'Leaders don't read literature'

'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.