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Table of Contents

An Introduction to Two Stories by Linda Christanty: The Flying Horse of Maria Pinto and The Fourth Grave Doreen Lee Kuda Terbang Maria Pinto (The Flying Horse of Maria Pinto) Linda Christanty, translated by Doreen Lee Makam Keempat (The Fourth Grave) Linda Christanty, translated by Doreen Lee Reading Ayu Utami: Notes toward a Study of Trauma and the Archive in Indonesia Laurie J. Sears Between a Rock and a Hard Place? Interstitial Female Subjectivity in between Colonialism and Patriarchy: Women in Pramoedya Ananta Toers Buru Tetralogy Razif Bahari Criminal Justice and Communal Conict: A Case Study of the Trial of Fabianus Tibo, Dominggus da Silva, and Marinus Riwu Dave McRae The Dirty Work of Empire: Modern Policing and Public Order in Surabaya, 19111919 Marieke Bloembergen Reviews: Kwee Hui Kian, The Political Economy of Javas Northeast Coast, c. 17401800: Elite Synergy Robert Van Niel, Javas Northeast Coast 17401840: A Study in Colonial Encroachment and Dominance Mary Somers Heidhues Angus McIntyre, The Indonesian Presidency: The Shift from Personal toward Constitutional Rule Janet Steele, Wars Within: The Story of Tempo, an Independent Magazine in Soehartos Indonesia Dirk Tomsa Matthew N. Davies, Indonesias War over Aceh, Last Stand on Meccas Porch Leena Avonius Djenar Maesa Ayu, They Say Im a Monkey (translated by Michael Nieto Garcia) Ramon Guillermo

1 5 11 17 41 79 119

151

157

165 169

Table of Contents

Antonie C. A. Dake, The Sukarno File, 19651967: Chronology of a Defeat Damien Kingsbury Edward Aspinall, Opposing Suharto: Compromise, Resistance, and Regime Change in Indonesia R. William Liddle Paul van der Velde, A Lifelong Passion P. J. Veth (18141895) and the Dutch East Indies Henk Maier Matthew Isaac Cohen, Komedie Stamboel: Popular Theater in Colonial Indonesia, 18911903 Jan Mrzek In Memoriam, Clifford Geertz (19262006): An Appreciation Shelly Errington Contributors

171 175

181

185

189 200

AN INTRODUCTION TO TWO STORIES BY LINDA CHRISTANTY:

THE FLYING HORSE OF MARIA PINTO AND THE FOURTH GRAVE Doreen Lee

These two stories by Linda Christanty, appearing in translation, bookend her award-winning volume The Flying Horse of Maria Pinto (2004). There are twelve stories in this collection, all of them short, all of them written in a voice that I would not identify particularly as that of a woman writer, a designation for the writers of women-centered narratives that has become fashionable in Indonesian literary circles. Linda is young, female, educated, and a respected writer often invited to participate in literary events abroad. It might seem plausible for Linda to be grouped with her contemporaries, other famous female authors who fall under the glamorous and slightly derided category of writers who create stories and novels known collectively as sastra wangi (fragrant literature). Instead her work merges thematic newness (a historical magical-realism) with her journalistic sensibilities, continuing the Indonesian tradition of cerpen (cerita pendek/short stories) that appear in newspapers and literary magazines. In recent years, young female authors have gained notoriety as the writers of sastra wangi, the fragrant tales of sex and complicated desire.1 This new sastra wangi that created such interest among Indonesian writers and critics beginning in the late 1990s said things that were not written about in politethat is to say, intellectual society: womens sexuality, unlicensed desire and intimacy, infidelity. Its literary
1 The most famous examples would be Ayu Utami and Djenar Maesa Ayu, whose works are available in English.

Indonesia 83 (April 2007)

Doreen Lee

merits were mixed up with the power to shock. One of the central features that critics were keen to praise or denounce was the explicit sexual content of the works, which, depending on which camp one was in, either broke with patriarchal norms in Indonesian society in powerful ways or was itself proof of the influence of the decadent West upon Indonesian culture.2 Some critics went so far as to call these representations un-Indonesian. 3 The way that the personal has become political, through the routes opened up by sastra wangi, reflect the coming of age of a particular category of Indonesian womanhood: the urbane, educated, middle-class woman, who has places to go, who changes and is changed by her own choices. In short, these are texts that move with the rhythms of the global. Even if the work evokes Indonesian mythology or complicates the cultural differences between East and West, the literary effects of sastra wangi have become inseparable from the extra-literary personae that belong to the writers of these works. The stamp of their origins is recognizable. The want that drives these stories expresses an unassailable fact: I want something. The I that wants cannot be denied. Readers in Indonesia might prefer the shock of women writers exploring the literary and cultural bounds of sexuality to signify a social and structural change in womens relationship to writing, representation, and the public, to the gentler tempo of Lindas words. Linda is, after all, only writing about that ubiquitous national obsession: politics. Politics is unfashionable now for having become so fashionable in the wake of Reformasi. In contrast, sastra wangi, and the urbane chicklit that is its younger step-sibling, seem to show far more possibilities for individual change through the mobile professions and relationships the characters have, with appealing gadgets and locations built in.4 If The Flying Horse of Maria Pinto falls a bit short of such cosmopolitan visions, it offers moments such as this: The train pierced into the interior, crossing seas, salt fields, teak forests, plantations, rice-fields, and settlements. The beacons of light flashed and drowned in the field of the windowpane. Another certainty came, turning its sharp pains into the pit of the stomach. (The Flying Horse of Maria Pinto) And again the quiet left by the disappearance of a political activist: Paulas room lay vacant for years. Our houseguests hardly ever spend the night. And if they did, they preferred to unroll a mattress or a straw mat on the floor of the living room. Once a year, when Paula came home for her school holidays, the room would have an inhabitant once again. Paulas room was painstakingly cleaned every single day by my wife, as if she still lived with us. Clean sheets remain on the bed. Books on the shelves neatly ordered. Not one of Paulas dolls has left the toy rack. The scent of liquid floor cleaner always lingered.
2 See Soe Tjen Marchings essay Descriptions of Female Sexuality in Ayu Utamis Saman, in Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 38,1 (February 2007), for a synopsis of the contemporary debate over sastra wangi. It is telling that critics and writers were not split by the political considerations of rightist and leftist politics that have defined much of Indonesian cultural production. Rather, the masters and grandes dames of opposing political factions were united in condemning the pornographic content of the women writers fiction designated as sastra wangi. 3 Marching, Descriptions of Female Sexuality, pp. 13435. 4 Chicklit is a new phenomenon in Indonesia. Fictional works in this category feature the cosmopolitan trends of youth culture in Jakarta, or, if the plot spans different cities, that great new medium, the Internet, and text messaging lingo.

Introduction to Two Stories by Linda Christanty

I saw that the window was already open. The fresh air flowed indoors. I walked to the window, looked out at the backyard. Three graves. I was planning to add another, but didnt have the heart to reveal my intention to Elia. (The Fourth Grave) Before the fall of the New Order, violence in literature existed in the realm of metaphor and surrealist imaginings; authors were inclined to take a Kafka-esque flight away from the dangers of social realism.5 Contemporary writers of fiction and nonfiction are increasingly specific in exposing how instrumental violence is to politics. But how and where do these nodes of politics and violence appear? Linda Christanty reflects upon this question by building the effects of the political into the landscape of daily life. What the narrative voice does is create an aura of intimacy without the voyeurism of shock. Tragedies might have happened in the past, and will happen again in the future, but the narrative in her stories is anchored by meditative descriptions of the everyday. Lindas work does not belong to sastra wangi, for these reasons. The loveliness of the language can seem conventional compared to the stylistic interventions of sastra wangi narratives; her stories are not character driven, there are no assertive Is that change the world. Rather, change comes in small increments, and even in dramatic moments of war and resistance, the characters turn their heads away. They look back and reflect in old age, years later, to tell another story of how politics has entered the home, defined family relations, and infected both old age and youth in frustrating ways. The characters are not the main point of the storyline; rather, their conflicted selves are the results of breakages within the everyday structures of family, language, and nation. These breaks create the conditions for other dimensions of longing, for the desire for human contact, and for secrets not to be. Lindas stories have the air of a confessional, because her narrators are unable to reconcile who they are, and who they appear to be. In The Flying Horse of Maria Pinto, the title story that begins the volume, the soldier Yosef Legiman desires Maria Pinto, the rebel commander of the enemy troops. He is ordered by his superiors to keep her alive in order to keep the war alive. This desire for the enemy other follows him, in the form of Maria Pinto atop her flying steed, even when his target has turned inwards against itself. The soldier no longer shoots at the enemy in the border zones, but has been dispatched to shoot terrorist students operating within the nation. When he kills a young woman, a fellow citizen designated as an internal enemy, he feels at one with Maria Pinto. What a statement about the direction that the bullets take! The language itself creates visual effects, invites an atmospheric rush when the trains race by or when women glide by, as only spectral presences can. Students, revolutionaries, political activists, missing fathers, informants, the broken families of
One could say Putu Wijayas work in the 1980s was at times more realist than surrealist, in particular his allegorical depictions of New Order violence in Nyali. Yet social realism continued to be reviled for its close association with Lekra, the left-wing cultural institute of the 1960s. According to the government censors logic explaining why Pramoedyas works were banned in the 1980s and 1990s, historical novels were dangerous because they had the potential to confuse people with an incorrect version of the way things were. Communist ideas might flow through these realist representations. See Henk Maier, We are Playing Relatives: A Survey of Malay Writing (Leiden: KITLV, 2004); and also Keith Foulcher, Indonesian Literature 1950-1965: The Left Response (paper for the Asian Studies Association of Australia Fifth National Conference, Adelaide University, May 1319, 1984).
5

Doreen Lee

1965, all those who might have felt themselves misfits because they harbored a secret appear and disappear in these stories. For much of the New Order, an individuals secrets had the potential to cause harm to others. Lindas characters keep secrets naturally, even if they do not know why or what for. The secret is a counterpoint to the hearsay that circulates as an alternative medium for information. In these stories, people say, or people believe things, and then the narrator repeats them to the listener. That the things said are fantastical is a moot point. It appears that the stories told by others have authority beyond mere rumor. The stories other people tell, stories that the narrator then repeats to the reader, have the effect of truth because this was the way information traveled through New Order times; as the uncorroborated story of a distant person without direct relation to oneself. Yet people are connected through these stories by their shared fear that the reports could be true. After all, they themselves are hiding damaging information, in the form of a secret. Linda Christanty has managed to convey the sense of the public constituted through these hushed repetitions; in these and other stories in the volume, I heard that or They say that open many a sentence. As a student in the 1990s, Linda Christanty was also an activist. That might be the crucial clue that explains why her stories describe the social conditions of grief, loss, and the ambivalence of human relations so well. In the order of the stories, which begins with The Flying Horse of Maria Pinto and ends with The Fourth Grave, the restless agitation that animates the characters has been put to rest. And this act, of creating a literary grave for certain important and still unexplained gaps in the historical record,6 puts to rest not the political violence of the past, but the anxieties that drove people to rumor and silence. The grave allows questions to be asked of the past, beginning with Why things happened, not only where and how. I met the author in early 2004, when I was doing my fieldwork in Jakarta. Then, as she is now, Linda was working as a journalist for Pantau magazine, an erudite and unusual publication, notable for the topics it covered. Lindas activist past helped me tremendously in establishing my research contacts, but she herself was modest about her own work. Until I saw Linda ascend the stage to accept the Khatulistiwa literary award for best fiction writer of the year, I had not paid much attention to contemporary Indonesian literature. And it was not until I read these stories that the possible trajectory Indonesian politics might be taking appeared to me. Some things put to rest. Others awakened. Consumed by our fetish for the stirrings of newness, we might forget that this rest, accorded by the quiet moments embedded in the writers language, does far more for our political imagination than the dissonance of the new.
6 Among the events that are referred to in the twelve stories are the Indonesian Revolution of 1945, the aftermath of the killings and imprisonments of suspected Communists in 196566, the occupation and resistance in East Timor, and the student activist disappearances of the 1990s.

KUDA TERBANG MARIA PINTO (THE FLYING HORSE OF MARIA PINTO)

Linda Christanty, translated by Doreen Lee

Approaching dusk, Yosef Legiman saw Maria Pinto cross the seas on a flying horse. The winds suddenly rose up and whipped and hissed. The air turned into strange mantras in a tongue spoken only by witches; fragrant, drugging everything that moved and had a skull. He crouched, gazed upwards, hugged the long-nosed automatic weapon close, and remembered his commanders words, Let her pass, dont shoot. Maria Pintos soft gown scattered the stench of warfare with its blindingly white folds of cloth. Two guards were present for this routine journey, guarding their quarry from the roof of the train. Yosef let the procession in the sky go by. His knees were weak. He sat on the ground. The winds calmed. The tall and luxuriant grasses, the thorn bushes covering the baked earth, the steep stone cliffs in the distance all came back to crowd his vision along with his thoughts of the girl. The first time Yosef heard Marias story was from a friend who had been sent ahead of him to the island, Thats why we havent won, because those rebels have a protector. A girl to boot. Huh! Really pisses me off. In the beginning Maria Pinto had been an ordinary girl, had even enrolled in the literature department of a prestigious university in Jakarta before dropping out after

Indonesia 83 (April 2007)

Linda Christanty

three semesters, returning to the land of oranges and coffee.1 The inhabitants of said country had been condemned to die, disappear, commit suicide, become insane, or enter the forest to be at one with the wild hogs and deer. A crisis had half swallowed her homeland when Maria was recalled home by the chieftains to fulfill her destiny. The shamans of her tribe anointed Maria the supreme commander,2 arming her with the weapons of ancient sorcery and a flying horse, for she was the chosen one revealed by the sacred whispers of the ancestors. Ever since then, Maria Pinto was the leader of a dangerous and amorphous troop, a force that could surround the enemy in every zone, shrink the guts of those who believed in objective facts; those people who spat on fairytales and dreams. When the fog came, rolling over the battlefield, our troops perished, dying one by one from gunshot wounds. One day, the fog came again, rolling overhead above us, and I shot it without stopping. When the fog vanished, I witnessed seven dead on the ground. This country is really something, said his friend, smiling bitterly.

Now Yosef was caged in a train that rolled into the night, failing to shutter his eyes. His drowsiness had disappeared, replaced by a feeling of anger. The train seemed to be floating in the dark. The dots of light emitted by the villages looked like orderly rows of fireflies in the window. Yet, the rest of the landscape was a dense darkness. Next to him sat a young girl engrossed in a Stephen King novelor so said the name on the book coverand once in a while she smiled or made a sound of surprise at Yosefs tales.
But, I never shot Maria Pinto and her flying horse, never, she is so powerful, itd be pointless, Yosef said slowly, almost in a murmur. The young woman was curious for a moment, and then went back to studying the pages of her book. In the beginning she had not been keen to listen to the rambling of the whiny soldier next to her. It was weird watching this sharpshooter believe in things that were so far from the laws of reality and sound judgment. But when she stared at the soldiers face, she was startled. Perhaps this was the face of a person who lived and died by war. His face resembled a childs rag dolleven though torn and disfigured, it was too beloved to be thrown in the trash; a face full of the scars of previous stitches. He had a pair of melancholy eyes adorned with slash marks near the brow, looking like the embroidery of a careless beginner attempting a climbing-vine pattern. This morning my mother cried again. This was my last leave before going back on duty. My mother is traumatized. Poor mother. But, this is my choice, Yosef explained, staring straight ahead.

1 Here, the land of oranges and coffee refers to East Timor, where its dry climate was best known for producing those two crops. The description in the rest of the passage also supports this theorya country torn in half, under siege, with its population dying. 2 The Indonesian word is panglima, a decidedly military term that emphasizes the ongoing war between Maria Pintos people and the soldiers on the other side.

The Flying Horse of Maria Pinto

Six months ago his brother had died of torture at the hands of the rebels. His brothers corpse had been sent back without a heart, intestines, or his genitals, locked tightly into a mahogany-wood coffin. Now Yosef was the only remaining son in the family. His coffin was draped with a huge flag, a really enormous one! A note of pride mixed with grief. The young woman shivered. How desolate was a body with a gaping cavity! We are a family of farmers, poor. How nice for you to go to university, and to have money to travel. Its hard enough for us just to eat. Becoming soldiers made us feel respected. The other villagers were more careful with us. This time he looked into the face of his neighbor, who had burrowed back into her book. He felt relieved to be able to share his pathetic and cowardly stories with the young woman. Just like in those nauseating clichs spawned by romance novels, he felt calm by her side, this stranger he had just met on the road. Was this a sign that he was preparing himself to stare death in the face, that he then had to make a confession of his sins, and to feel everything strongly? Ah, the whispers of death had not yet come in full. The train pierced into the interior, crossing seas, salt fields, teak forests, plantations, rice fields, and settlements. The beacons of light flashed and drowned in the field of the windowpane. Another certainty came, turning its sharp pains into the pit of the stomach. I really loved my lover. But this afternoon, I was brought down. Her family did not agree to our relationship. Her brothers threatened to cause an accident if we went ahead. One of her uncles is very close to those in power. Maybe my wages are too small and her family is worried by my lifestyle. Maybe he went on, softly. He produced a brownie from a lunchbox and began to chew slowly. The aisle of the train car was empty. Tired bodies slept in faded blue cotton blankets. A soft snore erupted in intervals from a nearby row, the playful joke a grandfather was playing with his grandchild. Yes, maybe my assignment should be put on hold. Anyway, my problems are making me unfocused and lazy. Someone who has personal problems usually doesnt get called to the front, they could get killed because of a stupid mishap. Suddenly a gust of wind hurtled through the corridor. He was intimate with the wind, absorbing its rustling sounds that were sharp or lilting, reading the signs that had been sent. Go on, come and feel this wind, he whispered, touching the shoulder of the young woman. This isnt wind, its cold air from the air-conditioning, she countered. If we were in the wrong position, the enemy would catch our scent. Our presence would easily be detected. He began to fret. He was always on the look out. Only once had he slipped, and the consequences had been humiliating.

Linda Christanty

One night Yosef was separated from his platoon after a crossfire skirmish with an enemy group. He walked alone, following the river by starlight, looking for the nearest village. No village appeared, but only an isolated little hut at the edge of the forest. Yosef tried to eavesdrop on the conversation that was perhaps going on between the residents of the hut. His nerves and his patience battled it out. The sound of the crickets wings grew, vibrating into the stillness. Yosef dared himself to push the door open with his rifles nose, while preparing to pull the trigger in case of danger. The hut was pitch-black. He lit a match. The view that materialized made his heart squeak. A girl was lying on the floor of the hut, hugging a wooden winged horse, a childs toy. His throat felt strangled. He came closer, angling his rifle at the face of the sleeping girl. Drops of cold sweat began to rise to the pores of his tired body. The lighting of the match had made Maria Pinto stir, looking at him gently and silently. The great commander and the soldier were alone, face-to-face. Maria Pinto rose slowly, moving her hand into the air and thousands of fireflies clustered to light up the hut, dancing and flitting about. Maria Pinto removed her white fairy-gown. Her naked body seemed to be made of wax, like the statues of the saints, changing into a transparent film. He could see the heart, intestines, lungs, and skull bones of the girl quite clearly. The beautiful and delicate head grew enlarged, with bulging pupils and a wrinkled mien. He had a fleeting thought about a film he had watched in the barracks, about alien creatures from outer space. The next day, when the dew was still glimmering on the stalks of the field grass, he was lying on his face at the door of the nearest security post. His friends ran to him, looking at him strangely. He scrambled up to inspect the earth around him, without saying a word. Confused and slightly spooked, his friends thought he had amnesia. Yosef had been missing for days. No footprints from my boots on this soft earth, he thought. Perhaps the supreme commander had brought him on her wooden flying horse after seeing this fool soldier faint in front of her? Why hadnt Maria Pinto killed him? Why had he been so foolish and not stuck his rifle into that girls temple? He began to laugh, louder and louder. Wooden horse, wooden horse, wooden horse, wooden horse Yosef chanted those words like a mantra. His skinny stomach was hit by a great wave, roiled by an uncontrollable hilarity. The doctor said that he was deeply depressed, and pressed the troop commander to send him to a peace zone for rest. But it was impossible to fund a truly peaceful zone in a war. He was immediately sent home. His recovery was quick, but he was reassigned to another division. This is my secret, only between us, Yosef explained, ending his story. The young woman let out a great sigh. A complicated and tragic love triangle, how sad, she thought. This soldier was caught between his lover and a ghost-general. Both tales had sad endings.3
3

Sad ending in English in the original.

The Flying Horse of Maria Pinto

The train was about to end its journey. The air cooled. People began to busy themselves with straightening their hair, blouse, or wrinkled shirt, and resuming their everyday talk. Two male stewards collected the passengers blankets in a big black sack, dragging it the length of the corridor. Would you like to accompany me tonight? Yosef looked straight at the girl. I want to finish this novel. I want to take a walk and clear my head. I hope you have a good time. They parted, becoming strangers once more.

sunny afternoon, Yosef Legiman climbed the stairs of a skyscraper in the heart of the city, carrying a bag with a gun. He had been watching someone nearly a full month. He hid on the top floor, surveying his surroundings with an infrared mask, and then let the wind attack his body. He felt the flows and gusts of the wind, let the wings of the wind sweep his skin, then determined the right spot to aim from. The slightest mistake in reading the wind could be fatal. Enemies could trace his tracks from his body odor, or from the scent of blood carried by the air particles. However, life and death were the verses that followed each other in pantun,4 the couplet and content of a poem. He was ready to face them both. The light blue sky looked quiet. Yosef began to fasten the silencer onto his weapon. The sun shone gently. He went back to watching his target. The window drapes on the seventh floor of a nearby building were thrown wide open. In it someone was pacing, talking to two friends. The red dot on his lens followed the movement. His pupils focused. He imagined himself as an eagle. Now his target stood with its back to the window. He slowly drew back the trigger, toward the red dot in the middle of the circle, striking. The window glass shattered in the building across. Someone fell lifeless to the floor. He had carried out his task. Now he switched on a cellular phone and reported it to his commander. The first time Yosef had seen the young womans photograph, he brooded for a long time: the leader of the terrorists. He was reminded of the girl he met on the train a month ago. It has to be her, Yosef thought. Yes, this world is cruel to soldiers. He had killed that girl, vanishing the one life who had kept his secrets. The wind suddenly blew hard through the window. His body shivered. He saw Maria Pinto crossing the seas with her wooden horse. Why did that girl always follow him no matter where he was? Maria Pinto smiled, holding out her soft white hand. As if spellbound, Yosef reached toward the waiting fingers of the girl. He felt himself flying between the clouds, floating, looking down at the world fading beneath him.
4 A traditional Malay poem with rhyming couplets, where poets compete to answer each other in rounds of pantun.

One

MAKAM KEEMPAT (THE FOURTH GRAVE)

Linda Christanty, translated by Doreen Lee

Paula came when the lights in the room had already gone out. Her body shone a white light. Soft. Glowing. I put down my cigar box on the table and slowly rose from my lazy chair to greet her. Yet, she turned her back, glided across the floor, then vanished in the middle of the corridor that led to the kitchen. And suddenly the slippery floor under my feet became covered with glue. I was trapped on its surface, like a mouse caught in a baited trap. I witnessed Paula beam rays of light. My hands that had been so ready to embrace her were arrested in the air, dangling awkwardly. She left the deserted room without leaving a trace of her scent. She had left me. Her appearance and disappearance were as mysterious as magic from a witchs wand, rising from nothing and vanishing into nothingness. We had been left to wait for ten seasons. Before I had gotten used to the way Paula came and left, I would always cry out her name in the hope that she would turn around and meet my eyes. Not once did she heed my call. It was as if her ears had been plugged up with forged steel. Her body skimmed the surface straight ahead, before dissipating into the air. Still, I hoped. Paula always appeared only when the last remaining illumination to the room came from the rays of my reading lamp, when the gradations of light blended into the darkness and disappeared into the corners of the dark corridor. I said her name aloud, a tumult of feelings present in my voice; touched, happy, worried, desperate. However, this cracked voice was only answered by its own echo, followed by the deep sounds of my breathing, heavy, weary. After this, the night pushed me into a resolution: I had to sleep and leave my lazy chair that lay in sight of
Indonesia 83 (April 2007)

12

Linda Christanty

the corridor before my wife came to fetch me to bed. Unfortunately, I am not a disciplined man, even though I know keeping watch all night would trigger my asthma. I preferred to have my wife come for me, even though I had to wait deliberately. She would cajole me in whispers, and then guide me to our room. I never paid attention to her words, but her arrival would signal me to leave my spot. You would see a pair of wrecked human beings walking with tottering steps, resembling zombies. In front of me, our bedroom door was swung wide open. The light from the lamps shone. The fragrance of jasmine drifted into my nostrils. (My wife always anointed the four corners of our room with the buds of jasmine that she had plucked from the garden. This had been her habit since the early days of our marriage.) I used to get angry at the sight of this wide open doorway. The mosquitoes would always swarm in, and Elia, my wife, would shut the door in haste. I would then spend the night in discomfort, scratching away at the length of my itching body. On top of that, I couldnt bear slathering my skin with insect-repellent creams. The smell always made me nauseous. I also disliked the smell of insecticides, which made my throat dry and caused me to be short of breath. Elia would curse herself all night, and I would alternate it with its alright, let it be over and over again, all the while scratching at myself with the clawing motions of a flea-infested ape. Now, Ive given in. Yes, yes, even mosquitoes need nutrition. Elia is calmer now. After my body had settled on the mattress, Elia shut off the lights. She slept with her back facing me. I slept with my back toward her. There was a crack between our bodies, a silent path without light or the sounds of the bullfrogs calling. In a little while, I would hear the rhythmic sounds of Elias sleeping, while I would be wide awake, my eyes open and stabbing the darkness like daggers. I allowed the mosquitoes to land on my cheek, or bite my fingers and toes. The buzz of those blood-sucking creatures kept me company. I wanted a cigar, but Elia hated the smell of tobacco in the room.

The suns rays filtered in through the pockets of air on top of the doors and windows, brightening the dark room. I got up hastily and washed my face with cold water from an aluminum basin. Elia was no longer in the bedroom. Her blankets were neatly folded. She always left for the market early, when the fish and shellfish were at their freshest. Elia didnt like fish that had already been packed in ice. The flesh would become tasteless. Elia was good at cooking seafood. For a long while now, we havent consumed any four-legged animal meat, nor have we drunk alcohol of late. Old people like us have to know restraint. If you want to live a long life, my mother used to warn me, dont eat like a pig.
I put down my washcloth next to the basin, and walked to the door. I would soon be inspecting our tobacco shop. This was my daily routine: to open and close up shop. Actually, I should have opened the store at 7:00 am. Now it was already 7:30. I had slept as contentedly as a buffalo after much difficulty shutting my eyes. I stepped into that corridor. Cold. Right in the middle of this same corridor Paula had disappeared last night. The door opening into the store was in the left wall. I turned the brass doorknob. The air currents in the room felt warm.

The Fourth Grave

13

The glass jars filled with various assortments of tobacco were lined up on wooden racks. Some are blends. Some are pure tobacco. Their flavors are diverse. In this village, people my age take pleasure in inhaling from cigarettes hand-rolled from loose-leaf tobacco in marning paper. For me, a factory cigarette just doesnt have the full flavor. I also sell quality cigars that range from mid-priced ones to highly expensive ones. There arent as many buyers for those cigars as for the loose tobacco, but still, there remain some. This store has supported my family throughout, including paying for Paulas college education in Java. I wanted her to be an important businesswoman, not a small shop owner like me. I let her gain all the knowledge there was, as high as the sky. Let the heron soar, said my mother. And yet, the land and water that you drink has a way of determining your path. Paula chose her own way. But why, why that one? Elia blamed me once. She said, the kungfu stories of Kho Ping Hoo that I used to read to our daughter, with their tales of superhuman warriors, had left their indelible mark on an impressionable child, doomed to mark her until adulthood. Was it so? I heard the screech of the side door. Footsteps. A little cough. Elia had returned. I didnt want her to see me stuck here. I was also feeling too lazy to open up the store. I decided to look into Paulas room. Perhaps, my daughter was already sitting there, reading or writing. One night, she surprised us. We heard sounds coming from upstairs. Together we climbed the stairs and silently pressed our ears to the door. The sounds of drawers being opened, and papers shuffled, and then shredded. Was it my mother cleaning up the place? As far as I knew, mother always came without making a sound. No, no, its not mother, I whispered. Elia agreed. Mother always comes silently, she said. We steeled ourselves to knock on the door. Three times. Three knocks to start with. Not much later, the tiny frame of my daughter appeared. My wife began to cry. I was floored. Paula said she had come home without warning on purpose, entering through the unlocked side door. (My wife is sometimes careless. No one has ever lost anything in this small village, she insists.) Why did you come home so quietly, without asking to be picked up? Where did you get the fare home from? You already came home once last month. I felt uneasy. Paula looked at me and her mother, back and forth. Im being pursued by people, she said slowly. I replied with a joke: being chased by your boyfriend? Paulas face tensed up. If there is anyone who shows up asking about me, tell them you dont know me, she said tersely. What do you mean, I dont know you? Youre my daughter, our only child. I wont say anything about you either if anything happens, she said, not caring. My wife was instantly hit by a bad feeling. What have you done, child? Elias lips were trembling. That night, Paula refused to say a word. She only shook her head or nodded. Early in the morning she left the house, boarding the first ship. My wife cried all day long. I had hoped that my daughter would speak. But, Elia forbade me to push Paula. Do not force her. She is our only daughter. Alright. I didnt want to be called a dictator either. Emperors usually are. Im no emperor, I said. Elia protested again. Dont you bring up those kungfu stories again. Alright, fine. I chose to be silent.

Paulas room is upstairs, where it faces the setting sun. From the edge of this window, my adolescent daughter would stare out into the backyard, where there were

14

Linda Christanty

three graves. The oldest grave is my fathers. Unlike other graves, this one had no body lying there. My father was lost at sea when his ship overturned in the Arafura Sea. My mother then asked someone to dig a grave, where she buried all of fathers favorite things, following Chinese tradition. It is unclear what my father was searching for on that last doomed voyage. My mother said, your father wished to trade. However, one of my cousins broke the secret. Your father had another wife and child on another island, he said. Traders are the same as sailors, marking their arrival on the bodies of women, whispered this cousin. Father and Mothers graves are flanked by Yan Yans, my dog who died of old age. Little Paula used to leave flowers on top of all three graves. One day, she ran into the house and hugged her mother tightly. Whats the matter child? Paula refused to speak, even though Elia tried to persuade her over and over again. During the night, she developed a high fever. My wife and I panicked. The doctor only prescribed a feverreducer. This daughter of yours cannot tolerate the change in weather, said the doctor. At that time, we were between monsoons. The next day, Paulas body temperature returned to normal. After a few days, Paula told us that she had seen a woman wearing a maroon cheongsam appear out of her grandmothers grave and fly up into the sky. I believed it to be my mother, making herself known to her granddaughter. Several times after, Paula saw a beautiful woman wearing a cheongsam appear. She would place herself in the corridor leading into the kitchen, in the dining room, or in the backyard. She would glide across the floor, sit in a chair, or perch in the branches of the ylang-ylang tree. Paula became used to my mothers presence, and began to miss her grandmother all the time. My wife and I often heard Paula conversing with someone. When we would then see her alone, we understood. Our daughter is talking to her grandmother. The sounds of Paulas laughter would sometimes reach my ears, even though she wasnt there. I believed my mother was guarding her granddaughter all the way across the sea. The thought calmed my heart. Paulas room lay vacant for years. Our houseguests hardly ever spend the night. And if they did, they preferred to unroll a mattress or a straw mat on the floor of the living room. Once a year, when Paula came home for her school holidays, the room would have an inhabitant once again. Paulas room was painstakingly cleaned every single day by my wife, as if she still lived with us. Clean sheets remain on the bed. Books on the shelves neatly ordered. Not one of Paulas dolls have left the toy rack. The scent of liquid floor cleaner always lingered.

I saw that the window was already open. The fresh air flowed indoors. I walked to the window, looked out at the backyard. Three graves. I was planning to add another, but didnt have the heart to reveal my intention to Elia.
That grave has to be dug so that we will stop waiting for her return. Elia and I are forever waiting for Paula. She meets me in the quiet of the night, but never speaks. She isnt really there. In our last phone conversation, Paula said that she would be home three days before Christmas. My wife stitched a simple dress for her. Ever since she was a child,

The Fourth Grave

15

Paula disliked lacy dresses. They only make my body itch, Papa, she grumbled. I smiled at the memory of our daughters behavior. Now she was already grown up. Did she have a boyfriend? Once she shocked me with a frightening statement. Dont expect me to get married Papa. Marriage is only for the rich. Huh? Papa and Mama got married with only the clothes on our back, Paula. She was silent for a moment, and then tapped my sleeve. Listen Papa, she whispered, my friends and I are trying so that everyone can live in prosperity and safety. When then happens, Ill get married. I laughed. Youre not a magician, child. She burst into laughter. But my daughter never came home on the third, nor the second, or the day before Christmas, and not even in the years following that. She didnt keep her promise to her parents. I called her the first night she was late. She wasnt at her dormitory. She moved out a long time ago, said the woman who lived across. How long ago? Almost a year. Ooh I followed her tracks to Java, looking for her on campus. She dropped out a long time ago sir, said a lecturer in a reluctant tone. Where are you my child? Elia issued an edict. I was not allowed home before our daughter had been found. I pored over the newspaper columns on crime. I listened to the news on television. I visited the morgues of each and every hospital. Our daughter was nowhere. I came back after three months of tracing the steps of our daughter. In the end, Elia believed that Paula had really disappeared. Fortunately, she was devout, accepting the loss of our daughter as Gods will. Two years later, someone who claimed to be Paulas close friend called me and reported her missing. We already know! I barked. From that same person, I received some new information. Our daughter had organized people to resist the despotic emperor. I repeated this to my wife. She screamed and clawed at me. Youre the one who incited her to be a fighter! My wife came to in the midst of this confusion. We have to find her, Elia said, with overflowing eyes. Where can we look? Anywhere, as long as its still on this earth. Alright. A journal bearing the name of my daughter indicated that she might be locked up in a fortress.

A fortress. I remember the story of a princess with long hair, locked up in a tower. Little Paula didnt like that story very much, and always told me to read her another fairytale. I dont know how it began, but I read her bits and pieces of Kho Ping Hoos works. Paula was shaken. Those clear childs eyes of hers never blinked. She fell in love with the characters, those champion warriors. She imagined herself as a champion with supernatural powers, carrying a blade, elegant, beautiful, hard of heart, rescuing others.
Now she was trapped in a tower. The divine and powerful champion trapped in a fortress. She should have been able to escape. Should have. I went to the place that was mentioned in the journal, accompanied by Elia. We gazed at hills, bamboo reeds, the tangled undergrowth. Where had they locked up my

16

Linda Christanty

daughter? There was no fortress. Another piece of information I received: the fortress was underground. If I were an earthworm, maybe I would know where it lay. People helped us look for a fortress. They began to dig from noon until night. Yet there was no fortress. Paula had really disappeared.

That afternoon I approached dinnertime with an odd feeling. Elia was roasting shark meat. I didnt want to eat shark meat. What if our daughter had been eaten by a shark? Some people said Paula had been dumped into the sea and eaten by sharks. Elia served the roasted shark meat at the dining table, but I only touched the plain vegetables. Tears welled up in my eyes. What is it, Elia asked. I sobbed even harder. Whats the matter, she asked in a gentler voice. Our daughters in this shark, I whispered, choked with sobs. Immediately she choked, leapt from her chair, and began weeping at the edge of the washtub. Not long after, she returned, lifted the plate of fish from the table, and threw its contents into the dustbin.
Later in the evening, I decided to talk to my wife about Paula. I didnt want to wait for our daughter every night. I wanted Paula to be at peace. I wanted us to live peacefully, without her. Let her go, let her be with my mother, I said. My wife nodded slowly.

A fresh grave was just dug next to my mothers. Rest, my child. Even champions
need rest. Suddenly the boughs of the ylang-ylang rustled. Flowers fell. I felt my wifes cold hand in my grasp. Mother has received our child, she whispered, relieved. This morning we are well-groomed. I have on my best suit of clothes, and shined leather shoes. I look at the aging and shrinking Elia in her black dress. So black, like the crows that cry and swoop in my mind. My tears fall. Elia looks at me. She wishes to say something, but fails. In a little while, we will go to church, and pray. This is the fifth Christmas without Paula.

MAKAM KEEMPAT (THE FOURTH GRAVE)

Linda Christanty, translated by Doreen Lee

Paula came when the lights in the room had already gone out. Her body shone a white light. Soft. Glowing. I put down my cigar box on the table and slowly rose from my lazy chair to greet her. Yet, she turned her back, glided across the floor, then vanished in the middle of the corridor that led to the kitchen. And suddenly the slippery floor under my feet became covered with glue. I was trapped on its surface, like a mouse caught in a baited trap. I witnessed Paula beam rays of light. My hands that had been so ready to embrace her were arrested in the air, dangling awkwardly. She left the deserted room without leaving a trace of her scent. She had left me. Her appearance and disappearance were as mysterious as magic from a witchs wand, rising from nothing and vanishing into nothingness. We had been left to wait for ten seasons. Before I had gotten used to the way Paula came and left, I would always cry out her name in the hope that she would turn around and meet my eyes. Not once did she heed my call. It was as if her ears had been plugged up with forged steel. Her body skimmed the surface straight ahead, before dissipating into the air. Still, I hoped. Paula always appeared only when the last remaining illumination to the room came from the rays of my reading lamp, when the gradations of light blended into the darkness and disappeared into the corners of the dark corridor. I said her name aloud, a tumult of feelings present in my voice; touched, happy, worried, desperate. However, this cracked voice was only answered by its own echo, followed by the deep sounds of my breathing, heavy, weary. After this, the night pushed me into a resolution: I had to sleep and leave my lazy chair that lay in sight of
Indonesia 83 (April 2007)

12

Linda Christanty

the corridor before my wife came to fetch me to bed. Unfortunately, I am not a disciplined man, even though I know keeping watch all night would trigger my asthma. I preferred to have my wife come for me, even though I had to wait deliberately. She would cajole me in whispers, and then guide me to our room. I never paid attention to her words, but her arrival would signal me to leave my spot. You would see a pair of wrecked human beings walking with tottering steps, resembling zombies. In front of me, our bedroom door was swung wide open. The light from the lamps shone. The fragrance of jasmine drifted into my nostrils. (My wife always anointed the four corners of our room with the buds of jasmine that she had plucked from the garden. This had been her habit since the early days of our marriage.) I used to get angry at the sight of this wide open doorway. The mosquitoes would always swarm in, and Elia, my wife, would shut the door in haste. I would then spend the night in discomfort, scratching away at the length of my itching body. On top of that, I couldnt bear slathering my skin with insect-repellent creams. The smell always made me nauseous. I also disliked the smell of insecticides, which made my throat dry and caused me to be short of breath. Elia would curse herself all night, and I would alternate it with its alright, let it be over and over again, all the while scratching at myself with the clawing motions of a flea-infested ape. Now, Ive given in. Yes, yes, even mosquitoes need nutrition. Elia is calmer now. After my body had settled on the mattress, Elia shut off the lights. She slept with her back facing me. I slept with my back toward her. There was a crack between our bodies, a silent path without light or the sounds of the bullfrogs calling. In a little while, I would hear the rhythmic sounds of Elias sleeping, while I would be wide awake, my eyes open and stabbing the darkness like daggers. I allowed the mosquitoes to land on my cheek, or bite my fingers and toes. The buzz of those blood-sucking creatures kept me company. I wanted a cigar, but Elia hated the smell of tobacco in the room.

The suns rays filtered in through the pockets of air on top of the doors and windows, brightening the dark room. I got up hastily and washed my face with cold water from an aluminum basin. Elia was no longer in the bedroom. Her blankets were neatly folded. She always left for the market early, when the fish and shellfish were at their freshest. Elia didnt like fish that had already been packed in ice. The flesh would become tasteless. Elia was good at cooking seafood. For a long while now, we havent consumed any four-legged animal meat, nor have we drunk alcohol of late. Old people like us have to know restraint. If you want to live a long life, my mother used to warn me, dont eat like a pig.
I put down my washcloth next to the basin, and walked to the door. I would soon be inspecting our tobacco shop. This was my daily routine: to open and close up shop. Actually, I should have opened the store at 7:00 am. Now it was already 7:30. I had slept as contentedly as a buffalo after much difficulty shutting my eyes. I stepped into that corridor. Cold. Right in the middle of this same corridor Paula had disappeared last night. The door opening into the store was in the left wall. I turned the brass doorknob. The air currents in the room felt warm.

The Fourth Grave

13

The glass jars filled with various assortments of tobacco were lined up on wooden racks. Some are blends. Some are pure tobacco. Their flavors are diverse. In this village, people my age take pleasure in inhaling from cigarettes hand-rolled from loose-leaf tobacco in marning paper. For me, a factory cigarette just doesnt have the full flavor. I also sell quality cigars that range from mid-priced ones to highly expensive ones. There arent as many buyers for those cigars as for the loose tobacco, but still, there remain some. This store has supported my family throughout, including paying for Paulas college education in Java. I wanted her to be an important businesswoman, not a small shop owner like me. I let her gain all the knowledge there was, as high as the sky. Let the heron soar, said my mother. And yet, the land and water that you drink has a way of determining your path. Paula chose her own way. But why, why that one? Elia blamed me once. She said, the kungfu stories of Kho Ping Hoo that I used to read to our daughter, with their tales of superhuman warriors, had left their indelible mark on an impressionable child, doomed to mark her until adulthood. Was it so? I heard the screech of the side door. Footsteps. A little cough. Elia had returned. I didnt want her to see me stuck here. I was also feeling too lazy to open up the store. I decided to look into Paulas room. Perhaps, my daughter was already sitting there, reading or writing. One night, she surprised us. We heard sounds coming from upstairs. Together we climbed the stairs and silently pressed our ears to the door. The sounds of drawers being opened, and papers shuffled, and then shredded. Was it my mother cleaning up the place? As far as I knew, mother always came without making a sound. No, no, its not mother, I whispered. Elia agreed. Mother always comes silently, she said. We steeled ourselves to knock on the door. Three times. Three knocks to start with. Not much later, the tiny frame of my daughter appeared. My wife began to cry. I was floored. Paula said she had come home without warning on purpose, entering through the unlocked side door. (My wife is sometimes careless. No one has ever lost anything in this small village, she insists.) Why did you come home so quietly, without asking to be picked up? Where did you get the fare home from? You already came home once last month. I felt uneasy. Paula looked at me and her mother, back and forth. Im being pursued by people, she said slowly. I replied with a joke: being chased by your boyfriend? Paulas face tensed up. If there is anyone who shows up asking about me, tell them you dont know me, she said tersely. What do you mean, I dont know you? Youre my daughter, our only child. I wont say anything about you either if anything happens, she said, not caring. My wife was instantly hit by a bad feeling. What have you done, child? Elias lips were trembling. That night, Paula refused to say a word. She only shook her head or nodded. Early in the morning she left the house, boarding the first ship. My wife cried all day long. I had hoped that my daughter would speak. But, Elia forbade me to push Paula. Do not force her. She is our only daughter. Alright. I didnt want to be called a dictator either. Emperors usually are. Im no emperor, I said. Elia protested again. Dont you bring up those kungfu stories again. Alright, fine. I chose to be silent.

Paulas room is upstairs, where it faces the setting sun. From the edge of this window, my adolescent daughter would stare out into the backyard, where there were

14

Linda Christanty

three graves. The oldest grave is my fathers. Unlike other graves, this one had no body lying there. My father was lost at sea when his ship overturned in the Arafura Sea. My mother then asked someone to dig a grave, where she buried all of fathers favorite things, following Chinese tradition. It is unclear what my father was searching for on that last doomed voyage. My mother said, your father wished to trade. However, one of my cousins broke the secret. Your father had another wife and child on another island, he said. Traders are the same as sailors, marking their arrival on the bodies of women, whispered this cousin. Father and Mothers graves are flanked by Yan Yans, my dog who died of old age. Little Paula used to leave flowers on top of all three graves. One day, she ran into the house and hugged her mother tightly. Whats the matter child? Paula refused to speak, even though Elia tried to persuade her over and over again. During the night, she developed a high fever. My wife and I panicked. The doctor only prescribed a feverreducer. This daughter of yours cannot tolerate the change in weather, said the doctor. At that time, we were between monsoons. The next day, Paulas body temperature returned to normal. After a few days, Paula told us that she had seen a woman wearing a maroon cheongsam appear out of her grandmothers grave and fly up into the sky. I believed it to be my mother, making herself known to her granddaughter. Several times after, Paula saw a beautiful woman wearing a cheongsam appear. She would place herself in the corridor leading into the kitchen, in the dining room, or in the backyard. She would glide across the floor, sit in a chair, or perch in the branches of the ylang-ylang tree. Paula became used to my mothers presence, and began to miss her grandmother all the time. My wife and I often heard Paula conversing with someone. When we would then see her alone, we understood. Our daughter is talking to her grandmother. The sounds of Paulas laughter would sometimes reach my ears, even though she wasnt there. I believed my mother was guarding her granddaughter all the way across the sea. The thought calmed my heart. Paulas room lay vacant for years. Our houseguests hardly ever spend the night. And if they did, they preferred to unroll a mattress or a straw mat on the floor of the living room. Once a year, when Paula came home for her school holidays, the room would have an inhabitant once again. Paulas room was painstakingly cleaned every single day by my wife, as if she still lived with us. Clean sheets remain on the bed. Books on the shelves neatly ordered. Not one of Paulas dolls have left the toy rack. The scent of liquid floor cleaner always lingered.

I saw that the window was already open. The fresh air flowed indoors. I walked to the window, looked out at the backyard. Three graves. I was planning to add another, but didnt have the heart to reveal my intention to Elia.
That grave has to be dug so that we will stop waiting for her return. Elia and I are forever waiting for Paula. She meets me in the quiet of the night, but never speaks. She isnt really there. In our last phone conversation, Paula said that she would be home three days before Christmas. My wife stitched a simple dress for her. Ever since she was a child,

The Fourth Grave

15

Paula disliked lacy dresses. They only make my body itch, Papa, she grumbled. I smiled at the memory of our daughters behavior. Now she was already grown up. Did she have a boyfriend? Once she shocked me with a frightening statement. Dont expect me to get married Papa. Marriage is only for the rich. Huh? Papa and Mama got married with only the clothes on our back, Paula. She was silent for a moment, and then tapped my sleeve. Listen Papa, she whispered, my friends and I are trying so that everyone can live in prosperity and safety. When then happens, Ill get married. I laughed. Youre not a magician, child. She burst into laughter. But my daughter never came home on the third, nor the second, or the day before Christmas, and not even in the years following that. She didnt keep her promise to her parents. I called her the first night she was late. She wasnt at her dormitory. She moved out a long time ago, said the woman who lived across. How long ago? Almost a year. Ooh I followed her tracks to Java, looking for her on campus. She dropped out a long time ago sir, said a lecturer in a reluctant tone. Where are you my child? Elia issued an edict. I was not allowed home before our daughter had been found. I pored over the newspaper columns on crime. I listened to the news on television. I visited the morgues of each and every hospital. Our daughter was nowhere. I came back after three months of tracing the steps of our daughter. In the end, Elia believed that Paula had really disappeared. Fortunately, she was devout, accepting the loss of our daughter as Gods will. Two years later, someone who claimed to be Paulas close friend called me and reported her missing. We already know! I barked. From that same person, I received some new information. Our daughter had organized people to resist the despotic emperor. I repeated this to my wife. She screamed and clawed at me. Youre the one who incited her to be a fighter! My wife came to in the midst of this confusion. We have to find her, Elia said, with overflowing eyes. Where can we look? Anywhere, as long as its still on this earth. Alright. A journal bearing the name of my daughter indicated that she might be locked up in a fortress.

A fortress. I remember the story of a princess with long hair, locked up in a tower. Little Paula didnt like that story very much, and always told me to read her another fairytale. I dont know how it began, but I read her bits and pieces of Kho Ping Hoos works. Paula was shaken. Those clear childs eyes of hers never blinked. She fell in love with the characters, those champion warriors. She imagined herself as a champion with supernatural powers, carrying a blade, elegant, beautiful, hard of heart, rescuing others.
Now she was trapped in a tower. The divine and powerful champion trapped in a fortress. She should have been able to escape. Should have. I went to the place that was mentioned in the journal, accompanied by Elia. We gazed at hills, bamboo reeds, the tangled undergrowth. Where had they locked up my

16

Linda Christanty

daughter? There was no fortress. Another piece of information I received: the fortress was underground. If I were an earthworm, maybe I would know where it lay. People helped us look for a fortress. They began to dig from noon until night. Yet there was no fortress. Paula had really disappeared.

That afternoon I approached dinnertime with an odd feeling. Elia was roasting shark meat. I didnt want to eat shark meat. What if our daughter had been eaten by a shark? Some people said Paula had been dumped into the sea and eaten by sharks. Elia served the roasted shark meat at the dining table, but I only touched the plain vegetables. Tears welled up in my eyes. What is it, Elia asked. I sobbed even harder. Whats the matter, she asked in a gentler voice. Our daughters in this shark, I whispered, choked with sobs. Immediately she choked, leapt from her chair, and began weeping at the edge of the washtub. Not long after, she returned, lifted the plate of fish from the table, and threw its contents into the dustbin.
Later in the evening, I decided to talk to my wife about Paula. I didnt want to wait for our daughter every night. I wanted Paula to be at peace. I wanted us to live peacefully, without her. Let her go, let her be with my mother, I said. My wife nodded slowly.

A fresh grave was just dug next to my mothers. Rest, my child. Even champions
need rest. Suddenly the boughs of the ylang-ylang rustled. Flowers fell. I felt my wifes cold hand in my grasp. Mother has received our child, she whispered, relieved. This morning we are well-groomed. I have on my best suit of clothes, and shined leather shoes. I look at the aging and shrinking Elia in her black dress. So black, like the crows that cry and swoop in my mind. My tears fall. Elia looks at me. She wishes to say something, but fails. In a little while, we will go to church, and pray. This is the fifth Christmas without Paula.

READING AYU UTAMI: NOTES TOWARD A STUDY OF TRAUMA AND THE ARCHIVE IN INDONESIA
Laurie J. Sears

Then it was 1966 and just remembering the date makes people here shudder, even little things about any neighbor who was killed when the troops of the angel of death incarnated on earth as humans, but we never knew who they were. We only knew when they were already herding us toward the gaping hole, their faces dark and eyes missing. We couldnt trust anybody, not our lovers, not even our own selves. Because at that time only by pointing to someone else could we save ourselves, moving death over our heads over the heads of others.1

Ayu Utami, Larung

Thanks to Celia Lowe, Wolfgang Linser, and Tikka Sears for reading versions of this essay, to Francisco Benitez for his help with interpretation, and to Lauren Kronmiller, who brought my attention to some of the cited sources. I am particularly grateful to Henk Maier for his generous readings and comments on this essay. I also thank my colleague John Toews, noted scholar of European Intellectual History, for letting me sit in on his class The Psychoanalytic Revolution in Historical Perspective in Fall 2006. Thanks also to Tinuk Yampolsky, who helped me arrange and then hosted the interview with Ayu Utami. 1 Ketika itu tahun 66, tetapi mengingat angka tahunnya pun orang di sini gentar, apalagi hal kecil tentang siapa saja tetangga yang dibunuh, dan sukan malaikat maut turun ke bumi menjelma manusia, namun tak kita kenali yang mana. Kita hanya tahu ketika mereka telah menggiring kita ke muka lubang, wayah mereka yang gelap dan mata yang hilang. Tak seorang pun bisa kita percaya, kekasih kita, bahkan diri kita sendiri. Sebab saat itu hanya dengan menunjuk orang lain kita bisa menyelamatkan diri, memindahkan maut atas kepala kita ke atas kepala orang. Ayu Utami, Larung (Jakarta: Kapustakaan Populer Gramedia, 2001), p. 35.

Indonesia 83 (April 2007)

18

Laurie J. Sears

It occurred to me that myths, poems, and journalism had to lean on each other in dealing with hatred and cruelty of such intensity. This is especially true because language shaped by Indonesias painful experience has a quite untidy past.2 Goenawan Mohamad, Kali: A Libretto Evaluating postcolonial novels as situated testimonies, this essay looks at the way violence and trauma haunt Indonesian historical and literary archives in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. I show how literary works offer a method of reading the traces that exceed the archive,3 traces that historians are unable to record or to witness. Scholars of Indonesia are beginning to look at questions of archives, witnessing, and trauma, and literary works that have appeared in Indonesia since the fall of the New Order have also addressed these problems in unique and powerful ways.4 Ayu Utami is one of the most impressive of the new generation of novelists writing in Indonesia today. Combining her skills in research journalism with a poetic feel for language and a fresh approach to womens subjectivity and sexuality, Utamis novels have become popular in Indonesia and beyond.5 This essay explores Utamis novel Saman and focuses on its sequel Larung to investigate how trauma shapes and haunts Indonesian archives. Because history-writing during the New Order period (March 1966 to May 1998) was supposed to follow government master narratives, and foreign researchers could be banned from Indonesia for stirring up controversial memories, there is not yet a substantial body of information about the aftereffects of the violence of the New Order government in studies by both Indonesian and nonIndonesian scholars.6 Since the late 1990s, critical work by Indonesian scholars taking
Goenawan Mohamad, Kali: A Libretto, in Beginning to Remember: The Past in Indonesia, ed. Mary S. Zurbuchen (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2005), p. 50. 3 I use the idea of the archive in this essay in a figurative sense as a site of limitation, exclusion, haunting, and lack, as well as in a literal sense that points to collections of documents and testimonies that exist in institutional forms and spaces. 4 The most innovative work on Indonesian historical archives has been done by Ann Laura Stoler. See her essays Colonial Archives and the Arts of Governance, Archival Science 2 (2002): 87-109; On the Uses and Abuses of the Past in Indonesia: Beyond the Mass Killings of 1965, Asian Survey 42,4 (2002): 642-650; Colonial Archives and the Arts of Governance: On the Content in the Form, in Refiguring the Archive, ed. Carolyn Hamilton et al. (Dordrecht and Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002); and Memory Work in Java: A Cationary Tale, written with Karen Strassler, Comparative Studies in Society and History (January 2000) and republished as chapter 7 in Stolers Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002). For recent attempts to gather testimonies of the violence of the mid 1960s, see John Roosa, Ayu Ratih, and Hilmar Faridet, Tahun yg tak Pernah Akhir: Memahami Pengalaman Korban 65; Esai-Esai Sejarah Lisan (Jakarta: Elsam, 2004). See also Chris Hiltons powerful film, Shadowplay (Hilton-Cordell/Vagabond Films and Thirteen/WNET New York, 2002). A very selective and subjective list of Indonesian novelists, playwrights, and poets whose work deals with questions of history and memory includes Seno Gumira Ajidarma, Nukila Amal, Djenar Maesa Ayu, Fira Basuki, Sapardi Djoko Damono, Slamet Gundono, Goenawan Mohamad, N. Riantiarno, Oka Rusmini, Rachman Sabur, Ratna Sarumpaet, Ani Sekarningsih, Ahmad Tohari, Putu Wijaya, and the late Pramoedya Ananta Toer. 5 For information on Utamis career and the writing and reception of Saman , see Barbara Hatley, New Directions in Indonesian Womens Writing? The Novel Saman, Asian Studies Review 23,4 (1999): 449-60. 6 See Gerry Van Klinken, The Battle for History After Suharto, in Beginning to Remember, p. 239: Over 2,000 books are estimated to have been banned over the three decades of Suhartos rule (Human Rights Watch 1998). A report on these bans discusses twelve historical titles in the last decade alone. Most dealt with the events of 196566, but others dealt with the regional revolts of 195758 and the role of
2

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an analytical approach to the violence of the 1960s and the later New Order period has appeared, and it may take a generation to rethink the historiography of the recent past.7 It is in novels like Utamiswritten by authors willing to carry out research at personal costthat oppositional interpretations of the New Order survive. I suggest the need to value Utamis work as both history and literature to see the ways in which the past can be both captured and contested through literary work. This essay offers some preliminary thoughts on what Utamis novels add to academic debates about trauma and the construction and deconstruction of Indonesian archives.

Novels, Trauma, and the Archive What are the problems that attend historical writing in the face of trauma and its vicissitudes? Freud is credited with popularizing the discourse of the traumatic neuroses after World War II even though other researchers had already developed the discourse and study of trauma in the mid- to late nineteenth century.8 Scholars of European history have written about the inabilities of trauma victims to narrate the past, and there is an extensive body of work available on the problems of witnessing faced by Holocaust survivors.9 Dori Laub, a holocaust survivor, has summarized the
Indonesians of Chinese descent. See also Ariel Heryanto, Can There be Southeast Asians in Southeast Asian Studies? in Knowing Southeast Asian Subjects, ed. Laurie J. Sears (Seattle, WA, and Singapore: University of Washington Press, 2007), p. 86, on access to documents regarding the 196566 massacres in Indonesia; see also John Roosas new book, Pretext for Mass Murder: The September 30th Movement and Suhartos Coup dEtat in Indonesia (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006). For a recent study of the history and fate of members of Gerwani, the leftist womens movement, see Saskia Wieringa, Sexual Politics in Indonesia (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hamphire, GB and New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002). 7 See, for example, Vedi R. Hadiz and Daniel Dhakidae, eds., Social Science and Power in Indonesia (Jakarta and Singapore: Equinox Publishing, 2005); Ariel Heryanto and Sumit K. Mandal, eds., Challenging Authoritarianism in Southeast Asia: Comparing Indonesia and Malaysia (New York, NY, and London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003); Abu Talib Ahmad and Tan Liok Ee, eds., New Terrains in Southeast Asian History (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2003); and the essays by Indonesian scholars and intellectuals in Mary Zurbuchen, ed., Beginning to Remember. In her essay in the volume, Historical Memory in Contemporary Indonesia, p. 15, Zurbuchen notes: In the personal realm, it is clear that victims and survivors of violence must overcome considerable risk and fear to tell their stories. For example, 1965 was particularly disruptive within families and communities, and a great deal of memory remains below the surface. There has been little research on the dynamics of trauma in Indonesia, and few experts who know how to facilitate testimony from victims of violence. For other important work by prominent American scholars, see the essays on violence in Indonesia in Asian Survey 42,4 (2002). 8 See Ruth Leys, Trauma: A Genealogy (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2000), pp. 38, for a discussion of this history. Freuds writings today serve as a reference points among scholars working in the field of trauma studies even though his work has come to be seen as an idiosyncratic approach to questions of trauma and memory, and Freuds own life experiences, dreams, and interpretations serve more as a source of inspiration for literary analysis than psychoanalytical study. Extended critiques of Freuds work are common. Some of the most important ones, both admiring and highly critical, are found in the works of Peter Gay, Nicholas Rand, Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen, and the well-known work of Jacques Derrida and Gilles Deleuze and Flix Guattari. There is also a host of feminist critiques that date back to the early twentieth century, including the work of Helene Deutsch, Karen Horney, and Melanie Klein, and continue today in the work of Nancy Chodorow, Jane Flax, Juliet Mitchell, and others. 9 For a sampling of these works, see Dominick LaCapra, Writing History, Writing Trauma (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001); Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub, Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History (New York, NY: Routledge, 1992); Georgio Agamben, Remnants of Auschwitz (New York, NY: Zone Books, 2002); Leys, Trauma, as well as Cathy Caruth, ed., Trauma: Explorations in Memory (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP, 1995).

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different sense of time, memory, and narrative of those who have survived exceptional suffering as follows: Trauma survivors live not with memories of the past, but with an event that could not and did not proceed through to its completion, has no ending, attained no closure, and therefore, as far as its survivors are concerned, continues into the present and is current in every respect. 10 Laub suggests that trauma survivors experience time differently from others and that this has implications for both witnessing and testimony. Dominick LaCapra also raises the notion of a break in time for trauma survivors: Trauma indicates a shattering break or cesura in experience which has belated effects. 11 This delay has relevance for those Indonesians who survived the violence of 19651966 in that their stories have been suppressed for decades, and the inability to narrate those stories has had an impact on the ways in which they have been remembered. I suggest that traumatic narratives are created in their telling. There is no essential narrative that exists in trauma survivors waiting to be given voice. The historian or listener elicits a narrative that takes shape in performance or in the act of telling.12 Thus those who listen and record stories reshape memories and leave their traces on them in the process of documenting them. The work of scholars who have studied the narratives of trauma survivors confound older notions of how archives can be used and suggest a need to consider archives as more fluid and contingent than scholars have posited in the past.13 How political factors influence processes of shaping and preserving archival materials is the focus of recent studies that look at archival constructions under colonial conditions or in the face of postcolonial state repression.14 Achille Mbembe comments on the ghostly qualities of archives in the face of state violence and censorship. [T]he destroyed archive haunts the state in the form of a spectre, an object that has no objective substance, but which, because it is touched by death, is transformed into a demon ...15 Mbembes comments evoke Freuds original conception of the traumatic neurosis, discussed below, as a delayed reaction to a fright that goes unremarked until it reappears in the forms of neuroses or hauntings. Freuds ideas and discourses have entered the field of Indonesian literature and popular culture, particularly in the work of the sastra wangi (fragrant literature) writers, a group that includes Ayu Utami and other women writers who are young, attractive, sexually explicit, and prolific.16 Utami,
10

Dori Laub, Bearing Witness, or the Vicissitudes of Listening, in Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History, p. 69. 11 LaCapra, Writing History, p. 186. 12 Hyunah Yang of Seoul National University has carried out interviews with former Korean comfort women, and her work raises important questions for this hypothesis. See The Comfort Women as a Problem for Justice and Intelligibility, paper presented at the conference, War, Capital, Trauma, held at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA, May 910, 2005. 13 See Carolyn Hamilton, Verne Harris, and Graeme Reid, Introduction, in Refiguring the Archive, ed. Carolyn Hamilton et al. (Dordrecht and Boston, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002), p. 9, as well as the rest of the essays in the book; and Carolyn Steedman, Dust: The Archive and Cultural History (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002). 14 For new work on Southeast Asian archival constructions, see Judith Henchy, Disciplining Knowledge: Representing Resources for Southeast Asian Studies in the Libraries of the US Academy, in Sears, ed., Knowing Southeast Asian Subjects. 15 Achille Mbembe, The Power of the Archive and its Limits in Refiguring the Archive, p. 24. 16 See, for example, Nova Riyanti Yusufs Mahadewa, Mahadewi (Jakarta: PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama, 2003) or even Dees (Dewi Lestari) Supernova novels (Bandung: Truedee Books, 2001) for works that explore Freudian and psychoanalytic themes. Freudian ideas appear in writings of Indonesian intellectuals

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in particular, introduces two traumatized heroes in her novels, portrays experiences of delay and haunting, and offers fragmented stories that can be illuminated through Freuds ideas. The idea of destroyed archives haunting the nation is particularly relevant for work on New Order Indonesia, and this idea is a starting point for reconsidering Indonesian histories and their silences. In the end, Utami suggests that post-reformasi Indonesia still suffers from the traumas of the New Order period and that melancholia or depression may be the affect haunting Indonesias future.

Ayu Utamis Saman and Larung and Indonesian Histories Utamis novels offer glimpses into the post-traumatic conditions just before and after the fall of the New Order in 1998 as well as the earlier violence of the mid-1960s. Reading them would not imply a search for truth claims but rather a search for insight into habitual and emotional life, and an exploration of practices of mourning, melancholia, and survival. Novels here are treated as part of an archive of testimonies situated in particular times and places that bear witness to the excesses and atrocities of Indonesias New Order government. In 196566 and after, those responsible for the killings of hundreds of thousands of supposed communists in Java, Bali, and elsewhere in Indonesia were treated as heroes, and what they did was argued to have saved the nation from the evils of communism. This message was constantly reiterated during the thirty-two years of the New Order through yearly commemorations, films, books, and government programs and proclamations. Those who survived the violence of 196566 have been left in a traumatic condition, unable to articulate their experiences, memories, or feelings of bitterness and outrage. Utamis novels explore these legacies of violence in Java, Sumatra, and Bali. Saman, the first of Utamis novels, appeared in 1998 just before the fall of the New Order government, and its sequel Larung appeared three years later.17 Saman, the hero of the first novel, is a Catholic priest who is drawn into the struggle of poor farmers against multinational agribusiness. Because of his deepening involvement with a poor community of transmigrant rubber tree farmers in south Sumatra who refuse to follow the dictates of the oil palm monopolies, Saman is jailed by the Indonesian authorities, tortured, and eventually smuggled out of Indonesia. In the course of his dangerous escape, he becomes involved with Yasmin, a married activist, who helps him to flee from Indonesia to New York City. The sequel, Larung, continues the story of Saman and introduces a second activist named Larung. Utamis novels take place in urban spaces between Jakarta and New York City, in south Sumatra and Bali, in occasional journeys into the villages and towns, and on the high seas of late New Order Indonesia. The novels also take place in the dreamlike hallucinations of Saman and Larung, the activist heroes, and the fantasies of Shakuntala, one of the heroines.
in the early part of the twentieth century. See, for example, Laurie J. Sears, Shadows of Empire (Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press, 1996), chap. 3, and Laurie J. Sears, Dread and Enchantment in the Indonesian Literary Archive (forthcoming). See also Ann Laura Stolers important discussion of the implications of the thought of Freud and Foucault for work on colonial sources in her Race and the Education of Desire (Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press, 1995), chapter six. 17 Saman (Jakarta: Kapustakaan Populer Gramedia, 1998); Larung (Jakarta: Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia, 2001).

