Young Heroes: The Indonesian Family in Politics 9781501718908

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Young Heroes

Saya S. Shiraishi

YouNG HEROES THE INDONESIAN FAMILY IN POLITICS

SouTHEAST AsiA PROGRAM PuBLICATIONS

Southeast Asia Program Cornell University Ithaca, New York

1997

~----------------~~~-----------------~

Editorial Board Benedict Anderson George Kahin Stanley O'Connor Keith Taylor Oliver Wolters Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications 640 Stewart Avenue, Ithaca, NY 14850-3857 Studies on Southeast Asia No. 22

© 1997 Cornell Southeast Asia Program. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, no part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Cornell Southeast Asia Program. Printed in the United States of America ISBN 0-87727-721-4

Cover Photo and photos throughout text by Saya S. Shiraishi

TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments

7

Introduction

9

Chapter 1: Pengantar or Introduction to New Order Indonesia 1. Meeting people at the airport 2. Visiting friends, or how to travel in Jakarta 3. On the streets 4. Family courtyard

15 15 19 24 30

Chapter 2: Arrival of the New Order Bapak 1. Arrests, summons, and kidnappings 2. I Drove the Toyota Jeep, alone 3. No more kidnappings

37 38 45 50

Chapter 3: Mother and Children in the Family Courtyard 1. Han:;;at, sensation of happiness 2. Kehi/angan, sensation of loss 3. Kasih sayang, unconditional giving 4. Anak tertua, the eldest child 5. Terima kasih. Mamma 6. Lucu, at the drop of a green candy 7. The coup strikes the family

57 57 61 62 63 68 73 76

Chapter 4: Lineages of Bapak l. Its origins 2. Bapak was born 3. Bapak's historical journey 4. Bapak's ambivalent legacy

81 82 86 90 93

Chapter 5: Portraits of the New Order Bapak 1. Generosity and corruption 2. Bapak as family man 3. Tolerance and arbitrariness 4. Bapak in a scandal 5. Memories of fear

97 98 101 105 110 116

Chapter 6: Children in the Classroom 1. The first day at school 2. The New Order classroom 3. Constructing the family in the classroom

123 124 127 130

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Young Heroes

4. The teacher 5. Two voices, two writings-Learning learning 6. Weh-weh-weh Weh-weh-weh

133 135

141

Chapter 7: Ambivalent Youth 1. The Monitor incident 2. The danger of a name list 3. Love lessons

149 149 154 158

Conclusion

161

Bibliography

169

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T

here is no question that I owe a debt of gratitude to all those people I met in Indonesia for what I have learned. I would like to express my special gratitude to Yudhistira ANM Massardi and his Keluarga Besar, Jb. Kristanto and his family, Pak Gito Martoyo and his family, Pak Manik Sutanto and lbu Tresia and their family, Mildred Wagemann and Toenggoel Siagian. Ong Hok Ham, Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Yanti and Burhan Magenda, Daoed Joesoef, Taufik Abdullah, Goenawan Mohamad, Aristides and Mimis Katoppo, Myra Sidartha, Riantiarno, Ebiet and Yayuk G. Ade and their family, Farhan Bulkin and Jan Hostetler, Mr. and Mrs. Shozawa, Mr. and Mrs. Shinohara, lbu Astrid, Pak Swantoro and his family offered me invaluable help in different ways. The teachers and the children accepted me generously into their classroom, and they were in my mind all the time while I was searching for the "Young Heroes." I have benefited enormously from the criticism and advice of George MeT. Kahin, Robert J. Smith, James T. Siege!, A. Thomas Kirsch, and Benedict R. O'G. Anderson. Rudolf Mrazek, John Pemberton, Martin Hatch, Audrey Kahin, Jomo Sandaran, Henk Maier, Amrih Widodo, Marilyn Ivy read the earlier version or part of the text and helped me prepare the book. Needless to say, neither the friends nor the readers mentioned above bear any responsibility for the views expressed in the text. Warm thanks go to Deborah Homsher, Kathleen Kearns, Dolina Millar, and James Barbat at Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications for their support, patience and dedicated work. Finally, to my husband, Takashi Shiraishi, who had marvelous understanding of the subject and of myself without which I would not have been able to complete, this book is dedicated. A Note on Spelling In general, spelling of Indonesian words follows the current system introduced in 1972, with the exception of quotations from documents.

INTRODUCTION

Di mata saya tidak ada anak emas, juga tidak ada anak yang tidak saya senangi. Tidak ada. Semua mereka itu, dalam tugas dan bidangnya masing-masing, mempunyai kepercayaan yang sama dari saya. Semuanya pembantu-pembantu dekat saya sesuai dengan bidangnnya masing-masing ... In my eyes, there is no favorite child [anak emas], and also no child [anak] whom I do not like. None. All of them, each in his/her own duty and field, have the same trust from me. All of them are my close assistants according to their fields. 1 This is a quote from the chapter of President Soeharto's autobiography where he explains his working relationship with his ministers. Though he uses the word, anak, or child, to refer to his assistants, he is here talking about his fully grown-up cabinet ministers in their fifties and sixties, and not children in any biological sense. Referring to cabinet ministers as children sounds odd in English, and perhaps that is the reason the word "child" disappears in the official English-language version of his autobiography. 2 But it is important to underline the fact that Soeharto does refer to his ministers as children, and that his subordinates in turn refer to and address their boss as bapak, father. In this politico-familial language, Soeharto is Bapak Presiden or Father President, not merely President but also the supreme Father-a subtle but important point which is easily lost in the English translation. Soeharto's Indonesian-language autobiography thus shows us an intimate association that exists in Indonesian between politics and family. This is not a mere linguistic convention, but is deeply embedded in the New Order ideology. In the very beginning of the chapter in his autobiography from which the above paragraph is quoted, Soeharto states: "My activities are based on the leadership principles of the Armed Forces, that is Ing ngarsa sung tuladha, Ing madya mangun karsa, Tut Wuri handayani." 3 The principles thus phrased in Javanese are then explained in detail in the endnote of the autobiography. In its original Indonesian-language version, it goes as follows: 1 Soeharto, Soeharto: Pikiran, Ucapan, dan Tindakan Saya: Otobiografi seperti dipaparkan kepada G. Dwipayana dan Ramadhan K.H. (Jakarta: PT. Citra Lamtoro Gung Persada, 1989), p. 429. 2 The same paragraph goes as follows in the official English language version of the autobiography: "I do not give special favors, nor do I victimize anyone. Every one is my trusted assistant, each involved in his own assignment and function. They are all my close associates." Soeharto, Soeharto: My Thoughts, Words and Deeds: An Autobiography as told to G. Dwipayana and Ramadhan K.H., trans. Sumadi, ed. Muti'ah Lestiono (Jakarta: PT. Citra Lamtoro Gung Persada, 1991), p. 369 3 Soeharto, Soeharto: Pikiran, Ucapan, dan Tindakan Saya, p. 426. For the official English version, seep. 367.

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Young Heroes

TUT WURI HAND AYANI To be complete: TUT WURI HANDAYANI, ING MADYA MANGUN KARSA, ING NGARSA SUNG TULADHA In order to develop self-discipline an educational method is needed to make it possible for us to live and understand the reality of life in an autonomothentic [? otonomotentik] and objectively critical way. This method cannot be authoritarian [otoriter] in character, [because any authoritarian method] relies on "disciplining [penertiban] through power and coercion." This system was applied by Ki Hadjar Dewantara in his educational method known as the AMONG SYSTEM. This system is aimed at none other than giving as many opportunities as possible to the Child [Sang Anak] to develop selfdiscipline naturally, through his/her own experiences, his/her own understanding, and his/her own efforts. What needs to be watched is that the giving of these opportunities should not endanger the Child him/herself or pose threats to others.4 The exposition is more detailed in the English version of the autobiography, obviously because non-Indonesians are not expected to be graced with Javanese wisdom. It says:

TUT WURI HANDAYANI, ING MADYA MANGUN KARSA, ING NGARSA SUNG TULADHA In a general sense this popular Javanese phrase forms the basis of good educational methods: Up front, set a good example for your pupils, your men or your troops. When in their midst, be their driving or motivating force. At the rear, observe their progress. In order to develop self-discipline, an educational system is required which makes it possible for us to put into practice and understand the authenticity of life along with objective criticism. In order to achieve this, it is not possible for this system to be authoritative which makes use of power and coercion. The principles for the true education of the child were introduced by Ki Hadjar Dewantara, who is considered to be the architect of Indonesia's educational system, known as the Among System. This system gives as much opportunity as possible to children to develop genuine self-discipline, through their own experience, their own understanding and their own efforts. The important thing is to watch that this opportunity does not endanger the child himself or pose a threat to others. Ki Hadjar Dewantara also stressed that in order to encourage students to follow the right path, we should give them the inspiration or motivation through sound reasoning. And once they are moving in the right direction, we should 4 Ibid., p. 582. The meaning of otonomotentik in the original Indonesian-lauguage text is unclear, though it most likely means "autonomous and authentic."

Introduction

11

afford them every opportunity to advance without unnecessary interference. All we have to do then is to watch their progress. The three principles of education have also been adopted by the Armed Forces as the principles of military leadership.s Here is Soeharto's succinct exposition of the New Order ideology, what he calls the "leadership principles" of the Armed Forces. He tells us that the principles he follows in his daily activities as the President are adopted from the leadership principles of the Armed Forces, which in turn have derived from the principles Dewantara introduced in instituting the "true" educational system to guide children. In other words, Soeharto says he runs the state and guides the nation as Dewantara, the architect of Indonesia's educational system, educated children in the pttlwar, preindependent Indonesia to create future Indortesian citizens. The relationship between the school teacher and his pupils, the military leader and his troops, and the President and his nation are thus made isomorphic to ~ach other. All the relationships are guided by the same principles and are couched in the familial language referring to father I mother (bapak/ibu) and child (anak). And this familial language is underpinned by the notion of family, keluarga, which identifies the school as family (Dewantara called his educational institution Taman Siswa, "family"), the Armed Forces as family, and the nation as family. This much may come as no surprise to students of Indonesia, for anyone who learns Indonesian should be familiar with the politico-familial language of father, mother, child, and family, which is there in Indonesia's everyday life. Yet it is important to underline the oddity about all this: Soeharto runs the state and guides the nation as Father President; his officials as well as citizens follow him as children; and the entire nation is imagined as a family. This is odd. We know Indonesia's cultural heterogeneity as an anthropological paradise. Hildred Geertz tells us that Indonesia consists of over three hundred ethnic groups and that its kinship and family systems vary from patrilineal to matrilineal to bilateral patterns.6 There are many family systems in Indonesia, not just one, and yet Indonesia is called "family" and imagined as such. What kind of family is it then that singularly represents this multi-ethnic nation as a family? Is it the Javanese family, the Minangkabau, the , Acehnese, the Balinese, or what? One may argue that the principles introduced by Dewantara for education and adopted by Soeharto in running the state and guiding the nation derive from the erstwhile Javanese tradition and that the Indonesian "family" is essentially Javanese. But Kenji Tsuchiya and John Pemberton tell us that the "Javanese" tradition is a Dutch-Javanese creation? And one can ask in the same spirit about the Javanese family. Was there such a "thing" as the Javanese family before Hildred Geertz invented it in her now classic The Javanese Family?B 5 Soeharto, Soeharto: My Thoughts, Words and Deeds, pp. 497-498. 6 Hildred Geertz, in Ruth T. McVey, ed., Indonesia (New Haven: Southeast Asia Studies, Yale University, 1963). 7 Kenji Tsuchiya, "Javanology and the Age of Ranggawarsita: An Introduction to NineteenthCentury Javanese Culture," in Takashi Shiraishi, ed., Reading Southeast Asia (Ithaca: Comell Southeast Asia Program, 1990), pp. 75-108; John Pemberton, On the Subject of "Java" (Ithaca, NY: Comell University Press, 1994). 8 Hildred Geertz, The Javanese Family: A Study of Kinship and Socialization (Prospect Heights, Illinois: Waveland Press, 1961).

