A Choice

By Lie Hua

The bus is crowded with passengers. He cannot get a seat so he just stands near the driver. Around him several middle-aged women chew betel. Their lips are wet, the color of blood. Yes, blood oozed freely two years ago to the day. He remembers it well. He was there. He took part with great zest and great hope.

The bus speeds along, overtaking some Toyota Kijang minivans. The driver is skillful. He drives with his body leaning close to the door. When he jerks the wheel sharply to the right to avoid a sedan, the entire bus rocks, hangers-on, him included, stumble back. Grumbling and cursing, the driver is not perturbed. The bus speeds forward again over the bumpy road. Everybody in the bus goes back to their musings and memories.

Two years ago blood oozed freely, staining the soil they loved so much. He was a young lecturer then, teaching literature at a well-known state university in town.

For several months, the entire country had been seething with rage. The price of fuel oil and daily necessities had skyrocketed.

The government became more repressive as more students and other protesters took to the streets. The government made promises but never kept them. The TV was filled with lots of talk each night.

The president, ministers and governors appeared on the news with a group of farmers, fishermen and laborers, demonstrating the success of the government's programs. Yet starvation claimed more lives and spread to more areas, even to some areas that had been, in earlier years, the country's biggest producers of agricultural products.

Newspapers, likewise, were full of praises for the government's successful development programs, although here and there, in small articles, you could read that the country actually was heading toward bankruptcy.

As a young lecturer, he could feel the deep-seated anger of his students. He wasted no time in gathering his students, advising them to take to the streets and assuring them of the moral strength university students possessed. He was not alone. Other colleagues shared his aspirations. They spent anxious nights discussing how the street rallies had to be carried out.

The country was in its death throes and students had to capture this momentum for change. Otherwise, one tyrant would be replaced by another, and the situation would be the same, from one generation to the next.

He was buoyed by the fact that more and more people were drawn to their nightly discussions. He knew some of them might be government spies, but the risk had to be taken. "I'm ready to give up my life for the sake of the country's reform," he always said to himself whenever fear crept into his heart.

The student movement got bigger and bigger. Their rallies drew the sympathy of other layers of society. The frequency of the street protests increased unbelievably rapidly. He and his colleagues rarely slept at home. When night crawled to morning, they hopped from one gathering to another, mobilizing students and preparing a program of action.

In the meantime, the authorities became more and more repressive. When a ruler has lost the support of virtually all elements of society, he has only one means to cling to power: repression.

There were reports that some student leaders had gone missing. They must have been kidnapped. Yet, the reform movement, spearheaded by the students, spread like fire across a prairie. The whole country was rocked by street rallies. There was not a single day without a demonstration, although the powers-that-be deployed more troops to quench the movement. Terror was everywhere. He and his colleagues continued to work underground, to ensure that the reform movement peaked and ended with a change of guard in the country.

The long-awaited moment finally came. In a desperate move to cling to power, the president revamped his cabinet, which, perhaps out of ignorance, again raised the price of fuel oil, which triggered across-the-board price increase.

On that fateful day, massive student rallies took place before the heavily guarded palace. When the situation became uncontrollable, the troops opened fire and the students, like a deluge, rushed forward. Blood oozed freely to the ground.

It was exactly two years ago to the day. Lots of lives were lost, angering the entire population. In a matter of days, from every street, road and alleyway, as if drawn by an invisible power, hordes of people from all walks of lives, with the students at the front, rushed forward, braving a barrage of bullets and water cannons.

This momentous moment forced the president to flee the country. My colleagues and I were elated, as our clandestine movement was fruitful.

A semblance of peace descended. Politicians, hitherto known only through their newspaper columns, came forward. A general election was held. The country seemed to be heading toward normalcy. The House of Representatives was made up of newly elected members. People pinned their hopes on the new leadership, praying the reform movement would bring a better life.

He, too, was appointed a member of the House. Almost all his colleagues, who had spent horrifying nights during the crackdown by the former regime, got good positions in the government. Things seemed to return to normal. But, alas, he found that old habits die hard.

Slowly but surely, the new system of government was gradually modeled upon the old one. A transitional period was the pretext. You've got to learn from the past. Discard the bad elements and keep the good ones, he often heard people say.

Before long, prices began to soar again. People were restless again. Corruption was rampant once more. The old players were gone and the new players were in power, but they were all the same: using the name of the people to amass riches. All legalities were mere pretexts.

His old colleagues, reform-minded before, began to show their true colors. He lost contact with them. He found himself a being apart. In the House, he was a lone fighter, always the only one protesting and losing. He had all the accessories of life: a car, a mobile phone, a house, a lot of money, a good reputation. Yet, he had no peace of mind.

Every time he went out, he saw street urchins singing their blues, asking just for a Rp 100 coin. Every time he inspected a new project, he found people evicted from their land and now homeless. Every time he voiced a protest, a fat envelope would find its way to his table. But he did not hear the voices that he loved so much: the raucous protests of the students. Muted now, perhaps? In the name of stability and normalcy?

No longer able to bear this situation, he tendered his resignation and found the faces of his former colleagues beaming upon learning of his decision.

The bus is still speeding, following the long and winding road, the passengers bumping and rocking into each other. He is still standing. Why go back to your village? he kept asking himself. You're a coward. You've gone through the most horrible night. You forced a tyrant to flee the country. Why such a chicken now?

He is lost in his reveries. Suddenly he is humming a song he likes very much, but whose exact words he can never remember. "... Those were the days, my friends ...............We're getting older but not wiser........ Those were the days ........ getting older but not wiser."

July 2002