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Saman introduces the intertwined lives of four women who have known each other since childhood. Laila is a photographer working on a story about the oil company Texcoil, active in the South China Sea around southern Sumatra. Lailas childhood friends include a bisexual dancer, Shakuntala, on a fellowship in New York City; Cok, a Balinese businesswoman who runs a hotel in Pekanbaru; and Yasmin, a married Menadonese human rights activist who becomes emotionally and sexually involved with the ex-priest, Saman. The women are wealthy enough to move around without financial concerns. They speak Jakarta slang, are sexually explicit and adventurous, and serve as each others emotional supports. They become involved in Yasmins human rights work through their various connections with Saman, their former teacher when they were middle and high school students at a Catholic school in Jakarta. They move, occasionally alone, often as a group, through their memories, fantasies, and desires. Their narrative voices, constantly shifting from first to third person, are restless, continually probing the limits of individual subjectivity. Although each woman is quite different, their voices blend into a syncopated chorus as they discuss their sexual, political, and romantic adventures in Jakarta and New York City. Through these womens relationships with each other and with the various men and women in their lives, Utami reveals the brutality and sensuality of life in late New Order Indonesia and provides a sobering commentary on the events leading up to the fall of Suharto and the general disillusionment after the failure of Abdurrachman Wahids reformasi government. Saman is an innovative novel in the field of Indonesian literature, with bold depictions of government abuses and torture as well as female sexuality and discussions of Samans loss of faith and subsequent adulterous affair. The second, and less accessible, novel, Larung, presents more complex views of elite female Indonesian subjectivity through its continual questioning of intention, consciousness, and political commitment, and its sophisticated analysis of the aftereffects of the New Order period. The first seventy-four pages of this novel take place in the mind of Larung, the main character; other voices appear only through Larungs perspective in this part of the book. After the lengthy introductory scene with Larung and his Balinese grandmother, to be discussed below, Larung hardly appears again until the very end of the novel. The macabre scenes where Larung searches for a way to kill his grandmother move from the phantasmatic into the quotidian when Larung meets Cok and chats with her at his grandmothers funeral in Bali. Larung succeeds in having his grandmothers remains included in a large cremation ceremony, despite her having been banished from her upper-class Gianyar family in the early part of the last century when she ran off with a Dutchman. Larung is a friend of Cok, the woman from Bali. Through Cok, Larung meets Yasmin and becomes involved in the human rights work that connects Yasmin and Saman. When Larung is the activist chosen at the end of the novel to guide three young anti-New Order students to meet up with Saman on the island of Bintan and escape from Indonesia, the reader is forewarned that their survival is in jeopardy. Utamis novel Larung explores how subjectivity and memory are intertwined and what happens to subjectivity and memory in the face of trauma. Larung is psychotic, and his inability to feel empathy will lead to both his and Samans deaths. Utamis characterizations are more complex in Larung than in Saman, and the lines between the

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imaginary and the real are intentionally blurred.18 More than Saman, Larung is a critical study of memory, haunting, and trauma, and the next section explores the implications of these intertwined processes for the writing of Indonesian histories.

Freud, Trauma, and Ghosts Newer evaluations of Freuds oeuvre see psychoanalysis as both a colonizing discourse and a postcolonial method of literary analysis.19 Freud took ghosts and haunting seriously, and his ideas are useful for analyzing the violence and ghosts that are ever-present and meaningful in Utamis work. People are murdered and traumatized in Utamis novels because they interfere in government corruption and they know too much, even though the perpetrators of these atrocities often remain hazy. Whereas the traumas presented in Saman center on the late-New Order government and its abuses, Larung investigates the traumas left in the wake of the killings of 19651966, the colonial legacies of the Indonesian state, and mythological stories from the Javanese and Balinese past.20 The Freudian concepts of traumatic neurosis and deferred action are useful in explaining the return of a trauma experienced by the troubled hero, Larung, as a young child. Freud commented on the traumatic neuroses in his 1920 essay on the pleasure principle when those neuroses became particularly evident after the end of World War I. A condition has long been known and described which occurs after severe mechanical concussions, railway disasters, and other accidents involving a risk to life; it has been given the name of traumatic neurosis ... 21 Freuds ideas about the cause and symptoms of traumatic injuries developed in his major revisionist writings that appeared in the 1920s with a stress on the compulsion to repeat and the idea of deferred action. Larung, the hero of the novel of the same name, and his grandmother, whom he will kill, have both witnessed traumatic events in their childhood. Larung is unable to bring these events into narrative memory.22 Utami depicts his inability to assimilate the traumatic scenes he has witnessed and their repeated return as delusions and hauntings.23
Interview with Ayu Utami, Jakarta, September 2003. Some classic texts in the field of psychoanalysis and colonialism include the work of Frantz Fanon, Albert Memmi, and other French writers from the colonial world. Several of the essays in Homi K. Bhabhas Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994) are key works. See also Ashis Nandy, The Savage Freud and other Essays on Possible and Retrievable Selves (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995) and Ranjana Khannas Dark Continents: Psychoanalysis and Colonialism (Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press, 2003). 20 See Laurie J. Sears, Postcolonial Identities, Feminist Criticism, and Southeast Asian Studies, in Knowing Southeast Asian Subjects, for a short discussion of Utamis novels as feminist critiques of the postcolonial Indonesian nation. 21 Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, trans. and ed. James Strachey (New York, NY: W. W. Norton, 1961), p. 10. Freuds definition of trauma also mentions the inability of the psychic apparatuses to bind the excess of stimulation produced by excitations from outside which are powerful enough to break through the protective shield. See, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, The Freud Reader, ed. Peter Gay (New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Co., 1989), p. 607. I cite this annotated selection of Freuds work when possible in this essay because it is an accessible collection of Freuds most important writings and uses the accepted but increasingly controversial translations from the Standard Edition by James Strachey. 22 For more on the idea of narrative memory, see Barbara Herrnstein Smith, Narrative Versions, Narrative Theories, in On Narrative, ed. W. J. T. Mitchell (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1980); and Ann Laura Stoler and Karen Strassler, Memory Work in Java: A Cautionary Tale, in Carnal Knowledge and
19 18

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In his work on criminality in Indonesia, James Siegel explored the appearance of ghosts and trauma in the New Order period and its aftermath.24 Siegels theory linked ghosts and criminality to the nation-state through notions of the counterfeit (palsu) and the fictive and the substitution of criminals for the people (rakyat) in the transition from Sukarnos Old Order to Suhartos New Order state.25 Siegel explained how the ghosts of a failed nationalism have continued to haunt the Indonesian nation-state. Under the late President Sukarno, it was possible for the President to speak for the people to engender a sense of belonging to the nation. This construction of the people went awry in the New Order, producing only the counterfeit, the fictive, and the criminal. But in Siegels explanation of criminality, the ghosts of the failed revolution serve as intermediaries that have helped introduce the new concept of trauma into Indonesian popular discourses through the press and the middle classes. Rather than asking why it is that ghosts are expected not to appear, it might be better to point out that police and criminals both arise precisely where ghosts were expected before. There would be no trauma, no explicable effects, if full belief in ghosts still existed.26 Siegel suggested that trauma and shock spread out in Indonesia through the medium of newspapers like Pos Kota, a sensationalist and pro-government newspaper with a high circulation aimed at a lower-class, uneducated readership. It is from the pressure brought to bear on the lower classes by the middle and upper classes that ideas of trauma spread into the villages of Indonesia. Siegel suggested that the experience of trauma for Indonesians was similar to ghostly possession. Ghosts were associated with The place that one knows one does not know about and cannot fathom ... Siegel argued that ghosts today have become associated with trauma and with the signs of modernity that villagers do not quite understandlike discotheques, universities, and wealthy homes.27 In his remarkable new book, Naming the Witch, on the killing of witches in East Java in the post-Suharto period of 199899, Siegel expands some of his insights from his earlier work and moves toward a very specific study of how and why witches were identified and killed in one area of Indonesia during a time when centralized state power had weakened. He suggests, Witchcraft makes comprehensible what is beyond
Imperial Power, pp. 162204. Stoler and Strassler discuss two models of memory: the hydraulic model and the identity model. For an extended discussion of the hydraulic model and Freuds conceptualization of it, see Khanna, Dark Continents, chapter 1. See also Leys, Trauma, pp. 11113. 23 Ruth Leys, Trauma: A Genealogy (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000), p. 20, explains that the trauma was constituted by a relationship between two events or experiencesa first event that was not necessarily traumatic because it came too early in the childs development to be understood and assimilated, and a second that also was not inherently traumatic but that triggered a memory of the first event that only then was given traumatic meaning and hence repressed. 24 James T. Siegel, A New Criminal Type in Jakarta (Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press, 1998). For a different look at ideas of haunting in Indonesian literatures, see Pheng Cheah, Spectral Nationality: Passages of Freedom from Kant to Postcolonial Literatures of Liberation (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2003), especially chapters six and seven. 25 Siegel, A New Criminal Type in Jakarta, chapter three. For now, I am leaving out of my analysis Siegels stress on photography as the technology enabling the displacement of the people with kriminalitas. 26 Ibid., p. 99. 27 Ibid., pp. 96, 94. See pp. 3031 for a discussion of the audience for Pos Kota.

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reason.28 Taking belief in ghosts very seriously, Siegel resists explaining the cause of witchcraft in logical ways. In trying to account for the brutal killings of those accused of witchcraft in East Java, Siegel suggests that the older world of the Javanese spirits has disappeared and the ghosts that the government both fears and expects have become national ghosts rather than Javanese ones. In the context of Java, the mere return of ghosts is not unexpected, as we have seen. The problem comes rather with the formation of national rather than Javanese ghosts. The hundreds of thousands of people massacred because they were suspected Communists were held in memory by the Suharto regime precisely as those who might return. And return, as we have said, in uncanny forms. Political disruption was frequently blamed on Communists and their descendants. The fear was that Communist ideas would prevail even without Communists. And so, in various disruptions, their traces could be made out. It was an example of O.T.B. (organisasi tanpa bentuk) or organizations without form or bodies in the formulation of the time. Communists, defeated once during the revolution, came back again in the Suharto regime. Massacred at the beginning of the Suharto regime, it was feared they could rise again through some unknown process, meaning without formal organization, but saying, also, bodiless, just as specters lack bodies.29 Thus communists can appear in both embodied and disembodied forms, linking New Order violence with belief in spirits and ruthless political expediency. Siegels explorations of the killing of witches in East Java have repercussions for the writing of Indonesian histories. Rather than contributing to history written in what Dominick LaCapra calls the documentary approach, where scholars make truth claims through a gathering of evidence to fulfill the necessary and sufficient conditions of historiography, Siegels analysis contributes to what LaCapra calls the radical constructivist model: truth claims are questioned, and performative, aesthetic, ideological, and political factors become those in which referential statements are embedded and take on meaning and significance.30 Novels can serve as one of many possible sites where referential statements express aesthetic, ideological, or political factors. Ayu Utamis novels, Saman and Larung, offer interpretations of how ghosts and witches might link to Freudian notions of trauma, melancholia, and deferred action. Utamis twinned heroes are both wounded, and one is psychotic. The characters Saman and Larung are both witches who haunt the present in uncanny ways: Saman is a sympathetic witch and Larung is not. The four heroines are alternately strong-willed and indecisive, cosmopolitan and insular, sexually adventurous and emotionally nave. Promiscuous in word and deed, the women serve as mediators between men who do
28

James Siegel, Naming the Witch (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006), p. 9. Siegel distinguishes the experience of witchcraft from that of trauma in the case of a mans death from voodoo or witchcraft in Australia. Belief causes his death. Belief and not trauma. The person who suffers from trauma repeats the traumatic event in his dreams or in his speech precisely because he cannot believe it. He cannot understand what happened to him, even though he can say what it is that occurred. Siegel, Naming the Witch, p. 48. 29 Ibid., p. 163. 30 LaCapra, Writing History, Writing Trauma, p. 1.

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the serious political work of the underground movement.31 In the end, Utami suggests that the answer to Indonesias traumas may be a resigned form of melancholia or depression that is left in the wake of trauma. The most powerful figures in Larung are the two widow/witches, Larungs grandmother and her friend, who lived through the killings of the 1960s. The theme of the uncanny double is a strong one in Larung, and as the novel opens, Larung is contemplating how to kill his aging and powerful grandmother.32 Memories Whenever you confront my grandma, you cant run away and you feel something indescribable: deep anxiety that life has no meaning. She is a creature whose trembling mouth leaks filth and bile. This is the meanness of my grandma: words. Her words wound, but you cant retaliate with hate. You can only torture yourself as a projection of your overwhelming desire to kill her. I remember after she was wounded by curses, my mother once stabbed her own wrists and another time stabbed her own throat with a fork. And Grandmother only looked at her, like a mirror reflecting Mothers criminal intentions. Because that was exactly what Mother wanted to do to her.33 Who determines the hour of someones death? 34 These are the opening words of Larung. As the story unfolds, the reader is drawn into the mind of Larung Lanang, a man returning on the train to Tulungagung in East Java, where he lives with his mother and grandmother. Larung is returning with the intention of killing his very old and very spiteful grandmother. The reasons for his murderous resolve revolve around the longevity of the old woman and the ugliness and uselessness of old age. Larung observes: This is my grandmother: she is so old. She is no longer human, no longer male or female, like used-up humanity. Like a zombie or a mummy.35 When Larung asks her what it is like to be old, she responds: When a person becomes old, she becomes an eye. And only an eye. There is no more I. Only them.
31

When I queried her about this, Utami said that her work reflected the way things were. Interview, Jakarta, September 2003. 32 I thank Henk Maier for encouraging me to investigate the theme of doubling that I found appearing and reappearing in Utamis novels. 33 Ayu Utami, Larung, p. 10: Setiap yang bertatapan dengan nenekku tak bisa melarikan diri dan akan mengalami yang takterkatakan: semacam gangguan jiwa bahwa alam tak punya tujuan. Ia adalah makhluk yang dari mulutnya yang tremor keluar kotoran dan kekejian. Inilah kekejian nenekku: kata-kata. Kata-katanya melukai, tetapi engkau tak bisa menyerangnya karena benci. Kau hanya bisa menganiaya dirimu sendiri sebagai proyeksi dari luap keinginanmu membunuh dia. Aku mengingatnya, setelah ia menghunjamkan serapahnya, ibuku menusuk pergelangan tangan sendiri dengan garpu suatu kali, dan menusuk juga dengan garpu lehernya kali lain. Dan Simbah hanya memandangnya, ia sebagai selembar cermin yang memantulkan niat jahat ibu. Sebab, itulah yang Ibu ingin lakukan padanya. All translations from Utamis novel, Larung, were done by the author of this essay. 34 Utami, Larung, p. 1. Siapakah yang menentukan jam kematian seseorang? 35 Ibid., p. 7. Inilah nenekku: Ia sudah begitu tua. Seperti sudah bukan manusia bukan perempuan bukan lelaki, sepertu bekas manusia. Zombi atau mumi, barangkali.

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You are not there. Because I dont exist.36 When he looks at his grandmother, Larung can only compare her to a baby monkey: Every time I look into those eyes looking at me, I become a nursing monkey and those eyes belong to my baby as its mouth sucks the tip of my breast and its hands massage it and its ears search for my heart-beat which calms it. 37 Larung slowly draws the reader into his murderous delusions as he weaves the rationale he needs to carry out his self-appointed task. In relation to his grandmother, Larung becomes feminized. He takes care of her. He imagines nursing her at his breast. He is the only one who can approach her without being cursed by the vicious and powerful old lady. Larung thinks that his mother told him that the grandmother cannot be killed until the magic pellets and needle are removed from her forehead and the spells are released from her mouth. Those are the signs of a practitioner of black magic, or a witch, in Java. The black magic that the grandmother possessed had a dual function: it gave her a certain invulnerability, which enabled her to protect her family, although not Larungs father, during the zaman edan (time of madness) of the 196566 killings of supposed communists and leftist sympathizers. On the other hand, the magic is said to be dangerous to those around her. All the men in her family have died or been killed, according to the stories that Larung heard from his mother. Larung thinks his mother tells him that he too will die unless he takes the magic away from the old woman. And this is what sets him on his quest to find out how to kill his grandmother. Who am I to her: grandchild, child, husband?38 Larung asks this several times as he ponders his relationship to the old woman, further destabilizing his masculine subjectivity. And who is she? His mother tells him that the grandmother was supposedly born in Bali just before 1900 and that she witnessed the puputan, or mass suicides, of the courts of southern Bali in their last stand against the Dutch. The grandmother married a Dutch opium-seller and then went with him to Java since her family did not approve of the match. When this Dutch husband was interned by the Japanese during World War II, she took a more politically correct husband, a revolutionary fighter, and it was he who became Larungs father. In 1962, Larungs father was sent to work in Denpasar, and the family returned to the grandmothers place of origin. Larung was then almost two years old.39 Part of this story seems to come from Larungs mother, representing the view of a daughter-in-law toward a difficult mother-in-law, but it also comes from Larungs confused state of mind.
36

Ibid., p. 17. Ketika orang menjadi tua maka ia menjadi mata. Dan hanya mata. Tak ada lagi saya. Hanya mereka. Tak ada kamu. Sebab tak ada saya. 37 Ibid., p. 9. Setiap kali aku menatap mata yang menatap aku itu, aku adalah monyet betina yang menysui dan mata itu milik bayiku ketika mulutnya mencucup ujung susuku dan tangannya memijat dan telinganya mencari-cari detak jantungku yang memberinya ketenangan. 38 Ibid. Siapakah aku bagi dia: cucu, anak, suami? 39 Thus Larung would have been five or six years old when the killings in Bali took place. It could be a later experience of trauma or violence such as occurred during the New Order period that, according to Freudian theory, would trigger Larungs memories of the earlier killings and code them as traumatic. See fn. 23 above.

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Larung is supposed to be taking the antipsychotic drug haloperidol, 40 a drug prescribed for schizophrenia, manic depression, hallucinations, and anxiety. Larung thinks his mother challenges him to kill the grandmother. But she also tells him that he is crazy and that she does not want him to carry out the deed. Is it also me, mother, who has to kill Grandmother? Youre crazy Larung! Im crazy, you say, because I take haloperidol. You, mother, are sane but cannot solve this problem. You say Im crazy, but I never complain. I dont want you to have thoughts like that. And you couldnt kill Grandmother anyway. You want me to kill Grandmother and I can.41 Larung will be surprised after he has succeeded in his task that his mother is horrified. It is the journey that Larung undertakes to find out how to break the protective spells and kill his grandmother that confronts him with the ghosts of his traumatic past. Hauntings The smells of my grandma come from the cupboard and the floor of the bathroom too. Batik, lerak, plain cloth, and beeswax. Coconut hair oil that binds the powdered hair dye. Bigen brand. The older I got the more I could smell the cells of her body. Dandruff, sweat gathered with vinegar and grease, all kinds of shit and droplets of cleaning fluid to wash the urine and feces from the bathroom tile.42 Larung is haunted by the familiar and foul smells of his grandmother as he goes on his Javanese journey to seek the mystery of her long survival and the key to her secret vulnerabilities. The smells of Larungs childhood are vividly evoked, and they call up his memories of time past. In a nearby Javanese city, he finally finds her old friend whom he has been seeking for a year, a woman he had seen in a photo when he was looking though his grandmothers possessions to discover her secrets. There were two photos of this woman, leading Larung to think she might be important to solve the
40 41

Utami, Larung, pp. 1416. Apakah aku juga yang harus membunuh Simbah, Ibu? Kamu gila, Larung! Aku gila, katamu. Sebab aku minum haloperidol. Ibu, Ibu waras tapi tak bisa menyelesaikan persoalan. Aku gila, katamu, tapi aku tak pernah mengeluh. Ibu tidak ingin kamu punya pikiran seperti itu. Dan kamu tak akan bisa membunuh Simbah. Ibu ingin aku membunuh Simbah dan aku bisa. Ibid., p. 16. When I discussed Larungs mental state with Utami, she noted that the only voice the reader hears in the first seventy-four pages of the novel is Larungs voice. In other words, his mothers voice in this part of the book and all of the other voices could be hallucinations. 42 Bau nenekku juga datang dari almari dan lantai kamar mandi. Bau batik, lerak, mori, dan malam. Minyak cemceman yang penguk, serbuk cat rambut. Bigen. Lalu, semakin aku dewasa semakin aku bisa mengendus sel-sel tubuhnya. Ketombe, keringat yang mengendap bersama asam, lemak, segala tai dan leleran karbol untuk menyiram kencing dan kopet dari ubin. Ibid., pp. 2425. Lerak is a type of berry used to wash fine batik. Bigen is a type of hair dye. Thanks to Sylvia Tiwon for helping me to translate some of the difficult words in this passage.

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mysteries of his grandmothers life and death. She too is a pawang, a practitioner of black magic. She takes him on another journey that answers his questions. This second old woman, who says she is 120 years old, takes him far into a cave full of bats and nocturnal animals. It is dark and damp and terrifying. In the cave is a river that runs out into the dangerous southern ocean.43 In this cave, Larung is introduced to the ghosts of the killings of 196566. These are the ghosts of people who were dragged from their houses in the middle of the night, never to return, never given a proper burial, often thrown into the rivers of Java and Bali. Larungs name, in fact, means a dead body or an offering that is thrown into the sea.44 Since Larung and his family were living in Bali during these deadly years, it is the story of the killings in Bali that Utami tells through the words of Larungs grandmothers old friend. This point is a key one for Utamis interpretations of the killings. Returning to the passage from Larung that opened this essay: We couldnt trust anybody, not our lovers, not even our own selves. Because at that time only by pointing to someone else could we save ourselves, moving death over our heads over the heads of others.45 Utamis text suggests that the ghosts are trapped in the haunted cave not because of the injustice and barbarity of what was done to them, but rather for what they did or tried to do to save themselves. Larung listens to this second old womans story about the fate of the ghosts and then asks if she might have a happier story to tell. Fixated on the solution to his problems, Larung disavows the dark story that is being told to him. He is only concerned with getting the magic or the power that will allow him to kill his grandmother.

Trauma The story that the old lady tells is also the key to Larungs life and early trauma. She tells him that his father might be one of these ghosts in the cave. Larung himself and his mother could have been among the ghosts, too, if the powers of his grandmother had not protected them. When the men in the trucks from Java came that night with covered faces to take his father away, the grandmother let them take him. But when the men came back for the rest of the family, she stood in the doorway and
The river is named Lembu Peteng, or dark cow, which means a bastard child, often from a noble family. See Nancy Florida, Writing the Past, Inscribing the Future (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995), p. 100, n. 25. 44 John M. Echols and Hassan Shadily, Kamus Indonesia-Inggeris [An Indonesian-English Dictionary], 3rd ed. (Jakarta: PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama, 1994), p. 331. Since lanang is the Javanese word for man, the full name means floating dead man, what Larung becomes in the end. 45 Tak seorang pun bisa kita percaya, kekasih kita, bahkan diri kita sendiri. Sebab saat itu hanya dengan menunjuk orang lain kita bisa menyelamatkan diri, memindahkan maut atas kepala kita ke atas kepala orang. Utami, Larung, p. 35. This tallies with some of the stories that have been gathered about the killings in Bali. See Robert Cribb, Problems in the Historiography of the Killings in Indonesia in The Indonesian Killings 1965-1966, ed. Robert Cribb (Clayton, Victoria: Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University, 1997). Geoffrey Robinson, The Dark Side of Paradise: Political Violence in Bali (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995) argues that the killings in Bali were more methodical than they have been portrayed to be. They were organized by army forces from Java and carried out by local people as well as army men. See especially chapters 10 and 11. See also Wieringa, Sexual Politics, chapters 68.
43

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her sheer physical presence prevented them from entering. After the old woman tells him this, Larung says: I didnt understand. (I didnt want to understand.) 46 Larungs search is not a search for understanding but rather a search for efficacy. Larungs encounter with the old woman is a transaction he is willing to die for. Either he will die or she will give him the answer he seeks. Then she tells him the Calonarang story from the eleventh century. This is the story of the widow/witch Calonarang with the beautiful daughter, Manjali. No one will marry Manjali because they are scared of her mother. Calonarang causes plagues and troubles, and finally the king sends his minister, Mpu Baradah, to marry Manjali to break the power of the old witch by pacifying her anger. And this comes to pass and the witch is killed. The beautiful Manjali, however, cannot bear how she was used to destroy her mother. She leaves her husband and becomes a witch too, living in an endless night, and with her spite, like the ghosts in the cave whom Larung has just met.47 The introduction of Manjali doubles yet again the stories of the two grandmother/witches with their supernatural powerscharacters who cannot be killed without specific knowledge from another witch. Larung waits in the cave with his grandmothers old friend and her servant for a long time as the old woman tries to conquer his desire to appropriate and use her magic to kill his own relative. He becomes like an old statue from the the fourteenthcentury kingdom of Majapahit, an icon of faded glory. And he questions his existence in this world of ghosts. Then I became quiet and alienated because I was not from this world of phantoms. Who am I in this density? Not subject, nor object, just something strange. Who are they, that darkness, that in this moment seem more alive than I. I feel like letting go, or already dried up.48 Finally, after hours go by, Larung has countered the power of the old woman, and she provides him with the magic charm that will allow him to kill his grandmother. The old lady gives him six magic containers, cupu, with magical charms inside. She tells him he will have six opportunities to regret his decision and turn back. The six cupu are to be placed on the body of his grandmother to open the magical pathways and allow her spirit to leave. Larung can now accomplish his mission and kill his grandmother. He only hopes that she might die by herself before he returns home. But she is still there when he returns, always a watchful eye, waiting for him. His mother has also been waiting for him at home and scolds him for being away so long. She was worried about him because he had forgotten to take his antipsychotic medicine. When Larung enters the
46 47

Utami, Larung, p. 33. This story is popular these days in Indonesia. It has been retold in Goenawan Mohamad, The Kings Witch, in Silenced Voices: New Writing from Indonesia, ed. Frank Stewart and John McGlynn, Manoa 12,1 (Summer 2000); Pramoedya Ananta Toer, The King, the Witch, and the Priest, trans. Willem Samuels (Jakarta: Equinox Publishing, Asia, 2001); Toety Heraty, Calonarang (Jakarta: Yayasan Obor, 2000). In the Balinese tellings of this story, one of the followers of Manjali is a woman named Larung. 48 Lalu aku menjadi amat sepi lagi asing sebab aku bukanlah bagian dari dunia bayang-bayang ini. Pekat, siapakah aku. Bukan subyek, bukan obyek, melainkan cuma sebuah asing. Siapakah mereka, kegelapan itu, yang pada momen ini hidup lebih daripada aku. Aku rasanya mau lepas, atau telah kering. Utami, Larung, p. 43.

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room of his grandmother, she seems barely alive, and yet she immediately sees and asks what he has around his neck. He has put the six cupu into a cloth bag that he is wearing around his neck for safekeeping on the train home. After a schizophrenic internal dialogue, he decides to lie to her about the contents of the container that holds the cupu. She falls asleep and he tries once to set out the cupu on her body as instructed. He sets out four of themfour chances to regret what he is doing. Then he trembles a bit, and the fifth one falls to the floor and is lost. He gathers up the four cupu already placed, and it takes him another day to find the lost one and make another attempt. His mother has gone away to visit the grave of her own mother, a foreshadowing of what is to come. When Larung returns to try again, the grandmother seems almost dead. He again lays out the cupu on her body one by one. This time he does not falter until just after he has put the sixth one in place, just a second after he has lost his last chance to regret his actions. At that moment, just before she dies, his grandmother wakes and begins to speak, telling him once again the stories of his traumatic past. First she tells him that he is not the real child of his father, her son. She reminds him that he once had a playmate, a Chinese girl about nine years of age, when he was four. Her father was a rice seller and a neighbor. He would buy rice from the farmers and then sell it at a good mark-up to the army people who, like Larungs father, were stationed in Bali. Larungs father was his friend, so he made money on the deal also. Then it was 1964, she tells him, and Gunung Agung, a major volcano, erupted in Bali, killing many people. The eruption ruined the rice fields, leaving people poor and hungry.49 Angry too. One day a crowd of people came down from the mountains. Some said they were communists, but the grandmother said they were just hungry people. They beat the Chinese rice seller to death and took his rice. Larung never saw his little Chinese friend again. The grandmother retells the stories that Larung had already heard from the old woman. The people came for the man Larung thought was his father. The grandmother would not let them take the rest of the family. The grandmother added that the neighbors had whispered that her daughter-in-law, Larungs mother, was a member of Gerwani, the leftist womens organization. The grandmother told the killers and whisperers that her daughter-in-law was not Gerwani, just a mother. If anyone was Gerwani it was she, but they believed she was a witch anyway. Then the grandmother looked out to the sea, and slowly the men went away. Now Larung has heard this story repeatedly: from his mother or his own memories, from the old woman in the cave, and from his dying grandmother. But he seems unable to assimilate these stories even though new pieces of the puzzle are added in each telling. Larung owes a debt to his grandmother: she saved his life. But he has now taken hers. And it is not enough just to have killed her with the magic he received from her friend. He now searches for kitchen knives and a saw to cut up her body and find the magic pins and pellets that, according to his mother, were the secret of his grandmothers strength. He performs a macabre operation. He mentions that he had
49

The volcano Gunung Agung in Bali erupted in March and May of 1963. The eruptions claimed an estimated 1,500 lives and destroyed more than 62,000 hectares of land, causing severe malnutrition. See Robinson, The Dark Side of Paradise, p. 239.

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medical training and was once a doctor.50 He recites what he is doing with clinical precision, cutting and slicing the skin of her stomach and head, the most likely places to look for the magical pins and pellets. At one point he needs a piece of wood to help lift the grandmothers head so that he can operate more effectively. Since no piece of wood is handy, he uses a copy of Soekarnos revolutionary speeches, the nationalist book Di Bawah Bendera Revolusi (Under the Banner of the Revolution). I dont know how long I worked but I just couldnt find the metal bits or the needles in her stomach. Where could they be hidden if not there? They must be in the head. The magical pins were inserted into the skin in back of her head. Sorry to have to slice up your head. Of course I remember how to do it. (1) Place a wooden block to support the neck. I dont have any wood, but the book Under the Banner of the Revolution that is so thick and hard can be used instead. (2) Make a slice around the skull, above the eyebrow and passing through the base of the ear and the occipital protrusion, just like Columbus sailed around the globe. (3) Make a vertical section dividing the middle of the forehead around to the back of the head. The skin over the skull is always thicker than that of other parts of the body, its like its braided together with the hair follicles and the rubbery sebaceous glands. (4) Continue the previous longitudinal section downward, dividing the skin of the nose to the upper lip. (5) Make a tear from the tip of the right lip, around the head, passing below the ear, up to the tip of the left lip. (6) Make another vertical section on a line from the edge of the cheek to the ear. (7) Peel off this skin, slowly, from the side of the ear toward the nose. The skin tissue here sticks tightly to the muscles of the face.51 Unable to find the evidence he was seeking in her head either, Larung cleans up the bloody mess, puts his grandmothers body parts into two boxes, and buries her in the back yard. Then he washes the sheets. He apologizes to the dead grandmother for not bringing her to the crematorium as he had promised; the condition of the body would have looked too suspicious.52
50

See Ayu Utami tak Mampir de Kedai, Pantau, Tahun II, Nomor 020 (Desember 2001), pp. 9-10, www.pantau.or.id/txt/20/06.html/, accessed on April 5, 2004. The article notes how Utami spent some time studying medical texts at a hospital in Jakarta and in Tulungagung and Kediri, learning about the traditions of black magic in East Java. 51 Entah berapa lama aku bekerja namun tak ketemukan juga biji-biji logam maupun jarum-jarum susuk di antara isi perut. Di manakah mereka bersarang jika tidak di sana? Tentu saja di kepala. Susuk-susuk itu terselip di balik kulit kepala. Permisi, biar kusayat kulit kepalamu. Aku juga ingat caranya. (1) Letakan sebuah balok menyangga leher. Tetapi tak ada kayu, maka buku Di Bawah Bendera Revolusi yang tebal dan keras bisa dijadikan ganti. (2) Buatlah sayatan melingkari batok kepala, di atas alis melewati pangkal telinga dan tonjolan oksipital, seperti Columbus mengelilingi bola bumi. (3) Tarik irisan vertikal membelah tengah dahi hingga belakang kepala. Kulit batok selalu lebih tebal daripada kulit bagian tubuh yang lain, seperti teranyam oleh folikel rambut yang serta kelenjar minyak yang kenyal. (4) Lanjutkan irisan bujur tadi ke arah bawah, mebelah kulit hidung hingga bibir atas. (5) Sobeklah, dari ujung bibir kanan, melingkari kepala, melewati bawah kuping, hingga ujung bibir kiri. (6) Buat lagi irisan vertikal di garis batas pipi dengan telingga. (7) Kelupaslah kulit ini, pelan-pelan, dari sisi telingga ke arah hidung. Jaringan kulit ini melekat erat pada otot-otot muka. Utami, Larung, p. 73. See Benedict Anderson, Bung Karno and the Fossilization of Soekarnos Thought, Indonesia 74 (October 2002): 7, where he describes this collection of Soekarnos speeches as The official, bowdlerized compilation of his major texts, published late in his presidential career. 52 Utami, Larung, pp. 7274.

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Larungs mother comes home to find what he had done, and she is horrified. He simply replies: No, Mother. This part of Utamis novel ends after seventy-four pages of psychotic ramblings, macabre hauntings, personal memories, and traumatic histories. The reader is left to wonder: was it all a delusion, a fantasy, or a grisly murder?

Trauma and Melancholia The ambivalence about Larungs paternity, intensified by the stories Larungs grandmother tells before she dies, reverberates through this section of the novel, establishing a theme of missing or estranged fathers and of sons who are failures. Larung cannot integrate the traumas of his youth, the disappearance of the man he thought was his father, or the disappearance of his childhood friend and the murder of her father, into his conscious mind. These repressed events manifest themselves in unpredictable and macabre ways. Larung is indebted to his grandmother for saving his life and his mothers life. But he cannot assimilate this debt. The debt is bound up with tradition and hierarchy, and linked to the work of mourning. Larung cannot mourn because he is not able to feel, but his delusions of his own power allow him to work his way into the world of anti-New Order activists. More importantly, Larung is psychotic, and, in his case, memory and subjectivity have become unhinged.53 Larung has lost, or perhaps never had, the ability to draw his memories into a coherent narrative. 54 Larungs story illuminates one of the major problems in the field of trauma studies today: whether the traumatic memories are available to the victim at all.55 If memories are not available to the victims of trauma, or are unreliable at best, how can such victims testify or give witness to their suffering? If both victims and perpetrators of horrendous crimes are traumatized by those crimes, and they cannot put the trauma into narrative memory, the testimonies of both victims and perpetrators become unreliable, rendering ethical considerations fuzzy and problematic.56 On the other hand, if there is a radical separation between autonomous subjects and the external trauma that engulfed themso that questions concerning memorys relation to trauma are not taken into accountthis allows questions of blame and responsibility to be posed, but situates the traumatized as quintessential victims, both sovereign and
53

Utami told me Larung was schizophrenic, but we are never specifically told that diagnosis in the book; personal communication, September 2003. Utami does specify the drug haloperidol, however, and this is still one of the drugs prescribed to treat schizophrenia. In his essay on narcissism, Freud discusses the symptoms of schizophrenia and notes that schizophrenics are inaccessible to psychoanalysis. See Sigmund Freud, On Narcissism: An Introduction, in The Freud Reader, ed. Peter Gay, p. 546. 54 See Ruth Leys, Trauma, pp. 110-12, for a lucid presentation of Pierre Janets ideas of narrative memory. She notes: For Janet in this mode, memory proper was more than dramatic repetition or miming: it involved the capacity to distance oneself from oneself by representing ones experiences to oneself and others in the form of a narrated history. 55 As Leys explains: Trauma was therefore understood as an experience of hypnotic imitation or identificationwhat I call mimesisan experience that, because it appeared to shatter the victims cognitive-perceptual capacities, made the traumatic scene unavailable for a certain kind of recollection. Ibid., pp. 8-9. 56 This case is particularly relevant for soldiers like some of the American ones who fought in the Vietnam War, carried out or were made to carry out atrocities, and now suffer from the unbearable memories of those atrocities. The medical field of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) developed to deal with these cases. See ibid., pp. 1516, 230233.

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passive.57 For those who would want to see the possibility of agency in even the most abject of victims, or for those who follow anti-essentialist approaches to subjectivity and memory, both interpretations have limits. Utami creates the character and actions of Larung as one response to trauma. But, in Utamis novel, this character is the exception rather than the norm. Her other characters also experience suffering, loss, or estrangement, but they maintain a coherent sense of their own identity, even though some will be destroyed along with Larung. Paralleling the fantasies and delusions of the more sympathetic hero, Saman, in Utamis first novel, Larung integrates the ghostly into the everyday world and his actions mimic the modern gone awry. In his delusion, he searches for the needles and pellets in his grandmothers body with the tools of modern medical precision, even though he also knows that the old womans powers are metonymic, ghostly ones. Ghosts also haunt Larungs double, Saman. Samans mother had a ghostly lover when he was a small boy, and the family lived in Perabumulih, in southern Sumatra. Three younger siblings either disappeared suddenly from his mothers womb in late pregnancy or died mysteriously a few days after birth. Saman, then named Wisanggeni,58 could hear his younger siblings crying and could hear the whisperings of the ghostly lover, but no one else could. The fates of Saman and Larung converge at the end of Larung, and the outcome is tragic. The two men, and the three young activists whom Saman and Larung are trying to rescue, are all captured by the police because of the weaknesses of the young activists and the inability of the psychotic Larung to feel empathy. Saman is trapped in this volatile alliance and brought down by it. The commentary on activism presented by Utami is a conflicted one. Utami offers a complex understanding of the relationship between agency and activism by showing activists as wounded, lacking in faith, psychotic, or incompetent. The group is finally caught because one of the young men calls his brother on his cell phone and the call is monitored. The last member of the group is the physically maimed petty criminal Anton, who is driving the boat that has been hired to take them out of Indonesia. By presenting this collection of male characters, Utami suggests the activist men of postreformasi Indonesia are a traumatized group. But the women who serve as their supports, if not activists themselves, remain alive, melancholic, yet still capable of action at the end of the novel. It is the uncanny doubling of the sympathetic Saman into the psychotic Larung that is most disturbing at the end of the second novel. Saman and Larung both suffer from delusions intertwined with the spirit worlds of Sumatra and Java. This connection to the spirit worlds indicates a weakness, a susceptibility to being entered by undesirable spirits or forces that will lead to death and destruction. By linking the two activists to uncanny powers and to the ghosts of Java, Utami seems to suggest that activists and
57 58

Ibid., pp. 810. Wisanggeni is the name of a well-known shadow theatre character in Central Java. He is the son of the refined hero, Arjuna, and a heavenly nymph, daughter of the god Brama. Wisanggeni is known for his total honesty and his ability to act as a savior of his family. As someone whose power is so strong that he cannot be killed, he chooses to ascend to heaven (moksa) before the Bratayuda War. Wisanggeni has been a popular name for characters in modern Indonesian literature. Besides Utamis Saman , Seno Gumira Ajidarma wrote Wisanggeni Sang Buronan [Wisanggeni the Fugitive] (Yogyakarta, Indonesia: Yayasan Bentang Budaya, 2000) and the theatre group Teater Tetas has performed Wisanggeni Berkelebat [Wisanggeni Suddenly Appears] in 2000.

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witches are interchangeable in the reformasi period. As Siegel has noted in his explanations of why witches were killed after the fall of the New Order: To ask if one is a witch is to say that I cannot put myself in the place that others once placed me. I can no longer see myself as they saw me at an earlier time in my everyday identity. Earlier, I would be able to say I am not a witch, because I would be unable [to] find in myself the confirmation of my accusers. But under the conditions that prevailed during the witch hunt, self-image disappeared, as multiple possibilities of identity thrust themselves forward. Witch, under that condition, is a name for the incapacity to figure oneself.59 If activist is substituted for witch in Siegels quote, this passage comes close to the message of Utamis novels about activism both during and after the New Order: activists are those who are unable to figure themselves or to construct a coherent identity for themselves. The activist characters who are the heroes of the novels offer an ambiguous message about activism. Saman is the good activist, the defrocked priest who works himself to the bone to save the transmigrant villagers of south Sumatra. His hallucinations and attachments to women, both the developmentally impaired sister of his friend, Anton, and the rich lawyer and activist, Yasmin, cause him pain and suffering. But he remains a sympathetic character. Larung is never a sympathetic character since he is introduced in the midst of a psychotic delusion that ends in a gruesome murder. But Utami seems to say that these two characters are not that different, are in fact interchangeable, and their tragic fate is the fate of activists after the fall of the New Order. They are damaged by the past. They cannot find a way to survive in the post-New Order world of Indonesia. The failure of the revolutionary postcolonial nation that emerged during Soekarnos Guided Democracy period and the failure of revolutionary protest or resistance during the violent New Order period that followed it return again in the reformasi period and allow Utami to present her activist heroes as traumatized failures. Since Saman was published while the New Order state was still in power, Utami was not able to address the issues of the traumatic past as clearly there as she does in Larung. It took courage to publish Saman when the book first appeared in 1998 because it addressed the corruption and brutality of the New Order in startlingly explicit terms. However, Utamis work has been most celebrated for its graphic depictions of female sexuality, both verbal and physical.60 As they introduce discussions of sexuality into the public sphere, Utamis novels have been important to her female readership in Indonesia not only for their representations of upper-class womens habitual life, but also in symbolic ways. But Utamis work is not only about womens right to a cosmopolitan sexual freedom. Her characterization of Larung exposes the depths of violence, cruelty, and insanity left in the wake of the New Order. The novel Larung is a step toward the working out of the traumas of the past, but Utami does not easily place the origin of these traumas in the colonial period. Utamis re-telling of the Calonarang
Siegel, Naming the Witch, p. 124. Siegel posits a choice for Indonesians between becoming a revolutionary or naming a witch. Utami offers a slightly different set of choices. 60 For a recent survey of discussions of Saman and sexuality, see Soe Tjen Marching, Descriptions of Female Sexuality in Ayu Utamis Saman, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 38,1 (February 2007): 133-46.
59

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story locates the traumas of the state in an unspecified moment before linear time, as Larungs mother names the pre-twentieth-century world.61 The most powerful characters in the segment of Larung discussed in this essay are the old widow/witches, the grandmother and her old friend in the cave. They have mastered the esoteric black magic of Java and Bali that allows them to kill and to protect. And they are difficult to kill, as demonstrated by the difficulties Larung encounters as he plans and attempts to murder his grandmother. It is easy to see in these doubled widow grandmothers the weight of tradition, of the past, of a life and time that is seen nostalgically as both irretrievable and desirable. But for Larung, the activist, the past that his grandmother represents is so threatening that it must be totally destroyed, cut up into little pieces, so that it cannot be available for reconstruction or assimilation. In fact, in the novel that bears his name, Larung defeats almost everyone. He destroys his grandmother, the grandmothers old friend from whom he extracts the power to kill the grandmother, his mother, eventually Saman, and Yasmin, Samans married lover. He even bloodies Soekarnos iconic speeches, credited with creating the nation. And he destroys himself. It is the inability to assimilate the past and the traumas of that past that turn the men of Utamis novels into failures. They cannot heal themselves, and they cannot heal the nation. Most tragically, they can be suddenly snatched away and killed, leaving loss and rupture in their wake.62 Is there an answer or a way to speak to the traumas and problems of Larung and those of his generation? Jim Siegels work on the killing of witches in the late 1990s helps to strengthen this interpretation of Utamis narrative as one that addresses the traumas of history and nation and the failure of witches. The grandmother/witches are portrayed in Utamis novel as powerful figures with esoteric knowledge. When Larung sets out to kill his grandmother, he first needs to find esoteric knowledge to accomplish the deed and then he is not content to have her merely dead, but must totally destroy her body. Siegel explains: When the witch lacks a figure, it seems necessary to disembody him to get at the essence of witchcraft. Simply killing the person does not do it. To be rid of the witch, particularly given the lack of ritual means to do so, means killing something that one cannot find. It means killing more than the body, and therefore it requires the witch to be slain multiple times, as it were.63 Larungs grandmother is both a good and a bad witch: she is the savior of her family and its destroyer too. Utamis portrayal reflects the ambiguity of the position of witches in post-Suharto Indonesia. And Larung, haunted by ghosts and a killer of witches, is also a controversial figure. He too must be a witch, or a potential witch, but Utami chooses to portray him as a victim of trauma, perhaps reflecting what Siegel sees as the failure of sorcery in contemporary Indonesia. In his explanation of the
61

Larungs mother tells him that the grandmother was born Before time was something linear, rather like a cycle that goes on and on. (Ketika waktu belumlah sesuatu yang linear, melainkan sebuah siklus yang terus-menerus.) Utami, Larung, p. 13. 62 See Ayu Utami, Writing as Negating, Paper presented at IWP Panel, Why I Write What I Write, Iowa City Public Library, October 26, 2005, pp. 1-4, http://www.uiowa.edu/~iwp/EVEN/documents/Utami_Why_I_write.pdf, accessed on March 4, 2007. 63 Siegel, Naming the Witch, p. 119.

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killing of witches in East Java in 1998, Siegel contends that the older spirit world of Javamuch commented on in scholarly literaturehas fallen out of balance. The remedy against sorcery is no longer sorcery. Gossip no longer satisfies. The power of the dukun will now not prevail against sorcerers. When sorcery was the answer to sorcery, the spirit world was in equilibrium. This is presently not the case. The menace is general and catastrophe threatens.64 In Utamis novels, Larung and Saman, as potential activists or witches who commune with the Javanese spirit world, must both be destroyed as they are out of balance with the times. For Utami, neither the witches of the past nor the activists/witches of the reformasi period have power that is efficacious. Utamis work is very much concerned with power: the power of women, of black magic, of ghosts, of activists, and of the state. In Saman and Larung, older women are in touch with the spirit world, whether it is Larungs grandmother and her friend, or Samans mother with her spectral lover. These characters mediate between seen and unseen worlds. When Larung reinterprets his debt to his grandmother, he combines a modern sensibility with the debt of tradition, and he cancels the debt he incurred by choosing to determine the hour of his grandmothers death. Utami suggests that it is, in fact, the ghosts of the past that need to be banished or confronted to heal the nation and its people. Utami is not necessarily advocating a move away from older forms of religious belief or spirituality, but she wants to work towards liberating women and men from the constrictions placed upon them by tradition, religion, gender constructions, and, most of all, the violence of state power.65 In her novels, Utami has begun the critical work of integrating Indonesias ghosts into its national histories. She has also begun the work of reintegrating feminine voices into national narratives. Whereas the power of the old womenand Utami emphasizes this theme through her re-telling of the Old Javanese and Balinese Calonarang story may come from their ability to learn the arts of invulnerability, the four young heroines, never much more than wives and mistresses of the male activists, are still exploring their own identities. They are not yet able to accrue power beyond the fragile power they have as elite women in twenty-first-century Indonesia. Even when the heroines are in New York City, they are there in a group, and it is as a group that they find their power. They do not make new friends, and they could as easily be in Jakarta as New York. These womens loyalties are to each other and to Saman, the wounded, martyred ex-priest who was their teacher and now is Yasmins lover. Characters in the novels like Saman or Leila are trapped in their own melancholic worlds because they feel a lack of self-worth. Since they are unable to mourn or identify their losses that arise from the lingering traumas of the 1960s and the failures of reformasi, these losses keep returning to leave them dissatisfied and full of longing. Freudian melancholia is characterized as an inability to assimilate a loss and then the constant return of the loss through haunting and repetition. But Freud also suggested a way in which the melancholic disorder and its attending loss of self-worth could
Ibid., pp. 130-31. Utami, as a Catholic, cites the New Testament as her major inspiration (interview, Jakarta, September 2003), but she also spoke vehemently about the unfair burdens placed on women in contemporary Indonesian society by the expectation that they preserve their virginity.
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isolate a part of the ego that criticizes the feelings and thoughts of the rest of the ego. This internal criticism can, in the best of cases, lead to what Freud called critical agency or conscience.66 Ranjana Khanna, a recent interpreter of Freuds work in the field of postcolonial studies, draws on Freuds notion of critical agency to open up a space where the condition of melancholia might call for confronting the ghosts of the past. Although aware of the possibility that melancholia might commonly result in paralysis, stasis, or ... loss, Khanna suggests that the critical agency that can arise from melancholia might productively be used to work through trauma toward a more ethical future.67 If Khannas reinterpretation of Freudian melancholia is a possibility in post-reformasi Indonesia, the women in Utamis novels are the kinds of people who might be able to develop this new form of critical agency. In their fluid and overlapping subjectivity, represented in the novels by their overlapping and intertwined voices and movements, there is a promise of a future feminist agency and power that would not be activist in a masculinist sense, but would seek to find collective rather than individualistic ways to answer the problems of the postcolonial nation. Melancholia is a troubled and dangerous condition, but it may be the best one can hope for in the post-traumatic world of the twenty-first century in Indonesia and elsewhere.

Indonesian Histories and Literary Archives This essay has explored the ways in which novels might expand and enrich the Indonesian archives of the recent past by bringing issues of trauma and memory into discourse. History writing is always a process of double inscription: what may have happened is always shadowed by the historians attempt to record what may have happened. This essay has suggested that, like history writing, haunting is also a process through which time is stretched, diminished, or doubled.68 In Utamis novels
66

Mourning and Melancholia, The Freud Reader, ed. Peter Gay, p. 585: We see how in him [the melancholic] one part of the ego sets itself over against the other, judges it critically, and, as it were, takes it as its object. Our suspicion that the critical agency which is here split off from the ego might also show its independence in other circumstances will be confirmed by every further observation. We shall really find grounds for distinguishing this agency from the rest of the ego. What we are here becoming acquainted with is the agency commonly called conscience ... Freud developed this idea of critical agency in 1917 in his essay Mourning and Melancholia. Critical agency will eventually become the super-ego in Freuds later development of ego psychology in the 1920s. Cf. Ranjana Khanna, Dark Continents: Psychoanalysis and Colonialism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), pp. 15-17, and Sarita See, An Open Wound: Colonial Melancholia and Contemporary Filipino/American Texts, in Vestiges of War, ed. Angel Velasco Shaw and Luis H. Francia (New York, NY: New York University Press, 2002), pp. 377-400. For a complete text of Freuds classic essay Mourning and Melancholia, see A General Selection from the Works of Sigmund Freud, ed. John Rickman (New York, NY: Anchor/Doubleday, 1957), pp. 124-40. 67 Khanna, Dark Continents, p. 25. Khanna, pp. 23-25, combines Freudian ideas on melancholia with ideas on the incorporation of lost objects swallowed whole that cause demetaphorization in the work of the late psychoanalysts Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok. Khanna, p. 204, explains the logic of connections among haunting, melancholia, and critical agency as: . . . an examination of the manner in which past inassimilable experiences constitute phantoms or specters, and manifest themselves as melancholic affect and a form of critical agency for the future to come. She is concerned in her book to provide a feminist vision for a more ethical global future. 68 For discussions of time and history, see Reinhart Koselleck, The Practice of Conceptual History (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002); and Harry Harootunian, Some Thoughts on Comparability and the Space-Time Problem, Boundary 32 (2005): 23-52.

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there are doubled heroes, doubled grandmothers, doubled lovers, and continual hauntings that work to disrupt time and challenge memory. Returning to a point made earlier in this essay, no essential narrative exists in trauma survivors that is waiting to be given voice. If the historian or listener elicits a narrative that takes shape in the act of telling, then the historian works in a similar manner to the novelist in reshaping and giving voice to memories. The historian and the novelist both become part of this process of doubled inscription. Indonesian historical archives have many unrecognized losses, recurring returns, ruptures, and wounds that become spectral presences haunting contemporary narratives of the past. At the end of Larung, the sudden disappearance of the tormented and wounded heroes reinscribes the loss that was experienced by various Indonesians when children, friends, and fellow workers vanished in the struggle against the New Order state.69 These ideas of trauma and archive serve as a starting point for understanding the Indonesian nations ghosts, but the work of integrating them into national histories is just beginning. This essay has also begun to investigate what a reconsideration of Freudian literary critiques might have to offer the study of Indonesian history.70 To assume that the narratives of the mid-1960s and the late 1990s are open to various interpretations is to see their truth claims as conditional or contingent. But this is not to suggest that such truth claims are unimportant. As old archives are reconfigured and new ones come into being, it is important to cultivate new interpretive methodologies along with new accumulations of data and stories. If time and memory are reconfigured by traumatic events, those who create, maintain, or even destroy the traces that historical archives collect need to learn how to read the doubled inscriptions of Indonesian pasts.

Interview with Utami, Jakarta, September 2003. As Susan van Zyl has pointed out in Psychoanalysis and the Archive: Derridas Archive Fever, p. 51: That psychoanalysis is a science of memory, of unwanted remembering and active forgetting on the individual level, is of undoubted importance to what Freud has to contribute to an understanding of the archive. See also Ann Laura Stoler, Colonial Archives and the Arts of Governance, Archival Science 2 (2002): 94 who points out: In cultural theory, the archive has a capital A, is figurative, and leads elsewhere. It may represent neither material site nor a set of documents. Rather, it may serve as a strong metaphor for any corpus of selective forgettings and collectionsand, as importantly, for the seductions and longings that such quests for, and accumulations of, the primary, originary, and untouched entail.
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BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE? INTERSTITIAL FEMALE SUBJECTIVITY IN BETWEEN COLONIALISM AND PATRIARCHY: WOMEN IN PRAMOEDYA ANANTA TOERS BURU TETRALOGY
Razif Bahari

Pramoedyas checkered literary career has made reception to his works inconstant and inconsistent. Incarcerated by the colonial power he sought to displace and then banned by the very government he helped to bring about, Pramoedyas position is controversial, to say the least. This outside/insider status1 problematizes any reading of his works. As a controversial figure situated on the margins of discourse in several senses, traversing the intersections of historical junctures, notions of selfhood, and subjectifying practices, Pramoedya offers a unique perspective on how female subjectivity can be articulated differently than the socially dominant discourses of Indonesia would have it. In patriarchal colonial culture, female identity has always been doubly colonized; a woman finds herself rendered subject to a higher power once because she is a woman and again by virtue of her status as other (read: native).
1

For interesting discussions of Pramoedyas outsider position, see A. H. Johns, Pramoedya Ananta Toer: The Writer as OutsiderAn Indonesian Example, in Cultural Options and the Role of Tradition: A Collection of Essays on Modern Indonesian and Malaysian Literature (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1972), pp. 96108; and Bakri Siregar, Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Orang Luar dan Orang Dalam, Bintang Timur, February 23, 1964.

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Pramoedyas writing is an attempt to create the necessary conditions for the dismantling of this double marginalization and the fabrication of a new space wherein womans specificity can be narrated: in between colonialism and patriarchy. Acting as a synthesis of much of Pramoedyas previous writing on women2 and literature, the Buru tetralogy blurs the boundaries between mapping the process of coming into subjectivity and its very occurrence as an event. In other words, the tetralogy both chronicles the process of recovery and becomes that process itself, the necessary and difficult articulation of the previously silenced female voice. Painfully, agonizingly, Pramoedyas female characters and their narrative voices make and unmake words and worlds. Female protagonists in the tetralogy like Nyai Ontosoroh and Mei struggle for selfhood, stumble, fall, and start again, until the possibility of articulation is no longer in question and the narrative of womens experience begins to show itself.

Narrative Dispatterns The explosion of pain and anguish that so defines Pramoedyas work is intensely personal,3 signaling the eruption of his own passion as he struggles to write Indonesian women and their role during the fight for independence into existence. It becomes obvious, as soon as one reads other works by Pramoedyahis essays, short stories, and the interviews he has giventhat he believes fervently in the important role women played in the Indonesian nationalist struggle. While many writers have explored the impact of colonialism on the discursive, constructed, or imagined nature of national identities, Pramoedya has gone further by exposing how patriarchy and colonialism exacerbated gender oppression and showing that men and women were subjected to it differently. Through his description of the coming into being of national consciousness in Indonesia, we begin to see that women were not only objectified collectively through the figure of the child-bearer, portrayed as nurturers of the cultural and family values of the nation (as gendered assumptions of women would have us believe), but that they were active participants in the struggle for independence.
2 See Pramoedyas novellas, Keluarga Gerilya (1949; repr., Kuala Lumpur: Pustaka Antara, 1980); Midah Si Manis Bergigi Mas (Bukittinggi: Nusantara, 1955); Gadis Pantai (Kuala Lumpur: Wira Karya, 1987); his articles, Hamidah, in the Mengenangkan Kembali Bangkitnja Bangsa Indonesia series in Bintang Timur, June 8, 1962; Hikayat Njai Dasima, Bintang Timur, December 13, 1964; and Sekali Lagi tentang Njai Dasima, Bintang Timur, December 27, 1964; and series of essays in Panggil Aku Kartini Sadja (Jakarta: Nusantara, 1962). 3 In an interview with Chris GoGwilt, Pramoedya, asked to comment about the feminist awakenings in the tetralogy, replied: In my view, women deliver everything. In the back of my mind is always my mothermy mother as teacher, educator, and bearer of ideas. See Chris GoGwilt, Pramoedyas Fiction and History: An Interview with Indonesian Novelist Pramoedya Ananta Toer, in Pramoedya Ananta Toer 70 Tahun: Essays to Honour Pramoedya Ananta Toers 70th Year, ed. Bob Herring (Stein: Yayasan Kabar Seberang, 1995), pp. 12-13. In a footnote on Pramoedyas reference to his mother, GoGwilt notes that [t]he second volume of Pramoedyas Buru memoirs, made up of letters written to family members, includes an extended meditation on the image of his mother. Entitled, De Revolutie, moeder van alle deugden [The Revolution, mother of all virtues], the letter develops a moving and striking analogy between the memory and image of his mother and the ideals of the Indonesian revolution. Ibid., p. 25n.

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What is of particular interest here is the portrayal of women in Pramoedyas works, which breaks away from traditional stereotypes of female subordination and instead provides a model of autonomous womanhood. Barbara Hatley offers an analysis of Pramoedyas female characters along these lines: [Pramoedyas] female characterization confronts dominant gender ideology. Where women figured in mainstream literary works embody notions of cultural continuity and conservative social values, Pramudya[sic] depict[s] female characters of a contrasting type with opposing political suggestion. These women arguably recall age-old images of independent, assertive female power, but here with implications which are positive, even heroic, rather than threatening. Rather than marginalising them from the national domain, exclusion of such women from traditional structures of political control instead frees them to represent possibilities of a new, transformed Indonesian polity. The stereotypical association of women with nature, nurture, and tradition, as well as their exclusion from the domain of politics and nation, is boldly challenged. 4 In the tetralogy, Pramoedyas portrayal of some of his female characters reveals the ideologies of misogyny or patriarchy that operated in the hierarchical arrangement of both colonial and Javanese societies in the East Indies at the turn of the twentieth centurya moment in which female subjectivity is affirmed, yet shows itself to be inscribed with the marks of patriarchal discriminations and divisions which are at work in the novels representations. Here we should also consider the fact that the textual constructions of woman and femininity are being mediated at all times by a man (whether Pramoedya, as the author of the tetralogy, or Minkethe narrator in the first three novelsor even Pangemanann, the narrator of the last novel); this adds a further layer to the contestations surrounding the representation of gender in the tetralogy. The tetralogys movement, along with the formal manipulation of narrative lines, or story lines in he said/she said form,5 within the text depict and enact the emergence of previously silenced female voices in Indonesian literature and history. The Buru tetralogy, made up primarily of Minkes, the male protagonists, narration in the first three novels, is interspersed with accounts (in the form of retelling, letters, and court testimony) by female charactersinterconnected fragments of narration within narrations. This narrative pattern, or dispattern, reflects the structure of the entire tetralogy. By interjecting these female accounts, Pramoedya builds a material history of womens experiences in colonial Indonesia, a history that is literally in pieces. Even more prominent in the tetralogy is the story of Nyai Ontosoroh, the native concubine whose dignity and indomitable will defy subjection both by Dutch colonialism and traditional Javanese androcentricism. This story is also constructed fitfully, almost as a matriarchic source that gives birth to Minkes story of nationalist awakening. The reader pieces together the life of Nyai Ontosoroh, in particular, and native women, in general, after coming across a multitude of references to her and to the oppressive colonial and patriarchal systems women are subjected to; these references are strewn
Barbara Hatley, Nation, Tradition, and Constructions of the Feminine in Modern Indonesian Literature, in Imagining Indonesia: Cultural Politics and Political Culture, ed. Jim Schiller and Barbara Martin-Schiller (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Centre for International Studies, 1997), pp. 103-4. 5 Jamie James, The Indonesiad, The New Yorker, May 27, 1996.
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throughout the tetralogy and narrated in both the first and third person. These female accounts, these multiple story lines merge, intersect, and move in and out of the pages of the tetralogy. The tetralogy, at the level of narrative structure, sets in place several female narrative subjects whose identities and stories interact and intersect. In chapter five of the first novel, Bumi Manusia,6 for example, Annelies, the half-Dutch-half-Javanese (Indo)7 daughter of Nyai Ontosoroh, relates to Minke her mothers own account of her woeful and wretched life as a nyai8 or concubine before she picks up from where her mothers account left off with her version of how the arrival of her Dutch stepbrother, Maurits Mellema, destroyed the former happiness of Nyai Ontosorohs family. Interwoven into Minkes narration of the chain of events leading to the trial of Nyai Ontosorohs son, Robert Mellema, and the mysterious Fatso, over the murder of Herman Mellema, Roberts father, is Maikos (Maiko is a Japanese prostitute) testimony in court. In the second novel, Anak Semua Bangsa, Minkes narration is corroborated by the story of Surati, Nyai Ontosorohs niece, retold in Minkes narrative voice, which describes the economic hardship experienced by Nyai Ontosorohs
6 All references to the Buru tetralogy are to the Wira Karya, Kuala Lumpur editions: Bumi Manusia (This Earth of Mankind) (3rd ed., 1990); Anak Semua Bangsa (Child of All Nations) (2nd ed., 1989); Jejak Langkah (Footsteps) (1986); and Rumah Kaca (House of Glass) (2nd ed., 1990). Quotes from the tetralogy in this essay are my English translation of the original Bahasa Indonesia version and will be marked by their abbreviated Bahasa Indonesia titles as BM, ASB, JL, and RK respectively. 7 The children of a liaison between a nyai and her tuanreferred to as Indo (mixed-breed or peranakan ) or, often denigratingly, as anak haram (illegitimate children or bastards)were at the mercy of the father. Only the father had the authority to grant or withhold the gift of citizenship to his Indo child/ren under the new Mixed Marriage Regulation promulgated in 1898. He could consign them to an orphanage when he left the country. Even after the death of the father, the mother had no rights of guardianship. The status of the child would then become the prerogative of the Court of Justice. If the children were not recognized, then they had few prospects and could be abandoned, along with their mother, at any time. Children were a mothers responsibility, as Tineke Hellwig notes in Adjustment and Discontent: Representations of Women in the Dutch East Indies (Windsor, Ontario: Netherlandic Press, 1994), p. 33. 8 The term nyai in the context of association with foreign men is usually translated into English as concubine or native mistress. Commonly, the word was applied to a woman, usually a pribumi (native), who lived with a foreigner (orang asing) as if she were his wife, but outside a recognized marriage. Despite the provision of the gelijkstelling or equalizing policy (which regulates the granting of full rights of Dutch citizenship to an inlander), the nyais were veritably personae non gratae, without any legal rights to protect themselves or their children. A nyai was subject to the whims of her male partner. She was often treated as a property and often referred to as isteri/bini simpanan or bini piaraan (kept woman). Her treatment at the hands of her tuan (literally, Mr., or master, usually used for foreigners) also denoted her status as property: a nyai could be evicted from the tuan s home at any time for any reason; or she could be treated as chattel, abused and discarded when no longer of use. Although the word nyai is usually understood to mean native mistress, this is not the only meaning. The term nyai, and its equivalent terms, were used in a wide variety of household situations. Apart from their role as sexual partners or mistresses (usually coerced) for which nyais are best known, they were usually required to fulfill many other duties: for instance, as housekeepers, cooks, laundry maids, language teachers, financial consultants, and mothers. The term nyai then has a multiplicity of meanings and connotations. It cannot solely be equated with concubine, native mistress, or housekeeper. In part this is reflected in the names used for unmarried women who were perceived to be in illicit relationships. They were referred to as nyai and gundik (mistress, housekeeper, concubine) as well as jalang, sundal, and gendak (prostitute). Furthermore, there were pribumi women living in diverse relationships with foreignersDutch, Indo, Arabian, European, and Chinese menand there were peranakan women in relationships with peranakan men. There were also a number of Dutch terms used to denote nyai: huishoudster (housekeeper), bijzit (concubine), menagere (housekeeper), and meid (maidservant, girl, wench). All of these equivalents, though euphemistic, were taken to mean nyai. For an insightful summary, see Hellwig, Adjustment and Discontent, pp. 3137.

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brother, Sastro Kassier, and his family in the rural village of Tulangan under the forced cultivation, or rodi, system of the colonial Dutch regime. Missives and notes from the de la Croix sisters, Miriam and Sarah, also intermittently intersect with the main narration. The narration of the third novel, Jejak Langkah, is interspersed sporadically with letters from Nyai Ontosoroh, who now lives in self-exile in France with the French artist, Jean Marais, as well as letters from Maysoroh, Jeans daughter. In Rumah Kaca, twenty-one female villagers, while under interrogation, relate their stories of rape, abduction, and brutalization at the hands of European plantation owners to Pangemanann in a way that makes his heart shrivel up (RK, 43). While women are hardly present in the action of the fourth novel, they are imaginatively present, as evidenced by Pangemananns anxiety over the influence womens writing could have on the burgeoning nationalist sentiment. Their metaphoric significance in this narrative cannot be overestimated. I am referring here, of course, to Raden Adjeng Kartini and Siti Soendari,9 whose writings are alluded to quite frequently by Pangemanann in his narrative throughout the course of the novel. These fractured female accounts function as textual representations of womens broken and ravaged nature, as Nyai Ontosoroh puts it. She states: Consider me your egg that has fallen from the egg racks. Broken. (BM, 82); I had no soul anymore, like a wayang puppet in the hands of the puppet-master (BM, 79); like a wooden doll (BM, 78). As the novels present it, the telling of womens stories cannot be coherent or linear in any traditional sense, for there is no coherent or linear story to tell. This story has to be created from ground zero, and the process is painful, splintered, and ruptured. Narrative voices of the female characters in the tetralogy and the complicit narrative structure present a patchwork of reflections, experiences, and histories that signal the preliminary breaking forth of woman into language. It is true that the feminine I frequently emerges in the narrative of the tetralogy, but its referents are many and various. Paradoxically, therefore, far from representing a unitary and coherent subject, the inscription of the feminine I in the discourse produces an enunciative plurality. Despite the reiteration of the I, it is not one voice that speaks in the text and still less one particular subject; it is a polyphony of feminine voices that can be heard in these individual collective forms. This enunciative plurality (which never totally eradicates singularity) calls into question the myths of the unitary feminine subject and of a homogeneous female collective voice. It is as if the tetralogy is multiplying differences by indexing them to the changing forms of the feminine I: from the gloriously divine but childlike and innocent Creole beauty (BM, 201) Annelies, to the beauty that wasnt empty with different origins (JL, 70) that is Ang San Mei, Minkes Chinese second wife; from the lioness without strength (ASB, 185), Djumilah, the wife of Sastro Kassier, who despite her frequent vituperative tirades is helpless to safeguard her daughter from being sold to the Dutch manager of the sugar mill in Tulangan (Frits Homerus Vlikkenbaaij, alias Plikemboh [Ugly Penis]), to Djumilahs daughter, Surati, who contracts smallpox voluntarily as a way to commit
9 Raden Adjeng Kartini (18791904), a native princess from Jepara who became the first Western-educated native woman in twentieth-century East Indies. A feminist and educator, she wrote extensively to support the emancipation of native women in the East Indies. On her role in generating a new nationalism and her contribution in promoting popular education for Native children, girls as well as boys, see Pramoedya, Panggil Aku Kartini Sadja, pp. 6265.