12

Young Heroes

Though Soeharto's principles of government phrased in Javanese may sound archaic, as a matter of fact, hardly a century has passed since Dewantara formulated his "leadership and democracy" principle for his nationalist educational movement in the 1920s. Dewantara was one of the first-generation Dutch-educated nationalist intellectuals who marked the political coming-of-age of the Indonesian nation with his celebrated article, "If I were a Dutchman." 9 A founding member of the Indies nationalist party, Indisch Partij (Indies Party), he was exiled in the Netherlands in the 1910s. He came back to Java in 1919, was briefly active in nationalist politics with his base in Semarang, quit politics in 1920, and founded his educational institution, Taman Siswa, in 1921. He then changed his name from Soewardi Soerjaningrat to Ki Hadjar Dewantara and formulated his "leadership and democracy" principle for his school system. 10 It is this nationalist ideology that Soeharto has inherited as his state ideology. It should be clear, then, that we cannot really understand New Order Indonesia's family-ism in such terms as "Javanization of Indonesian politics" or "Indonesianization of Javanese Tradition." Both "Java" and "Indonesia" are historical and cultural constructs. So are bapak (father), ibu (mother), anak (child), and keluarga (family). The "Javanese" wisdom Soeharto loves to translate into Indonesian has evolved historically into what it is. To study New Order Indonesia's political culture, above all its family-ism, we should not turn to Java's remote villages in search for its authentic culture, but examine how the "Indonesian" family has been constructed in Indonesian historically, culturally, and politically. To understand the Indonesian family, it is also important to guard against taking such common-sensical notions as father, mother, and child/ children for granted. They are cultural constructs with their own histories, varying from one culture to another and from one time to another. In his classic, Centuries of Childhood, Philip Aries persuasively argues that "in medieval society the idea of childhood did not exist" and that the modern conception of "childhood" as a domain separate from the "adult" society emerged in Europe along with bourgeois notions of family, home, privacy, and individuality.l 1 Notions of childhood and its special "nature," and hence the children's special "needs" that have to be met by the parents at home, evolved hand in hand with the notion of their need for a formal school education. The children, separated from the adult society and protected by the parents at home, require preparation for their transition to the adult world at school. The school as an institution has thus obtained a strategic position in modern society. Sharon Stephens writes in her introduction to Children and the Politics of Culture: Though the luxury of childhood was initially available only to the upper classes, notions and practices characterizing this new domain came to be propagated-not without significant resistance-throughout society. In time, a vast network of institutions-ranging from the nuclear family to school, health Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983), pp. 107-108; Takashi Shiraishi, An Age in Motion: Popular Radicalism in Java, 1912-1926 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990), pp. 62-64. 10 See Kenji Tsuchiya, Indonesia Minzokushugi Kenkyu: Taman Siswa no Seiritsu to Tenkai (Tokyo: Sobunsha, 1982), especially the concluding chapter. 11 Philip Aries, Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life, trans. Robert Baldick (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962), p. 125.

9 See Benedict Anderson,

Introduction

13

and legal systems-contributed to the generalization of childhood, at least as an ideal, throughout Western society.12 Stephens is cautious enough not to generalize her argument much beyond the terrain she is familiar with, and indeed the Indonesian construction of childhood (or, for that matter, of "family," "father," and "mother") is different from the modem European bourgeois notion of the private family and childhood. After all, the notion of childhood did not evolve "autonomously" from within the "native" society, but was brought into the archipelago by the Dutch with the modem school education. It was profoundly political from its birth, for the natives were equated with children who needed to be educated and guided, and this notion of the "natives" as "children" served twentieth century Dutch colonialism.l3 But Aries and Stephens remind us of the enormous importance of history and institutions for the construction, reproduction, and dissemination of such notions as childhood, father, mother, and family. How then has Indonesia come to be imagined as a family? How have such familial notions as father, mother, and child come to have profound political meanings in Indonesia and in Indonesian? How are childhood and family constructed in Indonesia? It is with these questions in mind that I propose to examine the Indonesian family, the family idea, and the politico-familial language in everyday life and writings. 12 Sharon Stephens, "Introduction," in Sharon Stephens, ed., Children and the Politics of Culture, Princeton Studies in Culture/Power /History (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1995), p. 5. 13 Kartini for instance called her Dutch patrons "parents" in her letters and Dutch officials in the Indies often equated the colony with the schoolroom. See Kartini, Letters of a Javanese Princess, ed. Hildred Geertz, trans. A. L. Symmers (New York: W. W. Norton, 1964); Prances Gouda, "The Gendered Rhetoric of Colonialism and Anti-Colonialism in Twentieth-Century Indonesia," Indonesia, No. 55 (Oct. 1976): 1-22. For the fundamentally educational nature of Dutch Indies political policing, see Takashi Shiraishi, "Conditions of Political Underground," unpublished manuscript in my possession.

PENGANTAR OR INTRODUCTION TO NEW ORDER INDONESIA

1. MEETING PEOPLE AT THE AIRPORT

Datang tidak berjemput, pulang tidak berantar Arrival without reception, departure without escort This proverb is the first example given to illustrate the entries for both antar and jemput in the Indonesian dictionary published by the Department of Education and Culture. I An tar means to escort someone somewhere, and jemput to come to meet someone in order to escort her /him somewhere else. The proverb literally means that neither act is performed, and thus signifies, according to the explanation which follows in the dictionary, that things are not being done the way they should be. In other words, the guest is not being treated properly. The Sukarno-Hatta International Airport is located northwest of Jakarta, about one hour's drive from the city center. This new airport has brick-red tiled roofs and floors. The rosy red color of the tiles matches the first aerial view of Jakarta, which is of the numerous red tiled roofs, half buried in voluptuous foliage, that form a flat and vast island in the midst of an expansive sea of green rice fields. Here, in the former Dutch colonial capital, people have built their houses with tiled roofs and whitewashed stone walls and surrounded them with the thick shadows of fast growing tropical trees. The roof tiles are baked from the glaring sunset-red soil of the region once called the Red Land. The deep eaves offer protection from the fierce equatorial sun and the massive rainfall. Red is the color of Jakarta, or, rather, the color of the old elegant town of Batavia, the color of exotic charm and nostalgia as well as security and comfort. The initial few steps on the airport's tiled floor, however, alert the visitor that she has not only arrived on exotic foreign soil, but also has left behind the familiar landscape in which none of the steps she takes claim her attention. The floor tiles are laid unevenly and covered by a slippery glassy layer, and the series of steps she has to take seem unexpectedly steep and narrow. Watch your steps. This is the country, after all, whose regime proudly calls itself the New Order. The customs counters are the last stage of the official procedures, and the visitor is there discharged with her luggage. Then, even before she can enjoy a moment of relief from official papers, she finds herself thrown into a vacant open space just outside the modern architectural structure, confronting, all by herself, hundreds of 1 Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan, Tim Penysun Kamus Pusat Pembinaan dan Pengembangan Bahasa, Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia (Jakarta: Balai Pustaka, 1989), pp. 41 and

357.

16

Young Heroes

naked staring eyes. For the arriving foreign visitor, the throng gathered behind the high steel railings which run parallel to the dark glass walls of the airport building is the first encounter with the people, or rather with the idea of the little people-called rakyat-of Indonesia. This four-foot wide space between the glass walls and the railings behind which the crowd gathers manifests the division of contemporary Indonesia. One half is the air-conditioned, high rise, official world that is constructed with ruler-straight lines and right angles; here, dark glass walls are in plentiful supply. From the inside a man can get a good view of the sun-bathed outside world, but from the outside, this official world is mysteriously dark, silent, and forbidding. The other half is the world of the shapeless mass of the little people, whom the visitor is to meet now in the steaming heat. The crowd behind the railing consists mostly of men clothed in the discolored gray or dull brown shirts and dark long trousers which, like a violent and yet accurate blow, cleanly do away with any expectation the visitor may have of meeting or seeing something tropical: a delightful breeze, pleasant transparent air, the rich bright colors of abundant flowers in perpetual full bloom, and the trustful, simple smiles of the noble people with their unhurried demeanor. Instead, the sight foretells the kind of colors she is to find in present-day Jakarta. In spite of the commotion of the ebb and flow of people arriving and departing, a peculiar stony silence seems to lie among the people who are standing behind the railing with their hands holding onto it. They form a silent shadowy mass, which, nonetheless, is not bound together, does not possess any comprehensible meaning for being together in this particular place at this specific moment. Each one has nothing to do with others standing around him. They are physically squeezed against the skins of the strangers standing so close to them. And yet, each man seems to have created his own invisible no man's land around himself which secures his aloneness among the crowd. The uneasy feeling of being touched by the strangers' skins and the persistent moist heat appear to have disappeared like vapor from his awareness. It is as if he is not really here underneath his skin. Moreover, the crowd's glassy stares are constantly fixed and refixed somewhere behind the shoulders of the approaching arrivals. All these visitors, who are unknown to them personally, do not exist in their eyes. Their stares keep focusing away from the visitors as if to erase their presence. These are not mere vacant gazes, either. There is some intensity and even an aura of intoxication. They are where their stares are focused. Waiting, they are united with the objects of their anticipation, not with other members of the crowd. They gather here, on a raised pavement in front of the airport building, waiting for hours without being provided any comfortable facilities, such as a waiting room with chairs and protecting walls, to meet their arriving guests, business associates, friends, relatives, or returning family members. They are the congregation of people who believe in and are in the service of performing the proper act in the way it should be carried out. They have come to meet their guests to escort them to their destinations. A children's magazine portrays this airport experience from the other side of the railing. The following is part of a short story in which a grandfather is welcomed by his grandchildren at the domestic airline arrival gate. The scene describes fairly well the ritual of family meeting I have observed countless times in Jakarta.

