Herawati: Journalist in the vanguard

M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

What started off as a pastime during her childhood and teenage years has brought Herawati Diah, one of the country's first woman journalist, far and wide.

Her passion for writing put Herawati in the throes of Indonesia's struggle for independence from Dutch occupation, and took her to the battlefront at a time when journalism was still a male-dominated occupation.

The world of journalism was also where she would work to help the cause of the newly independent country. She was one of the founding members of two newspapers that could be considered the fledgling republic's mouthpiece: Merdeka daily and English- language daily Indonesian Observer.

As its name suggested, Merdeka, which means independence, deliberately positioned itself as defender of the new republic with "the voice of the people of the Republic of Indonesia" as its slogan, while the inauguration of the Observer, timed to coincide with the commencement of the Asia-Africa Conference in Bandung in 1955, was aimed at helping people in Asia and Africa communicate with the outside world.

Herawati quit journalism after she married then information minister Burhanuddin Mohammad Diah, believing her marriage to the minister could compromise her professionalism.

"I like to write, to observe and to be active," she told The Jakarta Post recently when asked why she chose a career in journalism.

Herawati, born April 3, 1917, said she probably owed her proclivity for writing to her parents. Her mother, Siti Alimah, ran the only women's magazine of her time, Doenia Kita (Our World), while her father, R. Latip, was a doctor well-versed in radio broadcasting.

To nurture her love for writing and reporting, Herawati took a journalism course at Stanford University in California between her principal studies at Barnard College, at the New York-based University of Columbia. She chose sociology as her major at Barnard.

Herawati was the first Indonesian woman to attend university in the United States. "There were only a few Indonesians attending college in the U.S. then, let alone women," she said.

Upon her return to Indonesia in 1942, Herawati embarked on a full-fledged career in journalism by joining the United Press International (UPI) newswire as a stringer.

"The Pacific war was looming and the bulk of foreign journalists were working here. People from UPI wanted someone who would help them cover the war. They recruited me because I was a U.S.-educated. They knew that I could speak English well."

It was during her stint with UPI that Herawati was apprehended by the Dutch East Indies police and later detained at an internment camp in Cibadak, near Sukabumi.

Despite her years of Western education, the Dutch police harbored suspicions that Herawati was sympathetic to the Japanese occupying forces.

Herawati regained her freedom with the arrival of the Japanese occupation troops in early 1942. The Japanese landing also put an end to Dutch colonialism.

Not long after her release, she joined Radio Japan, or Hosokyoku, working as an announcer at the station for five months.

She said the decision to join the Japanese radio station was prompted by the fact that it enabled her to read letters from war prisoners. "There was a humanitarian element in that job," she said.

The job at the radio station also gave her an opportunity to meet Diah, who would soon become her husband. Diah was working for Asia Raya, the only newspaper in Jakarta published by the Japanese military authorities.

Following the capitulation of Japan to the Allies forces, Indonesia declared independence on Aug. 17, 1945.

However, this was still in jeopardy, as the prospect of the Dutch colonial powers returning to the country loomed large. The Dutch tried to capitalize on the victory of the Allied forces by trying to reassert control here.

To galvanize the anti-occupation spirit and beat the drum of resistance against the arriving Dutch troops, Diah founded Merdeka on Oct. 1, 1945.

The newspaper won a wide readership for its coverage of battles and brutalities reportedly committed by Dutch troops against Indonesians.

Soon after Merdeka started publication, Herawati joined as a reporter.

Among her assignments was to cover a battle between Indonesian fighters and Dutch troops in Ambarawa, during which the Indonesians burned down the whole city to push out the occupying forces.

"I was not quite at the front because at that time women journalists were not given jobs like that," she said.

She stayed with Merdeka until after Indonesia gained full independence from the Dutch in 1949.

When Indonesian leaders decided to embark on an international campaign to help colonized countries in Asia and Africa gain independence, Herawati and Diah once again stood up for the cause.

At the suggestion of then prime minister Ali Sastroamidjojo about the need for an English-language publication as the official newspaper for the upcoming Asia-Africa Conference, the couple agreed to establish the Observer, the first foreign language newspaper in Indonesia since independence.

"Publication was heartening because it showed that Indonesia was capable of engaging in dialog with the outside world via the media," Herawati says in her autobiography An Endless Journey.

In 1968, Herawati quit journalism for good when Diah was named minister of information in a Cabinet formed by then president Soeharto, who had just take over from president Sukarno.

These days, since handing over publication rights for Merdeka and the now-defunct Observer, Herawati leads a peaceful life at her house in the upmarket Patra Kuningan district in South Jakarta, playing bridge with old friends and enjoying a quiet retirement after a momentous career.