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