Pengantar or Introduction to New Order Indonesia

17

Grandpa's Arrival

Now Grandpa is coming to visit us. Mother and Kak [kakak, elder sister] Tia have already prepared a room for Grandpa. I and Tino, my younger sister, are busy tidying up the garden in the back of the house. Weeds are cut out. It is important that the house should look tidy. "Tika! Hurry up a little, we will be late!" shouts Kak Tia from the courtyard. Today we are going to jemput Grandpa. I wear my dress with blue stripes and do not forget to arrange my hair in a pony-tail. Grandpa is very much fond of pulling my pony-tail in his caressing. Trotting, I reach our father's car which has already been started. "Tika, you've taken a lot of time! Grandpa will be angry if he is kept waiting long," says Kak Tia with a frown. "Sorry, Kak. Let's go now," I answer. All the way I just keep silent, being absorbed with my own thoughts. Surely Grandpa must be fat by now. Because he can no longer be depressed. He sure will smile at Father, Mother, Tia and Tino, and of course at me, his favorite grandchild. I am not aware that we have already arrived at the airport. The airplane carrying Grandpa has just landed. I busily look for Grandpa. From the distance I examine intently each passenger who comes off the airplane. "Ah, Grandpa's taking a long time," I say anxiously. "Just a while more, be patient," says Mother trying to soothe me. "See, that's him! Hurray, Grandpa has come," exclaims Tino. "Where? Where is Grandpa?" I ask. "There, with the brown batik shirt!" says Tino again. "Oh, yes. Hey, my guess was right. Grandpa's gotten fat," I say with a smile. We welcome Grandpa. I am shocked for a moment. Grandpa's hair has turned white. But his body is fat, fatter than Father's. Father and Mother take turns to embrace Grandpa and kiss his hands. Kak Tia and Tino do the same. "Tino, let me take my turn. You are taking too much time for your hugging," I say, impatient to embrace Grandpa to free longings I have held in my heart for over a year. "Hey, here you are, the most naughty of all Grandpa's grandchildren. Already grown up tall." I keep embracing and kissing Grandpa. Unaware of the small warm drops which flow down my cheeks, I cry. I am very moved. I see that Grandpa's eyes are also glistening. Apparently he has also been longing for us. 2 This is the moment they have been waiting for. Here and now, this physical skinto-skin contact between loving family members is the essential means of expressing their affection for each other. The old man arrives at the airport to encounter the crowd of strangers, whose eyes keep focusing away from him as if to erase his presence, if not his sense of existence, by their negative stares. He then finds his family members whose eyes meet his eyes and knot themselves with his, greeting him happily. He finds his own presence in his ties to members of his family who have come to the airport solely to meet him. 2 Theresia Mery, "Ketika Kakek Datang," Bobo 17 (August 6, 1988): 6-7.

18

Young Heroes

That is how a man finds himself and his place in Jakarta. This is how a man relates to the city of over eight million people, over eight million strangers. His presence and identity are granted and assured in his embrace of his family. He is the Grandpa to this sweet little girl. There can be no doubt about it. He holds his own presence in his arms. It is warm, soft, and comforting beyond anything else. It is entirely different from those strangers' skins which, like reptiles', show no sign of caring or of warm response even when squeezed against each other. I once saw an old mother being embraced and kissed by her son after months of separation. Over his shoulder, she gazed out through the lenses of her standing tears at the dark contained air of the front room in her house. Her intense emotion appeared to be concentrated in her fingertips, which were placed ever so softly around the neck of her son. It was as if both her hands had turned into fluffy feathers brought by a gentle breeze onto his shoulders. For his part, the young man, who could have displayed his emotional intensity by the physical strength of his muscular arms, was holding her narrow shoulders as tenderly as the faint reflection of the afternoon light in the room, his eyes refusing to meet anyone else, anything else, just to be here with his mother, only with his mother at this moment. Toward sunset, now, every day, I have to see my grandchildren. I need the warmth of the family atmosphere after being buried under my heavy workload. 3 This is from Soeharto's autobiography, inserted into the section which outlines his daily schedule. Not only this two-sentence paragraph, but the meeting with his grandchildren has to be inserted in his busy schedule. "Now, every day, ... my grandchildren. I need the warmth of the family atmosphere .... " When the grandchild embraces her grandfather in the story quoted above, no spoken exchange of affection is required; rather speech is rejected at the height of the embrace. It is not necessary for Tika, or for her grandfather, to tell the other with clarity and precision how much the other one has been missed. The mutuality of affection and longing is made clear by the very absence of verbal expression, and thus becomes, literally, a matter of course among the devoted family members. The same is true for members of the crowd in front of the airport. Their minds are already with their own people for whom they have come. All the other strangers around them or in front of them just do not exist in their eyes, or appear to be mere faceless obstructions. The rest of the crowd behind the railing consists of those who seek their livelihood by picking on the arrivals who have nobody waiting for them. They will usher the newcomers to the pay-phone booths or to the taxi stand, which are both located only a few meters from the exit doors and are yet hidden by the thick crowd waiting for someone else. One has to pay for not being awaited or for not arriving in the way one should. When I arrived at the airport, my friend was not yet there. Considering all the arrangements that need to be made before a car can take to the road, it is not uncommon for the dedicated penjemput (person who comes to pick up someone) to fail to appear on time. I wanted to call his house, and found that I needed some fiftyrupiah coins for the pay-phone. A man approached me at the booth and said that he 3 Soeharto, Soeharto: Pikiran, Ucapan, dan Tindakan Saya: Otobiografi seperti dipaparkan kepada G. Dwipayana dan Ramadhan K.H. (Jakarta: PT. Citra Lamtoro Gung Persada, 1989), p. 233.

Pengantar or Introduction to New Order Indonesia

19

had some coins. I thanked him and handed him two hundred-rupiah bills. In return he gave me two fifty-rupiah coins. After a call, I needed another coin or two. I looked for the only face I had come to recognize, ignoring all the others, and dragged my luggage toward him. I asked him for another coin and handed him two more hundred-rupiah bills. He looked at me, searched his pockets, and gave me, this time, four fifty-rupiah coins. Before I noticed what had happened, he disappeared into the crowd of people. I needed the coins so much that I did not mind someone making such a small profit out of our transaction. The exchange rate then was roughly one dollar to 1,600 rupiah. I felt sorry for his not getting anything from the service he offered me the second time. Should I not have recognized him among other faceless strangers? Should I not have smiled at him happily when I found him? 2. VISITING FRIENDS, OR HOW TO TRAVEL IN JAKARTA

Most escorting or antar-jemput in Jakarta is conducted with a car. Once a young, middle-class man told me that a family that did not have a car in Jakarta would feel inadequate. A brief survey of the streets in Jakarta can easily confirm his statement. Some companies have special loan assistance programs for their employees to purchase private cars. A newspaper company lends its reporters new companyowned cars, which, after a few years of payments made through automatic deductions from their salaries, become their own property. More often, the old used company cars can be purchased at relatively inexpensive prices. Of course, company cars are most frequently used for the antar-jemput of the company's own guests and executives. There are also many different ways a man can make use of the car that he does not own. One way is to have the right to use a company car not only for official business in its strict sense but also for every transportation need, including the antarjemput of his family, friends, and relatives. Sometimes a man will ask his family members or friends who own or have access to a car to escort him when he is to antar-jemput someone else. The fantastic best-selling novel published in the late 1970's, Arjuna Mencari Cinta (Arjuna's Quest for Love), starts with the incident that deprives Arjuna, a high school kid from a newly rich Jakartan family, of his free use of his father's mobil dinas, official office-owned car. Arjuna is the name of a hero of Javanese shadow-play who is an "unequaled warrior on the battlefield," and whose "amorous adventures never cease to delight the Javanese." 4 In this novel, however, the shadow-play heroes who once traversed the dark, vast imaginative universe of the Javanese, race their VWs, Volvos, and their father's official cars on the streets of Jakarta as "privileged adolescents," 5 with their schoolmate-girlfriends accompanying them in the place of heavenly princesses.

4 Benedict R. O'G. Anderson, Mythology and the Tolerance of the Javanese, Monograph Series (Ithaca: Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, 1965), p. 13. 5 Savitri Scherer, "Yudhistira Ardi Noegraha: Social Attitudes in the Works of a Popular Writer," Indonesia 31 (April1981): 35.

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Young Heroes

One rousing morning, Arjuna stood with his arms akimbo. He felt depressed and irritated. The previous evening his Papi [call., father] had flown into a rage when he spotted that kid [anak] of his necking with a girl in his official car. "The child [anak] knows no rules [aturan]! Who is the girl?!" he scolded. "Oh, one of my sweethearts," answered Arjuna resentfully, feeling that his personal life was being meddled with. "One of your sweethearts? One of?!" Papi's eyeballs bulged. Last night. And Arjuna got more and more fed up with Papi's attitude. And the next morning, Arjuna became more and more annoyed because he was not allowed to use the official car any more, whereas in fact that car had been his vehicle up till now. Arjuna liked that car because that kind of official Toyota possessed authority. Besides that, if you went everywhere in an office car you saved a lot: all you had to do was pick up the gas from the office and you could get them to pay for repairs, large or small, too. Arjuna did not want to get a headache worrying whether Papi's office would go bankrupt because of this sort of rip-off. He simply thought: Papi's office cannot go bankrupt, since it is government property; after all, isn't our government very rich, with lots of money? The proof was: no matter how much of its money and property were embezzled and stolen, the government still kept going and was still able to develop!6 The separation between the official world and the little people, which appears to be strictly decisive in front of the airport building is, thus, intricately intertwined and fused at the other end. Behind the waiting crowd at the airport is the large parking lot where the cars that have brought them there are parked. Some of these are their privately owned cars, while some others are their company-owned official cars, their friends' company cars, or their family's (father's, or younger brother's wife's brother's) official cars. I once came across a white ambulance with a Jakartan number plate parked in front of a guest house in Solo in the service of an overnight family trip. This fusion helps maintain the separation of the two worlds. It offers the means for the little people to have the back-door access, through their personal connections, to some of the privileges that enrich the other side. Every time their immediate needs arise, personal connections are sought for or discovered. Every time their needs are met, personal connections are strengthened, while the separation of the two worlds remains firmly in place. Even when their needs are not met, the disappointed ones tend to think that it happened because their connections were not good enough or because they had made mistakes that screwed things up. Lack of civic control over the government is interpreted less as a problem of political structure than as a matter of daily personal relations an individual expects to manipulate, if only one knows how to do it right. One's sense of political impotency and vulnerability is thus transformed into faith in harmonious everyday social relations. The personal 6 Yudhistira Ardi Noegraha, Arjuna Mencari Cinta (Jakarta: Cypress, 1977), pp. 7-8. My translation is based in part on that in Benedict R. O'G. Anderson, "Sembah-Sumpah: The Politics of Language and Javanese Culture," in Roger A. Long and Damaris A. Kirchhofer, eds. Change and Continuity in Southeast Asia, The Papers of the Distinguished Scholars Series, Southeast Asia Paper 38-39 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 1982); Scherer, "Yudhistira Ardi Noegraha," p. 37.

