'Leaders don't read literature'

Agus Maryono, The Jakarta Post, Purwokerto

Over the decades there has been an endless debate about why Indonesian national leaders lack compassion and sensitivity. The flaws have been widely attributed to widespread KKN (corruption, collusion and nepotism), which led to the near-disintegration of the state.

Achmad Thohari, a well-known novelist from Banyumas, Central Java, believes that the root of the problem is that national leaders do not read literature.

"If only they were willing to read a lot of literature, our nation would not be in as unfortunate a position as it is today," he said.

The 54-year-old writer believes that literature induces spiritual refinement and enhances sympathy toward fellow humans.

Today, Thohari lives in the village of Tinggarjaya, Jatilawang district, Banyumas regency, where he loves fishing.

For Thohari, fishing is more than just a hobby because it is when inspiration comes. He said it was when he was fishing that he got the inspiration to write, including the most famous Trilogi Ronggeng Dukuh Paruk (Trilogy of a Paruk village dancer).

The trilogy has been translated into Japanese, Dutch, German, Chinese and English.

The father of five also contributes his serialized story to Semarang-based Suara Merdeka daily. "My fresh novel, Orang-orang Proyek (Project people), is getting into print and will appear pretty soon," he told The Jakarta Post last week.

In his view, Indonesian literature has made some progress, particularly in the creation of poetry and short stories, in quantitative and qualitative terms.

"But I'm very much concerned about novels. I don't see lots of new novelists producing fairly high-quality work," he said.

He attributed the small number of Indonesian novelists to culture and poverty.

"Our culture, which tends to prefer talking instead of writing, has led to narrative or folklore telling, a legacy of the ancient kingdoms," he pointed out.

"This poverty-ridden nation has also rendered proper advancement of literature ineffective because ordinary people cannot afford to buy expensive books while their income is only just at survival level."

Thohari suspects that, beside the economic factor, the level of interest in reading literature among Indonesians in general is lower than that in other countries.

"I dare to bet that only 0.00 something percent of the Indonesian population reads literature. I know our politicians do not like reading it," he said.

Then he eagerly cited statistics about reading culture among high school students in Indonesia. At the time of graduation, he said, an American high school student has read about 35 novels, a Japanese 25, a Malaysian 18 and a Singaporean 22.

"And Indonesians?" Thohari sighed and murmured, "Less than one novel!"

Then in a threatening voice, he added, "and if you have read less than one novel since you graduated from high school, you don't deserve a job as a journalist."

Thohari, who came to know classic novels when he was a junior high school student, speculated that the 32-year-rule of Soeharto's New Order regime was also to blame for the slow development of literature in Indonesia.

"At that time, people could not even read a poem in public without a permit from the local military district. How could literature develop in that atmosphere?" he asked.

Being a writer was not Thohari's childhood dream. He had wanted to become a medical doctor and therefore went to medical school, although he had to drop out for financial reasons. He worked and studied at the Islamic hospital in Jakarta between 1967 and 1969 but quit.

He started writing in the 1970s while he worked as a part- timer with state Bank BNI in Jakarta. Then he wrote short stories and poems. As a beginner, no print medium would accept them for publication.

But that failed to dampen his writing spirit. In 1975, he achieved major recognition when he won the top spot of The Netherlands' Radio Hilversum short story contest.

The achievement catapulted his name to fame as a short story writer and poet. The mass media in Jakarta began to run his works.

In 1978, his novel, Di Kaki Gunung Cibalak, (At the foot of Mount Cibalak) about intrigue in a village head election, was named the best of the year by the Jakarta Arts Council.

Thohari continued writing after the Jakarta-based leading daily newspaper Kompas serialized his novel Ronggeng Dukuh Paruk (Ronggeng dancer from Dukuh Paruk) in 1981.

As his reputation was growing, he participated in a three- month international writing program hosted by Iowa University, U.S., in 1990. In 1995, he won an ASEAN writing award.

Thohari, who has written nine novels so far, is among the most sought-after speakers in seminars on literature in Indonesia.

His latest novel, titled Orang-orang Proyek (Project people), is about the moral conflict within a young man of integrity who has to manage a state project that is riddled with KKN.