McVey's focus on RI came by chance<\/p>\n
By Linawati Sidarto<\/p>\n
MONTISI, Italy (JP): The color still high on her cheeks as she
\nreturned to her 19th century three-story house from tending her
\nolive garden, the thin, silver-haired woman looked very much a
\npart of the lush, sprawling Tuscany countryside.<\/p>\n
Except that she is far from your average resident in Montisi,
\na quaint village nestled in the midst of the most beautiful
\nlandscape in central Italy. She is Ruth McVey, the American-born
\nacademic who is also one of the most prominent scholars on
\nIndonesian politics.<\/p>\n
\"I first came here in the early 1970s to visit my friend
\nHeather Sutherland (another Indonesia specialist), who owns a
\nhome nearby. I just fell in love with the area,\" McVey said as
\nshe sipped a glass of red wine in her rustic yet comfortable
\nsitting room, resting from her routine morning gardening. She
\nbought her own farm and house there 20 years ago.<\/p>\n
She was still trying to shake off jet lag as she had just
\nreturned from two weeks in the Philippines for a seminar on
\nSoutheast Asia.<\/p>\n
\"I am currently working on a book on Thailand. After that's
\nfinished, maybe I'll do something on Indonesia again,\" she said.<\/p>\n
Idleness seems to be an unknown in McVey's life. After
\nfinishing her bachelor's degree in German and Russian studies in
\n1952 from Cornell University, and before commencing her doctoral
\nstudies at Harvard, she went on a Fulbright scholarship to the
\nNetherlands at the suggestion of her Russian Studies teacher, who
\nwas Dutch.<\/p>\n
\"She told me that it was important for young Americans to go
\noutside the U.S. to broaden their horizons.\"<\/p>\n
Little did she know at the time that her part-time job as a
\ntypist in Amsterdam would mark the beginning of her long-term
\nrelationship with the then newly independent ex-colony of the
\nNetherlands. The office she had the job with was a news agency
\ncalled Antara.<\/p>\n
\"Antara's Netherlands branch was headed by Muhammad Chudory at
\nthe time. I also met the young Adam Malik there.\"<\/p>\n
Adam Malik later became minister of foreign affairs and vice-
\npresident, while Chudory became The Jakarta Post's general
\nmanager.<\/p>\n
While she was in the Netherlands she wrote a short paper on
\nthe Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) \"based on material I found
\nin Holland\".<\/p>\n
\"When my professors at Harvard realized I had written the
\npaper, they became very excited. In those years very little had
\nbeen done on Indonesia in the U.S., and at first it took me by
\nsurprise that suddenly I was the 'Indonesia expert' with that
\nshort paper.\"<\/p>\n
Even though she was accepted at Harvard to do Russian studies,
\n\"many of my professors encouraged me to do more on Indonesia, so
\nI did\".<\/p>\n
Her expertise on Indonesia and Southeast Asia eventually led
\nto research and teaching positions at premier universities in her
\nnative USA and Great Britain, where she taught at the venerable
\nSOAS (School for Overseas and Asian Studies).<\/p>\n
Controversial<\/p>\n
McVey went to Indonesia for the first time in 1958, and has
\nbeen a frequent visitor from that time on.<\/p>\n
Indonesian historian Onghokham remembers touring around Java
\nwith McVey in 1964.<\/p>\n
\"It was a great trip. We used any mode of transport available:
\nbuses, cars, trains. Those were quite hard times, but she had no
\nproblem adapting herself to the situation at hand,\" he recalled.<\/p>\n
Onghokham dubbed her \"an outstanding scholar\" on Indonesia,
\n\"one of the best\".<\/p>\n
\"She is really tough, and she has an incredible memory,\" he
\nsaid of McVey.<\/p>\n
A Dutch academic on Indonesia, who has known her for years,
\nsaid that he had \"never seen anyone else who could wade through
\npiles and piles of data and take out just the right information\".<\/p>\n
McVey's numerous books and articles on Indonesia include
\nMaking Indonesia, together with another U.S. academic Daniel Lev,
\nSoutheast Asian Capitalists, The Soviet View of the Indonesian
\nRevolution, and Communist Uprisings of 1926-1927 in Indonesia.<\/p>\n
The one work, written together with Cornell University
\nacademic Ben Anderson, which is still arguably her most famous,
\nand for some the most notorious, is the so-called Cornell Paper,
\ncontaining theories which try to explain the failed coup of
\nSeptember 30, 1965.<\/p>\n
Her prominence as one of the most knowledgeable academics on
\nIndonesian communism has not made her popular in some circles in
\nIndonesia given the sensitivity of the subject.<\/p>\n
J.A. Maulani, a former Tanjungpura military commander, in the
\nMarch 30, 1996 edition of the Gatra weekly magazine described
\nMcVey as one of the \"leftist\" academics \"whose views on Indonesia
\nare never honest\".<\/p>\n
However, on an overcast summer afternoon in Montisi, comments
\nsuch as Maulani's, as well as praise from others, seemed to have
\nlittle effect on McVey as she lovingly described Il Picciolo, her
\ntwelve-hectare farm overflowing with olive trees and orchards,
\ncomplemented by sheep, geese and a very happy-looking dog.<\/p>\n
When asked to comment on the current political situation in
\nlight of the frequent outbursts of mass violence over the last
\nyear, especially during the general election campaign, she only
\nsaid that during her last visit to Indonesia in January she
\n\"didn't find quite the brewing tensions within the society as I
\ndid when I visited in the mid-sixties\".<\/p>\n
She makes and sells her own olive oil, which has been praised
\nby friends, customers and gourmet magazines as truly outstanding.<\/p>\n
In the summers, McVey rents out the second floor of her home
\nto visitors. Her simple brochure describes her farm, which does
\n\"not have the atmosphere and amenities of a resort. It offers the
\ntranquility, beauty and friendliness of rural Tuscany but won't
\nsuit if what you want is bright lights and action\".<\/p>\n
She has apparently reserved her bright lights and action for
\nher academic endeavors.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/mcveys-focus-on-ri-came-by-chance-1447893297",
"image": ""
},
"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
}