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authority of those who belong to the official world is thus strengthened over the family, relatives, friends and neighbors who require favors of them. Arjuna eventually falls in love with his father's secretary. In their rather long telephone conversation, the seductive secretary laments, Your Papi is supervising me more strictly than before. I may not speak long over the telephone, and I am not allowed to go out of the building before the office hours are over[!]"7 Obviously she has been accustomed to doing both. Eventually, as the official Toyota owned and maintained by the office is placed under the full personal command of Arjuna's father, Arjuna finds the secretary whose salary is paid by the office sprawled under his father. Arjuna saw his Pergiwati being embraced by his Papi. Pergiwati whom he had yearned for and loved so deeply was now devoured by his Papi whom he had lately come to hate intensely. And they were apparently so pleasantly occupied that they did not realize that there was someone else in the room who was watching what they were doing with full resentment [dendam], anger, pain, jealousy, sorrow, and other feelings which would have caused a person with weak mentality to lose his footing. 8 The story comes to its end with Arjuna in stylized wayang movement: ... He bellowed out the curses that had earlier exploded from Papi's mouth when he'd caught Arjuna kissing Pergiwati's lips in this very same room. "You really have no manners [kurang-ajar]! Damn! You know no rules [aturan]. Satan! Goat! Horse! Cow! Water buffalo, and their accomplices!!!" he cursed. Then Arjuna spat. Fuih!! 9

Arjuna spits not only at the readers' faces but also at the father who monopolizes ajaran and aturan, the person who controls the use of the official Toyota which he does not own, and the person who controls the secretary's life, both official and private. 10 The right to use the official Toyota is a perquisite of the official position Arjuna's father holds. "Arjuna liked that car because that kind of official Toyota possessed authority." The private use of the official car displays free personal access to official property. "Isn't our government very rich, with lots of money?" With the revenue from oil and foreign aid, the government and its offices have been the largest and richest sources of national wealth in Indonesia, seemingly bottomless. A privately owned car means nothing more than the possession of a car, the luster of whose paint and value will decrease in time. On the other hand, the free access to official property, which the official Toyota demonstrates on the streets, means a hand on the 7 Yudhistira, Arjuna Mencari Cinta, p. 181. 8 Ibid., p. 185. 9 Ibid., p. 186. 10 Anderson, "Sembah-Sumpah," p. 42.

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Young Heroes

tap controlling the flow of milk and honey. No wonder aturan (rules), the word closely associated with regulating a flow of liquid-like movement, is captured and manipulated by the same hand. Suppose there were no feeling of love arising in his sout which rages so much, of course he would not feel so betrayed [di-khianati] by Pergiwati. Also by his

Papi. Suppose there were no power that is so great in the hands of his Papi, suppose there were no teachings [ajaran] that compel children to respect and be loyal to their parents, there would of course be no such great turmoil in Arjuna's soul. 11 The father has more power over his son because of his free access to the government property as well as the family value. The Javanese hero, who is "a splendid warrior riding to war in a glittering chariot" 12 in its heavenly landscape, is now entrapped within the web of parental authority and the web of the congested streets of New Order Jakarta. Once out of favor with his father as one who knows no aturan, Arjuna loses his privileged access to the official Toyota chariot. He cannot even go to the airport to meet his arriving friend. In order to traverse the streets of Jakarta, Arjuna has to comply with his father's wishes as much as he has to observe the traffic regulations, or aturan. Let us now go out to the street to see what actually happens there, and how. Here is a description of my own experience: Eko and I were invited to a party, which we were told would begin at six o'clock. I was ready at five o'clock at Eko's house. Eko came back from work at a little before six. We had to wait until six thirty for his brother, Anto, who arrived with a car, a shiny white Honda, which would take us to the party. After ten minutes of driving, however, our car stopped at the house of another of their brothers, Endi, where we were invited to come in, take seats, and drink glasses of tea. Endi's wife, Dewi, meanwhile, politely asked our permission to retire to her room to prepare for the party. At this point, I learned that the car belonged to her family, and Eko had invited Endi and Dewi to go to the party with us. She took a bath, changed her dress, and carefully made up her face, as if donning armor. We left there at seven thirty. Eko smiled at me and said soothingly (he can be very charming in these instances) that no party begins at six in Jakarta. If we get there at eight that will be just fine. It turned out that none of us, five people by then, knew the exact location of the house we were invited to. It was almost nine o'clock when we finally reached our host's house. The party had started at seven thirty. Before a car can take to the road, certain human relationships have to be worked out. I was escorted to the party in the white Honda because I was a friend of Eko. Eko had access to the car because he was the older brother of Endi, who in turn had access to it because his wife was a sister of the owner of the car (or was the car owned by his company?). The car thus weaves together this network of human 11

Yudhistira ANM Massardi, Arjuna Mencari Cinta Part II (Jakarta: Cypress, 1980), p. 14. "Yudhistira Ardi Noegraha/' p. 39.

12 Scherer,

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relations, which manifests itself in a series of jemput and antar among those participating in the journey. On another occasion, I found myself in the white Honda with the two brothers, Eko and Endi, their old mother, and their wives. We were on the way back from a theater. It was the opening night and the play had lasted longer than usual. We were all tired when we left the theater around midnight. Their normally vivacious and shrewd mother was seated with her mouth tightly shut and her body fastened to the seat as if she had turned into an inanimate object which, however, was somehow capable of imagining itself being moved by invisible hands from one place to another. For the first time in our numerous outings, the brothers discussed in low quick voices which route to take, that is who should be brought back to his/her house first and who should be next. Their mother normally received priority. There was no need for any discussion or suggestion. But that night, Dewi was anxious to return to their sick child, while Eko's wife was pregnant and had a previous history of miscarriages. They also had a foreign guest in the back seat of their Honda, one who had little idea of her whereabouts in the city and was lost in the intricate web of human relations manifested inside the car. As usual, they brought their mother home first, but she apparently sensed the threat to the unquestioned priority she had previously enjoyed. The fact that a discussion ever took place between her sons was perhaps significant enough. The next morning she complained to me about the smoking habit of her young daughters-in-law, talking about its bad effects on their child and the unborn baby as well as its daily cost to their husbands of about eight hundred rupiah a day in her calculation. She knew what was at stake that night. There always seems to exist an invisible route-map for the car that is to antar-jemput more than two people. The route-map is based not only on the geographical locations of the houses of the participants, but also on the positions they hold in their complex interrelationship. In the crowd I encountered in front of the airport, there were no social relationships. They were there to antar-jemput their guests, and they were there together by mere chance. They would pick out their own folk from among all the other faceless strangers. They do not care about the rest. They had nothing to do with the strangers around them who did not even exist in their eyes. In this small space within the car, however, each member of the party has his/her own relationship with the other members. Social hierarchy, family relations, gender, degree of intimacy and familiarity, need of protection, and all sorts of other personal conditions and considerations are taken into account and respected. Being an Indonesian in Jakarta requires being capable of taking into account all the intricate human relations, and then mentally reorganizing the streets into a series of antarjemput route-maps that every participant of the trip accepts and feels to have been properly treated. A car runs along the streets of Jakarta, back and forth, round and round, while tracing, manifesting, expanding, and asserting otherwise invisible, inarticulate human relations. The streets in Jakarta are jammed with thousands of cars from early morning to very late at night. They run around the streets so close to each other and yet with the occupants never meeting, even though the vehicles may bump into one another. They are like the crowd in the airport. In this sea of strangers, the driver of each car follows his or her own mentally constructed route-map that connects families,

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Young Heroes

relatives, friends, and business contacts. (Any official relations tend to be absorbed into the network of connections.) It is this route-map, not the glossy calor-printed street map tourists buy at bookstores, that creates the Jakarta where people actually live. 3. ON THE STREETS

"Aha, this is the one!" he thought while stealing a glance at the seat next to his. An innocent-looking plain girl. Her hair was arranged in a way that emphasized the point. 13 This is the beginning of the story, "Perampok dan Pencopet" [A robber and a pickpocket], printed in the best-selling children's weekly, Bobo, distributed in the elementary schools and by newspaper delivery boys and sold at numerous sidewalk bookstands. Many children's short stories illustrate the danger prevailing outside the protective network of friends and families, while highlighting the comfort and security the family provides. In this story, a bank robber rides a train to escape from the pursuing policemen. He has apparently made the error of not having his friend or family waiting for him in front of the bank with a car as penjemput. Perhaps he has not read children's educational stories. He is forced to take public transportation, in this case a train. In fifteen minutes the train would reach the next station. The moment of strain! The police should be waiting for him there. "But this girl ... I can take her as a hostage!" That was his thought.14 The girl who sits beside him is a stranger to him, as are the other passengers on the train. He nonetheless thinks that she is an innocent, plain girl who will be an easy hostage. At that moment Mr. Robber was startled. He sharply eyed the girl. And he was really astonished when he searched his jacket pocket. His pistol had vanished! In the meantime, the girl smiled sarcastically while pointing a pistol at him. Yes, Mr. Robber's pistol had already changed hands! Apparently, she made good use of the plot of the story she had just read to outwit Mr. Robber. Although she was not one of the pickpockets! But she thought that there was nothing wrong with imitating the method in order to save her own life! And when the train arrived at the next station, the girl handed the robber over to the police. Then she proceeded to the campus alone. She was a student of law at a famous university.15 Any stranger is a potential pickpocket who will steal your valuables. Even the bank robber, who has committed murder with the pistol he carries in his pocket, is 13 Yutha D., "Perampok dan Pencopet," Bobo 22 (September 10, 1988): 8.

