Des Alwi, destined to be king

Des Alwi, destined to be king

Tantri Yuliandini, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

In a speech presented at the awards ceremony for the Royal Yacht
Squadron's Camrose Award on the Isle of Wight, UK, recently, Des
Alwi told the audience how three foreigners had come to him on
Banda Neira Island, Maluku province, one afternoon, asking to be
taken to his "king".

"I'm the king of this island: My position is as good as the
Sultan of Brunei's, except he has oil but I only have nutmeg," he
told the three men, bringing laughter to the people listening to
the account.

The three men were Ian Laing, Rupert Cooper and Joe Barclay --
winners of the Camrose Award, after their 90-foot ketch Thalassi
successfully endured the journey from New Zealand to the
Seychelles, through the Banda Islands in Maluku province.

Des was recognized for his part in making the trip through
Indonesia a success.

"From my chance contact with him came the confidence that we
were neither reckless nor mad to visit the Bandas, and the
knowledge that he would personally protect us from danger during
our stay there," Laing wrote in his report to the Squadron titled
Innocents Abroad, Thalassi in the Spice Islands.

For the portly Des Alwi is indeed a raja (king): Perhaps not
in the English sense of the word, but that of a cultural leader
to the Banda people -- a population of about 15,000 -- with the
title, Orang Lima Besar (big Orang Lima).

Born Des Alwi Abubakar on Nov. 17, 1927, in Banda Naira,
Maluku, Des' life has been a long series of lucky breaks.

His first big break came when he was only eight years old.
Playing with his friends on the pristine beach of Naira -- the
main island in the Banda archipelago -- Des was lucky to have
caught the eye of Sutan Sjahrir, one of the two famous passengers
of the ship Fomalhaut, which had docked at Naira from Boven Digul
prison.

Sjahrir was later to be the new Republic of Indonesia's prime
minister, while the other passenger, Mohammad Hatta, later became
the country's first vice president.

Des soon became attached to the duo and later Sjahrir even
adopted him and secured his education.

Being one of the Dutch colonists' favorite places of exile,
Naira, at the time, was already home to many political prisoners,
including national movement figures Tjipto Mangunkusumo and Iwa
Kusuma Sumantri.

"So my parents never forbade me from associating with
political prisoners, because there were so many of them," Des
said.

Des' second break came when he was sent to England, to
Imperial College, London, to study radio in 1947, because
"England was the only country at the time that acknowledged
Indonesia's sovereignty."

In London, he lived in the same apartment building as Tun
Abdul Razak from Malaysia, who was studying law at Lincoln's Inn
at the time. Razak would go on to become Malaysia's second prime
minister, from 1970 through 1976.

Des's Malaysian connection allowed him to play a key role in
mending diplomatic ties between Indonesia and Malaysia in 1966 --
Razak at the time being Malaysia's deputy prime minister and the
Malaysian representative for the signing of the peace agreement.

In London, too, he worked as the Indonesian representative and
as a translator for the British Broadcasting Corporation.

Back in Indonesia, Des worked for Radio Republik Indonesia,
and in 1951 was appointed Indonesian representative at the
International Telecommunications Union (ITU) in Geneva.

"I became an expert on tropical (radio) waves. There weren't
many people in Indonesia who could call themselves radio
experts," Des explained.

His luck stayed with him, as he became education and cultural
attache, first in Bern, Switzerland, between 1952 and 1956, then
in Austria and Hungary, until the Hungarian Revolution stopped
diplomatic activities in 1957.

This was followed by a posting in the Philippines, where he
befriended Benigno Servillano Aquino, the Philippine's opposition
leader and his wife, the future president Corazon Aquino.

In 1958, Des quit his posting in Manila and actively supported
the separatist movement, PRRI/Permesta, for which he was exiled
and lived in Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia until called back
to help mend diplomatic ties with Malaysia.

"Sukarno founded Guided Democracy; I was against that," he
said simply.

Des kept himself busy during the New Order regime. He upgraded
his expertise from sound -- radio -- to film production, which he
said was the "commercialization" of his hobby. He was vice
chairman of the Association of Indonesian Film Producers (PPFI)
from 1984 to 1987.

He was also active in a variety of foundations, including as
chairman of Banda's culture and heritage foundation, the 10
November Foundation.

Nowadays Des spends his time between Naira and Jakarta, and
has become an expert on nutmeg, the commodity that once had its
value weighed in gold, and put his tiny cluster of islands on the
world's map.

Nutmeg has characteristics similar to those of humans, he said
laughing: "Did you know that of 100 nutmeg trees planted, more
than 50 will turn female, 40 male and the remainder, banci
(effeminate homosexual)!"