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."