|
I grew up struggling to reconcile my own family’s
version of the 1945 struggle for independence and the official Indonesian
version. My late father’s involvement in the 1945 struggle for independence was
the core of his existence until the day he died. Every event in his life was
interpreted through the prism of the 1945 struggle. When I was a kid, it drove
me crazy!
The existence of two different versions of one event reflects the power of history over our lives. The history of mankind has been about the domination of one version of history and the ability to spin this version of history to tailor the needs of one group or individual. Whoever manages to push his version of history, and make it the dominant one, will gain political authority and all the advantages that come with it.
My late father joined a student army known as the TRIP in East Java in 1945 at the tender age of 15. He lied about his age and got away with it because he was tall. Back then the TRIP was part of Brigade 17 of the Indonesian military. I listened to many stories of the TRIP and on several occasions, my father and I visited some of the sites where TRIP actions took place.
One particular event happened in 1947 on the outskirts of the town of Blitar in East Java. Five boys aged between 15 and 18 years had been feasting on roasted corn and were resting when Dutch tanks appeared. Three of the boys were killed instantly.
Then there was the problem among us Indonesians of the Madiun Affair in September 1948. It was by all accounts a challenge by communists against the newly established republic. Not much can be found in our history books about this chapter of our history, however, as our history books have been rewritten and sanitized.
My father’s version was not about facts, as he was too young to understand the politics of the time. Instead it was about emotions. Imprinted on his soul was his task at the time of taking down the names of people being brought into Madiun to be jailed and, in many cases, executed. One villager brought in said to my father: “I am not sure about all this, but I am concerned about my cow. Who will feed it and take care of it if I am not there?”
Months before my father passed away, this experience was still with him and his main concern was that there was no clear, accurate system to distinguish between those who were communists and those who were not. He was still worried about the family of the villager who owned the cow. Ann Swift’s account in The Road to Madiun: The Indonesian Communist Uprising of 1948 gives many details and facts, about the history of that time, making it clear that there was a serious challenge to the new republic.
Then there is an extremely fascinating account by Robert Cribb in his book Gangsters and Revolutionaries describing the role of preman (thugs) in the fight for independence in Jakarta. One crucial point Cribb makes is that ordinary people in Jakarta were not equipped to fight the Dutch whereas the preman were. Many of them had both weapons and supporters as well as the fighting skills to take on the Dutch.
In Yogyakarta Sri Sultan Hamengkubuwono IX officially joined Indonesia and donated six million Dutch guilders to the new republic. What would have happened if the Yogyakarta sultanate had sided with the Dutch? There was also the Islamic leader from Jombang in East Java, Wahab Hasbullah, who brought Nahdatul Ulama into the newly born Republic of Indonesia and led the fight against the Dutch by forming a group known as the Laskar Mujahidin.
The official Indonesian version of the 1945 struggle is that of a people’s revolution. There are strong images in our history books of the Indonesians with bamboo spears led by the newly established Indonesian Army fighting the Dutch colonial forces and gaining independence. This version is very simple and comforting but it omits the complexities and diversity of the events that actually took place.
Most worrying is that this version marginalizes other versions, and so automatically marginalizes the people involved in that particular struggle. This kind of approach will fragment society as it disregards many of those who were involved in the 1945 struggle. Yet a history which manages to acknowledge everyone’s version is an important tool in consolidating the nation state.
In my father’s case he felt that the TRIP version of history had been taken over by a group of people, thus marginalizing him and other members of the TRIP. For many years his group met regularly for lunch. Today there are no more than three living members left.
These meetings were almost like rituals in which they reinforced each other’s existence, which was bound by their experience of 1945. At these meetings they all sat wearing their black uniforms with the logo of the TRIP and Brigade 17 and celebrating the times they had together more than fifty years previously. They retold old war jokes and called each other by their wartime nicknames and reminded each other of their former comrades who had fallen.
They ate the same kind of food they had back then when they were boys, although many of them had to struggle as their jaws had shrunk due to missing teeth. They clung tightly to their version of TRIP history because this was the foundation of their existence.
Make no mistake, history is not static; rather it evolves. If the Indonesian nation state is to continue to grow and consolidate, our leaders must learn to be inclusive and not exclusive in their interpretation of history.