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suicide and thus escape becoming Plikembohs mistress;10 from Rientje de Roo,11 the alluring high-class prostitute who tempts Pangemananns fancy in Rumah Kaca, to Princess Kasiruta, Minkes fiercely loyal third wife who shoots Robert Suurhof in defence of her husbands life. Pramoedyas depiction of the incoherent female non-subject as she exists prior to the act of writing herself recalls feminist paradigms that use notions of madness or hysteria to describe the condition of women in uncontested patriarchal systems.12 Unlike feminist theorists who go further and recognize spaces conceived as outside reason, or outside the real, as the locus of legitimate opposition, Nyai Ontosorohs narrative voice insists, although tentatively at first, on her presence in the text and in the world. She ends the first section of the tetralogy with this manifesto: Yes, Child, Nyo, we must fight back, we must resist We need not be ashamed if we are defeated. We must know why The main reason is that we dont have the courage. And more generally still, we havent learnt anything. All their lives the Natives have suffered what we are now suffering. No one raises his or her voicedumb like the river stones and mountains, even if cut up and made into no matter what. What a roar there would be if they all spoke out as we will now speak out. Perhaps even the sky itself would be shattered because of the din. (BM, 330) Coming at the end of one of the most inspiring sections of the first novel, this statement can be read as an affirmation of the desire not to be silenced. Whereas so much of the preceding imagery has evoked silence, surrender (Nyai Ontosorohs mother, we are told, could only cry and sob in a corner of the kitchen, silent in a thousand tongues [BM, 74] when Nyais father decided to sell her to Herman Mellema as his concubine), immobility, and entrapment, here the speaking voice begins to talk of movement, of approaching boundaries with words, of speaking out so that the sky itself would be shattered because of the din (BM, 330). This affirmation of presence, like the multiple female story lines and accounts, moves in and out of the text. Its contorted path, which leads the female presence in these novels from a condition as voiceless object to speaking subject, is also mirrored in the formal structure of the tetralogy.

Angels and Monsters Beginning with the narrative representations of women in the first novel, Bumi Manusia, we can identify Annelies and Nyai Ontosoroh as the two main loci on which the text focuses its construction of women and femininity. The image of Annelies as an angel, beautiful, and arresting (BM, 34), and as a child-like maiden (BM,
Pramoedya borrows this smallpox episode in Tulangan from Tjerita Nji Paina (published in Batavia in 1900), by H. Kommer, a Dutch journalist and story writer. This story is included in Pramoedyas anthology of pre-Indonesian literature, Tempo Doeloe (Jakarta: Hasta Mitra, 1982). 11 A character Pramoedya modeled after the historical figure of Fientje de Feniks, an Indo prostitute who, after she spurned the advances of one of her Dutch patrons, was murdered by the jealous mans hired killer in 1912 in Batavia. For a study see Tineke Hellwig, A Double Murder in Batavia: Representations of Gender and Race in the Indies, Review of Indonesian and Malaysian Affairs 35,2 (2001): 132. 12 See for example, Elaine Showalter, Feminism and Hysteria: The Daughters Disease, in The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980 (London: Virago Press, 1987), pp. 14564.
10

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44), and of Nyai Ontosoroh as a sorceress (BM, 42) whose black magic grips peoples hearts and minds (BM, 61), conforms most closely to the archetypal dual images of women as either angels or monsters. In her influential analysis of the question Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture?, the anthropologist Sherry Ortner notes that in every society the psychic mode associated with women seems to stand at both the bottom and the top of the scale of human modes of relating. Attempting to account for this symbolic ambiguity, Ortner explains both the subversive feminine symbols (witches, evil eye, menstrual pollution, castrating mothers) and the feminine symbols of transcendence (mother goddesses, merciful dispensers of salvation, female symbols of justice) by pointing out that women can appear from certain points of view to stand both under and over (but really simply outside of) the sphere of cultures hegemony.13 That is, precisely because a woman is denied cultural autonomy, or the subjectivity, she comes to embody just those extremes of mysterious and intransigent otherness that patriarchal culture confronts with worship, fear, love, or loathing. Because the male construction of woman in the tetralogy reveals the very anxieties of a patriarchy in transformation, and because this male representation of woman has for so long been radically qualified by the angeland monster-imagery in male-authored texts, I will attempt here a brief analysis of the fundamental extremes of angel and monster archetypes of women as they are engendered in the Buru tetralogy. Although the tetralogy seeks to impose its own hegemonic definition of masculinity and femininity, neither goes uncontested. The very representations of male emasculation and female empowerment constitute slippages that can expose and question the constructions themselves. As a work full of overlaps and ruptures where discourses intersect, the Buru tetralogy stands as an intriguing example of the shifting ideological tensions to be found in Pramoedyas representation of women. The ideal woman that male authors in the tetralogy dream of generating is ineluctably almost always an angel: [h]er cheeks, her lips, her forehead, her nose, even her earsall are as if formed in wax, shaped according to all mens dreams (BM, , 303). At the same time, this angelic figure of woman has an alter-ego in the pernicious images of the witch, siren, ghost, or whore. Throughout history, women in Javanese narratives have been represented both as angels and monsters, a condition that can seem quite varied, even rich, because so many masks, reflecting such an elaborate typology, have been invented for them. Where and how did this ambiguous image originate? In Javanese myths, legends, and folklore, mankinds great teacher of purity was Kunti, the selfless and devoted mother of the Five Pandawas, the archetypal Indonesian mythic heroes (of Indic origin)Bima, Arjuna, Yudistira, and the twins, Nakula and Sadewa. She is the symbol of motherhood, a mother goddess who perfectly fits the female role Ortner defines as merciful dispenser of salvation. 14 This eternal type of female purity is represented also in a pantheon of other Javanese legendary and mythic icons in the figures of Dayang Sumbi in the Legend of Tangkuban Prahu (Indonesias answer to the Oedipus story); Roro Jonggrang in the legend of the Temple of Prambanan; Nawangwulan, the fairy nymph, in the legend of
13 Sherry Ortner, Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture? in Woman, Culture, and Society, ed. Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo and Louise Lamphre (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1974), p. 86. 14 Ibid.

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Jakatarub; Sita, the beautiful and faithful wife of Prince Rama of the Ramayana epic; and, of course, the famous Nyi Roro Kidul, the goddess of the Southern Ocean. In these legends and myths, the female goddess (or dewi kayangan, literally ethereal maiden), invested with supernatural beauty, power, and immortality, embodies the role of interpreter or intermediary between divine and mortal men. This female intercessor at the symbolic level operates as an agent of a greater Javanese cosmology; through her, the inaccessible is symbolically portrayed and the inexpressible is symbolically made manifest. The eternal feminine (that is, the eternal principle symbolized by woman) draws men to other-worldly spheres; in Javanese legends and myths, Woman can drag men down into ignobility and perdition or exalt him to great glory and triumph. The ideal of contemplative purity is always feminine, while the ideal of significant action is masculine. An angel womans essential virtue, in other words, is that her virtue makes her man great. (This is obviously not true of the witch or monster woman.) According to the laws of this cultural grammar, a good woman can serve only as a signifier of man, her very ability to mean predicated on her functioning as a subordinate term. Once again, therefore, it is just because angel women are defined as wholly passive, and completely void of generative power, that they become numinous to male authors. For in the metaphysical emptiness, their purity signifies that they are self-less, with all the moral and psychological implications that word suggests. Minkes description of Annelies conveys the conventionally masculine image of the angel figure: Down those stairs descended the angel Annelies, in a batik kain, a laced kabaya. Her sanggul was a bit too high, revealing her long white neck. Her neck, arms, ears, and bosom were decorated with a pattern of green-white emeralds, pearls and diamonds I was entranced. She must have been more beautiful and arresting than Jaka Tarubs angel in the legends of Babad Tanah Jawi. She was grinning all over as if embarrassed And I knew she had dressed up for me and me alone. (BM, 34) Annelies feels permanently dependent (BM, 198) and has a mentality of a ten-yearold child (BM, 231). She gives advice and consolation to others, listens, smiles, sympathizes; her unselfish grace, gentleness, simplicity, and great beauty make her fit to be the adornment of [Minkes] life (BM, 194).15 In short, Annelies has no story except a sort of anti-story of selfless innocence based on the Javanese feudalistic notion that A good wife serves her husband, takes care of the children and makes the family happy irrespective, and ahead, of her own feelings; contributes and maintains the success of her husbands career/reputation by accentuating his positive characters while understating the negatives.16 There is a long and crowded roadfrom G. Franciss Tjerita Njai Dasima (1896) and Sutan Takdir Alisjahbanas Layar Terkembang (1936), to Ajip Rosidis Roro Mendut: Sebuah Tjerita Klasika Djawa (1968) and Umar Kayams Bawuk (1975), to Y. B.
The Indonesian word menyuntingkan here means both to put flowers in the hair or behind the ear as ornaments, as well as figuratively to take as a wife. 16 stri apik nyngg bokong, nyngg karma, mikul dhuwur, mendhem jero.
15

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Mangunwijayas Roro Mendut (1983) and Durga Umayi (1994)of Indonesian works of fiction that, despite having female protagonists who are assertive and independent minded, play a part in the confirmation of those eternal feminine virtues. The virtues of modesty, gracefulness, purity, delicacy, civility, compliancy, reticence, chastity, affability, selflessness are all modes of mannerliness that contribute to womans angelic innocence. The arts of pleasing men, in other words, are not only the characteristics of angelic, mythic prototypes; in more worldly terms, they are the proper acts of a lady:17 It was not proper for a well-mannered girl to lift up her eyes and face towards a male guest who was not known well to the family. Especially if he was white (BM, 75). Even the well-educated and modern Moluccan Princess van Kasiruta resigns herself to a domestic role, reaffirming the traditional belief that women began their life with the wedding bed and the opinion of the Governors-General of the Indies that women could be silenced by bringing them to the wedding-bed (JL, 375). I only have one husband, declares Princess van Kasiruta. My husbands work involves taking care of many things. My main work is to look after my husband ... [My] husband is [my] star, [my] moon, [my] sun. Without him, nothing will exist, including myself (JL, 436, 454). Similarly, Ang San Mei regrets her own perceived failing as a wife: Since a child I have been told to be correct, to behave correctly Ive been very unfair to you these past months, not like a good Chinese should be to her husband (JL, 137, 141). Thus marriage has been seen as a primary site for womens subordination, as many feminists have noted.18 As the ultimate of exchange commodities, women are highly
17

The Javanese has strict precepts governing female morals and manners encapsulated in what is called the Kodrat Wanita (Womans Nature), which characterizes the proper women as lemah lembut [soft and weak], dont speak out loudly, and specifically not in their own interests, dont push their own affairs against those of husbands and fathers, but are instead docile wives and dutiful daughters. Saskia Wieringa, The Perfumed Nightmare: Indonesian Womens Organizations after 1950, in Pramoedya Ananta Toer 70 Tahun, ed. Bob Hering, p. 277. These precepts are epitomized in the ideology of the New Order family welfare programme, the PKK (Pembinaan Kesejahteraan Keluarga), which promotes the Panca Dharma Wanita (Five Duties of Women), which are: to be a loyal companion to her husband, to procreate for the nation, to educate and guide her children, to regulate the household, and lastly, to be a useful member of society. Wieringa, The Perfumed Nightmare, p. 277. For an analysis of this Javanese code, Kodrat Wanita, as it applies to Sri, the central figure in Pramoedyas short story, Dia Yang Menyerah, from his collection of short stories, Tjerita dari Blora (Jakarta: Hasta Mitra, 1952), see Hatley Constructions of the Feminine, pp. 90-93. 18 One thinks of the eponymous juvenile female protagonist in Pramoedyas short story, Inem, who is forced into marriage at the age of eight. The story, a critique of the traditional practice of child marriage, is narrated by Gus Muk, who follows the life of his neighbour, Inem, the daughter of a breeder of fighting cocks and a larcenist. Inem is forced by her parents into marrying Markaban, a seventeen-year-old son of a well-to-do man who often beats her. After a year, Inem leaves her husband and returns to her parents. Her tragedy is not unrelieved, however. Escape from an abusive forced marriage not only brings pecuniary penalty but shame, stigmatization, and abasement, as the narrator ruefully reflects: And thereafter, the nine-year-old divorcesince she was nothing but a burden to her familycould be beaten by anyone who wanted to: her mother, her brothers, her uncle, her neighbours, her aunts. Yet Inem never came to our house. Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Inem, in Contemporary Literature of Asia, ed. Arthur Biddle et al. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996), p. 148. Another of Pramoedyas earlier work that looks at the intransigent nature of prevailing patriarchal attitudes towards women is Gadis Pantai (The Girl from the Coast) (first appeared in 1962; reprinted by Hasta Mitra in 1987), which looks at the custom followed by aristocratic Javanese men who took practice wives to fulfill their personal and sexual needs until they decided to marry a woman of their own class. The novel is modeled after the lifestory of Pramoedyas own maternal grandmother, Satima, who suffered the fate of being a practice wife to the head of local religious affairs, a Javanese man working for the colonial Dutch administration. See Pramoedya, What They Did With Their Lives, TIME Asia, Special Issue on Asian Heroes, April 29, 2002, pp. 4647. The

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valued for providing a family lineage, and the centrality of marriage to a womans selfconception is a common theme through traditional discourses on women. What is interesting here is that the standards by which Mei and Princess Kasiruta measure themselves as ideal woman and wife 19 remain so deeply informed by traditional codes that seek to contain women. Enshrined within her home, the East Indies pure, contemplative angel-woman becomes her husbands holy refuge from the blood and sweat that inevitably accompanies his life of significant action, as well as a living memento of the otherness of the divine. In the severity of her selflessness, as well as in the extremity of her subordination within patriarchal and feudalistic cultural praxis, the representative angel-women in the Buru tetralogy, Mei and Annelies, become not just mementos of otherness but actually memento mori, producing both a conventionalized iconography and a stylized hagiography of ladylike fragility and delicate beauty doomed to ephemeral existence. Annelies dies in chapter two of Anak Semua Bangsa, shortly after being extradited to the Netherlands, where her fragile health quickly deteriorates after she is forcibly separated from her natural mother, Nyai Ontosoroh, and her husband, Minke, and placed under the legal custody of her vindictive stepmother, Mrs. Amelia MellemaHammers.20 The Chinese Mei, whose selfless devotion to the Tiong Hoa Hwee Koan,21
narrative tells of Bendoro, the son of a minor aristocrat who has taken a girl from a fishing village as his practice wife. As his practice wife, she is bestowed with the honorific title Mas Nganten, bedecked with all the finery befitting a woman of his class, and even instructed by a private tutor in the etiquette expected of a lady of the nobility. In exchange, she is expected to pay absolute obeisance to her master, Bendoro. Despite the prestige she enjoys in return for the ignominy she suffers, she remains his property. And readers are reminded poignantly of this when Bendoro discards his practice wife after she has given birth to a baby girl. Bendoro immediately and unceremoniously takes custody of this child, and the babys mother is sent packing back to her parents in disgrace. There she decides that, instead of living out the rest of her life in humiliation in her own village, she will eke out a living on her own, away from her birthplace, in effect choosing autonomous womanhood over subordination. See also Tineke Hellwig, In the Shadow of Change: Images of Women in Indonesian Literature, Centers for South and Southeast Asia Studies, International and Area Studies, Monograph no. 35 (Berkeley, CA: University of California at Berkeley, 1994), pp. 69-95, for a juxtaposition of Bumi Manusia and Gadis Pantai that lays the basis for an analysis of patriarchal power over women in the two novels. 19 It is interesting to note the etymological affiliation between the Indonesian word for wife, isteri, and the Sanskrit upastri, meaning subordinate, concubine. The customary appellation for wife in traditional Javanese culture, as Hatley, Constructions of the Feminine, p. 97, points out, is kanca wingking (literally background companion). 20 For want of a better term, I use the term stepmother here though it does not capture the exact nature of the relationship between Annelies and Mrs. Mellema-Hammers, who is the legal Dutch wife of Mellema in the Netherlands. In Java, Mellema took a nyai and fathered Annelies out of wedlock. 21 The Tiong Hoa Hwee Koan (Chinese Assembly), which was founded on March 17, 1900, in Batavia, was said to be the precursor and inspiration for the first modern nationalist political organization in Indonesia, the Boedi Oetomo, which was founded on May 20, 1908. The Chinese community during this period was riven by a schism between the totok (characterized by its pure Chinese culture) and the peranakan (composed of Chinese already partly assimilated into Indonesian society and characterized by its cross ChineseJavanese culture) communities. In 1901, the totok-dominated Tiong Hoa Hwee Koan set up the Tiong Hoa Hak Tong (Chinese schools), whose aim was two-fold: to revive peranakan interest in, and to maintain and propagate, pure Chinese culture among the peranakan Chinese; and to redress the neglect hitherto shown by the Dutch colonial government towards the education of the local Chinese community. These schools proved to be very popular, and by 1911 the Tiong Hoa Hak Tong had developed into a nationwide Chinese educational movement in Indonesia, which challenged Dutch hegemony in education by providing an alternative school system in the East Indies. To counter the spread of incipient nationalist sentiments bred by the movement and the threat to Dutch control over the peranakan Chinese community, the colonial administration established the first Dutch primary school for the Chinese, the Hollandsch-

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an organization dedicated to furthering the cause of her people and country, takes a toll on her health, finally succumbs to hepatitis and dies without leaving behind a word (JL, 145). Together these two pale, frail, and consumptive heroines constitute complementary halves of the emblematic angel-woman. It is the surrender of self of personal comfort, personal desires, or boththat is the beautiful angel-womans key act, while it is precisely this sacrifice that dooms her to death and elevates her imaginatively to heaven. For to be selfless is not only to be noble, it is to be dead. In noting the unidimensionality in Anneliess character representation, for example, we can see that, in general, a life that has no story, like the life of Annelies Mellema, is really a life of death, a death-in-life. The ideal of contemplative purity evokes, finally, both heaven and the grave. To return to our earlier patriarchal archetypes of woman as angel and monster, there is a sense in which woman as angel has the pernicious potential to become a ghost, fiend and witch. Certainly, imprisoned in the double-walled tomb of both sexism and racism, a woman might long demonically for escape. In addition, the fact that the angel woman, as the providentially selfless mother, manipulates and mediates through her maternal power her domestic/mystical sphere in order to ensure the well-being of those entrusted to her care reveals that she can manipulate, she can scheme, she can plotstories as well as strategies. Nyai Ontosoroh, for instance, proves to be considerably more powerful and influential than at first she seems. As if symbolizing the indomitable earthliness that no woman, however angelic, could entirely renounce, Nyai Ontosoroh shows herself to be powerful through her psychological hold over Annelies (BM, 244) and her overwhelming personality, which casts giant (ASB, 68) shadows over men and dwarfs them (ASB, 72). As a character, she resists being immured in the prisonhouse of subordination and subjugation that both a feudalistic Javanese society and a patriarchal colonial system would impose on her. Viewed from either a feudal or patriarchal perspective, her ability to resist suggests monstrous female sexual energies. Repression disfigures the angel-woman and makes her monstrous, makes her a furious, uncontrollable avenger filled with destructive force: She has real strength of character, reinforced by the hardness of someone with revenge still in their heart (BM, 199). To Dr. Martinet, in his assessment of Anneliess psychological condition, which he shares with Minke, Nyais assertive personality and influence over her daughter make her seem both terrifyingly physical and fiercely supernatural: Without being conscious of it, Nyai has moulded Annelies into her second personality. That child will never show any initiative if far from her mother. Initiative, in the form of commands that Annelies cannot refuse, will always be something that comes from her mother The mothers personality is overwhelming, she knows so much: more than enough for her lifes needs in this jungle of ignorance which is the Indies. People are afraid to face her, afraid that they will be unable to move once under her influence. (BM, 24445)

Chineesch School (HCS), in Batavia in 1908, with branches in other major cities established in later years. See Leo Suryadinata, Indonesian Chinese Education: Past and Present, Indonesia 14 (1972): 49-71.

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Motherhood Reconceived Motherhood as a site of origin needs to be problematized here. Feminist theories of nationalism have pointed out that the nation is essentially feminine in construction. The nation is narrated on the body of women who collectively become an emotionally laden symbol of the nation, self, the inner, spiritual world, and home. Ones motherland, or ibu pertiwi (literally mother-earth), as it comes to be called in Indonesian,22 becomes invested with the kind of erotic attraction felt towards women by men, especially as regards the figure of the mother. The country comes to be represented and appropriated in words that have strong romantic and erotic, as well as maternal, connotations. The desire for this land/woman/pertiwi is constructed as a masculine desire: the desire to possess it, see it, admire it, love it, protect it, and die fighting for it against rivals. The imagery of nation-as-mother and motherland suggests common mythic origins: like the land (which gives shelter and bears offspring), she is eternal, patient, essential. There seems to be a primordial sense of connection between earth (pertiwi) and mother; both are perceived as being in need of protection; both are loved and admired; both are respected; there is a willingness to die for the honor of each. Woman, by providing that originating moment which gives civilization a sense of roots and beginningsthe moment of birthfigures as a site where the pristine, pure childhood of man could be glimpsed. The figure of the mother is used to provide a site for the fantasy of origins. If motherhood is so closely associated with the concept of nation, we see how the symbolic appropriation of woman as mother into the narrative of the nation-state involves an immense emotional investment. Womens primary entry point into the nation-state is as mothers, as producers of strong, brave sons ready to fight to death for the sacred land. It has been argued that the family plays such a central role in the nations public imaginings that motherhood could be viewed as a national service. The idea of motherhood as a national service was explicitly present in New Order Indonesias instructions to womens organizations, which were expected to support moral motherhood for the benefit of the family, nation, and State.23 The New Order family was the basic unit of society, as well as the pillar of the State, and it was within the family that the nation could reproduce itself, its sons and future mothers. It was the family, therefore, that exercised the greatest control over female sexuality in the name of the purity of the nation. To the extent that the nation was considered to be the family writ large, womens sexuality can find legitimate expression only in national service through the family. The irony is that, while the trope of mother-as-nation is so powerful in nationalist thought, actual mothers and women are unequal, lesser citizens with fewer rights in the nations power structure. Since the desire for women gets transferred onto the nation, and womens bodies come to signify the nation, communal, regional, and national conflicts, as well as battles for empire and dynasties, come to be played out on womens bodies. In days of yore, Minkes mother reminds her son, countries would wage all-out wars to win a maiden like my daughter-in-law, mbedah praja, mboyong putri, was our ancestors proverb, victory over kingdoms, possession of its princesses (BM,
22 The other Indonesian phrase to describe motherland is tanah tumpah darah (literally land where blood is spilled), which is consanguineous with the metaphor of birth. 23 Wieringa, The Perfumed Nightmare, pp. 27583.

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303). Womens bodies thus become arenas of violent struggle. Women are humiliated, tortured, brutally raped, and murdered as part of the process by which the sense of being a nation is created and reinforced. The image of Minke's mother, the quintessential aristocratic Javanese wife, as the ever-faithful and hard-working wife and mother, conforms most closely to the traditional image of the virtuous wife and good mother. The extent to which Minkes mother (whose name significantly is not revealed to us, as if she is signified only by her role as mother, her identity elided, erased) conforms to this model of behavior is clearly portrayed by her serendipitous appearances throughout the first three novels of the tetralogy. It is her role to fuss over Minkes brides each time he is about to get married, and, more importantly, to dispense pearls of wisdom about Javanese codes of conduct and heritage or to relate some Javanese legends or folklore to remind Minke of his noble lineage. In the still feudal atmosphere of Javanese society at the turn of the twentieth century, the importance of a good upbringing for those who would struggle to save the nation effectively linked the role of women as mothers to the fate of the Nation. The sacrificial mother performs the age-old traditional function of producing and reproducing for the patriarchal family or Nation. In this role, women act as the mediators. Through their efforts, children grow into citizens and come to be valued for their contribution to the Nation. The family, often mobilized as a metonym for the nation in nationalist thinking, becomes a site laden with meaning having to do with the ways womens roles are imagined in the nation. The Indonesian Pembinaan Kesejahteraan Keluarga (Family Welfare Development) program, for example, firmly delineated womens place in Indonesia as the home.24 Nationalism, as Parker and co-authors observe, depends for its representational efficacy on a particular image of woman as chaste, dutiful, daughterly, or maternal. 25 Although the domestic setting is extremely common in twentieth-century Indonesian fiction, in Pramoedyas tetralogy the domestic setting has the added significance of being the sphere in which womens social role in the nation is defined. Definitions of womanhood and of womens place within the nation form an integral part of nationalism in the tetralogy. Minkes mother conforms to her cultures ideals of femininity, showing more interest in domestic order, playing her role as propagator of traditional cultural values and supportive, subordinate wife and mother, which is how nationalism idealizes the role of women. Pramoedyas portrayal of Minkes mother exposes the misogyny inherent in nationalist thinking and exaggerates the conventional ideal of Indonesian womanhood as passive. It serves to expose the gender politics behind a national discourse that stereotypes the female, discourse that has served two distinct ideological purposes: as applied by feudal Javanese society, it has helped to confine Javanese women in a straitjacket of purity and passivity; and as applied by Dutch cultural imperialists, it imprisoned the whole race in debilitating clichs. The Buru tetralogy presents an alternative discourse, in which the search for identity that the female subject negotiates outlines her own subjectivity in a patriarchal system that is based on dominative and gendered power relations, where the only
24 25

Hatley, Constructions of the Feminine, p. 98. Andrew Parker, Mary Russo, Doris Sommer, and Patricia Yaeger, eds. Nationalisms and Sexualities (New York, NY: Routledge, 1992), p. 6.

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exercisers of power are those accorded status as Subjectthat is, male, non-native (read: white) owners of capital. My reading of the tetralogy focuses on the signs that the text marks out as indicative of female subjectivity, and, more crucially, focuses on how its narrative structure places the narrating subject in positions where its desired sovereignty and autonomy interpellate, and are created in conjunction and opposition to, several axes of domination: race (Miriam Frischboten ne de la Croix/Anneliese/Nyai Ontosoroh/), class (Princess Kasiruta/Nyai Ontosoroh/Djumilah, Surati, and Minem), and gender (Pangemanann/Siti Soendari). Racial and sexual categories provide a fantasized site, sometimes of origin and at other times of difference, against which the emerging narrative subject is created and placed.

White, But Not Quite Right If the imperialist formula that figures the East Indies as paradisial mother-land mythologizes the colony as female, which is made to bear fruit for the colonizer, the same discourse these sexualized tropes imply also makes colonizer synonymous with man. It is interesting to note, too, that while the metaphor for country, nation, and land is the figure of the mother, Pangemanann, the narrator of the final novel, House of Glass, makes an analogy linking colony with wife: A country without colonies was like a widower who had to do all the housework as well as make a living by himself. The colony was like the wife who went out to work, who was submissive and faithful and obedient. Even though it was contrary to Christian morality the more wives a colonial power had, the more prosperous he would be, and the more desirable. (RK, 65) The question arises, then, whether a European womans responses to the enterprise of empire in the East Indies might not potentially be as different from a European mans as would her relation to the maternal/feminine figure(s) in her psychosexual history. The intricacies of the Dutch de la Croix sisters ambivalence toward colonialism and the political, moral, and social implications of their ineluctable complicity with it, and the import of their doubled positioningas at once subject and object within the imperialist frame of referencerequire a comment. Despite their affiliations with the colonialist project, which implicitly granted them freedom to speak on the oppression of the Natives (in their many correspondences with Minke in the first two novels), as women they too are among the colonized. The definitions of woman that have evolved throughout Western cultural history are strikingly similar to the definitions of colonized people shaped by colonialism, both groups having been construed as naturally secondary, properly subordinate, and acceptable only when kept in their places for the sake of (white, masculine) civilization. The dogma of culture versus nature, us versus them, that structures the logic and ideologies of imperialism also structures the logic and ideologies of gender, which subordinate woman in the name of the father just as colonialist enterprises have sought to subordinate the colonized in the name of civilizationa construct commonly represented as the peculiar property of the white man. Both symbolic orders operate within an economy of difference based on a subject/object dichotomy, whereby colonized peoples are regarded as inferior, insensate, or subhuman instruments of the

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colonizers, and women regarded as ciphers who, merely because they belong to the female sex, do not exist outside their relation to men. The case of Miriam and Sarah de la Croix is a good case in point. The de la Croix sisters, daughters of the Assistant Resident of Bojonegoro, Herbert de la Croix, are portrayed as ardent supporters of Christiaan Snouck Hurgronjes Association Theory 26: Association means direct cooperation, based on European ways, between European officials and educated natives. Those of you who have advanced would be invited to join together with us in governing the Indies. So the responsibility would no longer be the burden of the white race alone The bupatis could cooperate directly with the white government. (BM, 140) During their first encounter with Minke, the garrulous and rather belligerent sisters mocked, teased, and tested him on what he has been taught in school by his Dutch teacher, Magda Peters. They engaged in an animated argument with him on the knowledge he has obtained from his European education about his own country, while at the same time extolling Dutch tutelage in the education of the Natives in the East Indies and expressing their belief in the altruistic intentions of the Association Theory. Echoing Hurgronje, Sarah and Miriam declare that the one and only road (BM, 187) for the native is to be taken under the patronage of Dutch philanthropists, who make it their business to educate and thereby elevate his/her untutored self into respectability, so that the educated native can share (albeit not quite on an equal footing) the tasks of the white civilizing mission with their Dutch overlords. This is the project that the de la Croix sisters intend to undertake with Minke, whom they regard as their own personal experiment and guinea pig (BM, 14344). What is lost on the two sisters is their complicity in the reification of the colonizers uncritical assumptions about race and cross-racial understanding. Although Sarah and Miriam have persuasively defended the altruism of those who advocate the Association Theory, their description of the methodology employed by its original proponent is revealing: The important thing is that he [Hurgronje] has undertaken a valuable experiment with three Native youths. The purpose: to find out if Natives are able truly to understand and bring to life within themselves European learning and science. The three students are going to a European school. He interviews them every week to try to find out if there is any change in their inner character and whether their scientific knowledge and learning from school is only a thin, dry, easily
26

C. S. Hurgronje (1857-1936) was a professor of theology and Arabic studies at Leiden University. He lived among the Indonesian community in Mecca and published a study of Islam in 1889. Subsequently, he became advisor to the Dutch government (18891907) and the architect of its colonial Ethical Policy and developed what he termed his Association Theory. One key step for instituting the ideals of the Ethical Policy was to provide opportunities to Indonesian pupils to profit from modern Western education so they could develop as persons, and in turn develop their land and peoples. This meant that Western education and science should be related as much as possible to the life and culture of the Indonesians. (This was called the policy of association, especially by Snouck Hurgronje.) But what was really intended was Westernization, even a kind of spiritual annexation (geestelijke annexatie) of native society. Hurgronje believed that, in order to deflect and harness the nascent but growing anti-Dutch sentiments among the native populace, education should be used as the vehicle for co-opting Native leadership. On a critical re-evaluation of Hurgronjes role and contribution to Dutch colonial policy, see A. S. Karni, Mohammad Deden Ridwan, and M. Nur Ichwan, Snouck Hurgronje: Dipuji Setinggi Wali, Dikutuk Serendah Iblis, Gatra 23 (2003): 4752.

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shattered coating on the surface, or something that has really taken root. (BM, 139-40) Most immediately disturbing in the experiment described here is the way the native youths are summoned to stand under the scrutinizing gaze of the white scholar. They are appraised to determine whether they deserve the approval of the arbiter of culture, the white man. The gaze of Hurgronje, despite his benevolence and no matter how wellintentioned, enforces a hierarchical relationship between the gazer and the object of his scrutiny. The prejudice involved in this effort to recognize some equality between the colonizer and the colonizedidentifying the racial Other with ones own ego-ideal while in many ways more humane , is finally no more effective in creating real understanding between the Subject and Other than the prejudice that grounds the colonizers sense of superiority. The native is considered a leader, a pioneer, an example to [his] people (BM, 143) only as (and precisely because) he or she embraces white values of progress, modernity, science, and learning (an imitative race27). So the native, whose psychology hasnt yet developed as far as that of the European: his wiser considerations [are] still too easily pushed aside by lustful passions (BM, 2167), can yet succeed one day in the future [to] sit together, as an equal with Europeans, in advancing [his] people and [his] country (BM, 187). that will be the face of Java in the future, a Java which has absorbed itself into [European] civilization, no longer shriveling up like a worm struck by the sun (BM, 185). Minke, in particular, whom the Dutch Assistant Resident considers to be a different type of Javanese, of a different ilk, a pioneer and innovator at one and the same time (BM, 185), has succeeded in imitating his white mentors, copying and conforming to their standards. Only as such does he become acceptable, his status as a member of this nation of worms (BM, 185) held in abeyance so long as he maintains his obedience to Dutch liberal middle-class cultural and societal norms. But just as Minkewho realizes that he was the guinea pig caught by [the de la Croix sisters] along the side of the road (BM, 140)is made to stand under the gaze of the de la Croix sisters (Sarah de la Croix had stopped laughing. She put on a serious face, and observed me as if I was some mysterious animal [BM, 137]), the two Dutch girls are also being appraised, albeit to a vastly different end, to determine if they meet the approval of the arbiters of their own (paternalistic) culture. European dilemmas concerning sexuality and its control, Sander Gilman notes, were transferred into the need to control the sexuality of the Other, the Other as sexualized female. 28 There were profound structural connections between the treatment of women and of non27

Though Dutch liberals like the followers of Hurgronje sought to eliminate categories of racial differenceto show that Natives could be like Europeanswhat they failed to allow (the Natives prerogative to evaluate the world and draw conclusions that differ from those of the white middle class) effectively prevents them from establishing any tolerance or understanding of difference at any level. This is, ironically, lost on Herbert de la Croix, the Assistant Resident, who exhorts: Minke, if you maintain your present attitude, I mean your European attitude, not a slavish attitude like most Javanese, perhaps one day you will be an important person. You can become a leader, a pioneer, an example to your race (BM, 143; my emphasis). 28 Sander Gilman, Black Bodies, White Bodies: Toward an Iconography of Female Sexuality in Late Nineteenth Century Art, Medicine, and Literature, Critical Inquiry 12,1 (1985): 237.

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Europeans in the language, experience, and imaginations of western men 29 in the nineteenth century: both groups were characterized as childlike, dependent, and in need of active male guidance. The attitude of the de la Croix sisters towards Dutch male cultural and social authority is undeniably ambiguous. Arguably feminist in outlook, as these sisters are inimitably trenchant and stirring in their criticisms against the inherent evils of colonial rule, and unwavering in their sympathy for the Natives, they are, however, cast, foremost and ineluctably, as daughtersboth literally and figuratively. The symbolic father who signals most fully the sisters equivocal status as young women engaged in basically frivolousunnecessaryoccupations is the patriarch as social parent: this is the liberal father, epitomized in this case by their own father, Herbert de la Croix, who ordains his daughters to attack injustice, celebrate the spirit of Reform in nineteenth-century Dutch colonial policy in the East Indies, and justify Western cultural superiority. Shaped by their privileged white middle-class background, which is characterized by benign paternalism, Sarah and Miriam fawn over father-figures: their early letters from Holland to Minke are memorable, as much for their firm, lucid, uncompromising style, which conveys their strong feelings about the colonial situation in the East Indies, as the refrains of Papa said that punctuate their arguments in the letter. Their admiration of Hurgronje, the brilliant scholar (BM, 139), whose experiment they try to ape (BM, 140), is almost devotional. Paternalism is a suggestive word in this context. It directs us to consider the complexities of the European womans involvement in a colonialist project that she simultaneously participated in, benefited from, despised, and unsuccessfully sought to subvert. As an eccentric (also read: ex-centric), liminal figure at once inside and outside the colonialist frame of reference, she, like the Natives as they were construed by colonialism, constitutes a site of potential disorder, a profound disruption of those categories of existence which the notion of an inside and an outside upholds. In the tetralogy, Dutch patriarchal society considers instability of this sort to be a problem that requires a remedy. Though it has no doubt about the capabilities of women, it subscribes to the prevalent ideology of gender, which severely limits the public role of women.30 The assertiveness of women, as exhibited by the subversive, liberal, progressive female European characters like Magda Peters (Minkes teacher of Dutch language and literature at the HBS school) and the de la Croix sisters, as well as the real characters in the novels, such as Marie van Zeggelen,31 though often deemed necessary, is to be taken as a sign of a destabilized situation that needs to be rectified. Indeed, it can hardly have been otherwise, for a situation in which there is no suitable man to take charge is inherently unstable, within the ideological context from which Dutch patriarchal society operates. The success of a white colonial womans exercise of power in such a situation can thus be gauged by her return to a traditional role, often involving marriage (condemn[ed] to the matrimonial bedroom, to be silenced [JL,
29 Joanna de Groot,Sex and Race: The Construction of Language and Image in the Nineteenth Century, in Sexuality and Subordination: Interdisciplinary Studies of Gender in the Nineteenth Century. ed. S. Mendus and J. Rendall (London: Routledge, 1989), p. 91. 30 Miriam remonstrates ruefully: One day, in the future, we will go home to the Netherlands. I will go into politics, Minke. Its a pity though that the Netherlands still doesnt allow a woman to sit in the Lower House (BM, 188). 31 Marie van Zeggelen (1870-1957), a Dutch writer who wrote many historical novels about the Dutch East Indies. Sympathetic to the Natives struggle for freedom, she wrote a biography of Kartini as well as a trilogy of novels about Aceh in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

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162]), once the crisis that has summoned her to a position of authority has passed or has been resolved by her. Attacking the iniquities of colonial policy in the East Indies, saluting the spirit of reform, and greeting scientific and technological change with sanguine forecasts of improvements for humanity all round, the female Dutch characters in the tetralogy do, indeed, enact dutiful, daughterly work for their political fathers. This filial usefulness, however, becomes a threat and destabilizing force the moment they stray into the male sphere of public affairs and make conspicuous success of it. There needs to be some force that directs them back into their proper place, at least according to patriarchys logic. For all their idealism, energy, and capabilities, they are treated like a set of ignorant and wayward children in need of a mans guidance, a dependent state that prevents them from achieving their full potential, as the text makes clear. And this is what they get: by the third novel, Jejak Langkah, Miriam Frischboten ne de la Croix who has returned together with her sister and father to the Netherlands in the first novelhas married a Dutch lawyer, a thirty-eight year old widower, her once youthful idealism about Hurgronjes Association Theory all but dissipated: Thats all in the past nowall that talk about the Theory of Association, about gamelan, it was all garbage, it was all mixed-up nonsense (JL, 225). Sarahs spirited missives to Minke from the Netherlands too have long ceased, and we learn later that she has married a Canadian and emigrated to Canada to live with her husband. Magda Peters, on the other hand, has been banished from the East Indies for her radical and critical views on Dutch colonial policy in the East Indies, by the end of the first novel. There is thus a nervous unease in the tetralogy around gender roles among members of the colonial community, both an awareness of the mechanisms by which they are sustained and also an unwillingness to examine too closely how those mechanisms were essential not only to the maintenance of middle-class respectability, but also of racial identity, as well as how the ideology of the separate spheres was imbricated with other areas of colonial social life. Similarly, along the interstices of race and class, colonial attitudes toward women are differentiated as they interpellate these categories, and although the patriarchal colonial construct of womanhood serves to objectify all women, whether Pures, Indos, or Natives, the Native woman is inevitably most fully affected by the negative aspects of the construct. For the totok (read: pure or full-blooded Dutch) woman, womanhood functions as a positive objectificationa stereotype that, hypothetically at least, she could achieve and profit from.32 Colonial phallocentric cultural economy may have extracted a heavy psychological toll on the Dutch woman in the East Indies, encouraging her to repress her sexuality, yet it compensated her in ways that allowed the white mevrouw (Dutch for Madam) to live her contradictory role in comparative comfort. As Elsbeth Locher-Scholten points out, this objectified gender role merged seamlessly with the social roles and sense of identity of the Dutch woman.33 She
I mean this term positive objectification only as a conceptual handle. Of course no objectification is good, but it is important to be able to differentiate here in order to understand what was at stake for different groups of women. 33 Elsbeth Locher-Scholten, So Close and Yet So Far: The Ambivalence of Dutch Colonial Rhetoric on Javanese Servants in Indonesia, 1900-1942, in Domesticating the Empire: Race, Gender and Family Life in French and Dutch Colonialism, ed. Julia Clancy-Smith and Frances Gouda (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1998), p. 133.
32

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could at least experience womanhood as protection, and could at best partake of the material benefits of the status she reflects for her husband. If her chastity is ultimately a commodity, the product of her sexuality serves the positive good of society that simultaneously objectified and exalted her. Her reproductive role is glorified, and her children, as Frances Gouda notes, [are] heirs to the economic, social and political interests in the maintenance of the colonial system:34 Hendrik, said Mir[iam], here is your child, the child you have been longing for. As white as cotton, Meneer! added the midwife. Congratulations, Meneer, congratulations, Mevrouw. No, Meneer, dont squeeze his nose like that, his bones arent strong yet. A true Roman nose. No, not really, more a classical Greek. (JL, 360) The idea of womanhood for the Dutch woman, however, is more complex than an analysis of her domestic role within nineteenth-century colonial phallocentric order in the East Indies would suggest. As the drama of paternity in the above extract exposes, imperialism is fundamentally masculine in its construction and instrumental in creating and reinforcing notions of gender roles and national culture. It seeks to exercise control of women, the family, sexuality, the home, and reproduction as part of its formulation of national identity. The women are bodies to be policed and confined since female sexuality threatens to undermine the nations eugenic purity, just as it threatens to disrupt the familys integrity. Dependent on the myth that nationality can be pure, this subjectifying practice casts women as the territory upon which the men reproduce that pure nation and as the ground that can be sullied by foreign penetration. The womens position on the periphery of the nationsince according to the logic of an androcentric symbolic order they can never be fully active citizens, even in their highly symbolic roles as domestic caretakers and mothersmakes them dangerous to a regime grounded in fictions that idealize racial purity precisely because it makes their sexual purity central to the races purity. However, the assertion, defence, and definition of eugenic purity through the exercise of paternal controlboth on the level of the family and as fathers of the nationare proven to elicit evidence of masculine insufficiency, as Miriams attempt to get herself pregnant reveals: My husband wants to have children, but he has already given up all hope. He no longer believes that he will ever have any children. Twice he has offered to divorce me You must know, Minke, its not only he who suffers, but me even more so I dont believe in dukuns or herbal medicines, Minke. And thats why I have come to you. Forgive me! Mir! Give me what my husband cannot give me. Give me your seed! (JL, 310 311) More is at stake here as the father of Miriams newborn son turns out to be none other than Minke, her Native friend whose relationship she reestablished when she and her
34

Frances Gouda, Teaching Indonesian Girls in Java and Bali, 1900-1942: Dutch Progressives, The Infatuation with Oriental Refinement, and Western Ideas About Proper Womanhood, Womens History Review 4,1 (1995): 42.

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husband, Hendrik, returned to the East Indies. Confiding in Minke one night about her husbands impotency, Miriam entreats him to impregnate her as her husband longs to have children. Despite Minkes refusal to acquiesce to her request, she eventually gets her wish and becomes pregnant with Minkes child. Minkes impregnation of Miriam represents his penetration of the colonial territory and his sullying of Dutch racial purity. As Jean Franco says in her examination of gender and Mexican nationalism, The problem of national identity was presented primarily as a problem of male identity In national allegories, women became the territory over which the quest for (male) national identity passed, or, at best the space of loss and of all that lies outside the male games of rivalry and revenge.35 Franco describes here the phenomenon in which the womans bodyand specifically her reproductive capabilitiesbecomes the very site of nationalist territorial dispute. For colonial society in the East Indies, the childs paternity is the only issue, and Miriam plays no part in assigning nationality to the child, except that she exists as a conduit that the patriarchal order must control. Yet the child is a hybrid of Javanese and Dutch ethnicity and in itself constitutes a threat to the designation of race as oppositional. Miriam exemplifies the threat of the sexualized woman that the inadequately policed female body represents to colonialists. Minke has not only penetrated the racial boundary between definitions of Pures and Indos but he has also impregnated one of the daughters of the Dutch nation: a threat both to Hendriks masculine authority and to patriarchal Dutch colonial society. Miriam reassures her unknowing, cuckolded husband of his patriarchal claim over the newborn child by saying, Here is your child, the child you have been longing for, thus denying Minke access to paternal dominance (JL, 360; my emphasis). As if to reinforce this, the Dutch midwife remarks that the babys complexion is [a]s white as cotton, asserting Dutch paternal authority over the child, an assertion to which Miriam assents silently, without objection. For paradoxically, legitimacy itself depends on the mothers verbal guarantee: the necessary paternal affirmationthis is my sonis a leap of faith across an unbridgeable gap in time and knowledge, an act of interpretation hinged on womans word.36 The mother of the illegitimate child, its paternity suspect, exposes the instability and finitude of masculine authority by representing a subversive maternal lineage and implicitly calls into question the symbolic order maintained in the Name-of-the-Father. Thus womans word becomes for the father unspeakable in several senses, the ultimate scandal and potentially the most radical source of disruption in a symbolic economy predicated on the control of womens bodies, wills, and voices. In reserving the term illegitimate for the fatherless child, so that to be only the child of a mother is to be a sign cut off from any proper referent, the patriarchal system counters that threat by doubly ratifying the erasure of the mother as origin and name. By this formulation, not only does Dutch colonial society seek to control definition of the national progeny, both at the individual and at the more general level, but also it
35

Jean Franco, Plotting Women: Gender and Representation in Mexico (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989), p. 131. 36 Hinting to Minke that he should conspire to let Hendrik think that he is the father of the child, Miriam emphasizes to Minke that it is Hendriks child too (JL, 360).

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seeks to control the means by which that progeny is defined, and its definition is permeated by its fear of the source from which they see the nations future emerging female reproduction. At the same time also, it seeks to keep the national blood pure and to ward off difference in the composition of demographics in its colony. Miriams child of mixed nationality threatens that national purity that colonial society must uphold. Ironically, Miriams pregnancya hybrid originating from Javanese and Dutch rootsis a harbinger that perhaps the nation that will be born out of the nationalist struggle in the East Indies will also be a hybrid, that the archipelago will not remain purely a Dutch possession forever. Dutch colonialisms dependence on the myth of essential racial purity means that the ideology cannot accommodate miscegenation: hence its need for control over female reproduction and sexual behavior. If the state adopts the role of father, this entails keeping the national bloodlines pure, maintaining the sexual purity of its women, and ensuring that the womens behavior is appropriately chaste. The state fathers can legislate to ensure national purity. However, because at any moment a nations composition is unstable and impure, any version of national purity will be an arbitrary construction and will disclose the irreparable rifts in the fabric(ations) of androcentric sociosymbolic order. My Master Had Power and Law; I Had a Determined Will In order to explicate further the perceptual and conceptual schemata that help sustain the structures and ideologies of both imperialism and patriarchy, we turn our attention now to the problematic of womanhood and the Native woman. For the native woman, womanhood operates as a negative objectificationa model that was unattainable and offered her neither protection nor benefit. This cultural ideal for the native woman served as a double negation, branding her with dishonour. First, as for the white woman, the imaginative ideal of womanhood required an ostensible denial of her full sexuality. But secondly, because of the enforced cohabitationessentially collective rapeinstitutionalized by Dutch colonialism,37 womanhood functions as a negation of the native womans ability to live up to that ideal of the asexual woman, immune to and untouched by passion. The depth of the Native womans anxiety about the oppressive structures that govern phallocentric definitions of sexuality (and concomitantly, the commercial basis on which her subjectivity is transacted) is reiterated as Surati, Nyai Ontosorohs niece, contemplates her wretched fate as her father, Sastro Kassier, plans to trade her to the Dutch manager of the sugar mill in Tulangan in order to settle his debts: She was unwilling to go freely to become someones concubine, isolated from the world, looked upon by everyone as something strange, a public spectacle to be gaped at Then for a moment she saw Anneliess marriage againAnnelies sitting beside her husband, looking so happy. Surati knew such happiness as that was not now for her, nor would it ever be. A tear dropped. She too wished for such happiness. But it seemed her fate was to be different. And she was afraid of her parents curse. (ASB, 140, 143)
37

Until the late nineteenth century, the European community in the Indies had tolerated, and in some of the outer regions even institutionalized, concubinage and mixed marriages as a normal convention. See Gouda, Teaching Indonesian Girls in Java and Bali, p. 50.

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Suratis enforced sexuality, like her aunties, Sanikem alias Nyai Ontosoroh, before her, defined her failed status as woman. The stereotypes attached to native women either cast them as the substratum of life (ASB, 287) (Djumilah: the wife of Sastro Kassier, Nyais sister-in-law, and Surati), or present them, in the tetralogy, as wantonly promiscuous (Nyai Ontosoroh and Minem, the village coquette and Nyais farm worker, who has a child by her employers son). Either stereotype serves to obfuscate the operative dynamic by displacing responsibility for native womens sexuality from the party whom it benefited to the victim. Thus, as Nyai Ontosoroh sardonically remarks, the white master is never held culpable for the atrocities he commits; instead, the The Natives must always be in the wrong, Europeans must be innocent; so just being a Native is already wrong. To be born a Native is even more wrong(BM, 272). The system works to ensure for the white master that both his licentiousness and avarice are safeguarded by law. For the native woman, it negates her entitlement to her own subjectivity and womanhood, as those concepts are culturally constructed. Pramoedyas tetralogy lays bare to reader scrutiny not only the negation of female subjectivity but also how male subjectivity is structured and becomes dominant. In a series of ruminations, Pangemanann, the male narrator of the last novel, House of Glass, reflects with triumph on his role as overseer of the movements of the female nationalist figure, Siti Soendari. Here, the tetralogy structures its analysis of the motivations of patriarchy and its psychological connections with colonialism through the trope of the surveilling gaze: I do not want to go hunting after her She must not meet too hasty an end inside my house of glass. She deserves the chance to enjoy her beauty, youth, education, and intelligence. Let her develop in accordance with her true nature, let her full beauty bloom Of course she would never be a Native Joan of Arc, but she still deserved to get more out of life yet Silently and secretly, I kept watch on this young woman as her star rose higher and higher, shining brightly in the firmament Yes, make that leap, Soendari, go on, do it! Isnt life strange? I had already put Marco inside my house of glass. And now you, sweet maiden from Pemalang, you have joined him inside too [as] objects of my study I will still be watching you, Non, pretty maiden from Pemalang. Be careful I will use all my abilities to make sure that I do nothing to harm you, Soen. My pen will not decide your fate I feel a moral and intellectual responsibility for you. I have given you a chance. Now what will you be able to achieve? (RK, 207210) Significantly, it is the specter of that surveilling gaze, the Foucauldian Panopticon effect,38 that most fully constitutes Pangemananns triumph. Just as Snouck Hurgronjes approving gaze on the three Native youths in the first novel confirms their worth for him, so does Pangemananns surveilling gazeand the almost licentious
38

Michel Foucault, in his discussion of the prison system, describes surveillance as a form of social control which enables the group with the power to observe (or gaze upon) those whom they have power over and to control their behavior at all times. Calling it the Panopticon (first coined by Jeremy Bentham in 1791) effect, he explains: [T]he major effect of the Panopticon [is] to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power. So to arrange things so that the surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in its action, the perfection of power should tend to render its actual exercise unnecessary. Michel Foucault, Panopticism, in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1995), p. 201.

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pleasure he derives from keeping an eye on Soendaris movementsensure his male dominance in the phallocentric symbolic order. Not only is the power to oversee, to monitor, to keep an eye on someone, intrinsically connected with the power to regulate, to manipulate, to dominate, but the scopophilia reveals the power dynamics inherent in traditional representations of the female body as the site of masculine desire, signified by the appropriative gaze which that body is constructed to elicit. Feminist film criticism has extended this analysis of male spectatorship as it relates to narrative, demonstrating (to quote Teresa de Lauretiss summary) that it is men who have defined the object and the modalities of vision, pleasure, and meaning in the basis of perceptual and conceptual schemata provided by patriarchal ideological and social formations. In the trajectory of both the look and the narrative line, the male is the measure of desire. 39 Soendari, surveyed by Pangemananns gaze, is appraised ([an] interesting object of study [RK, 233]), assayed (she is indeed beautiful in an unassuming way [RK, 208]) and divined (What joy she would give to the man who captures her heart [RK, 209]). Within the economy of the phallocentric gaze, to be a spectator/voyeur marks a position of power and subjectivity; conversely, to be subjected to surveillance is to be made a spectacle of, trapped inside a glass house, exposed to gawkers and observers. In short, spying on Soendari, monitoring her every move, and relishing the prospect of her eventual containment, endows Pangemanann with a sense of potency and pleasure, as well as confirming his male subjectivity. The gaze structures, within this masculine specular economy, the hierarchic relationship between the viewer and the object displayed/exhibited figured, in this case, through the analogies of man/woman, violation/privacy, possessor/possession, hunter/quarry. It is that old dream of symmetry, as Irigaray puts it, from which womans subjectivity is excluded like a blind spot and within which woman is set off-stage, off-side, beyond representation, beyond selfhood, caught in a game for which she will always find herself signed up without having begun to play. 40 Despite Pangemananns professed sympathy with Soendaris positioning in this game of catand-mouse, it is he who proposes to his superiors to apply gentle pressure on her father to find her a husband (RK, 234), in the hope that the Native girl would cease her histrionics41 once she had been taken to the wedding bed (RK, 244). His subsequent patronizing analysis of the circulation of women in the tetralogy who are wont to make gifts of themselves, and his professed sympathy for poor Rientje is a masterpiece of ambivalence, its condescension charmingly mixed and masked with sympathy: Woman! You passed briefly into my life, bringing with you other stories. But you always remained a woman. And womankind was created by God for
39

Teresa de Lauretis, Alice Doesnt: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1984), p. 67. 40 Luce Irigaray, The Looking Glass, from the Other Side, in This Sex Which is Not One, trans. Catherine Porter (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985), p. 22. 41 I choose the term histrionics for the Indonesian ulah (in Pramoedyas original Bahasa Indonesia version) or olah or kerenah, which, in this context, describes more aptly the unpredictable, often exaggerated, emotional behavior that the conventional sexist attitude usually associates with woman. It is this histrionicsa force of excess and transgression at once repellent and seductive to manwhich breaches every masculinist code of logic, probability, decorum, decency, refinement, dignity, good sense, and womanly modesty that threatens the boundary of order that the male senior colonial officials struggle to control.

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men. And men for women. You trod your own path in giving yourself to men. Different from Madame Pangemanann. Different from the way Annelies gave herself to Minke And then there was Sanikem who gave herself to Herman Mellema. How numerous were the different paths that bring together men and women. And is it correct to describe all these relationships as women giving 42 themselves to men? Madame to Monsieur Pangemanann was based on mutual affection, each giving him and herself to the other. It was the same with Annelies and Minke. Rientje gave herself to whoever could pay the money that she asked for, but the essence of the surrender was the same. Sanikem gave herself because of force majeure, because of a stronger force that acted against her will. (RK, 274) With his own security badly shaken by the departure of his wife and children, and by the news that Rientje, for whom he has begun to feel affection, has been brutally murdered, Pangemanann finds solace in his assignment to watch over (RK, 210) Soendari. He considers her no angel (RK, 226), but a delinquent young woman, who didnt know what was proper, a Dutch woman in Javanese clothes (RK, 225), and her radically unconventional, nonconformist ways that defy the stereotype of the Native woman titillate Pangemanann and at the same time encourage him to regard her as a kind of gift from the gods (RK, 226). Thus she seems bestowed on him as a healing assurance of his own sovereignty, assuaging his besieged male pride, predicated as it is on mans mythic status as hero on his possession (read: control) of woman. Her surreptitious activities to incite nationalist agitation amongst her people are a challenge to his manhood, and he relishes the opportunity to monitor and quell the young female rabble-rouser. Pangemananns attempt to restore his manhood by regaining control over the insurgent movement led by Soendari leads to the transferral of eroticism from her (as the desexualized woman leader of the movement) to his own mission of counter-insurgency. Penetrating Soendaris clandestine movement, possessing her subjectivity, becomes the indubitable sign of manhood for Pangemanann,43 becomes his raison d'tre and a major motivation for his dogged commitment to his job to pursue and persecute her, perhaps to the detriment of his own domestic relationships. He describes his emotional crisis and, while denying the pain his broken marriage has caused him, insists that Madame Pangemanann had left, and I had felt no loss then either. My children went away and I felt no loss about that either. So why was it then that I would feel a loss if my position was taken away and my reputation sullied in public? (RK, 275) Rumah Kaca employs sentimental language to reveal Pangemananns emotional crisis; throughout this text, sentimental language (even when inherently insincere or unconvincing) is directly opposed to the exploitively dominative nature of colonial male subjectivity. In fact, this episode subtly provides an alternative reading which
42 The Bahasa Indonesia word mempersembahkan, from the word, sembah (meaning worship/adore/idolize/submit/surrender/acknowledge the power of, etc.) is interesting as it also has another meaning: to present, or put up a show, presentation as in persembahan, which also means gift, or present. 43 Pangemananns remark as he was about to deliver his coup de grce on Soendarinow my pen, and my ink, must interfere in your [i.e. Soendaris] life, still so young and beautiful (RK, 234)reiterates the Freudian topos of the pen as a phallic symbol, and the countervailing sign of woman as a lack or castration.

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suggests that the hierarchic power structure figured through the topos of viewer/viewed, male gaze/surveillance of woman has begun to shift imperceptibly even as it is articulated. As Pangemanann recounts his persecution/harassment of Soendari, we see the extent to which his mastery of her depends on her. Repeatedly in his interior monologue, he apostrophizes her to recognize his dominance: that is as far as you will ever go, you will never develop further I will be watching you, Non, pretty maiden from Pemalang. Be careful (RK, 210; Non is the contracted form of Noni or Miss). In a key scene at the end of chapter eight of Rumah Kaca, Pangemanann, in a clearly agonized reflection on his own complicity in the oppressive practices of his Dutch colonial masters, which he finds morally abhorrent, invokes the absent Soendari: And you, Siti Soendari, do you know that Pangemanann, the man devising all these plans for you, is as sane as sane can be? (RK, 214). Addressing her using a diminutive of her name which he has patronizingly coined for her, he pleads for Soendaris understanding, and forgiveness, of his actions: Its not because I want to do it, Soenyou must forgive me if you suffer because of what I must do (RK, 234) and goes on to protest that he will prepare the most moderate proposal that [he] can (RK, 234) because of the affection he feels for her, despite the pressure from his political superiors in the Dutch colonial government who favor more drastic measures be taken against her. His response here asserts the prerogative of the Subject over the Objectto silence, to suppress. But Pangemanann could not resort to more draconian measures in dealing with Soendari because he needs her to confirm his mastery of her (her symbolic death). His own identity depends on her recognition of it. He apparently cannot feel his mastery until she reflects it to him. One might argue that Pangemananns need to tell his story, to turn Soendari into a figure in his own account, indicates his concern that her prominence in the annals of the nations history would eclipse and elide his own (her star rose higher and higher, shining brightly in the firmament; the higher she rose, the brighter she shone [RK, 208]), which would mean he had lost control not only over her, but over his storyand history. While upholding the masculine perspective through Pangemananns firstperson narrative, Pramoedya undermines its authority by suggesting another way of seeing, and the existence of other writing, neither counted on nor comprehended by Pangemananns phallocentric narrative economy. Undoing the process whereby Pangemanann would enter Soendari into his account, Pramoedya turns his narrator to account in his. Putting him into circulation, as it were, by retailing his retellings, Pramoedya subverts the hierarchical oppositional logic whereby man situates himself as the sovereign subject-speaker vis--vis woman as object. Pangemananns earlier rhetorical question[I]s it correct to describe all these relationships as women giving themselves to men? (RK, 274)is made moot by Pramoedyas ironic representation. Here Pramoedya anticipates Jacques Derridas recognition of the continual eruption therein of the discourse of woman as giver: Either woman is woman because she gives herself, while the man for his part takes, possesses, indeed takes possession. Or else she is woman because, in giving, she is in fact giving herself for, is simulating, and consequently assuring the

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possessive mastery for her own self. Henceforth all the signs of a sexual opposition are changed. Man and woman change places.44 Nyai Doesnt We return now to one of the most remarkable female characters in the tetralogy Nyai Ontosoroh. Her portrayal in the first three novels asserts the subjectivity of a native nyai and thus serves as an ideal ground for enlarging the ongoing discussion of subjectivity and representation within feminist theory: Ontosoroh is a very fascinating character in This Earth of Mankind, precisely on account of her position as nyai. 45 Western colonial culture, which begins with a notion of normal from which any deviation is counted as a negative mark, can only see Nyai Ontosoroh as an extreme example of alterity who is so thoroughly marginalized that she should simply not exist. She is a nyai, whose marginalized position as transgressor of both native and colonial boundaries of race, sentiment, and morality situates her outside the borders of reason. In Nyai Ontosoroh we see the most explicit demonstration of female creativity as she defies the phallocentric sociosymbolic order and the mutually inflecting homologies of patriarchal colonialism and feudalism. The roles Nyai Ontosoroh assumes are not random: she becomes, successively, a nyai (read: mistress/ concubine/whore), revolutionary, and heroine, enacting thereby three of the most overdetermined versions of woman in colonial patriarchal culture.46 But with a difference. For by playing these roles, she remains at once inside and outside the semiotic systems that would codify woman according to masculinist logic, resisting even as she appears to fulfill traditional categorizations of the feminine. In traversing the whole continuum of roles that tend to polarize the aspects of a woman, rendering her either as heroine or whore, domesticated object or revolutionary agent, Nyai Ontosoroh demonstrates the essential interchangeabilityand hence the invalidityof these oppositions. Through her assumption of these roles, she exposes the provisionality and instability of phallocentric conceptions of woman, thus implicitly threatening the foundations of a culture predicated on the control of women as both bodies and signs. Nyai Ontosoroh brilliantly anticipates Simone de Beauvoirs famous observation that man dreams of an Other not only to possess her but also to be ratified by her. 47 Herman Mellema, her Dutch tuan (master), in an obvious gesture of ownership, refers to her as my nyai (BM, 79), seeking to claim her permanently as
44 Jacques Derrida, Spurs/Eperons: Nietzsches Styles, trans. Barbara Harlow (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), p. 67. 45 Gerard Termorshuizen, From Whore to Heroine: The Nyai Motif in Some Novels by Pramoedya Ananta Toer and P. A. Daum, in Pramoedya Ananta Toer 70 Tahun, ed. Bob Herring, p. 56. 46 To complete the range of feminine possibilities under patriarchy, she is also represented as a daughter sold by an avaricious father, mother to her bastard Indo children, and as sorceress (a regal woman of great powers of bewitchment [peribadi mengagumkan dan mengesankan ituseorang ratu pemilik dayasihir] (BM, 184); she has the power to [hold] people in her grasp, and bewitch them from afar [mencengkam orang dalam genggamannya, dan mampu pula mensihir orang dari kejauhan] (BM, 62); she cast[s] a spell over [Minkes] mind; she is clever and subdue[s] people so they would bow down to her will [Nyai kurasakan telah menyihir kesedaranku pandai menaklukkan orang untuk bersujud pada kemauannya] (BM, 41). 47 Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (New York, NY: Knopf, 1953), p. 170.

