Pramoedya disenchanted with reform<\/p>\n
Lely T. Djuhari, Associated Press, Jakarta<\/p>\n
Leaning back in his chair, Indonesia's most acclaimed author
\nlooked achingly frail - until he started talking about the
\ncountry's reform movement and upcoming presidential elections.<\/p>\n
Pramoedya Ananta Toer, a champion of democracy jailed under
\nsuccessive regimes, lamented the state of the country's politics.
\nHis eyes were afire as he denounced contenders for Indonesia's
\nfirst direct presidential election on July 5, including President
\nMegawati Soekarnoputri, as a bunch of buffoons.<\/p>\n
\"We have no leaders and the reform movement has died. That's a
\ntragedy,\" the ailing Pramoedya, 79, told The Associated Press
\nduring an interview at his home on the outskirts of Jakarta.<\/p>\n
\"Our current president is no leader,\" he said. \"She is a
\nclown. In fact, all of the presidential candidates are
\nclownlike.\"<\/p>\n
Pramoedya's works - and his life - tell the history of
\nIndonesia over more than half a century. Today, he is still the
\nangry leftist intellectual. But his works are little known by the
\ncountry's young, a legacy from the days when his works were
\nbanned during the dictatorship Soeharto - and he spent 14 years
\nin prison.<\/p>\n
His career was kept alive then because his 34 books and essays
\nhave been translated into 37 languages including English, German,
\nFrench, Dutch and Italian. He has several times been nominated
\nfor a Nobel Prize.<\/p>\n
His best-known works - the Buru Quartet novels about
\nIndonesia's independence struggle against the Dutch - were
\nwritten on scraps of paper and surreptitiously smuggled out while
\nhe was imprisoned on the remote island of Buru.<\/p>\n
Pramoedya was first jailed in 1947 by Dutch troops for being
\n\"anti-colonialist.\" He was imprisoned again during the rule of
\nIndonesia's first president, Sukarno, and in 1953 he fled to the
\nNetherlands, where he moved politically to the left.<\/p>\n
This landed him in jail after his return when Soeharto's
\nright-wing military junta took over in 1965. The long years of
\nincarceration without trial almost ended the career of
\nIndonesia's most influential and prolific writer, who had also
\npopularized American author John Steinbeck by translating Mice
\nand Men, and Russian writers Leo Tolstoy and Maxim Gorki.<\/p>\n
Now, he's free to speak his mind - under the government of
\nMegawati, whom he reviles. Yet the nearly blind and deaf
\nPramoedya has been largely forgotten in the country's chaotic
\ntransition to democracy.<\/p>\n
\"I am sad. The younger generation were not allowed to read his
\nbooks and now many of them do not know his ideas,\" said
\nuniversity student leader Ukay, who like many Indonesians uses a
\nsingle name.<\/p>\n
Pramoedya's ideas - once a major factor fueling the pro-
\ndemocracy groundswell that toppled Soeharto - have been largely
\ncast aside as the country struggles to revive its economy, put
\ndown separatist rebellions and defeat terrorists responsible for
\na string of deadly bomb attacks.<\/p>\n
Pramoedya advocated rejecting bureaucrats and politicians
\n\"tainted\" by Soeharto-era abuses, but many of Soeharto's cronies
\nremain in office. He wanted an inclusive government that welcomed
\npeople from areas beyond Indonesia's main island of Java, but the
\nJavanese still hold the reins of power.<\/p>\n
Pramoedya has not let his health problems or his declining
\ninfluence silence him, however.<\/p>\n
\"I am half blind and almost totally deaf. But I won't stop
\nbeing angry because not many people are outraged enough at the
\nstate of Indonesia,\" he said.<\/p>\n
These days Pramoedya mostly stays at home, where he's been
\ntrying to compile an encyclopedia on Indonesia. Recently, he
\nsuffered a bout of typhoid fever, and he's been too weak even to
\nwalk up to his third-floor study crammed with neatly bound but
\ndog-eared books, magazines and newspaper clippings.<\/p>\n
Only a few old friends stop by to discuss politics. One of his
\nfavorite topics remains the 82-year old Soeharto, whom he
\ncriticizes for \"forbidding Indonesians to think and be critical\"
\nand for jailing thousands like himself simply because they were
\nlinked to the country's Communist Party.<\/p>\n
Pramoedya said Megawati pales in comparison to her father
\nSukarno - Indonesia's founding father - and added she lacks the
\nintellectual heft and political will to address the country's
\nproblems.<\/p>\n
Many Indonesians seem to agree: Megawati's corruption-tainted
\nparty fared poorly in Monday's parliamentary elections, losing
\nmore than a third of the 34 percent votes it won in the 1999
\nballot that followed Soeharto's overthrow.<\/p>\n
The result has thrown into doubt her plans to seek re-election
\nin the presidential contest on July 5, and emboldened her
\nprincipal rivals - Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a four-star general
\nwho served as Megawati's security minister, and Akbar Tandjung,
\nchairman of Soeharto's former Golkar Party.<\/p>\n
Some Indonesians say Pramoedya serves as a reminder of the
\nterrible price a nation pays when it silences its brightest
\nminds.<\/p>\n
\"His plight shows us that we should never again be shackled or
\nrestricted in politics,\" said Thamrin Amal Tamagola, a political
\nobserver at the University of Indonesia.<\/p>\n
When he seized power from Sukarno, Soeharto imposed a
\ncrackdown on communists that killed an estimated half million
\npeople within a decade. Pramoedya was active in the cultural and
\nliterary wing of the Communist Party.<\/p>\n
That party is still banned in Indonesia but in February the
\ncountry's Supreme Court ruled that former \"communists\" could
\nstand for election starting in 2009.<\/p>\n
Pramoedya expressed satisfaction with the court ruling but
\nsaid it meant little in a country where corruption is rampant and
\nwhere efforts to reform the judiciary have largely stalled.<\/p>\n
\"The courts are nothing but theater plays. Judges allow
\npowerful Soeharto cronies to walk free. We may as well allow the
\nnation to break up,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Defiant as ever, the aging author refuses to disappear into
\nthe night.<\/p>\n
His yellow, nicotine-stained fingers tap a right ear filled
\nwith cotton; it was badly damaged when prison wardens beat his
\nhead with rifle butts.<\/p>\n
\"I am a fighter. I like to fight,\" said Pramoedya, his
\nwrinkled face revealing an impish smile. \"But who will fight me
\nnow? Are there any fighters left in Indonesia?\"<\/p>\n
GetAP 1.00 -- APR 12, 2004 07:32:18<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/pramoedya-disenchanted-with-reform-1447893297", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }