah and Adinda is more well-known than the entire novel. The notions of a ‘forced’ decolonisation in Max Havelaar were interpreted as suitable for the interest of my country – one of these attempts can be seen in the film version of Max Havelaar, which was directed by Fons Rademakers and Mochtar Soemodimedjo, no goodness was offered by colonialism.
The arguments in favour of and against the work by Douwes Dekker do nothing to detract from Max Havelaar as a effective and inspiring piece of writing that influenced literary works from Atheis by Achdiat Karta Mihardja and Burung-Burung Manyar by Mangunwijaya to Anak Semua Bangsa by Pramoedya Ananta Toer. In the genre of historical literature, Pemberontakan Petani Banten 1888 by Sartono Kartodirdjo.
Judged from a historical perspective, the appearance of Max Havelaar was seen as a symbol of a ‘change in the rhythm of history’, so that the author is rightly considered to be a true liberator and people call him a hero. The policy on behalf of the Cultural System was subsequently replaced by the Ethical Policy. The people were at last to get opportunities within the field of education, but if one looks more critically, one sees that only the children of the aristocracy and the higher civil service were taken into consideration. It was with them that the emancipation of the indigenous circles in the Dutch East Indies began to take shape, which then strengthened the nationalistic ideas.
But this was not sufficient! The liberal system led to new unrest that ended up being even worse than the colonial system. That unrest has lasted right up to the present day in new forms at every turn.
For already more than 150 years, readers of the book know Droogstoppel, Sjaalman, Havelaar, Tine or Saidjah and Adinda are fictional characters. What more can we nowadays glean from Douwes Dekker’s book?
Let us return for a moment to Lebak, a regency in the Banten region. The centre of Lebak lies about 90 km from the centre of my country, Jakarta. The tale of Gentho and Rukmi only provides a vague sketch of this present-day area. More than 360 broken-down bridges hang there. The budget of the regional administration only provides for the building of 14 bridges a year. And the bridges of Lebak are not even the only problem the building industry faces. With its dilapidated bridges, the region of Lebak seems to be ‘frozen fast’ in the age of Max Havelaar: in the little world of Saidjah and Adinda. Time has been virtually folded away and brought to a standstill in Lebak. While the heart of Jakarta beats at normal speed and is even forced to beat faster than that of Hong Kong, the heart of Lebak sounds like that of a dying patient in an intensive cardiological ward who does not want a way of prolonging his life. The heart of Lebak lies only a few score kilometres from Jakarta. But there is a great difference in the vitality of their respective areas.
Gentho is only one example of the ‘sect of folly’, in my opinion. He is a being that is more civilised than we who are the so-called ‘perfect specimens’. As I see it, the Genthos of this world are more human that I consider myself as a social being. Because in their limited intellectual capacity I see simplicity and not the way of thinking of our civil servants, by means of which one loses one’s way, even of those who possess the executive, legislative and judicial power.
A report appeared on the news of a proposal by the honoured members of the judicial power in my country for an ambitious fund amounting to twenty billion rupiah per person per year. I have to laugh at my own inability to comprehend this. The news of this ridiculous plan does not set anyone’s beard on fire, makes anyone genuinely start. Perhaps I dream of such a burning ‘beard’ putting an end to the administrative centre of Senayan. It is not the first time that they have done something equally idiotic. One of the former presidents, the late Gus Dur, once equated the behaviour of the elevated gentlemen with what takes place in a kindergarten. That is mockery, but serves them right.
Alas, such theatre from the honourable rulers reveal that the public has already become accustomed to the telling of lies, consider it amusing and even applaud it. There is nobody who shouts Booh! at such an idiotic proposal on the podium of Senayan. On the contrary, we shout with joy because we are already familiar with the untruths that are constantly repeated on our television screens. Lying and distortion we know all too well, so well that we no longer see any difference between costumes that belong to such roles. The moronic playacting is presented daily on the flickering goggle-box in our own homes – without any protest worth mentioning. Such performances continue to fill unceasingly the minds of the children and lull the older viewers to sleep.
All things considered, I still have my necessary doubts – is it true that all sorts of aspects of the modern world are present in the novel or the mysterious story? A multicoloured whole that ‘can do in’ colonialism as Max Havelaar allows it to ring out? I can see the novel as a document and a collection of historical sources and indeed also as a piece of writing that stands as a symbol of the New Order of the Soeharto regime – the writer would not have been able to continue to draw breath during the period after the publication of his book. But a force that can ‘do away with’ colonialism I have not yet encountered in it. It almost makes us sick. The elevated ideal of a novelist is in reality no match for the scenarios of the powerful Commission for the Combating of Corruption (KPK).