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his by writing her into his own finalizing script. Having been sold to Mellema to be his mistress for twenty-five guilders (BM, 77) by her own father, Nyai was initially submissive and resigned to her fate: there was nothing I could do. Neither the tears nor the tongue of my Mother could prevent the disaster. Let alone I, who neither understood nor owned this world. I did not even possess my own body(BM, 76). Her utter submissiveness encourages Mellema to believe that he possesses her, confirms his reading of her as mine, his ownership ratified by the signs of her passivity, as evident in Nyais recollection of their first encounter: I was left on the chair, bathing in my own tears, shaking and not knowing what I must do. The world seemed dark He came out from the room and approached me. He pulled my hand ordering me to stand. I trembled. It wasnt that I didnt want to stand up, or that I was rebelling against an order. I didnt have the strength to stand. My kain was soaking. My two legs trembled so badly it was as if bones and sinews had come loose from their joints. He picked me up as if I were an old guling and carried me in his arms into the room, and put me down on a beautiful and clean bed, powerless. I was not able even to sit I rolled over prostrate on the bed he picked me up and carried me around the room like a wooden doll He picked me up again and hugged me and kissed me. I can still remember his words, though I didnt then understand their intent: Darling, my darling, my doll, darling, darling. He threw me up and caught me around my waist I felt I had no soul anymore, like a wayang puppet in the hands of the puppet-master. (BM, 7779) Mellemas relationship with Nyai Ontosoroh is predicated on his possession over her, as assurance of his own sovereignty in a feudalistic and colonial Indies where men control the circulation of women as of money and livestock [My father sold me like the offspring of a horse (BM, 80)]. But if Mellema thinks that he has total possession of Nyai, that he has penetrated and possessed her subjectivity and her discourse as he has her body, then he is wrong. For toward the end of their relationship, as Mellemas sense of his own moral security is badly shaken with the arrival of his son Maurits (the offspring of his marriage to a Dutch woman, contracted prior to his coming to the Indies), who confronts his father with his licentious relationship with a nyai, the hierarchic power structure figured through the codes of man/woman, colonizer/colonized, and owner/property has begun to shift in obvious ways. Armed with the knowledge she imbibed from her Dutch master, she begins to wield the power he once had over her, gradually taking over Mellemas big, European-type [agricultural] firm (BM, 65), the Boerderij Buitenzorg, and assuming control over his household. She becomes a woman ... who didnt want to make peace with her own fate (BM, 227): So it was that Mama began to understand that in reality Mama was not at all dependent on Mr. Mellema. On the contrary, he was dependent on me. So Mama then began to take a role in making decisions on all matters. He never rejected this. He never forced me to do anything, except for study. In this matter, he was a hard but good teacher. I was an obedient and good pupil. Mama knew everything he was teaching me would, one day, be of use to me and my children if he went home to the Netherlands. (BM, 82)

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Ironically, Nyais link to the world of the rulers, 48 which could gain her access to cultural centrality, is precisely that which Indies society relegates to the margin. Nyainative, shrewd businesswoman, literate, self-educated, angry, articulate, renegadehardly matches the image, either as ideal or degraded stereotype, of the passive native woman. Yet Nyai Ontosoroh affirms her identity, refusing to be marginalized. She will not yield to the rulings of the Amsterdam district court concerning the custody of Annelies, though eventually her resistance proves to be futile. She insists that she be addressed as Nyai instead of Madam by those uncomfortable with the former, not only as a sign of defiance against the moral norm of polite society that tries to gloss over the existence of women like her, but more so as an emblem of pride of what she is. Not only does she defy the Dutch courts injunction that she address them in Javanese; she speaks in flawless Dutch, unleashing a tirade against colonial hypocrisy and the oppressive nature of its laws. In a cultural economy in which only males have rights of ownership over female bodies, womans subjectivity represents a dangerous excess that, by transgressing the bounds of the androcentric system, might subvert its claims to dominance. By effectively removing herself as an object of exchange within a masculine economy, by choosing, that is, to own herself, to determine her own fate, Nyai Ontosoroh positions herself (figuratively) as her own tuan. According to the logic of an androcentric symbolic order, all contracts between men and women become variants of prostitution. The objectification this economy forces on native women in the Indies is epitomized by the role of the nyais. The tetralogy interrogates this system and the ties that bind it together, explicating the symbolic contracts it entails while at the same time addressing the problematic of woman and reading, orto borrow a phrase from John Bergers classic study of the female nudeof ways of seeing woman within phallocentric referential frames.49 Through the trope of the nyai as prostitute, which locates the relationship between colonial man and colonized woman at the core of the narrative, we can relate the act of reading to both a specific historical moment and, more fundamentally, a larger history of social and psychological systems that underwrite Dutch colonial management of sexuality, domesticatie, and motherhood in the Indies. While the subordination of the nyai as prostitute may appear, in the foregoing analysis, to occur at the symbolic level, the actual material circumstances of the position of the nyai are, of course, more palpable: [A nyai] is just a bought slave, whose duty is only to satisfy her master. In everything! Then, on the other hand, she has to be ready at any moment for the possibility that her master, her tuan, will become bored with her. And she may be kicked out with all her children, her own children, unhonored by Native society because they were born outside wedlock. (BM, 80) Nyai Ontosorohs position, it can be said, is not dissimilar to that of Maiko, the Japanese prostitute, who inhabits the pleasure-house run by Babah Ah Tjong in the first novel. By comparing Nyai and Maiko, we can extend our critique of the use of
48

Jean Gelman Taylor, Nyai Dasima: Portrait of a Mistress in Literature and Film, in Fantasizing the Feminine in Indonesia, ed. Laurie J. Sears (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996), p. 227. 49 John Berger, Ways of Seeing (London: Penguin, 1972), pp. 45-82.

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woman as property in male economies. If Nyai Ontosoroh was sold to Mellema by her own father in exchange for the promise that father would be made cashier after he passed a two-year internship (BM, 77), Maiko is Ah Tjongs gift to Robert Mellema in return for future favors Ah Tjong hopes Robert will bestow on him once he inherits the Buitenzorg business from his father (BM, 171). This symbolic mode of exchange, based on the condition of women as property, highlights the fact that in a feudalistic and colonial value system, which assumes the privileges of class and property and exalts androcentric codes, men circulate women like gifts in order to extend their own bonding systems: Almost every wealthy Chinese had his own brothel, his own pleasure-house. In Hong Kong, Singapore, Batavia, or Surabaya, they all had the same custom, namely, to take turns in visiting each others places (BM, 167). As a transgressor of codes and boundaries, Nyai Ontosoroh challenges this androcentric economy. Since the violence to women on which this order is founded is decreed and protected by colonial law, anyone who transgresses this law threatens, potentially, to dismantle it. As Michle Richman notes, ... the symbols men manipulate in order to perpetuate the differential hierarchies which either subordinate or exclude women, children, and the weak, are systematized into codes whose key is their monopoly on power It has traditionally been argued in favor of [the exchange of women] that it channels the force of sexuality which would otherwise unsettle the fragile foundations of the social order. But the real violence lies on the side of the law which seeks to maintain one segment of society in bondage to the other By challenging the anachronistic remnants of [this system, women] have at their disposal the most effective weapon to precipitate the demise of the patriarchal order.50 The trial scene in the first novel, one of the most dazzling in all of Pramoedyas fiction, represents a quintessential defiance of official patriarchal worlds and words. As a synecdoche of the larger text that undermines and challenges the repressive paternal order of colonialism and feudalism, it uncovers the instability of the categories on which patriarchal reality appears groundedrevealing law, marriage, patrilineal property, filial identity, and the name and word of the father to be profoundly inflected by the very forces they would repudiate. The scene is constituted as a series of oppositional categoriescivilization/savagery, law/ anarchy, security/danger, purity/pollution, sacred/profane, good/evil. Their epitome is the contrast between the sanctioned and legal marriage of Herman and Amelia Mellema, and the unnatural familial relations and social disintegration represented by the illicit union between Herman Mellema and his native concubine, Nyai Ontosoroh. The scene is a telling one, for the text in every sense questions boundaries, and it is useful to quote it at length: The next question was flung at Nyai Ontosoroh: Nyai Ontosoroh, alias Sanikem, concubine of the late Mr. Herman Mellema: How could Nyai allow such improper relations between Nyais guest and Nyais child? The surging laughter became more exuberant, more insulting, more demonstrative With a clear voice and in flawless Dutchdefying the judicial order that she use Javanese, and ignoring the pounding of the gavel she began: Honourable
50

Michle Richman, Eroticism in the Patriarchal Order, in Violent Silence: Celebrating Georges Bataille, ed. Paul Buck (London: The Geroges Bataille Event, 1984), p. 99.

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Judge, Honourable Prosecutor, seeing that you have already begun to make public my family affairs I, Nyai Ontosoroh, alias Sanikem, concubine of the late Mr. Herman Mellema, look upon the relations between my daughter and my guest in a different light. I, Sanikem, am only a concubine. Out of my concubinage my daughter Annelies was born. Nobody ever challenged my relationship with Herman Mellema. Why? For the simple reason he was a PureBlooded European Between Mr. Mellema and I there were only the ties of slavery and they were never challenged by the law Europeans are able to purchase Native women just as I was purchased There was turmoil in the courtroom. Nyai kept on speaking, paying no heed to the Judges gavel [she] no longer heeded the courts authority her tongue did not stop letting fly words, bullets of revenge: Who turned me into a concubine? Who turned us all into nyais? European gentlemen, made Masters. Why in these official forums are we laughed at? Humiliated? Or is it that you gentlemen want my daughter to become a concubine too? Her voice rang throughout the building. And all present were silenced She, this Native woman, had now become the unofficial prosecutor, plaintiff against the European racea race now ridiculing their own deeds. (BM, 281283) The trial episode in the tetralogy can be analyzed as a paradigm to explore Nyais resistance to patriarchy and colonialism. For it is precisely in that episode that we see most clearly some of the integral features of the rhetoric of imperialist law: a language that disguises power relations beneath the idealization of unity, stasis, and totalization in textualized form. The law seeks to veil and sanction the self-interest of patriarchy and colonialism. As this telltale scene indicates, law serves as a rhetoric of camouflage. But as the text makes clear, laws cannot be separated from the motives that occasioned their existence. Colonial law, in this sense, emerges in the tetralogy as that official attempt to arrest the dangers of ambiguity (hence, fluidity, amorphousness, anarchy) by caging such ambiguity in the fixed hardness of written language.51 As such, hermeneutic disputes about it cannot help but be political struggles. Within this context, the trial of Nyai Ontosoroh reappropriates colonial law; it dramatizes (and makes visible) the invisible processes by which colonial law per se embodies oppressive centralist ideologies. The trial scene can be seen as a semiosis of power relations: the site wherein colonial authority asserts its own supremacy, listening unendingly to its own voice. Accordingly, although both Nyai and Minke are fluent in Dutch, they are prohibited from using it to address the court. Instead they are made to speak through a translator. Since it is predicated on male agency, female objectification, and the legal subordination of women, Dutch colonial law does not acknowledge children born out of the relationship between nyais and their European masters: One day Tuan and I went to Court to acknowledge Robert and you as the children of Mr. Mellema. In the beginning I thought that with such acknowledgement my children would receive legal recognition as legitimate children. But it wasnt so, Ann. Your elder brother and you continued to be considered illegitimate but now you were recognized as the children of Mr.
51

Sanford Levinson, Law as Literature, in Interpreting Law and Literature: A Hermeneutic Reader, ed. S. Levinson and S. Mailloux (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1988), p. 156.

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Mellema and could use his name. The Courts decision meant that the law no longer recognized you as my children, you werent my children any longer, though it was I who gave birth to you. Since that day, both of you, according to the law, were the children of Mr. Mellema alone. According to the law, Ann, Dutch law in these Indies. Dont be mistaken. Youre still my child. Only then did I realize how evil the law was. You obtained a father, but lost a mother. (BM, 8586) Dutch patrilineal kinship system is predicated upon the dependence of genealogical and racial purity on maternal chastity. It is interesting to note the etymological affiliations of the words chastity (Indonesian suci from the Sanskrit zuci) and caste (Indonesian kasta from the Portuguese casta) in this context. Both words possess a common root in the Latin castusspotless, innocent but also akin to carre, to be without, related to Greek and Sanskrit words meaning to split, to cut to pieces (keazein, ssati). The chaste mother, then, necessary guarantor of patrilineal caste, must also exist as a kind of eunuch, symbolically dismembered by a phallic culture, in other words, castrated and severed from her own desire. For native women deemed genealogically tainted or racially impure, whose children are born of Dutch fathers, Dutch lawin a strategy to displace, disclaim, and distance the native mother from her offspringcuts the mother off from her own biological children by effecting a law whereby their European father is recognized as the sole parent if he acknowledges them, even though the children are legally regarded as illegitimate. It is a critical commonplace that for patriarchal culture, concubines (prostitutes) and their illegitimate offspring (bastards) represent a socially unstabilised energy that may threaten, directly or implicitly, the organisation of society, whether by the indeterminacy of their origin or their attitude to the ties that hold society together and that they may choose to slight or break.52 These forms of social disruption find analogies in narrative disjunctions within a system where textual genealogy, traditional narrative, and language itself operate, in Edward Saids words, dynastically, in relationships linked together by family analogy: father and son the process of genesis, a story.53 As figures outside the bounds of legitimate culture, devoid of official lineage or names, the bastard children of Nyai Ontosoroh, and the Indo half-breeds they represent, become persistently associated with the breakdown not only of social and familial structures but also the racial purity the Dutch apartheid colonial regime sought to preserve. Yet as Pramoedya would repeatedly suggest, the figure of the Indo concealseven as it implicitly re-presentsa figure still more scandalously anomalous: the bastards mother, who by giving birth outside the legitimate confines of what, in English, we so tellingly name wedlock (in Indonesian, anak luar nikah from the Arabic word, nikah meaning marriage; or anak haramwith its religious/Muslim connotationmeaning literally forbidden child), fractures the containing social caste system, causing unwanted leakages and seepages to result in a hybrid race. Potentially more threatening to androcentric culture than her
52 Tony Tanner, Adultery in the Novel: Contract and Transgression, 2nd ed. (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), pp. 34. 53 Edward Said, Beginnings: Intention and Method, rev. ed. (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1985), p. 66; my emphasis; see also pp. 83, 93, and especially 96100, 141145. Citations are to the Columbia University Press edition.

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children, it is she whose origins and origination colonial culture most insistently seeks to cancel or conceal in order to maintain its authority. The mother of the illegitimate child exposes the instability and limitations of paternalistic colonial authority by representing a subversive maternal lineage, and she implicitly calls into question the symbolic order maintained in the Name-of-the-(Colonial)-Father. Thus Nyai Ontosorohs outburst during the trial scene becomes for the colonial court unspeakable in several senses, the ultimate scandal and potentially the most radical source of disruption in a symbolic economy predicated on the control of womens bodies, wills, and voices.54 In reserving the term illegitimate for the bastard child, so that to be only the child of a native mother is to be a sign cut off from any proper referent, the partriarchal colonial system counters that threat by doubly ratifying the erasure of the mother as origin and name. In making identity and origin equivalent in the tetralogy, Pramoedya underscores these interpretive issues. Through the character of Nyai Ontosoroh, he enacts a metaphorical relation between the mother-figure of the nyai and the concubinage of the Indonesian motherland under Dutch colonial exploitation. By (re-)claiming the large Buitenzorg farm formerly owned by her Dutch master, Herman Mellema, and taking charge of it, Nyai Ontosoroh ruptures the lines of male colonial genealogy and hence, implicitly, destablizes the patriarchal colonial order that reigns over the Dutch East Indies. The responses Pramoedyas characters adopt toward the (il)legitimacy of Dutch claims over Indonesia may be read on one level, then, as his indirect interrogation of the colonial symbolic order and its strategy of naming and claiming. The genealogical model predicated on womans erasure is repudiated, for it is precisely through the figure of woman that Pramoedya interrogates the guiltinducing logic that conditions the plight of the nyais in the colony during the last decade of the nineteenth century. Offering an alternative to the essentially masculinist vision of law, history, and text perpetuated by the figure of the bastard, he celebrates the mother-figures (this figure is embodied by Nyai Ontosoroh) most flagrant gestures of illegitimacy as fertile sources of leadership and originality. As he has Nyai Ontosoroh observe, Shame is not a concern of European civilization (BM, 330)it is only in the illicit that a new space opens, and with it freedom to challenge with words (BM, 273), with signification itself, to make up new fictions in a bastardized language with an imaginative legitimacy of their own. Reading the character of Nyai Ontosoroh offers a model of a certain feminine critical practice: one that would elude paternally constructed enclosures, rereading womans much-deplored marginality as a powerful positive position, both for the perspective it offers for a critique of the Centreand the centrismsof the fathers, and as an ever-moving site of vision, a horizon rather than a limit. It is also notable that in attempting to represent Nyai, the men in the tetralogy can only explain her in terms of metaphorshe is a castle of puzzles (BM, 17), like something out of a legend from
54

It is her outburst in court that prompts the Eurasian-owned newspapers to publicize the controversial issue of Dutch patrilineal family laws in the Indies and the omniphagous expression of phallocentrism and power-hungry paternity they sanctionNyai is stripped of her ownership of Buitenzorg by the same laws that robbed her of the family business she helped buildwhich eventually culminates in the riots over the courts decision to grant Maurits Mellema custody over Annelies. (BM, 320-322; 339341)

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A Thousand and One Nights (BM, 227),55 like a giant, like a mountain of coral (ASB, 68). Minke ruminates on the tragic, yet enigmatic, position of the nyais: Those issues formed a web of life like that of a spiders web. And in the middle of the web were the concubines and nyais. They dont catch all the victims that come to them. On the contrary, the net seems to catch all sorts of humiliation that they alone must swallow. They arent employers even though they live together in the same room with their masters. They are not included in the same class as the children they themselves have given birth to. They are not Pure, not Indo, and can even be said not to be Native. They are secret mountains. (BM, p. 325; my emphasis ) The ambiguous figure of the nyailike the Javanese feudal attitude that reviles concubinage publicly but condones it privately; and like the traditional JudeoChristian bifurcation of woman into temptress and virgin which subtends itregisters in concentrated form the paradoxical conjunction of horror and revulsion with attraction and desire. This ambivalence has repeatedly marked masculine responses to feminine sexualitythat taboo that underwrites the most diverse male representations of woman-as-sign. Within this context, the desirous nyai figure is so gravely threatening to the self-regarding phallocentric order that she must be contained, domesticated, or neutralized, either transformed into an asexual ideal, written into patriarchal marriage plots, or cast out as a scapegoat. De Beauvoir writes that ... the males hesitation between fear and desire, between the fear of being in the power of uncontrollable forces and the wish to win them over, is strikingly reflected in the myth of Virginity. Now feared by the male, now desired or even demanded, the virgin would seem to represent the most consummate form of the feminine mystery; she is therefore its most disturbing and at the same time its most fascinating aspect.56 Similarly, though conversely, the nyai is at once alluring and forbidding, a liminal figure whose body signifies the quintessence of transgression as surely as does the body of the virgin. In this way, the nyai, as de Beauvoir notes of the prostitute, regains that formidable independence of the luxurious goddess mothers of old, and she incarnates the Femininity that masculine society has not sanctified and that remains charged with harmful powers. 57
55

Pramoedyas reference here to Scheherazades The Thousand and One Nights is ingenious. We recall a tale in Thousand and One Nights when Ali Babas slave, Morgana, saw that the forty thieves had found her masters house and marked it with a cross in order to return and kill him. She took a piece of chalk and marked ninety-nine other houses in the neighbourhood with the same sign, so that Ali Babas house was undistinguishable among them. This was a stroke of genius, and as a result Morgana has become justly immortal, for she not only had ingenuity, initiative, and self-confidence, but she knew what she was doing: her purpose was to confuse. In Bumi Manusia, writing is used in comparable waysas both protective device and sign of subversion. Nyai Ontosoroh urges Minke to write to oppose [the Dutch] with words, and like Morgana, Nyai Ontosoroh too, under the guise of submission to both patriarchy and colonialism, would enact a feminine duplicity in subverting these oppressive orders that would ultimately liberate her from being a slave in her Dutch masters house. 56 de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, p. 141. 57 Ibid., p. 181.

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Forever resistant to colonial and feudal mentalities and ideologies, Nyai Ontosoroh defies the laws that seek to hold her as their object, putting her in her (read: their) place. Sarah Kofman has demonstrated how obsessively and unsuccessfully Freud sought to solve the riddle of woman, to comprehend a power at once repellent and seductive to man, a fixation that he would struggle to control: Does he admit that woman is the only one who knows her own secret, knows the solution to the riddle and is determined not to share it, since she is self-sufficient ? This is a painful path for man, who then complains of womans inaccessibility, her coldness, her enigmatic, indecipherable character. Or does Freud proceed, on the contrary, as if woman were completely ignorant of her own secret, ... persuaded that she must be, that she is, ill, that she cannot get along without a man if she is to be cured? This path, reassuring for mans narcissisms, seems to be the one Freud chooses [T]he task assigned to thought in both cases seems in fact to be that warding off some formidable danger Men wonder about [woman] because she worries them, frightens them, gives them the impression of a disturbing strangeness.58 Pramoedya perhaps anticipates this critique of the masculine plight by representing Nyai Ontosoroh as the embodiment of woman at her most baffling, a castle of puzzles who constitutes so extreme a contradiction that she can be accounted for only as a secret mountain. The mountain has a special symbolic significance in Javanese cosmology. The gunungan, a ubiquitous mountain shape that can be found in various Javanese rituals and ceremonies, is a symbolic expression of the cosmic order. It represents Mount Meru (Sumeru, Mahameru), the cosmic mountain, abode of the gods and axis of the universe in Indian cosmology. Like the cross in Christian tradition, it assumes various dimensions and serves numerous functions. Every wayang kulit (shadow puppet) performance begins with a lacy gunungan occupying the centre of the screen. The offerings of rice and fruit that retainers bear through the kraton (palace) may be heaped into mini Merus. With its peaked roof, each pendopo (a large roofed verandah or reception area at the front of a Javanese dignitarys residence) is also a gunungan; and so is the layout of the whole kraton with its elevated central focus. The tiers of Borobudur and the towers of Prambanan (a great Hindu temple complex located near the city of Yogyakarta) tell of the symbols antiquity, while the soaring profiles of Mounts Merapi and Agung serves as primordial prototypes. It is within this mystical topos, simultaneously a symbol of divinity and the transcendental as well as the tree of life, that Nyai Ontosoroh is also prefigured. We recall here Minkes mothers peroration on the significance of the woman as symbol: without a woman, a knight goes against his nature as a man. Woman is the symbol of life, and the bringer of life, of fertility, prosperity, of wellbeing. She is not just a wife to a husband. Woman is the centre around which circles and from which comes the giving of life, and life itself (BM, 307). While marking the opposite ends of the androcentric cultural spectrumat once located at the substratum of life (ASB, 287) and the apex of divinitythe figure of woman also operates homologically as cultures most extreme paradox. It is this vast maternal
58 Sarah Kofman, The Enigma of Woman: Woman in Freuds Writings, trans. Catherine Porter, 2nd ed. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985), pp. 66-68.

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body, this free-floating feminine force, that embodies the very principal of transgressionliterally the crossing of those boundaries that maintain civilization. If Nyai Ontosoroh is on one level a classic image of immobilized and appropriated woman (the puppet traditionally represented as female doll under male control), on another she is the ultimate figure of mystery, sorcery, illegitimacy, and transgression, a threat to the very foundations of patriarchal culture. Far from being mere object, Nyai Ontosoroh appears driven by her own demonic powers. Indeed, in the motherdaughter joint construction of her life history as nyai, her control over Mellema increases in direct proportion to his progressive loss of control over himself. In all these incarnationsfrom whore to self-sacrificing mother, from repressed concubine to furious, uncontrollable avenger, from mocked and scorned native woman to the object of mans desiresNyai Ontosoroh is a striking illustration of Simone de Beauvoirs thesis that woman has been made to represent all mans ambivalent feelings about his own inability to control his physical existence. As the other, woman comes to represent the contingency of life. It is the horror of his own carnal contingence, de Beauvoir notes, which [man] projects upon [woman].59 Not surprisingly, given womens comparable association with divergence, marginality, and disruption, the most powerful figure of this untamed world in the tetralogy is a woman. Like a temptress, Rientje de Roo, the young prostitute whose beauty had stirred the hearts of Betawis young dandies (RK, 30), appears to the police commissioner, Pangemanann, like an alluring siren, a wanton vamp, a figure of excess, who tempts him with the forbidden fruit of carnal lust; she is also the barely displaced sign of incest: [S]he greeted me sweetly, displaying all her allure for me to savour. Without any kind of preliminaries, she sat herself on my lap This is not what you desire, Meneer? She got up and came close to me, showing off her body in its light brown silk gown [and] whispered: I have never had a favourite. Perhaps if one day I have one, he will be a police commissioner She grew more sweet and endearingthis child who was perhaps the same age as my young daughter In her embrace, and with her head nestled up against my chest, it felt once more as if she was my youngest daughter Would you like to see my room? asked Rientje. (RK, 3134) In conflating the element of the incest taboo with the image of woman as seductress who goads phallocentric fantasy, as the putative object of mans sexual desires, and as an embodiment of the forbidden fruit itself, the text hints at the potentially devastating effects of transgressing the taboo that both represents and insures womens subordination. In addition, as Karen Horney and Dorothy Dinnerstein have shown, male dread of women has historically objectified itself in the vilification of women, while male ambivalence about female charms underlies the traditional images of such terrible sorceress-goddesses as the Sphinx, Medusa, Circe, Delilah, and Salometo which we might add female sorceresses in Javanese mythology like Nyi Roro Kidul, female ghosts like the Kuntilanak (the ghost of a woman who dies at childbirth), and monsters like the Balinese Rangda, the ugly, lolling-tongued, pendulous-breasted Supreme Witchevil incarnate in the Barong
59

de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, p. 138.

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dance, the Indic Kali and Durgaall of whom practice duplicitous arts that allow them both to seduce and to steal male generative energy.60 Emblems of filthy morality and monstrous female sexual energy, and constantly equated with degeneration, disease, and death, women in the tetralogy continue to imperil the paternal order by their ability to infect, both literally and figuratively, the body of men. Surati infects herself with smallpox in order to wreak revenge on Plikemboh by infecting and killing him with the virus: She ascended the steps, escorted by Plikemboh, and surrendered herself to be taken into his roomthe place which forever would be the boundary that marked the end of her life as a virgin and the beginning of her condition as a kept mistress. Take me! Take all you can get from me, she thought, and may you soon be destroyed. As soon as she entered the room, the smallpox ran amok within her. Her strength was broken. From the moment she lay prostrate on Plikembohs bed, she was unable to rise again. And very quickly Plikemboh too became infected. During those last few days, they both lay sprawled out on the bed, awaiting death. (ASB, 151) Robert Mellema, infected by Maiko, the Japanese prostitute in Babah Ah Tjongs brothel, finally dies in Los Angeles having contracted venereal disease (ASB, 289). If woman is the repressed of man within phallocentric culture, which is grounded on male-ownership of both womans body and the social text of the body politic, the tetralogy implies that the inverse may be true, especially when women wields power over man sexuallyat birth and in death. The instances of women infecting men with disease and death in the tetralogy anticipate the ideology that can be seen to underlie Batailles assertions about the operations of eroticism. To give oneself over to eroticism, writes Bataille, is to give oneself over not only to the efferverscence of life but also to its loss: The loosing of the sexual urge means a barrier destroyed [J]ust as the violence of death overturnsirrevocablythe structure of life, so temporarily and partially does sexual violence Inevitably linked with the moment of climax there is a minor rupture suggestive of death. 61 In essence, the domain of eroticism is the domain of violence, of violation, conventionally involving the sacrifice of the female victim and the male sacrificer: In the process of dissolution the male partner has generally an active role, while the female partner is passive. The passive, female side is essentially the one that is dissolved as a separate entity Stripping naked is the decisive action. Nakedness offers a contrast to self-possession ... Stripping naked is seen in civilization where the act had full significance if not as a simulacrum of the act of
60

See Karen Horney, The Dread of Woman, in Feminine Psychology, rev. ed. (New York, NY: Norton, 1993), pp. 13346; and Dorothy Dinnerstein, The Mermaid and the Minotaur: Sexual Arrangements and Human Malaise, rev. ed. (New York, NY: Other Press, 1999 [Harper and Row, 1976]), pp. 12454. Citation is to the Other Press edition. 61 Georges Bataille, Eroticism, trans. Mary Dalwood (London: John Calder, 1962), pp. 1067.

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killing, at least as an equivalent [T]he female partner in eroticism was seen as the victim, the male as the sacrificer.62 In contraposition to this observation, the two episodes most explicitly demonstrate not only mans vulnerability and mortality (mediated by female bodies), but the provisionality of a phallocentric cultural economy founded on the subordination and exogamous exchange of women. Here Batailles androcentric analysis of eroticism, via magisterial discourse on the sacrifice of the female victim, is impugned. Suratis and Maikos rolethe former intentionally; the latter unintentionallyin this case is certainly not as stereotypical passive victims. Simultaneously sacrificer and sacrificed, occupying both polarities on the axis of sexual pleasure and danger, they are the doubly extreme embodiment of forbidden eroticism for which men who seek it sometimes pay dearly. And yet it is from the point of view of the victim that the tetralogy constructs a critique of patriarchys dominative model of identification. The four novels provide important critiques of patriarchy and its deployment of female subjectivity by factoring in gender and insisting on the social, political, and economic axes along which power is distributed and identities are constructed. For these reasons, the tetralogy is valuable to an understanding of the drives of power and authority in patriarchy and colonialism, and how they create prejudiced social formations based on gross falsehoods. Remarkable for its portrayal of individual female subjectivities and national identity against the grim background of the triadic intersection of race, class, and gender, the tetralogy is an important voice in the literary dialogue on the subjectifying practices used to inscribe Indies female selfhoods and the engendering of that narrative.

62

Bataille, Eroticism, pp. 16-18.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND COMMUNAL CONFLICT: A CASE STUDY OF THE TRIAL OF FABIANUS TIBO, DOMINGGUS DA SILVA, AND MARINUS RIWU
Dave McRae
1

Criminal justice is an important part of the response to violent inter-ethnic and inter-religious conflict. Criminal trials are usually a key demand of affected communities, members of which may themselves engage in violence if they perceive that the state will take no action against perpetrators living in their vicinity. When held while conflict is ongoing, trials can also have the preventive effect of imprisoning key perpetrators of violence and thereby removing them from the conflict setting. There is also a moral and philosophical imperative to bring perpetrators to account, lest impunity embolden them or others to perpetuate the violence. These assertions are more than merely an abstract concern for Indonesia, which in the immediate post-Suharto period found itself dealing with several instances of largescale murderous inter-religious fighting. One of the worst of these conflicts took place in Poso district, Central Sulawesi, where between six hundred to one thousand people, both Muslims and Christians, are estimated to have been killed since December 1998. Violence peaked in 20002001, with more than half of all deaths in the conflict
1 I am grateful to Virginia Hooker, Edward Aspinall, Marcus Mietzner, Diane Zhang, Chris Wilson, Lorraine Aragon, and the anonymous reader at Indonesia for helpful feedback on earlier versions of this article. Despite those individuals help, all errors remain my sole responsibility. This article is part of a forthcoming PhD dissertation at the Australian National University on agency in the escalation of the Poso conflict.

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occurring during those two years. Although violence has lessened since, the district has remained the site of sporadic shootings, bombings, and other murders. Given the scale and persistence of violence in Poso, it may be surprising to learn that more than 150 suspects have stood trial for crimes there.2 A few trials took place after the initial fighting in the district in December 1998, but the first large set of trials started in late 2000. Almost all of the more than one hundred suspects in this set of trials were charged over their involvement in the MayJune 2000 violence in Poso, in which at least 246 people, mostly Muslims, were killed. Since then, at least fifty to seventy more suspects have faced the courts for various violent incidents occurring between late 2000 and 2006. There is no complete data set of all those who have stood trial and the sentences they received, but the available information shows that there have been significant numbers of both Muslim and Christian defendants. A few of those tried have received stern sentences: most notably three death sentences, but also a few sentences of between five to fifteen years. The majority of those to stand trial though, both Muslims and Christians, have received relatively short sentenceseven when charged with involvement in killingsand so have been quickly released. The trials held so far have done little to answer community demands for justice in Poso, and have not had a discernable impact on stemming violence. The literature on criminal justice and conflict provides several explanations for why criminal trials and investigations can be ineffective in responding to conflict situations:3 (i) Police, prosecutors, and courts may be overwhelmed by the scale of the violence or cease to function altogether, meaning few trials are ever held; (ii) Even after the peak of the conflict, it may be difficult to restore or reactivate the police, prosecutors, and courts because of the social identification of their officers with one of the combatant parties; the particular difficulties of gathering evidence in a conflict setting and social pressures on those institutions, such as the threat of retribution, may be further hindrances; (iii) With consensus between polarized communities on who should be prosecuted difficult to obtain, communities may view the courts work as victors justice; (iv) Criminal trials may actually inflame tensions and make the situation worse, or key perpetrators may not be brought to justice because of their influence or problems of jurisdiction;4 (v) Victims families and the affected communities are unlikely to be satisfied with a court sentence as closure for the violent death of a loved one; and (vi) Criminal trials are only one component of a comprehensive notion of justice, which victims may understand to encompass social and economic recovery and reparations in addition to affixing blame and meting out punishment.5
The total number of those to stand trial may in fact be closer to two hundred. An excellent treatment of the issues discussed in the text is presented in My Neighbor, My Enemy: Justice and Community in the Aftermath of Mass Atrocity, ed. Eric Stover and Harvey M. Weinstein (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004), which set out to measure empirically the contribution of criminal trials to post-conflict rebuilding of communities. The following chapters are of particular relevance to the above issues: Eric Stover and Harvey M. Weinstein, Introduction: Conflict, Justice, and Reclamation, pp. 128; Laurel E. Fletcher and Harvey M. Weinstein, A World unto itself? The Application of International Justice in the Former Yugoslavia, pp. 2948; Alison des Forges and Timothy Longman, Legal Responses to Genocide in Rwanda, pp. 4968; and Eric Stover and Harvey M. Weinstein, Conclusion: a Common Objective, a Universe of Alternatives, pp. 32342. 4 On the former point in the specific context of the Maluku conflict, see the report by International Crisis Group, The Search for Peace in Maluku , February 2002, p. 25. 5 See Stover and Weinstein, Introduction, p. 4; Stover and Weinstein, Conclusion, p. 324.
3 2

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A close look at the Poso conflict shows that trials in Central Sulawesi have suffered less from those problems than do many of the cases described in the literature. As severe as violence in Poso has been, this violence has largely been contained within just one of Indonesias four-hundred-odd districts, and in terms of numbers killed, the magnitude of the violence is well below cases of intranational war or genocide such as occurred in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. This has meant that, outside of Poso itself, Indonesias judicial system has remained intact, and while the task of investigating the violence still stretches police and prosecutors, it is not of impossible scale. Moreover, since Poso is not the provincial capital of Central Sulawesi, the nearby provincial capital, Palu, although not entirely unaffected by the conflict, has served as a location where trials could be held when it was considered too dangerous in Poso.6 This contrasts with other areas of post-Soeharto inter-religious and inter-ethnic conflict, such as in Maluku and North Maluku provinces, where the provincial capitals were the scene of serious fighting. Nor are Indonesias courts institutionally linked to one or the other combatant party, reducing (although not eliminating altogether) the grounds on which to claim victors justice. Conspiracy theories notwithstanding, the limited scale of the conflict, which has taken place at the district level, also means that many key combatants were local civil servants, members of prominent local families, or local youths. (The mujahidin from other parts of Indonesia who fought in Poso from late 2000 onward are an obvious exception.) These individuals may be able to protect themselves from investigations pursued at the local level, but are unlikely to have the connections to shield themselves from prosecution in the face of concerted political will from the central government. What, then, best explains the lack of a discernable contribution on the part of the trials held thus far to stemming violence in Poso? Are there particular weaknesses in these investigations and trials that, if improved, might enhance their positive impact? To answer these questions, this paper focuses on the most prominent manhunt, investigation, and trial to arise from the Poso conflictthe case of Fabianus Tibo, Dominggus da Silva, and Marinus Riwu. These three menall Catholics originally from East Nusa Tenggara (Nusa Tenggara Timur, NTT) province involved in a conflict primarily fought between Protestants and Muslimswere sentenced to death in April 2001 in connection with the MayJune 2000 phase of fighting in Poso, which, as mentioned above, was a period in which hundreds of Muslims were killed. They were convicted of murder on the basis that they were among the leaders of Christian forces in MayJune 2000, and in that capacity incited others to kill.7 This
6 Indonesian criminal procedural law allows for trials to be moved from the area where the offence occurred at the suggestion of the head of the district court or the head of the district prosecutors office, should the local situation not permit the trial to go ahead there (Article 85, Criminal Procedural Code). Between 20002005, most criminal and terrorism trials stemming from the Poso conflict were thus held in Palu; from late 2005, police began to push for high-profile cases to be moved away from Central Sulawesi altogether and instead be tried in Jakarta. At the time of writing, seven defendants had been tried for Poso violence in courts in Jakarta; the trials of at least another twenty suspects are expected to take place in Jakarta in 2007. 7 They were also convicted of arson (Article 187 [1] of the Indonesian Criminal Code, maximum sentence of twelve years) and battery (Article 351, maximum sentence of two years and eight months), but these two lesser charges were incidental to the trial and are not discussed at any length in this article.

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characterization of the men as among the leaders appears to have been accurate for Tibo and Dominggus. Each appears to have been more than rank-and-file combatants in MayJune 2000, though not themselves the highest leaders of Christian forces. We know far less about the role of Marinus, either from the trial material or other available information. A close examination of the investigation and trial of the three men reveals several procedural shortcomings that served to undermine its contribution to stemming violence. The information in Tibos depositions in particular could have been used to develop a clear picture of the command structure of Christian forces in MayJune 2000, and thereby prosecute other key combatants. Prosecutors instead focused on just the three men, which meant that many other key combatants remained free, and over time Muslims protested that the death sentences against the three men did not absolve the government of the need to investigate other perpetrators of violence against Muslims. This failingrepeated in many subsequent investigations in Pososeems all the more significant in light of the admittedly limited available evidence from other Indonesian conflicts that suggests apprehending a large subset of key perpetrators can make a significant contribution to stopping violence. A key example of the success of pursuing a larger set of key perpetrators comes from the 2005 Maluku conflict, where wide-reaching arrests of those responsible for a string of attacks from May 2004May 2005 has all but halted violence in the last twenty months. Returning to the Tibo case, the prosecutors also did not use all the information in the interrogation depositions to file as comprehensive an indictment as possibleone that noted the full extent of the mens involvement in the violence and listed all possible charges. Considered in isolation, that shortcoming may appear of marginal importance, given that the three men could not possibly have received a heavier sentence. But as a pattern repeated across many cases, and even if the perpetrators may be in prison, it denies communities a clear record of who was responsible for particular acts of violence. In addition, when police speculate publicly before trials that the suspects are involved in cases for which they are not subsequently charged, it denies those individuals the chance to challenge the accusations in court and can lead to claims of deliberate stigmatization. The procedural quality of the Tibo trial was also poor. The trial took place under hostile circumstances, with one witness even managing to slap the three defendants in the face before testifying. The judgment was also poorly assembled, with little legal reasoning and insufficient clarification of what specific testimony supported the judges conclusions. This doubtless caused some Christian disaffection at the time, but far more crucially, when the case became controversial in 2006 after the mens plea for clemency was rejected and the executions seemed imminent, it meant that there was no clear record of the case against the men. Had the guilt of the men been more clearly demonstrated, the scope for protests would have been reduced. Instead, the execution of the men in September 2006 became a focal point for accumulated disaffection with Posos criminal justice process, and the debate preceding their death by firing squad sharpened old religious enmities in Poso. By this time, Christians were aggrieved that no other punishments had approached the severity of the sentences handed down to Tibo, Dominggus, and Marinus, whereas

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Muslims felt the executions were insufficient because other cases of violence had not been investigated. The renewed tensions had tangible consequences: a group of Christians murdered two Muslim men in Poso district several days after the executions took place. Moreover, the same tensions almost led to clashes among rival crowds on the fringes of the districts capital city, a pattern of violence absent since 2002. Before discussing the three mens trial and its shortcomings in detail, this paper first provides a brief overview of the Poso conflict. To assist in evaluating the case presented against the men during the trial, the essay also sets out current knowledge of who Tibo, Dominggus, and Marinus were and what their roles were in Posos May June 2000 violence. Background: The Poso Conflict The conflict in Posoa coastal district of some 200,000300,000 peopleis not attributable to any single cause.8 As with the conflicts in Maluku and North Maluku that also started in the immediate post-Soeharto period, local political contests to control state patronage that fed pre-existing tension between religious communities and weak law enforcement both contributed to violence, but those two factors did not by themselves make the occurrence of violence or its escalation inevitable. A large part of the explanation lies in individuals experience of the conflict and how, over time, this led some individuals to perceive members of the other religious community as enemies or as an immediate threat to their own security, or both. There were two periods of violence in Poso prior to MayJune 2000 (the point when Tibo, Dominggus, and Marinus became involved in the conflict). The first of these periods was December 2428, 1998; the second was sixteen months later, April 1620, 2000. During each of those periods, violence was contained within the city limits. No one was killed in the December 1998 riot, while seven people were killed in April 2000.9 Although relatively few people were killed in the first two periods of violence, Christians fared worse than the Muslims, particularly in terms of property losses. As a result, many Christians fled the city during the second period, when several churches were burned or damaged. Such targeted violence fed into a pre-existing anxiety among Posos Christian community, including members of the indigenous Pamona ethnic group, that they were being marginalized and cut off from political positions, civilservice posts, and land ownership by wealthy Muslim migrants, particularly those from South Sulawesi province. This anxiety was aggravated by a feeling on the part of Christians that few of those individuals whom they held responsible for the first two
Fuller accounts of the conflict are provided in Lorraine V. Aragon, Communal Violence in Poso, Central Sulawesi: Where People Eat Fish and Fish Eat People, Indonesia 72 (October 2001): 4569, which provides a preliminary chronology of the first three periods; Human Rights Watch, Breakdown: Four Years of Communal Violence in Central Sulawesi, December 2002; Anto Sangaji, Pembakaran Rumput Kering, unpublished manuscript; George Aditjondro, Kerusuhan Poso Dan Morowali, Akar Permasalahan Dan Jalan Keluarnya, Pro-patria Discussion Paper, January 7, 2004; ICG, Indonesia Backgrounder: Jihad in Central Sulawesi, Asia Report No. 74, February 3, 2004; ICG, Weakening Indonesias Mujahidin Networks, Lessons from Maluku and Poso, Asia Report No. 103, October 13, 2005; and ICG, Jihadism in Indonesia: Poso on the Edge, Asia Report No. 127, January 24, 2007. 9 Three of these were killed when police opened fire on a crowd of Muslims.
8

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periods of violence had been arrested or brought to trial.10 Immediately after the April 2000 violence, a sub-section of the Christian community, including some of those whose houses had been burned, began to plan for an attack on those they termed perusuh (rioters) and provokator (provocateurs). The result was a third period of violence that lasted for two weeks, from late MayJune 2000, during which time Tibo, Dominggus, and Marinus were recruited to fight. The MayJune 2000 violence was on a much larger scale than anything that had occurred previously in Poso. For two weeks there was an almost complete breakdown of law and order, and at least 246 people, mostly Muslims, were killed. Widespread arson destroyed many village and government buildings, and tens of thousands of individuals fled from the district in all directions.11 Many Christians describe the May June violence as revenge (pembalasan) for the earlier attacks on Christians, but it is also common for them to describe it as defending our territory (mempertahankan kita punya wilayah). This latter rationalization embodies local Christians idea that the third period of violence was a spontaneous defensive response, even though that violence was on a far greater scale than what had gone before.12 Ill describe the initial incident of the third period in some detail, because it was at this point that Tibo, Dominggus, and Marinus first came to public attention in Poso. This first incident took the form of a foray by a group of around fifteen black-clad Christians into the suburbs of Kayamanya and Moengko before dawn on May 23. The group, led by civil servant A. L. Lateka, was looking for specific provokator from earlier violence in Poso, but instead killed three men they happened to encounter, including a policeman, before fleeing to the nearby Santa Theresia Catholic school compound, in Moengko.13 When the group of Christians arrived at the school, Tibo, Dominggus, and Marinus were there. A large Muslim crowd, roused by news of the murders, gathered in front of the school shortly afterward. Those harbored inside fled, after which the Muslim crowd torched the school. The subsequent violence took several forms: additional small forays (like the May 23 attack described above); large clashes between rival crowds armed with machetes, traditional weapons, and crude homemade firearms; and the murders of hostages taken from the other community. The single worst incident during the third period of violence took place at and around the Walisongo Islamic boarding school, about nine kilometers south of the city.14 After a clash at the boarding school, the Muslim men who remained there were killed. Those who fled were rounded up over the course of the next few days. In all, around one hundred Muslims were killed in this massacre;
10

Only a few trials were held in response to the first and second periods of violence. The harshest penalty in this set of trials was meted out to a Protestant man Herman Parimo, sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment for his role in the December 1998 violence. He died in custody in April 2000. 11 The figure of 246 is taken from the Central Sulawesi governors report on the violence. Given the breakdown of law and order and the political uses to which a lower or higher number of casualties could be turned, no accurate figure is ever likely to emerge for how many people were killed in MayJune 2000. Official estimates of casualties in large-scale Indonesian riots have generally been held to be conservative. 12 Interviews with Poso men, February 2002 and July 2003. 13 Latekas brother-in-law had been imprisoned for involvement in the first period and by late May 2000 had died in custody. See footnote 10. 14 The boarding school was located near Sintuwulemba village, a location sometimes also called Kilo 9. The incident is sometimes referred to using these place names.

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and some of the women taken prisoner appeared to have been sexually assaulted before being released. During the two weeks of violence, Christians established a command post (posko) in Tagolu, just south of the city. This is where Tibo, Dominggus, and probably Marinus were based for most of the MayJune violence. Hundreds, maybe even thousands, of Christians gathered there. This command post was only disbanded on June 8, 2000, as the violence of the third period waned and security forces made a concerted push into Poso. The newly deployed security forcesboth police and militarybelatedly made arrests, seized weapons, and began reburying bodies found around the district. Before this, when the unrest was building and peaking, many police and village officials left their posts. A few police and military officers even joined with crowds and took part in the violence themselves. The third period of violence marked the shift to protracted conflict in Poso. It created a group of angry young Muslim men who had seen family members killed or their houses destroyed, and who later recalled that their only thought after this period of the conflict was how to take revenge.15 News of the violence, including gruesome photos of the remains of murder victims, also drew in Muslim fighters from other parts of the country, many of them veterans of the Maluku conflict by the time they arrived in Poso. Sporadic violence gradually escalated to a fourth period of conflict in June July 2001 and a fifth in OctoberDecember 2001. In the face of the mounting death tollaround one hundred people were killed in 2001 alonegovernment officials brought representatives of the Muslim and Christian communities to the negotiating table in late December 2001. The resulting dealcalled the Malino Agreementinitially brought about some peace and security (in part attributable to a large increase in security-force deployment to Poso earlier in December), with clashes between crowds becoming rare by late 2002. Low-intensity violence continued, though, with more than 150 people killed in Poso after the accord was signed. The worst incidents since the accord are nevertheless gravely serious, including several large-scale bombings during 20042005, the beheading of three Christian schoolgirls in October 2005, and, most recently, a shootout in the course of a January 2007 police raid, during which more than a dozen Muslim men, most of whom were fighting the police, were shot dead (along with one policeman). As the focus of this essay is on the trial of Fabianus Tibo, Dominggus da Silva, and Marinus Riwu, lets return to the third period of the conflict to chart the extent of their involvement. Remembering that these mens murder convictions rested on the judges view that the men were leaders during the MayJune 2000 violence, the following section aims both to discuss what information is available regarding the status of Tibo, Dominggus, and Marinus within the kelompok merah (red groupone name for Christian fighters), as well as to map out what is known about the extent of their involvement in specific incidents.

15

Interviews with Poso men, July 2003.

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Tibo Group MovementsMay 2000 1. Beteleme to Kelei, around May 14; 2. Kelei to Tentena, May 22; 3. Tentena to Moengko Baru, May 22; 4. Moengko Baru to Tambaro, May 23; 5. Tambaro to Tentena, May 2324

The Role of Tibo, Dominggus, and Marinus The prosecutions primary charge against Tibo, Dominggus, and Marinus was premeditated murder. The prosecution also added the provision of Article 55 (1), subclause 1, that the men would be punished as murderers if they had either perpetrated (the murder), ordered others to do so, or taken part (with others in the murder). The murder indictment alleged the men had been involved in four specific (multiple) murders: the May 23, 2000, foray into Kayamanya and Moengko (described in the previous section); the May 28 Walisongo massacre; murder incidents from May 28June 1 near the community health centre (Puskesmas) in Tagolu; and the June 1 murders at a Tagolu sand-mining location on the bank of the Poso river. Note that adding Article 55 meant that the prosecutions case did not rest solely on whether the three men had participated directly in murders in any specific attacks. The case against the three men also incorporated other alleged actions on their part, such as training Christian combatants to kill Muslims and acting as leaders during the MayJune 2000 violence. Indeed, by mentioning in the indictment that 191 people had been killed in

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the third period of violence, the prosecutors were implying that the mens actions had wider implications than just the four cases listed above. The next sections set out the role of the men, in terms of their charges and convictions. To do so, I use materials other than just the evidence presented during the court trial to provide the fullest possible picture of the mens involvement in the May June violence. The narrative is drawn from a comparison of my interviews with the men in 200304, interviews the three gave to the press around the time of their arrest in 2000, as well as information from their trial and interrogation dossiers.16 In general, I have given less weight to information contained only in interrogation depositions if the deponents did not appear as witnesses at the trial, as their non-appearance limits the grounds on which to gauge the accuracy of the information. Fabianus Tibo The narrative of Tibos involvement in the Poso violence starts in Beteleme village in Morowali district, which lies adjacent to the southeast portion of Poso, where he said he worked as a farmer. Tibo, a long-term migrant to Sulawesi from Flores, in the archipelagic Nusa Tenggara Timur province, about 800 kilometers south of Poso district, turned fifty-five years old immediately before the MayJune 2000 violence. The most prominent among the three, he appears to have stood as an unsuccessful candidate for the now-defunct Democratic Catholic Party in the 1999 election for the Poso district legislature. He had previously served a six-year prison term in Poso in the early 1990s for his involvement in a dispute between transmigrants from Bali and Flores, in Lawangke village, in which four Balinese were killed. This conviction led to a widespread belief that Tibo was a preman (thug), although no specifics are known.17 Tibos first actions of direct relevance to the MayJune 2000 violence were to gather a group of men, mostly transmigrants from NTT, to go to Poso. For this, Tibo traveled to Malores village, where Marinus lived, also in Morowali district, most likely at some point between May 1014, 2000 (about three weeks after Posos second period of violence). Tibo and the prosecution each promoted different versions of his motives at this point. Tibo said he went to gather the men after a Protestant man, whom he had never met before, came to his house and told him the students of a Catholic boarding school in Poso were in danger. He thus went to Malores, by his account, to warn the parents to go and retrieve their children.18 In its indictment, the prosecution stated only
The use of information from interrogation dossiers requires particular caution. In the Indonesian criminal legal system, each prosecution witness called at the trial must first make a deposition to interrogators, but the depositions are often not verbatim records of their deposition. It is also generally not possible to know the circumstances under which the depositions were made. Moreover, in other conflict trials, witnesses have withdrawn their depositions when called before the court, sometimes with apparent justification. Wherever possible, information in interrogation dossiers is used only in comparison with other sources. 17 Tracing the details of any preman status may be a fruitful future research project to further elucidate the MayJune 2000 violence, but it is incidental to this paper. 18 Dominggus stated in his interrogation deposition that he had a grandchild, a nephew, and a niece at the school, and that one of the vehicles the group used there was his white Mitsubishi Colt. Marinus stated in an interview that he had a child at the school (although he may not have understood the question).
16

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that Tibo gathered men to attack Poso, telling them this is a matter of religion, and ordering those willing to come to Poso to make weapons to bring along.19 The week following this meeting in MaloresMay 1421, 2000was a crucial period for the murder conviction, because any training that Tibo, Dominggus, and Marinus provided to the kelompok merah would have taken place during this week. This means that the precise date that Tibo arrived in Keleithe village where training was said to have taken placeis a very significant detail. Not surprisingly, Tibo and the prosecution presented different versions of his movements. In interviews with me, Tibo claimed that he and his companions stopped in Kelei for just one night, on May 21, after various delays over the course of several days in finding transportation from Beteleme to Poso. If true, this would mean Tibo was not in Kelei during the period when training is alleged to have occurred, but his account seems dubious, as it would seem to suggest a remarkable lack of urgency to leave for Poso and rescue the children. The prosecutors alleged Tibo and his companions arrived in Kelei on May 14. The testimony of one witness at the trial, one deposition read out at the trial, and two other depositions from members of Tibos group all describe varying degrees of training, but to some extent contradict each other. To my mind, the most credible of these sources are the depositions of Tibos two companions, even though prosecutors did not call these men as witnesses or read their depositions out at the trial, meaning the information was not admissible as evidence.20 These two men say Tibo and his group arrived in Kelei on or around May 14, and while there made weapons to use in Poso and train for the coming violence. They each say Tibo told them to make weapons, while Marinus trained them in the use of arrows. The two men say they left Kelei for Poso on May 22, after about a week of preparation in the village. By this time, they had been given black clothing and wristbands (called kongkoli); one of the men told interrogators that Tibo had given the directive, anyone not wearing black clothing or a wristband is the enemy and must be attacked.21 From their depositions, Tibo was clearly the leader of their traveling party, but his precise authority in a wider setting is not yet clear. In its indictment, the prosecution was more expansive about the degree of training and Tibos role in it, categorizing him as the overall leader of Christian forces at the time. A comparison with Tibos interrogation dossier makes it clear the phrasing of the indictment was based primarily on the deposition of just one individual, named Anton, who, as explained in a later section, stands out as the least credible witness at the trial. The next stage in examining Tibos narrative is to explain how he got from Kelei village to the town of Poso, still at least three hours journey away. It seems clear that Tibo and his companions left Kelei early on the morning of May 22, 2000, and before
19 20

Interview with Fabianus Tibo, July 28, 2003. Surat Dakwaan No. Reg. Perkara. PDM-18/POSO/11/2000, p. 3. Their depositions appear most credible because they were questioned very soon after the eventson May 29 and May 30months before Tibo was arrested and even longer before the other witnesses made their statements. Their account also matches most closely with both the prosecutions and Tibos accounts of his other movements in mid to late May 2000. 21 Deposition of Lenoardus Lewa in dossier of Fabianus Tibo, May 30, 2000, p. 2.

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reaching Poso stopped briefly at the majority-Christian town of Tentena, two hours south of Poso. Tibo and his group of between twelve and thirty men then arrived at the Santa Theresia Catholic School compound in Moengko (Poso suburb) some time during the middle of the day. They were now at the school that would be burned the next day in the first moments of the MayJune 2000 violence (when the Christians, led by A. L. Lateka, who themselves had committed violence, fled from the school, as described in the previous section). Tibos accusers have often claimed that Tibos group and Latekas group were one and the same. Tibo said that, upon arriving at the school on May 22, he was unable to convince the schools principal that the children should flee immediately, because they were in the midst of national examinations. Given this situation, Tibo said, he remained at the school to guard it, with a plan to take the children home the following day. This is how Tibo accounted for being in front of the school before dawn the next morning, on May 23, clad in black and holding a machete, when a Muslim crowd gathered at the school looking for Latekas groupwho were also wearing blackwho, the Muslims charged, had just murdered three people. Tibo said he had been asleep when the murders took place and that the schools children woke him to tell him there was trouble in the city and that some men were hiding in the school.22 Thus, Tibo denied involvement in the Kayamanya murders on May 23, the first specific incident that the prosecution named in its murder indictment. Tibos version of events does not ring true and is unlikely to be the whole truth. It is possible he and his men were not directly involved in the Kayamanya murders, but their very presence at the school, let alone their black clothing and weapons, seems too much of a coincidence to be entirely unrelated. But the prosecutions version of the mornings events is not correct, either, for the simple reason that it confuses details of two different attacks. In its indictment, the prosecution states that Tibo, Dominggus, and Marinus led a group of 130 men to attack Moengko and Kayamanya that morning. That number is much larger than what witnesses to the attacks remember. A comparison with Tibos interrogation deposition shows that the number 130 actually comes from his description of an attack on Moengko that took place about a week later.23 The confusion surrounding Tibos exact role in the mornings events notwithstanding, it is clear that, after being found outside the school, Tibo handed over his machete to police. Despite the presence of the increasingly large crowd of Muslims and a request from the policemen present that he accompany them to Posos police station, Tibo somehow managed to flee into the forested hills behind the school complex. Most of Tibos men, Latekas group, and the schools students and teachers also made their escape. These various groups headed south toward the majorityChristian areas of Poso, first to Tambaro village just south of the city and then farther south, to Tentena. Behind them, the crowd torched the school complex. The next day, May 24, Tibo says he was taken from Tentena back to Kelei village, the reputed site of kelompok merah training. There he attended a meeting with around ten people, including A. L. Lateka and another man Tibo named as a key kelompok
22 23

Interview with Fabianus Tibo, July 28, 2003. Deposition of Fabianus Tibo in dossier of Fabianus Tibo, July 28, 2000, p. 3.

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merah leader, retired Protestant military officer Paulus Tungkanan.24 According to Tibo, at this meeting Lateka gave the order to raze Poso.25 Although Tibo depicts his presence at the meeting as the product of coercionsaying Lateka prevented him from returning to his home village of BetelemeTibos attendance is another sign that he was a kelompok merah leader (given that the other attendees were also figures of authority). By comparison, Dominggus and Marinus do not appear to have attended. Thereafter, Tibo again says he was taken back to the outskirts of the city, to Tagolu village, probably early on the morning of May 25, and appears to have been primarily based there until June 8. While in Tagolu, says he, he stayed at the command post (posko) that Christians had set up in the house of Bakte Lateka, the younger brother of A. L. Lateka. The most detailed account of Tibos presence in Tagolu comes from one of the interrogation depositions read out at the trial in lieu of the witness appearing before the court to testifythat of Ros Kristina, a Christian woman. She said Muslim captives were brought to Tibo for questioning at the posko, and that Tibo then handed over the prisoners to others, including Dominggus and Marinus, to be diamankan (secured), which was a euphemism for murder. According to Ros Kristinas deposition, Dominggus reported to Tibo about murders at other locations in Tagolu, although due to her involuntary presence as a forced laborer in the posko itself, she did not actually witness these murders herself.26 The accounts of Muslim captives who appeared as witnesses at the trial were not as detailed as Kristinas, but their testimony corroborates some aspects of her deposition and depicts Tibo as a figure of authority in Tagolu. One, Taiyeb Lamelo, testified that when he was first brought to Tagolu, Tibo asked for his identity card (Kartu Tanda Penduduk, KTP) and later assured him he would not be hurt. Lamelo also testified that when kelompok merah members from his village came to ask that Lamelo be allowed to return home, they met with Tibo (to secure his release).27 Another Muslim man captured and held in Tagolu, Mahfud Rosid, testified that all three defendants were
Tungkanan moved to Tentena in April after suffering a large slash wound to his back in the second phase. He has never stood trial, but was arrested in May 2004 on suspicion of firearms possession. He was released without charge, and those familiar with the investigation following his arrest told me that it appears to have focused as much on Tungkanans involvement in the MayJune 2000 violence as on the firearms charge. The figure of ten attendees at the Kelei meeting comes from interviews with the author; in his depositions, Tibo said forty people attended. Information from interviews with Paulus Tungkanan, February 2002 and June 2006; with Fabianus Tibo, July 28, 2003; with Dominggus, May 2004; and with a Palu lawyer, June 2006. Also: interrogation deposition of Fabianus Tibo, in dossier of Fabianus Tibo, July 26, 2000, p. 5. 25 Interview with Fabianus Tibo, July 2003. When interviewed, Tibo volunteered incidental details of this meeting that make his claim that he was present appear authentic. For instance, he recalled Lateka had been angry because Tungkanan arrived late and thereby kept everyone waiting. See also interrogation deposition of Fabianus Tibo, in dossier of Fabianus Tibo, July 26, 2000, p. 6. 26 Deposition of Ros Kristina in dossier of Fabianus Tibo, July 6 and 7, 2000. 27 If this account is true, it suggests that the village affiliations between Lamelo and the kelompok merah members trumped their religious difference. Record of testimony of Taiyeb Lamelo, in Decision of Palu District Court No. 459/PID.B/2000/PN.PL in case of Fabianus Tibo, Dominggus da Silva, and Marinus Riwu (hereafter Tibo Decision ), pp. 4344.
24

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present at the Tagolu command post and that all decisions had to be cleared by them; he also said he was ordered to give Tibo a massage.28 The prosecutions indictment alleged Tibo took part in four distinct attacks, and implied that other Muslim deaths in the MayJune 2000 violence were the result of his actions. Tibo denied involvement in the murders specifically named by the prosecution, but in his depositions and interviews with me he made it clear that he took part directly in attacks during the two weeks he was in Tagolu. He admits to taking part directly or being present at four clashes during the MayJune 2000 violence: May 25: SepeSilanca village. Christians clashed with Muslims attempting to advance toward Tagolu from the majority-Muslim areas east of the city. Tibo admits his presence in his interrogation deposition; residents of the villages also recall seeing Tibo there.29 May 28: Sayo village. Tibo describes this clash, on the southern outskirts of the city, as an attempt to rescue nine Christians trapped in Sayo the previous day during another attack on the village.30 May 28: Walisongo. Tibo admits being present at or around the Walisongo boarding school on the day it was attacked, May 28. His account is inconsistent in different sources, however. In his interrogation dossier he says he arrived in Walisongo only after the kelompok merah had surrounded the mosque there, and that he left again before the violence proper began, after being struck by a dart (anak peluncur). When I interviewed Tibo in 2003, he said that he arrived at Walisongo only after the violence there had occurred, saying when he got back to Tagolu from Sayo the women there told him Its already [happened] in Kilo 9 [Walisongo]. Its been razed. 31 One witness at the triala Muslim survivor of the Walisongo violencealso testified that Tibo led the attack.32 Late May or early June: Moengko. The fourth attack Tibo admitted to leading or taking part in took place in the city suburb of Moengko in the last days of May or early June 2000. Tibos account of the attack (from his interrogation deposition) says he led 130 men in the attack, clashed with the kelompok putih (one name for Muslim fighters) for half an hour, and then burned six houses.33 In an interview with me in 2003, Tibo described this attack as a dawn raid (serangan fajar), claimed it was the only occasion Christians had attacked the
28 29

Ibid., pp. 2728 (record of Mahfud Rosid Kusni testimony). This attack was not directed at Sepe and Silanca, which were majority Christian villages. Once Christians gained the ascendancy in this part of Poso, they burned many of the nearby Muslim settlements. It is possible that the specific attack Tibo referred to in fact took place on May 26. 30 References to the dates of the Sayo attacks are inconsistent. They appear to have taken place on May 27 and 28, but may also have taken place on May 28 and 29. In a deposition in the dossier of Marinus Riwu, Tibo says the attack on Sayo occurred because they had heard that a church in the neighboring suburb of Kawua would be attacked. 31 A Protestant policeman who went to Walisongo also testified that he requested Tibos permission, as leader of the kelompok merah, to go there. Record of testimony of Hopni Saribu, Tibo Decision, p. 43. 32 Another witness, Sutarmin, said Tibo was the leader when the kelompok merah killed captives three days after the Walisongo attack. See Record of testimony of Ilham, Untung Djumadi, Tibo Decision , pp. 3233. 33 Interrogation deposition of Fabianus Tibo in dossier of Fabianus Tibo, July 28, 2000, p. 3.

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city, and said that the raid was ordered by Paulus Tungkanan. He said the kelompok merah members (Christians) withdrew after one of their number was shot dead, without mentioning whether there were any kelompok putih (Muslim) casualties.34 After these attacks, the next clear record of Tibos whereabouts places him at two peace meetings in early June, held on consecutive days as the violence of the third period began to wane.35 Both the Deputy Head of Central Sulawesi Police and the newly appointed Poso Police Chief, Superintendent Djasman Baso Opu, were present at each meeting, but no attempt was made to take Tibo into custody.36 His presence at the first meeting in particular, where he appeared as a representative of the kelompok merah and shook hands with several Muslim men, strengthens the picture that Tibo was more than an ordinary combatant.37 After these meetings, by which time the Tagolu command post had been disbanded, Tibos interrogation depositions suggest that he spent two nights in Kuku village, south of Tagolu, and a week in Tentena. We know no further details of his activities prior to his arrest in Jamur Jaya village, near Beteleme, at the end of July. The consistent impression from the available material is that Tibo was much more than a rank-and-file combatant. There are allegations that he provided training and acted as a leader in Tagolu, and he himself admits taking part in some attacks (although he does not admit to killing anyone). In his own depositions, found in his interrogation dossier, which he acknowledged as correct during the trial but later disparaged, Tibo constantly described himself as a figure of authority. In the depositions, he describes himself as leading crowds in different locations, explains tactics he instituted to fool the kelompok merahs adversaries into thinking they were fighting far more men than was the case, and says he negotiated with the kelompok putih in Walisongo to get them to lay down their weapons. What isnt clear from this material is his exact position within the kelompok merah hierarchy. Tibos own description, both in his depositions and interviews with me, depicts him having been very much ordered around by Lateka and Tungkanan rather than making decisions himself.38 This accords with the perception popular even among
Interview with Fabianus Tibo, July 28, 2003. The dates in different accounts of the meetings are not consistent, but these meetings took place at the end of the first week of June, most probably on June 8 and 9. However, some sources place the meetings on June 6 and 7. Tibos attendance is not in doubt, though; he himself admits being present, and numerous other sources provide details. 36 At the meeting in Tentena, a Protestant minister, Reverend Rinaldy Damanik, read out loud Latekas mandatea justification of the violence during the preceding two weeks addressed to the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) and penned by Ir. AL Lateka, the kelompok merah leader who led the first foray into the city, and who was killed in fighting in Kayamanya suburb on June 2, 2000. For an account of the reading and a mostly accurate transcript of Latekas letter, see Darwis Waru, Memperjuangkan Amanat Lateka, Formasi 48, July 2000. A photocopy of Latekas letter is in the authors possession. 37 One of the Muslim men recounted that the police guarded Tibo extremely closely, but were less concerned about other Christian men present at this meeting. He expressed his displeasure at participating in the meeting, but had wanted to see what Tibo looked like. Interview, Poso, July 2003. Also see Kelompok Merah akan Turun Poso, Mercusuar, June 10, 2000. 38 In his depositions, Tibo named Paulus Tungkanan and another man, Erik (probably Erik Rombot), as the highest leaders in Tagolu, saying that he and several other men carried out their orders. Lateka was
35 34

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most of his accusersthat Tibo was a field commander but by no means the highest authority within the kelompok merah. Dominggus da Silva Before the MayJune 2000 violence in Poso, Dominggus da Silva lived just across the provincial border in Soroako, in South Sulawesi, the site of the large PT Inco nickel mine. When I interviewed him in prison, Dominggus said he had been a mechanic at the mine. He had known Tibo for many years before May 2000, he said, as Dominggus frequently visited Beteleme, where Tibo lived.39 He was thirty-two when the violence started in May 2000. Many of Domingguss movements immediately prior to the third period of violence were similar to those of Tibo, so only the differences are described here. After being recruited by Tibo to travel to Poso in May 2000, Dominggus, like Tibo, traveled to Kelei at some point between May 1421, probably at the beginning of that time period. Most of the information on military-style training for Christians in Kelei does not provide any indication of what role Dominggus played there, however, with the exception of the dubious testimony of the witness Anton, who testified that Dominggus taught him to kill without leaving a mark.40 Dominggus then traveled with Tibo to the Santa Theresia school on May 22, was present at the school on the morning of May 23 when the third period of violence began, and, like Tibo, fled south via Tentena, only to be back in Kelei by May 24. One deposition from a member of Tibos group arrested at the Santa Theresia school on May 23 suggests Dominggus was an authority figure within that group, naming Dominggus as one of three leaders of the group at that point. Whatever authority he held within the wider context of the kelompok merah appears to have been less than that held by Tibo, however. This is assumed because, although Dominggus was present in Kelei village on May 24 when the meeting of key kelompok merah personnel took place, Tibo himself asserted in interviews that Dominggus was not among the participants at the meeting.41 After the meeting, Dominggusas did Tiboapparently went to the Christian command post in Tagolu, where it appears he was based from May 25 until at least June 5, 2000.42 Dominggus, like Tibo, featured prominently in the deposition of Ros
primarily active elsewhere in Poso. Interviews with Fabianus Tibo, July 2003 and May 2004. Deposition of Fabianus Tibo in dossier of Fabianus Tibo, July 28, 2000. 39 Interviews with Dominggus, July 28, 2003 and May 2004. The request for judicial review filed by the mens third defense team says Dominggus was a public transport driver in Beteleme. See Tim Pembela Padma Indonesia, Memori Peninjauan Kembali, February 2006, p. 6. 40 This contrasts with Antons interrogation deposition, where he says Dominggus taught fighting with knives. 41 In his interrogation dossier, Dominggus says only that he stayed at the house of Bram Parimo in Kelei. Bram was the son of A. L. Latekas son-in-law, Herman Parimo, who died in custody shortly before the third period of violence. Source: deposition of Dominggus da Silva in dossier of Dominggus da Silva, August 1, 2000, p. 4. 42 Dominggus says in his deposition as a witness in Tibos dossier that he went to Tagolu later than Tibo and Marinus, on May 26. If true, this conflicts with a possible sighting of him near Tagolu on the night of May 25 (see below).

