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)!"