Last July, black umbrellas were put up by the waringin tree named after President Soekarno that he himself planted in Yogyakarta. The action by Seni Indonesia Berkabung (Indonesian Art in Mourning) let its voice be heard. The artists united under the slogan: with inner participation. I call their opponents ‘a band of cattle-dealers’, those who are in charge in Senayan. Seni Indonesia Berkabung felt convinced they had to warn people against the despicable behaviour of the present-day political elite in Indonesia, and to speak out in favour of the restoration of the dignity of the same group, which therefore should not live like cattle-dealers.
Since no book as so far appeared that can ‘do away with’ the dirty affairs. So now the voices must enter into competition. ‘Shout as loud as you can!’ I think that the voices that could come with an opposing shout at any moment have long since disappeared, have ‘perhaps’ been thrown into the water so that it is now necessary to fish them out with championships and prizes as bait. The language of poetry contains no more gunpowder, like the ‘bullet’ that struck the poet Wiji Thukul. For more than 32 years we were muzzled: thrown into prison without a trial, abducted or murdered, or poisoned somewhere en route, so that our courage would dwindle. For decades now, writers in my country have let the sounds of stones echo, and of rain, of twilight and silence in a room. The personal protests, urban unrest: people have become alienated from the roots of their tradition and inhale the bewitchment of the modern age.
Such an action is indeed a means that offers protection. Since the mental health of each of us can suddenly be broken to pieces. But is it necessary to wait for a ‘hero’ such as Multatuli?
The perceptions of Multatuli are still exciting and relevant. Nevertheless, I have one comment – there still, for example, exists a tradition in my country, already a long-standing one, especially on Java, of collaborating on work without being paid. That is the so-called ‘gotong-royong’ system, something that is difficult to find nowadays, but despite this still exists.
Max Havelaar is admittedly literature from a time long past, but the book keeps my thinking up to scratch. No text is finished after having been read just once with entrancement. There is something new that has lasting validity and is repeatedly re-read. We know from older reports that there are problems that still have to be resolved. A fundamental question that gives rise to a lot of dirty business, just as rust corrodes iron and causes the cable of a bridge to unravel – important for the generation that will succeed ours.
As far as the good news is concerned, the sea-swell of the economic crisis has actually also reached the shores of my country. But our officials are very good at concocting excuses. Every time that a crisis hits us, my country is offered extra support from micro-economic measures, but then we cannot move forwards because of the enormous extent of the storm. That an 81-year-old granny is still able to take spinach, picked in her own back garden, to market in order to sell it, is something we easily can see. That children with nothing more than an elementary school diploma have the guts to travel abroad and return home with foreign currency and subsequently built large houses like the ones they have seen on TV is also true.
That we in the twinkling of an eye can make illegal copies of everything capable of being produced – although you all call on us to stop pirating – has become a normal part of our everyday doings. That those who are regarded as ‘the people’, so ‘unremarkably’, seem able to take care of themselves, is all too true. That those who stand on the fof power behave as is they were nursery children, is lastly also the case.
Already 150 years or so after your coming into being, Droogstoppel, the leaders of my country are making the same mistakes. They are still dreaming of a living as in paradise. Ordinary people, toiling away in every possible manner for themselves and a higher status, manage to become civil servants. By doing so, they improve their lifestyle. Large amounts of money are needed for this. And falsified diplomas. And bought titles.
Earlier, the nobility controlled the Javanese people with a corresponding lifestyle and firmly rooted traditions. At present, businessmen wave their sceptre over our country.
For every problem people come with a petition. They are making their voices felt – people power. Their small acts of resistance continue. They are the middle class, the educated, those who are well-informed about the goings on in the country. This country, however, is in the grip of 1001 million problems that cannot all be solved under the leadership of a president within 365 days x 5 years.
The glorious spice trade is over. I am afraid that there is little left of Multatuli, or Eduard Douwes Dekker, to continue to be solely celebrated as a hero, for Max Havelaar to continue to be read and put on the stage, to place photos of Douwes Dekker on poster and T-shirts, to change him into a new product that looks ‘cool’. I am worried that his essence and his true voice could actually disappear.
Personally, I would like to thank Multatuli for the following: 1) his work strongly inspires me; 2) his original message has become study material based on rich sources and historical documents.
From Gombak, a small that extends to a mountain summit, grit roads lie on top of a foundation of boulder that still lacks asphalt: the roads have already been lying like this for years, without a proper road surface. I bring this message over to the Festival Read my World 2015. The exoticism with which Multatuli tells of the Great Postal Route is not nonsense. At present, many roads are still terribly bad, although there is no more horse traffic – you use a moped or have to walk. All of this you find on Java, the most densely populated island of my country.
“11 trillion rupiah recess money is being asked for by the Lower Chamber. Jakarta, its sky has still not been folded up, there are no roasted turkeys on the table. Its buildings have still not given way. The mega-project of the new parliament building is, on the contrary, fervently wished for by many people. The people are busy struggling to earn a living, the cost of which goes on increasing as a result of the inflation. There is no poetry that provides comfort for the people. The poet sleeps and dreams of becoming a prophet.”
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