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Kristina, the Christian woman whose deposition was read at the trial. As noted earlier, her deposition said Tibo would pass Muslim captives to Dominggus to be secured (murdered). Her deposition, while not based on firsthand evidence, said Dominggus participated directly in these murders, a conclusion based on his reports to Tibo. Kristinas deposition also noted that, when the posko was disbanded, Dominggus took her by car to Tentena, stopping at each village along the road and telling them to man their guard posts, as well as introducing her as his aide. One of the same captives who testified about Tibos involvement also testified regarding Domingguss activities, although (as with Tibo) in substantially less detail than Kristinas deposition. The captive, Taiyeb Lamelo, said that, after being captured in his home village, he was taken north to Tagolu, Sangira. Dominggus was in the car, and they stopped along the way to burn corpses that had been dumped in a ditch.43 In his trial testimony, Dominggus admitted being in the vehicle, but provided a different version of events. According to Dominggus, the kelompok merah in Lamelos village were going to assault him, and Dominggus saved Lamelo; as for the bodies, others had already burned them before the men passed by in the car, he said.44 Outside of the report noting Domingguss presence at the command post, the earliest mention of Dominggus in Poso after his arrival in Tagolu places him there on the night of May 25. A press interview with a survivor of the Walisongo massacre placed Dominggus at the Walisongo Islamic boarding school that night, three days before the massacre there. At the time, Christians and Muslims at the school negotiated a short-lived agreement that the school would not be attacked if they took down a twowave radio (HT) antenna. The interviewee said that one of the men negotiating for the Christians identified himself as Dominikus D, an apparent reference to Dominggus.45 A policeman who was also present at Walisongo that night testified during the trial that Dominggus appropriated his truck the next day, May 26, in front of the Lage police station in Tagolu, purportedly to transport IDPs. Appropriating a police truck seems beyond the authority of a mere rank-and-file combatant. The policeman also said that he had seen Dominggus shouting instructions to subordinates.46 After this, in one of the initial depositions in his interrogation dossier, Dominggus admits to leading an attack on Sayo village, just north of Tagolu, in which ten houses were burned, one by Dominggus himself.47 This account probably refers to an attack on May 27.48 No kelompok putih members were killed during this attack, he said, but one Christian died.49
43 44

Record of Testimony of Taiyeb Lamelo, Tibo Decision, pp. 4344. Record of testimony of Dominggus da Silva, Tibo Decision, p. 52. 45 Recording of Darwis Waru interview with Il, made available to the author. 46 The policeman said Dominggus took the truck on threat of force; Dominggus said the policeman allowed him use of the truck only after Dominggus gave the policeman Rp50,000 for diesel fuel. A comparison with Domingguss interrogation depositions suggests he may have used the truck in Silanca. Interview with Dominggus da Silva, July 28, 2003. Record of testimony of Moh Najib, Tibo Decision, pp. 36 37. 47 In a later interrogation session Dominggus said he did not know who led the attack. 48 Or May 28. Dominggus said during his interrogation (according to the dossier) that this was on June 1, but there is reason to believe he was mistaken. For instance, during the trial he responded to the testimony

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It is not clear whether Dominggus was present at the Walisongo attack on May 28. In his interrogation dossier and interviews he denies being there, saying he was in Sayo when it took place, and the record of his testimony in the defense plea contains no admission of his presence. But the records of the same testimony in the prosecutions sentencing request and in the judgment says he admitted being present when the Al-Hijrah mosque (the mosque at Walisongo) was attacked. A survivor of the attack also testified that Dominggus led the attack, although inconsistencies between this witnesss two interrogation depositions place doubt on this testimony.50 The next clear account of Domingguss whereabouts is provided by the testimony of two women held prisoner in Tambaro village after the Walisongo attack, who stated during the trial that Dominggus sexually assaulted them there on the night of June 1.51 The women testified that Dominggus ordered them to strip naked and then inspected their vaginas to check to see if they were wearing magic amulets.52 Dominggus denied taking part in sexual assaults but did admit his presence in the village. His testimony in his defense on this point actually adds to the impression that he held authority within the kelompok merah. His explanation was that he had stopped off in Tambaro that night for only ten minutes, just after 11:00 PM, to see if there were women from Lamasi village there. Before that evening, Dominggus said, he had saved four Muslim men from Lamasi who were being held captive in a truck by seven kelompok merah members who planned to murder the Muslims. Dominggus took them off the truck, and sent them to safety at the military company headquarters. Following this event, Dominggus said he traveled to Tambaro, where the mens wives were being held, because he wanted to tell the women that he had saved their husbands from being executed.53 If true, his account of himself as being able to intervene to take captives away from other kelompok merah members, even when they were intent on killing them, suggests he held more authority than just a rank-and-file combatant. After June 1, there are fewer specific details of Domingguss whereabouts. A statement he made long after his trial indicates he was in Tambaro village on June 5, which, because of its proximity, suggests he was staying in Tagolu.54 Thereafter, the
of Sutarmin, who claimed that Dominggus led the attack on Walisongo, by saying he was in Sayo that morning. See Tibo Decision, p. 29. 49 Interrogation deposition of Dominggus da Silva, August 1, 2000, p. 4. In the same deposition, Dominggus also denies involvement in attacks on four other villages. 50 Questioned on June 10, 2000, before the arrest of Tibo, Dominggus, and Marinus, Sutarmin did not identify any of the kelompok merah attackers and said they wore masks. When police questioned him again after the three mens arrest, they showed him a photograph of the three in the newspaper and asked him whether he knew the three men. He said they were the perpetrators of murders in Sintuwulemba on May 28, but the manner of their identificationfrom a newspaper image rather than from a set of photoscasts doubt on its validity. He also made detailed claims about the role of Tibo and Marinus in his second deposition, which he does not appear to have repeated during the trial. See deposition of Sutarmin in the dossier of Fabianus Tibo, June 10, 2000 and August 20, 2000. 51 Interrogation deposition of Dominggus da Silva, August 2, 2000, in dossier of Dominggus da Silva. 52 Record of testimony of Siti Munawarah and Sufiah Siswandi, Tibo Decision, pp. 4245. 53 He said he had put them on an IDP truck leaving for the military company headquarters in the city suburb of Kawua. Interrogation deposition of Dominggus da Silva, August 2, 2000, pp. 23. 54 Domingguss statement, signed by Tibo, described him apprehending a Christian man, Herry Mangkawa, who the statement said had obstructed a kelompok merah attack on May 31, 2000. The statement was part of an appeal by Mangkawa against a twelve-year sentence for taking prisoners on May 31 and by

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next mention of Domingguss presence is at the peace meeting in Tentena on June 9 (described earlier). This in turn is the last detail describing his whereabouts prior to his arrest in early August 2000. The impression from this material is that Dominggus, like Tibo, was a figure of authority within the kelompok merah. It is clear even from his own account that he took part in at least some attacks and was probably in Kelei when kelompok merah training took place. His dealings with policeboth the appropriation of the truck and a comment during interviews with me that he had tried to call the Poso police chief repeatedly to demand that he send police to deal with crowdsalso seem to show that he had authority beyond that of an ordinary combatant.55 His precise role, though, appears to have differed from that of Tibos, as his authority seems to have been less. Marinus Riwu Marinus was born in NTT provinces capital city, Kupang, on the west coast of West Timor. He was also a long term migrant to Sulawesi, and said he had known Tibo since buying a generator from him shortly after Marinus arrived in Sulawesi.56 He was forty-two when the violence started in May 2000. We have a much less clear picture of the status and movements of Marinus during the third period of violence than we do of the other two men. The case presented against him in the trial was weak, and he is mentioned less often in depositions. An unreliable witness testified that Marinus trained other Christians in the use of arrows,57 and Ros Kristinas deposition mentions him as Domingguss accomplice at the Tagolu command post. But apart from that, he was hardly mentioned. Nevertheless, it is clear that Marinus followed a path similar to that of Tibo and Dominggus prior to the third period and during the early moments of the MayJune violence. It was in Marinuss village, Malores, that Tibo says he began to gather a group to go to Poso, and Marinus was one of those to go along. Like the other two men, Marinus stopped in Kelei on the way to Poso, arrived at the Santa Theresia school on May 22, fled when it was burned down on May 23, and then made his way via Tentena to be back in Kelei on May 24. Marinus claimed both in his deposition and in interviews with me that he took part in only one clash after May 24, in Sepe village near Tagolu (probably on May 25). Even then, Marinus said, he developed cramps in his leg on the way to the attack. Because of
so doing contributing to their death. Kesaksian (testimony), handwritten statement signed by Fabianus Tibo and Dominggus da Silva, dated September 26, 2002. 55 Interviews with Dominggus, July 2003 and May 2004; and record of testimony of Muh Najib, in Tibo Decision, pp. 3637. 56 He says he met Dominggus only when they arrived at the school in Moengko, as the two of them had come to Poso in different vehicles. Interview with Marinus, July 29, 2003. 57 This claim was corrobrated by two depositions of members of Tibos group arrested at the very beginning of the MayJune 2000 violence. Their depositions, however, were not read out at the trial.

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his condition, he said, he turned around and returned to his village, Malores, in Morowali district, and did not come back to Poso until after his arrest.58 Despite his claim, it is more probable that he was based at the command post in Tagolu for most of the MayJune 2000 violence, as various pieces of information contradict his claim to have left Poso on May 25. Tibo stated in a deposition that Marinus took part in the MayJune attack on Moengko, which would have been days after Marinus claimed he went back to Malores.59 Asked about this contradiction during an interrogation session in which he was confronted with Tibos claim, Marinus admitted that he took part in this later attack.60 In addition, in one of the few mentions during the trial of Marinuss whereabouts, two witnesses testified that Marinus was still in Poso after May 25. The two women who testified that Dominggus had sexually assaulted them also claimed that Marinus was present in Tambaro village, which would place him there on June 1.61 Another witness, Mahfud Rosid, who was held captive in Tagolu during the third phase, testified that all three defendants were present in Tagolu while Rosid was there, although the record of his testimony does not give a date. Finally, Ros Kristinas deposition also mentions Marinus as present in Tagolu, and describes him as being an accomplice along with Dominggus and Tibo in the murder of prisoners. A final mention of Marinus came from the deposition of Apson Parera Patras, who stated Marinus had led an arson attack on Toinasa village on June 16, 2000.62 Although the prosecution included this detail in its indictment, it did not present Patras as a witness during the trial, nor does it appear to have produced any other evidence to support this charge. It is clear that Marinus was involved in the MayJune 2000 violence and that he probably provided some degree of training in Kelei, but beyond this we have little basis on which to gauge his exact role. To the extent that he may have held authority, it appears to have been less than that of Tibo and Dominggus. The three men were actually directly questioned on their relative authority during a confrontation interrogation (when each is asked to answer the same question in turn in each others presence). Asked which of the three was regarded as the more senior (dituakan) in their group, each gave the facetious answer that Tibo was clearly the oldest, relying on a play on Indonesian words to misinterpret the question.63

58

Interview with Marinus Riwu, July 29, 2003. A substantially similar account appears in his interrogation dossier, see deposition of Marinus Riwu in dossier of Marinus Riwu, August 1, 2000, pp. 34. 59 See deposition of Fabianus Tibo in dossier of Fabianus Tibo, July 28, 2000, p. 7. 60 In answer to the police question of whether it was true that Marinus had taken part in an attack in which fifteen houses were burned, Tibo answers that he and Marinus had taken part in an attack, but that he did not know who had burned houses. Marinus then answers that he and Tibo took part in an attack and burned houses at the time. No specific details of date or location are provided, but examination of Tibos deposition in Marinuss dossier makes it clear that the question could only refer to the Moengko attack. See Berita Acara Konfrontasi in dossier of Marinus Riwu, October 6, 2000, p. 2; and deposition of Fabianus Tibo in dossier of Marinus Riwu, August 10, 2000. 61 Record of testimony of Sufiah Siswandi, Siti Munawarah, Tibo Decision, pp. 4243, 4445. 62 Deposition of Apson Parera Patras, in dossier of Marinus Riwu, August 17, 2000, p. 2. 63 Berita Acara Konfrontasi in dossier of Marinus Riwu, October 6, 2000.

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Key Locations: The Tibo, Dominggus, and Marinus indictment

The Trial The trial of Tibo, Dominggus, and Marinus commenced at the Palu District Court on December 11, 2000.64 In accordance with Indonesias civil-law system, a three-judge panel presided over the case, chaired by Soedarmo, a Muslim, with one Muslim and a Christian (Protestant) as the other panel members.65 The trial was held in Palu because of continuing instability in Poso. Even in Palu, angry crowds gathered outside the court for each session and sometimes threw rocks at the courthouse, although the
64

A much shorter, early account of the trial published six months after its conclusion is provided in Aragon, Communal Violence in Poso, but it reflects the inaccuracies of media reporting at the time. 65 The judges were Soedarmo, Ach Fauzi (both Muslim), and Ferdinandus.

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disturbances did not escalate into a more serious disruption of the trial. Each of the trials sixteen sessions over the course of almost four months was also subject to extensive media coverage, indicative of the intense public interest.66 The prosecution presented nineteen witnesses, read the interrogation depositions of seven others, and submitted sixteen pieces of physical evidence. Of the nineteen witnesses who appeared, seven were Muslims who escaped the May 28, 2000, attack at Walisongo, or who suffered sexual assault shortly thereafter; five were members of the security forces (four police and a military intelligence officer); two were members of a team that evacuated corpses after the MayJune 2000 violence; two had been held captive by the kelompok merah during the riot; one was a member of the kelompok merah ; one claimed to have infiltrated the kelompok merah; and the final prosecution witness was the Poso district head (bupati). In Indonesian criminal trials, defendants take the stand themselves after the prosecution has presented all of its witnesses. The defense then has the opportunity to present its own witnesses. In this trial, there were three defense witnesses: two members of the Central Sulawesi Christian church and a teacher from the Santa Theresia school. 67 Once all the testimony has been entered, the prosecution submits a sentencing request. This is followed by the defense plea, after which each party makes its concluding statements. The following section provides a summary and commentary on the arguments presented at trial, based primarily on the written record. Trial Testimony, Sentencing Request, and the Defense No witnesses actually saw the men commit murder; as such, the charge of murder came to rest on the allegation that Tibo, Dominggus, and Marinus incited or ordered others to commit violence. Testimony about the mens authority and positions within the kelompok merah therefore became integral to the prosecutions case. As outlined above, several witnesses gave testimony that shed some light on the mens authority, but the judgment suggests that the key prosecution witness was Anton (an alias), a Muslim man who claimed to have infiltrated kelompok merah training in Kelei village prior to the third period.68 He testified in detail regarding a timetable for the training and said Marinus taught fighters how to use arrows, Dominggus taught to kill without leaving a mark, and Tibo gave instructions and doctrinal explanations at night regarding the coming attacks on Poso. He also said each man led his own group of fighters: Tibo, armed with an M16 rifle, led the hundred-strong Bat Force (Pasukan
66

The print media went to unusual lengths to publish anything about Tibo, including two imaginary interviews that melded distorted quotes from his police interrogation depositions. A Palu journalist remarked that, for a time, any mention of Tibo was guaranteed to sell newspapers (private correspondence with Palu journalist, January 2002). For imaginary interviews, see Saya pimpin seratus orang, Formasi 54, October 2000; and Saya pimpin penyerangan ke Sayo, Formasi 55, November 2000. 67 The GKST members were Rinaldy Damanik and Misdianto Posende; the teacher was Yosefina. It is not uncommon in Indonesian trials for the defense to call few or no witnesses. When interviewed nine months after the trials conclusion, however, one of the defense lawyers lamented the unwillingness of Posos indigenous Protestants to come forward. Interview with defense lawyer, January 2002. 68 The question of Antons credibility is discussed in a subsequent section on the fairness of the trial.

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Kelelawar ); Dominggus, armed with a pistol, led the three hundred-strong Tiger Force (Pasukan Macan), while Marinus led a force armed with arrows.69 To corroborate Antons account, the prosecution read out the deposition of Junior Bobi Tingginehe, a Protestant originally from the Sanger Talaud archipelago in North Sulawesi. Police questioned him on the same day they questioned Anton, in November 2000.70 Tingginehes deposition also contained the statement that Tibo led the training in Kelei and gave the instruction that kelompok putih must be killed if they stood in the way of the kelompok merah . He also said Marinus provided some training, but did not mention Dominggus. Where Anton claimed the training went on for forty-two days, however, Tingginehe said it took place only from May 1221, and he does not mention seeing factory-standard weapons.71 Given the importance of Tingginehes deposition, particularly as it relates directly to Antons testimony, it is curious that the prosecution did not present him in person as a witness during the trial. Admittedly, under the Indonesian criminal procedural code, if there is a valid obstacle to the witness attending the trial, their sworn deposition may be read out in the trial and has the same evidentiary status as witness testimony.72 But reading out a sworn deposition is clearly not the same as questioning a witness in person, as there is no opportunity to clarify that persons answers or ask additional questions. The wording of the criminal procedural code anticipates that distance may be one obstacle to a witness attending the trial; this was not an obstacle in Tingginehes case, as he appears to have been in custody in Palu at the time of the trial. The same can be said of the decision to read out Ros Kristinas deposition, described at some length earlier, rather than presenting her as a witness. This use of written depositions rather than witness testimony was one point the three mens lawyers raised in their defense plea. If it is curious that the prosecution read out Tingginehes and Kristinas depositions, it is more puzzling that they did not read out the two depositions of Leonardus Lewa and Rafael Sina, the members of Tibos group arrested on May 23, just after Tibo, Dominggus, and Marinus fled the Santa Theresia school. Those depositions contained the earliest information on training obtained by the interrogators, and was obtained within ten days of the period during which it was alleged training had occurred. Because they did not read out the depositions or call the men as witnesses, the prosecutors did not enter their information as testimony. In the opinion of the judges, the defendants depositions contained important evidence in support of a conviction. These are mentioned specifically in the judgment along with Antons testimony; no other witnesses or depositions are specifically mentioned. It is not uncommon for defendants to claim during the trial that information in their dossiers should be inadmissible, on the basis that they were forced during interrogation to confess. When they were asked during their trial whether their
69 70

Record of testimony of Anton in Tibo Decision, p. 40. Tingginehe was himself sentenced to six years in prison for kicking two Muslim men who were fatally lynched by a crowd in front of the BRI bank in Tentena. See Pembunuh di Tentena Divonis Tujuh Tahun, Mercusuar, date not recorded. 71 Interrogation deposition of Junior Bobi Tingginehe, in dossier of Fabianus Tibo, November 4, 2000. 72 Article 162, Criminal Procedural Code.

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depositions were correct, the Palu District Court judgment indicates that Tibo, Dominggus, and Marinus acknowledged their depositions veracity. In Tibos case in particular, this is a strange detail, given his subsequent denial of involvement in the MayJune 2000 violence, as the material in his interrogation depositions is at least as incriminating as the witness testimony given during the trial.73 Tibo later said in interviews that the information in the deposition was somewhat different from what he had told interrogators. In contrast, Dominggus actively encouraged me to obtain a copy of his deposition, while Marinus said the information in his was very light (that is, not incriminating).74 The previous section outlined the different roles that Tibo, Dominggus, and Marinus appeared to play. In its indictment in particular, but also in the sentencing request, the prosecution often made little differentiation regarding the disparate roles of the three men, frequently referring to them collectively as the defendants or the defendants and other kelompok merah members. The most explicit differentiation the prosecution made of the alleged role of each defendant in the MayJune 2000 violence was provided in their sentencing request: Tibo was the leader who determined the movements of the kelompok merah or at least was an individual held in esteem within the kelompok merah during the period of their attacks on Muslims Dominggus with his fearsome looks was the Field Commander who appeared cruel and fierce in attacking and murdering Muslims. Marinus was directly involved in the murder of Muslims; planning in Melores [sic], Kelei, and Tagolu; and attacks in Poso. 75 The prosecutors also made no differentiation among the men regarding the punishment sought for the alleged crimes, seeking the death penalty for each of the men. They noted Tibo had been sentenced previously to six years imprisonment in an earlier case, and that the defendants acted sadistically in causing the death of many people, thereby causing misery for their victims widows and children, as well as giving rise to the threat of national disintegration. The prosecution found no mitigating factors.76 For its part, the defense asked that the men be acquitted, but noted that if the judges felt the men were guilty, the court might consider (the defenses contention)
73 Tibo Decision, p. 63. The most incriminating testimony is answer ninety-seven (and to a lesser extent ninety-six) of Tibos deposition on July 31, 2000. In it, he says that, although he left Walisongo before anything happened, it was his crowd (massa) that perpetrated the murders and arson and that although I had left the scene; but on my order the red crowd did whatever I wanted. This testimony, given in the final of four interrogation sessions in July 2000, contradicts answer fifty-six in Tibos third interrogation session, where he says he did not know whether or not murders had taken place at Walisongo. Between the third and the fourth sessions, the interrogator was changed. 74 Interviews with Dominggus da Silva, July 28, 2003, and Marinus Riwu, July 29, 2003. 75 Kejaksaan Negeri Poso, Surat Tuntutan Pidana Terdakwa Febianus [sic] Tibo, Dominggus da Silva, Marinus Riwu (hereafter Tibo Sentencing Request), March 15, 2001, p. 61. The mens lawyers challenged this characterization in their defense plea, saying that the prosecutions identification of Tibo, Dominggus, and Marinus as leaders of the kelompok merah was not consistent with the characterization of the kelompok merah in other trials. In support of their objection, the defense cited nineteen other indictments relating to the MayJune 2000 violence in which prosecutors had not mentioned the three men as leaders, and claimed that in two of them, prosecutors had named two other menLateka and Ngkai Daaas leaders. 76 Tibo Sentencing Request, March 15, 2001, p. 68.

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that the men had been trapped into their actions by provocateurs and had been motivated by the noble intention to save the Santa Theresia church from rioters.77 In addition to the formal defense, toward the end of the trial the three men also submitted a list of sixteen Protestant men to the court, whom Tibo, Dominggus, and Marinus claimed were most responsible for the conflict in Poso. The first name on the list was Paulus Tungkanan, the retired military officer who Tibo alleges ordered various attacks in the MayJune 2000 violence. The judges reproduced the list in their judgment, thereby making it public. Since the sixteen men were named in court, their arrest and investigation have been consistently demanded by Muslim groups in Poso who see the lack of prosecutions against the sixteen men as symbolic of injustice.78 In any event, the naming of the men did not assist the defensein their judgment, the judges dismissed the issue by saying that it was not within their authority to order that the men be arrested and questioned. Naming names did have the effect of shifting public attention away from the three defendants, however. After the judgment was read out in the trial, the crowd waiting outside the court immediately moved off to the Palu house of Yahya Patiro, a former senior civil servant from Poso whose name was on the list.79 The Judgment On April 5, 2001, the panel of judges presiding over the trial pronounced Tibo, Dominggus, and Marinus guilty of all three charges and sentenced them to death. The judges found that although it had not been proven that the three men themselves committed the offences, they had incited others to do so, which they ruled to be equivalent under Article 55 of the Indonesian Criminal Code.80 The judges made the following statement on this point: The above discussion and the defendants interrogation depositions in particular provide an indication [petunjuk] that the defendants were among the leaders of the kelompok merah who had provided thoughts/ideas to their subordinates to perpetrate the attacks/rioting that took place between the kelompok merah and kelompok putih, see Antons testimony, and this caused the deaths of a number of people whose bodies were found in several locations.81
77

See Pembelaan dalam Perkara Pidana No. 459/PID.B/2000/PN.PALU (hereafter Tibo Defense Plea), pp. 113 114. 78 The idea that the men were all involved in the conflict is now ingrained, but its accuracy is not beyond question. Some of the names were supplied to the three defendants by a fellow prisoner; exactly who is included on the list has changed over time and, by 2006, police had narrowed the list down to ten men. 79 Patiro was forced to leave Poso after the first period of violence there in December 1998, as a result of popular allegations that he was implicated in organizing the violence. Tibo Cs Divonis Hukuman Mati, Mercusuar, April 6, 2001. 80 The mens defense lawyers protested this point in their appeal to the Supreme Court, arguing that the indictment had listed only one sub-clause of Article 55 (Article 55 (1) 1), whereas the judgment appeared to also introduce Article 55 (1) 2. The Supreme Court refused to consider this objection specifically, saying the reasoning in the lower courts judgments was correct and that the Supreme Court could not consider objections to these courts judgments regarding proof. See Mahkamah Agung RI, Putusan Nomor: 1225 K/Pid/2001, October 11, 2001, pp. 44, 7275, 81. 81 Tibo Decision, pp. 63, 69.

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As evidence of the mens guilt for the primary charge of murder, the judges go on to mention that the three defendants acknowledged the veracity of their police interrogation depositions during the trial, in contrast to what the judges characterized as their otherwise evasive testimony. The judges, however, do not state which specific parts of the depositions or Antons testimony support the murder conviction. The judgment does not always make clear what items of evidence supported each conviction or how the judges concluded that the men were guilty of each charge. Indeed, although the judgment ran to eighty-two pages, it contained little reasoning: the first fifty-eight pages simply list the details of the mens arrest and detention and reproduce material presented during the trial. This is typical of most district court judgments, however. Some of the reasoning in the judgment is also shallow. A particular example is the discussion of religious grounds for imposing the death penalty, part of a five-page section in the judgment on whether the death penalty is appropriate for the case. The judges first say that the Quran states that punishment must be in equal measure to the deed, that the punishment for intentional murder must be death, and that the punishment of indirect perpetrators of a crime should be the same as for direct perpetrators. No specific Quranic reference or religious scholar is cited to support these statements, but the judges note that these principles of punishment accord with the Indonesian justice system and the legal theory of Yus talionis (retributive justice).82 Proceeding to Christian concepts of punishment, the judges invoke the Ten Commandments, erroneously stating that two of the commandments are to love your fellow man and punishment in equal measure for evil deeds for fellow men.83 They finally note that Christianity teaches Man shall surely reap what he sows, again with no reference to the verse of the Bible. Elsewhere, they say the death penalty has the intention of preventing other people from perpetrating the same acts as the condemned. Finally, in very similar terms to the prosecutors, the judges noted the cruel nature of the defendants acts and the number of people killed during the third period, the mens lack of remorse, and the damage to religious harmony as among the aggravating factors in sentencing.84 Each of the men appealed the sentence, but their appeals failed at every level of the criminal justice system.85 Their appeal to the Central Sulawesi High Court was rejected on May 17, 2001, and the Supreme Court rejected their second appeal on October 11, 2001. Their judicial review request was rejected in February 2004, but this wasnt publicly announced until some months later.86 After this, the men employed a new defense teamthe Team of Human Rights Defenders (TPHAM), comprising lawyers
Tibo Decision, p. 75. The other commandment the judges cited, Thou shalt not murder, is correct. See Tibo Decision, p. 75, cf Deuteronomy 5: 418 and Exodus 20: 117. 84 Tibo Decision, pp. 7679. 85 The Indonesian legal system has two levels of appeals courts. The defendant (or prosecutors) first lodge an appeal (banding) with the provincial high court, and then can appeal (kasasi) the high courts decision to the Indonesian Supreme Court. If still found guilty, the defendant may request a judicial review of his sentence (peninjauan kembali) by the Supreme Court based on new circumstances, a contradiction between the factual bases of verdicts of two or more cases, or a mistake on the part of the judges. 86 The men were informed of the result of their appeal for judicial review on November 27, 2004. See Nasib Tibo Cs di Tangan Presiden, Radar Sulteng, November 29, 2004, p. 1.
83 82

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and activists from Tentena, Palu, and Jakartato draft a plea for clemency to the president of Indonesia. The plea acknowledged that Tibo, Dominggus, and Marinus had broken the law and must be punished, but challenged the validity of the death penalty in the Indonesian justice system and said the uniquely severe punishment was inconsistent with the policy of equal treatment. The plea also claimed that the circumstances of the conflict ameliorated some of their personal responsibility and challenged the fairness of the district court trial.87 When Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono rejected this plea on November 10, 2005, all formal avenues of appeal were exhausted.88 Objections to the Trial Before discussing how particular deficiencies in the investigation and trial have been repeated in subsequent cases in Poso, it is necessary to pause to consider the fairness of the trial in its own right. This is not a separate issue to the impact of the trial on stemming violence, because doubts over the trials fairness meant that the proceedings could not serve as a clear record of the mens involvement in violence when the case became controversial. Claims of an unfair trial may be unavoidable in a conflict setting, what with the highly polarized versions that emerge of what violence took place. But the Tibo trial exacerbated this inherent difficulty because aspects of its conduct provided needless evidence for claims of unfairness. In particular, the unique severity of the punishment handed down to the three men led to suggestions that this sentence was the result of religious discrimination. The three men themselves always questioned the fairness of the proceedings, dwelling in particular on the influence they believed the presence of angry crowds at the court had on the conduct of the trial. It is true that holding the trial in majority Muslim Palu, at a time when many Muslim IDPs had fled to the city from Poso, meant that the trial was held in an atmosphere that was hostile to the defendants. It should be noted, however, that this is not unique in Indonesia or even in Palu. Also, the presence of crowds at the trial does not in itself make the proceedings unfair if there is no evidence that their presence influenced those involved.89 Even disregarding the presence of crowds, some aspects of the trials conduct were certainly not in accordance with proper procedure. One example, involving a failure on the part of the judges to control the courtroom, involved a witness being able to slap the three defendants on the face before giving her testimony. The husband of the witness in question had been murdered during the third period of violence, and the
87 88

TP-HAM, Pengampunan Menuju Rekonsiliasi Sejati, April 13, 2005. Nevertheless, a new defense team calling itself Padma Indonesia succeeded in lodging a second request for judicial review. Two hearings were held by the Palu District Court for the defense team to submit its new evidence. The Supreme Court rejected this appeal, however. It reiterated that no second judicial review was allowable under Indonesian law, but in an apparent concession to the sensitive nature of the case, still examined the request and declared it to have no substance. See MA Tolak PK Kedua Tibo Dkk, Kompas, May 10, 2006. 89 To provide a recent example, the trial of Morowali district head Andi Muhammad on charges of corruption also took place in 2006 while protests were held outside the court.

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witness herself testified that she had been sexually assaulted by Dominggus during the MayJune 2000 violence.90 Another aspect of the judges behavior during the trial led Tibos lawyers and some other observers to believe that the judges had decided on guilt before the trials conclusion. Namely, one of the judges commented during the trial that the witnesses the defense had presented were further incriminating the defendants, not assisting in their defense.91 Such suspicions were also fueled by the omission from the judgment of any mention of the testimony of the three defense witnesses. But neither detail is conclusive proof of bias. It is not clear why the judges did not include a record of the defense witnesses testimony in the judgment. They are not required by law to do so, and the varied structure of different district court judgments, often poorly assembled, makes it more difficult to draw conclusions from this omission.92 Nevertheless, given the circumstances of the trial, it showed poor judgment not to at least record the defense witnesses testimony. The most serious question regarding the fairness of the trial, though, arises from the testimony of one key prosecution witness: Anton, the young Muslim man who claimed to have infiltrated kelompok merah training in Kelei. Both the centrality of his testimony to the murder conviction and the problems with it are reflected in the attention paid to Anton in the appeals filed by the lawyers for the three menseven out of thirty-two pages in the appeal to the Supreme Court are devoted to rebutting Antons testimony and questioning his credibility. Several inconsistencies and implausible claims in Antons testimony place heavy doubt on his credibility as a witness: He testified regarding a far greater degree of training for kelompok merah members than anything described in other depositions. Moreover, while Antons account of kelompok merah training is extremely detailed, it is also incomplete on some key detailsfor example, on how, as a Muslim, he was able to infiltrate the training. His claim that he attended forty-two days of training also makes his testimony inconsistent with the chronology of the conflict, as the training has to fit in the gap between the second and third periods of violence. He testified that 727 factory-standard weapons were airlifted to Kelei for use by the kelompok merah. No sign of the weapons was ever found, and the judges acknowledged that this aspect of Antons testimony was not supported by any other evidence. They also noted, though, that his testimony regarding weapons was not central to the murder charge, and they did not consider his implausible claim about the guns to cast doubts on his testimony regarding training.93
90 91

Tibo Cs Ditampar di Ruang Sidang, Mercusuar, February 6, 2001. Bofe: Tidak Sependapat Dengan Pernyataan Hakim, Nuansa Pos, date not recorded. 92 In any case, the records of the testimony of the three defense witnesses in the defense plea do not conclusively show that the testimony of the witnesses would have been relevant to either adjudication on guilt or sentencing of the men. The testimony of one of the witnesses, Yosefina, was confined to describing the mens presence at the Santa Theresia school. The two GKST members testified mainly that A. L. Lateka, himself killed during the third phase, was the leader of the kelompok merah. See Tibo Defense Plea, pp. 135139. 93 Tibo Decision, p. 70.

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Despite the high profile of the investigation into Tibos activities, Anton did not come forward as a witness until early November 2000, more than three months after Tibo, Dominggus, and Marinus were arrested. Antons deposition was one of the last two included in the dossier, and by the time Anton was questioned, the media had reported extensively on the three mens case and the details of the MayJune 2000 violence. In addition to the process by which the court arrived at its guilty verdict, the unique severity of the sentences against the men in the context of the Poso conflict has also led to questions over the trials fairness, and ultimately contributed to much of the Christian anger in Poso upon the executions. Up until the time that the three men were executed, no one else had received a sentence longer than fifteen years in cases relating to Poso-conflict violence.94 Most sentencesfor both Muslims and Christianshave been five years or less, even for murder or the equivalent offence under the terrorism law.95 Although the mens sentence is exceptional in comparison to other sentences for both Christians and Muslims, various observers have concluded that the severity of the sentence indicates religious discrimination against the men. One of the mens lawyers stated privately after the trial that he believed religious discrimination influenced the severity of the sentences.96 The mens defense team also made an unsuccessful request at the second session of the trialin which the defense presents its objections to the indictmenton December 14, 2000, to have the trial moved out of Palu. The district-court judges devoted little space in their judgment to the defense claim of discrimination, rejecting it with a short statement to the effect that other people apart from Tibo, Dominggus, and Marinus had also been tried and sentenced in connection with the conflict.97 However, in the mens plea for clemency, the second defense team also raised the question of bias, saying the trial was not based on equal treatment. They did this by providing a list of incidents for which the perpetrators had not been arrested or received only light sentences. Although the lawyers did not say so explicitly, the perpetrators of all the incidents listed were Muslim.98
94

This contrast has been reduced by just-completed trials and may be further eroded by trials soon to start. For instance, in late March 2007, Hasanuddin, alias Slamet Raharjo, accused of planning the beheadings of three Christian schoolgirls in October 2005, was sentenced to twenty years imprisonment. The charge filed against him actually carried a mandatory minimum life sentence. Prosecutors also separately requested a twenty-year sentence for two accomplices in the beheadings, who were each sentenced to fourteen years. Direct observation of trial of Hasanuddin (alias Slamet Raharjo). Direct observation of trial of Lilik Purnomo (alias Haris) and Irwanto Irano (alias Iwan), all at Central Jakarta District Court. 95 Exceptions were Herman Parimo, fifteen years; Herry Mangkawa, twelve years; Ferinandus Kuhe, eight years; and Sarlis Arima, ten yearsall Christians. Andi Ipong, nine years; M. Yusuf, nine years; Fauzan Arif, six years; Firmansyah, five years; Fajri, six years; and Nizam Kaleb, six yearsall Muslims. Shortly after they were executed, another Muslim man, Andi Makassau, already twice sentenced to one year in two different Poso-related corruption cases, was also sentenced to six years for an October 2004 shooting. Details drawn from relevant court decisions and Simansari Ecip et al., Kerusuhan Poso yang Sebenarnya (Jakarta: Global Mahardika Netama, 2001), pp. 119122. 96 Penasehat Hukum Minta Tempat Persidangan Tibo Dipindahkan, Pedoman Rakyat, December 15, 2000, p. 5. Interview with defense lawyer, January 18, 2002. 97 Tibo Decision, p. 70. 98 See TP-HAM, Pengampunan Menuju Rekonsiliasi Sejati, April 13, 2005.

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The claim that the defendants had been set up as scapegoats also became common after the mens plea for clemency was rejected. The three menall Catholicsmade statements to the effect that they were sacrificed as fall guys to protect the Poso Protestant church, and claimed that their lawyer in the original trial advised them not to speak out, purportedly to protect the church.99 Admittedly, two members of the Central Sulawesi Christian (Protestant) Church (Gereja Kristen Sulawesi Tengah, GKST) did broker the three mens arrests, and the head of the synod at the time did distance the church from the men by saying, We are GKST, they are Catholic. 100 Nevertheless, several other facts mitigate against any claim that the lawyers colluded with the Protestant church to undermine their clients defense. For instance, Robert Bofe, the head of the mens defense team, called on the GKST to take responsibility for the third period of violence in an interview with the local paper Mingguan Al-Khairaat at the time of the trial.101 Furthermore, two of the three defense witnesses in the trial were members of the GKST, and one of themRinaldy Damanikbecame an outspoken critic of the death penalty imposed on the three men prior to their executions, by which time he had risen to be head of the Central Sulawesi church synod.102 Given the way the case has polarized opinions and the strong emotional response that the violence of the third period generated, it is certainly possible that religious discrimination played a part in the severity of sentencing. This does not mean, though, that the sentences are clear evidence of broader discrimination against Christians in the Indonesian courts, either in Poso or in Indonesia as a whole.103
The majority of Posos Christians are Protestant. Some observers, for instance Catholic intellectual Frans Magnis-Suseno, have even made the false claim that their lawyer in the first trial was Protestant (Robert Bofe, the main lawyer for the men, was Catholic). See transcript of Radio National Encounter program, On Indonesias Death Row: What Price Justice for Tibo, Dominggus, and Marianus [sic]?, July 9, 2006, transcript available at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/encounter/stories/2006/1678465.htm, accessed February 23, 2007. 100 For comment made by Reverend Papasi, then head of GKST Sinode, see Kami GKST, Mereka Kan Katolik, MAL, third week, August 2000, p. 6. 101 GKST Tidak Punya Tanggung Jawab Moral, MAL , fourth week, September 2000, p. 14. 102 Damanik resigned from his position as head of the synod after Tibo was executed, citing a commitment to do so he said he had made at the time of the trial. Some community members in Tentena were also calling for Damaniks resignation over allegations of irregularities in the GKSTs finances. 103 There is not a complete dataset of all trials held as a result of the Poso conflict, but the data I collected make some claims of widespread discrimination appear questionable and outright contradict others. For instance, Aragon wrote in an October 2001 paper that no Muslim killers were tried or sentenced. In fact, by that time, several Muslim men had been put on trial for the 2000 murder of local Christian politician Gerald Polii during the third phase, with Ical sentenced to four years for aiding murder, while two Muslim men were arrested and tried after a December 2000 attack on Sepe village, of which at least one served a one-year jail term. In 2005, Aragon wrote, Christians exclusively are named to fill the malevolent posts. As each publicly named puppeteer is killed or jailed, a new one springs forth like a hydra head to take his place in media headlines. The implication is that Muslim-owned media only name Christians as villains, but Aragons characterization of media coverage accurately describes the media depiction of a succession of at least three Muslim men from 20042005, namely Wagiman, Ipong, and Hasanuddin. All three have now stood trialWagiman was acquitted, Ipong was sentenced to nine years, and Hasanuddin received a twenty-year sentence. In 2006, George Aditjondro wrote that Christians were subjected to serious court trials and serious sentences while Muslims, be they provocateurs, local laskar commanders, or combatants invariably escaped legal punishment. More than fifty Muslim men had stood trial by the time Aditjondro wrote his article, arguably including representatives of each of his three categories, with at least six of these men receiving sentences of more than five years. See Lorraine V. Aragon, Communal Violence in Poso; Lorrraine V. Aragon, Mass Media Fragmentation and Narratives of Violent Action in
99

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In addition, the pattern of government responses to violence in Posoand indeed the response to the conflict in Malukumay also provide a partial explanation for the mens death sentences. The violence of the third period was horrific, and for a time thereafter spurred political will to act and hold someone responsible for the violence, manifest in the round-up and trial of more than a hundred suspects. Among all of these suspects, it was Tibo, Dominggus, and Marinus who came to be held most responsible. The beheading of three Christian schoolgirls in October 2005 generated a similar temporary resolve to act, which nine months after the event had begun to fade. The widespread condemnation of that attack spurred senior police to become personally involved in Poso and resulted in the round-up of suspectsthis time mostly Muslimsfor many of the unsolved cases that had occurred during the preceding two years. In Maluku, the trigger for a similar period of political will to establish accountability was a May 2005 attack on a paramilitary police post on Seram in which five police, their cook, and one of the attackers were killed.104 Around thirty men, all Muslims, were brought to trial for this attack and a string of others carried out since May 2004. One manAsep Jaja, a member of the jihadist group Kompakwas even sentenced to death in these trials, although the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment on appeal. The case is clearer, though, that the governments determination to go ahead with the executions was influenced by factors other than just the merits of the case itself. Almost no clemency pleas succeed in Indonesian capital cases, but the timing of executions is essentially a political decision, as no law currently specifies at what point an execution should take place after clemency has been rejected.105 In some cases, it make take years for prisoners to be executed after their pleas for clemency have been rejected; indeed, in early 2007 there was one person still on death row whose pleas for clemency had been rejected in 1972 and 1995.106 But with the high profile of the Tibo case, the government was never likely to be able to defer decisive action for that long; it either had to execute the men or commute their sentences to life imprisonment. It is also clear that some senior government officials, themselves satisfied that the guilt of the men had been proven, began to perceive the executions as a band-aid solution to address Muslim complaints of injustice in Poso.
Sulawesis Poso Conflict, Indonesia 79 (April 2005): 155; and George Aditjondro, Tibo dan Penyerangan Jilid II Pesantren Walisongo, nd. 104 For details of this attack, see ICG, Weakening Indonesias Mujahidin Networks, pp. 46. Four other Muslim men received life sentences for the charges arising from these arrests. 105 A 2004 study by the Indonesian human rights monitor Imparsial found only one instance of clemency being granted for a death sentence handed down since 1982. The one plea for clemency that succeeded was submitted by Kamjai Thong Thavorn, a Thai seaman initially sentenced to death in 1989 for heroin possession. His plea for clemency was accepted in 1998. An Amnesty International report on the case suggested that an earlier unsuccessful plea for clemency had been submitted by prison officials without the knowledge of Thavorn or his lawyers. During the same period, there have reportedly been as many as thirty-five other cases where clemency has been rejected but the prisoner is yet to be executed, as well as at least nine executions since the mid-1990s (not including the executions of the three men discussed here). Neither previous president Megawati nor current president Yudhoyono have accepted any plea for clemency in a death-penalty case, and Yudhoyono told the media on the occasion of the 2006 International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking that it was extremely unlikely he would do so for any narcotics case. See Imparsial, Jalan Panjang Menghapus Praktik Hukuman Mati di Indonesia, 2004; Amnesty International, Indonesia: A Briefing on the Death Penalty, October 1, 2004; Presiden Tolak Grasi Penjahat Narkoba, bnn.go.id, July 13, 2006. 106 Komnas HAM Minta Presiden Beri Grasi pada Bahar Matar, Kompas, March 12, 2007, p. 3.

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These sorts of considerations, rather than the comparisons that observers later drew between the three mens case and that of the Bali bombers, were likely the most important in prompting the governments initial moves toward executing the men. The comparison with the Bali bombers probably gained importance as the Tibo case developed into a national controversy. Certainly, it would have been particularly controversial for the government to commute the sentences of Tibo, Dominggus, and Marinus but execute Amrozi, Imam Samudra, and Mukhlas, irrespective of the merits of either case. To do so would expose the government to accusations within Indonesia that it was discriminating against Muslims on account of perceived foreign intervention, all the more so after the Vatican sent a letter to the Indonesian government in August 2006 petitioning for the Poso death sentences to be commuted. Even so, the government wavered twice in its decision to execute the men, and in so doing maximized the cases negative impact on religious tensions in Poso. The first time the executions appeared imminentin MarchApril 2006government officials publicly announced several deadlines but then allowed them to pass without incident in the face of large protests in Sulawesi, Jakarta, and the mens home, East Nusa Tenggara province. The governments next move was to announce another date for the executionsAugust 12, 2006which deadline also lapsed, seemingly because of strong opposition from the provincial police chief in Central Sulawesi.107 By this time, though, large protests were taking place in Central Sulawesi both for and against the executions, and the case was becoming ever more politicized, with members of parliament, the vice president, government officials, community leaders, and activists all giving comments to the media. Finally, the Central Sulawesi public prosecutor informed the three men on September 18, 2006, of their impending execution (under Indonesian law, three days notice is required). This time, the police blocked the front entrance to the prison and deployed extra security personnel in Palu and Poso. Late at night on September 21 authorities blacked out the prison lights, and under cover of darkness a convoy of vehicles took the men out the prisons rear entrance. Some time in the early hours of September 22, Tibo, Dominggus, and Marinus were each shot dead in a secluded location near the prison. The prosecutors office denied a request for the bodies to be displayed at the Santa Maria church in Palu. Instead, within several hours of his death, Dominggus was buried in a roughly marked grave in Palus Petobo public cemetery, while that same morning police flew the remains of Tibo and Marinus to Soroako, in South Sulawesi.108 Despite these precautions, the executions triggered unrest, particularly in NTT province, but also on a smaller scale in Poso. In NTT, thousands gathered on the streets of the predominately Catholic town Atambua and proceeded to burn down the official residence of the head of the prosecutors office, damage several other government offices and shops, and raid the local prison and set free all the inmates held there.109 In
107

For their part, on this occasion the prosecutors office went as far as displaying the coffins they planned to use to the press shortly before the executions were planned to take place. 108 Domingguss remains were exhumed the night after his execution and, in accordance with his familys wishes, taken to Flores and reburied there. Tibo and Marinus were each buried in their home villages in Morowali district on September 24, 2006. 109 NTT Rusuh, 205 Napi Kabur, Radar Sulteng, September 23, 2006.

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another town, Maumere, a crowd burned the courthouse and threw rocks at the local legislature building and district heads office.110 In Poso itself, crowds of Christians threw rocks at police in Watuawu village, injuring the Lage sectoral police chief, and burned tires in Tentena.111 The executions also appear to have provided the motive for the murder of two Muslim fish traders, Arham Badaruddin and Wandi, who were abducted as they passed through Taripa, south of Tentena, on September 23.112 Within the very first hours after they took place, it was clear that the executions had aggravated old wounds, rather than acting as a band-aid to cover complaints of injustice in Poso. The Tibo Case and the Impact of Other Trials If some shortcomings of the Tibo trial simply draw its fairness into question, others have hampered the contribution that the investigation and trial could have made to revealing a comprehensive picture of how violence was waged in Poso. The result may be that appropriate action against other key perpetrators was stalled or avoided. Two such shortcomings are discussed below. Repeated across many subsequent trials, these shortcomings have greatly limited the contribution of court trials to stemming violence in Poso. No systematic approach to prosecution; no clear picture of combatants command structure. Even though Tibos, Domingguss, and Marinuss convictions for murder essentially came to rest on a notion of command responsibility, neither the prosecution nor the judges established a clear characterization of the kelompok merah (as an organization or other entity) or of its command structure. Indeed, as the mens defense counsel argued during the trial, in other indictments stemming from the third period, prosecutors named different Christian men as kelompok merah leaders. As a result, the investigation into the involvement of Tibo, Dominggus, and Marinus did not provide a strong and clear basis for further investigations or prosecutions. This failure to place each case within a broader context has become a feature of the prosecutions of both Christians and Muslims in Poso. It has arguably limited the number of people brought to trial and contributed to a continuing sense of injustice stemming from unsolved cases. Moreover, it conceivably has lessened any deterrent effect that fear of arrest might otherwise have had on actual and potential perpetrators. It has also meant that key planners and perpetrators of violence have remained at large. The final point is of particular importance, if we remember that, unlike many other conflicts, in this case significant numbers of trials have taken place while the conflict is still in progress.
110 111

Atambua berangsur Tenang, Suara Merdeka, September 23, 2006. Massa Mengamuk, Kapolsek Lage Luka, Radar Sulteng, September 23, 2006. 112 Taripa residents then objected to what they perceived as a heavy-handed attempt on the part of police to investigate the disappearances, for the provincial police chief himself came by helicopter to Taripa on September 29. A crowd burned four police vehicles and a traffic post. Police eventually located the two mens bodies in a shallow grave and arrested seventeen suspects in connection with the murders. The murders of Arham and Wandi appear to have triggered retaliatory attacks on three villages in Masamba, in South Sulawesi, in which two houses located behind a church were burned. Police swiftly arrested at least seventeen suspects for this attack and said they would charge the men under the anti-terrorism law. Poso Mulai Membara, Mercusuar, September 30, 2006; and Teror Masamba, Dua Rumah Dibakar, Fajar, October 30, 2006.

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While the evidentiary challenges of assembling indictments in cases of large-scale violence are often difficult, I would argue police investigators and prosecutors failed to pursue at least two clear entry points in Tibos interrogation depositions that could reasonably be expected to have enabled them to develop a more systematic picture of the kelompok merahs command structure. The first is Tibos admission that he had taken part in the May 24, 2000, meeting in Kelei, the day after the MayJune violence began, in which he says the Protestant leader A. L. Lateka ordered the group to raze Poso. Although the meeting appears to have brought together several of the more-senior figures of the kelompok merah such as Lateka himself, Paulus Tungkanan, and another man, Yanis Simangunsongpolice do not appear to have sought further details of the meeting subsequent to Tibos first mention of it during his interrogation.113 A second, similar failure is the lack of detailed evidence assembled regarding the structure of the kelompok merah command post (posko) in Tagolu, which operated during the MayJune violence, and how it came to be established. Interrogation depositions in the Tibo, Dominggus, and Marinus dossiers provide some impression of who was at the posko during the third period, but there appears to have been no attempt to develop a clear picture of the hierarchy within the command post or its role in coordinating kelompok merah activities. Instead, it has been the list of sixteen names that Tibo, Dominggus, and Marinus submitted to the court that appears to have shaped a good deal of the subsequent investigations into the third period of the violence. Although police have sporadically questioned some of the men on the list, Muslims demands for these sixteen men to be investigated have persisted, and as late as 2006 police declared their intention to bring each of the sixteen to meet Tibo, Dominggus, and Marinus in a confrontation interrogation.114 The notion that the sixteen were responsible for the MayJune violence is now so deeply ingrained in the public psyche that police are hereafter likely to face demands to investigate the men almost indefinitely.115 A systematic approach to identifying third-period command structures appears the only way to counter such demands, regardless of whether such investigations lead to judicial trials or are part of a reconciliation process. Statistical data for the years 20022005 also suggest that a nonsystematic approach persisted in the investigation of subsequent violence in Poso. During this period, many more Muslims than Christians were brought to trial, reflecting the shifting pattern of violence.116 Between 20022005 there were at least 120 Poso-related violent incidents,
113

The record of the interrogation session shows questioning swiftly shifting to focus on where various people led attacks and Tibos personal involvement in attacks. 114 If this was ever a serious plan, it appears to have been abandoned after Tibo, Dominggus, and Marinus did not recognize the first of the sixteen men, Yahya Patiro, when he was brought to confront them. 115 Police have periodically declared that not all of the sixteen have links to the violence, saying that the list should in fact consist of only ten or eleven men, but they have never explicitly explained the status of any investigations into the guilt of each of the sixteen individuals on the list. 116 Although both Christians and Muslims have perpetrated violence during the Poso conflict, most violence since 2002 has been directed at non-Muslim targets, in part reflecting the continuing activity of mujahidin groups in Poso.

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both in Poso itself and in the provincial capital, Palu.117 In the same period, based on court records and media coverage assembled by the author, an estimated fifty to seventy people were brought to trial for Poso-related violence. Around a third of the men brought to trial, however, faced charges for one of just two incidents: the October 10, 2003, attack on Beteleme village, in Morowali district, in which two people were killed (at least sixteen defendants); and the murder of Fery Silalahi (at least seven defendants). In both cases, those standing trial were alleged to be either direct participants in the attack or among those who hid the attackers.118 In late 2005mid 2006, there were some signs that police were beginning to acknowledge the need for a more systematic investigative approach. For instance, two ad hoc security bodies established in response to serious violence in late 2005 each announced that a list of twelve priority cases had been established.119 These cases included some of the more prominent incidents of violence perpetrated by both Muslims and Christians. While these ad-hoc bodies were operating and the attention of senior police was focused on Poso, initial results were promising. Investigations appeared to stall, however, when the ad hoc bodies were dissolved. Instead, the next round of arrests didnt take place until late 2006 and early 2007, when police were spurred to act on information gathered months earlier after two incidents of violence in October 2006.120 These arrests may well be more far-reaching than earlier round-ups in Poso, despite their exclusive focus on Muslim perpetrators of recent violence. But the early signs are that the second shortcoming of the Tibo trial process, detailed below, may be repeated for these cases. Shortcomings in Indictments. A second shortcoming evident in the trial of Tibo, Dominggus, and Marinus is the prosecutors failure to make use of all the information in the interrogation dossiers when assembling their indictment, or to present evidence to support all of the charges that were filed.121 Like the nonsystematic pattern of prosecutions, this is a feature of other cases stemming from the Poso conflict as well. It has meant that communities have not seen men charged with responsibility for the violence that most directly affected those communities, and it has limited the incidental function of court trials to establish a record of the violence.
117

Lists of incidents are provided in appendices of ICG, Jihad in Central Sulawesi; ICG, Weakening Indonesias Mujahidin Networks. The 2004 ICG report contains at least one erroneous incident, the August 28, 2002, attack on Sepe, which appears to be a repeated reference to the August 12, 2002, attack. 118 Each of the men charged with the Silalahi murder were acquitted (seemingly correctly) of all charges relating to the murder, although some served time for unrelated firearms offences. 119 The two bodies were the Poso Task Force (Satgas Penanganan Poso), established shortly after the October 2005 beheading of three Christian school girls, and the Central Sulawesi Security Operations Command (Komando Operasi KeamananKoopskam), established in response to the December 2005 bombing of a Palu pork market, which killed nine people. 120 These were the October 16, 2006, murder in Palu of the interim head of the GKST Synode, Reverend Irianto Kongkoli, and a clash on October 22, 2006, between police and Muslim youths in the Tanah Runtuh neighbourhood of Poso, which took place right before the end of the Islamic fasting month. For a summary of these developments and subsequent arrests, see ICG, Jihadism in Indonesia: Poso on the Edge, January 24, 2007. Before these incidents took place, two Muslim fish traders were murdered in Taripa village in late September 2006. Police also arrested seventeen Christian suspects for this attack. 121 In the second instance they may be hampered by the failure of police to investigate adequately the full extent of involvement of a suspect in the conflict.

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The failure in the Tibo trial to incorporate all information from the dossiers into the indictment is evident from an examination of the murder charge. As outlined above in the description of the trial, this charge mentioned four specific murder incidents or attacks: on May 23 in Moengko, May 28 in Sintuwulemba, May 28June 1 in Tagolu, and June 1 near Tagolu. In his depositions, however, Tibo admitted to being involved in or present at three other attacks: in Sepe/Silanca around May 25, Sayo on May 28, and Moengko in late May or early June. Dominggus also admitted to being present at a clash in Sayo, in his case probably on both May 27 and 28. In addition to not including these incidents, the indictment does not differentiate clearly among the alleged roles of each defendant in those murders. Similarly, the battery charge is confined to cover injuries to just one person during a period of violence when hundreds or even thousands must have been wounded. For the arson charge, which appeared to be the clearest opportunity to explore the extent of Marinuss authority within the kelompok merah , no witnesses were introduced to testify about the June 16 attack on Toinasa village.122 As mentioned previously, the indictment also omits charges that could have been brought against the men based on information in their dossiers, most clearly a charge of sexual assault against Dominggus based on the statements of Siti Munawarah and Sufiah Siswandi. Several subsequent trials stemming from Poso violence have followed a similar pattern, with the indictment covering a much narrower range of incidents than those with which the suspects had been publicly associated prior to their arrest. Three examples should illustrate this pattern. The first is that of Andi Ipong, a Muslim Poso resident, sentenced in 2003 to two-and-a-half years imprisonment for armed robbery and then again in 2006 to nine years for a 2001 murder. Prior to each trial, police had indicated Ipong was suspected of involvement in a string of crimes, yet in each case he was charged with only one.123 The third and most recent example is provided by the trial of Irwanto Irano and Lilik Purnomo, which commenced in November 2006 at the Central Jakarta District Court. The indictment against the two men confines the terrorism and murder charges against them to the beheading of three Christian schoolgirls in October 2005. Police had frequently stated before the trial commenced that the men were involved in other incidents. Indeed, in a police video that was released to the media, Lilik Purnomo admits to being involved in three other murders and two attacks on churches, while Irwanto Irano admits to being involved in the Tentena bombing, two robberies, a murder, and an attack on a Palu church.124 At some
122 123

One deposition named Marinus as the leader of this attack. For suspected crimes prior to the 2003 arrest, see ICG, Jihad in Central Sulawesi, p. 19; and Daftar Penembakan Orang, Gatra, March 15, 2003. Prior to the 2005 arrest, Ipong had frequently been named in connection with the April 2005 bombing of two NGO offices in Poso and for indirect involvement in an armed robbery at the district heads office, also in April 2005. See ICG, Weakening Indonesias Mujahidin Networks, p. 11; and deposition of Ahmad Hi Ali alias Mat Sun, September 22, 2005, p. 6. 124 The edited video is part of an SCTV news broadcast available online; see Pembunuh Siswa SMA Poso Diancam Hukuman Mati, http://video.liputan6.com/files/hukrim/vid/081106cposo_gab.rm, accessed November 17, 2006.

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point in the investigation, however, the decision appears to have been made to limit the charges against the two men to just the beheadings.125 Of course, mere suspicion that an individual is involved in violence or even a confession of guiltparticularly outside a courtroom settingdo not automatically mean that police and prosecutors will be able to assemble sufficient evidence to gain a guilty verdict in a court trial. But lack of evidence does not always appear to have been the primary reason to exclude specific cases from indictments. A case from Maluku best illustrates this. Asep Jaja was sentenced to life imprisonment for his involvement in the May 2005 attack on the police paramilitary post on Seram Island. He also appears to have been implicated in a murder in Tomohon, North Sulawesi, in October 2001.126 Asked whether Asep would be charged with this murder, too, a senior detective in Maluku indicated that he was aware of the case but said Asep would only stand trial for the Tomohon murder if he didnt get the death penalty in Maluku. 127 When limited funds and investigative resources are available, such an approach to investigations and prosecutions is perhaps understandable, particularly when proving an individuals involvement in additional incidents is not likely to increase their sentence. The clear downside, as mentioned above, lies in denying communities a clear record of who was responsible for particular acts of violence. Not charging individuals for involvement in particular incidents when they have been publicly named as suspects also denies the accused individuals a chance to challenge the accusations against them in court, and in recent times has fueled community claims that police have deliberately stigmatized young Muslim men without having clear evidence against them. Conclusion This paper describes the particularities of the Tibo trial at some length and demonstrates how some of the shortcomings of the trial and investigation have been repeated in other cases. We can draw several lessons from the above discussion for how criminal justice might have been handled differently in Poso, and could be better handled in future instances of Indonesian conflict. The first lesson is to hold trials swiftly after the violence occurs, as leaving cases unaddressed for long periods of time is as likely to generate community disaffection as it is to cause passions to lessen. A key factor, though, to making a success of swiftly held criminal investigations and trials is the political will to devote sufficient resources to communal conflicts such as Poso, and maintain those resources beyond the initial crisis. In Indonesian conflict settings, the scale of violence has proved too great for just the normal police and prosecutors assigned to the province. National-level assistance for investigations and prosecutions is required, so that a systematic approach to the violence can be adopted. The necessity of a systematic approach is evident from the
125

Early indications are that a similar process is occurring for some of the men who have been arrested or surrendered since late 2006. Whether this is the case will become clear when these men are brought to trial. 126 ICG, Weakening Indonesias Mujahidin Networks, pp. 89. 127 Phone interview with senior detective, Maluku Provincial Police, 2005.

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Tibo case, where essentially symbolic prosecution of only a few individuals from among all the key perpetrators did little to answer community demands for justice. A symbolic approach to prosecutions also negates one of the primary advantages of swift trials, namely, that key perpetrators can be removed from the conflict setting before they perpetrate further violence. The response to more recent crises in Poso, particularly the October 2005 beheading of three schoolgirls, gives cause for optimism that, with sufficient political will, police and prosecutors can achieve swift results. Even in the case of the beheadings, though, the full potential efficacy of court trials was hampered by a seeming wavering of attention once the crisis faded. Another key example in support of swift trials comes from the Maluku conflict. The arrests and trials there in the wake of a May 2005 attack on a police post on Seram Island appear to have had a stark preventative effect on the level of violence in Maluku. The arrests and trials came at the end of twelve months of sporadic violence in Maluku, in the aftermath of the most recent riotous episode there in April 2004. To some extent, these arrests went beyond netting just direct perpetrators to apprehending those accused of planning and, in one individuals case, financing violence. Despite some disquiet regarding the length of the sentences, which seemed long given the generally lax judicial response to crimes committed earlier in the conflict (five of the men received life sentences), there have been no conflict deaths in Maluku in the twenty-two months since the arrests were made, with only two minor bombings causing injuries during that period.128 The second is the importance of paying particular attention to the procedural quality of the trial. One reason this attention is needed is because the difficult and polarizing nature of the crimes committed in the course of inter-religious violence can make it particularly difficult to hold a fair trial. Attention to procedure may also help to avoid needless problems in the future, by ensuring that the clearest possible case for guilt is presented and that nothing about the conduct of the trial gives rise to the impression of bias. That is to say that it is important that justice not only be done, but, to the greatest extent possible, also be seen to be done and done fairly. In large part this comes down to political will, in the form of assigning experienced prosecutors and judges to cases, or even moving selected cases to Jakarta, as has been recent practice for Poso. The third lesson is to pursue consistency in sentencing. As the Tibo case shows, community attitudes to a sentence in one case will be influenced by the sentences in other cases. Stern punishment in one case is more likely to meet opposition if communities perceive that other, similar cases have been dealt with only leniently or not at all. Such opposition will never be eliminated entirely in a conflict setting, but it can be minimized by trying to avoid stark contrasts among similar cases sentences. This again underlines the importance of a systematic approach to prosecutions. The fourth lesson, a point related to lesson three, is that even in pursuing consistency, imposing the death penalty in conflict cases should be avoided. This need not be a moral argument; the practical benefit of not creating a cause or a focal pointan execution, a martyrfor protestors is significant. The Tibo executions have
128

The main security disturbance during this period has in fact involved several clashes between Indonesian police and the military.