14 Ibid., p. 8. 15 Ibid., p. 9.

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vulnerable to the danger that strangers pose in any public place. That is the moral of the story. But one wonders whether it can still be called the "public" transportation if all the fellow passengers are regarded as potential pickpockets. In a short TV news program which supposedly dealt with the potential of tourism in Jakarta, the interview of a young Australian tourist was chosen as the focus. The tourist complained to the TV camera that on his first day in Jakarta he was robbed by a group of muggers on a crowded public street in daylight. That can happen in any big city in the world, but no comments or suggestions were offered to improve this image of dangerous Jakartan streets in the program. The governmentsponsored TV channel, as well as such newspapers as Pas Kota, seem to relish emphasizing the danger on the streets. In such literature, the crowd on the street is simply taken to be a large number of people unacquainted with each other and hence unconnected by any social relationship. The crowd is a collection of strangers who are there everywhere in Jakarta, in front of the airport, in trains and buses, and on the streets. And those in the crowd do not perceive themselves and others near them as part of any group, or the public. They are only looking for familiar faces, and others do not exist in their eyes. Little wonder, then, that strangers, who are invisible, end up being characterized as potential pickpockets. The streets and public transportation are thus crowded with strangers who are potential pickpockets. That is the lesson repeatedly taught by children's stories. Here is another example. One Afternoon in the Bus

The sun's heat feels parching. Reni fans herself with her handkerchief. Every now and then she sighs. Every now and then she wipes off her sweat. In the meantime several buses for Manggarai via Block M have already passed. But she has not yet dared to step into the bus. Because just as the bus stops, the passengers struggle to step on or off, pushing or jostling each other. That has made Reni reluctant to step on. She does not want to be squeezed among the people's jostling bodies. Besides, she has heard stories that in just such moments of pushing and jostling pickpockets like to take action. Wah! The money for school fees in her bag could fly away. 16 This story describes the sun-roasted bus stop in Jakarta. Reni is standing there enduring the heat. The parching heat of the sun in this passage indicates not only the equatorial location of the city on our dear blue earth, but also Reni's highly susceptible condition on a city street. She is exposed to the full force of its climate. "Uh," she moans in her heart. She looks with envy at cars passing along the street. How happy she would be if she were to go to school by car. Let alone if the car were air-conditionedY 16 Kemala P., "Suatu Siang di atas Bus,"

17 Ibid., p. 20.

Bobo 25 (October 1, 1988): 20.

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Young Heroes

This passage commends the comfort an air-conditioned car promises, the comfort an antar-jemput by family (or office) car provides. Bereft of this protection, Reni suffers the sun's heat. She is exposed, alone. The young reader should anticipate Reni's vulnerability at the very first sentence of the story: "The sun's heat feels parching." This is not "the sun over the mountain" which "illuminates my house, dries our clothes, and, with its rays, keeps my family always healthy." 18 The sun aids the family life, but torments the one who is out of the family protection. Exposure to the sun's heat on the street is a sign of impending calamity. Reni is standing alone at the bus stop, caught by her own apprehension and incapable of taking any steps of her own. The danger eventually manifests itself as a pickpocket who successfully takes her school money away. Another children's short story depicts the daily routine of commuting to school in the family car: Susi, Grandpa's Grandchild Susi laughs. Actually in her heart Susi is very much annoyed. Her classmates are all antar-jemput-ed by their mothers, nurses, chauffeurs, or maids. It is Susi alone who is antar-jemput-ed by her grandfather. Susi's Father and Mother have to go to the hospital very early in the morning, because they both are doctors. It is often evening, sometimes even late at night, before they come back home. For this reason Susi spends more time with her grandfather and grandmother. A short fat-bodied old man with a bald head is standing outside the gateway to the school among all the other penjemput [persons who jemput]. His eyes are looking for Susi, his dear granddaughter. When he finds Susi, who is walking toward him ahead of her friends, the old man smiles. Thus, when Susi comes close to him, he holds her hand. They go back to his old car. "It is so hot, Grandpa!" says Susi. "''m thirsty!" "Don't worry. There you see in the car the bottle of cold orange juice Grandma prepared!" answers Grandfather. Susi's eyes shine. Oh, how happy she is! How nice Grandpa and Grandma are! 1Y Susi is the girl who passes in her grandfather's car by the bus stop where Reni is waiting for her bus. Susi is the girl Reni envies. The deliciousness of the passage, with the taste of cold orange juice, arises out of family affection and happiness, which the scene of antar-jemput of school children illustrates. The daily antar-femput by the family car expresses Susi's grandparents' affection for their dear granddaughter. When she rejects the privileged protection given by her grandfather, this adored and spoiled girl must undergo a punishment. The next morning Susi gets up very early. She leaves for school, high-spirited, with Bik Tarni, the maid. Grandfather and grandmother give instructions to Bik Tarni again and again to be very carefuJ.20 18 Esthy MW, Tuhan Pcncipta, Seri Bidang PMP di TK 1 (Semarang: Mandira, 1987), p. 5. 19 Widya Suwarna, "Susi, Cucu Kakek," Bobo 22 (September 10, 1988): 32.

20 Ibid., p. 33.

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Susi is full of spirit this morning because she is going to do what she has wished to do and what she herself has decided to do. The little girl is trying to assert herself. She does not want to be identified merely as the dear little granddaughter of the old bald man. They [Susi and Bik Tarni] have already waited for a long time, but the bus they are waiting for does not come. Susi feels tired and thirsty. She squats on the bus stop platform. She reflects on the ease and comfort she enjoyed in the car with her grandfather.21 She is thus punished for her impertinence. Had she accepted the easy comfort her family gave her, as Arjuna took his father's official Toyota for granted, she would not have had to undergo the exhaustion and thirst at the bus stop. And she has now learned the lesson. She will accept the family's protection more gratefully from now on. "Noooh! Susi wants to go to school with Grandpa only. Didn't you say, Grandpa, that you would never be tired of doing antar for Susi?" says Susi laughing. Grandfather and Bik Tarni are laughing too. 22 The street in Jakarta with its heat and danger is too tough for a little girl to navigate independent of her family's care and grip. Without that grip, children's stories tell the readers, a little child would be roasted and have her pocket picked. Rejecting her grandpa's protection means refusing his affection and that is why you suffer. This is the moral. Susi has learned this lesson. She will happily accepts the comfort and protection given by her grandfather and become his adored and pampered grandchild, because of the heat on the streets. Let me reflect here for a moment, as Susi did at the bus stop, though not on the comfort of the car, but on the parching heat on the streets. The streets in today's Jakarta are not meant for pedestrians. The commuters in their automobiles and the pedestrians live in two separate worlds. The main roads for the cars are wide and well-tended, complete with all the requisite center-green strips, statues, monuments, water-fountains, and shade trees. At the edge of the paved streets, however, the sidewalks remain largely unpaved, so that pedestrians quickly spoil their shoes in rain. Sidewalks are often invaded by motorcycles. Along the main streets, some sidewalks are constructed as side-platforms, raised as much as a foot above the street level. As a result, as a pedestrian passes the buildings standing in rows along the street, she must go climb and descend an endless series of steps, up and down at each house gate and each driveway entrance or exit. There are few safe crossings for walkers. The city administration has apparently paid little attention to the well-being of the pedestrians. This same sidewalk, however, is a perfect place for peddlers to spread out their merchandise, establish their unmarked bases, or just take a rest for a while. An article in a weekly magazine Tempo discusses street peddlers in Jakarta and speculates on their numbers in the following manner: 2l Ibid., p. 33.

22 1bid., p. 33.

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He [a sociologist] really keeps track of the world of street hawkers. And he has data. According to his records, half of the 830 intersections in Jakarta which have traffic lights are the bases for these street peddlers. Each [base] has an average of twenty peddlers tending their business there. If this number is accurate the street peddlers in the capital city number 8,300.23 The same article also carries several excellent photographs of familiar, car-congested, Jakartan streets and young crafty street peddlers beaming at the camera. They range from seven or eight year old boy singers to teenage cigarette sellers. They belong to the same age group as Susi and Reni, but look less affected by the heat and pretty immune to pickpockets. I am not saying that their daily life on the streets is easy. But it is undeniable that their youthful ingenuity casually circumvents any compassion one might offer them. A middle-aged peasant I met in a small mountainside village in Pekalongan, Central Java, said that his daily back-breaking labor in the muddy, terraced rice field was harsher than his work as a peddler on the Jakartan streets. The heat? The sun? The rain? I was born here, in this land. I am used to it, sudah biasa, he said, smiling one of those patient smiles. It was cars and traffic accidents that he did not like when he was on the streets of Jakarta. Children can be even tougher than that hardened peasant on the Jakartan streets. It was a holiday afternoon. I watched a group of children playing on a sidewalk at the corner of a busy intersection. Each child is to choose one of the two vaguely fixed spots on the sidewalk where a bus will stop if the traffic light is red. There may be two children at one spot and three at the other, for example. Most buses are not airconditioned, and both their front and back doors are always kept open. The bus conductor stands by one of the two doors when the bus comes to a halt. If the conductor is found guarding the back door, the two children who have been waiting for this chance at the front location jump into the front door, run through the center aisle to the back door, and jump off the back of the bus, pushing the conductor aside and landing back on the sidewalk exactly in front of the three children whom the conductor has prevented from boarding the bus. The conductor does not dare prevent those children already on the bus from jumping out through the back door because he has to get rid of them anyway before the light turns green and the vehicle starts moving again. His shout after the two children only enhances their triumph over their three compatriots who chose the wrong end. The children were tireless and indifferent to the heat on the afternoon streets. They were not afraid of pickpockets. They were not even afraid of pushing the angry conductor aside. I was also amazed that watching them play this potentially dangerous game did not cause me any anxiety, even though I had two sons of their age. I did not worry, partly because their movements had such dashing agility, but more importantly because I saw the bus driver looking carefully into the mirror to make sure that the children were safely off the bus before he started off again at the green light. This was not the only time I saw how people cared for children, even for children with whom they had no personal relationship at all and who were in their way. 23 Zaim Uchrowi, Linda Djalil, and Rustam F. Mandayun, "Menyapu para Pedagang Asongan," Tempo 32 (October 7, 1989), p. 53.

