The arena for people's politics

The arena for people's politics

Zaman Bergerak, Radikalisme Rakyat di Jawa 1912-1926 (An Age in
Motion: Popular Radicalism in Java, 1912-1926)
By Takashi Shiraishi
(Translated into Indonesian by Hilmar Farid Setiadi)
Grafiti Pers, 1997
504 pp
Rp 31,500

JAKARTA (JP): Foreign experts on Indonesia have focused most
of their attention on history over politics, anthropology and
other social sciences.

Several books written by historians -- both local and foreign
-- have looked at Indonesian history from various perspectives.
The Indonesian Historiography, edited by Soedjatmoko, shows
clearly how varying is this bibliography, from the Dutch colonial
point of view to national, Western and even Russian ones.

Works by Japanese scientists are still few compared to those
by Dutch, Australian, Americans or French. Almost all studies by
Japanese are focused around their occupation of the country
during World War II.

Takashi Shiraishi in this book has tried to shift the focus to
other fields in studies mostly concentrated on Indonesian modern
history of this century. A graduate of Cornell University, home
to one of the best Indonesian centers in the U.S., his work shows
deconstructive and discursive nuances similar to those of
Benedict R'OG Anderson, a Cornell professor.

Unlike other historians who base their works on formal
political documents, Shiraishi also expands his research on
sources of Indonesian history to the literary field. Zaman
Bergerak successfully hurdles the conventional historiography
dominant in the writing of the Indonesian nationalist movement.

He has the impressive ability to prove the segmentation of
contemporary political bases, Islam, nationalism and communism is
nothing but an illusion created by the colonial authority in
order to cripple the nature of the people's movement. First
introduced as a historical reality by Petrus Blumberger, it has
been adopted by many historians.

As a historical work portraying the people's resistance
against colonialism, this book does not expose heroic rhetoric,
often used by other historians, but focuses more minutely on the
dynamics and political competition among the nationalists.

The writer does not place the positions of the Dutch
authorities and the nationalists in a black-and-white dichotomy
because Indonesian activists did not always stand in a unified
position.

In his earlier work, The Disputes Between Tjipto
Mangoenkoesoemo and Soetatmo Soeriokoesoemo, Satria vs Pandita,
which appeared in Indonesia, the magazine published by the Modern
Indonesia Project at Cornell, Shiraishi described the debate
between two nationalists about the idea of nationalism as a
discursive field in the search for an "imagined community".

The debate can be seen more clearly in Zaman Bergerak, in
which Semaoen, Tjipto, Misbach and Mas Marco face Tjokroaminoto,
Soerjopranoto, Agus Salim and Samanhoedi.

According to the author,pergerakan, or nationalist movement,
has a larger and more complex meaning than merely the reawakening
of nationalism. It is a complex and dynamic process which has
roots in the people's endeavors to put their ideas into practice,
and articulate them in words and deeds.

Shiraishi found these facts in the arenas of the people's
movement in which workers, peasants, journalists and members of
the upper class played active roles in political parties such as
Sarekat Islam, Sarekat Hindia (Nationale Indische Partij), ISDV,
Indische Journalist Bond and Partij Communist Hindia.

They used Dutch political terms like vergadering, voordracht,
vakboden, partij, communism, democratie and capitalist which had
never been used here before. Contemporary political means also
included mass gatherings, newspapers, Javanese traditional shows
and strikes.

Shiraishi also discusses the dynamics of radical people's
movements in Surakarta, Semarang and Yogyakarta, the activities
of which were widely reported by Sinar Hindia, Islam Bergerak,
Medan Moeslimin, Oetoesan Hindia and Api newspapers. The mass
media played a role in supporting the people's thinking.

Hadji Misbach's thoughts about Islam and communism were
printed in serials in Medan Moeslimin (Moslem Arena) newspaper.
Misbach started writing the lengthy articles after he was exiled
by the Dutch to Manokwari, a town in what is now Irian Jaya.

Shiraishi's work is a graphic picture of the Indonesian
people's movement during the Dutch colonial period.

-- Wahyu Susilo

The reviewer is a history graduate from 11th March University
in Surakarta. He works at the Jakarta office of Solidaritas
Perempuan, a non-governmental organization for promotion of
women's rights.