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already directly contributed to at least two additional deaths, and will likely continue to complicate future trials concerned with Posos serious violence. In making the case that trials are a necessary part of conflict response and resolution, I am mindful of their clear downsides. The polarization of the debate regarding the three mens executions along religious lines, which sharpened old religious enmities from earlier in the conflict, highlights one potential pitfall. Part of this polarization arose from the specific features of the case, but it is reasonable to assume that court verdicts for conflict or post-conflict violence will always run the risk of displeasing some sections of affected communities. But on this point, it must also be kept in mind that many of the arrests and most trials stemming from the Poso conflict have, in fact, passed without significant community protest. Certainly, more research is needed to survey attitudes to criminal trials in Poso. That study could follow along the lines of two studies conducted to assess empirically community attitudes to international tribunals in Yugoslavia and Rwanda; those studies explored the link between trials and reconciliation.129 Tentatively, however, I would like to suggest that trials in Poso can still make a positive contribution to conflict resolution even if they do generate a degree of polarization of opinion along religious lines. This is because the contribution to stopping violence by arresting key perpetrators may outweigh any worsening of religious enmities that those arrests may cause in the community.130 One reason this may be the case is that many of those who harbor resentment over the conflict or the official response to violence will not act on those feelings and actively perpetrate additional violence, particularly if the risk of arrest and punishment is clear. Where protests over arrests and trials have occurred, they have most often involved primarily those closely linked to the suspects as members of the same combatant group or their relatives. When these protests have spread more widely, there has generally been an additional factor at work.131 For instance, when crowds gathered in June 2005 to demand the release of those held for involvement in the May 2005 Tentena bombings, wrongful arrests were an issue. It later emerged that none of those held in custody at the time appeared to have actually been involved in the bombing. Moreover, some of those in custody had been badly beaten. When attempts to arrest a group of wanted (Muslim) men resulted in a gun battle between police and supporters of the suspects on January 22, 2007, during which fourteen civilians and a policeman were killed, police violence was one of the issues. To be sure, the Muslim suspects were prepared to fight the police to remain free, but the additional support these men received from others in Poso resulted from lingering resentment over some killings that occurred during another police raid two weeks earlier, as well as a clash
See Miklos et al., Attitudes toward Justice and Social Reconstruction in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, in My Neighbor, My Enemy, pp. 19394; and Longman et al., Connecting Justice to Human Experience: Attitudes toward Accountability and Reconciliation in Rwanda, in My Neighbor, My Enemy, pp. 20625. 130 This possibility is not considered in the Miklos and Longman studies (see previous footnote), which do not explicitly consider the relationship between openness to reconciliation on the part of communities and the occurrence of further violence. 131 For details, see ICG, Weakening Indonesias Mujahidin Networks, pp. 1516.
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between police and residents of the same neighborhood in October 2006.132 In both of those cases, the suspects supporters were also able to exploit the issue of officials past failure to prosecute other cases to corral support. Finally, it is necessary to note that Im not arguing that trials can work in isolation to stop violence. Economic, social, and reconstruction assistance from central and provincial governments, as well as local and international NGOs, are well-established as standard responses to large-scale conflict in Indonesia. Poso has not been an exception in this regard, having received a great deal of this assistance since the peak of conflict in 20002001. Clearly such programs should remain part of a comprehensive response to conflict, but in the absence of systematic law enforcement, those programs have not in themselves been effective in stemming post-conflict instability, either. While there is much that criminal trials cannot address, and significant political will is required to provide the resources to support criminal justice in a conflict setting, the experience of Maluku in particular suggests that trials can play an important role in stemming violence by removing key perpetrators of violence.

132

For details of the January 22 raid and the others that preceded it, see ICG, Jihadism in Indonesia: Poso on the edge, pp. 1617. The challenges police faced in making these arrests were significant, but an important focus for investigation of these incidents will be whether all steps were taken to try to avoid these fatalities.

THE DIRTY WORK OF EMPIRE: MODERN POLICING AND PUBLIC ORDER IN SURABAYA, 19111919
Marieke Bloembergen

The colonial state in Indonesia has been characterized as a violent state. It built its colonial territory and power upon military force, resulting in thousands of Indonesian victims, and held the maintenance of law and order by means of the military and the police as one of its most important goals.1 Some authors have referred to the colonial state in Indonesia as a police state. At least, they described a state that reduced the twentieth-century political problem of the pergerakan (indigenous emancipation movement) and the nationalist movement to a police problem, a state in which politically active Indonesian subjects were permanently restricted in their movements by the police, so that they experienced the colonial regime as a police state.2 These scholarly characterizations of a state of violence and a police state are
1

H. Schulte Nordholt, A Geneaology of Violence, in Roots of Violence in Indonesia, ed. Freek Colombijn and J. Thomas Lindblad (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2002), pp. 3362. Compare the reaction of Elsbeth LocherScholten, State Violence and the Police in Colonial Indonesia, in ibid., pp. 8182.

2 P. J. A. Idenburg, Het Nederlandsche Antwoord op het Indonesische Nationalisme, in Balans Van Beleid. Terugblik op de Laatste Halve Eeuw Nederlandsch-Indi, ed. H. Baudet and I. J. Brugmans (Assen: Van Gorcum & Comp, 1961), pp. 12151; Harry A. Poeze, Political Intelligence in the Netherlands-Indies, in The Late Colonial State in Indonesia: Political and Economic Foundations of the Netherlands-Indies 18801942, ed. Robert Cribb (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1994), pp. 22946; Takashi Shiraishi, Policing the Phantom Underground, Indonesia 63 (October 1997): 146; Takashi Shiraishi, The Origin of Modern Surveillance Politics in Indonesia, in Southeast Asia over Three Generations: Essays presented to Benedict R. O.'G. Anderson, ed. James T. Siegel and Audrey R. Kahin (Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2003), pp. 47 74; Marieke Bloembergen, Koloniale Staat, Politiestaat? Politieke Politie en het Rode Fantoom in Nederlands-Indi, 19181927, Leidschrift 21,2 (2006): 6990. For a contemporary view of the NetherlandsIndies as a police state, see Philippo-Soekasih and G. van Munster, Indonesia, Een Politiestaat (Amsterdam: De Schijnwerper, 1938).

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interchangeable in the sense that they all point to organized violence directed by the colonial government against the states subjects. While the violent character of the colonial regime can be taken for granted, there is still much that we do not know about the actual practice of implementing state violence in colonial Indonesia. One important institution that has been largely neglected is the police, generally characterized as one of the states monopolized instruments of violence.3 A study about the colonial police might enable us to assess how and to what extent the colonial state governed through violence. The subject is also relevant for our understanding of Indonesian history, including the colonial period. For not only did the Indonesian republic inherit structures and personnel from the colonial police (continuities which are not elaborated here) but also, the colonial police was almost entirely staffed by Natives; in this way, it differed from the colonial army, which was only 75 percent indigenous. In the 1930s, 96 percent of the police, out of a force of 34,000, were Indonesian.4 In colonial society, which organized its political, juridical, and economic structures along racial and racist categoriesEuropeans, Chinese, and Indonesians/Nativesthese Indonesian policemen were the face of the colonial state. They show us, as former colonial police officer Eric Blair (George Orwell) has described it so well, the dirty work of empire at close quarters. 5 This article concentrates on the early history of the modern colonial police force in colonial Indonesia, in particular on the practice of policing in colonial Surabaya, 1911 1919. In this period the colonial state implemented important police reforms that shall be analyzed as well. The article aims to understand the specific problems and dilemmas of colonial policing, or of policing in the context of the social, ethnic, and political relations of colonial society. How colonial were these problems? And what do they tell us about the functioning of the colonial state? By definition, security is a precondition of effective government and a necessity for any society.6 Ideally, this double guideline also determines the way in which a modern state organizes and uses its police force in order to maintain law and order, and to guarantee security for its citizens. In a colonial state, where a minority of foreigners (here Europeans, including Dutchmen, Eurasians, and Germans), with specific economic and political interests, rule a large majority of an indigenous population,
This lack of interest is especially remarkable considering the fact that, since the appearance of David Arnold, Police Power and Colonial Rule: Madras 18591947 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), the history of policing in other former colonial empires has been the topic of a growing number of academic studies. The interest in the colonial police in Indonesia is reflected in an MA thesis and a few articles that have appeared since the end of the 1990s: R. J. M. van Hooff, De Politie in Nederlands-Indi, MA thesis, University of Amsterdam, 1985; Cyrille Fijnaut, Politiemodellen Benvloeden Elkaar Wederzijds; Het Beleid aangaande het Politiewezen in Nederlandsch-Indi, Het Tijdschrift voor de Politie, 7,8 (1998): 421; Locher-Scholten, State Violence and the Police in Indonesia; Shiraishi, The Origin of Modern Surveillance Politics in Indonesia; Bloembergen, Koloniale Staat, Politiestaat? 4 Locher-Scholten, State Violence and the Police in Indonesia, p. 97. 5 George Orwell, Shooting an Elephant, in Orwell and Politics: Animal Farm in the Context of Essays, Reviews, and Letters Selected from the Complete Works of George Orwell, ed. Peter Davison (London: Penguin Books, 1929; 2001), pp. 1724, 18.
6 Compare Alison Dray-Novey, Spatial Order and Police in Imperial Beijing, Journal of Asian Studies 52,4 (1993): 885922.
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these concerns are balanced differently. In his study on the colonial police in Madras, the British historian David Arnold has argued that, from the perspective of colonial rulers, every form of indigenous crime or social unrest could be perceived as a menace to the status quo.7 In other words, maintaining safety was a specific problem for the colonial administrators, who felt threatened themselvesnot for the indigenous population. The police figured as a tool to solve that problem. In response to these views, it should be noted that the process through which social or political unrest was made illegal by law was not exclusive to colonial states, but takes place in every state that wants to cope with perceived domestic unrest or social agitation among its citizens: it is not typically colonial. Moreover, one could add that consent is a condition for effective rule by both non-colonial and colonial governments. The modern colonial police force was, in this perspective, meant to function as a civil security tool, at least as a more civilized tool than the army. Ideally, and according to modern police regulations, the police should be guided in their work by the principle that they are committed to postpone or prevent violence. This was in the interest of the colonial state, since the police were the face of the state: they brought colonial government most deeply into society and nearest to its subjects. Moreover, while conducting surveillance, the police were also watched by the subjects. It is therefore relevant to look closely at the relation between the police and the public, to understand the characteristic dilemmas of colonial policing. Operating on behalf of an authoritarian government, in the context of the racially discriminative relations of colonial society, the modern colonial police were, more than police forces elsewhere, sharply hampered by their two potentially conflicting tasks to ensure public safety, which required the support and cooperation of the population, and to enforce (political) order, actions that tended to incite resentment and resistance from the population.8 Stretched between these contradictory tasks, the colonial police carried out an impossible job, and thus one of the dirtiest jobs of empire. The predicament faced by the colonial police has led some scholars, who have written about the colonial police force in British India, to conclude that police violence was much more the result of a weak and inefficient state than the result of the brutally effective use of police power by the state.9 To test whether a similar argument holds true for Indonesia, I will, after a brief analysis of changes in Surabaya and the reorganization of the Surabayan city police (1911-1919), take a closer look at three cases of modern colonial policing in Surabaya: the police and their relation to so-called Chinese riots; police surveillance and the Sarekat Islam; and police regulation of modern traffic and public order on the streets. All three cases deal with interactions between the police and the public. Also, in all three cases other means of security control that competed with the police played a significant role: the army (in the first and the last cases), Sarekat Islams security support (in the second case), and a private
Arnold, Police Power and Colonial Rule. Madras 18591947, pp. 3, 131. David Andrew Campion, Watchmen of the Raj: the United Provinces Police, 18701931 and the Dilemmas of Colonial Policing (PhD dissertation, University of Virginia, 2002), p. i. 9 Campion, Watchmen of the Raj, pp. 12; Rajnarayan Chandavarkar, Police and Public Order in Bombay, 18801947, in Imperial Power and Public Order in Bombay (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 180233.
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person armed with his Browning revolver (also in the second case). They questioned the polices authority and their monopoly of state violence. The period in focus marked the establishment and testing of a new city police force. In 1912 and again in 1914, the colonial state invested for the first time in its history in a relatively expensive police reform, and this after a long period of apparent indifference toward insecure, unsafe conditions in Javas interior regions. This action had been preceded by endless discussionsongoing since the 1870sconcerning the loose, ineffective policing system then in place, an infamous and hybrid aggregate of gardu (security posts),10 village police, state police institutions, and private security bonds. These 19121914 reforms (see below) were meant to be an important step in the colonial states efforts to make the colonial police more centralized and uniform, and thus to gain better control over security. Predictably, however, there was a huge gap between the idealized vision of such a modernized police force and the actual practice of everyday policing, a gap that seems to indicate the colonial state could not supervise its own police force as effectively as it might have wished.11 The colonial territory was too large to establish centralized police control, which meant that policing remained, to a large extent, a matter handled through local administrations. Moreover, the police remained in competition and sometimes even in conflict with other, formal and informal, tools for maintaining security and political control. Furthermore, the colonial police failed to function as a monolithic, effective tool of the state for administrative and organizational reasons. Since the policemen were both recruited from and embedded in local society, they faced a huge and complex task when attempting to satisfy the colonial states ambitions and perform their two conflicting jobs convincingly. To convince potential recruits of the benefits of joining the police was another challenge. On Being Modern: The Police and the City, Surabaya Policing in the Netherlands Indies was a complicated matter, and modern policing perhaps even more so, as a new crop of students from the Osvia (Opleidingschool voor Inlandsche Ambtenaren, School for Native Officials) in Blitar must have realized in October 1918. That month, they went on an educational trip to Surabaya, where they visited, among other places, the city police headquarters. One of the students, Raden Rachmad, reported his impressions of this visit in Neratja, a Malay-language, progovernment daily. He described how the highest officials of Surabayas city police the chief superintendent, a superintendent first class , and a hoofdoppasser (a rank comparable to inspector of police), all of them Dutchtreated the students to verbose lectures on the modern organization of the police force in Surabaya. It was a bit too much for the students who, after their long journey from Blitar, had walked straight to the police office. Some of the information did prove interesting, however. The students
10 See on the role of the gardu in Indonesian urban life Abidin Kusno, Guardian of Memories: Gardu in Urban Java, Indonesia 81 (2006): 95149.

Bloembergen, Koloniale Staat, Politiestaat?, p. 74; Justin Willis, Thieves, Drunkards and Vagrants: Defining Crime in Colonial Mombasa, in Policing the Empire. Government, Authority and Control, 1830 1940, ed. David M. Anderson and David Killingray (Manchester/New York, NY: Manchester University Press, 1991), pp. 21935.

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learned that Surabaya, which was at that time the largest city in the Netherlands Indies, could boast of a police force thatalthough not yet perfectresembled European city police forces, on which it was modeled, which meant it had a hierarchy and specialized police departments, conducted organized patrols, and initiated a complicated modern system of identifying suspects, called dactyloscopy. Rachmad also learned a bit about the daily practices of and regulations governing the indigenous constables. He was informed that pribumi Indonesians could reach the intermediate rank of posthuiscommandant (commander of a group of patrolling constables connected to one post). In his report, he wondered cynically what sort of Indonesian would do this kind of jobbe it as constable or a higher-ranking officerdengan soenggoehsoenggoeh hati, (wholeheartedly). He expected no pribumi would step forward, at least not so long as the salary failed to reward officers adequately for the responsibilities of the job.12 The students introduction to the functioning of Surabayas city police force, perfunctory as it might have been, was meaningful. Since they originated from different parts of the Netherlands Indies, these students were not only confronted by the busy life of the metropolitan city, Surabaya, but they were also introduced to new forms of policing that were characterized as modern, forms with which most of themunless they came from Surabaya, Batavia, or Semarangwere unfamiliar. They were, in effect, standing at a crossroads. If they came from small towns, villages, or relatively isolated places in the Netherlands Indies, they were used to other, diverse forms of security control. The modernized police force described in the lectures was supposed to be different from the old policing system, which was constituted of gardu and oppasser (caretaker, a term that identified police constables before the reform of 19121914) and associated with the streep kuning (yellow stripe, indicating the uniform and rank of the oppas), all familiar terms that were still common in newspaper reports concerning the police at that time.13 Rachmads cynical reaction indicated, however, that there were reasons to believe that this modern police force was not functioning perfectly or wholeheartedlyyet. For Rachmad and his fellow students, the educational trip to Surabayas city police headquarters involved certain obligations. As the future indigenous administrators of the colony, the so-called pangreh praja, they would all have to work with this colonial police-force-in-progress. For the moment, the impressive sight of Surabaya might have diverted them from thinking about future challenges, for this modern police force described by the Dutch officers was part and parcel of a city that seemed so rapidly on the move that it was hard to follow.

12 13

Neratja, October 26, 1918.

That both Dutch and indigenous newspapers after the police reform still wrote about the oppas or oppasser, rather than the constable, is an indication of the fact that either some journalists were not aware of this change in titles, or that in their eyes the police reform was not that meaningful. For examples, see Oetoesan Hindia, January 6, 1914, on streep kuning being too afraid to deal with drunken Europeans in dokars and cars. Or Oetoesan Hindia, February 25, 1914, on an oppas reporting a car accident; Oetoesan Hindia, December 22, 1919, on an oppas kuning posting at the red bridge. Or Pewarta Soerabaia, January 29, 1914 and February 2, 1914.

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Moving Surabaya Strategically located for economic and colonial military purposes, the northern harbor city, Surabaya, had been known since the end of the nineteenth century as the most important economic centre in the Netherlands Indies. Already a large town by 1900, in the second decade of the twentieth century Surabaya was undergoing visible change, both on a physical and social level,14 and the appearance of a modern police force was part of this transformation. Of course, the transformation was still more a concepta blinding projection of a European institutionthan a reality,15 but with Surabayas burgeoning industrial activity, its warehouses, banks, clubhouses, pastry shops, dry docks, modern harbor (under construction in 1912), and increasing number of automobiles (77 in 1906, 3,761 in 1917, 12,000 in 1930) filling up the sandy roads, Surabaya was being dressed up in European fashion. Signs of physical growth included the rapidly expanding network of asphalt-paved roads, the installation of streetlights, a water-treatment system, an electric-supply grid, and an electric tram system. The completion of the modern harbor facility in 1916 brought in a flow of laborers who settled in new, densely populated kampong (neighborhood) areas nearby, which quickened the citys expansion in all directions.16 An important characteristic of Surabaya was its ethnically mixed population. The number of inhabitants had grown steadily since the end of the nineteenth century, mounting from 124,000 in 1893 to 148,710 in 1915 to more then 200,000 in 1920.17 The different population groups lived more or less separated in the city, divided by their ethnicity. There were the so-called arek neighborhoods, inhabited by Surabayan natives, located and formed in the city kampongs, mostly downtown. Together with the more recently arrived Javanese and Madurese residents, who were attracted to Surabaya because of its growing wage-labor market and relatively high pay rates, these residents constituted the indigenous population, the largest group in town: 80 percent (117,585) of the total number of inhabitants in 1915. The other 20 percent of the citys population consisted of almost 70 percent Chinese inhabitants (18,957 in 1915), who had their own quarters in the northeastern part of town, around Kembang Djepoen and between the rivers Sawa Poelo and Kali Mas. They were restricted in their movements due to the so-called passen-en wijkenstelsel (system of identification passes connected to neighborhoods), which forced them to live in certain quarters in town and to apply for identification passes to be used whenever they ventured outside their neighborhood or traveled in Indonesia. In 1911, the passenstelsel was abolished, but it was only in 1919, with the ending of the wijkenstelsel, that the Chinese were permitted to settle in other parts of town.
See on these developments William Frederick, Indonesian Urban Society in Transition: Surabaya, 1926 1946 (PhD dissertation, University of Hawaii, 1978), ch. 1 and 2. 15 Compare D. Canadine, Ornamentalism. How the British Saw Their Empire (London: Penguin Books, 2002) on the blinding effect of the colonialists drive to replicate sameness and similarities originating from home.
16
14

Frederick, Indonesian Urban Society in Transition , p. 13.; H. Buitenweg, De Laatste Tempo Doeloe (Den Haag: Servire, 1964), pp. 162165; G. H. von Faber, Nieuw Soerabaja: De Geschiedenis van Indi's Voornaamste Koopstad in de Eerste Kwarteeuw sedert Hare Instelling (Soerabaja and Bussum: N. V. Boekhandel en Drukkerij Van Ingen, n.d.); Verslag der Gemeente Soerabaja over 1917 (Soerabaja: E. Fuhri & Co., 1918); Verslag der Gemeente Soerabaja over 1920 (Soerabaja: E. Fuhri & Co., 1922).

17 Faber, Nieuw Soerabaja; Frederick, Indonesian Urban Society in Transition; Verslag der Gemeente Soerabaja over 1917, pp. 9, 10; Verslag der Gemeente Soerabaja over 1920, p. 15.

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In addition to indigenous residents and the Chinese, there was a relatively small, very slowly growing group of Arabs (around 2,600 in the period 19001920). They also lived in their own quarters, along both sides of the Kampementsstraat in the northeastern part of town, north of the Chinese quarters. (At around Songojoedan, the Chinese quarters ended and the Arab quarters began.) Finally, there were the Europeans, consisting of descendants of the old residents who had lived in Surabaya since the eighteenth century, in addition to the recently arrived totok, who had emigrated to the Indies in growing numbersincluding an increasing number of womenat the end of the nineteenth century. They settled mostly in new European quarters that took shape in the south: one between Simpang, Karjoon, and Kaliasan (for the well-to-do), another around Scheepmakersparkthe so-called Embong quarterand, finally, the neighborhood around the central Palmenlaan.18 For members of these different ethnic groups, the question of location and ethnic identity, and of who encircled whomor who controlled whommattered if they were to feel themselves secure. The Europeans sense of insecurity was heightened after 1904, when a violent popular religious uprising against the European presence took place in Sidoardjo, a subdistrict only an hours train-ride from Surabaya.19 Even though European women and children from rural Sidoardjo fled to the city to escape the uprising, this revolt effectively blurred the imagined boundaries between a Europeanized city and an unknown, unsafe, indigenous other rural area. This same blurring of borders was taking place in town. Despite the principle of ethnic division that determined the character of most city neighborhoods, some Europeans lived between the arek kampongs downtown, and some members of the well-to-do indigenous elite found places for themselves in the chic neighborhood to the south. Among European citizens, such integration must have brought about an awareness more acute than previouslyof the presence of the other indigenous world, and perhaps the sense that they were being encircled and even invaded by it. As Europeans became more aware of their precarious position, the indigenous population was itself on the move. Influential elites became involved in the pergerakan (movement), which focused on social, economic, and political emancipation. This pergerakan was most visible in the cities and resulted not only in an increasing flood of books, newspapers, and theatrical performances (all in the indigenous language), but also in the development of schools and youth clubs, societies, and political parties promoting social and economic progress for the indigenous population.20 Widespread awareness of the pergerakan, spread through improved means of communication and infrastructure, caused more distrust and reciprocal tensions among the different ethnic groups in the cityand not necessarily only between European and natives, but also
18 J. R. Broeshart and J. R. van Diessen, eds., Soerabaja: Beeld van een Stad (Purmerend, Asia Minor, 1994); Faber, Nieuw Soerabaja.

Frederick, Indonesian Urban Society in Transition, pp. 3334. On this uprising, see R. Fernando, The Trumpet Shall Sound for Rich Peasants: Kasan Mukims Uprising in Gedangan, East-Java, 1904, Journal of South East Asian Studies 26, 2 (1995): 24262; Sartono Kartodirdjo, Protest Movements in Rural Java: A Study of Agrarian Unrest in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1973), pp. 4557.
20

19

Takashi Shiraishi, An Age in Motion: Popular Radicalism in Java, 19121926 (Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press, 1990).

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between Chinese and Javanese citizens who engaged in economic as well as ethnic and racial competition. How safe was Surabaya during these years? It is generally hard to give concrete, objective figures that would measure crime or the lack of safety, above all because the definitions of crime are in general not fixed, but depend on the perceptions of those in power, on law, on administration, on time, and on place.21 There is a related problem with the sources that might be expected to provide such figures. Official colonial reports only tally crimes that have been reported, so that they are best used either as evidence of the colonial administrations positivistic belief that counting would lead to control, or of its determination to create a positive picture of conditions in its jurisdiction.22 News reports of Surabaya crimes in the local newspapers mostly reflected the nuisances that troubled the population group each newspaper represented, providing indirect evidence of the audiences fears of and reactions to their changing and therefore troublingsociety. One can deduce from these reports that Surabaya coped with problems of insecurity to be expected in a colonial multiethnic city, divided along racially discriminatory lines, and undergoing a transformation of social and political conditions. In this situation, the police were considered responsible for combating petty crime, burglary,23 robbery and raids, murder, and traffic problems, and also for controlling perceived forms of indigenous social unrest and potentially disruptive public meetings.24 At the same time, the policethe face of the statewere being critically observed and commented upon, both in the European and the indigenous press, and this criticism continued as the Dutch administration was attempting to reform the city police. These reforms, implemented during the period 19111914 in Batavia, Semarang, and Surabaya, and the discussions concerning reform that had been ongoing since 1870, coincided with the growth of the European community on Java, especially in those three main cities and their hinterlands. It is tempting to deduce from this coincidence that the new, modernized city police force was primarily intended to sustain the Europeans perception of public orderthat is, to protect European interests, European power, and the colonial status quo. However, police reform cannot be related to European security interests alone. Bound by the Dutch Ethical Policy, formally aiming at the development of the Indonesian population, the government had
Vicente L. Rafael, ed., Figures of Criminality in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Colonial Vietnam (Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 1999), pp. 913. 22 See the Koloniale Verslagen and Crimineele Statistiek van Nederlandsch-Indi over het Jaar 1913. Samengesteld door het Hoofd van het Gevangeniswezen (S.l., 1913) and later years. 23 The judgment of value always being a very personal thing: among the stolen objects reported in the European local newspapers that I checked (Soerabajasch Handelsblad , Javabode) were (besides money and watches) a violin, a gramophone player, many articles of clothing, towels, and furniture (taken from a porch). 24 A detailed discussion of the information on crime provided by these sources is beyond the scope of this article. I conducted random checks of various issues of the available European, Javanese, and ChineseMalay newspapers published during this period (19111919) and of stories concerned with the specific cases analyzed below, from: Soerabajasch Handelsblad, Javabode, Neratja, Oetoesan Hindia, Pewarta Soerabaja, Sinar Djawa, Sinar Hindia, and the sections from the indigenous press in Koloniaal Weekblad and Overzicht van de Inlandsche en Maleisch Chineesche Pers (Weltevreden: drukkerij Volkslectuur) 1918/1919. My focus has been on crime and police in general, not only in Surabaya. I investigated these sources to get an indication of the interest shown in crime during this period and, also, the nature of crimes featured in the indigenous newspapers.
21

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an interest in providing an effective, civil means of controlat least more civilized than the armythat would satisfy its subjects need for security, and thereby generate consent. Moreover, state security measures would help the administration come to grips with the radical changes people perceived taking place in those cities. The ongoing visible material and social changes in Surabaya made citizens feel a sense of progress, yes, but also a sense of dislocation, an agonizing awareness of modernity, of being caught in a maelstrom of contradictions.25 Somehow, the police needed to catch up with the developments in these cities so that they could function not only as an effective and pointedly civil tool of safety control, but also as a modern colonial civilizing mechanism, following the intent of the Ethical Policy. To understand the functioning of the modern city police force and its effect upon Surabaya, a short summary of the history and functioning of policing and security care in the Netherlands Indies, or, in this case, Java, is needed. Old and New Systems of Policing Policing in Java in the nineteenth century was interlaced with the colonial administration and therefore characterized by the principle of dualism, the key for effective colonial rule, as Eric Blair (George Orwell), once explained it.26 Briefly, the establishment and maintenance of security for the indigenous population in Indonesia were assumed to be the responsibilities of the indigenous administrative employees, the pangreh praja, from the regent at the top to the lurah, or the village head, at the bottom of the indigenous hierarchy. The desa (village) police, a compulsory service, made up of the male inhabitants of the desa, who were all required to participate, was seen as the core of the colonial security system.27 The security of the European inhabitants was the responsibility of the European administration (Binnenlandsch Bestuur). With this regard, the colonial police organization consisted of politieoppassers or the so-called bestuurspolitie (administrative police), attached to the local European administrators and the pangreh praja. According to this dualistic hierarchy, European and indigenous administrators supervised their own respective oppassers; the governor (resident), and the assistent-resident, had the final responsibility for supervision. Although the security systems in the three main cities of Java, with their relatively large European communities, were each arranged a bit differently, they were also built on the dualistic principle. For, besides the governmental police, the different ethnic communities were responsible for their own security surveillance. The basic system consisted of four different organizational strata: 1. The official governmental or Algemeene politie (general police). This force was under the authority of the department of Binnenlandsch Bestuur and was paid by the colonial administration. It had a simple hierarchy: the superior and intermediate ranks
25

Regarding the experience of maelstrom in The Netherlands Indies, see Henk Maier, Maelstrom and Electricity: Modernity in the Indies, in Outward Appearances: Dressing State and Society in Indonesia, ed. H Schulte Nordholt (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1997), pp. 18182. 26 George Orwell, How a Nation Is Exploited: The British Empire in Burma, in Orwell and Politics: Animal Farm in the Context of Essays, Reviews, and Letters Selected from the Complete Works of George Orwell, ed. Peter Davison (London: Penguin Books, 1929; 2001), pp. 18. 27 W. Boekhoudt, Centralisatie van de Politie, Indische Gids II (1914): 1476.

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(European) consisted of bailiffs, water-bailiffs, adjunct-bailiffs, politieopzieners (comparable to a police inspector in function), and hoofdoppassers (chief constables). The subordinate personnel (Indonesian) consisted of oppassers and specialized oppassers for guard duty and traffic control. In addition, so-called ronda prijajiwhich only existed in Semarang and Surabayacan be defined as part of the general police. The ronda prijaji were neighborhood groups in charge of conducting patrols and controlling gardu (guards, stationed in guardhouses) in the kampong. They included the superior and subordinate members of the pangreh praja and the heads of the kampongs. Besides this official police service, other unofficial police forces were active in the various segregated neighborhoods, where night watches took care of internal security. They could be divided into three categories: 2. Indonesian night watches (gardu) were stationed in the European neighborhoods. Originally, the gardu used a form of forced labor to muster recruits, but, by 1904, in Semarang and Surabaya, the local residents had determined that guards should be compensated for their work. 3. Chinese and Arab inhabitants (or the so-called Vreemde Oosterlingen) took care of guarding their respective neighborhoods. Though in theory all male residents were expected to volunteer, these duties were mostly carried out by paid substitutes recruited through the mediation of the local Chinese heads. 4. Finally, there was the kampong police in the indigenous kampongs , made up of the male inhabitants and comparableboth in its organization and method of recruitmentto the village police in the rural areas of Java. It had been known for yearsby the colonial authorities, private entrepreneurs, the European press, and the indigenous inhabitantsthat, in fact, this security system did not work. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, critics of the system focused on the lack of safety in the rural areas of Java and Madura. After 1900, the Europeans began to express more worries about the growth of thievery and crimesometimes carried out by rampok (armed robbery) gangscloser to and inside the cities. 28 Governmental reports and individual critics summed up the main reasons for the defective system of policing: the poor supervision and the low quality of the police, which were due to the local administrators lack of time and the recruits insufficient training and low pay.29 Although similar criticisms had been heard since the 1870s, it
28 See on the perception and actual activities of rampok and crime in and around Batavia: Margreet van Till, Batavia bij Nacht: Bloei en Ondergang van het Indonesische Roverswezen in Batavia en Ommelanden (Amsterdam: Aksant, 2006). 29 See, for example, Boeka, Uit Java's Binnenland: Een Koffieopziener (Amsterdam: F. van Rossen, 1901); Johannes Bool, De Politie: Haar Wezen en Organisatie in Frankrijk, Duitschland, Engeland (s-Gravenhage: Mouton, 1887); R. Boonstra, Het Indisch Politiewezen, Indisch Militair Tijdschrift 33 (1902): 4558; 11926; C. Bosscher, De Openbare Veiligheid op Java en de Handhaving der Politie onder den Inlander, Verslagen der Vergaderingen van het Indisch Genootschap (1882): 440; P. J. F. van Heutsz, De toenemende Onveiligheid op Java, Hare Vermoedelijke Oorzaken en de Middelen tot Redres, Orgaan der Vereeniging Moederland en Kolonin 5,1 (19041905): 134; S. C. H. Nederburgh, Tjilegon-Bantam-Java: Iets over des Javaans Lasten en over zijne Draagkracht ('s-Gravenhage: Nijhoff, 1888); Nota over de Reorganisatie van het Politiewezen (Batavia: Landsdrukkerij, 1896); J. J. Rol, Politie, Tijdschrift voor het Binnenlandsch Bestuur 1 (1887/1888): 37982; H. E. Steinmetz, Praktische Aanteekeningen, Tijdschrift voor het Binnenlandsch Bestuur 14 (1896/1897): 4766; 44251; R. Wijnen, De Toestand in de Vorstenlanden, Verslagen der vergaderingen van het Indisch Genootschap (1887): 4374. See also the series of articles on the police in Java by H. A. de Groot in

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was only after 1904 that the government decided serious, costly reforms had to be implemented. (The police force had been reorganized in 1897, but that reorganization cost nothing.) In 1904 the colonial government appointed the former assistent-resident for the police in Semarang, L. R. Priester, to prepare recommendations for a thorough police reform in the three main cities of Java: Semarang, Surabaya, and Batavia. Two years later, the government asked W. Boekhoudt, president of the law court in Serang, to offer advice regarding the possibilities of implementing police reform for the rest of Java and the island of Maduraoutside the three main cities. The two reports provided by Priester and Boekhoudt, published in 1906 and 1908, laid the basis for the city police reform implemented in 1911. In his report concerning police reform, which also analyzed the state of crime and the police on Java and Madura, Boekhoudt dwelled on the relationship between the growth of crime and the modernization of society, and upon the danger of the first of five categories of crime that he had discerned in the Netherlands Indies, namely the crime against the state. 30 By highlighting this category, Boekhoudt called attention to Chinese and others local expressions of indigenous nationalism, as well as local violent protests that had arisen after the turn of the century, such as the uprising that took place in Gedangan in 1904. Since the analysis fitted social and political protest into a general analysis of crime, Boekhoudts report might be taken as evidence supporting David Arnolds theory that crime and political protest were indistinguishable from the perspective of the colonial state and were therefore approached with the same methods. Yet this interpretation would fail to recognize certain significant aspects of the Boekhoudt report. In his recommendations, Boekhoudt followed two lines of thought. One clearly supported the colonial states perceived need to enlarge its control over security by centralizing and unifying the police, while the other examined the motives of a modern police force and showed an interest in civilizing the police as a way to make them more effective in providing security. Out of this twofold reasoning, Boekhoudt concluded that three main actions be undertaken: 1. the centralization of the police organization; 2. a concomitant increase in European control over the security system; and 3. professionalization of the police, which would involve refining the police hierarchy and implementing guidelines to make the force more unified, replacing the old bailiffs with professional chief superintendents, and raising salaries for recruits and offering them incentives by increasing opportunities for advancement. New Police: The Modern City Police By the end of 1911 Surabaya got its own, revamped city police force that was reorganized, at least on paper, in accord with characteristics identified as modern. There is, in the historical debates about modern policing, a general consensus about the requisite distinguishing marks: 1. a hierarchical framework; 2. uniformity in regulations, rank, salary, and uniforms; 3. a system of organized surveillance
De Locomotief in 1893, published December 14, 15, 20, 21, and 22, and by Pieter Brooshooft (P. B.), De Locomotief, September 16, 1893. 30 W. Boekhoudt, Rapport Reorganisatie van het Politiewezen op Java en Madoera (uitgezonderd de Vorstenlanden, de Particuliere Landerijen en de Hoofdplaatsen Batavia, Semarang en Soerabaia) 190607 (Batavia: Landsdrukkerij, 1908).

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implemented through security guards and shifts of patrol; 4. monopoly control over surveillance; and 5. a specialized and subdivided criminal investigation service. 31 The organization of the new city police force was supposed to represent a clear break with the past system of policing in the city. In 1911, the most obvious new feature of the city police in Surabaya was the strict and refined hierarchy at the top, where the new chief superintendent (a European recruited from the army) now replaced the former bailiff. This new city police force was part of the centralized Algemeene politie (general police); the department of Interior Administration was given authority over its management, and the Attorney General handled general control of the force. At the local level of this hierarchy, the city police worked under the direction of the local governor (the resident of Surabaya, and, through him, the assistent-resident). The head of the police, the European chief superintendent, who had an office in the newly created police headquarters, was in charge of the police forces daily routine. The resident and the assistent-resident, though officially the superiors of the chief superintendent, intervened only if necessary and were restricted to supervision. Here was one of the weak points in the plan for police reform: the unclear division of responsibilities would becomeas one could expect, and depending on personalities a source of friction between the resident and the chief superintendent. Another relatively important feature of the police reform was the enlargement (by more than 25 percent) of the force: from 297 members in 1905 (9 European superiors and 288 indigenous oppassers, responsible for an urban population numbering 124,000, according to the 1893 census) to 380 policemen in 1912 (11 European superiors assisted by 16 Europeans in the intermediate ranks, plus 353 indigenous constables, responsible for a population numbering approximately 148,710, according to the 1915 census). The police-to-population rate therefore improved only slightly, from about 1:417 in 1905 to 1:391 in 1912. In 1917, the police in Surabaya came to number, in total, 1,358 members, responsible for an urban population of approximately 160,355 persons, bringing the police-to-public ratio to approximately 1:118. Over the years, this ratio remained only a fraction smaller than the ratio of police-to-population in cities in Europe and the United States at the time.32 The new city polices hierarchy reflected the racial division and discriminations of colonial society. To man the superior ranks of this force, the colonial authorities recruited European professionals from outside (either from among high-ranking army officials or from the intermediate ranks of the police in the Netherlands), this in
31

See on this matter, for example, David H. Bailey, The Police and Political Development in Europe, in The Formation of National States in Europe, ed. Charles M. Tilly (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975); Cyrille Fijnaut, De Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse Politie. Een Staatsinstelling in de Maalstroom van de Geschiedenis (Amsterdam: Boom, 2007); Guus Meershoek, De Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse Politie: De Gemeentepolitie in een Veranderende Samenleving (Amsterdam: Boom, 2007); Clive Emsley, A Typology of Nineteenth-Century Police, Crime, Histoire, et Societ 3,1 (1999): 2944; Eric H. Monkkonen, Police in Urban America 18601920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 59; P. Rawlings, Policing: A Short History (Devon: Wilan, 2002). 32 The city of London in the middle of the nineteenth century provided one policeman for every 350 inhabitants. New York in the same period had a ratio of 1:800. Amsterdam around 1900 had 1,100 police personnel for approximately 317,000 people (population in 1880), which gave that city a ratio of 1:288. It should be noted that the figures for the police in Surabaya do not include the ethnic security guards in the Chinese and Arab neighborhoods, nor the kampong police, supplementary forces that continued to exist officially until 1915. Dray-Novey, Spatial Order and Police in Imperial Beijing.

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an endeavor to strengthen European control over the security system in the city. At the top of the new police hierarchy stood, as planned, the chief superintendent, followed by five superintendents first-class (this rank replaced the rank of bailiff)all Europeansand five European politieopziener (rank comparable to that of police inspector). New, in addition, were the sixteen European chief constables, who followed the politieopziener in rank. This initiative to recruit Europeans to supervise the city police did not necessarily guarantee unity within the force. Officers who had formerly worked as Dutch police inspectors were not (yet) acquainted with local circumstances and languages, and they brought with them a system riddled by nepotism. These conditions would have nasty consequences for the organization in the 1920s.33 Perhaps more significant, however, was the fact that European superiors remained a small minority perched above the mass of mainly Javanese subordinates. Javanese constables did most of the policing in the city. For them, changes in the force perhaps seemed to take place gradually, although their sense of belonging to a single colonial police force must have begun with these reforms. The title for the subordinate police changed from oppasser into agent (constable), and this category was hierarchically divided into first- and second-class constables. To motivate, and thereby raise the quality of the recruits, the salary was raised (slightly) and opportunities for advancement promised. Finally, the police force in the three cities was enlarged by 33 percent, increasing from 943 to 1,275 police functionaries. This measure was supposed to shorten the hours of duty (which, before the reorganization, could mount to thirtysix hours in one round).34 Never Sleep on Duty With regard to the practice of city policing, the aims of reform were fundamental. Generally speaking, the task of policing consists of two components: prevention of crime and criminal investigation. As a result of the reform, these two aspects were more clearly organized and divideda sign of modernization. Crime prevention would no longer be carried out through the rather static framework of fixed gardu, butfollowing the example of the police in the Netherlandswould be organized according to a dynamic system based on neighborhoods (wijkenstelsel). Here, we see the introduction of another element of a modern police force: surveillance organized through security guards and shifts of patrol. Surveillance would be the task of the street police, consisting of indigenous constables and their supervisors, European chief constables. These would be assigned to patrol specific neighborhoods, starting their rounds from the post houses according to a fixed route that, if carried out in accord with the neatly measured prescription of the time (which stipulated a marching tempo of 3 km per hour),35 would bring them back to the post after an hour to report to their superiors, the police inspectors first- and second-class. The idea behind this measure
33 M. Bloembergen, Uit Zorg en Angst: Politie, Orde en Veiligheid in Nederlands-Indi, 18971949 (2008, forthcoming), Ch. 6; Het Politieschandaal Te Batavia, Indische Gids 45, II (1923). 34 C. de Groot, De Politie in de Grote Handelssteden op Java in het Algemeen en die te Soerabaja in het Bijzonder, Koloniaal Tijdschrift 2,1 (1913): 266; See on the city police reform also: Hooff, De Politie in Nederlands-Indi, pp. 2227. 35 See the yearly reports of Surabayas city police in Verslag der Gemeente Soerabaja over 1917; Verslag der Gemeente Soerabaja over 1920.

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was to increase the visibility of the police presence in the cities, and therefore enhance security control over public life.36 The department of general control at the headquarters was responsible for supervising street surveillance. The hierarchy of the police, described above according to ranks, was also spatially organized. Central to this system were the police headquarters.37 Next, the city itself was divided between two departments, each responsible for police surveillance.38 Each department was under the authority of a European police superintendent first-class. These departments were subdivided into sections (secties).39 The head of the department mediated between the top authority (the chief superintendent) and the section chiefs (all newly trained European superintendents second-class). Finally, every section had a number of post houses, each supervised by a European police inspector, from which the constables started their patrols. For the time being, temporary buildings were used or constructed for this purpose. In the years 19131918, the construction of permanent post houses was completed.40 Alongside this crime-prevention hierarchy, the police reform established a special department for criminal investigation in the cities, subdivided into divisions of criminal investigators, detectives, a vice squad, immigration police, photographic and dactylographic analysts, and the opium police. The investigative police in these divisions needed knowledge of the local terrain and wore plain clothes rather than uniforms, thus distinguishing them from police involved in crime prevention. Members of the pangreh praja (situated below the superintendent and three European police inspectors in the hierarchy) were responsible for the therefore mostly indigenous police detectives who filled out the department of investigation (in
36 37

Fijnaut, Politiemodellen benvloeden elkaar wederzijds, p. 17. Information in this paragraph is based on A. van Lieshout, Het Politiewezen in Indi, Weekblad voor Indi, August 27, 1916; September 3, 1916: 6466; 9294; Verslag der Gemeente Soerabaja over 1917; Verslag der Gemeente Soerabaja over 1920, p. 129. The headquarters were first located at Grisseesche weg in the north of Surabaya, but soon moved to the upper town (the southern part of the city, where the mostly European quarters were located), to Simpang (on the corner of Kaliasan). Then, in 19181919, the office was moved again, closer to the center of Surabaya, in Baliwerti. 38 The first department operated in the Bovenstad, or upper town in the south, with its main headquarters located at Genteng 14, and the second department in the Benedenstad (downtown), in the north, with its headquarters at Griseesche weg (or Herenstraat). 39 In the beginning, there were six sections in Surabaya, the first two in the upper town (Kaliasin and Kawattan), and numbers three, four, and five stationed downtown, in Frederik Hendrikstraat (or Kampement), which was located in the Chinese and Arab neighborhoods, and in Griseesche weg and Oedjoeng (located by the harbor). The sixth section was assigned to police the river. This last section was dissolved in 1914 and its members redistributed among the other sections, at which time the fifth section (Oedjoeng) became responsible for the harbor/roadstead. In 1920, in response to the expansion of the city toward the south, the first section was split into two parts, so that Surabaya again had six sections. 40 In 1920, the first three sections each counted four post houses, the fourth section had three, and the fifth only one. First section (Kaliasan): posts at Wonokromo, Kepoetran, Kedon-anjar, and Sawan Koepang; second section (Kawattan): posts at Patjarkling, Simpang-Doekoeh, Penlh, and Kalianjar; third section (Frederik Hendrikstraat): posts at Kapassan, Kalimas-Oost, Pegirian, and Passar Bong; fourth section (Grisseesche weg): posts at Willemsplein, Baban, and Missigitplein; and fifth section: a post at TandjongPerak. One might conclude from the number of posts in each section, and the way they were distributed, that more importance was attached to the first three sections (most of the Europeans lived in the first and second sections) and the Chinese and Arab quarters (the third section).

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Surabaya, investigation was supervised by a wedono41 of police and three assistentwedonos). This particular department was enlarged in the years after 1914.42 The Face of the State Though evidence suggests that the authorities were serious about this reform initiative of 1911, in the first years of the reorganization citizens tended to be cynical about their new, allegedly modern city police forces; this cynicism peaked after the Chinese riots in February 1912 (discussed below).43 In Surabaya especially, public complaints about the cruel or insolent attitude of the police poured in. The Hochfeldt case was notorious in this regard. The German police inspector, G. K. Hochfeldt, used fumigation to cross-examine his Chinese detainees (a method that he had learned from a former colleague, who had since then been promoted to the position of adjunct superintendent in Solo). This case, a public scandal in April 1912, deeply embarrassed the colonial authorities. The subsequent publicity brought to light other cases of abuse by the police and heralded a more expensive reform of the institution, which was to be initiated before the end of the year; complaints from the outraged Chinese community made it necessary to act with speed. Hochfeldt was fired.44 Public criticism focused on the most visible representatives of the police: the uniformed street police, including both the indigenous constables and the European head constables. Since the constables salary was not high, few sophisticated or welleducated applicants sought the job. These relatively low-qualified recruits were required to work long hours, sometimes twelve hours a day, which made it difficult for many to remain alert or even awake. Due to such conditions, there was a lot of turnover both among constables and European chief constables, another factor that lowered the quality of the police. By the end of 1912, Governor General A. W. F. Idenburg had therefore decided that Surabaya would dispense with the European head constables. He then raised the salaries and increased the number of the indigenous constables.45 Despite these measures, European, Javanese, and Chinese reporters kept complaining in the local press about the rough, discriminatory behavior
41 42

Ranking in the pangreh praja, directly below the regent. Nota (official memorial) dated December 1, 1917, from A. Hoorweg, the official who from 1912 was in charge of the further development of police reform at the department of Binnenlands Bestuur: Voorstel omtrent wijziging van de formatie der algemeene politie van de drie groote hoofdplaatsen (met inbegrip van Meester-Cornelis) in 1918 en nopens de voor het jaar 1919 noodig geachte uitbreiding. See December 1, 1917, 30/AP in National Archives, The Hague (hereafter NA), Ministry of Colonies (hereafter MvK), Mailreport (hereafter Mr.), 475/1918; and Lieshout, Het Politiewezen in Indi, p. 493. 43 Groot, De Politie in de Grote Handelssteden op Java, pp. 27477; Soerabajasch Handelsblad, June 7, 1913; Resident of Surabaya, April 18, 1912, in NA, MvK, Verbaal (hereafter V) September 28, 1912, p. 5. 44 See resident of Surabaya to the Governor General July 9, 1912, and other correspondence on this case in NA, MvK, V September 28, 1912, p. 5. 45 Governor General A. W. F. Idenburg to the Minister of Colonies, J. H. de Waal Malefijt, July 23, 1912, 872/45, in NA, MvK, V September 28, 1912, p. 5. See, however, Soerabajasch Handelsblad, May 27, 1913, concerning a plan to reintroduce European chief constables because police superintendents and inspectors were too busy to supervise the Javanese constables.

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and the violence, corruption, and nepotism of the police force; and the general failure of the superior officers to prosecute or penalize guilty subordinates.46 A second reform followed in 19141915. It consisted, first, of a further expansion of the force. In the superior ranks, the number of officers was increased from approximately 100 to 250 men, and the number of subordinates multiplied, from 1,300 to 4,500. This meant that it was possible to work with three patrol shiftsa morning-, afternoon-, and nightshifteach of which was on duty for eight hours. Second, for the sake of discipline and in order to decrease turnover, an effort (half-hearted and ultimately incomplete) was made to provide barracks for the constables in Semarang and more permanent post houses in all three major cities. Third, and for the same reasons, a police school was installed in Batavia, initially to provide courses in modern policing for the highest ranks, but after the reform of 19181920 also for the subordinate ranks. This was a rather progressive measure, since no such institution existed yet in the Netherlands (and would not until 1924).47 Finally, the kampong police force was officially abolished, giving the general police a monopoly over security surveillancean important characteristic of what has been defined as a modern police service. This particular measure was only partially carried out. The kampong police did not disappear until the end of the colonial regimeor later, in many casesand kept on working alongside, sometimes encapsulated by, the general police.48 This illustrates that the formation of a completely centralized security force was never a realistic aim of this colonial state because it would not and could not provide the means to achieve it. We should, moreover, bear in mind that the colonial police force was only one of several means to ensure security in the Netherlands Indies. Others were the desa and kampong police, the army, the so-called cultuurpolitie (police stationed to guard European enterprises, who were paid by those enterprises but appointed by the
See for example, on police corruption: Pewarta Soerabaia, February 21, 1914, and Oetoesan Hindia, January, 15, 1914; on police violence and nepotism: Pewarta Soerabaia, October 11, 1913, November 14, 1913, February, 2, 1914, February 14, 1914, February 16, 1914, February 19, 1914; on ineffective police in the local neighborhoods: Oetoesan Hindia, February 7, 1914, January 28, 1914; on police failing to protect citizens against burglary: Oetoesan Hindia, January 6, 1914; on police stealing, Oetoesan Hindia, February 25, 1914; and on discrimination by police (European offenders): Oetoesan Hindia, January 6, 1914. The reactions to the police response to the Chinese riots will be discussed below. 47 Initially the school offered courses for adjunct superintendents and police inspectors, later on also for chief constables. The superior police officers in turn trained the subordinate constables on location. Nota Hoorweg, December 1, 1917, 30/AP, in Mailrapport (herefter Mr.) 475/1918; Lieshout, Het Politiewezen in Indi, p. 494. On the history of police training in the Netherlands: Ronald van der Wal, De Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse Politie. De Vakorganisatie en het Beroepsonderwijs (Amsterdam: Boom, 2007). 48 See assistent-resident of Semarang, 31-1-1916, 466/27, on police taking over the task of wijkmeesters in Semarang in Arsip Nasional Indonesia (hereafter ANRI), Archief Binnenlandsch Bestuur (hereafter BB), inv.nr. 3661; Nota Hoorweg, 24-3-1917, 15/AP: Voorstel tot wijziging van enkele artikelen van het reglement van strafrecht en van het inlandsch reglement, in NA, MvK, V June 7, 1919, p. 55, mentions gradual displacement of kampong police with street police in the three main cities of Java. Chinese protests against wang ronda in Bandung indicate the continuing of kampong police in Bandung at least until 1923, in ANRI, BB, inv.nr. 3311. In 192425, and again in 1929, there were still discussions going on about the possibility of the abolishment of security services like the wacht- en rondadiensten delivered by the indigenous population, as being not proper for a modern civilized state. See circular dir BB, 30-5-1924, and related correspondence in ANRI, BB, inv.nr. 3540; Nota inzake de afschaffing der wacht- en rondediensten van Vreemde Oosterlingen en inlanders, 22-2-1928, and related correspondence in ANRI, BB, inv.nr. 3539. On the continuous use of the gardu for security control in Indonesia, see Kusno, Guardian of Memories: Gardu in Urban Java.
46

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colonial government), and private (European) guards (also paid by the enterprises),49 as well as European rifle clubs. This variety of official and unofficial security units suggests that, despite efforts to centralize and modernize security, there really was no uniformity, nor any state monopoly, in security control. Still, from 1911 on, the government did pay increasingly serious attention to the police, as evidenced by investments recorded in the colonial budget: from Fl. 3,002,548 in 1910 to Fl. 4,597,683 in 1914.50 Also, the city police figured as a test case for modern policing in a would-be civilized colonial state. We have described the colonial governments reform strategies as they were outlined on paper. To what extent, and how, did these reforms actually improve the system of security control, and for whom? I will try to put practice and contemporary perceptions in perspective by focusing on three significant cases: the police operations mounted in response to the Chinese riots in February 1912; police actions against Sarekat Islam demonstrations; and a violent episode involving the traffic police, who were responsible for regulating traffic and tackling problems of security on the streets, including rampant and riotous off-duty soldiers. All three cases involved interactions between the police and the public. Also, in all three cases other official and unofficial security organizations besides the police played a significant role. They have been introduced above, and include the army, the Sarekat Islams security support, and a single armed individual. In harmony with the public critiques of police operations, these competing security tools actively questioned and challenged the polices authority and monopoly of violence. How and to what extent did these two factors influence the problems of colonial policing? 1. Beginners Mistakes? Policing Chinese Fireworks In February 1912, during the Chinese New Years festivities, fierce fights occurred in Surabaya between policemen and Chinese inhabitants. The immediate cause seemed innocent. Patrolling policemen intervened to stop the fireworks and, in doing so, disturbed the Chinese festivities, prompting some of the celebrants to turn against the police. There were violent encounters at different locations in the Chinese quarters between Chinese and (predominantly Javanese) policemen. Also, the European chief superintendent, C. J. Boon, who had personally put a stop to a fireworks celebration at Kembang Djepoen, was threatened by a Chinese mob. His Javanese constables saved him from the crowd by force. Then, assisted by a few police constables and some infantry soldiers, Boon set off in pursuit of a group of the Chinese partygoers-turnedrebels who had fled into a Chinese shop. The moment the police entered, the Chinese shopkeeper turned off the light, allowing the fugitives to escape through the back door. Then he locked all the doors, trapping chief superintendent Boon inside the shop for more than an hour. That same day, a group of angry Chinese assaulted and looted the
49

As practiced by big companies in the cities, like the KPM and the Javasche Bank, Soerabajasch Handelsblad, April, 6, 1912. 50 Nota Algemeene Secretarie nopens de gewapende en de algemeene politie, 1915, in NA, MvK, V November 23, 1915, p. 33.

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house of the apparently unpopular Chinese Captain.51 The police were late arriving at the scene and unable to prevent the thorough destruction of the house. After these first humiliating failures of law enforcement, the police, with the help of the army (cavalry), combed through the Chinese and Arab quarters and indiscriminately arrested hundreds of Chinese residents.52 How did the events in Surabaya get out of hand so easily, and what can they tell us about the functioning of Surabayas city police? The initial police measures seemed reasonable. According to regulations on the books, the Chinese were allowed to set off fireworks in their own yards but not on the public road. This sounds like a fair measure, though it should be noted that finding a sufficiently spacious yard in the tightly packed Chinese quarters of northern Surabaya would have been difficult. At last, public response to the regulation itself was probably less important than responses to the new face of the police, to international events, and to ethnic tensions. Circumstances in 1912 differed from earlier years. First of all, city police patrols were a new phenomenon in the streets of Surabaya. The refashioned police wore uniforms and were better organized and more visible and active than they had been in previous years. Furthermore, on this particular year, the Chinese New Year celebration was backlit by a distant beacon: the recently installed Chinese Republic. In this case, Chinese indignation against the interference of the Surabaya police was intensified by the growing national consciousness of the Chinese in the Netherlands Indies. Moreover, economic and ethnic competition between the Chinese and the Javanesein this case, Javanese policemenhelped intensify the conflict.53 Given this reciprocal resentment, the police could not expect support from Chinese onlookers during the initial unrest in Kembang; the Chinese shop owner preferred to aid the refugees. The forceful police response, assisted by the intimidating strength of army cavalry, apparently helped unify two previously separate Chinese factions in Surabaya.54 After the mass arrests, Javanese policemen forced their detainees to squat, a command which the Chinese interpreted as a tremendous insult. Their outrage created a bond between the initially more openly rebellious Macao, or sinkeh, Chinese (recently arrived from China) and the peranakan Chinese (long-term residents of the Netherlands Indies), who together then turned against the police. In the following days, Chinese shops initiated a strike that spread across the city, paralyzing Surabayan commerce for almost a week. With this shopkeepers strikea method later copied by the Sarekat Islam 55the Chinese formed a strong alliance against the police and, indirectly, the state, and gained themselves a voice; one way or another, they now had to be listened to. The police operations during the Chinese riots aroused fierce criticism, both from Chinese citizens and from the conservative European press. Peranakan Chinese
51

Since the times of the VOC (the Dutch East India Company), the Dutch in the Netherlands Indies invested leading Chinese with military titles: majoor (major), kapitein (captain), or luitenant (lieutenant) to make them responsible for the supervision of their compatriots. 52 De Chineezen-Opstootjes te Soerabaja, Indische Gids 34, I (1912): 65859. 53 Shiraishi, An Age in Motion, pp. 4546. 54 See on the position of Chinese in Netherlands Indies society, Lea E. Williams, Overseas Chinese Nationalism: The Genesis of the Pan-Chinese Movement in Indonesia, 19001916 (Glencoe, IL: The Free Press, 1960), pp. 1013. 55 Shiraishi, An Age in Motion, p. 45.

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complained about the lack of police protection. A feeling of contempt for the police transformed itself into hatred following these police operations, the indiscriminate prosecutions of Chinese residents and house searches in the Chinese quarters, and the retaliatory shopkeepers strike. The peranakan Chinese were indignant about the wholesale detention of Chinese residents.56 This Chinese outcry over police operations in Surabaya seems to have set the tone for recurring Chinese complaints about the callous behavior of the police in following years (similar complaints could be heard elsewhere on Java).57 In 1917, a request by several Chinese societies in Surabaya asking that the polices attitude toward Chinese citizens be reviewed did have some effect. In response, the government issued a circular to the residents in the three main cities of Java, which was to be distributed among the heads of the police departments and all police officials. This document stated that, without compromising their vigor [in carrying out their duties], the police must operate with modesty and calmness, not only to European and Eastern citizens [Vreemde Oosterlingen], but as much to the Chinese and indigenous populations. 58 While the Chinese complained that the police response had been too forceful, Europeans tended to see it as having been too delicate. European reporters identified three critical moments when the police had failed, or at least proved to be ineffective: 1. when superintendent Boon got himself locked up by a Chinese shop owner; 2. when the police failed to stop angry Chinese from looting the house of the Chinese Captain; and 3. during the following days, when the security forces were unable to stop the Chinese shopkeepers strike, enabling the protesters to paralyze the citys trade. Conservative newspapers like Soerabajasch Handelsblad and its weekly, Weekblad voor Nederlandsch-Indi, and the Javabode argued that the police should have taken firm, armed action from the beginning.59 Articles in the Soerabajasch Handelsblad directly criticized the police reform and what the authors discerned as the new diplomatic attitude of the police: Soft remedies cause stinking wounds, and sedate actions give to the brute the impression of weakness. 60 The editor-in-chief of Soerabajasch Handelsblad also pointed out the international implications of these events: the fact that the police were completely powerless was a shame, suggesting the weakness of colonial authority, which is dangerous both from the perspective of colonial rule and in an international context. 61 The comments in Soerabajasch Handelsblad and in Javabode reflected a general fear in the European community; this dread of the other and the
Williams, Overseas Chinese Nationalism, pp. 4042; Soerabajasch Handelsblad, February 21, 1912; February 22, 1912. 57 Unfortunately, local Chinese newspapers were not available for this particular period. But see for criticism on the Surabayan police: Pewarta Soerabaia, n. 46. 58 Governmental Decree, September 13, 1917, 1 T, Circular Attorney General to all residenten , September 22, 1917, in ANRI, BB, inv.nr. 3597. This file also contains the complaints of Chinese mail carriers, who said they had been mistreated by a higher-ranking Javanese policeman (a mantri-polisi, a function that was especially meant for police investigation. Mantri-polisi had been part of the force before the reorganization and were integrated into the modern city police by the reforms). 59 Illustrative for this perspective is a cartoon in Weekblad voor Indi, March 3, 1912, showing a man happily wiping away the dirt, i.e., the revolutionary sinkeh Chinese, and a policeman watching, lost in amazement, too stupid to understand that this is the only effective measure, according to the editor who summarized the meaning of this drawing. 60 Soerabajasch Handelsblad, February 21, 1912. Compare Javabode, February 27, 1912, and Weekblad voor Indi, March 10, 1912. 61 Soerabajasch Handelsblad, February 26, 1912.
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pergerakan was worsened by such events. Reportedly, fewer Europeans dared to enter downtown Surabaya following the riots, unless they were armed, and during this same period applications for gun licenses increased.62 The Europeans call for the imposition of harsh measures against agitators and their criticism of chief superintendent Boon illuminate the friction between the old methods of policing and the supposedly modern methods, or between the more heavyhanded, old-fashioned police and the comparatively sophisticated, civilized police force promoted by Boon (who was being directed by Surabayas resident and assistentresident).63 It was Boon who apparently had instructed his men to operate decently (betamelijk) when they first responded to violations of the fireworks statute in the Chinese neighborhoods. This general instruction caused some amusement in Soerabajasch Handelsblad. That paper suggested that the chief superintendent had essentially asked to be locked up by a shopkeeper when he promoted this decent policy.64 Clearly, this episode did not enhance the image of the new superintendent of Surabaya, a former army officer and teacher in the Royal Military Academy in Breda. Yet despite this unpropitious beginning, Boon seems to have been a man of enterprise, energetically taking charge of the police reorganization. This was not an easy task, since he had to work with a force still largely staffed by badly paid, poorly trained, and undisciplined subordinates, and friction between the old and new methods of policing was still apparent. Nonetheless, Boon strove to situate the new police force so that it would become more independent of the local authorities. This helped earn him the nickname Napoleon Boon (and Bonaparte) and would cause him trouble later on, when he moved to Batavia (in 1914), in his dealings with the local authorities of Javas capital city.65 Relationships between the new heads of police and the residenten and assistent-residenten of the three main cities, officially their superiors, more than once proved difficult throughout these years. However, in the aftermath of the Chinese riots, the resident of Surabaya sided with Boon, protecting him against public scandal. He reported to the Governor General that Boon had not been locked up by a Chinese shop owner, but that in fact he had chosen to instruct his men from this spot. This became the official position, and it sparked hilarity among European reporters.66 Although a lie, the residents declaration was understandable: it would have been hard to imagine a more humiliating, damaging event for the colonial powers than the
62

Soerabajasch Handelsblad, February 24, 1912. See also the frequent ads for weapons in De Locomotief in 1912. 63 See resident of Surabaya to the Governor General July 9, 1912, 384, NA, MvK, V September 28, 1912, p. 5. 64 Soerabajasch Handelsblad, February 21, 1912. 65 On Napoleon Boon, see De Locomotief, May 5, 1914; Bonaparte, Het Vaderland, September 18, 1923. See also Soerabajasch Handelsblad, January 20, 1912, on the difficult position of the new chief superintendents in general, who wished to influence and shape the reorganization of the force but remained dependent on the local assistent-residenten and central decisions reached by the department of Binnenlands Bestuur. 66 Officieel Relaas van de Chineesche Opstootjes te Batavia en Soerabaja, Koloniaal Tijdschrift 1, II (1912): 6016. De Chineezen-Opstootjes te Soerabaja, pp. 65859. The Dutch advisor for Chinese Affairs, H. J. F. Borel, offered an alternative interpretation, which resulted in his being transferred to another post. He identified the Dutch administrators and police officers ignorance about Chinese culture and politics as the main source of the problems. See H. J. F. Borel, De Chineesche Kwestie en de Ambtenaren van 't Binnenlandsch Bestuur, Koloniaal Tijdschrift 2, I (1913): 4154.

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detention of the chief superintendent by local rebels, and therefore the story had to be covered up. Contributing to the tensions, and to public criticism of the polices attitude and conduct, was the problem concerning the subordinate police (both the indigenous constables and the European chief constables). Many of these officers were the same politieoppassers who had joined the force during the infamous bailiff-era, and who, due to lack of training, low wages, and long working hours, did not generally conform to the modern ethical standards that were supposed to be the basis for the reforms. They were accustomed to the working climate of the pre-reform era, during which violence was a commonly accepted means of policing. These factors made it difficult to improve police attitudes thoroughly. In addition, police reform itself may have exacerbated existing social and ethnic tensions between the police and the public. Empowered by the new police uniform and the concomitant status now accorded to the modern city police, the constables might have felt themselves authorized to exert firmer control over the public, by violence if necessary. This factor might at least have played a role in the tensions between Javanese police and Chinese inhabitants. We have already noted the specific ethnic and socialpolitical tensions that existed between the police (most of them recognizably Javanese), on the one hand, and Chinese inhabitants, on the other. But European residents also criticized the police in a manner that suggests there were racial prejudices involved. In March 1914, the colonial authorities received an official request, signed by a number of prominent European inhabitants of Surabaya, asking them to amend the rude attitudes of the city police; the editor-in-chief of the Nieuwe Soerabaja Courant had his name at the top of the list. Complaints of this sort may reflect both on the unruly behavior of the police and the impatience of the Europeans, who felt themselves superior. For these civilized Europeans, it was hard to accept that subordinate police employees (the indigenous constables and European chief constables), who in their view were morally and intellectually incapable of decent policing without committing violent excesses, were in charge of guarding their safety and even questioning and detaining their compatriots.67 In some cases, the aggressive conduct of the police seemed to have forged alliances between different groups in the city. The European petition against the police did not pass unnoticed in the Chinese press. When Pewarta Soerabaia heard about the initiative of the European citizens, its editors expressed the hope that they would succeed. The Semarang Chinese newspaper, Sinar Djawa, admonished its readers to take this as an example, and called on Si Kromo (a nickname used to indicate the common [Javanese] man) to do the same.68 Indeed, as we have seen, public criticism of the police sometimes, and to a certain extent, did have an effect. The colonial government could not afford to have all these groups of citizens alienated by rude police conduct if it wanted to maintain consent and uphold its ethical pretences. The upheaval that resulted from the forceful police response to the Chinese riots, and the continuous criticism of the policedespite the additional reforms of 1912 and 1914can be taken
67

Request, March 2, 1914, signed by E. van Ghere, editor-in-chief of the local newspaper Nieuwe Soerabaja Courant, and 619 other inhabitants of Surabaya, directed to both the Minister of Colonies and the resident of Surabaya, in NA, MvK, V March 31, 1914, p. 99. 68 Pewarta Soerabaia, February 14, 1914; Politie dan publiek, Sinar Djawa, March 6, 1914.

