Ratna's 'Alia' puts human face on Aceh's tragedy
Ratna's 'Alia' puts human face on Aceh's tragedy
By Rita Sri Hastuti
JAKARTA (JP): White ropes hung down from the ceiling,
separating the stage and the audience at Graha Bhakti Budaya at
Taman Ismail Marzuki Cultural Center (TIM). The black cloth
around the stage radiated a sense of grief.
Sorrow and sadness were the dominant themes from May 12 to May
17 in Teater Satu Merah Panggung. Directed by Ratna Sarumpaet,
the 2.5-hour play Alia, Luka Serambi Mekah (Alia, Wounds of
Serambi Mekah) told of the human tragedy happening in Aceh.
Alia is a tough Acehnese woman who is disturbed about what is
occurring in her homeland. Sounds of machine guns and soldiers
marching haunt her. Massacres and rape by security personnel have
become commonplace; Alia herself is one of the hundreds of rape
victims in Aceh.
In her 30s, Alia continually questions the meaning of true
freedom.
Her complaints are typical. "We don't have a sense of
security, even when we bow in prayer to God ... We in Serambi
Mekah (Aceh) have been crying too much ... We Acehnese have
never been given the right to choose."
Alia is strong and intelligent. She asks her fellow Acehnese
to exhume the remains of people buried in a mass grave and rebury
them according to Islamic custom. She believes her father's body
is among the skeletons.
The authorities consider her act "subversive". An official,
who is her own uncle, tries to arrest her. When her boyfriend
Farhan asks her to flee Aceh, she scolds him, "Surrendering is
the last option I would ever do".
Her father, Tengku Saiful (L. Halim), turns out to be alive
and well. When he asks her to join the Serambi Mekah
proindependence movement, she replies, "Can the move make Aceh
secure and free from fear?" Her father cannot answer the
question.
Ratna is known as a director who raises vivid sociopolitical
issues. She emerged as "defender" of labor heroine Marsinah when
she performed Marsinah, Nyanyian Dari Bawah Tanah (Marsinah: Song
from the Underground) in 1994 and Marsinah Menggugat (Marsinah
Accuses) in 1997.
There is no resolution to the drawn-out Aceh affair. "It has
been going on for a long time but what the government has been
doing is politicking which does not touch the substance," she
said.
Ratna hopes Alia will encourage people to find out more about
Aceh and the crux of the matter. She needed three months to write
the script based on newspaper clippings, not on her personal
observations in the province. She enriched the clippings with
data from Jejak (Footprint), an institute she founded to monitor
human tragedies that the government refuses to resolve.
She said she decided not to personally visit Aceh "so that I
am not leaning to either side of those in the dispute".
In Alia Ratna does try to stay neutral, which is no doubt
difficult because she has been highly involved in political
activities over the last two years. The Soeharto government
jailed her for two months in 1998.
She is determined to return to art and she wanted to make Alia
free from political slogans.
"Politics is too heavy for me. I feel I am needed more in the
arts."
Ratna, who received Rp 120 million in donations from
businesspeople to stage the production, said Alia was her first
step in her effort to devote herself to the arts.
"There are no political motives behind this work but people
are free to interpret it otherwise after seeing the play," she
said.
Still, Ratna has not changed. Although the political content
of Alia is presented in a refined way, the overtones are obvious.
It is shown in Alia's final statement: "It's unimportant
whether Alia dies or not. What counts is if truth calls you,
follow it even though the road is bumpy."