Jankowski finds RI an object of desire
Christina Schott, Contributor, Jakarta
Until June 2001, German poet Martin Jankowski divided his biography into two parts -- before and after the reunification of Germany.
After June 2001, he still mentions those two parts of his life but with a totally different, geographical specification: before and after his first contact with Indonesia.
The country first slipped into Jankowski's life in the person of Indonesian poet Agus Sarjono, head of the literature section at the Jakarta Arts Council. Agus was invited to join the International Poetry Festival in Berlin in 2001 and Jankowski was assigned to become the "author's godfather" in Berlin.
"At the beginning, I refused. My only relation to Asia at that time was that I once had to learn Russian and some Zen-meditation exercises I did when I was a teenager," Jankowski said.
"But then I met Sarjono and it was a bull's eye. Suddenly, a totally new world opened up before me. It was like a release from the ever-lasting topic of East and West Germany."
The long process of the poet's life took some interesting turns and detours.
Martin Jankowski was born in 1965 in the city of Greifswald, then part of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). His first poems were published in a church newsletter when he was not yet 15. Although the verses were about nature and peace, they landed him in trouble: The Stasi, the East German intelligence services, regarded his writings as dangerous because of its pacifist tendencies.
From the age of 17, the young bard was an "object of observation". His parents' telephone was bugged, his mail controlled and the instructions from above were to avert the teenager from becoming an opposition artist.
"I had no idea about this, instead I started writing songs, since this promised to be more successful with the girls," the self-confident man said with a smile.
Nevertheless, he could not free himself from his prosecutors. After high school, the "subversive element" was ordered into the army, where he received special treatment to wear him down.
"It was horrifying. We had to work and sleep in a two-hour- rhythm. They wanted to break us. But in the end, I was only angrier at the system," Jankowski said.
Originally, the young writer wanted to study German literature and later become a lecturer. But since all his efforts to get a place at university or even a job were thwarted, Jankowski finally became a librarian. Even during his education at Gotha, he felt disturbed -- his apartment was searched in his absence, forbidden books and records from the West vanishing without any explanation.
In 1987, he was fed up but, despite it all, Jankowski did not wish to escape to the then West Germany.
"I wanted something different, a change. Consequently, political opposition became my main occupation," said the rebel with the piercing eyes. "Just because they gave me such an overdimensional grilling, I finally became exactly what they tried to save me from. In fact, I was only a shy, romanticizing teenager before."
Jankowski went underground. He did not keep hidden 24 hours a day -- he had his own apartment and did not change his name. But although he was not allowed to practice any kind of art, he played and read twice a week with different camouflage at always changing places: in private living rooms, community houses or churches, in front of audiences ranging from 12 to 4,000 people.
"After every performance, I gave my hat around, which brought me a better income than most of the people in the former GDR had," he said.
It was during that era that the protest singer became a member of the Leipzig circle of opposition intellectuals, who later initiated the famous Monday demonstrations that finally led to the peaceful revolution in East Germany in 1989.
It was only after reunification that Jankowski understood the risks he took in refusing to play along in the old system.
"We provoked and blamed the regime by contacting journalists from the West or snooping about nuclear data without being aware of the gigantic punishments we could get for that," he said.
"Later a friend of mine found an official order from December 1989, one month after the fall of the Berlin wall: Me and a colleague were meant to be isolated and eliminated... we were really lucky!"
During the difficult transition period after reunification, Jankowski moved to Berlin. He stopped singing and concentrated on writing: poems, short stories and, in 2000, his first novel Rabet oder Das Verschwinden einer Himmelsrichtung (Rabet or The Disappearance of Wind Direction) -- all full of reflections about the German division and reunification.
"There was suddenly so much rubbish told and written to satisfy the overall German reunification-holiday-jabbering that caused my hair to stand on end. Therefore, I told my own version of the story in a fictive novel that includes a few autobiographical characteristics," the divorced father of a teenage daughter said.
Then came that fateful day in June 2001, Agus Sarjono and Indonesia. After making his new contact, Jankowski met for a few days with noted poet-playwright Rendra in Berlin and was invited to the International Poetry Festival Indonesia in 2002.
"It was fascinating. We saw the highlights of Indonesia in only three weeks and were treated like kings. We met with all these impressive people and it thrilled me."
Jankowski has been besotted ever since, thinking about and working on his object of desire.
"A lot of experiences here feel very familiar to me. Indonesia's transition period after reformasi (reform) reminds me of the problems in my country. Many things that East Germany lost after the reunification, I suddenly find here again -- starting with socialization between people in music and other fashions," said Jankowski, who always wears a Basque-style cap.
"Martin has something similar to an Indonesian. From the beginning, I felt that we fit together. The situation in our countries is different as well as the climate, but in the end, the feeling is the same," Agus said.
In 2003, Jankowski organized a reading tour with Agus throughout Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. Agus also brought over his German counterpart as a guest lecturer at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta.
Just two months ago, Agus, the "retired troubadour", was elected chairman of the newly formed German-Indonesian Cultural Institute in Berlin that seeks to support intercultural exchange between both countries.
A joint reading at Goethe-Institut Jakarta last August revealed that the mutual experiences of both poets led to sometimes amazing results: Agus' poems about Berlin exactly responded to Jankowski's impressions of Jakarta and the other way around, without having been planned before. Agus' book was translated into German and in a few months, Jankowski's anthology Indonesisches Sekundenbuch (Indonesian book of seconds) will be published in both languages.
"I could not just decide right now if it's enough already with Indonesia and to look for another theme. Something is already moving that I cannot stop anymore by myself," Jankowski admitted.
"My fascination with this country has nothing to do with exotic tourism, adventures or even with arts alone -- it's something very emotional that cannot easily be explained within words. You have to feel it inside."