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as evidence that the colonial state was weak and inefficient, not omnipotent. It seems that in colonial Indonesiacomparable to British colonial India, as analyzed by scholars noted aboveit was the states failures to control its own police force, rather than the brutally effective use of this organization, that fueled resentment among the population. 69 2. Police and Sarekat Islam: Whos Policing Whom? A specific party that represented the indigenous public and often had direct dealings with the police (just as the police had dealings with them) was the Sarekat Islam (SI). Founded in 1912, one of the first social and economic emancipation movements that took form in the first two decades of the twentieth century in the Netherlands Indies, the SI very soon found itself under surveillance by the colonial authorities. The relationship between police and SI was characterized by an interesting double tension, or ambivalence. On the one hand, the laws concerning assembly and association authorized the police to monitor SI meetings and supervise social protests in which the SI was involved. At the same time, not only was SI engaged in watching and evaluating the police efforts to control thievery and illegal gambling in the kampong (as the Surabayan SI newspaper, Oetoesan Hindia, clearly shows), in fact, the SI was also acting in competition with the police by providing alternative forms of security to the indigenous population. The first big public meeting of the SI, which took place in the city gardens of Surabaya on January 26, 1913, proved to be another test case for the newly modernized police of Surabaya. This meeting attracted around ten thousand enthusiastic followers, who came from inside and outside the city, a crowd so large that several thousand people had to gather outside the park. A day before this meeting, the arrival of the popular hadji, Samahoedin, recognized as the founder of the SI, filled Kotta station with five thousand onlookers, all shouting with joy. The train bringing Samahoedin to Surabaya was hardly able to enter the station, and Samahoedin was carried over the heads of the crowd to the car that would transport him to the party office.70 These two indigenous mass gatherings (and their liveliness) were unprecedented at the time and were perceived as extraordinary both by the colonial authorities and the European public in general. The police were prominently present at both occasions. At the massive reception at Kotta stationa spontaneous gatheringthe European chief superintendent and his superintendents (also European), accompanied by a team of Javanese constables, made certain that order was maintained. The next day, SI partyleader Tjokroaminoto exhorted his brothers not to fear the police or listen to slander (apparently spread by the police in Malang) implying that the SI had come to Surabaya just to collect money from its members. In reaction to this statement, the patih, representing the regent of Surabaya, had the final word. He in principle agreed with the
Campion, Watchmen of the Raj, pp. 12; Chandavarkar, Police and Public Order in Bombay, 1880 1947. 70 Soerabajasch Handelsblad, January 27, 1913; A. P. E. Korver, Sarekat Islam 19121916: Opkomst, Bloei en Structuur van Indonesi's Eerste Massabeweging (Amsterdam: Historisch Seminarium, Universiteit van Amsterdam, 1982) pp. 2324.
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aims of the SI, but at the same time defended the police, insisting that they were not trying to undermine the party.71 These two interpretations of the police attitude towards the SI tell us something about the ambivalent position of the police, stretched between their tasks of enforcing political order (which often requires force) and ensuring public safety (which requires some public cooperation and trust). SI leaders consciously watched and anticipated police responses to their meetings. Sometimes they also managed to have a say in police proceedings. The police response to a large SI demonstration that took place in Surabaya three years later, on June 25, 1916, showed just how carefully the police prepared for such events; that care in turn reveals the extent to which these mass demonstrations concerned local authorities. A few days before this huge SI gathering was scheduled, local authorities (the assistentwedono of Kranang) admonished the Surabayan SI leadership to warn SI members that, following the orders of the assistent-resident of Surabaya, who anticipated disruptions, participants would be forbidden from bringing their tjapil tjekoetoek (bamboo hat, lontar cap) to the meeting. However, the president of the Surabayan SI, Soehardjo, convinced the assistent-resident that there was no need to fear any trouble, that members only brought the hats to meetings because they came directly from work, and that he would instruct people in attendance to stay calm (as he did in Oetoesan Hindia). The assistentresident subsequently gave in and lifted the ban on the hats. Significantly, at the meeting itself Soehardjo changed his tune, expressing his wish that the tjapil tjekoetoek should become a symbol of the unity of the SI, thus consciously making it a weapon of the weak.72 On the day of this SI meeting, the police were organized by 6:00 AM, when the European superintendents and a group of Javanese constables gathered at police headquarters, all sufficiently armed. In addition, members of the pangreh praja had warned the heads of the Surabaya kampongs to stay alert and make sure that no gatherings took place. In some places, leaders forbade the wearing of lontar caps, apparently to no avail.73 On behalf of the city police, ten groups of constables were dispatched to eight different bridges in townthe bridges Bibis, Diagalan, GoebengPegirian, Peneleh, Simpang, Sonokembang, Willemskade, and Wonokromowhere they set up patrols and posts, assigned to break up indigenous crowds, letting people pass only one by one. Meanwhile, the houses of the resident and those of two influential Chinese (Tjoan King, in Nagel, and Han Tjan Goan, in kampong Doro) were guarded. The indigenous police personnel who had come home from the nightshift were sent back to their posts; these overtime duties earned them a reimbursement of twenty-five cents. The chief superintendent and his staff inspected the different posts by car to ensure the security forces were ready.74 Around 4,500 SI members, mostly from Surabaya, attended this general meeting, which was again held in the city gardens. Not all of them could have heard the speech of Semaoen, representative from the national SI congress in Bandung, on the pergerakan of the indigenous population within the whole of the Netherlands Indies, and all over
71 72

Soerabajasch Handelsblad, January 27, 1913. Oetoesan Hindia, June 24 and 27, 1916. 73 Oetoesan Hindia, June 27, 1916. 74 Weekblad voor Indi, February 7, 1916.

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Asia, and on the rights of this group to have a peoples council. Neither could they all have heard Soehardjos warning that participants should avoid confronting the police during the demonstration that would follow. After the close of this meeting, the SI membersall wearing their conspicuous lontar caps, marked with the initials SI marched in a long row around the city gardens, singing and shouting with joy and being cheered enthusiastically by onlookers. The SI meeting ended at 10:30 AM. Again, there were no disruptive incidents, as the Weekblad voor Indi reported boastfully, showing a picture of The Police Measures. This picture featured a few constables and European superintendents proudly posing at the port of the Pasar Malam, where the demonstration had passed by.75 But however proud the European constables appeared in the photograph, it was not only on their account that this mass demonstration had gone smoothly, but also on the account of the SI-leaders cooperation and their authority over their followers. It remains a matter of discussion who was really in charge here. A selective reading of Oetoesan Hindia articles shows that the SI evaluated the police according to the norms defining a modern, civilized police force, an institution responsible for ensuring public safety not only by combating crime, but also through civilizing measures, preventative efforts to make unlawful citizens behave. And the judgment of Oetoesan Hindia regarding the polices accomplishments was not very positive. Although this newspaper registered the successes of the new city police forces in Surabaya and elsewherewith regard to combating illegal activities such as gambling, prostitution, and public (European) drunkennessthe predominant tone was suspicious or distrustful toward the police.76 Oetoesan Hindia noted the lack of (effective) policing in the indigenous kampong, police failures in combating gambling and thievery, police discrimination and corruption, and, worse, police dependency on private and powerful leadership in town.77 Oetoesan Hindia even concluded that security in Surabaya owed more to wealthy individualsin this case, a Chinese factory ownerhiring police than to the police force provided by the government.78 Given this perspective, it comes as no surprise that the SI offered its own, alternative forms of security at certain public events involving its members. More than once, SI took on the role of enforcing security, in some cases supporting local protest movements. In one such case in 1914, the residents of a private estate called Simo, in Surabaya, refused to pay half their rice harvest to the landowner as required. The SI not only took charge of defending the rights of the inhabitants and laborers on this estate, but they also installed gardu, guard posts, to guarantee their safety. According to Het Vrije Woord, the monthly newspaper of the radical Indies Social Democratic Society (ISDV, Indische Sociaal-Democratische Vereeniging), this
Weekblad voor Indi, July 2, 1916. On police successes in arresting thieves, see Oetoesan Hindia, January 8, 1914, January 15, 1914, January 28, 1914; on putting an end to gambling, see Oetoesan Hindia, February 28, 1914; on solving a murder case, see Oetoesan Hindia, November 14, 1918; and on combating prostitution, see Oetesan Hindia, October 3, 1919. Also, Oetoesan Hindia reported the arrest of a rampok gang by the police in Bandung, January 12, 1914. For a story on drunken Europeans, see Oetoesan Hindia, January 6, 1914. 77 On the police failure to end the practice of gambling, see Oetoesan Hindia, January 7, 1914; on the lack of police or weak (kendor) police in the kampong, see Oetoesan Hindia, January 7, 1914, January 15, 1914; and on corrupt police, see Oetoesan Hindia, January 6, 1914, January 15, 1914, November 16, 1918. 78 Peri Hal Liem Tjien Kiet, Oetoesan Hindia, January 6, 1914.
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action by SI worked to the disadvantage of the indigenous population, since it was illegal.79 This case illustrates wonderfully the competition between SI and the police in taking care of public safety. There are many other examples of the SI initiating its own security operations. 80 One problematic case involved both the police from Surabaya and the SI. The events took place on the main road from Surabaya to Grissee, just a few kilometers outside the city, near desa Tambakredjo. On May 5, 1913, a group of inhabitants of Tambakredjo, all armed with knives and hoes, attacked a European named Lammers Lisnet, director of the Kawi Caera Cultuurmaatschappij (Kawi Caera Plantation Company), and his Javanese driver. The villagers were outraged because the Europeans car had hit one of their boys as he was crossing the road. Lammers Lisnet had offered to bring the boy to the hospital in Surabaya, but his offer failed to placate the crowd. He and his driver were forcefully separated, and the driver was beaten until he bled. Then the crowd turned and went after the Londo (vernacular Javanese abbreviation for Hollander, also used as a nickname), who in the meantime had found a pacol (hoe) to use for selfdefense, and who screamed that he would kill those who planned to kill him. A chief constable and two constables of Surabayas city police, armed with klewang (swords), assisted by a member of the desa police, ran to the aid of Lammers Lisnet, but this company was too small to control the angry villagers. They faced a signature dilemma: how could they resolve this conflict in a professional, decent way and prevent a bloodbath without losing authority? For a moment they seemed to have reached an impasse. The chief constable suggested getting the assistent-wedono to lead an investigation into the accident, adding that if the toewan81 would be found guilty, he would be put in jail; in addition, at the request of the desa residents, he commanded Lammers Lisnet to get rid of his weapon. The villagers were not satisfied, however. They maintained that they did not care for the police or the assistent-wedono, but that the president of the SI would decide for them who was right and who was wrong. Then a Chinese passing by in his car, coming from Tuban, stopped and changed the balance of power with his Browning revolver. The ominous atmosphere finally dissipated with the arrival of the assistent-wedono, and, coming from Surabaya, superintendent J. A. van Haarlem, who arrived with four constables. The boy was brought to the hospital. The police investigation led to the arrest of 114 inhabitants of Tambakredjo, with eight of them found guilty of inciting the crowds aggressions. After two days of interrogations, 105 of the detainees were released. They were all said to be members of SI, including the head of the desa, who
Het Vrije Woord, March 25, 1917. One famous case at the time concerned the riots in Tangeran, where the police were assisted by a large group of SI members in an operation against Chinese gamblers. See Soerabajasch Handelsblad, May 26, 1913, May 28, 1913, June 12, 1913. A secret report in NA, MvK, V August 9, 1913, p. B13 mentions seven disruptive incidents that took place in Surabaya and the hinterlands in the period MarchMay 1913 (including the case involving Lammers Lisnet). See also Neratja, December 30, 1918 (in IPO 1, 1919) or the complaints published in the Javabode, October 1, 1913, about Sarekat Islam taking responsibility for security instead of the police, as quoted in Het Politiewezen in de Binnenlanden van Java, Indische Gids 36, I (1914): 6970. 81 Gentleman, term of address used by Indonesians addressing Dutchmen, reflecting the racial colonial hierarchy.
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had clearly failed in his duty to provide local desa police for security and maintain law and order in the desa.82 The case of Lammers Lisnet illustrates how the inhabitants of Tambakredjo, possibly empowered by their membership in SI, felt strong enough to take the law into their own hands. From their perspective, the SI was more reliable than the traditional leadership (the assistent-wedono) in protecting their security, and they seem to have regarded the police as adversaries rather than allies. In reporting on this incident, the Soerabajasch Handelsblad bluntly took sides with the European, Lammers Lisnet. The more progressive and liberal newspaper from Semarang, De Locomotief, however, showed some sympathy for the village men. This daily remarked on the carelessness of automobile drivers who crossed the city and kampong at outrageous speeds, without any consideration for the people moving at a slower pace around them.83 All in all, it was the Chinese man with the Browning revolver who finally brought back law and order. The police in this situation proved to be a weak force. 3. The Traffic Constable: Symbol and Victim of Power In fact, automobile traffic and automobile accidents attracted the attention of many newspapers in the region at this time, both European and indigenous.84 Traffic control was another responsibility of a modern police force, and the traffic constable and his importance as a symbol are worth considering in this context. In response to the quickly changing outlook and organization of the city, the police in Surabaya not only had to adjust to their own reorganization, but also to novel safety and security problems. This was most apparent in their efforts to control traffic. The growing traffic in the streets of Surabaya and the continuous developments in road building, asphalt-paving of roads, and the construction of the electric tram network all necessitated the rapid expansion of the polices traffic department (afdeeling Voerwezen), which fell under the authority of the main department of general control. During this period, the Javanese traffic constable made his first appearance, standing on the socalled hatbox (hoedendoos) in the middle of a busy intersection, attempting to direct the chaos around hima showpiece of the modern colonial police force.85 The traffic
Soerabajasch Handelsblad, May 5, 1913, May 6, 1913, May 7, 1913. Unfortunately, local indigenous and Chinese newspapers either did not mention this case, or these newspapers were not available for this period. 83 De Locomotief, May 7, 1913. 84 For example: Anak mendjalankan auto, Oetoesan Hindia, February 5, 1914 (on a thirteen-year-old girl driving a car and honking the horn loudly with an official driver beside her. The newspaper commented: You see this almost everyday); Bahaja auto, Oetoesan Hindia, February 25, 1914 (Dangerous car hits European, the politieoppas remains passive); Auto jang Boba, Oetoesan Hindia, June 24, 1916 (on Yogyakarta, the assistent-resident admonishes drivers not to drive too wildly); Pengemoekan auto, Neratja, December 31, 1918, a piece on so-called car-killings; Kelindas auto, Oetoesan Hindia, December 22, 1919 (twelve-year-old child hit by a car); Pengemoekan auto IV, Neratja, January 20, 1919 (admonishing the police to require drivers to pass an exam before they get their license). 85 Sometimes to no avail. See the short film Het Straatverkeer op Pasar Besar, 15 Juli 1929, ed. Eerste Soerabaiasch Kinematografisch Atelier (Soerabaja: 1929), which is one of the short colonial movies on the compilation DVD Van de kolonie Niets dan Goed. Nederlands-Indi in Beeld 19121942, ed. Mark-Paul Meyer (Amsterdam, Filmmuseum, 2001). Hoorweg complained about the traffic polices apparent lack of training in a secret memorandum on the state of the city police in Surabaya, Batavia, and Semarang, Het rapportVan Helsdingen inzake de werking van de organisatie der politie op de grote hoofdplaatsen van
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constable embodied societys new awareness of the speed that characterized this period and evoked so many insecurities, both for the public (Surabayas inhabitants and the press, as well as the new social movements) and the police. Traffic, communication, moneymaking, the spread of ideas, and decision-making all seemed to be moving at a new, higher rate of speed. The traffic constable also symbolized the civilizing role of the police, its new visibility, and its apparent neutrality. In short, he was the symbol of the Netherlands-Indies modern police. In this symbolic role, it was the traffic constable, of all the constables on duty, who was the most visible, seen and often encountered by all the different population groups in Surabaya. He was the easiest to complain to or aboutand the easiest to find. The traffic constable can therefore act as a yardstick in our analysis of the new police at work in rapidly changing Surabaya and of the relation between the police and the public, and between the police and Surabayas competing tools of state security. We should bear in mind that it was not only the police who had to adjust to their new tasks and altered surroundings, but also the public, Surabayas inhabitants, who had to get used to the appearance and responsibilities of the new police. How and to what extent did this influence daily policing? Traffic regulations were not centralized, and, at the time, were in the process of formulation. Whether or not to enforce a speed limit was still a matter of discussion in Surabayas city council. While the council debated, the police had to deal with speeding vehicles that were new to everyoneboth drivers and pedestrians. Thus, as we have seen, car accidents were featured in the daily newspapers and were counted in the citys yearly reports. In early 1912, legal cases against three European drivers, who had each hit and killed a Javanese pedestrian, involved testimony from experts on speed, testimony concerning the possible speed of the car, and even discussions of the meaning and function of the accelerator.86 Automobile speed was a rather vague, relative construct in a time when there was no speed limit. And it remained so; despite the continuing problems and accidents taking place on Surabayas streets, the city council ultimately decided against imposing a speed limit, citing the citys burgeoning northsouth commuter traffic as the reason for their decision. With a speed limit, industrious Surabaya could not have coped with its traffic pressure, a former European citizen of Surabaya recalled approvingly.87
Java, March 1, 1924, 5 AP/insp, in NA, MvK, V March 9, 1925, p. 3. Yet note how Furnivall praises the traffic police, identifying them as evidence of the modernity of the Netherlands Indies police: J. S. Furnivall, Netherlands India: A Study of Plural Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1939), p. 299. 86 One of those car accidentsthe case against Wijnschenkcaused great indignation in Surabaya after the police report was published in the local press. Apparently the car, which struck a Javanese water bearer near the Red Bridge (in the north), dragged the victim on its fender for a couple of meters until the man fell off and was run over and killed. After this, the driver, the European businessman Wijnschenk, continued on his way, leaving the dead body where it fell. In court, discussion about the speed of the car went on at length, as did discussion on whether the victim should have been able to see and avoid the oncoming automobile. On the case of Wijnschenk, see Soerabajasch Handelsblad , April 2, 1912, April 3, 1912, April 11, 1912. The other two accidents I am referring to were known as the Etty case (Javabode, January 30, 1912) and The new car accident in Surabaya (Javabode, January 29, 1912). 87 Faber, Nieuw Soerabaja, p. 113

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Soon after traffic regulations were imposed at the Pasar Besar railway crossing, the Soerabajasch Handelsblad published reactions of car-owning readers, who experienced these measures as annoying traffic obstruction. This morning, when a train passed at a quarter to nine, cars had to line up in a long row because of the impractical police response, which split up the route for car traffic in two parts. [] One has to ask if this is tolerable. Time is money, in Surabaya as well as other places. It wont do to obstruct the traffic on the main road of Surabaya like that! 88 This account, rife with irritation, illustrates how the impatient time-is-money mentality of the reporter and his enterprising compatriots might color their view of Surabayas indigenous city police. Because of his visibility, the traffic constable was an easy targetfor public criticism or for worse. Public complaints about the traffic police show that these officers often resorted to violence as a means of persuasion. At the same time, these complaints illuminate the complex task of the Javanese traffic constable working in the context of the racial bias that dominated colonial society. For what could he do with those Europeans unwilling to take orders from a Javanese constable? If the constable assumed that Europeans would ignore his commands and so made no effort to control or penalize the wrongdoers, his inequitable enforcement of the law was liable to attract the attention of the indigenous press.89 If he did try to enforce the lawwith force when necessarythe European offender could bring charges against him, and in such cases, the European was often successful. For example, in February 1913, citizen H., a European, submitted a complaint against the police, alleging mistreatment. H. had been watching workers clear away a tram that had derailed a few days before at Pasar Besar. A traffic constable, a Javanese, ordered him to move away in a rude manner, according to H. Offended by his tone, H. refused. They got into a heated argument, rough words were exchanged, and finally the constable used his baton. As proof that he had been attacked, H. showed the bloody scores on his upper body.90 H. did not discuss the merit of the constables instructions, only his aggression. Could it be the case that he, a European, felt it humiliating to be commanded by a Javanese? If so, he was ignoring, or refusing to recognize, whether consciously or unconsciously, with racist motives or not, the status and authority of the traffic constable. Lost in Arms Let us now turn to the relation between the policein this case, the traffic police and a very specific sector in town: the soldiers and marines housed in barracks in
Soerabajasch Handelsblad, January 30, 1913. Compare Soerabajasch Handelsblad , April 2, 1912, The traffic at Pasar Besar. 89 For example, see Oetoesan Hindia, January 6, 1914, which describes how streep kuning are often afraid to deal with drunken Europeans in dokars and cars; Oetoesan Hindia, March 11, 1918, on an assistent-wedono, accompanied by an oppasser, who complained that a European who had been speeding and hit his car had failed to apologize or pay for damages. The European involved in the case was angry because the assistentwedono only kept silent (diam sahadja). 90 Soerabajasch Handelsblad, February 12, 1913; compare the case of Nix against politieoppasser Soerokerto and Soemoredjo (who hit Nix with their klewang ) in Pewarta Soerabaja, February 2, 1914.
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Surabaya. What kind of complications arose when the police had to address their competitors in the use of state arms? In October 1919, fights took place between the military and the police, in which the traffic police played an unhappy role precisely because its representatives were so easy to find. The trouble began on Saturday night, October 13, 1919, when fights broke out between about twenty non-European soldiers leaving a big public party, held in the house of an ethnic Chinese resident, and the traffic police at Boengoenan, including one European chief constable and four Javanese constables. It is likely that the traffic constables were responsible not only for regulating traffic but also for monitoring this public party (or pasar malam, night party).91 Although the precise cause of the fights seems unclearthe official police and military reports told conflicting stories92it seems that both sides provoked each other. This clash exemplifies a partly ethnic, partly competitive conflict between the police and another state-sponsored security force: soldiers garrisoned in a town, who by profession are charged with defending public safety, but who tend to be undisciplined when off-duty. The fact that almost allor at least a large partof these non-European soldiers were Ambonese, according to the reports, might have cast oil on the fire since the Ambonese held a high status in the militaryabove that of most Javanese soldiersand the policemen attempting to control them were Javanese. Two days later, on the evening of October 15 at around 6:00 PM, traffic constable Parto, who was posted at the intersection of Gatottan and Tempelstraat (in downtown Surabaya, close to the military barracks at Comedieplein), was attacked by a group of forty non-European soldiers from the Thirteenth Battalion who wanted to take revenge for the earlier clash. Two of them were armed with klewang, and thirty-eight of them carried bajonets . Helpless against this armed crowd, Parto was clubbed to death with his own baton and a klewang. After the assault at Gatottan was reported (at 6:40 PM) at the nearby police sectionpost at Griseesche weg, the policemen available thereone chief inspector and four police inspectors (all Europeans)bicycled to the aid of Parto. When they arrived at Tempelstraat, some soldiers who were just coming from the barracks misdirected them to Paradestraat, where they were pelted with stones by another group of soldiers. These policemen had been lured into an ambush. Chief Inspector S. fired warning shots into the air, and Inspector K. shot three times, in an attempt to stop the attack, reportedly to no avail. Then they opened fire against the soldiers, who were trying to retreat in the direction of another police post at Willemskade. Meanwhile, the group of soldiers had grown from 40 to about 150 men, all armed with bajonets . They followed the five policemen who were now joined by the section head of the police and another police inspector. The soldiers were marching in tirailleur-line, bajonets ready, one of them barking commands to attack. The two forces soon engaged each other, and another fight took place in Societeitsstraat. In this skirmish, one police inspector received a cut in the ribs from a soldiers bajonet; the section head lost his revolver. When police enforcement from the northern part of town arrived, the soldiers
91

Both Soerabajasch Handelsblad, October 15, 1919, NA, Mr. 725x/1919 and Soerabajasch Handelsblad, October 13, 1919, mention a party. 92 Soerabajasch Handelsblad, October 13, 1919.

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retreated. The police who had responded to this incident were now concentrated in the area around Societeitsstraat, Gattotan, and Bibis. Civilians passing by in automobiles offered car rides, one for the transport of the two wounded policemen and one for the superintendent from the Oedjoeng section.93 Violent conflicts between soldiers and marines, on the one hand, and police, on the other, occurred in a number of garrison towns, including Semarang and Batavia, in those years.94 It must have frightened spectators in this case to see armed soldiers and police scouring the center of Surabaya, hunting for each other. The Soerabajasch Handelsblad reporter touched on this sore spot: Soldiers, whose assistance the police must count on in circumstances beyond their control in order to save us, civilians, these same soldiers turned against the police. 95 Pewarta Soerabaia found it disturbing that such a small incidenta quarrel at a Chinese partycould lead to such a violent confrontation.96 In the end, constable Parto had the bad luck to be a traffic constable, a conspicuous and vulnerable figure, easy for soldiers who resented the police to pick out and attack. Of course, Parto was also a visible representative of the state, a position that earned him a lavish posthumous farewell. Resolved to demonstrate the importance of their new city police force, authorities in Surabaya honored Parto with a stately funeral. His coffin was followed by a procession that firmly underlined the colonial hierarchy: behind the police inspectors, head constables, and Dutch East Indian constables was a long line of carriages carrying the acting/temporary resident, the controleur, the adjunct-captain (as a representative of the colonel-commander of the army division), the chief superintendent of police, the superintendents and heads of the police departments and sections, the chief inspectors, and the patih of Surabaya. Behind the carriages marched a crowd of indigenous police constables. Present at the graveyard in Tembok were the commander of the Thirteenth Battalion, his adjutant, and a deputation of lower-ranking military men. All parties publicly expressed their regrets about what had happened. It was, all in all, an important funeral, as Pewarta Soerabaia concluded.97 That night, following the ceremony, the resident and military commanders crossed the town by car to check on conditions in the streets, but no further clashes between police and soldiers occurred. All was quiet again in Surabaya.98

Soerabajasch Handelsblad, October 15, 1919; NA, Mr. 725/1919. On Semarang, see Javabode, April 18, 1912. On Batavia, see Soerabajasch Handelsblad, October 15, 1919. In May 1916 a group of marines and policemen fought each other after the police attempted to suppress a marine demonstration near the marine hospital in Surabaya. This incident caused great indignation; people decried the brutal behavior of the police. Both bystanders and others who had heard about the incident sent complaints to the newspapers. See Soerabajasch Handelsblad , May 7, 1916, May 8, 1916, and May 9, 1916. 95 Soerabajasch Handelsblad, October 15, 1919. 96 Pewarta Soerabaia, October 15, 1919. On October 22, 1919, Oetoesan Hindia also expressed its concerns in Lagi satoe (another one). 97 Pengoeboeroean penting, Pewarta Soerabaia, October 17, 1919. 98 Soerabajasch Handelsblad, October 16, 1919.
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Conclusion A dreadful image of the Surabaya police appears from the cases described in this article. The police in the case of the so-called Chinese riots were powerless and laughable; the police watching the Sarekat Islam demonstration powerless and pathetic, the police regulating the traffic and facing soldiers powerless and tragic. Before we draw any general conclusions out of these dramas, we should note, however, that this dreadful image might be distorted to some extent, since archives and newspapers are more likely to leave us pictures of the rough, the powerlessness, the laughable, the pathetic, and the dramatic. When everything goes well there is no news. In part because of such fiascos, which highlight the challenges and dilemmas faced by the police, the Surabayan city police figured as an important test case for the colonial authorities who wished to institute modern policing in a would-be civilized state: a state that felt the need to reinforce internal defense, in response to indigenous nationalist movements, but aspired at the same time to earn the consent of its subjects by preventing violence as successfully as possible. Motivated by fear and concern, the state was serious in its intentions to provide an effective, professional, and civilized police force by implementing rules and regulations considered modern, introducing professional leadership, and offering incentives to the subordinate ranks by raising salaries, improving working conditions, and increasing opportunities for promotion. The modern police were the face of the ethical colonial state, and reformers hoped that face would be modern. However, in practice, modern policing in Surabaya still required that the recruits take care of the dirty work of empire, activities that soiled their own image and marked them as tools of a violent state. In the multi-ethnic, densely populated, and busy city of Surabayawhich was itself located in a colonial society grounded on racial discriminationit was hard to convince the public that the newly reformed police force was accomplishing good works. This was partly because this force was not always as civilized in practice as it was supposed to be; its rough behavior provoked the indignation of the European, Chinese, and indigenous press and embarrassed the colonial authorities. The general public distrust of the police may also be explained by the fact that this city police force, constituted largely of European leaders and Javanese subordinates, was not representative of Surabayas ethnically mixed population and tended to discriminate against particular indigenous ethnic groups. For this reason, many ethnic residents of the city, and the journalists who catered to them, observed the police with suspicion. Lack of control was the main reason why this experiment in modern, civilized policing failed. Weak control over the police resulted in lax discipline, which in turn weakened the authority of individual policemen, a situation that can spark frustration and rough behavior, as demonstrated by the police officer who fumigated suspects to force confessions. Furthermore, understandable general public distrust made it hard for the police to accomplish their task of ensuring public safety, a task that demands cooperation from the public. In their attempts to control disorder (or what they perceived as disorder), the police provoked public hostility, which in turn tended to incite a violent police response. Moreover, weak points within the police organization itself help explain why ideals on paper were not successfully translated into more civilized police conduct on the streets. Partly for economic reasons, measures

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intended to professionalize the police force were not systematically extended to the lower ranks. Low-ranking recruits were, like their predecessors in the Bailiff-era, barely trained, poorly paid, and loosely supervised. Thus, old methods of policing were perpetuated despite, and alongside, the campaign to institute a modern police force. Whats more, since the force was organized with a minority of Europeans, originating from inside and outside the Netherlands Indies, occupying the higher ranks, and a majority of Javanese officers in the subordinate ranks, it was impossible to create unity or an esprit de corps, however much chief superintendent Boon might have wished for it. If we consider the distance between the actual aims of the city police reformers and the practice of modern policing in Surabaya, we must conclude (following Campion and Chandavarkar) that it was the lack of adequate control over the police, more than the consciously brutal use of the police by the colonial state, that allowed violence to flourish throughout the state and thereby alienated its subjects. The question remains whether a stronger colonial state would have allowed for a lesser degree of violence.

Kwee Hui Kian. The Political Economy of Javas Northeast Coast, c. 1740 1800: Elite Synergy. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers/TANAP, 2006. 318 pages. Robert Van Niel. Javas Northeast Coast 17401840: A Study in Colonial Encroachment and Dominance. Leiden: CNWS Publications, 2005. 424 pages plus appendix (CD-ROM). Mary Somers Heidhues
In October 1740 Chinese rebels nesting in the outlying regions of Batavia attacked the citys outposts, then the city itself. The defenders were able to drive them back, while the Europeanand some of the nativepopulation took a terrible revenge, murdering and plundering the Chinese living within the town, even though only circumstantial evidence linked them with the rebels, if at all. Pursued into the countryside, the surviving rebels turned eastward, gathering adherents from among the Chinese residing in central and eastern Java and attracting Javanese supporters who had reasons of their own for challenging the influence of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in those areas, where it was a power factor but not a territorial administration. Fighting threatened the fragile kingdom of Mataram in Kartasura, where Susuhunan Pakubuwana II misjudged his options, almost fatally. Instead of managing to shake off Dutch influence with the help of the rebels, he found himself dependent on the same Dutch when it became necessary to flee from his capital and salvage something of his rule, challenged by a coalition of rivals from his own family. By 1743, he had to cede to the VOC important territories on the Northeast Coast of Java, often called the Pasisir, once-independent principalities incorporated into Mataram only in the previous century by his predecessor Sultan Agung. In the following decade the division of Mataram with his Javanese rivals added to his humiliation. Acquisition of the Northeast Coast of Java, centered on already existing VOC stations like Semarang, Jepara, and Surabaya, transformed the Company into a territorial colonial power, not just a trading enterprise with a few bases at strategic sites. How to turn this area, at first still devastated by violence, into a profitable endeavor, both for the Company and for its employees, became a major challenge. These two studies, one by a mature scholar, known among other things for his work on the Cultivation System (18301870), the other by a recent graduate, address this question in different but complementary ways. They enlarge our knowledge of eighteenth-century Java, adding significantly to the insights of authors like Ricklefs, Nagtegaal, Remmelink,1 and others.
M. C. Ricklefs, Jogjakarta under Sultan Mangkubumi 17491792: A History of the Division of Java (London: Oxford University Press, 1974); M. C. Ricklefs, War, Culture and Economy in Java 16771726: Asian and European Imperialism in the Early Kartasura Period (Sydney: Allen and Unwin for ASAA, 1993); Luc Nagtegaal, Riding the Dutch Tiger: The Dutch East Indies Company and the Northeast Coast of Java 16801743 (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1996); Willem Remmelink, The Chinese War and the Collapse of the Javanese State, 17251743 (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1994). Neither author refers to Ricklefss more recent work, The Seen
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Kwee Hui Kians study is the third volume published in the TANAP (Towards a New Age of Partnership) program, which brought some thirty young scholars from twelve universities in Asia and South Africa to do research in the Netherlands VOC archives, most of them at the PhD level. Kwees political economy approach follows a game-synergy metaphor to analyze the actions and interactions that resulted from the new situation after the 1740s. Such interactions between local elements and the Company took place according to this analysis in three fields: so-called contingents and other obligatory deliveries of strategic products, tax farming, and, perhaps at first surprising, the coining of money. Contingents were purchases of raw materials (but not at market prices) that the Company needed to support its activities in Batavia and the Spice Islands or for export. Most important were rice and, for constructing and repairing of ships and other building needs, timber. Other desired items included peppers of various kinds, sugar, cotton yarn, indigo, and occasionally other agricultural products. European officials, who were not paid salaries, were permitted to make allowances for weight loss, spoilage, and so on from the products they collected. This siphoning of the cream from deliveries was a recognized procedure until toward the end of the century, when observers began to denounce it as corruption. Tax or revenue farming, on the other hand, was an established system when the VOC acquired the Pasisir. Especially important were the syahbandarships, the right to collectfor a feeimport and export duties in the harbors. Rulers and regional headmen had already practiced it, and it soon added to VOC income. Again, VOC officials took their cut. Finally, manipulating imported and locally minted coinage in silver, copper, tin, and lead; fixing of exchange rates; and determining the coinage for tax payments gave the Company an additional, considerable source of income. Given her elite emphasis, Kwee notes this manipulation of money without speculating how it might have affected the peasants, who had to pay in revalued coinage, while producers and urban traders had to accept payments in devalued monies. To realize Company (and personal) profits from these three fields, the European residents, men on the spot, above all the governor of the region stationed in Semarang, depended on the cooperation or complicity of three big players. First was the Mataram trinity, consisting of the Susuhunan, now in Surakarta, the Sultan of Yogyakarta (after the division of the kingdom in 1755), and Mangkunegara, who had succeeded in splitting off a chunk of Surakarta territory in 1757. A second, composite player was the group of Northeast Coast regents or bupatis, formerly vassals of Mataram, now subject to the Company. The third group were Chinese towkays , perhaps surprisingly in view of the anti-Chinese reaction after 1740, but they soon proved as indispensible to Company rule as were the other two. As far as the three successors to Mataram were concerned, the VOC sought not only to avoid antagonizing them, for they might resort to violence, but also to prevent them from joining forces against Dutch interests, which included crop deliveries and keeping the peace. After 1780 the rulers also became allies against the British in the AngloDutch rivalry for power in the region.
and Unseen Worlds in Java, 17261749: History, Literature and Islam in the Court of Pakubuwana II (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press and Sydney: Allen and Unwin for ASAA, 1998), perhaps because of its emphasis on the inland kingdom.

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Like the rulers, the regents of the Pasisir were responsible for delivering crops and, in some cases, managing tax farmsnow they paid this homage and tribute to the Dutch. Kwee believes they were more enterprising than their reputation conveys, down to engaging in something Sultan Agung, Matarams founder, once forbade them: maritime trade. On the other hand, they displayed considerable diversity in talent, prosperity, and willingness to cooperate, something Kwees treatment tends to minimize. Marriage links enabled some to build up considerable alliances, but the Dutch officials were continually wary of permitting them too much leeway. Some regents like the Cakraningrats of Madura (Kwee curiously persists in describing the regents by place and name, as Madura Cakraningrat) probably upstaged even Mangkunegara in power and influence, especially given the importance of fighting men from Madura to the Company. Finally, the Chinesein this case only the large traders called towkays concentrated their efforts in tax farming, including the harbor duties. The Chinese community was, even in the eighteenth century, quite diverse, including, apart from rebels and towkays, laborers and petty traders, and also the important group called Peranakan, which in the eighteenth century meant long-settled Chinese who had converted to Islam, about whom Kwee says little. Three phases of policy crystallize. The first spanned 17431757, when violence continued in central Java and when the governor and residents were casting about for a successful way of managing the territory. The period after the division of Mataram and up to the late 1770s allowed a strong emphasis on profits from shipments to Batavia (especially rice and timber) and expansion of trade in other export goods. The end of the century, especially after the Fourth AngloDutch War beginning in 1784, saw the loss of many of the Companys possessions overseas, in particular in India, the capture of the tea trade with China by the British, and the loss of much Dutch shipping. The Dutch responded to this loss by emphasizing Java, and especially the Pasisir, as a place to grow cash crops for export to new destinations like northern Europe or North America, where demand for products like coffee was growing. These last decades were the twilight of the Company, which was finally taken over by the Dutch state at the end of the century, but the fixation on Java as the center of the Netherlands colonial endeavor now grew. By breaking off at the end of the eighteenth century, Kwee leaves the outcome of the discussion of how best to exploit Java, and especially the Pasisir, up in the air. She speculates nonetheless that the three big players watched their economic rewards grow, while they lost more and more political power. The first half of Robert Van Niels weighty book covers roughly the same period as does Kwees book; he then takes the story well into the nineteenth century. He has combed the archives in The Hague and elsewhere to present a picture of the economy and, where possible, society of the Northeast Coast up to 1840. Casting his net widely, he shifts his focus between Europe and Asia, following decisions made in the Netherlands, Batavia, or on the Northeast Coast and examining their repercussions for the Javanese. The eighteenth century comes to an end with the rivalry with Great Britain, the decline and abolition of the VOC, and the reforming ideas of men like Dirk van Hogendorp and Herman Willlem Daendels. Then Van Niel deals with the brief new wind brought by Sir Thomas Raffles under British occupation. Once the British

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departed, restoration brought a transition to the Cultivation System, but not a smooth one, for the distance between Java and the Netherlands led to repeated misunderstandings, and rivalries plagued decision-making in both locations. Whereas Kwee mentions calculations of profit and loss, Van Niel provides the reader with extensive data, charts, and archival references. If a resident could skim profits from contingents and other deliveries, this work offers an estimate of what such an official or, correspondingly, a native regent could expect to take in. If we learn from Kwee that certain products were important, Van Niel tells us how they were produced and processed for export. Nose to the documents, he builds his case in a way that will continue to be useful to other researchers. Also impressive are the thirty-seven appendices (on CD-rom), with tables of statistics (often ballpark estimates made by the officials but useful for trends) on population, crops, and earnings. In addition, these include translated documents relevant to policy discussions that have not appeared previously in printed collections. For example, Kwee refers to Dirk van Hogendorps oft-cited proposals to change relations with the peasants, who seldom benefited from the sale or requisitioning of their crops. Van Niel provides an English translation of his sketch on improving Javas administration. Complete without its appendices, this book takes readers through known territory while pointing to half-hidden signposts that promise new insights. Following the developments into the nineteenth century, Van Niel assesses the period under Raffles as an attempt to move from VOC merchantilism to a land-based system of revenue (with implications for both regents and peasants). The reestablishment of Dutch control after 1816 resulted in a period of experimentation and bureaucratic infighting. With the new King of the Netherlands eager to turn a profit from Java, and needing money, the choice finally fell on merchantilism and, with the beginning of the Cultivation System under Governor General van den Bosch, a return to many of the methods of the old VOC. Here, the emphasis seems to drift from the Pasisir, although Van Niel shows that this region, augmented by neighboring territories in the nineteenth century, was economically and demographically highly dynamic throughout the period studied. Chinese rebels touched off the developments followed here and, in both accounts, ethnic Chinese play an important role. Kwee concentrates on the towkays or commercial interests, giving slight mention to other groups. Thus she overlooks the role of Peranakan (that is, Muslim) Chinese as regents (except for one member of eastern Javas Han family), but Van Niel reminds us that prominent Peranakan families actually held the regencies of Pekalongan and Bangil, among others. How did these Peranakans link up to the towkays, if at all? In addition, impecunious regents often rented entire villages to Chinese, who either worked them on a long-term basis to plant export crops like sugar, or chose shorter leases for exploitation. Short-term arrangements often led to excessive pressures on the peasants and stoked unrest or flightvoting with their feet was the most common way for peasants to protest misrule, so long as Java remained short on labor and well-endowed with land. The long-term leases appeared to benefit the peasantry, giving them a guaranteed share of the produce they grew and paying them for their labor instead of demanding unrenumerated corve labor as the regents did. The author recognizes that the Javanese peasants might have been better off under such long-term leases offered by

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Chinese entrepreneurs, and he notes suggestions that they could be released from the rule of the regents and the system of crop requisitions. In the end, however, he is convinced that the alternative of having individual Javanese peasant landowners, who would pay individual taxes to the state and sell their crops on a free market, was unthinkableand unworkable. Preliminary attempts at such reform showed this would give Chinese, Arab, or native merchants and moneylenders a chance to gain more influence in the villages. If they were freed from the old system, peasants still needed capital, cash income, and creditall of them not available from any other sources. The debates on relations with the peasants or the powers of the native regents were not drawing-board disputes. As mentioned, Van Niel is interested in showing how the game that Kwee describes affected peasants lives. Kwee, for example, suggests that Burgers idea of feudalizationthat Dutch colonialism froze Javanese society in a hierarchical, feudal modeis a plausible theory (pp. 126, 226). Van Niel sees it somewhat differently. He states clearly that the introduction of the Cultivation System left Java with a divided economy, a copper economy of picis and duits for the Javanese, and a silver economy of Rijksdaalders and Guilders for the European and Chinese part of the society (p. 393). He is convinced that the Javanese peasant was already trapped in an hierarchical structure with strong dyadic relationships, fluid and flexible it adjusted to pressures and made do with what was available (p. 395). Attempts to organize economic and social relations with free labor and individual landholdings, with individual assessments of taxes and an open market for export products were doomed. Instead the Indies government reached down to the level of the village, not the individual, empowering the village headmen and at the same time reducing the regents to a more purely administrative (and symbolic?) role. Armed with the data in this book, scholars can test such assertions. One puzzle about these publications is that the authors appear to be oblivious to one anothers work. Given the ease of networking in the Nationaal Archiefs reading room in The Hague, this seems a little strange. No matter. The wise reader with an interest in Javas history will simply consult both.

Angus McIntyre. The Indonesian Presidency: The Shift from Personal Toward Constitutional Rule. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005. 303 pages. Janet Steele. Wars Within: The Story of Tempo, an Independent Magazine in Soehartos Indonesia. Jakarta and Singapore: Equinox Publishing and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2005. 328 pages. Dirk Tomsa
At first sight, the two books reviewed in this essay, Angus McIntyres The Indonesian Presidency and Janet Steeles Wars Within, do not seem to have much in common. While McIntyres work focuses on biographical details of three Indonesian presidents, Steeles book tells the story of Tempo, Indonesias most influential newsmagazine. Despite the very different topical foci, however, the two books do share a common denominator: they are both history books that attempt to fuse different analytical streams and weave them together into one coherent narrative. Significantly, though, only one of them succeeds in this endeavor. Angus McIntyres book The Indonesian Presidency chronicles the shift from personal toward constitutional rule in Indonesia from the Guided Democracy era to the present. Focusing on the presidencies of Sukarno, Suharto, and Megawati Sukarnoputri, the book represents an interesting yet ultimately somewhat disappointing attempt to mix an analysis of Indonesias constitutional history with elements of political and psychological biography. Although some passages provide excellent and insightful materialespecially in the first section about Sukarnothe overall impression is that this book is neither fish nor fowl. For readers with a primary interest in biographical details, the lack of comprehensiveness in the second part and the lack of analytical depth in the third part of the book will probably be unsatisfactory. Conversely, those who are mainly interested in the nitty-gritty of Indonesias constitutional history are likely to miss more extensive discussions about Suhartos instrumentalization of the Pancasila and the circumstances surrounding the process of constitutional amendments between 1999 and 2002. Apart from this, readers from any kind of background may wonder about the unbalanced structure of the book that features four chapters about Sukarno (66 pages), just two chapters about Suharto (32 pages), and then a total of nine chapters about Megawati (134 pages). Regrettably, the two other presidents who had served brief tenures between Suharto and Megawati, B. J. Habibie and Abdurrahman Wahid, are only mentioned in passing, even though they played immensely important roles in Indonesias shift toward constitutional rule. The book begins with a brief introductory overview of Indonesias constitutional history up until 1959 and then quickly moves on to a mostly insightful and wellresearched discussion of Sukarnos presidency during the Guided Democracy era. Arguably, this first section of the book is the best and most interesting part of the entire work. Here, McIntyres impressive skills as a psycho-biographer are most accentuated as he elaborately explores the fascinating personality of Indonesias founding father.
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By analyzing a multitude of Sukarnos speeches as well as some informative passages from the presidents autobiography as told to Cindy Adams, the author paints an intriguing picture of a man haunted by the feeling of desolation (kesepian) and the fear of aging and death. McIntyre traces the first occurrence of kesepian in Sukarnos life back to 1929, when he was arrested for the first time by the Dutch colonial authorities. The emotional hardship the young Sukarno experienced during his incarceration had a significant impact on his psyche as he came to suffer from loneliness and depression. Those feelings were further exacerbated when he was arrested for a second time in 1933 and subsequently sent to exile in Flores and later Sumatra, where he remained until the end of Dutch colonial rule in 1942. As McIntyre argues, the years of imprisonment and exile left Sukarno in an enduring state of kesepian (p. 43). In fact, Sukarno was so deeply scarred by his experience that once he was released from exile he found himself in a constant struggle to fend off this feeling of desolation. Ultimately, McIntyre asserts, the efforts to fight this feeling directly impacted upon Sukarnos leadership style during his presidency, especially after 1957, when he first began to entertain the idea of Guided Democracy. According to the author, kesepian and Sukarnos efforts to deal with it: gave rise to a politics of being central, which may be understood as the particular form his personal rule assumed, whereby he placed himself at the center of fervent attention among government members and a large circle of followers and admirers beyond, to all of whom he looked for affirmation (p. 32). McIntyre points out that the politics of being central, which found expression in aggressive political actions such as the West Irian campaign and the confrontational foreign policy toward Malaysia, were primarily but not only driven by Sukarnos feeling of desolation. Another important factor, which according to the author actually magnified the effects of kesepian, was the presidents pronounced fear of aging and death. This fear was in fact so pervasive that it not only helps explain Sukarnos disposition to the politics of being central, but it also helps to explain Sukarnos notorious idealization of youth and his particularly transfigured view of his own youth. As is well-known, Sukarno often surrounded himself with young people and frequently emphasized the invigorating and rejuvenating qualities of youth (p. 66). McIntyre convincingly locates the origins of this characteristic in the presidents fear of aging and death. All in all, the chapters on Sukarno provide for interesting and stimulating reading. For most parts of this section, McIntyre is successful in his endeavor to attribute distinct features of Guided Democracy to Sukarnos personal psyche, and arguably it is this convincing argumentation that represents one of the major strengths of this part of the book. While it is undeniable that Guided Democracy was also shaped by a number of other factors, which McIntyre chooses to ignore in his book, the key argument of this sectionthat the personal rule of the Guided Democracy period was to a large extent a direct result of Sukarnos personal characteristicsis presented in a persuasive and easy-to-follow way. Unfortunately, however, the same cannot be said about the next section of the book, which is dedicated to Sukarnos successor, Suharto. Oddly, this section only

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consists of two short chapters, even though Suharto was actually Indonesias longestserving president. Given the brevity of the analysis, it is hardly surprising that this section puts forward fairly little new material. The first of the two chapters merely summarizes the political history of the New Order and some key characteristics of the regime, while the second is reduced to reviewing a number of previously published biographical works about Suharto including the presidents autobiography, but, strangely, largely excluding the most recent work by R. E. Elson (Suharto: A Political Biography).1 Lack of depth aside, a more significant weakness of this part of the book is the fact that, in contrast to the preceding section about Sukarno, it largely fails to establish a causal connection between the leaders personality and the nature of his regime. McIntyre briefly touches upon the concept of sultanism, but he does not provide any meaningful insights into how the New Order was gradually transformed into a sultanistic regime, or in what sense Suhartos personality was instrumental in this process. Moreover, even if he had elaborated on this point, it is important to note that the New Orders transition toward sultanism only happened in the twilight years of the regime. While Suharto had, of course, always been a dominant figure in the regime, the New Order was by no means a personalistic regime for the entirety of its existence. Especially during the early years the president was hardly more than a primus inter pares who had to accommodate the various interests of the army, his business cronies, and his powerful international backers in order to stay in power. Even in the late New Order years, when Suharto seemed to have established himself as an almost irreplaceable leader, the basis of his personal rule proved to be rather porous, as his sudden fall from grace in 1998 demonstrated. Apart from a lack of engagement with those factors, another notable omission in this section is Suhartos family, particularly his late wife, Ibu Tien. While McIntyre dedicates considerable attention to Suhartos turbulent childhood, he completely ignores the role of Suhartos wife and children in influencing the development of the presidents personality. While Suharto will be remembered first and foremost as Indonesias second and longest-serving president, he was also a husband and father. Here, the author could have made a valuable contribution if he had shed some new light on the patterns of interaction between Suharto and his family and, subsequently, on the way members of the first family influenced his presidential leadership style. Furthermore, McIntyre could have attempted to link the emergence of sultanistic tendencies in the late New Order to the passing of Ibu Tien. Finally, from the perspective of constitutional history, it seems curious that McIntyre pays no attention to Suhartos abuse of the constitution, and especially its preamble, for the sake of consolidating his power. In contrast to Sukarno, who exploited other weaknesses in the constitution to strengthen his personal rule, Suharto turned to the Pancasilathe five principles listed in the preamble of the constitution that make up the philosophical foundation of the Indonesian statein his search for an ideological tool to silence his critics and strengthen his grip on power. By overlooking the various implications of this tactic for the development of Suhartos leadership, McIntyre misses a great opportunity to provide a comparative analysis of how the two leaders interpreted the constitution in the name of power politics.
1

R. E. Elson, Suharto: A Political Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 389 pages.

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Following the short analysis of the Suharto era, the final section of the book begins with a brief overview of the Habibie and Wahid presidencies and a similarly concise discussion of the process of constitutional amendments that took place between 1999 and 2002. Then McIntyre quicklytoo quickly for the taste of this reviewerturns his attention to Megawati, and the book effectively becomes a biography of Indonesias first female president. In contrast to the sections about Sukarno and Suharto, however, this part of the book is mainly a political, not a psychological, biography. With the exception of a short (but interesting) chapter about Megawatis childhood and youth, it basically concentrates on sketching Megawatis political career from the beginnings in 1986 to her presidency (20012004). Overall, this section is well-presented, yet it is mostly descriptive and does not offer many new insights into the personality behind Megawatis famously silent faade. For example, the reader learns fairly little about the reasons behind Megawatis initial decision to enter politics in 1986. McIntyre summarizes the period between 1973 and 1986 in less than one page (at the beginning of Chapter 10), and when Megawati suddenly decided to stand for parliament in the 1987 election, the only information McIntyre provides about her reasoning is that [h]er decision seems to have been underpinned by a certain amount of postparental freedom (p. 152). Similarly, in the remainder of Chapter 10, which is entitled Megawati Sukarnoputris Political Apprenticeship, McIntyre outlines Megawatis first experiences as a politician, but he does not explain how and to what extent she actually developed a particular set of political ideas, not to mention how such ideas may be linked to her personality. Only in Chapter 13 does the reader finally get some information about Megawatis basic political convictions and her emphasis on leadership rather than representation (p. 196). But even here, McIntyre does not illustrate how exactly Megawati gained those convictions and to what extent her very own personality may have accounted for the development of those views. Throughout this section he sometimes alludes to her troublesome childhood and her interactions with her father, but such elucidations remain cursory and not nearly as persuasive as the psychological analysis provided in the chapters on Sukarno. In other words, the reader learns quite a lot about the various formal stages of Megawatis political career, but very little about the process of political socialization that complemented this career. Another, if much less serious, point of contention is McIntyres obvious bias in favor of Megawati. On numerous occasions, he uses adjectives with clearly positive connotations to describe her. The choice of words ranges from defiant, and at times bitterly ironic (p. 182) to bold (p. 185), reflective (p. 186), and modest and downto-earth (p. 196). He also repeatedly describes her as brave (pp. 182, 210, 212) and marvels at her capability of drawing lessons (p. 224) and her remarkable restraint (p. 225). Even when discussing Megawatis political or personal mistakes, the author describes her favorably. This is exemplified in his discussion of the East Timor referendum in 1999, when he qualifies his criticism of her rejecting the referendum by pointing to similar attitudes shown by other politicians (p. 212). He also points out that it must be said in Megawatis favor that she accepted the result with good grace (p. 214). Interestingly, though, the language becomes a bit more neutral toward the end of the book. In fact, it seems as if McIntyre, in the process of preparing his manuscript, struggled more and more to come to terms with Megawatis increasingly irritating

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political actions. Referring to her notorious confidence in the military, he eventually makes the stunning admission that: This hapless biographer has tried hard to explain Megawatis regard for the military but as he contemplates her willingness to entrust the territorial integrity of the Republic of Indonesia to such generals as Ryamizard Ryacudu, he is struck by the incompleteness of his previous formulations. (p. 246) Overall, this book has quite a lot to offer, but it ultimately falls short of what it promises in the opening section. The psycho-biographical elements that feature so prominently in the first part about Sukarno are almost completely absent from the second and third sections. The last part about Megawati in particular is mainly a chronological and mostly descriptive account of the political career of Indonesias first female president. While this may still appeal to readers with little prior knowledge about Indonesian politics, it is unlikely to excite students and scholars who follow events in Indonesia on a regular basis. Compared to The Indonesian Presidency , Janet Steeles Wars Within: The Story of Tempo, an Independent Magazine in Soehartos Indonesia, is a much more absorbing book. In contrast to McIntyres work, which only partly succeeds in its attempt to weave together two different research approaches, Wars Within is a thoroughly fascinating combination of media history, general political history, and even a bit of biographical history. Written in a highly readable prose style, this book first and foremost tells the story of Tempo, Indonesias most prestigious newsmagazine. But it also provides a condensed historical sketch of the New Order in general, as Steele revisits some key events during the Suharto era and reviews them through the lens of the magazine. Additionally, the book is garnished with some interesting biographical data about Tempos revered co-founder and long-time chief editor, Goenawan Mohamad, even though it should be noted that the descriptions of Goenawan sometimes appear to be a bit too close to hero-worshipping. The book begins with a number of background chapters, including an introduction, a comprehensive prologue, and a general overview of what Steele calls the community. In these opening chapters the author not only explains some important details of her research, but she also reveals first insights into her close relationship with Goenawan Mohamad. Steele then embarks on a well-structured chronological account of the genesis and history of Indonesias only world-class magazine (p. xiv). As the story unfolds, the reader learns about Tempos roots in the student movement of the 1960s, the personal and professional backgrounds of the magazines founding fathers, as well as the funding arrangements with prominent ChineseIndonesian business tycoon Ciputra, whose support helped to keep the magazine financially secure. Furthermore, Steele discusses Tempos place in the dynamic debate about Islam in Indonesia, the magazines innovative use of language, and the characteristics of its predominantly middle-class readership. Toward the end she examines the socioeconomic and political changes in Tempos environment in the late 1980s and early 1990s and analyses how those changes affected not only the public image and the selfperception of the magazine, but ultimately also its very existence. The book closes with an epilogue about the 20032004 court trial against three Tempo journalists and its implications for press freedom in Indonesia.

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What becomes clear throughout the book is that Tempo wasand still ismuch more than just a newsmagazine. In the early days after its establishment in 1971, for example, it served as an important rallying point for artists and writers who, in the 1960s, had been engaged in the struggle against Communism and the tyranny of politics over art (p. 25). Many of those writers were drawn to the magazine because of the charismatic appeal of Goenawan Mohamad, one of the magazines founders and himself a poet and essayist. Goenawans goal was to create a magazine like Time or Newsweek, and in order to achieve that goal he encouraged the young, aspiring writers who joined the new magazine to write articles that would read like stories (p. 74). With its new style, Tempo quickly revolutionized Indonesian journalism. According to Steele, Tempo stories were written in a style that was always enak dibacaa pleasure to read (p. 71). It is, however, significant to note that in the early days Tempo was not a particularly critical newsmagazine. Established in 1971, it was, in many ways, a direct product of the New Order, and as such it was in fact quite supportive of many policies implemented by the Suharto regime. It was not before the infamous Malari incident in 1974 that things began to change. The Malari incident, a riot in Jakarta that was instigated by rivaling army factions, resulted in the effective banning of twelve Indonesian publications that had sided too openly with the loser in the armys factional infighting, General Soemitro. Tempo was spared during this purge because it had maintained a relatively neutral stance during the confrontation between Soemitro and his key opponent, Ali Moertopo, but as Steele notes, after 1974 the magazines relationship with the New Order became increasingly complex (p. 87). As censorship became tighter after Malari, Tempo grew more and more critical toward the regime. The two processes complemented each other, forcing Tempo writers to seek new strategies of how to position the magazine vis--vis an increasingly authoritarian government. In Chapter 4 Steele gives some interesting examples of these strategies. Particularly intriguing are her accounts of Tempos lobbying strategies toward the military and other government officials. Against the background of the temporary ban of the magazine in 1982, Steele demonstrates how leading members of Tempo deliberately cultivated good relations with selected members of the government and the military, including powerful figures like Benny Moerdani, Ali Moertopo, Moerdiono, and Sudharmono. The basic aim of this lobbying was to enable Tempo to get inside stories, but the good contacts with individual members of the regime elite were also helpful in times of trouble, as the 1982 episode illustrates. Steele writes: [] Tempos relationship with power was complex. As Goenawan said, during the New Order there were always people in the government [with whom] you could communicate. As part of the Generation of 66, the founders of Tempo were acquainted with many of the founders of the New Order. Although the army had long since betrayed its alliance with the young activists who had helped bring the regime to power, Tempos editors were nevertheless able occasionally to draw upon their connections inside the government and military. For example, [General] Moerdiono always protected Tempo, Goenawan said. (p. 106) Throughout the 1980s Tempo proved to be extremely skillful in walking the fine line between what was acceptable to the regime elites and what was not. Steeles chapters

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on Tempos coverage of the 1984 Tanjung Priok incident, in which a number of Muslim protesters were killed by the military, on Tempos attitude towards employment of former political prisoners, and on Tempos coverage of the so-called mysterious shootings in Java in 1983 all explore these complex intricacies of the magazines evolving relationship with those in power. The author shows how Tempo varied its tactics between pushing the boundaries and retracting to compromise and compliance, while never losing sight of the overall objective to retain its status as an independent newsmagazine. Even when Tempo was at last directly affected by the governments ever-increasing restrictions on freedom and independence, its leaders refused to bow down. On the contrary, as Steele shows in the last chapter of the book, the banning of Tempo in June 1994 marked the transformation of the magazine from a critical media organization into a powerful symbol for an emerging pro-democracy movement. And if Steele is to be believed, it was Goenawan Mohamad himself who at this point underwent the most dramatic transformation. For years, she writes, Goenawan had been forced to compromise with government authorities in order to keep his magazine alivebut the banning of Tempo changed all that. After June 21, 1994, there would be no more compromises, no more ambiguity. (p. 233) Steeles book tells a fascinating, yet sometimes a bit too-heroic, tale of a magazine that for more than two decades defied the odds of surviving in an authoritarian regime. While there is no doubt that Tempo made an outstanding contribution to the development of professional journalism in Indonesia, Steeles obvious admiration for the magazine in general and for Goenawan Mohamad in particular has produced some rather strange effects. Especially her descriptions of Goenawan are riddled with details of questionable relevance and at times read more like fiction than academic research. For example, He dresses casually, and the cuffs of his sleeves are folded back, revealing muscular forearms strong from tennis (p. xxiixxiii). In the introduction, Steele writes that she drew up [her] own rules about what constituted research and what constituted friendship and where to draw the line between the two (p. xviii), but arguably she did not quite succeed in drawing that line. Another aspect that may be criticized concerns Steeles selective choice of sources, both in regards to her interview partners as well as her secondary sources. First, Steele has conducted a whole series of interviews and without a doubt the stories revealed by the interviewees are often very interesting and highly relevant for the development of the story. However, with a very few exceptions, she almost exclusively interviewed people who were or still are directly involved with Tempo in one way or another. Clearly, these people are all biased in their assessments, and often Steeles storytelling reflects this bias. In order to allow the reader to obtain a more balanced view on some issues, it would have been good if the author had considered interviewing a few more external observers, especially from other newsmagazines. While she does mention the establishment of rival magazines, such as Gatra and Editor, she barely engages with them. And when she does, as in Chapter 8, she often leaves the information vague, claiming that memories do fade (p. 200). This, however, seems odd in view of the fact that very few memories about the positive aspects of Tempos development seem to have faded. In fact, much of the book is based on the memories of individuals, so to

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claim that memories fade when it comes to the not-so-positive parts of the story does not sound too convincing. Second, while Steeles blending of the history of Tempo with that of the New Order in general is one of the strong aspects of the book, the author could have added even more value to the analysis if she had extended her research about Indonesias general political, economic, and cultural history beyond some of the classic works about the New Order. Especially the passages about the role of Islam in Chapters 5 and 9 rely almost exclusively on background information from Hefners Civil Islam.2 While this is certainly a good source, more variety could have added different perspectives on certain issues. Overall, however, these are just minor weaknesses in an otherwise thoroughly enthralling book, which is informative and entertaining at the same time. Wars Within can be recommended to anyone interested in Indonesian media history, and it should be compulsory reading for any Western journalist who is going to be posted in Indonesia. The book features enough background material to make it accessible for readers with little knowledge about Indonesia, but the extensive use of specific firsthand information obtained from personal interviews also ensures that Indonesia specialists will find the book interesting, too.
22 Robert W. Hefner, Civil Islam: Muslims and Democratization in Indonesia (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), 286 pages.

Matthew N. Davies. Indonesias War over Aceh, Last Stand on Meccas Porch. London and New York, NY: Routledge, 2006. 290 pages. Leena Avonius
Matthew Daviess book offers a rare insight into Indonesian military ideas regarding the three decades of conflict in Aceh, as well as its chosen strategies to defeat the Acehnese resistance. In an earlier study, Kirsten Schulze 1 examined the war in Aceh based on the material and statements produced by the Indonesian military (Tentara Nasional Indonesia, or TNI), but unlike Schulze, Davies is far less positive about the TNIs mission and methods in Aceh. Davies analyses the information and disinformation spread by the military and police, brings up discrepancies, and points out what has motivated the spread of falsified information. The picture that emerges is not a pleasant one. Rather, it is an illustration of the inhumanity of war and coldblooded calculations of the military commanders who ignore the suffering of civilians caught between the fighting parties. This book does not cover the developments after the peace agreement was signed in Helsinki in August 2005 by the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka, or GAM). It nevertheless contains important information for those participating in the post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation efforts who need to understand fully the nature of warfare in Aceh. Similarly, important information is provided for those who try to make sense of the difficulties of current reform processes in Indonesia, including military reform. The book is divided into eight chapters. The first chapter gives general information on the Acehnese war, outlining the most commonly presented reasons for one of the worlds longest conflicts. For example, Acehs uneasy relationship with Indonesias nationalist self-image and outsiders greedy exploitation of Acehs natural wealth, as well as the environmental disasters and deepening poverty of the provinces civilian population, are all brought up and explored. Chapter Two discusses an important but, unfortunately, rarely acknowledged divide-and-rule game in Aceh that occurs through the manipulation of administrative boundaries and statistics. The number of Acehs district administrations rose from 133 in the late 1980s to 231 in 2004. The creation of new administrative units has been particularly frequent since 1998. Davies shows convincingly how the motivation behind the divisions (to create new units) has had nothing to do with providing better administrative services for a growing population. Instead, the motivation has been to allow the corrupt government structure to milk more money out of the state budget. Moreover, the creation of new units has assisted the military in tightening its grip on Acehs civilian leaders and population as the militarys territorial structure grows with the civilian administration. A particularly important point is that the creation of new administrative units has been incongruent with the geographic distribution of the population. This has given political over-representation to the scarcely populated
1 Kirsten E. Schulze: Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency: Strategy and the Aceh Conflict, October 1976 May 2004, in Verandah of Violence: The Background to the Aceh Problem, ed. Anthony Reid (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2006), pp. 22571. [A review of Verandah of Violence is forthcoming in Indonesia.Ed.]

