Sjahrir: Great due to failure<\/p>\n
Sjahrir: Politics and Exile in Indonesia; Rudolf Mrazek;
\nPublished by Cornell Southeast Asia Program; Ithaca, New York;
\n525 pages.<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): At last there is a complete biography of Sutan
\nSjahrir, a central figure of Indonesia's intellectual circle
\nduring the country's revolution and a manifestant of the Greek
\ntragedy that is Indonesian politics.<\/p>\n
Placed by historians in the big three of the Indonesian
\nrevolution, together with first President Sukarno and Vice
\nPresident Muhammad Hatta, Sjahrir's life was filled with tumults,
\npassion, struggle, determination and, above all, endless soul
\nsearching. The other two were among his comrades that founded the
\nstate of Indonesia. Sukarno later exiled him just like the Dutch
\nhad previously. He survived the Dutch-imposed exile, but not
\nSukarno's. He died far away from his country, in Switzerland.<\/p>\n
\"Some who read the book in manuscript suggested this was a
\nbiography of a man who failed. I cannot disagree more. But I
\nhope that what follows may help our understanding of what a
\nfailure really is,\" Rudolf Mrazek writes in the introduction of
\nhis 525-page book, which took about ten years to complete.<\/p>\n
History shows that great persons who fail, very often become
\nan inexhaustible source of inspiration and reflection to
\nfollowing generations. So can Sjahrir.<\/p>\n
Writes Mrazek: \"Sjahrir's failure in politics ... signifies
\nhis greatness. Or, expressed in slightly different way, in the
\npolitical memory of present Indonesia, 'Sjahrir is a forgotten
\nstatesman'.\"<\/p>\n
Young Indonesians know little about him, and may fail to see
\nhis greatness or forget about him if they depend on their high
\nschool history textbook. The texts just list him as the first
\nprime minister of the nascent Republic of Indonesia after it
\nproclaimed independence in 1945.<\/p>\n
As a matter of fact, the shadow of his former grandeur can be
\nseen surrounding some prominent personalities of the New Order
\nera with whom the young generation are more familiar. The late
\nintellectual Soedjatmoko, journalist Mochtar Lubis, Indonesia's
\nmost-respected economics guru Sumitro Djojohadikoesoemo and the
\nlate author-philosopher Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana are a few.
\nThey're all, in Mrazek's word, \"Sjahririans\".<\/p>\n
Exile<\/p>\n
Born in 1909 in Padang Panjang, West Sumatra in the house of a
\njaksa (native legal official), Sjahrir was known as a bright kid
\nat school. He received a European-style education in Medan, and
\nthen Bandung. It was here that he started to practice politics
\nand got to know young Sukarno.<\/p>\n
He then sailed to Holland to pursue his studies, and met
\nHatta, who was studying economics. Sukarno was then jailed in the
\nDutch Indies for his political activities. Aware that there was a
\nleadership vacuum in the independence movement, Hatta and Sjahrir
\ndecided one of them should return home. Sjahrir sailed back, and
\nHatta remained to complete his studies.<\/p>\n
Sjahrir formed a party, which declared cooperation with the
\nDutch. Yet, two years later, in 1933, the party was banned
\nbecause the Dutch suspected it was leaning towards communism;
\nSjahrir and Hatta, who had returned, were arrested.<\/p>\n
From 1934 to 1935, Hatta and Sjahrir lived in exile in the
\ncommunist-internment camp of Tanah Merah on the upper reaches of
\nthe crocodile-infested Digul River in the New Guinea's (now Irian
\nJaya) jungle. They were later moved to a more decent, humane
\nplace in Banda Neira, Maluku. They lived there until the Japanese
\ninvasion in 1942.<\/p>\n
Sjahrir used his time in exile to shape and develop his
\npolitical and philosophical views. His views were later published
\nand earned him respect as a thinker. He wrote down all his
\nthoughts in his letters to his Dutch first-wife Maria Duchateau,
\nthe ex-wife of Sal Tal, a close Dutch friend during his stay in
\nHolland. Duchateau had been deported from the Dutch Indies to the
\nNetherlands by the authorities, and was forbidden entry to the
\nIndies, on the grounds that their marriage was illegal.<\/p>\n
While other leaders cooperated with the Japanese occupiers,
\nSjahrir organized an underground resistance movement. After the
\nAllies defeated the Japanese and Indonesia declared independence,
\nSjahrir became prime minister at the age 36. He was prime
\nminister in the following two cabinets. Later he traveled around
\nthe world as an \"ambassador at large\" with the task of collecting
\nsupport for Indonesian independence.<\/p>\n
From 1950 his glory declined and then ended in tragedy. At a
\ntime when he was still revered as a leading politician with
\nintellectual cadres around him, his Indonesian Socialist Party
\ngained negligible seats in the first general elections of 1955.
\nMore tragically, he was jailed in 1962 on faked charges of
\ninvolvement in an attempted assassination of Sukarno several days
\nearlier. In jail, Sjahrir fell into paralysis, and was sent to
\nZurich, Switzerland for treatment. There, in 1966, he died as a
\npolitical prisoner beside his second wife Siti Wahjunah, his
\nsecretary as prime minister.<\/p>\n
Feeling of duty<\/p>\n
Sjahrir's magnetism lies in his thoughts and deeds. Mrazek
\nsheds light on both, unveiling why is idolized.<\/p>\n
Sjahrir had always been a serious intellectual, like Marx,
\nFreud, Kant, Tolstoy, Shakespeare and Nietzsche. Like other
\nIndonesian intellectuals of his time, he was especially
\noverwhelmed by the argument that Indonesians should cast away
\ntheir submissive Eastern culture for a Western one. He believed
\nin socialism.<\/p>\n
His knowledge was amazingly borderless. Once during his exile
\nin Banda Neira, a local Calvinist curate was so impressed by
\nSjahrir's knowledge about Christianity, that the curate asked him
\nto take the church when he left the island. The curate didn't
\nknow that Sjahrir was Moslem.<\/p>\n
Sjahrir loved children. A childish vitality and innocence
\nunderlaid his personality. It is this trait that made him stick
\nto morals in the midst of dirty politics; made him able to defend
\nin his writings about the good aspects of the Dutch who exiled
\nhim, and later, like a saint, even told his followers to side
\nwith Sukarno who had jailed him.<\/p>\n
Mrazek quotes Sjahrir's friend's Sal Tal: \"At the bottom of
\nhis heart, Sjahrir did not love politics. He engaged in it from a
\nfeeling of duty, but not from interest. He was not fascinated by
\nthat remarkable, turbulent, passionate phenomenon -- sometimes
\nnoble, often dirty, utterly human -- which we call politics... It
\nis dangerous to engage in politics solely from a feeling of
\nduty.\"<\/p>\n
Sjahrir's thoughts and lifelong soul searching become clear
\nunder Mrazek's deep, sharp analysis. Thanks to his outstanding
\nprose style, Sjahrir's life as well as the political settings of
\nhis time is represented very touchingly and vividly. The prose
\nmakes the biography read more like a novel. It nails us to the
\nbook and forces us to read it again.<\/p>\n
-- Johannes Simbolon<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/sjahrir-great-due-to-failure-1447893297", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }