Mien takes life's twists and turns in stride

Mien takes life's twists and turns in stride

Carla Bianpoen, Contributor, Jakarta

When Minarshi (Mien) Soedarpo wakes up on her birthday this
Sunday morning, her first thoughts will probably be about her
late mother, whose spiritual and morale strength have guided Mien
throughout her life.

Mien's two books titled Reminiscences of The Past were written
as an homage to her beloved mother, Sjarifa Nawawi.

As a young woman aged 20, Sjarifa -- a Dutch-educated
Minangkabau of West Sumatra whose father had been bestowed the
title of Ridder van Oranje (Knight of Orange) -- married Mien's
father, R.M.A.A. Wiranatakoesoema, the regent of Bandoeng
(Bandung) at the time. Seven years later she was divorced and
left with three children, devoting her life to doing the best for
them and never remarrying.

Mien praised her mother as a remarkable woman, a religious
person with a strong sense of justice. She bore her sorrows with
dignity and without malice. Her dedication and virtuous bearing
made a lifelong impression on Mien, whose humanitarian commitment
and religious integrity is known to all who have met her.

It is therefore not surprising that turning points that
changed her life have not been shattering, though they were
stirring and changed the direction of her "becoming".

After her grandmother died, Mien's mother accepted the
position of headmistress of a girls school in Batavia (present
day Jakarta). The move from Bukittinggi in West Sumatra to the
capital was a major change, but it was World War II and the
Japanese invasion that caused a total turn in the direction of
her life.

Like many of the Indonesian aristocracy, Mien's life had been
sheltered within a Western-oriented circle. She had gone to a
Dutch school, had Dutch friends, spoke Dutch and even thought in
that language. With the Japanese occupation, Dutch became a
forbidden language, Japanese learning was introduced, and the
sarong and kebaya (traditional blouse) became the dress code.

Increasingly, Mien became interested in knowing her culture.
The cause for a free Indonesia took her attention. As a student
of pharmacology she became drawn into the struggle for
recognition of the Republic of Indonesia, and it became stronger
after she became close to Soedarpo Sosrosatomo, a freedom
fighter.

She had met him at the Ministry of Information, which
published a Dutch-language weekly called Het Inzicht (Insights),
where she was responsible for coordinating the collection of
articles, layouts and the corrections. The magazine was the
counter of Het Uitzicht (Outlook) published by the Dutch
Information Center. She became caught up in the maelstrom of
events that put an end to the established colonial order.

Of course, she married Soedarpo, despite their completely
different backgrounds; she of Western-oriented Sundanese-
Minangkabau origin, he a Javanese whose parents' house had always
been filled with people of the movement.

The independence revolution brought them together, she stated
recently.

"I would otherwise never have married him. Our social circles
were so widely different, we would never have met."

This was the second most important turning point in her life,
which changed drastically with her marriage, and there were some
difficulties.

As a newly married woman, for instance, she had expected to
spend a lot of time with him. He, however, continued in his old
ways of spending night and day with the foreign media, sometimes
even forgetting to come home, Mien recollected.

Sudden changes were the worst, like getting a note about her
husband's departure to join the Indonesian delegation at the
Security Council in New York. Her baby was not even 40 days old;
she was nursing the child, but because of the shock, the flow of
milk stopped immediately. She wondered what fate awaited them,
remembering the trauma of her mother's marriage and divorce.

On the other hand, in many other situations, thinking of her
mother gave her strength and the words she uttered were a
reminder that things would turn out OK.

Her mother used to say, "A great love can never reach
perfection unless it has survived all perils".

It helped her overcome every possible challenge, whether it
was as a diplomat's wife who had to do without servants and
subsist on a meager salary in a foreign land, or the emotional
trial of her husband's arrest.

She stood by her man in good times and in bad. Mien was for
Soedarpo the support that spurred him to high levels of
creativity. Patient and undemanding, she was forever supportive.
He says it was her trust and generosity that helped them overcome
their ethnic and social differences, giving him the freedom to do
what he thought best in certain circumstances.

"I have to acknowledge her contribution to the progress of my
life," her husband said in his biography Against the Stream that
describes his rise to success.

Broadminded, deeply religious, with a genuine interest in
people, Mien Soedarpo stands as an example of a woman whose
unconditional love and warm personality have been inspiring in
the acts that led her husband to be of service to his country. To
her friends, she has been and is a friend indeed.

Her 80th birthday today certainly deserves a special
celebration. No doubt, she will be feted by her three daughters
with their families and her numerous friends from various
backgrounds, religions, ethnicities and nationalities. But for
Mien what comes first is a special prayer of thanks for all she
has had in a fulfilling life -- and a loving prayer for her
beloved mother.