Post-New Order literature and the country's nation-building

Post-New Order literature and the country's nation-building

Max Lane, Visiting Fellow, University of Wollongong,
New South Wales, Australia

One feature of any modern nation is its body of national
literature. As modern nations have developed so has their
national literature. At a certain point in their development as
nations that is as collectives of a mass of people who share a
common cultural perspective, a national literature come into
being and is recognized as such.

In Indonesia, the creating of a body of modern literature was
a central component of the national struggle from the very
beginning. This took many manifestations. In the period before
the idea of Indonesia was born, independent minded entrepreneurs
with a love for the local society used the Malay language for
their newspapers. They pioneered Malay language fiction, helping
pave the way to make Malay the chosen language of the movement to
create the new nation of Indonesia.

Later, as a layer of intellectuals formed novels became
another vehicle for popularizing the struggle for freedom, or for
popularizing notions of modernization, which were also integral
to breaking away from the old feudal notions of state and
society.

A generation of writers came into being whose works cannot be
separated from the whole process of national revolution. The
first big steps had been made in forming a national literature.

Of course, after independence was won, this process exploded.
The list of poets, short story writers, novelists and playwrights
that contributed to the growth of national literature during the
1940s, 1950s and early 1960s grew, as did their output. And their
works truly did start to form the basis of a genuine national
literature.

Their works were discussed and debated. Writers and artists
were drawn into the great ideological battles of the period about
what content the newly won freedom of Indonesia should be given.

Their writings spread in accordance with the dynamic of the
debates and battle of the day. Writers were often at loggerheads
and sometimes the polemics were sharp and brutal. In the 1960s,
the literary world virtually formally divided into opposite camps
on a whole range of issues. There are still debates today among
literary historians, not to mention the surviving participants,
about what were the real issues being battled over and what was
actually at stake.

But no matter what side of the debate one supports in relation
to different sides, it made the works of these writers -- from
the right and the left -- real parts of a living national
literature bonded to the people and the society precisely as
consequence of those cultural battles.

The whole picture during the New Order period changed. The
battle of ideas was suppressed. Many writers, artists, and
musicians were arrested and exiled from society. All their works
were banned and withdrawn from circulation. They were deleted
from the school curriculum's denying more than on generation of
the heritage of the national revolution.

Not surprisingly, Indonesian literature, which had hitherto
been a product of the national revolution and its battles, also
withered. Of course, the writing and publication of poems,
novels, short stories and plays did not stop. But it withered in
the sense that the overall output diminished, and its ties to the
society and the mass of the people weakened.

That engagement disappeared. Although there have been some
exceptions to this: Usually exceptions related to resistance
against the New Order.

One exception, especially during the 1970s, was the dramas and
poems of W.S. Rendra. In January 1974, the student protest
movement exploded onto the streets of Jakarta. Soeharto
immediately suppressed the movement jailing many students and
intellectuals. In the aftermath of this suppression, Rendra,
through his plays and poems, emerged as the most vocal opponent
of the regime. His plays, Mastadon dan Burung Kondor, Kisah
Perjuangan Suku Naga, Lysistrata and Sekda, also produced between
1975 and 1977, attracted thousands and thousands of people to
their performances.

His poems, especially the brilliant and vivid collection,
Pamflet Penyair (A Poet's Pamphlets) also echoed the emerging
sentiments of resistance and alienation, both among the middle
classes and the poor. The role of these pamphlets as the vanguard
voice of a new wave of critical thinking was most dramatically
reflected in 1978.

Perhaps the other writer whose works had a similar impact when
they were published was Pramoedya Ananta Toer between 1981 and
1987. These were Bumi Manusia This Earth of Mankind, Anak Segala
Bangsa(Child of All Nations), Jejak Langkah (Footsteps) and Rumah
Kaca (Glass House). These great novels, set in the beginning of
the twentieth century, were also met with a great popular
response. They were the first serious novels during the New Order
to go into print several times before they were banned. They were
ferociously debated in the media. They were widely read and
photocopied among students. For many student activists of the
1980s, they were not only inspirational but also virtual manuals
as to how to build a political movement.

Rendra's works were brilliant and beautiful satires on the
politics and culture of the New Order. Pramoedya's works were not
commentaries on contemporary society. They were epic tales of the
people that inhabited the society that produced the struggle that
created what is today called Indonesia. They inspired because
they were engrossingly told tales of the creative power of the
historical process itself, and the myriad of kinds of people who
are created in this process.

These works of Rendra and Pramoedya must truly be seen as
integral parts of the national literature of the Indonesian
nation. They and their works played essential roles in keeping
the energy and creativity of the Indonesian national revolution
alive during the Soeharto's regime.

But Soeharto's regime ended the general engagement between
literature and society. Not only is the general population not in
contact with these works of Rendra and Pramoedya. Many young
Indonesians have never even had the chance to read any of the
central writings of somebody like Sukarno.

If the process of the national revolution is to re-start then
literature's engagement with society has to be restarted also.
This will happen partly as a result of the revival of political
life and struggle generally. But there is another necessity.
Indonesia does now have a national school system. These works of
Rendra and of Pramoedya should be part of the basic curriculum of
all schools.