Author takes advantage of fact to work of fiction

Lie Hua, Contributor, Jakarta

Indonesian Gold; By Kerry B. Collison; Sid Harta Publishers; Hartwell, Victoria, Australia, 2002; 626 pp.

By far its closest neighbor, Australia, in reality, is quite far from Indonesia in virtually every respect. For Indonesians, Australia is just like a country somewhere in Europe or in the U.S., although it is just somewhere down under.

Understandably, Australian literature is not as familiar to Indonesian readers as European or American. Although in politics Australia often makes headlines in Indonesian newspapers, articles about Australian literature -- let alone Indonesian translations of Australian literary works -- rarely make it to the Indonesian mass media. Consequently, the names of Australian writers are virtually alien to the Indonesian literary public.

It is against this backdrop that Indonesian Gold assumes its significance in the relationship of Indonesia and Australia in general. A novel based on facts that are very familiar to Indonesians, Indonesian Gold makes good reading from the first page to the last because the writer weaves an intricate plot, gluing the reader to his seat for the entire story.

A literary story is always based on facts. Literary critics have debated the difference between a news story and a story. In a news story, the journalist reports an event as it is. Of course, the journalist has its own viewpoint of the incident and perhaps other journalists will report the same event from a different viewpoint or perspective.

The impact on readers is whether they will or will not favor or side with a particular event reported as a news story. This bias is natural as it is related to the ideology of the medium publishing it.

A writer may see the same event but not report it to readers as naked reality. He will dress this reality so that it will appear as something that he would like his readers to see. In this context, it is his wishes that will decide how the reality will look to the readers. These wishes are the message that the writer would like to get across to the readers. So both news stories and stories can be interesting but they serve different purposes.

If you read Indonesian Gold, you will find a lot of events that resemble the reality in Indonesia's business and political arenas. Names like Tommy Eluay or General Praboyo of the Army's elite force must ring a bell to Indonesian readers.

Gold prospecting in Kalimantan may remind you of the Busang gold scam by Canadian BRE-X minerals company. It made headlines all over the world but turned out later to be merely a scam. There was no gold. BRE-X went bankrupt and this scam claimed at least one life, that of a Filipino geologist.

Collison has based his story on the Busang fraud. There you have an intricate story involving international high-class politicking and business games. In the story Canadian and Filipino mining companies and their chief officers are involved in business intrigues, vying for much-vaunted new deposits in Kalimantan.

However, Collison does not just tell us how the characters in this novel are involved in international high-class business games. More importantly, he captures in this novel the plight of the indigenous Dayak people, whose land has been encroached upon by the presence of both Indonesians and foreigners prospecting for gold. More than that, Collison also describes how Soeharto's New Order marginalized the Dayak people with its transmigration project.

The book also shows how the First Family, in an attempt to control areas rich in mineral deposits, deployed the Army to control the Dayaks' land.

Collison chooses to focus on the Penehing Dayak tribe in this novel. Jonathan Dau, the chief, used to be a pilot in the Indonesian air force. Later, he retired and led his people. He has an only child, Angela, a graduate of the Bandung Institute of Technology.

However, as the story develops, Angela, seeing the marginalization of her people by the Javanese transmigrants and also by the presence of Army troops, decides to lead her people after the death of her father. Jonathan is shot when protecting his daughter, who was intended to be shot at close range by an officer of the Army's special elite force.

There are touching moments in the novel when the writer shifts his attention to the suffering of the Dayaks in their attempt to defend their ancestral land. The greed of the Indonesian rulers and the avarice of the foreign mining concessionaires have forced the Dayak people deeper into the jungle, which later leads to outbreaks of communal violence with outsiders.

The gold business aspect of the story is nothing unusual, just like any other story that portrays the dirty tricks and rivalry in business, but the novel becomes more compelling because the writer intentionally raises the issue of the plight of the Dayak people.

Facts have been turned to advantage in this novel. The advantage is that it serves as a mirror for us to reflect upon part of our history during the dark days when the New Order ruled ruthlessly.