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.