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The sun's heat on the Jakartan streets is intense. But it allows a variety of cultural and social interpretations and responses. For example, a man may wrap up his body from head to toe to protect himself from the sun. Or he may completely unwrap the clothes from his body to enjoy the breeze, the sunlight, and free unobstructed bodily movements. Any style between the two extremes is possible. Likewise, a man can build an open air-circulating wooden house in the traditional style. Or he can build a thick stone-walled heavily protective private house of the sort now trendy in Jakarta. The literary description of the sun as "parching" is thus one of many different ways to characterize the climate on the streets, and it is never the only description available. The word "parching" is, nonetheless, consistent with the perception of Jakarta as the place that needs stone houses with high barbed-wire fences, airconditioned cars, leather jackets, socks and shoes. 24 The streets are the place full of danger and intolerable heat for the children of the family which can afford to buy children's books and provide antar-jemput by car. They grow up in the highly protective family courtyard where bus drivers, conductors, passengers, peasants, peddlers, and street children do not belong. The sidewalks are therefore not meant for pedestrians, but for peddlers, street children, and security guards. But one can still find pedestrians walking along the main streets-they are foreign tourists. And this phenomenon is one that middleclass Jakartans find puzzling. Foreign tourists are seen as strange, for they walk along the streets and take buses even though they carry money with them. On one occasion, the car driven by a friend of mine passed by a young Western tourist with his backpack, who was walking on a sidewalk along a busy street. "It's hot," he said. Our car was well air-conditioned. "These Western tourists, they always walk. They don't have cars. They do not have friends. Pity!" On another occasion, we-my friend, her husband, and 1-came across a group of Western tourists on a sidewalk. They were there, standing to discuss something at the corner of an intersection. Some apparently wanted to cross the street, some others wanted to venture into the side street, and yet some others were in favor of continuing their walk straight along the main street. When our car stopped at the red light, the husband of my friend noticed them and said: "Confused [Bingung]." The following is taken from my notes about our situation when we came across the tourist group. I was invited to go to a children's painting contest in which my friend was a judge. Normally she is a competent driver, who knows her way around the city well. That day, however, her husband sat next to her in the passenger seat and at the first main intersection he told her curtly, "Left!" She usually takes the direct route to go to the northern part of the city where we were headed that day. He had a different route in mind, and she amenably steered the wheel to the left. As a consequence of this left turn, and because he never explained fully in any systematic way the route we were to take, at each approaching intersection she 24 Taking one's socks and shoes off upon returning home has become a moment of delightful sensual pleasure, and whether the wife should or shouldn't help her husband take them off has been debated in modern Indonesian literature concerned with women's liberation. One of the answers I found in a children's picture book was a younger brother helping his sister change her shoes for sandals. See Ibu Esthi MW, Mengucap Terima Kasih, Seri Bidang PMP di TK (Semarang: Mandira, 1988), p. 7.

30

Young Heroes had to ask or wait for him to tell her whether she was to drive straight, right, or left. She was transformed from a highly educated, inspiring woman into an obedient, awkward driver who was not sure of the direction she was taking. It was one of those cases in which the person who actually knows the ways

better becomes hopelessly incompetent and dependent for directions on someone else who knows less. It often happens because the one who is socially entitled to give orders is not necessarily the one who knows the ways. Nonetheless, the social hierarchy is respected most of the time and maintains the "order." It was then that we came across the tourist group at an intersection. Each one of them, it seemed, had her own idea about which direction to take, and none was willing to yield to others. Each person in the group maintained equal standing and voice. There was no single person to tell the whole group, "Left!" The group, which was going through the normal process of making a choice, appeared to "lack any order" on the streets of Jakarta. The word, "Confused," which spat out of the mduth of my friend's husband, captured their situation in his terms: they are confused and reduced to a crowd. But there was, I believe, more to it in his word, for his wife was "confused" too. It was as if he were seeing the confusion of the outside world intruding into the small ordered protective space which was our car. In total defiance of such passing ridicule, however, Western tourists, with cameras dangling from their necks, walk and walk along the busy streets, incessantly climbing down and up, down and up, on the sidewalks. They are fully equipped for the sun's heat, a tropical land, and an extra summer. A ydung tourist couple may be spotted with their shorts, T-shirts and/or tank tops, open-toe flat sandals, complete with brimmed hats and sunglasses. In the eyes of Jakartans, they are walking manifestations of exposure: exposure to the sun, to the danger on the streets, that is to the pickpockets, and to the eyes of strangers. They are doubly, triply exposed, because they appear to be without any protective blanket of the kind that personal relations or official institutions may provide, such as antar-jemput by an air-conditioned car. Expatriates who live in Jakarta quickly adopt the practice of antar-jemput. Walking on the streets means that one has no access to a ~ar, no access to a protective network, and no access to anybody anywhere. What such people carry with them is all they have. Jakartans in their passing cars, on the other hand, incessantly run around the city, back and forth, round and round, busily tracing the mentally constructed rg\ltemaps and reenacting ties organized hierarchically into the network. It was pre~isely this cultural activity I came here to observe. I took hundreds of pictures of streets, cars, and Jakartans in quest of love and affection. Street-watching became my addictive habit, and I can no longer imagine Jakarta without its bizarre streets. But we may take a rest for now inside the house and its courtyard, where the "family" with all its love and affection is nestled. 4. FAMILY COURTYARD

Let me start with a story I was told personally in this exotic city. The first evening in Jakarta in my friend Anto's house I asked about his nephew, who was born the year before. Anto told me the following story:

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31

His nephew was born in an air-conditioned hospital and brought back to his parents' large, spacious, air-conditioned house in an air-conditioned car. He has been brought up in the air-conditioned house since then, and whenever and wherever he goes out, he is transported in the air-conditioned car. As a result, if he is taken out of the house, out of the car, and exposed to the outdoor climate, he starts crying because he cannot endure the sun's heat or the sun's rays. What does it mean, Anto asked, to grow up without knowing how to accommodate with the natural climate of his motherland? The next weekend the little boy came to visit his grandmother with his parents in their air-conditioned car, as they do almost every weekend. I was curious to see the boy's behavior, because his grandmother's house where I was staying did not have air-conditioning. The little boy was perfectly happy and excited, moving around both inside the house and outside in the open courtyard. He knew all the attention of household members was focused on him and followed after him. He was on stage. His toys were not used to amuse himself. They were turned into theatrical tools with which he stirred agitation and laughter among the adults who were eager to be entertained. The toys which symbolize the parental affection and, in the US, effectively function to keep the children away from the adults have found a different role here. 25 With him at the center of a galaxy of affectionate family members, relatives, and household helpers, their network of "family" relationships seemed perfect. Everyone gathered around the child to please him and to be pleased by him. On this idle Sunday morning, a small cosmos came into existence, an ordered, harmonious system onto itself1 in the small courtyard of a house at the corner of a densely populated section of Jakarta. All the members were related to others for their own unique and different reasons. They did not need to be strictly biological family members, nor were they even quasi-family members. The fact that they happened to be there together in this small enclosure for one reason or another made them "family" members. This picture of "family" in Jakarta should not be taken as a nostalgic description of an exotic society observed by an anthropologist. This is a form of contemporary urban "family" life which is different from that of modern European family life. The middle-class private family in modern Europe defines its rn~mbers in terms of "l, legitimacy. But this is not the only way-nor the universal or natural way-to define what constitutes a human "family." In today's Jakarta, "family" members are not limited to the circle of people joined by legitimate sexual and parent-child relationships alone. Society is not divided into the private family home and the public sphere in the way it is in the modern West. The "family" extends itself through diverse social relations and has its own ways of distinguishing its members from strangers. Once inside halaman rumah, the enclosed courtyard of the house, even an anthropologist with the foreign passport can be a "family" member if she is, in one way or another, related with others and is recognized as such. There can be hundreds of such "family" networks in a small neighborhood. All kinds of relationships-family, relatives, friends, neighbors and so on-are crucial, as they provide potential ties for "family" networks. Anyone who tries to make a living in the town where one requires personal access to government offices 0

'

'

25 See Brian Sutton-Smith, Toys as Culture (New York: Gardner Press, 1986).

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Young Heroes

for any kind of activities-for instance, applying for a permission to open a small stall at a street corner-relies on his/her own "family" network. This is the reason stories such as we examined above, in which Susi learns to accept family protection gratefully, become socially meaningful and educational. Children learn how to be good members of their immediate families and their "family" networks. Anto's little nephew was exposed to the sun's heat, and it didn't appear to bother him. Yet he was followed by the uniformed nurse like a white shadow who kept cold drinks and soft baby snacks ready at hand all the time, and was prepared to carry the boy on her hip at the tiniest hint of his weariness. He was not allowed to suffer thirst, hunger, or physical exhaustion. Though exaggerated, the extraordinary story of the life of this sheltered little boy, as related by my friend, was even more real than it sounded. The air-conditioned enclosure in which I had been told the boy was brought up signified the thick blanket of protection. The courtyard of his house, or that of his grandmother's house, may not actually be air-conditioned, but it is as thickly protected and enclosed against the outside world of strangers and the social climate as any air-conditioned enclosure is against the natural climate. He will soon be antar-femput-ed to his school, like the little grandchild Susi, and will eventually be given a car for his own use, like Arjuna. This family network, a kind of extended family, has its own code of behavior which functions as a socio-family control mechanism over its members. In this cosmos, the rules guiding behavior are described as sopan santun, good respectful correct manners, which are required of anak (children and other junior members), and kasih-sayang, affection, which is required of bapak and ibu (parents, grandparents and other guardians). As a member, everyone knows who s/he is, knows who others are, and calmly assumes that others know who s/he is. Here anthropologists may find their familiar sphere where certain fixed cultural values and behaviors may be observed in the midst of a highly heterogeneous urban population consisting of millions of people. Jakartans keep knitting and expanding their networks along whatever lines are available to them so long as they suit their interests, needs, tastes, and convenience. The way to expand the network is simple. One is introduced by someone to someone else. Antar-femput, in which pengantar takes his/her friends to the house of their would-be-acquaintance (kenalan), is the ritual of creating the tie. The new tie may be sought for and established for whatever reasons. The "family" network, as a result, includes all sorts of people, not only family members and relatives in a biological or legal sense, but also friends, friends' friends, neighbors, and many others who may be attached to this web for reasons which sometimes only the pengantar knows or has discovered. A sister's husband's brother's friend's wife, for example, can be included in this network by virtue of the ties of sibling, marriage and professional acquaintance, even though she may happen to have a foreign passport. In short, people are divided into two categories, either kenalan (acquaintance), that is the members of the network who are welcomed in the "family" courtyard or tidak kenal (not acquainted), that is the strangers who reside outside the family courtyard and figure as potential pickpockets. Is the network based on the ethnicity of its members? I think that ethnicity is just one of the possible ties the pengantar would count on. Tsuyoshi Kato argues in his study that urban ethnicity manifests itself in the following three forms: (1) networks of family members, relatives, and people of the same local origin; (2) quasi-ethnic associations such as kin-based associations, clan-based associations, and locality-

Pengantar or Introduction to New Order Indonesia

33

based associations; (3) ethnic associations, such as ethnic dance-and-music groups, ethnic students' unions, ethnic religious organizations, and ethnic political organizations. 26 I discuss the nature of urban life in Jakarta in a little different way. That is: there are networks of relatives, locality based associations, dance-and-music groups, students' unions, religious and political organizations, and many more, some of which may be based on the members' ethnicity but not necessarily so. Ethnicity is only one of a number of diverse items which are utilized in establishing ties with which to extend the urban "family" network. Networks are formed and expanded incessantly, for one simply cannot live in Jakarta without relying on personal connections. I still remember basic sentences of an Indonesian textbook for foreigners which I used to learn the language (though its linguistic style is now out of date):

Wah, panjang sekali ni yg baris beli karcis. Mana bisa depat karcis begini? My, what a long line to buy tickets. How can (we) get tickets this way? la, ya. Saya sih nggak nyangka sepanjang ini orang antre. Yes. I didn't expect the line to be this long. Tunggu sebentar, ya? Saya punya teman didalam. Wait a second, will you? I have a contact [lit. friend] inside. Ya deh. Saya tunggu disini. Barangkali dia bisa tolong kita. OK. I'll wait here. Probably he can help us. Nah, ini karcisnja sudah dapat. Ayo kita masuk. Now, here I've already got the tickets. Let's go in. Ayolah, kita masuk. Pintar juga, ya, kamu cari karcis. OK, Let's go in. You sure are smart at getting tickets, aren't you. Rupanya, banyak teman nih di Jakarta. You seem to have many friends here in Jakarta. Abis, di Jakarta kalau nggak banyak teman, susah, dong. That's the way it is in Jakarta. If you don't have a lot of friends, it is hard.27 If this conversation implies that the network of connections is horizontal and fraternal, it is not the case. There is hierarchy in the "family," and its members are

26 Tsuyoshi Kato, "Urban Ethnicity in Indonesia: Networks and Locality-based Associations," Southeast Asian Studies 23, 4 (March 1986): 391-92.

27 John U. Wolff, Beginning Indonesian, Part Two (Ithaca: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 1971), pp. S-6.

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Young Heroes

divided into those who protect (bapak, ibu) and those who accept the favor respectfully and gratefully (anak). When I wanted to see children's school life in Jakarta, I needed someone's help. I was lucky to have a friend whose father had good connections with some neighborhood schools. Here is my note: My friend asked his mother (his father was away then) to introduce [memperkenal-kan] me to the teachers of one of the neighborhood schools. That evening, his younger brother, who lived with the parents, came with his Matsuda car to pick me up at my lodging. The whole plan had already been laid out without any consultation with me. I was to stay at their father's house that night and go to a school early next morning to be introduced to the school board chairman. During my research period I would stay in the house of a retired school principal who was a long-time friend of the father. It was a well-thought-out plan indeed. I should have asked my friend's father for the assistance from the very beginning. But I had already chosen a boarding house. The school where I wanted to do my research was not the school he chose for me. In retrospect, it was I who demanded that my own decisions be respected, who was unreasonable. In his mind-he was a well-respected, socially influential person-! had asked him to become my patron, bapak (father), and take me in as his new protege, anak buah, not just to introduce me casually to some of his friends. If I were to remain a stranger, he could have done nothing for me. He would be able to introduce me to the board chairman only if I were one of his anak. Or rather, taking me (antar) to the board chairman was the ritual of accepting me as his anak buah, his "family" member, who needed to be taken care of. Being bapak or anak buah is not a half-hearted, part-time relationship. It can be politically risky in view of the fact that the "family" network has developed as a way of overcoming powerlessness and vulnerability of the citizenry. The protector has to be ready to shoulder the potential danger. As bapak, he was prepared not only to help me, but also to take responsibility for my activities during my stay in Jakarta. Thus, because of the courage and good will of the bapak who truly deserves respect for what he does, and because of my gratitude toward him, I was bound to be very careful not to do anything that might displease the government and, consequently, endanger him. With awesome efficacy, I was morally entrapped in the system of self-policing. In this "family" network, disputes among its members are solved by its own unwritten codes and not by the judicial system. In other words, no uniformed policeman is to be summoned into this domain. Some members of a household gossiped about one of the wife's sisters, saying that she had once taken the household money away by threatening the housemaid with a sharp cooking knife. No one, however, reported the incident to the police. She was a trouble-maker of the kind that most such networks seem to include, but she was never considered an armed robber. Generally speaking, if a "family" member takes money out of another member's pocket, it is pinjam (borrowing). No thief, no pickpocket, by definition, can ever manifest himself inside this peaceful cosmos. There may only be an untrustworthy uncle, who is apt to forget (lupa) to return the money he borrows. Hence all thieves intrude from outside, all pickpockets roam about outside the courtyards, on the

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35

streets and in the public transportation (bus and train) in search of victims already exposed to the outside climate. Robbers and pickpockets belong to this outside world, together with the policemen who pursue them there on the streets. One of the first things I was told by my new Jakartan friends was to watch out for the police as much as pickpockets on the streets. Thus, all the robbers, pickpockets, and policemen belong to the streets, as much as the sun's "parching" heat belongs there. As we learn from children's stories with Reni and Susi, this is the reason secure protective "family" courtyards and networks have to be created and maintained in the sea of millions of strangers, thousands of policemen, and stacks of official papers which must be signed before one can obtain any kind of permit in this city. The deeper one's fear of such outside danger is, the stronger is the grip of bapak over one's life. It was not that long ago, however, when this authoritative figure of bapak was created in this nation of families.

ARRIVAL OF THE NEW ORDER BAPAK he coup attempt on October 1, 1965 triggered the downfall of President Sukarno and prepared the stage for Soeharto and his New Order government. Yet to this day, there are disputes over who, or what party, was ultimately responsible for initiating the coup, and several scenarios, ranging from possible to probable, have been proposed. 1 The affair started with attacks on the houses of seven top army generals in the early morning of October 1. The accounts of what happened in these houses, and how, are mostly supplied by newspapers in the months following the coup. While the different versions of the coup scenarios have been subjected to debates, these accounts seem to have been accepted without much controversy. The detailed graphic images of bloody raids were left to sink unchecked into the readers' minds. The mass killings which followed shortly thereafter largely imitated the style of raids and murders thus established in the popular imagination. The journalist Brian May writes: "Indonesia was born after a kidnapping; it was to be reborn in a putsch and baptized with the blood of a massacre."2 By "kidnapping," he means the famous Rengasdengklok Affair on August 16, 1945, in which Sukarno and Hatta were kidnapped. By "putsch" he means the coup attempt on October 1, 1965 and by "massacre," the mass killings that followed. The view implies that any significant political change in Indonesia may invite another wave of bloodshed. This represents a kind of folk historiography that explains and justifies popular acquiescence to New Order stability. Benedict Anderson and Ruth McVey argue that the Rengasdengklok Affair and the 1965 coup attempt, as well as the social revolutions in 1945-1946, were similar in nature, what Anderson calls daulat actions.3

T

For the older word kedaulatan [sovereignty or authority], so often, in this time of revolution, married to rakjat [the people], gave birth to the new word mendaulat, which acquired rapid currency all over Java, and which meant the deposition, humiliation, kidnapping, or murder of hated officials or other representatives of authority, usually carried out by groups of armed pemuda. Most of the daulat actions mirrored the example set in the Rengasdengklok Affair, in which the pemuda had kidnapped older leaders to compel them to 1 See

J. D. Legge, Sukarno: A Political Biography (London: Alien Lane/Penguin, 1972), p. 391.

2 Brian May, The Indonesian Tragedy (Singapore: Brash, 1978), p. 92 3 Benedict R. O'G. Anderson and Ruth T. McVey, with the assistance of Frederick P. Bunnell, A Preliminary Analisis of the October 1, 1965, Coup in Indonesia. Interim Reports Series (Ithaca: Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, 1971), pp. 24, 26, 30.

38

Young Heroes make a political decision they had previously evaded through caution or fear. Though some ended in murder, the great majority did not. 4

This notion, daulat actions, is useful to remember, for the principal maneuver of the 1965 coup involved, as we will soon see, a number of kidnappings of top army officers and government officials. Some of these ended in murder, some did not. The massacre in the aftermath of the coup also involved hundreds of thousands of kidnappings and murders which Soegiarso Soerojo describes as "kidnappings and murders rampaged [Penculikan dan pembunuhan merajalela]." 5 The phrase inevitably reminds us of the rhetoric of Indonesian revolution, "the Revolution runs amuck, rampages, sweeps people along like a tidal wave." 6 If the coup and the mass killings were daulat actions in the revolutionary tradition, Indonesian style, however, Soeharto arrived on the scene as the new bapak and ushered in a new era called the New Order, while putting an end to this revolutionary tradition. How was the New Order bapak born, then? Let us examine those crucial historical moments in 1965 with this question in mind. 1. ARRESTS, SUMMONS, AND KIDNAPPINGS

Twenty years after the Rengasdengklok Affair, Sukarno vividly described the incident in his characteristically theatrical manner in his autobiography. A delegation of pemuda awaited me on the verandah. "Now, Bung. Now, tonight [August 15, 1945]," commanded Chairul Saleh. "Let us make a largescale revolution tonight. We have Peta troops, pemuda, Barisan Pelopor men, even the Hei Ho auxiliary soldiers are all prepared. At your signal Djakarta will be in flames. Thousands and thousands of armed and ready troops will surround the city and carry out a successful armed revolt and topple the whole Japanese army." 7 Sukarno's own anak buah (proteges) were trying to force him to take action, seizing the opportunity ofJapan's surrender to the Allies on August 15, 1945. He [Wikana] tried to bluff me. "We don't want to threaten you, Bung," he rasped, taking a menacing step toward me, an outstretched knife in his hand. "But the Revolution is now in our hands and we COMMAND you. If you do not make the Revolution tonight, then ... " Benedict R. O'G. Anderson, Java in a Time of Revolution: Occupation and Resistance, 1944-1946 (lthaca: Cornell University Press, 1972), pp. 334-35. 5 Soegiarso Soerojo, Siapa Menabur Angin akan Menuai Badai: G305-PKI dan Peran Bung Karno (Jakarta: Soegiarso Soerojo, 1988), p. 232. 6 Benedict R. O'G. Anderson, "Reading 'Revenge' by Prarnoedya ananta Toer (1978-1982)," in Writing on the Tongue, ed. by A. L. Seeker, Michigan Papers on South and Southeast Asia 33 (Ann Arbor: Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, The University of Michigan, 1989), p. 70. 7 Cindy Adarns, Sukarno: An Autobiography as Told to Cindy Adams (Indianapolis: The BobbsMerrill Company, 1965), p. 206. 4

