Parakitri's 'Menjadi Indonesia' simplifies history

Parakitri's 'Menjadi Indonesia' simplifies history

Menjadi Indonesia
By Parakitri T. Simbolon
Published by Kompas, 1995
803 pages, hardcover
Rp 45,000

JAKARTA (JP): At last there is a comprehensive Indonesian
history book in the Indonesian language.

The book, Menjadi Indonesia (Becoming Indonesia), which covers
he prehistoric era until before the Japanese invaded in 1942,
came out in December last year, when Indonesians are still
celebrating the country's golden anniversary.

The book is a great gift for the country, with the hearts and
minds of many Indonesians still tuned to the past to reflect on
the country's history.

Previously, knowledge about the true history of Indonesian was
the privilege of the relatively few Indonesians who can read in
foreign languages. Most information on Indonesia is stored in the
Dutch archives and in the hundreds of books written by foreign
Indonesianists. Only a small number of them has been translated
into Indonesian.

Indonesian students know about their history mainly from
textbooks issued by the government, which, however good they are,
serve the interests of those in power. Students can't free
themselves from the government's view until they can read in
foreign languages.

Menjadi Indonesia crams into 766 pages all the information
hidden in the Dutch archives and the untranslated books.

The writer, Parakitri, a journalist at the Kompas daily, has
helped free millions of Indonesians from the burden of mastering
foreign languages to learn about the history of their own
country.

The book is aptly called a bid to end the era of "illiteracy
of history" that has been experienced by most of Indonesians for
decades.

The fruit of a serious study, the book is readable for people
as young as junior high school students. It combines seriousness
and simplicity, the coolness of seasoned analysts and the passion
of literary people.

Parakitri is a doctoral graduate of a Dutch university and an
accomplished novelist and scriptwriter.

To make it readable, Parakitri divides the book into the body
and the endnotes section, with the "light, general and
peripheral" stuff in the 363-page body and the "serious,
detailed, in-depth," stuff in the 383-page endnotes.

The oversized endnotes don't only explain the body, but stand
alone and should be read.

The body is meant for junior high school students whose aim is
only to pass history exams. People wanting more information need
to rummage through the endnotes.

One Nation

The aim of the history is to explain how people from thousands
of islands and hundreds of tribes and cultures developed a
consciousness that they are one nation.

The book is the first of a series of three books planned by
Kompas as part of the newspaper's celebration of the country's
golden anniversary. The series attempts to reveal how the nation
was built in the past, what is happening today, and what will
happen in the future.

Menjadi Indonesia explains the process that led to the
awakening of the national consciousness, while the rest of the
series, which are expected to appear in the middle of this year,
will look at the present and future aspects.

Since the focus is on the nation building, Parakitri does not
waste time on the prehistoric era, the emergence of local
kingdoms, including the Sriwijaya and Majapahit kingdoms, and the
local resistance movements against the Dutch.

Most textbook writers have focused on the two kingdoms and the
local resistances to foster pride in a people victimized by the
Dutch for centuries.

Menjadi Indonesia is more focused on what the writer sees as
the root of national consciousness, that is, the arrival of the
Dutch, the development of their power and policies, and how they
gradually effected economic, administrative and cultural unities
in the vast archipelago.

Starting early in this century, the nation building process
gathered speed. Modern organizations sprung up on Java with the
Dutch-educated natives as pioneers. The national consciousness
grew in the process.

Taken aback by the unexpected yields of their ethical policy,
the Dutch tried to undermine it by all means. The indigenous
population continued to move along the track they made for
themselves to achieve freedom.

Parakitri denies Indonesia is the fruit of Dutch colonization.
The Dutch had no intention to build a nation.

"What came about was the dream of an Indonesian nation based
on the people's own strength and ability," he says.

The account of organization in the modern period takes up
almost half of the book. It is filled with information not
available in school textbooks.

The communists' prominence before the mid 1960s is left out of
textbooks, but is given the lengthy consideration it deserves in
the new book. The communists' ideology attracted many indigenous
activists, including many who were later anointed national
heroes.

The book also portrays the heroes as they are, without any
intention of making them look like saints, as the textbooks do.
Readers will be surprised, for example, at the report that Sutan
Sjahrir, Indonesia's first prime minister, married his friend's
wife -- a Dutch woman -- although the couple were then not yet
divorced.

History books, including Menjadi Indonesia, are only a way of
seeing the past. The writers have certain perceptions and
therefore always insert their reflections on current events.

This subjectivity allows history to become a mirror. A history
book loses that function if it doesn't force its readers to
reflect on their past or the experience of their predecessors.

Menjadi Indonesia is a good mirror. Many current events find
explanations in it, including the pull between nationalism and
ethnicity, the corruption in the (Dutch) administration and the
close liaison between the (Dutch) rulers and the Chinese.

On corruption, it says that Governor General van Hoorn carried
10 million guilders when he returned to the Netherlands in 1709,
while his yearly salary was only 700 guilders. The Maluku
governor of the same period amassed 20 to 30 thousands guilders
in four to five years out of his salary of 150 guilders per
month.

Between 1719 and 1723, the amount of illegal levies set by the
United East Indies Company (VOC) was 3,500 guilders for those who
wanted to be onderkoopman (under merchants), and receive 40
guilders a month. For a captain, the amount was 2,000 guilders
and a corporal 120 guidlers. In comparison, of the 19,000 VOC's
workers in 1720, only 30 people received a salary of 1,200
guilders a year. The positions were bought to enable the buyer to
steal from the VOC's budget or extort low-income people or the
natives.

Is today's rampant corruption rooted in the native culture or
a legacy of the Dutch? The book does not try to answer the
question.

There is no doubt about the value of this book. Unfortunately,
the price, Rp 45,000, is too high for students. The publishers,
Kompas and Grasindo, should ensure it is included in the list of
books read daily by Indonesian students by subsidizing the book
or lobbying the government to use it in schools.

Otherwise its goal of ending the "illiteracy of history" will
not succeed.

-- Johannes Simbolon