Walraven, Dutch East Indies writer 'in exile'

By H Rosihan Anwar

JAKARTA (JP): Some time ago I found on the shelves of Erasmus Library Rob Nieuwenhuys' book Oost Indische Spiegel! (1972) (Mirror of the Indies: A history of Dutch colonial literature) and since then I became an avid reader of the works of Dutch East Indies writers. Never since my formal schooling at the AMS (Senior High School) in Yogyakarta 60 years ago have I read so much in Dutch, especially literature.

One of the writers who drew my attention was Willem Walraven. Born in 1887 in the village of Dirksland, on the island of Goeree-Overflakkee in South Holland, he died in 1943 in a Japanese concentration camp in East Java. He was the son of a vendor, who traveled from one fair to another and later ran a store selling groceries.

On his mother's side, he descended from a family of skippers who owned a sizable house in the village.

I felt some affinity with Walraven because he was no "literary figure" in the strict sense of the word, because he was neither a poet or a novelist. I did venture into the fields of poetry and short stories during the Japanese occupation and the Revolution of 1945.

I also wrote a novel which was considered below standard by Prof. Umar Khayam thus discouraging me from becoming a novelist and instead I became better known as a journalist, just like Willem Walraven who had been a freelance journalist during the 1930s with De Indische Courant (The Indies Courant), a newspaper that appeared in Surabaya.

Whether journalist or literary figure, Walraven was a born writer, and especially a writer of letters. He must have written thousands of letters. He certainly was a compulsive writer, possessed with die Lust zum fabulierent -- as the Germans say -- banging forcefully on his typewriter, as revealed by his eldest son Willem Junior.

Through Sabam Siagian, a senior journalist, I recently got hold of the latest biography of Willem Walraven Dirksland tussen de doerians (2000) (Dirksland among the durians) by Frank Okker, providing me with more insight into the psychology of Walraven.

His tense relationship with his parents became almost traumatic for him. He searched in vain for understanding and love, while the quarrels at home were fierce and endless. He sought out his own path in Delft and Rotterdam, lived among Bohemians and was much taken by the new Socialist movement. He then emigrated to Canada and the United States where he spent five terrible years doing all sorts of jobs including dishwasher and laborer, however always visited public libraries to read and educate himself.

When the World War I broke out in 1914 he returned to Holland. The situation at home was as tense as ever. His mother reproached him for not bringing any money home and suggested that he should sign up with the colonial army the KNIL, which he did in August 1915.

Walraven became a telegraphist with the army's communications branch and was stationed in Cimahi, near Bandung. Because he was not an officer he had no contact with the European civilian population and was unwanted in European restaurants and clubs. He was an outcast.

During his time as a soldier he met Itih, a Sundanese woman who wore a sarong and served coffee, and who later became dominant in his life. As described with tenderness in his story The Clan he called her "Itih, with her small name and her big heart".

When his army contract expired in 1918, he left for Banyuwangi, on Java's extreme eastern coast facing Bali, where he found a job as a factory's bookkeeper. He felt lonely out there, asked after Itih in a letter to an acquaintance, and heard that Itih had been asking after him as well.

He decided "to take a gamble" and send 25 guilders for travel expenses. Two days later he stood face to face with Itih. Under the cover of darkness they had abducted her from her aunt and uncle's house and put her on board the eastbound train. Arriving at Walraven house in Banyuwangi, she immediately walked over to the annex where the servant's quarters were located, expecting to find her cot there.

When she could not find it and finally saw the double bed in Walraven's room did she realize that he had asked her to become his housekeeper, or Nyai. After thinking this over for one night she decided to stay and after their fist child was born, they were married.

Many Europeans would not accept Walraven with his native wife. He demanded that they accept Itih and since this was not forthcoming he isolated himself from a world on which he depended for his "spiritual sustenance" and human contact.

He never ate rice, preferring instead Dutch food like bread, potatoes and meat which Itih learned to prepare for him. He could not stand the heat in a big city like Surabaya where he perspired profusely. He chose to live with his family "on the mountain" near Malang with its cool climate. His longing for Holland was deep. He asked his brother to send him some herbs such as chevil, savory and garden cress, adding "l'odeur de mon pays" (through the herbs I smell Holland).

Itih bore him eight children, and he realized that on account of Itih and the children he would never again reach that world (Europe), a thought which made him desperate at times. He felt as if he was caught in "a mouse trap". He constantly had financial worries.

Walraven wrote articles on a great variety of topics, book reviews, fiction, short stories, reportages. He was especially skilled in describing small Indies towns and places in the interior. He made several trips through Java.

He befriended Du Perron, author of the novel Hat Land van Herkomst (Land of Origin). Du Perron not only introduced Walraven to other writers such as Rob Nieumenhuys, Beb Vuyk, Veenstra, but also told him that he could write. That he was a born writer. Walraven was extremely grateful for this, especially because it came from Du Perron, a renowned author who later died in Holland on May 14, 1940, four days after the German invasion.

The war in the Pacific began on Dec. 8, 1941. After the capitulation of the KNIL to the Japanese army on March 9, 1942 Walraven retained his freedom for a few weeks longer, but soon he and his sons were rounded up and transported to a prison camp in East Java. Walraven died there on Feb. 13, 1943, in a state of complete apathy, moments after a visit from Itih. His last words to his wife were "Dag Itih" (Goodbye Itih). He was buried in the village of Sanggar and after the war his remains were transferred to the cemetery of Leuwihgajah, near Bandung.

Walraven was one of the best journalists writing in the Indies. He scoffed at the colonial system and the European colonizers and yet he possessed all the prejudices of a European in the Indies.

Listen to what he said to his nephew Frans in a letter sent from Blimbing, Malang, on Jan. 19, 1940.

"Now, about the freedom of the Indonesians. This "struggle" for freedom is a struggle of the floating upper class, not of the true people. Those people will not get their turn for ages.

"If there is to be self-government here, nothing will be changed for the little man. There will come about a native oligarchy -- most probe a lazy one -- and much like now. The native to his own people."

So much about Willem Walraven, who is sometimes labeled as a split personality, but, then, is that not the hallmark of creative people. Whatever the case may be, here I rest and ponder the words of Walraven: "native oligarchy", "without mercy to its own people", "the sad lot of the ordinary worker". 56 years of independence, 15 months of Gus Dur's presidency, I look around this vast republic and all of that seems too familiar still.