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southern and central parts of Aceh. When this information is matched with the conflict data, as Davies does, it becomes clear that the GAMs populous strongholds have been systematically pushed toward the political margin, while the central and southern parts of Aceh that are ruled by the military and militia groups have been given disproportionate shares of political power and economic benefits. My own observations on post-conflict Aceh reveal that the splitting of administrative units is still continuing. As the post-tsunami and post-conflict assistance monies and government development funds are often allocated according to the number of administrative units, it is clear that such divisions form a serious challenge to the new Aceh governments efforts to build a socio-economically just society. Discrepancies and ambiguity in the government statistics about its own administration were commonplace, and similar problems were encountered by those who wished to understand the formation of Indonesian military units and operations in Aceh, as Davies explains in the third chapter. From his description, it appears as if the current Indonesian military and police forces are a result of decades of patchwork, where elements have been added without ever erasing their predecessors. The roots of both institutions are in the Dutch colonial era. Davies shows that the model for both the special anti-riot police unit (the mobile police brigade, or Brimob) and the specialoperations military (Kommando Pasukan Khusus, or Kopassus) para-commando units has been the colonial-Dutch elite commandos of Korps Marchaussee, thus elaborating upon a similar notion made by Henk Schulte Nordholt in his outline of a genealogy of violence in Indonesia.2 The following four chapters take a look at the Indonesian military and police operations in Aceh from various perspectives. Chapter Four examines the morale and motivation of the soldiers and police officers, followed by a chapter that explores the propagandist public information on the police and military casualties in Aceh. The next two chapters explore the darker sides of the war in Aceh: the atrocities and the role of the militia, the Islampolitik of warfare, as well as psychological operations and the role of terrorism in Acehs military operations. The book does not offer new information on the legal and illegal business activities of the TNI in Aceh, since the topic has already been carefully examined by others, most notably by Damien Kingsbury and Lesley McCulloch.3 It focuses more on other aspects of the military culture and practices, as well as the strategies used in the military operations in Aceh. In discussing the morale of the TNI soldiers, Davies brings up a sensitive and extremely important feature of the Aceh war, namely its traumatizing effects on those carrying weapons. TNI soldiers and police officers who turned their weapons against their fellow citizens in Aceh often became victims of violence themselves. A hidden aspect of Indonesias war in Aceh has been the suicides and fratricides within the armed forces. The prevailing Indonesian military culture has prevented an open discussion of this problem. Yet, experiences in other post-conflict
Henk Schulte Nordholt, A Genealogy of Violence, in Roots of Violence in Indonesia, ed. Freek Colombijn and J. Thomas Lindblad (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2002), pp. 3361.
3 For their recent work, see Damien Kingsbury and Lesley McCulloch, Military Business in Aceh, in Verandah of Violence: The Background to the Aceh Problem, ed. Anthony Reid (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2006), pp. 199224. [Damien Kingsbury has a book review in this issue of Indonesia. A review of Verandah of Violence is forthcoming in Indonesia.Ed.] 2

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situations tell us how important it is to break the taboo, and provide assistance programs for soldiers and ex-combatants who are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. The last three chapters discuss how Acehs civilian population was used and abused by the military. These function as a good reminder of just how deep are the divisions that were created by the Aceh conflict. The presence of militia groupswhile both the TNI and the Indonesian government systematically denied their existence in Acehand the participation of civilians in extrajudicial killings and other humanrights violations, as well as the exploitation of syariah (Islamic law) in oppressing the civilian population, are all problems that remain behind now that the guns have fallen silent. Davies provides plenty of information on these issues, but he seems to drown in the swamp of acronyms and details in his analysis. It would also have been worthwhile to set Acehs events in their wider context. For example, the fact that TNI soldiers were first brought to trial for killing civilians in Aceh in the late 1990s under growing domestic and international pressure on the Indonesian government due to its poor human-rights record is largely ignored in the book. Further contextualization would also have been valuable in the discussion of the implementation of syariah in Aceh, and the role of the military and jihadist organizations in promoting it. Davies actually states that the form of syariah introduced to Aceh is congruent with a uniform Indonesian interpretation of Islam that he considers to be orthodox as opposed to more parochial Acehnese tradition. Such an interpretation of Acehs current syariah regulations fails not only to understand the particularities of Indonesias state-promoted Islam, but also to see Acehs situation in the wider Muslim world. Acehs adoption of Islamic criminal law is highly exceptional in Muslim societies, and any analysis of the implementation of syariah in Aceh, the actions of syariah police, and the reactions of the Acehnese population toward it must take this into account. My intention is not to discredit Daviess main point, though, that the military played an active role in imposing the religious law on Aceh. He could also have added that the TNI soldiers were excluded from syariah regulations. Davies also reveals an interesting feature of the current global war on terror by showing how the Indonesian propaganda machine made use of the Western medias and news analysts Islamophobia and convinced many of them to believe that there were links between GAM and Jemaah Islamiyah (Islamic Group or Islamic Community; a militant network designated as a terrorist organization by some governments) when actually the latter had links with the countrys military and counterintelligence. For a reader like me who has little knowledge of military and intelligence jargon, the book is certainly not easy reading. To make it more accessible for a wider audience the author should have put more effort into opening up and explaining the specialist language used throughout the book. Daviess tendency to jump from one argument to another without explaining the link between the two makes the task even more difficult. There are numerous references to events in other conflict areas, particularly in East Timor, but occasionally also in Northern Ireland, without an explanation of why the comparison is necessary or relevant. From time to time, reading this book starts to resemble surfing the Internet. It seems as if the author has followed numerous intriguing links, and decided to pass them on to the reader. Unfortunately, this strategy does not function well in book form. Also, the book brings up valuable

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information from sources that are not readily accessible to a wide audience, and as I mentioned before, it illustrates in many ways the sad inheritance with which the postconflict Aceh has to deal. Given the importance of the information that this book contains, it is a pity that reading it is such a struggle.

Djenar Maesa Ayu. They Say Im a Monkey. Trans. by Michael Nieto Garcia. Jakarta: Metafor Publishing, 2005. i-xx, 126 pages. Ramon Guillermo
Michael Nieto Garcias English translation of the collection of eleven short stories by Djenar Maesa Ayu entitled They Say Im a Monkey (Mereka Bilang, Saya Monyet!) provides a fresh glimpse into the exciting ferment that Indonesian literature has been experiencing since the downfall of the Suharto regime, in 1998. This English translation comes with a glossary at the end and some words about the author by the poet Sutardji Calzoum Bachri. One of the short stories in this collection was judged to be the best among those published in 2002 by the daily Kompas , while the collection itself was nominated in the best-book category for the Khatulistiwa Literary Award. Djenar has subsequently published a new collection of short stories, Jangan Main-Main (Dengan Kelaminmu; 2004), and a novel, Nayla (2005). Djenars work has predictably generated not only great public interest but also has been controversial among Indonesias guardians of morality. Even English-language readers would be startled, if not by the language, then perhaps by the candor of these stories. Despite the frequent observation that the stories are unusually transgressive, given the unique and quite distinct cultural and religious situation prevailing in Indonesia, they seem to be no less relevant and topical in many other contexts. Djenars stories may assume different inflections and meanings when translated into other languages and cultures, but the gravity of the violence inflicted upon women and the prevalence of the sexual abuse of children portrayed in them seem equally urgent and timely for most societies. These are stories of uncomfortable family secrets that are often consigned to the oblivion of forgetting or, at best, of half-memory. The stories that Djenar relates are important because nobody is supposed to make them public. These are stories that are often known and remembered only by the victims and the victimizers. Djenars stories, whether told like secrets in hushed whispers or blurted out in between convulsive sobs, are generally filled with a sense of violent despair and desperation. The verbal transgressiveness of her stories mirrors the raw and immediate experience of sexual violence, while the literary devices she employs function to create some distance, such as the use of the metaphor of the painting in Painting a Window or the strange multiplying snakes in The Leech. It is as if they were being deliberately and carefully fictionalized in order that we may not so easily disbelieve in their status as fiction. The fictiveness of each story must be preserved and continually asserted so that the readers can continue reading, comforted in the fact that this is only fiction. On the other hand, an innovative literary device used in one story, SMS, succeeds in almost obliterating fictiveness cleverly by employing the direct form of cell-phone text messages. But a prevailing, general sense of unreality and lack of concrete physicality impart a dreamlike, surreal character to most of the narratives.

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The patronizing reference to Djenars work and those of some of her colleagues as belonging to the derogatorily labeled genre of so-called sastra wangi (fragrant literature) completely misses the whole point of these brutally honest representations of a society that, far from being fragrant, stinks of injustice and repression against women. Accusing her and other contemporary Indonesian women writers of using sex to sell literature, as some male critics have done, is just a cheap shot meant to obscure the critics hypocritical, profit-driven motives. It is true that Djenars works have sold phenomenally well in Indonesia, having had eight large print runs so far. But this fact can only be viewed positively as leading to a new openness in literature and literary language and as an unprecedented advance in the education of the public on themes in urgent need of discussion. It should also not be overlooked that writing and publishing this book at all required much courage and commitment on the part of the author. Despite its positive aspects, the collection as a whole seems to be afflicted by a certain fundamental limitation of perspective. For instance, even the glimmers of fulfilled feminine sexuality in the stories such as SMS, Naylas Time, and Forsaken Dreams do not seem to escape the objectifying masculine sexual violence that dominates them and which they mirror to a certain degree. Djenars critique of social hypocrisy also seems to affirm nihilistically the emptiness of all morality rather than point to the possibility of a more-liberating ethics of sexuality and love. The ambivalent story of the Dog Man is a case in point. Furthermore, the frequently middle- and upper-class female persona in the stories tends to displace the force of the critique toward a rather narrow notion of individual sexual liberation. This comes at the price of gaining a broader view more relevant to the experiences of a greater number of women in Indonesian society. The beautiful story Asmoro stands out, because even when the lovers fail to meet in the end, it tragically gestures toward the possibility of a liberating ethical relationship between the sexes and genders. The story is somewhat of a parable, likening literary creation with an encounter between lovers. Even though the glimpse of a resolution that it allows is ultimately an aesthetic and spiritual one, this example shows that going beyond desperation and nihilism does not have to end up in easy moralizing solutions. As the narrator puts it, A peculiar struggle possesses the two of them. The bursting desire to meet and the desire to be together a little longer are just one side of the coin. However hard they try to prolong being together, theyll try just as hard to quickly end it. In the epic struggle of the female heroine, Adjani, to be united with Asmoro, we find a contrast with some of the characters in this collection who despairingly use their very objectification as sexual objects as ambivalent and selfdefeating weapons against men and patriarchy. Here, finally, is a true and sovereign female subject who, refusing to be victimized, strains with her whole being toward the fulfillment of love.

Antonie C. A. Dake. The Sukarno File, 19651967: Chronology of a Defeat. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill Academic Publishers, 2006. 503 pages. Damien Kingsbury
It would seem fair to say that, in the history of independent Indonesia, no single event has been more pivotal than that of September 30October 1, 1965. It was that critical moment in Indonesian history when the course of politics was irrevocably altered, fundamentally shaping the context for events that were to follow. The study of events of this period therefore remains central to understanding what went after. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, there has been some controversy and considerable disquiet about what might most neutrally be called the September 30 affair. The official account of the days events neatly fit the New Orders thendeveloping rationale, but likely are less than entirely accurate. That those events were claimed to constitute an attempted coup appeared to suit a New Order rendering of history, which now seems to be overdue for reconsideration. A book, therefore, claiming to be the full story for the first time of the September 30 affair should be a welcome addition to the literature on Indonesian political history. Antonie Dakes The Sukarno File, 19651967: Chronology of a Defeat, on the surface, promises an account of the full process by which Suharto replaced Sukarno as president. Yet the book deals primarily with events leading up to and concerning the September 30 affair. Such activities set in train events that led to Sukarnos political denouement, and much else, but the defeat came when he was deposed from office on March 12, 1967. Sukarnos stage-managed fall from office is barely discussed. Further, given that the author himself notes that the opening of hitherto still hermetically sealed government files on the subject would shed more light on the subject, Dakes account is by his own admission not quite the full story. Even if not quite the full story, Dakes book has strengths, which are threefold. The first strength is the relatively clear chronological account of events. This helps make Dakes story relatively easy to follow, and there is a sense in which the narrative is constructed as leading up to an almost inevitable outcome. The books second strength is its substantial appendices, in particular its reproduction of key documents, which are a valuable resource to students of the subject. Beyond its accessible structure, the third and main strength of The Sukarno File is its generally convincing argument that responsibility for the September 30 affair lies directly with Sukarno. While Sukarno might not have plotted the details of the affair (he could have; we do not really know), Dake argues with reasonable success that he almost certainly knew of it and probably ordered or agreed to its basic elements. Dake claims this aspect of the story was suppressed by Sukarnos emerging successor, Suharto, as it countered the official attempted coup account, which constituted the grounds for the suppression of the Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis IndonesiaPKI), and which helped shape subsequent events. Further, once the transition of power was complete, Sukarnos role was irrelevant to that transition, and would just have muddied the by-then official version of events.

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However, if one accepts Dakes argument that Sukarno was directly involved, then the official version of eventsthat a putsch against senior generals and the establishment of a revolutionary council constituted an attempted coupno longer makes sense. Sukarno cannot have ordered a coup against himself, and, indeed, did not do so. It is puzzling, therefore, why Dake continues to employ the term coup or attempted coup in his book. Perhaps the New Order regimes grip on conceptualizing Indonesian history continues to hold sway even with scholars who challenge some of its most fundamental details. Less convincing than Sukarnos complicity, however, is that the appendices which support much of the rest of the story appear compromised. That is, Dakes narrative supports itself with references to the appendices, but these are in places open to question, especially where there is a greater rather than lesser amount of interpretation about the meaning of events. This, then, leads into the books three weaknesses. The first weakness does not address the books substance, but English is clearly not Dakes first language. His choice of expressions is often awkward or ill-conceived. An illustration of this is Dakes referring to army chief-of-staff Yani as Sukarnos former blue-eyed boy (p. 25). Instead, former favorite (or similar) would have avoided the literal error. So, too, describing the events after September 30 as a shipwreck (p. 29) is an odd metaphor, and there are numerous other examples of difficult or unfortunate phrasing and malapropisms. This matter of language use segues into Dakes broad assumptive style. For example: Arief can therefor [sic] quite possibly have thought (p. 67); He wanted to carry out a check or something of the sort (p. 104); He must have thought optimistically (p. 107); and so on. One can surmise about events and reasons one does not know about, but, despite allowing for narrative neatness, it is problematic to assume the accuracy of what amounts to guesswork. Describing deputy premier Subandrio as an evil genius (p. 155) further illustrates Dakes colorful if not always enlightening use of language. The issue of referencing then segues into the third and most substantive problem with Dakes book, which is that it relies heavily on a limited number of documents, including an account of events by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), testimonies from trials, and, most disturbingly, transcripts of interrogations. The CIAs account of events reflected a number of considerations, among which were the regional strategic and political preferences of the United States, its own sources, and the completeness or otherwise of information available to it at the time. As for trial transcripts, as Dake notes, evidence presented by defendants may have been designed to ameliorate their punishment, which calls into question the informations accuracy. More to the point, however, is that in an atmosphere of escalating fear, some testimonies may have been provided with the hope of receiving lighter subsequent treatment. We do not know this is the case, but, if actual events did not match what was becoming a carefully crafted official account, it would be surprising if some defendants were not encouraged or did not volunteer to provide politically convenient testimonies.

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Finally, in the contemporary debate about the use of coercion and torture, there is a view that the veracity of information provided in such circumstances is likely to be compromised by the informants strong desire to resolve their situations. That is, torture victims (and even those coerced) will often say whatever is requested of them, regardless of accuracy. It is not clear if torture was used in the interrogations in question. But, given the circumstances, the distinct possibility that there was at least some coercion must leave open to question the veracity of these testimonies and thus compromise their usefulness as scholarly (and legal) evidence. Indeed, given the reliance on such sources, it is not surprising that apart from Dakes identification of Sukarno as having initiated events, his book otherwise corresponds closely to the New Orders official account. Perhaps, then, this explains, on the books back cover, Suhartos endorsement of the text as a positive contribution to the history of Indonesia. Usually a publisher places supportive quotes, like Suhartos, where prospective readers will see them as an encouragement to buy the book. These days, however, Suhartos endorsement might be viewed somewhat less positively. But more interestingly, below Suhartos comment, is a comment from Sukarnos daughter and one of Suhartos presidential successors, Megawati Sukarnoputri: this is character assassination, she says; this is absurd! One can only wonder what the publisher was thinking when this quote was added to the back cover. But, if it was intended as favorable, or perhaps just controversial, then perhaps the last, double-edged endorsement from The Jakarta Post summarizes Dakes book the best: The books potency stems from the straightforward presentation to recount in linear fashion a story saturated in political and personal bias (my emphasis). Dakes account of the September 30 affair is a useful, if in places flawed, contribution to the study of Indonesian political history. But it is unlikely to be accepted into the canon as the full story. Given the passage of time, the deaths of many of its key actors, and the hermetically sealed files that may or may not exist, the full story might, quite possibly, never be written.

Edward Aspinall. Opposing Suharto: Compromise, Resistance, and Regime Change in Indonesia. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2005. 328 pages plus introduction. R. William Liddle
Opposing Suharto should become the standard work on the last decade of the Suharto presidency in Indonesia. In this revised version of his doctoral thesis at the Australian National University, Edward Aspinall anchors his analysis in politicalscience transitions theory. Within that framework, he offers accurate descriptions and well-argued, nuanced, and balanced analyses of the major government and opposition actors and their actions, helping us to understand both the manner of Suhartos departure and its implications for todays democratic politics and politicians. Despite the books high quality, it is still possible to question several of the authors interpretations and judgments and what they tell us about current politics. These include: the claim that Suharto became an increasingly sultanistic ruler; the underplaying of such external factors as the end of the USUSSR Cold War and the 19971998 financial crisis; and insufficient attention to the ways in which autonomous choices of certain key actors pushed events and therefore outcomes in directions they might not otherwise have gone. Of these key actors, perhaps the most important is Suhartos immediate successor, President B. J. Habibie, who made several major decisions outside Aspinalls analytical box with significant and lasting consequences, most of them positive, for today. Put differently, Aspinalls interpretation of the legacy of Suhartos final decade leaves us in the end with a suprisingly one-sided, much too gloomy, picture of the democratic present. Aspinall begins by explicitly throwing down a gauntlet in front of those analysts who have attributed Suhartos longevity solely or mainly to his arbitrary use of violence against his opponents. It was not repression alone, but rather the combination of repression with toleration for constrained forms of political action that made Suhartos New Order one of the most durable and successful third world authoritarian regimes (p. 2). Borrowing from Juan Linz, Aspinall argues that the New Order was an instance of an authoritarian (as opposed to totalitarian) regime that allowed limited pluralism. On page three Aspinall compares New Order Indonesia with late 1960s Spain, where, according to Linz, there was a wide-spread tone and mentality of opposition together with a simultaneous failure of structural or principled opposition. 1 And, writes Linz, [t]he semifreedom under such regimes imposes on their opponents certain costs that are quite different from those of persecution of illegal oppositions and that explain their frustration, disintegration, and sometimes readiness to co-optation, which contribute to the persistence of such regimes as much as does their repressive capacity.2

Juan J. Linz, Opposition in and under an Authoritarian Regime: The Case of Spain, in Regimes and Oppositions, ed. Robert A. Dahl (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1973), p. 176. Ibid., p. 273.

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In the Indonesian case, this pattern explains the long life of the New Order and many characteristics of opposition leaders throughout the period, including their excessive caution and willingness to compromise. Much conflict took place in a gray area between state and society, involving contests for control over state institutions that opposition forces mostly lost. The end came in 1998 in the form of a massive social uprising, forcing opposition leaders to act even though their movement remained poorly institutionalized, deeply divided, and largely ideologically incoherent (p. 4). Although Suharto was overthrown, and democratic institutions eventually replaced his authoritarian system, three decades of limited pluralism left a powerful legacy in the form of a high degree of continuity between the new democratic politics and those of the authoritarian past (p. 269). Aspinall highlights worsening ethnic and religious conflict, the continuing pervasiveness of corruption and money politics, under-organized, shallow-rooted, and visionless political parties, no new reformminded social or political organizations, a still politically active military, and a general blurring of the line between the new democratic and the old authoritarian players and politics. The core of the book, between a stage-setting Chapter 2 on the early New Order and a penultimate Chapter 9 comparing Indonesian democratization with other Southeast Asian cases, is a part-thematic, part-chronological description of interactions between government and opposition in the 1990s. Separate chapters discuss: (a) the activities of three elite dissident groupsPetition of Fifty, with roots in the 1980s; Abdurrahman Wahids Forum Demokrasi; and the retired-military based YKPK (Yayasan Kerukunan Persaudaraan Kebangsaan, Foundation for National Harmony and Brotherhood); the latter two groups were founded in opposition to the governments promotion of ICMI (Ikatan Cendekiawan Muslimin se-Indonesia, Indonesian Association of Muslim Intellectuals); (b) the proto-opposition provided by NGOs, in particular LBH (Lembaga Bantuan Hukum Legal Aid Institute), headed by Adnan Buyung Nasution; (c) student activism, which evolved from moral force to embryonic political movement; (d) two chapters on the rise and temporary fall of Megawati Soekarnoputri as head of PDI (Partai Demokrasi Indonesia, Indonesian Democracy Party); and, finally, (e) the events leading to the resignation of Suharto on May 21, 1998. These chapters are analytic gems that can stand on their own as the best short treatments of their respective subjects. In each, after carefully weighing the evidence for alternative views, Aspinall offers a clear and generally persuasive argument and conclusion. For example, Chapter 4 contains a penetrating analysis of the politics of LBH, the self-proclaimed locomotive of democracy, but Aspinall is careful not to conclude that either LBH or other NGOs ever became more than proto-opposition forces. Instead, he argues that NGOs were accurate mirrors of middle-class opinion, cautious and ambivalent while trying to influence state action and create an autonomous zone for societal initiative (p. 114). In Chapter 5 he argues convincingly against the oversimplifications of Michael Vatikiotis and others who claimed that student activists in the late 1980s and early 1990s were front men and women for discontented army officers. Au contraire, students in this period were conscious of the extent to which their predecessors in the 1960s had helped disguise [the Armed Forces] seizure of power and insisted that they would never repeat this error (p. 138).

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This measured approach is already apparent in the analysis of the military in Chapter 2, where Aspinall first resists the temptation to fit Indonesian military politics into the Procrustean bed of hard-line/soft-line regime splits beloved by transitions theorists. On page 34 a claim is made that in the early 1990s officers discontent began for the first time to be directed at Suharto and his palace loyalists. But Aspinall is careful to point out that older patterns of second-level factional competition (between officers as well as between officers and civilian officials, but not directed at Suharto) continued, that many officers were ambivalent toward Suharto, and that intra-military factional alignments were typically shallow and shifted frequently. On a related and highly controversial issue, the greening or Islamization of the armed-forces leadership at this time, Aspinall is appropriately skeptical (p. 46). Finally, in Chapter 8, The Fall of Suharto, he shows how the top armed forces leadership, despite internal splits, remained loyal to Suharto until the last few months of his presidency. Chapter 8 also contains Aspinalls one substantive claim with which I disagree, that Suhartos rule became increasingly sultanistic in the 1990s. Sultanism is a term borrowed from H. E. Chehabi and Juan Linz that emphasizes personal rulership.3 In such regimes, loyalty to the ruler is based on a mixture of fear and rewards to his collaborators, rather than ideology or charisma, and the ruler exercises his power without restraint. As a result, corruption reigns supreme at all levels of society, the leader makes repeated arbitrary decisions, and the ruling circle is chiefly made up of individuals who owe their positions to their purely personal submission to the ruler. A process of sultanization is especially likely toward the end of a rulers term in office: One might call this fin de regne sultanism. Aspinall is characteristically careful with this claim. He does not deny that there was a personal element in the New Order regime from the beginning, but argues that the senior army leadership, senior technocrats, and certain civilian politicians constituted a collective enterprise, grounded in the militarycivilian alliance of 1965 66, and it took Suharto the better part of the 1970s to establish his unquestioned dominance (p. 204). The evidence for 1990s sultanism includes Suhartos personal attacks on Megawati and lesser figures, the flagrant corruption of his children and the accompanying atmosphere of palace decadence, his reliance on competition between former personal adjutant Wiranto and son-in-law Prabowo Subianto to control the army, and his purges of those individuals in Golkar, the armed forces, other state institutions, and ICMI who doubted his leadership. My own view is nearly the opposite of Aspinalls: there was great consistency and continuity in New Order political structures and policies. The regime was a collective enterprise committed to stability and development (and hierarchy) from beginning to end. Within that enterprise, Suharto became the unchallengeable decider, the first among unequals, no later than the late 1960s. Army officers, including General Soemitro but certainly those after him, did Suhartos bidding or paid the price. The
3 Aspinall, pp. 20304. The quoted passages are from H. E. Chehabi and Juan J. Linz, A Theory of Sultanism 1: A Type of Nondemocratic Rule (pp. 325) and A Theory of Sultanism 2: Genesis and Demise of Sultanistic Regimes in Sultanistic Regimes (pp. 2648), in Sultanistic Regimes, ed. H. E. Chehabi and Juan J. Linz (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998).

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technocrats were never more than his assistants for economic affairs. It is hard to think of a party or other civilian politician, including the Sultan of Yogyakarta and Adam Malik, both of whom became vice-presidents, who had significant power or autonomy. Events comparable to those described by Aspinall occurred throughout the New Order, not just at its end. The only real difference is actuarial. Suharto at the end was weak and vulnerable, which explains both his lashing out at real and imagined enemies and the ease and suddenness with which he finally fell. Fortunately for his overall argument, Aspinall does less with his sultanization thesis as causal variable than with his original limited pluralism concept. While sultanization did make Suhartos final years and perhaps especially his final months in power more turbulent, in the end Aspinall concludes that it was mainly the long decades when repression was combined with limited tolerance that have so powerfully shaped the present. Aspinalls remaining analytical sins are of omission rather than commission. He claims that though the opposition was unable to provide a clear democratic alternative to Suhartos authoritarianism, it had been effective at inculcating an oppositional mood in society and in eroding the ideological bases of authoritarian rule (p. 271). Less discussed are the changes taking place beyond Indonesias borders during this same period, specifically the end of the USUSSR Cold War. The New Order had been a response, with broad support both domestically and internationally, to the threat of communism. In the 1990s, democracy became the only form of government with widespread international legitimacy and increasingly the indirect and direct favor of the United States. Was it the behavior of the domestic opposition, the changed international climate, or some interaction of the two that inculcated an oppositional mood and eroded the ideological bases of authoritarian rule in Indonesia? Aspinall never confronts the issue. Similarly, the political impact of the economic crisis and collapse of 19971998 is never considered seriously. If the crisis had not occurred, would Suharto have been driven from power? If not, does that suggest that the power of the opposition was not, in fact, very great at the end of the 1990s, maybe no greater than it had been when it rose on two occasions in the 1970s? Finally, unless we believe that social forces act directly in politics, analysis of constraintswhatever their sourcemust be mediated by analysis of the choices of individual actors. Some actors are undoubtedly more constrained, more predictably the product of particular social forces (e.g., culture, social structure, personality, rationality), than others. But nearly all have the capacity for autonomous choices that have consequences, sometimes great consequences, for others. They exercise this capacity by choosing strategies and tactics, as opportunity permits, that maximize or transform the political resources they possess and minimize or circumvent constraints such as those imposed by limited pluralism or sultanization. It is because of their capacity for autonomous choice that political leaders can be held accountable for their actions, a basic requirement in a democracy. Aspinalls cast of characters is large, but he never offers a systematic analysis of choice under constraint that would enable us to hold them accountable. On the evidence available, President Habibie appears to have been the most successful of them

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all by making three decisive choices that had a huge impact on society. He laid the foundation for todays presidential democracy by freeing the press, permitting political parties to form, and holding genuinely democratic elections. He initiated the process that freed East Timor, saving the Indonesian body politic from a malignant tumor before it could metastasize. And he oversaw passage of the decentralization laws that have since transformed governmental decision-making and implementation. While it is too early to tell whether these specific laws will be successful, there is no question that in the post-Suharto Indonesian context democratization presupposed decentralization. To conclude, Aspinall has provided us with a sophisticated and generally persuasive analysis of the Linzian constraints faced by Indonesian politicians during the last decade of the Suharto presidency. But Habibies choices in the immediate postSuharto period demonstrate that constraints are only half of the analytical picture. By choosing wisely and at opportune moments the strategy and tactics that maximize resources and minimize constraints, entrepreneurial political leaders can produce positive outcomes for their societies. The defects that remain in Indonesian democracy today can be removed by political action tomorrow.

Paul van der Velde. A Lifelong PassionP. J. Veth (18141895) and the Dutch East Indies. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2006. 450 pages. Henk Maier
Wie niet verbaasd staat over de kennis van Prof. Veth heeft geen verstand van kennis. Since 1995 those words are carved on the faade of one of Leiden Universitys most prominent premises, the P. J. Veth building, a meeting place for students and scholars who are interested in areas outside of Europe and beyond. Anyone who is not astonished at Professor Veths knowledge, knows nothing about knowledge. The sentence was written by Eduard Douwes Dekker, alias Multatuli. He wrote it in the time he was still on good terms with Professor Veth. Veth was one of the first scholars who had the courage and the conscience to speak out in favor of Max Havelaar, Multatulis 1856 firecracker novel about the situation on the island of Java that made Dutch readers realize there was a colony out there and that many things were wrong in the colony. If anything, the inscription shows a delicate balance between irony and hyperbole, the trademark of Multatulis style; it could serve as the perfect illustration of why Douwes Dekker has had such a following among Dutch writers and readers until this very day and is still considered Hollands greatest nineteenth-century author. Professor Veth, the object of Multatulis admiration, had a different style of writing; his pen was a blunt and simple one, evoking a transparency that suggested to contemporary readers factual knowledge rather than ambivalent opinions. Perhaps because of this very transparency, Veths writings have become disregarded, while the knowledge and the information they convey have continued to echo through the evergrowing corpus of writings on the Dutch Indies and Indonesia. Only on rare occasions does his name come up in Leiden these days; Professor Veth is recalled as the man who never lived and worked in the Indiesand hence his work cannot be taken seriously. And yet, in his days he told his readers in detail what they could expect to find on the island of Mentawai, in Makassar, and along the road between Djogjakarta and Solo, and they firmly believed him. Pieter Johannes Veth (18141895) deserves to be regarded as one of the founding fathers of Indonesian studies in the Netherlands. Veths writings consist of many thousands of printed pages and hundreds of letters and notes, produced over a period of some sixty years. He was one of those amazingly creative nineteenth-century writers who (yet another ironic hyperbole) wrote faster than contemporaries could read. Veths written words are covered by the dust of time, and nowadays no self-respecting Dutch student of Indonesia would think it necessary to dig them up, let alone quote from them. A similar fate of neglect befell Veths voice, allegedly a thin and shrill one, which he used to speak out in public meetings and academic gatherings with great effect and authority. Just like his pen, his voice dealt with issues and questions that were central in intellectual, political, and economic discussions in nineteenth-century Hollandand in a number of cases, Veths pen and voice helped to create those issues. Not in the least thanks to his performances as much as Douwes Dekkers, the successive governments in The Hague were forced to reformulate their policy in the colony, to be increasingly based on the recognition of the community of knowledge and interestas the explanatory memorandum accompanying the amendment to the constitution of 1848 would have it. Veth, a liberal
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who tried to combine ideas of free trade and freedom of the press with notions of Christian-inspired responsibility for Gods creation and of human striving for the general well-being of mankind, was to follow the implementation of this constant reformulation from an academic distance, publicly criticizing Dutch policies, administrators, and politicians whenever necessary. His morally inspired scholarship was to serve Dutch activities in the fast-expanding colony; witness a remarkable statement he made as early as 1847: It is there (the Dutch Indies) if anywhere that a rich harvest can be expected from the alliance of Christianity and science for the ennoblement and happiness of humanity, where millions of people, under the influence of a mild religion, have stagnated in semi-civilization for centuries, and millions have sunk to the depths of coarseness and ignorance. Thanks to an impressive and ever-expanding library and a lively correspondence with a constantly shifting group of administrators, scholars, missionaries, and educators, Veth was well-informed about the often horrendous circumstances in which the indigenous peoples of the Archipelago found themselves. Things in the Dutch Indies should be changed, he argued loudly and clearly. Holland, civilized and superior, should expand its authority over the islands. Holland had the moral obligation not only of protecting the local people from suppression and corruption, but also of giving free rein to private business and its endeavors of developing the islands for the benefit of everyone involved. The Indies local population should be elevated, in short, under the benevolent guardianship of an enlightened (and Christian) Dutch-led administration, and in Veths opinion this elevation should be based on a solid knowledge of the land. His passionate quest of knowledge of the Indies led him on a long scholarly career involving academic institutions in Breda, Franeker, Amsterdam and, finally, Leiden, in an aura of respect, fame, depressions, and wealth. His knowledge was of an encyclopedic and fragmentary character, typical of the great nineteenth-century European students of Southeast Asia (such as Crawfurd and Logan before him). Knowledge should inform people in Holland about the colony as much as assist the Dutch administration and army in the Indies in their civilizing and elevating work. Veths writings offered concrete and material information about nature, tribal life, life style, religions, and languages; his main interests were geography, natural history, languages, and ethnographyand, of course, education. But then, information and knowledge are never presented without a framework of preconceptions, and Veths work is no exception to this rule. His notions of empiricism, Christianity, and nationalism are elegantly and almost imperceptibly absorbed in his work: in his voluminous books about the islands of Borneo, Java, and Sumatra, as well as in his contributions to a Dutch Indies encyclopedia; in his successful efforts to establish scholarly societies, such as the Indisch Genootschap and het Koninklijk Nederlands Aardrijkskundig Genootschap; in his numerous publications about language, nature, buildings, rituals, education, and politics; in his work as an editor for some of the trend-setting journals in Holland, De Gids and Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch-Indie among them; in his propaganda for scientific expeditions in the colony and the 1883 World Exhibition in Amsterdam; in his pleas for an active intervention in Atjeh and other regions of the Indies where, he knew, the local population was suppressed by their rulers; and, at the end of his life, in his

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dreams of a Greater Holland, in which not only Insulinde but also South Africa were to have a place. Van der Veldes fascinating A Lifelong Passion tries to offer a comprehensive picture of Veth the man, Veth the armchair scholar, and Veth the public intellectual. It does not always succeed in combining these three personae, if only because an encyclopedic scholar is, by definition, beyond comprehension. Bringing this founding father of Indonesian studies in the Netherlands into the limelight at last, the book is a fine example of the attention present-day Dutch scholars of Indonesia have been giving to the nineteenth century, in what seems like a revisionist attempt at coming to terms with the beginnings of the colonial enterprise. Its original Dutch version, Een Indische Liefde, should make its modern readers realize how much they owe to this man who spent the main part of his intellectual energy on the Indies, without ever setting foot on colonial ground. Its English version (which may lack the contagious lightness of the original) should make its readers, tried and tested in discussions of Orientalism and post-colonialism, aware of the prominent role P. J. Veth played during his long and richyet painfullife in the intellectual and scholarly conversations of the Netherlands, a tiny country with a vast colonial empire and a history of embarrassing riches. A Lifelong Passion offers summaries of Veths major publications and concise descriptions of the public discussions in Holland in which Veth played his part with fervor. It offers, above all, a clear picture of how nineteenth-century Dutch intellectuals such as Veth operated for the sake of scholarship and knowledgeand the outstanding feature of these operations are the networks, created and sustained by correspondence, conversations, public meetings, and polemics. Networks in the relatively small and narrow-minded academia. Networks in the murky plays of national and colonial politics. Networks in the religious world. Networks in the everexpanding domain of writers and intellectuals. A Lifelong Passion offers intriguing glimpses not only into the life of Professor Veth, but also into life in nineteenth-century Netherlandsthe role of Protestantism, the function of scholarship, the importance of the Indies, the political struggles between conservatives and liberals, and the emergence of modernity. And the book suggests that Pieter Johannes Vetha scholar with an astonishing production, a public intellectual who addressed the issues of the day, and an often depressed manwas the perfect embodiment of nineteenth-century Dutch conscience and intellect. The Dutch Indies, green and distant, were his passion.

Matthew Isaac Cohen. Komedie Stamboel: Popular Theater in Colonial Indonesia, 18911903. Athens, OH: Ohio University Center for International Studies, 2006. 496 pages. Jan Mrzek
Komedie Stamboel traces the life of the Eurasian theater actor/director/manager Auguste Mahieu and the history of the original Komedie Stamboel theater (capitalized to distinguish the particular theater company from the komedie stamboel genre) and a number of other komedie stamboel companies with which Mahieu was involved. The book focuses on a short period from the genesis of Komedie Stamboel in 1891 to Mahieus death in 1903, with most attention given to the earliest years (18911893). However, the book is about much more than theater: it gives a glimpse of new ways of living and seeing, about new desires, obsessions, and pleasures, in the fin-de-sicle towns and cities in the East Indies, and beyond that, about the formation of Indies and Indonesian modernity in the realm of popular urban entertainment. As such, the book is relevant to later developments in the field of theater, cinema, and television (even though exploring these implications is not the main aim of the book). Further, the book situates fin-de-sicle Indies urban culture in a larger picture of popular entertainments beyond the Dutch East Indies. Cohen describes the initial stimulus for writing the book: I still recall my excitement on encountering a series of eight articles in the Dutch newspaper Tjerimai describing a run of performances of the Komedie Stamboel under the direction of the Heer Mahieu in 1983. [] I had no inkling that primary sources, in the form of newspaper sources, existedand in such substantial numbers. Curiosity got the better of me. (p. xi) Newspaper reports, announcements, and critical articles are not only the authors main sourceand the research behind the book is impressivebut throughout the book the reader, too, can enjoy some of the excitement of newspaper discoveries. Reading certain parts of the book feels almost like going through old newspapers. Much of the book consists of quotations and summaries of materials from newspapers, giving the reader a sense of the voices that talked about komedie stamboel, and of contemporary perspectiveshow journalists and letter writers argued about komedie stamboel, what assumptions they brought to the theater, what pleasures and annoyances they found in it, what was important to them, how komedie stamboel troupes framed their announcements and what they felt was important to emphasize to their audiences, and so on. In other words, the book allows the reader to see komedie stamboel through the eyes of its audiences and contemporary observers, to eavesdrop on their conversations, and to share their excitement. Theatrical performances are among the most evanescent forms of art, and especially in this case, where no recordings exist and no scripts, stage directions, or manuals have been preservedit would seem that writing a history that would give a feel of the actual performances is a hopeless project. Yet Cohen succeeds in doing exactly thatthe book gives one the feeling of what it was like to attend komedie stamboel shows. He conveys the pleasures and annoyances of being in the theater, and
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explains who was in the audience and who the actors were, and describes what their lives were like. One gets a sense of how the spectacular costumes and special effects were seen by the people who attended the shows. The book gives evidence that an open-mindedness and thoughtfulness of research may be more important than the availability of plentiful evidence; that even with limited sources, one can reconstruct a historical world and give a sense of being in that world. There is much more to theater than scripts and stage directions, and some of the available informationthe emphasis on spectacle and theatrical effects, the audiences enjoyment of costumes and scenery, or the pleasures afforded by the free range of the gaze on the companys whiteskinned actresses (p. 78) arranged in tableaux-vivantsmay be more vital to bringing life to our picture of komedie stamboel. Cohen shows how komedie stamboel emerged from and figured in its world. Little snippets of available information about komedie stamboel are presented against carefully painted backdrops and thus they are made meaningful and interesting. Cohen creates for the reader a picture of Surabaya around the time that komedie stamboel emerged there, with the different parts of the city and its people, its weather, its streets, its tastes, its smellsshowing both the drama on stage and the social comedies around it. Later, when he discusses the travels of Komedie Stamboel and other troupes, he describes the individual places where the company traveled and the people who lived there, the means of travel, and so on. The reader can thus travel in his imagination with the theater company, learning not only about the theater, but feeling what it was like to travel with a komedie stamboel troupe through fin-de-sicle Java, getting a sense of each town, encountering the people, reading the newspapers (to learn about little and big scandals), and seeing the performances through the eyes of the audiences. The reader gets a sense of how shows were advertised, what headaches the actors and managers endured, what the performing spaces were like, who the spectators were, where the actors stayed, and so on. The organization of the bookthe reader follows the company as it changes, as it travels through Java and beyond, as it goes through good and bad timesreveals the temporal nature of the theater: the uncertainty of a life on the go; the changing popularity of a theater company; the formation, dissolution, and re-formation of theatrical troupes; and the feeling that every place at which we perform is excitingly different and depressingly like all other places on this trip. Komedie stamboel is at the center of the book, but it is situated among other entertainments of the timessuch as theatrical performances, circuses, and magic shows. Cohen describes the other shows that were on in the particular town where komedie stamboel was performing. The book thus gives a picture of the larger entertainment landscape in which komedie stamboel figured, and how komedie stamboel was shaped by interaction and competition with different kinds of entertainments, such as the famous magician, Professor Anderson, who poenya tenda besar matjem baroe (has a big tent of a new kind) and performed his Pemboenoehan Pada Satoe Njonja (The Murder of a Lady; p. 97); or Stanleys Comic Opera, with its double bill of The Sleeping Beauty and Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-De-Ay (p. 131). The book also describes how people would imitate komedie stamboel, how new local groups emerged, and how stamboel songs became popular. To write such a rich study of any theater would be valuable, but Cohen also shows what is special about komedie stamboel. It was the first locally produced theater

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embodying early Indies and Indonesian modernity, a theatrical lingua franca free from strong associations to a particular local culture and local language. Performed in Malay, it connected performers and audiences into a trans-local metropolitan superculture (p. 3), drawing on inspiration from Western theater and opera as well as Indian and Parsi theater. It was shaped by Eurasians and (especially in the early stages) local Chinese, and it appealed to a heterogeneous, multi-ethnic audience. In more technical terms, komedie stamboel for the first time popularized many aspects of modern Western theater that would gradually penetrate local practices, from proscenium stage to ideas about acting and repertoire, and indeed the Western idea of theater. The final chapter discusses Mahieus legacy in the Eurasian community in the Netherlands, and then turns briefly to the legacy of komedie stamboel in Indonesia, suggesting that it can be seen not only in influences on specific kinds of performing artsfrom what are now considered traditional genres such as kethoprak and ludruk, to modern theater, to Indonesian cinema and televisionbut also in general attitudes toward acting and public behavior. These final few pages of the book, as well as parts of the excellent introduction, provide tantalizing hints at what could be fascinating future research into komedie stamboels legacy in Indonesia, and really into the history of theater and related spectacles in modern Indonesia, the beginning of whichor one of the beginningsis traced in Cohens Komedie Stamboel. This is an important, pioneering book that is also a pleasure to readlets just hope that the second and the third volumes of this history will be coming to town soon!

IN MEMORIAM, CLIFFORD GEERTZ (19262006): AN APPRECIATION

Shelly Errington

Its the end of an era, several friends in several disciplines commented when they heard of Clifford Geertzs death in late October 2006. They are not anthropologists, but they are in the humanities and social sciences, and they were awake during the second half of the twentieth century. I thought the same. And it put me to thinking about what that era was and about Clifford Geertzs place in it. Geertzs productive academic life largely coincided with three interconnected eras in the second part of the century. One was the United Statess waxing and waning influence; after WWII, it began its superpower status in a mood of generosity and hopeor so it must have seemed at the timestarting with the Marshall Plan, Trumans Point Four Program, and modernization theory, but this era ended with the gloomy triumph of global neoliberalism and the US invasion of Iraq. A second simultaneous era traces the fates of the former colonies of Africa and Asia, which began with decolonization and nationalist agendas for social and economic justice, and ends with falteringly imagined national communities under duress due to various assaults including the International Monetary Fund [IMF] and the World Bank. And third, an era of changing intellectual landscape for academics and intellectuals; it began with confident models of knowledge embedded in the notion of progress, objectivity, atomized facts, and a resolve to emulate physics, and ended with many Situations of, Conditions of, and Discourses of, and post-s and neo-s. Geertzs career and thoughts were intertwined with all three of those eras.

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1. I first read Geertzs work as a graduate student at Cornell University in the late 1960s and early 70s. I remember not understanding what the fuss was about. In retrospect, I can see that my nave and unappreciative attitude was due partly to, first, my complete ignorance at the time of the state of the field when Geertz entered it, and, second, the fact that I was absorbing even more-radical and more-extreme ideas about meaning and social theory from my teachers at the time, with the result that Geertzs work seemed tame by contrast. I was ignorant about anthropology upon arrival in graduate school. As an undergraduate major in political science, I was unable to reconcile in my mind its two partsclassical political theory, which I liked very much, and behavioral political science (then much in vogue), which I did not. Intuiting in May of my senior year that anthropology, which I knew little about, would be more to my liking, I landed by a happy accident at Cornell, the only graduate program that accepted me. The buzz at the time was all about Lvi-Strauss and Foucault on major theory, not Geertz; about Victor Turner and Mary Douglas on symbols, not Geertz; about Anderson, Kahin, Siegel, and Wolters on Indonesia and Vietnam (the Vietnam War was raging and getting worse), not Geertz. At the time, Marxists (think Marvin Harris and Leslie White as figures taken seriously in that era) and culturalists were at odds, to say the least, especially as perceived by students, who picked up on and absorbed the raging debates in the larger academic world in an effort to form opinions and find a voice. The formerthe Marxists and other proponents of hard factsthought the latterthose interested in literature, art, meaning, and language, most particularly if they were in the social sciencesto be mushy-headed, mystical, and soft on liberalism to boot. The latter thought the Marxists and their ilk to be strident, self-justifying, and willingly blind. Anthropologys positivist heritage, sometimes inflected by a variety of mainstream scientistic assumptions and methodologies, had its non-Marxist proponents as well, of course, who were equally hostile or, at best, irritated and puzzled by the culturalists. By the I time was writing my dissertation in the early 1970s, I went around telling people that I studied false consciousness, only partly joking. (Of course, I had absorbed an appreciation of form as meaningful from my revered teachers.) Now, when theories of power and of meaning have long since been put into a relationship, in several plausible and useful ways, it is hard to imagine that all those dichotomiesthe substructure and the superstructure, substantial hard facts versus decorative mere thoughtsloomed large. But at that time, we culturalists felt defensive and beleaguered, even though we believed we were onto something very important, something exciting, a different way of understanding humans. If that was the state of anthropology circa 1970 (at least at Cornell, as I experienced itit would have been more advanced in Chicago), imagine what it was like twenty years earlier. In 1951, the youngish Clifford Geertz, a veteran who attended Antioch College on the GI Bill, fresh from being a philosophy and English major, and editor of Antiochs literary magazine, but having taken no undergraduate course in anthropology (there were none), landed at Harvard graduate school with his wife Hildred (also there to become an anthropologist). He told me that the first book he was

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given to read in order to understand the field he was about to enter was G. P. Murdocks Social Structure (1949). It is hard to imagine anything further from his sensibilities. He must have been shell-shocked. The 1950s was a period when culture was imagined as the superorganic; or as a collection of traits, which could be correlated as atomized bits and scientific conclusions (drawn from the facts); or as a projection of childhood psychological upbringing, writ large. In America, at Harvard, the most ambitious theorizer of the time and place was Talcott Parsons, who was attempting to integrate all social sciences under a so-called General Theory of Action. Parsonss image of the social actor was diagrammed as a series of concentric circles, with the biological in the central core, culture at the furthest periphery, and psychology and sociology between. In this schema, culture was the least central part of being humana kind of decoration on the solid core of biology. In Britain, both between the world wars and for several decades beyond, British Social Anthropologists regarded themselves as sociologists of the non-West, assiduously studying structure (largely kinship) and its functions. Until Victor Turners work caught on in the 1960s, they dismissed religion and symbolism as an irrational frame in which, for example, native Africans pursued attainment of things like sacred stools and leopard cloaks; but the Social Anthropologists wrote as if what the Africans were really after, unbeknownst to them, was wealth, status, and power, the universal goals of rational men. (I came across the startling assertion, in the notoriously boring African Political Systems [1962], that if the native Africans understood what they were really pursuing, the whole society would collapse.) The British Social Anthropologist Edmund Leach wrote an article claiming that the fact that women get married in virtually all societies is an aspect of structure; whether they wear wedding rings or mark their foreheads with a vermilion dot to show it is an expression of culture . In these views, culture stood as either delusion or decoration. 2. After two years of graduate school, Clifford and Hildred Geertz, for their doctoral research, joined a Ford Foundation-funded team going to Indonesia, where very little anthropology, or something akin to it, had been done at all. The Dutch had worked on texts; Lvi-Strauss on a long-distance analysis of Eastern Indonesian kinship; Cora Du Bois on the Alor; and Bateson and Mead (and the extraordinary group of European writers, dancers, and artists there at the same time) on Balibut little else comes to mind, and even less in English. So anything that this team of Harvard graduate students were to publish about Java had the chance to begin a new phase, a new framing for subsequent work in this new nation, this new field of study. Clifford Geertzs work did become a major frame, setting the terms for much subsequent work in the region. His doctoral dissertation, packed with texts and information, turned into The Religion of Java (1960), giving us multiple voices sorted into various aliran, an enduring account of alus and kasar , lair and batin, and the Javanese person protected by a wall of language made by someone else, and much else. It was quickly followed by his other soon-to-become classics on the region: Agricultural Involution (1963), Peddlers and Princes (1963), Balinese Kinship (1975; with

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Hildred Geertz, first author), and Negara (1980). The Geertzes fieldwork in Morocco resulted in more ethnographic and comparative work, notably Islam Observed (1971) and Meaning and Order in Moroccan Society (1979; by C. Geertz, H. Geertz, and L. Rosen). And, of course, Geertz exercised a further, if indirect, influence on Indonesian social sciences by recommending in 1971 that a series of small, regional research stations be created, and that they be dispersed throughout the islands to train and encourage Indonesians in field research. The Ford Foundation, which had requested his recommendation, established and funded those stations. Geertzs written works, especially the early ones, set the terms of the scholarship on Indonesia, in the sense that generations of scholars either elaborated, extended, and explored his formulations of the issues, or they contested and disputed them. Geertzs works prompted generations of scholars to do research on many different fronts and to theorize their work (rather than take existing theory for granted or apply received wisdom, derived from other disciplines or regions). Geertzs influence was extremely fortunate for the fieldto have a major figure doing research right after Indonesias independence and, therefore, at a time when the region was opening up to socialscience research from places other than its colonial power, a person who happened to be a scholar with a well-defined, fruitful, comprehensive vision of what was at issue and how to go about exploring itopened the way for many kinds of studies, and many kind of views. Scholars who disagreed or questioned Geertzs visionand there were manywere prompted to debate issues that matter: the nature of power; the nature of hierarchy; how groups were organized (or not); the sensibilities that sustain (or do not) the shape of everyday life; the kinds of selves assumed and produced locally; how the tangible expressions of meaning (music, language) signify and shape personal and public life; how people make sense of new economic and political arrangements; and how economic and political arrangements may be inflected and shaped by everything else. The world-political context and the intellectual context in which these ethnographic and comparative works were written differed substantially from the contexts that existed before World War II. In large part, these changes resulted from the break-up of European colonial regimes. During the first few decades of independence for Asian and African new nations, most of them former colonies that had taken the opportunity presented by WWII to throw off their colonizers, a predominant preoccupation of both the new nations and the Americans and Europeans was the struggle to modernize their economies. Moreover, Cold War competition between first and second worlds for the allegiance of the struggling-to-be neutral third world resulted in funding for scholars doing research on the third world, especially on economic matters. Upon returning from his doctoral research, Geertz was part of a research seminar on economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and he taught an ecology course that became Agricultural Involution. In 1960, after his initial fieldwork, a year teaching at UC Berkeley, and a stint at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral and Social Sciences in Stanford, a group of scholars from a variety of disciplines, among them Geertz, moved to the University of Chicago and formed the Committee on New Nations (where Geertz stayed until moving in 1970 to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton). In those decades, modernization theory and questions about how modernization might work out for the good of all were still preoccupying scholars. It was a time of intellectual intensity

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about issues that seemed solvable (e.g., what circumstances could lead to economic take-off?). In works like Peddlers and Princes, Agricultural Involution, and Meaning and Order in Moroccan Society, Geertzs interest in the encounter between meaning-making and ethos, on the one hand, and the shaping of lifes hard aspects (making a living, markets, farming), on the other, is obvious. During those same decades, a revolution (or at least a turn) was occurring in the human sciences. Whatever the nature of anthropologys visions of human nature and human agency had been in earlier eras (and they were various), the 1960s and 1970s produced something different: an effort to re-theorize culture by putting symbols, meaning, and thought at the center of our understanding of what it is to be human. Every social-science discipline presumes the existence of its theorys agents; these homunculi populate the theory and make it work, in theory. So economists, notoriously, postulate rational man, maximizing his advantage; political sciences denizens jockey for position in their relentless pursuit of status and power; psychologists, regardless of their stripe, attend to internal processes or perhaps black boxes (or now brains), but in any case see a collection of islands that may aggregate into society but hardly derive from it. Derived from and expressed in several different intellectual traditions, what could be called a turn toward meaning in anthropological theorizing seemed to be in the air at the timethats what we culturalists felt excited about at Cornell when I was in graduate school there. But the air was thickest at the University of Chicago, where Geertz taught between 1960 and 1970. He was not alone in his impulse to create a different way of understanding anthropology and how to interpret human actions. Geertz was not alone in advocating a turn toward meaning, but he was probably the most widely read anthropologist outside his discipline, and he was highly explicit about meaning-making as a fundamental aspect of being human. His very widely read Thick Description (1973), with its forever-quoted man is an animal suspended in webs of significance that he himself has made, and its clarification of the difference between the twitch (biological) and the wink (intentional), stands as a manifesto defending the difference between the kind of social analysis that accepts human meaning and intention as the keys to understanding social life, and the kind that disregards or discounts them. But to me the most remarkable and still radical and unabsorbed statement of Geertzs position is The Impact of the Concept of Culture on the Concept of Man (first published in 1966). To cut to the chase, he points out that humans are born incomplete, and we need culture (first, language and all it entails for meaning-making) to complete ourselves. You would not think this would come as a surprise, but the implication of Geertzs way of putting it went against two centuries or so of European knowledge-production (ever since, as Foucault put it, LHomme was invented at the end of the eighteenth century). Geertzs argument asserted that, at a physical/biological level, we are programmed for using language and creating and using symbols, and that, therefore, culture and meaning-making are not superficial decoration but the very the core of our being as humans. We are winkers, not merely twitchers, and intention pervades everything we do. The presumption of biological sciences and psychology, as well as other kinds of social sciences in overt or covert ways, was that we can discover the core of what it is to be human by stripping away all that humans do not have in common

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in other words, cultural variationsin order to discover a generalized and universal human nature; the misleading and empty result of that endeavor, Geertz maintained to the end, is to create empty generalities. His view was that the scientific and rhetorical task of the investigator is to tack between the smallest particulars of lives lived by real people in real places and times, and the deepest and broadest questions that humans, as humans, deal with, using each to illuminate the other and help us understand their significance. The further uncomfortable implication of his argument is that we knowledge-producers, whether scientists or artists or anthropologists, like everyone else who ever lived, are also meaning-making animals; the knowledge and arts we produce (science, economics, the idea of history, ) do not stand outside of culture any more than do those knowledge and arts of the cultures we study. Some version of this notion is commonplace in anthropology, but it is hard to swallow for the physical and biological scientists and those in the social sciences who would aspire to imitate them. Geertz went about for much of his career showing us how construing (to use a favorite term of his) humans as inevitably and intrinsically meaning-making creatures would alter our ways of understanding social life, history, art, religion, economics everything, in fact. He insisted, for instance, that thinking is a public activity, not a private one; that culture is neither a reified thing with boundaries (an idea that, curiously, some anthropologists attribute to Geertz) nor is it whats left over when other explanations fail (as syndicated columnists seem to believe). This approach resists separating biology and culture and reifying the former; and it resists attributing to genes or the like explanatory power (DNA as an explanation of behavior, the selfish gene as an explanation of sexual attraction and sibling rivalry). It goes against any essentialized notion of races, ethnicities, and primordial tribalism, and against the easy-to-understand and totally misguided notion that essential and clearly demarcated cultures or religions inevitably clash. And, of course, to bring it up to date (for now it seems everything old is new again), this approach would reject the conviction that we are the possessors of facts, reason, science, and a rational economic system while they are burdened with narrative, culture, tribalism, and irrational hate. Geertzs view of humans is still too far from the mainstream of received wisdom and psychological (and other kinds of) investment to make much of a dent in either popular culture or the corridors of bureaucracy and power. At the end of the 1970s, world events delivered a blow to modernization theory. The Iranian Revolution, which deposed a secular modernizer as head of state (true, the Shah was corrupt and a puppet of the United States, but he remained emblematically a secular modernizer) and installed an Ayatollah, gave pause to those who believed that less-developed economies and nation states were becoming, or wanted to become, just like us: secular, rational, and modern. At the same time, the turn toward meaning in the human sciences shifted visibly into a new and far more self-critical phase. In 1979, Edward Saids Orientalism was published; three years later, Benedict Andersons Imagined Communities (1982) was published; and at the end of the 1970s, Michel Foucaults works were translated into English and published at an increasing rate. These books catalyzed major shifts in the intellectual projects of anthropology, history, comparative politics, and literary studies in the United States and beyond.

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They ushered in colonial discourse, attention to the relations of power in the production of knowledge, a rejection of the notion that tribes live before or outside history, and, in general, prompted the move toward self-critique of the disciplines, selfreflexivity in the human sciences, and related changes in acceptable prose styles that would occur in the 1980s and 1990s. 3. The turn to reflexivity and colonial discourse involved paying new attention to knowledge-production and its fixing by inscription, both in large senses and in what we ordinarily call writing. Various anthropologists turned to opine about writing culture. My favorite bon mot about it is Jim Cliffords (himself a non-anthropologist but a leader in this movement), who commented to me that your cooked is my raw. Just so. Everybody attended to writing and style. Geertzs contribution was the utterly delightful Works and Lives (1988, but given as lectures in 1983). Check out especially Slide Show: Evans-Pritchards African Transparencies. Then there was the matter of the politics of style. For the first few decades of Geertzs professional life, his conscious and writerly prose was rejected by many academics as too artful, too conscious of its rhetorical devices, as not muscular enough to convey the hard facts; it seemed soft and unscientific. His style of writing was for a while, then, too radical for his critics: he legitimized the reflective essay that uses I and situates the writer/observer not outside the object of investigation but within it, conversing withabove all, conversing with!the objects of investigation, who, talking back, become subjects themselves, on the same level as the anthropologist. With the advent of the 1980s and its attendant focus in anthropology on how one should write culture, and its brief turn to extreme self-reflexivity, Geertzs reflexive and reflective essay style snuck up and bit him in the back. Suddenly it was not radical enough for his new critics. Some of his other ideas either became unfashionable or were willfully misunderstood during the 1980s and 90s. (Actually, many of his ideas were willfully misunderstood his whole career, but that is a perpetual hazard for the famous and enviable.) For one, there was Geertzs unfashionable belief in the intentional self, which expresses itself with words. Translated into a political stance, Geertz was something of a liberal humanist. A phenomenologist at heart, he certainly did believe in the subject, one of the many reasons he didnt care for French structuralism. In structuralism and post-structuralism, too, subjects disappear, or rather never were part of the equation; and, besides, they speak only parle, which is of no consequence: only la langue, only la structure, are worth attending to. Liberal humanism, out of fashion in Marxist-inflected thought during the Vietnam War, was out of fashion again during the poststructuralist era. Another serious complaint concerned Geertzs apparent indifference to analyzing power. The fact is, he did not want to demystify, which he regarded as equivalent to finding the same thing everywherepower, exploitation, the mode of production. I think he found that claim intellectually uninteresting and, besides, it had been done before. He wanted, rather, to show us the varieties of difference, in conversation with people and taking seriously their beliefs about their lived experience. He wanted to

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study false consciousness. As he put it somewhere (Im paraphrasing here), why go to Timbuktu and get beriberi in order to find out that big fish eat little fish? His intention was to give us a different way of seeing, to reverse our common-sense perceptions of whats going onto make us understand that power serves pomp in Bali, or to make us see charisma as a cultural system. As a consequence, to my mind there is no doubt that he underreported the exploitation of the peasants by the elite. But there is also no doubt that doing so was a deliberate rhetorical choice related to his life-long intellectual projectnot due to a moral failing or to indifference. Unlike the intellectual project of many people who study the unfolding of power within history, Geertz was not inclined to lay bare the interlocking chains of factors that bump against each other causally and form straight lines (especially if they lead to us). Geertz did not think in straight lines, and he did not write in straight lines. He thought and wrote in patterns, as he frequently pointed out about himself. Indeed, in almost every way one can imagine, Geertz and his prose were nonlinear. He would not write a straightforward, declarative sentence with a strong claim that might unambiguously carry his argument forward. His authorial voice was deeply ironical, and he was always stepping back from what he was saying, gently mocking it and himself if his claimjust made or about to emergesounded too much like a pronouncement. His lists, his asides, his parenthetical remarks (sometimes even in parentheses), his strings of dependent clauses made his sentences less like paved roads going somewhere and more like meandering streams, caught in eddies, doubling back, flowing laterally, acknowledging the existence of whole powerful rushing rivers while dismissing them with a wave of the hand, finally stopping to pool and spread and deposit for inspection a pattern made by the flora and fauna picked up on the way and then finding a crevice or slot to spill out from and continue its constantly selfinterrupted but ultimately purposeful journey toward a conclusion (for water travels downhill, and writing and books go from beginning to end, so one knows it will end up somewhere). Usually, especially in his middle years, when he was writing theoretical pieces instead of ethnography, the stopping-pools were three examples Java, Bali, and Morocco. As a consequence of his intellectual convictions and temperamental inability either to think or to write in a straight line, he did not write social science, and he did not write history. About social science Ill say no more, since it is obviousIm referring to big social science, the kind that uses questionnaires and charts and statistics and makes claims and infers causality, not the kinds of essayistic reflections in the humane sciences that his own prose helped to legitimate. History was a different matterwhat can I say, some of his best friends were historiansand he liked and read history. But think of Negaraa kind of anti-history. Although ostensibly situated in time, the picture of the Balinese state that he paints underplays change and history. In fairness, the apparent timelessness of that picture was not due to his imagining Balinese culture as essentialized and changeless, but because he believed that the political project of the state endured through many vagaries of history. (It is probably my least favorite of his books, although not for that reason.)

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And think of After the Fact: Two Countries, Four Decades, One Anthropologist (1995). Geertz begins that book by discussing at length the impossibility of the task at hand: it is Heraclitus cubed and worse, he says, because when everything has changedthe world, the anthropologist, the disciplinethere is no place to stand to locate what has changed and what has not changed. Change, apparently, he writes a few pages later, is not a parade that can be watched as it passes. The stories one tells, he observes, have a beginning, middle, and end, not because that is the inner direction of things, but because of ones own intersection with them (not his phrasing), presumably at an earlier and then a later point in ones life. And, of course, if he had no taste for the parade of change seen from a vantage point outside it, he had even less for the idea of progress resulting in the self-congratulatory European us, a related idea admittedly not exactly the same. He organizes After the Fact not as a before-and-after story with the ends connected as strings of causation, which would have looked something like history. He organizes it, instead, thematically, by towns, countries, disciplines, and so forth, a rhetorical strategy that allows him to write about patterns of contrast in each, and to make it clear in the structure that the story being told is about his encounters and reflections, not about the parade of change as such. In the last section of the book, Modernities, he describes a new ritual he attended in Javathe product of modernity in some way, and rather incomprehensible. It occurred to me that, but for the fact that he does not see this pastiche as a consequence of the latest phase of late capitalism, does not make pronouncements, uses no jargon or abstraction, and his tone is ironic and self-deprecating, he could be a post-modern Marxist describing a certain hotel in Los Angeles. As the Indonesians might say, sama sajabut for the fact. 4. Cliff Geertzs intellectual project, which you could say in brief was to show patterns made up of parts that affect each other and that go nowhere clearly or directionally, was no doubt related to his temperament and sensibilities as well as to his convictions. He had the inclination, even at a young age, to take meaning and varieties of consciousness seriously. He was of a literary and philosophical turn of mind, had read Dewey in college, and despised instrumentality in human relationships and, I suppose by extension, as a theory of human nature. Perhaps his favorite poem was W. H. Audens In Memory of W. B. Yeats," which was read at the private family memorial for him (kindly sent to me by Hildred Geertz, his first wife). A stanza he especially liked and quoted began For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives In the valley of its saying where executives Would never want to tamper; . . . Cliff Geertz was a person of great professional and personal integrity, generous in spirit (which did not exclude some occasional skewering wit), and enormously hard working (the mind boggles imagining the number of letters of recommendation he wrote . . . never mind the writing he was famous for).

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He was also highly sociable, which may come as a surprise to some. At his memorial service at the Institute for Advanced Study on March 4, 2007, it was said several times that he didnt like small talk. It is understandable that he got that reputation, but that characterization doesnt quite nail it. True, he was not really programmed to make strangers feel at ease, and he was impossible on the phone abrupt, impatient. He didnt like boring talk, which includes almost any type of rating talk (he disliked invidious comparisons in almost any context), or posturing, or arguments about anything except ideas, or any kind of adamant and uninformed talk. He also was not someone to brainstorm withhe expected your positions on serious topics to be well thought out and well informed, even if speculative. But he loved conversationanecdotes, funny stories, stories with a punch line, insightful observations, thoughtful speculations, contrasting and comparing views of this and that, or discussion of serious issues fraught with moral significance. And he enjoyed talking about baseball. Cliffs second wife, Karen Blu, contributed this remembrance at his memorial service at the Institute and graciously sent it for inclusion here: When he was in the hospital at the University of Pennsylvania, toward the end of his tortured, nearly three-month stay, the doctors had said he might, in time, actually recover enough to come home and to go to his office. Cliff, ever the skeptic, was not convinced. In trying to find a way to encourage him, I asked him what, for him, would be the one most important thing required for a meaningful life. Although his body had been battered repeatedly, his mind was very much there. He thought about it for awhile, and then he said, talking to people. Perhaps that gives you some idea of the value he placed on the conversations you had with him. He was not always an easy man to talk with, but good talk was the thing he valued most. When I reflect on the last fifty or sixty years of anthropology, I think that it has changed the most of all the human sciences. A prime reason for that is that during fieldwork we converse with people who converse with us, thus changing the premises and framework of the questions asked and answeredsomething that doesnt happen if the method of data-collection is a survey form. Cliff rejected the one-sided notion of objectivity, which implies a privileged point of view rather than a mutually constructed one. (He was a fiend for accuracy, something very different from objectivity.) He loved good conversation, and it is probably no accident that his model of the anthropological enterprise of fieldwork was the back and forth of conversation. As we enter a new, more cynical era in the early twenty-first century, those humane and liberal values, like Clifford Geertz himself, who both embodied and articulated them, will be missed.

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CODA:
A CARTOON DRAWN FOR CLIFFORD GEERTZ
Cliff Geertz did not think in straight lines, and he was quite a humorous fellow, both of which characteristics (among other things) put him at odds with conventional social science. I drew this cartoon for him circa 1982, and he enjoyed it a lot. Shelly Errington