Book tells of Bondan's love of Indonesia
Book tells of Bondan's love of Indonesia
JAKARTA (JP): A biography of an Australian woman known for her
strong ties to Indonesia, published by the Australia-Indonesia
Institute, was launched this week.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas launched the book, In
Love with a Nation, Molly Bondan and Indonesia, at the residence
of Australian Ambassador to Indonesia Allan Robert Taylor on
Wednesday night. Richard Woolcott, the chairman of the Australia-
Indonesia Institute and a former Australian ambassador to
Indonesia, was also present.
Molly Warner Bondan (1919-1990) married Mohammad Bondan, a
former political prisoner, in Digul, Irian Jaya, in 1946. She
worked for the Indonesian government for 18 years, first at the
ministry of information and later at the ministry of foreign
affairs. Between 1961 and 1965, she was the English speech writer
and translator for former president Sukarno.
Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Gareth
Evans, in the book's introduction, describes Molly Bondan as a
"living symbol of the sympathetic links between Australia, the
land of her upbringing, and Indonesia, her adopted country."
The writers, Joan Hardjono, known for her works on the
Indonesian rural economy, and Molly Bondan's brother, Charles
Warner, wrote the story on the basis of tapes of her radio
broadcasts and her many writings.
John Legge, a noted scholar on Indonesian history at Monash
University, Melbourne, writes in the preface that Bondan was
"regarded with suspicion" by officials in the Australian Embassy
in Jakarta.
They "did not quite know what to make of this Australian woman
who was so fiercely a supporter of Indonesia and its
nationalism," though this feeling, Legge writes, "eventually gave
way to respect..."
Bondan, he says, was sometimes "uncomfortable with the
excesses of Sukarno's "Guided Democracy" of the 1960s, "finding
it difficult to explain to her Australian visitors."
Bondan died on Jan. 6, 1990, three days before her 78th
birthday.
Woolcott said the Australia-Indonesia Institute, set up in
1989, intended to publish more books to contribute to an
"enduring" relationship between the two countries, which he
described as "very good." (anr)