Molly Bondan: Contributor to RI-Australia friendship

Molly Bondan: Contributor to RI-Australia friendship

In Love With A Nation: Molly Bondan and Indonesia
Edited by Joan Hardjono and Charles Warner
Published by Charles Warner, Australia, 1995
240 pages

MELBOURNE, Australia (JP): If someone gave me a start and
asked me to quickly name two Australians whose works have
contributed to the friendships between the peoples of Indonesia
and Australia, I could, with a clear conscience, say, "(the late)
Molly Bondan and Herbert Feith."

Herbert Feith is an expert on Indonesia from Monash
University. He was one of the first Australians who wrote about
Indonesia, both in a positive manner as well as critically.

Molly Bondan was remarkable woman, who received posthumously
the Bintang Jasa Pratama Kelas II Award in 1990 from the
Indonesian government, comes across as extraordinarily talented
in the most practical and unpretentious way. She was also gifted
with compassion and a sense of justice.

By putting together Molly Bondan's account, of audio history
tapes, radio broadcasts and various writings, into a book form,
Joan Hardjono and Charles Warner have presented us all with a
gift. In Love with a Nation is the story of Molly Bondan's life,
which wove into, very tightly, the fabric of Indonesian history,
beginning with the 1944-1945 struggle for independence. It is,
therefore, also a story of the Republic of Indonesia, from the
moments of its birth until the late 1980s.

The first three chapters of the book allow the reader to look
into the family background, providing an illustration of how
Molly Warner grew up to be the way she was. Her family was
delightfully unconventional, full of ideas and ready to take part
in various activities. She described them as non-party
socialists, responsible for conditioning her and her brothers to
"frown upon social snobbery, to accept the basic rights of people
as human beings, to detest racial discrimination." In the early
1940s', Australia, where most Australians were still gripped by
the fear of invasion of the "yellow hordes", Molly and her
friends thought about establishing an organization to promote
cultural relations with Asia.

After the war, when they decided to act on their ideas, they
chose Indonesia (the Netherlands East Indies as it was then
called), seemingly arbitrarily. That was the beginning of Molly's
journey across culture. She came in contact with the small
community of Indonesians in Sydney, and was impressed by their
intelligence and political awareness. Having been brought up a
free spirit, she related to their longing to be independent from
the Dutch. Her sympathy towards the struggle solidified when she
married Mohamad Bondan, an activist in exile.

When, in 1947, her husband returned to the newly formed
republic, Molly had the choice of remaining in Australia, but she
chose to join Bondan. Once in Indonesia, her untiring dedication
to the endeavors of nation building did not stop until her last
days. She assisted various nationalist leaders in their tasks,
and helped bring out numerous publications on social and cultural
aspects. She wrote many of the late president Sukarno's speeches
in English, while other political leaders have been known to rely
on her fine mind and skills.

Despite her obvious connections, Molly remained faithful to
her ideals. She lived among the local community, earned local
wages, and identified with Indonesians. This was very apparent,
halfway through the book, in her use of "we", "our" and "us",
when referring to Indonesia and Indonesians. She made friends
with people across the social classes, from ministers to local
hawkers. In fact, where this book differs from other volumes on
Indonesia, written by non-Indonesians, is the remarkable insight
she possessed. So, towards the end of the book, when she
evaluated and pondered the progress and development of the
nation, there is no smugness in the tone and the reader does not
gain the impression of being subjected to a sermon. She was
profoundly introspective and honest. Her thoughts, as it became
apparent, never stopped developing, and though she did not have a
PhD in Philosophy and Sociology, it is obvious her ideas were
based on a remarkable breadth of experience and a rare intimate
knowledge of the nation.

In Love with a Nation is extremely readable, the language
being light and often conversational. The content however, is far
from trivial. It is a must read for the present generation of
Indonesians, who are distanced by a whole generation time span,
may be unaware of the nationalist ideals of their parents, and
taking for granted what has been achieved so far.

-- Dewi Anggraeni