The next president elected in 2014 must be able to embrace everyone’s history in order to create an increased sense of ownership of this country, especially among young people. This will serve to deepen and widen Indonesian nationalism so that it will not be reduced to a slogan only but a vehicle for Indonesia to move forward and face the challenges ahead. ●
The existence of two different versions of one event reflects the power of history over our lives. The history of mankind has been about the domination of one version of history and the ability to spin this version of history to tailor the needs of one group or individual. Whoever manages to push his version of history, and make it the dominant one, will gain political authority and all the advantages that come with it.
My late father joined a student army known as the TRIP in East Java in 1945 at the tender age of 15. He lied about his age and got away with it because he was tall. Back then the TRIP was part of Brigade 17 of the Indonesian military. I listened to many stories of the TRIP and on several occasions, my father and I visited some of the sites where TRIP actions took place.
One particular event happened in 1947 on the outskirts of the town of Blitar in East Java. Five boys aged between 15 and 18 years had been feasting on roasted corn and were resting when Dutch tanks appeared. Three of the boys were killed instantly.
Then there was the problem among us Indonesians of the Madiun Affair in September 1948. It was by all accounts a challenge by communists against the newly established republic. Not much can be found in our history books about this chapter of our history, however, as our history books have been rewritten and sanitized.
My father’s version was not about facts, as he was too young to understand the politics of the time. Instead it was about emotions. Imprinted on his soul was his task at the time of taking down the names of people being brought into Madiun to be jailed and, in many cases, executed. One villager brought in said to my father: “I am not sure about all this, but I am concerned about my cow. Who will feed it and take care of it if I am not there?”
Months before my father passed away, this experience was still with him and his main concern was that there was no clear, accurate system to distinguish between those who were communists and those who were not. He was still worried about the family of the villager who owned the cow. Ann Swift’s account in The Road to Madiun: The Indonesian Communist Uprising of 1948 gives many details and facts, about the history of that time, making it clear that there was a serious challenge to the new republic.
Then there is an extremely fascinating account by Robert Cribb in his book Gangsters and Revolutionaries describing the role of preman (thugs) in the fight for independence in Jakarta. One crucial point Cribb makes is that ordinary people in Jakarta were not equipped to fight the Dutch whereas the preman were. Many of them had both weapons and supporters as well as the fighting skills to take on the Dutch.
In Yogyakarta Sri Sultan Hamengkubuwono IX officially joined Indonesia and donated six million Dutch guilders to the new republic. What would have happened if the Yogyakarta sultanate had sided with the Dutch? There was also the Islamic leader from Jombang in East Java, Wahab Hasbullah, who brought Nahdatul Ulama into the newly born Republic of Indonesia and led the fight against the Dutch by forming a group known as the Laskar Mujahidin.
The official Indonesian version of the 1945 struggle is that of a people’s revolution. There are strong images in our history books of the Indonesians with bamboo spears led by the newly established Indonesian Army fighting the Dutch colonial forces and gaining independence. This version is very simple and comforting but it omits the complexities and diversity of the events that actually took place.
Most worrying is that this version marginalizes other versions, and so automatically marginalizes the people involved in that particular struggle. This kind of approach will fragment society as it disregards many of those who were involved in the 1945 struggle. Yet a history which manages to acknowledge everyone’s version is an important tool in consolidating the nation state.
In my father’s case he felt that the TRIP version of history had been taken over by a group of people, thus marginalizing him and other members of the TRIP. For many years his group met regularly for lunch. Today there are no more than three living members left.
These meetings were almost like rituals in which they reinforced each other’s existence, which was bound by their experience of 1945. At these meetings they all sat wearing their black uniforms with the logo of the TRIP and Brigade 17 and celebrating the times they had together more than fifty years previously. They retold old war jokes and called each other by their wartime nicknames and reminded each other of their former comrades who had fallen.
They ate the same kind of food they had back then when they were boys, although many of them had to struggle as their jaws had shrunk due to missing teeth. They clung tightly to their version of TRIP history because this was the foundation of their existence.
Make no mistake, history is not static; rather it evolves. If the Indonesian nation state is to continue to grow and consolidate, our leaders must learn to be inclusive and not exclusive in their interpretation of history.
The next president elected in 2014 must be able to embrace everyone’s history in order to create an increased sense of ownership of this country, especially among young people. This will serve to deepen and widen Indonesian nationalism so that it will not be reduced to a slogan only but a vehicle for Indonesia to move forward and face the challenges ahead. ●
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar