Pramoedya speaks out about Buru Island

The Mute's Soliloquy; By Pramoedya Ananta Toer; Translated by Willem Samuels; Published by Hasta Mitra in cooperation with The Lontar Foundation, Jakarta, 1999; 375 pages; Rp 150,000.

JAKARTA (JP): It's August 1966, and somewhere in the Banda Sea the Adri XV is bound for the island of Buru. Eight hundred men, many severely malnourished, are stuffed into its cargo hold.

One of them is Pramoedya Ananta Toer, already an acclaimed writer and destined to be Indonesia's finest. Having been imprisoned twice without trial and leaving behind a family with no means of support, he looks around and wonders in despair what would happen if his voice were taken from him.

The years that follow make up the bulk of the recently published English translation of his memoirs, The Mute's Soliloquy. A collection of notes, letters and essays, all written on Buru island's penal colony, taken together they are a testament to Pramoedya's spirit and the suffering he and his countrymen endured. And they are proof, that, through it all, he retained his voice.

His tale, one of capture, imprisonment and eventual release, is by itself a gripping one. Around and about it, however, the author weaves intensely personal threads, spiritual and political musings and passages of lyrical description in a way that belies his confession in the foreword that there is no "grand plan" to the book.

The suspected communist sympathizers and ordinary criminals who landed on Buru had been told by New Order officials they were going to start a "new life". It was initially at least, a life of hard labor on empty stomachs. What little food they were given was supplemented by what they could forage and what they could eventually grow on the arid soil the island provided.

When not stealing the fruits of their labor, the guards assigned to them regularly tortured and humiliated them. After a night of beating, Pramoedya describes the scene as the sun comes up. "The bodies of those men who could stand were wet with dew, but many more were unable to get up; they were either dead, unconscious, or had no strength left to stand. A sour smell of blood and human waste clung to the air."

Amid this brutality, Pramoedya records a visit made by officials, writers and academics to the island who arrive for "dialogs" with selected prisoners, which would be absurd if it were not so serious.

The questions asked and the statements made sound today how they must have when Pramoedya was called in from the fields to sit through them: Banal, sneaky when referring to the authors alleged involvement in the 1965 abortive communist coup and, often times, startlingly thoughtless. It climaxes with a letter from Soeharto, delivered by a military official who first tells Pramoedya how honored he should be to receive it.

"The president is constantly busy with the job of governing the nation, yet he still takes the time to write a letter to you," the author remembers.

The second section of the book, Fragments of My Life, focuses on the writer's early years, his memories of his parents and the years spent as a struggling writer leading up to his imprisonment. It was a small-town childhood in the Javanese town of Blora, and one inseparable from the backdrop of the independence struggle against the Dutch and their sudden replacement by the Japanese. His father is remembered as a distant figure whose involvement in politics was total.

Pramoedya vowed to be a better father than his own as a consequence, something that makes reading the letters he wrote to his children, but knew the prison authorities would not allow him to send, a poignant experience. They contain fatherly advice ranging from the commonplace, advice on career options and marriage, to the spiritual, warnings of the dangers of spending too long listening to hell-fire religious preachers and tips on meditation.

The notes that make up The Mute's Soliloquy were written quickly under what the writer calls adverse conditions. He was eventually allowed to write, though much of what he produced, which in the Indonesian edition stretches to two volumes, was destroyed, either by the authorities or by the author himself. That the book is assembled into such a satisfying whole is thanks to a professional editing job. Its readability is also helped by a fine translation, with no footnotes clogging up the page or glossary that demands constant reference. It is pleasantly free of the "by academics for academics" feel that other translations of Indonesian literature are burdened with.

The book ends with an incomplete list, stretching to 17 pages, of some of the men, women and children who died on Buru, complete with their manner of death and last-known addresses. It is a lasting and damning indictment of the abuses committed by those in power in the early days of the New Order. Until some form of truth and reconciliation committee is set up, it goes part of the way to fulfilling Pramoedya's wish that they become engraved in the national memory.

The book, which was published last year in America to universal acclaim, is currently available in Indonesia. Those who are having trouble finding it, however, are advised that it is also obtainable direct from the Lontar Foundation. Tel: (021) 574-6880.

-- Chris Brummitt