The New Indonesia of Pramoedya

Due to extra time because of the Covid-19 virus, while also libraries were closed, I have read again many older books in my personal library. After reading again Arus Balik, or the book on the arrival of Islam in Java by Pramoedya Ananta Toer, I took the tetralogy on Minke, alias Tirto Adhisoerjo, the journalist/nationalist (ca 1880-1918). It is a work of four books, 1600 pages, more or less the story of the early years of kebangkitan nasional for the period 1900-1918. The first two books are a story of a son of a bupati or regent, studying at the highest level of secondary education. Minke is an excellent student, the best of his school in Surabaya, much better than the European and Eurasian pupils. Much of his story is related to the separation of race in the colonial period. Minke falls in love with the daughter of a nyai, a native lady, the bed-partner of a Dutch entrepeneur. The Dutchman finally becomes addicted to alcohol and the girls of a nearby brothel. The nyai runs his business, but when this man dies the two children and all possesions are taken by his family in the Netherlands.
Minke starts writing (in Dutch!) about colonial society in a narrative style: anecdotes from concrete life and this is the message of the book: how nationalism and political criticism of the colonial society started. Some reviewers therefore state, that the book has a political agenda. Anyway, it is an interesting view on the period. Historical novels sometimes may have more influence than academic books on history: like the Lion of Flanders (De Leeuw van Vlaanderen) by Henry Constance for Belgium nationalism.
In this Surabaya period Minke first meets a few people from China, who are promoting a secular and democratic Republic that should be the successor to the feudal empire.

Volume 3 is about the study of Minke/Tirto Adhisoerjo in Batavia/Jakarta, where he becomes a student at the medical college, but finally more and more is involved in journalist writings and finally also in the foundation of the nationalist organization Medan Prajaji. He meets people of the newly erected Chinese organization who publish a daily Sin Po, he has some contacts with Arabs from Jamiatul Khair, hears of Budi Utama, the feudal organization in Yogyakarta. He starts a weekly, Medan Prijaji where also some schools, some business is attached. This is a failure, and he starts Sarikat Dagang Islam, with some better results, but finally this is taken over by Haji Samanhudi in Solo under the name Sarekat Islam, and soon after this by HOS, Haji Oemar Said Tjokroaminoto in Surabaya. In 1912 he is expelled to Bacan, the smallest sultanate-island of the Moluccas and only returns to Java in 1918 and soon thereafter dies. Volume 4 is a long resumee of this development from the perspective of a Catholic native man from Menado, high official in the colonial bureaucracy.

Pramoedya Ananta Toer has written a mixture of historical narrative, based on solid documentation, and fantasy, which is a historic novel. For me it was of course again a reading of history, quite different from my own work, concentrating on Islam: the first Muslim journalist and novel writer was Hamka, Jamiatul Khair is part of the couple with its opponent, Al-Irshad, more reformist. Muhammadiyah, also founded in 1912 is not even mentioned!. Minke is a nominal Muslim: he marries a (legally) Dutch lady (Annelies, the daughter of the nyai Ontosoro) in an Islamic ceremony, but this is not recognised by colonial law, he has some contacts with Tjokroaminoto. But in the book there is nothing about Islam as part of the Indonesian society as depicted by Pramoedya. So, in fact it is a nice correction for me looking at Indonesian society as it was until the 1970s: much less religious than it is nowadays. Perhaps COVID-19 which has closed the mosques, has banned the hajj-pilgrimage for this year, has helped to postpone the activities of FPI, Front Pembela Islam, also will mitigate some of the extreme influence of religion in Indonesian society of the last 20-30 years.