Playwright Ratna still standing tall

Playwright Ratna still standing tall

Emmy Fitri, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

What saddened playwright Ratna Sarumpaet the most when state-run
television station TVRI refused to air her play, Alia, Luka
Serambi Mekah (Alia, Wound on Veranda of Mecca), was the response
of her fellow artists. Which is to say, they did not respond.

"Those people, elements of the so-called civil society, like
the press, non-governmental groups, the House of Representatives
and the newly founded Jakarta Academy, are all silent and do
nothing.

"We don't realize that the threat is present. None of us have
sharpened our sensitivity. It was shackled and shut down for more
than 30 years, and when it opened we just drifted away and let it
remain dull," Ratna said.

The decision to cancel the airing of Alia was reportedly made
at the behest of the Indonesian Military, which said the play --
focusing on a rape victim in Aceh -- would anger the people in
the province and could harm the peace process in Aceh.

On the night of Dec. 15, when the play had been scheduled to
be screened, Ratna and members of her theater group, Satu Merah
Panggung, gathered in their workshop in Kampung Melayu Kecil in
East Jakarta to watch the recorded play.

"My children are crying and I wish I could cry too but I
can't. Maybe it's too sad. I didn't expect this kind of thing to
still be happening," said the 53-year-old Ratna.

No stranger to controversy, Ratna, renowned as an outspoken
prodemocracy activist, has gone through similar situations to the
Alia banning in the past.

A number of her plays, including Marsinah, Nyanyian Dari Bawah
Tanah (Marsinah, Song from the Underground, 1994), Marsinah
Menggugat (Marsinah Accuses, 1997), Terpasung (Chained, 1996) and
Pesta Terakhir (The Last Party, 1996), were critical of the
government and portrayed the reality of the people.

The administration of former president Soeharto banned her
play Marsinah Menggugat in Surabaya, Lampung and Bandung in 1997.
Marsinah was a labor activist who was murdered in 1993.

In 1994, when her theater group was preparing for the
performance of Marsinah, Nyanyian Dari Bawah Tanah in Jakarta,
suddenly and without reason their sponsor withdrew.

The decision to keep Alia off the air was just as unexpected.

When President Megawati Soekarnoputri was still vice
president, Ratna sent her the script of the play. Megawati later
told Ratna, when the two talked, that she had read the script.

"I went to Megawati not because I trust her, but because I
needed her to be the patron for my Alia performance. I wanted to
stage Alia in front of state officials and the military's top
brass, so I needed Megawati's support.

"I also wanted to persuade Megawati to look at Aceh from a
cultural perspective and to use her eyes, a woman's eyes."

Megawati initially agreed to sponsor the play and told Ratna
to coordinate with her staff, according to the playwright. Ratna
quoted Megawati as saying, "This time probably you are right. We
have to see Aceh from a different perspective."

But as the day of the performance approached, Ratna received a
call from Bambang Kesowo (now the Cabinet Secretary), informing
her that Megawati would attend the play but would not act as its
sponsor.

When the play was staged on Jan. 30, 2001, in Jakarta, only 17
invitees from the 500-member People's Consultative Assembly were
in attendance.

Still, what Ratna wants most is to see peace come to Aceh, a
province where she has many new brothers and sisters.

When Ratna wrote Alia she had never been to Aceh. She read her
friends' reports on rights abuses and violence in the province,
and later traveled there herself, going to villages and meeting
some 2,600 refugees sheltering near the Kluk River in South Aceh.

"I don't trust the government and their sincerity. Don't just
kiss the ground and say the sujud syukur (prayer of praise) and
go to Baiturrahman (Mosque) to meet a few Acehnese. Do something
more. If she (Megawati) was creative, she would find ways to get
the real picture of the people there," Ratna said.

The incident when Megawati refused to sponsor Alia, which
Ratna wrote while jailed for organizing an illegal meeting, did
not stop the playwright. She continued to fight for the play and
is now considering legal action against TVRI.

"I don't believe in our legal system but some friends
suggested I take legal action against TVRI. I am still
considering it."

Clearly, giving up is not in Ratna's temperament. "It's just
in my blood (to keep fighting). My parents never tried to make me
be like them. Both were politicians," said Ratna, who often finds
herself at the side of her mother's grave when she needs
comforting.

Her father, Saladin Sarumpaet, was an activist for separatist
group PRRI-Permesta and was placed under house arrest in
Kaliurang, Yogyakarta, in 1962. Her mother Julia Hutabarat was
the founder and managing editor of the women's magazine Melati in
Tapanuli.

"She did the whole thing (running the magazine) and raised
nine children, no complaints," Ratna said proudly.

In her family, Ratna, who was born on July 16, 1949, in
Tarutung, North Sumatra, is not alone in her love for art and
culture. Her siblings -- Mutiara Sani, Riris Sarumpaet and Sam
Sarumpaet -- are also active in the art world.

A member of PEN International, Writers in Prison and
International Women Playwrights, Ratna said she was lucky to be
able to visit her mother's grave during bad times. Many people in
Aceh, she said, don't know what happened to their missing loved
ones.

"There are some four or five small hills, other than the
renowned Bukit Tengkorak (Skeleton Hill), in Aceh that are mass
graves for the innocents. If the government wants to win the
hearts of the Acehnese, unearth them and bury their remains
properly.

"The hills are mostly barren. Even grass won't grow there. It
is as if they are saying they want to honor the souls of the dead
inside the mass graves."