Arrival of the New Order Bapak

39

"Then what?" I cried, leaping out of my chair in blazing fury. "Don't you threaten me. Don't you dare command me. You will do what I want. I will never be forced into YOUR will!"s This was the very moment of revolution, Indonesian style. Anak buah is by definition subordinate to bapak in the bapak-anak buah hierarchy. Anak buah is to accept, like the little grandchild Susi, whatever is offered him by his caring protector, bapak. Now, however, anak buah is COMMANDing his bapak to make the "Revolution!" Sukarno managed once to make the pemuda, the youth, leave his house, but a few hours later, very early in the morning (about 3:00a.m.) on August 16, they came back again, this time with another revolutionary strategy. They planned to change the route-map of the bapak-anak buah relationship and reverse the direction in the flow of command. Instead of having the anak buah pay a respectful visit to their bapak's house, as is usually the case, the bapak was to make a visit to his anak buah's place. In short, anak buah were going to kidnap their bapak. . . . I heard sounds from the bushes, and a band of uniformed pemuda walked in stealthily. Sukarni had a long-handled knife as well as a pistol. With the true flair of an adventurer, he pulled his knife and barked, "Get dressed ... The time has come." ... "It has been decided to remove you to safety." 9 Sukarno, a seasoned politician, decided to yield to the pemuda this time. I put my uniform on. I looked ridiculous. It was too small, but there was little point in explaining their plan was not well thought out. They acted and thought as swashbuckling adventurers. I guess if they had ever stopped to think what was really happening they'd have died from fright and wouldn't have been able to fight for their country at all. Anyway, I buttoned the uniform on over my pajamas. 10 Thus, about 4:00am on August 16, 1945, Sukarno, his family, and Hatta left their houses in Jakarta for Rengasdengklok in two cars escorted by young uniformed pemuda. The pemuda needed two cars to carry out their revolutionary kidnapping mission. They, the kidnappers, were the pioneer-fathers of today's busy penjemput (one who comes to pick up someone) and pengantar (one who escorts someone someplace), whose cars jam the streets of today's Jakarta. Back in 1988, on our way home after watching a play, Eko's mother was rightly alarmed when she sensed the possibility of the route-map being changed. A small Rengasdengklok Affair was about to take place then. And it was not even for patriotism, but in her opinion because of the smoking habits of her young daughters-in-law. 8 Ibid., p. 208. Emphasis in the original. 9 Ibid., pp. 210-11. 10 Ibid., p. 212.

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Young Heroes

Though the pemuda managed to lay their hands on the two cars, 11 the following passage tells us about the conditions the young forefathers had to meet to have access to cars in 1945. On August 18, two days after the Rengasdengklok Affair and the day after the Proclamation of Indonesian Independence, Sukarno was chosen to become the first president. My devoted follower decided a "Presiden" [President] had to have a limousine so they "arranged" for one. Sudiro knew of a seven-passenger Buick which is "the biggest, most beautiful in Djakarta [Jakarta] and has curtains in the back window." Unfortunately this Presidential limousine happened to belong to the Japanese Chief of Railways. Such a minor detail did not trouble Sudiro. Unknown to me he went hunting for the car and found it parked in a garage. It happens that Sudiro knew the driver and said to him, "Look, I want you to give me the keys to the car." "Why?" asked the boy, terrified. "What do you mean 'Why?,"' repeated Sudiro, shocked by such stupidity. "Because it is my intention to steal it for our President." "Oh, okay," grinned the patriot, climbing happily out of the front seat and handing the keys over. "Quick," ordered Sudiro, "head back for your village in Central Java before anyone knows what happened and hide yourself well because it will be dangerous for you to be around here once this is discovered." Sudiro had the keys and a beautiful, big, black seven-passenger limousine with curtains in the rear window-but he couldn't drive. Few of us could. Where should we learn? Natives had no cars during Dutch time and only officials were permitted them in Japanese time.12 Thus Indonesia went independent after it became possible to make free use of cars and carry out political kidnappings. After all, stealing a car and kidnapping (stealing a human being) are isomorphic acts. And stealing a car, in the context above, meant denying the Japanese Chief of Railways the right to own the car, while kidnapping a bapak signified denying him the right to summon and command his anak buah. In the meantime, in Jakarta, in the absence of Sukarno and Hatta, an emotional argument ensued in which Nishijima tried to persuade Wikana to reveal the location of the two leaders, promising that if Wikana did so Nishijima and Rear-Admiral Maeda would cooperate fully in having Indonesian independence declared. 13 Sukarno and Hatta went back to Jakarta late that night, the declaration of independence was hastily drawn up in Maeda's house, and Indonesian Independence was proclaimed the next morning at 10:00 am on August 17, 1945. Now let us come back to the attempted coup in the morning of October 1, 1965. For most of the people, the incident began with the initial statement of Lieutenant 11 They used a Peta escort automobile, mobil-escorte tentera Peta, and the car borrowed from D. Asmoro. See Adam Malik, Riwayat Proklamasi agustus 1945, 6th ed. (Jakarta: Widjaya Jakarta, 1975), pp. 47-49. 12 Adams, Sukarno, pp. 222-23. 13 Anderson, Java in a Time of Revolution, p. 76.

Arrival of the New Order Bapak

41

Colonel Untung, a leader of the coup group, which was broadcast over RRI (Radio Republik Indonesia) at around 7:15a.m. On Thursday, September 30, 1965, a military move took place within the Army in the capital city of Djakarta which was aided by troops from other branches of the Armed Forces. The September 30th Movement, which is led by Lieutenant Colonel Untung, Commandant of a Battalion of the Tjakrabirawa, the personal bodyguard of President Sukarno, is directed against Generals who were members of the self-styled Council of Generals.14 A good account of the Cakrabirawa (Tjakrabirawa), the personal bodyguard of the President, may be found in Sukarno's "as-told-to" autobiography. On my birthday in 1962, Tjakrabirawa was instituted. A special unit of 3,000, drawn from the four armed forces, Tjakrabirawa's job is to safeguard the President. Each man is an accomplished paratrooper. Each was an outstanding guerrilla fighter. Three hundred of my bloodtype act as bodyguards. Another detachment of specialists regulates my likes and dislikes. They know I enjoy entertainment so one special corps sings, dances, and doubles as musicians at every party. They know my habit of touching microphones before I speak so the regiment's electronic detail brings its own equipment. They know my favorite foods so at any outside buffet Tjakrabirawa technicians pretest each dish before it leaves the kitchen .... I used to be able to slip out of the palace alone on occasion. Since Tjakrabirawa I no longer can. The morning after the last time I tried a very polite but firm note was delivered to me. It read: "Dear Bapak. We are responsible for you. Please do not try to sneak away again. (Signed) Your Guards."1s We can sense from Sukarno's own words that his personal bodyguards, made up of elite members of the armed forces, had close personal relations with their Bapak,

the term they used for him rather than "President." Now, the broadcast continues: A number of Generals have been arrested and important communications media and other vital installations have been placed under the control of the September 30th Movement, while President Sukarno is safe under its protection. Also a number of other prominent leaders in society, who had become targets of the action by the Council of Generals, are under the protection of the September 30th Movement. 16 Thus, according to the broadcast, there were two operations the coup group carried out other than gaining control of the communications media and other vital installations: arresting the generals and protecting President Sukarno and "other prominent leaders in society." 14 "Selected Documents Relating to the September 30th Movement and Its Epilogue," compiled by the editors, Indonesia 1 (April1966): 134. 15 Adams, Sukarno, pp. 309-10. 16 "Selected Documents," Indonesia 1, p. 134.

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Let us examine the arrest of the generals. At about 4:00 am, the prime time for political kidnappings since August 1945, seven squads arrived in their trucks at the houses of the generals. 17 Had Untung been at the house of General Suprapto, Second Deputy to the Minister /Commander of the Army, to witness his men carrying out the raid, he would have been fully satisfied. There it split into three, the first two groups guarding the side entrances and the garage, while the third entered the house, under the direct command of Sulaiman. Unable to sleep because his molars had been removed quite recently and disturbed by the barking of his dogs, Soeprapto went to the front door in his T-shirt, sarong, and sandals. Corporal (Second Class) Suparman answered his queries, by giving him a military salute and reporting that the President wanted to see him immediately. Without allowing the unfortunate General either to put on his clothes or even shut his own front door, he was hustled into the waiting truck. Mrs. Soeprapto, who had watched the scene through the window, was upset and astonished, finally coming to the conclusion that her husband was being put under arrest. 18 According to the broadcast statement, the operation was meant to "arrest" the generals, and indeed General Soeprapto appeared to be arrested, under the authority, probably, of the President. The raid on the house of General Parman, First Assistant (Intelligence) to the Minister/Commander of the Army, presents a different picture about the nature of the operation. It was about 4:00 am when a group of some twenty soldiers appeared outside Parman's house in Djl. Serang. Hearing a noise outside, the general, (who with his wife was practicing melekan 19 ), went out into the garden. He apparently thought that a robbery was being carried on at the house of his next door neighbar. Observing a group of Tjakrabirawa inside his own front courtyard, he asked them what they were doing. They answered that they had been ordered by the President to pick him up. Apparently suspecting nothing, or giving no sign of it, Parman went back into the house to change, and the main part of the raiding group followed him in. In spite of his wife's anger at what she felt to be Tjakrabirawa rudeness, Parman quietly changed into his uniform, and whispered to his wife to contact Yani [Minister/Commander of the Army] immediately. He clearly thought that he was being arrested at Sukarno's orders. But as they left the Tjakrabirawa soldiers picked up the telephone and took it with them. Though Parman himself seems to have suspected what was up, he put up no resistance and was driven rapidly away to Lubang Buaja. It was not until Mrs. Harjono came weeping to Mrs. Parman fifteen minutes after the attackers had left, sobbing that her husband had been shot dead, that Mrs. Parman began to 17 Harold Crouch, The Army and Politics in Indonesia (lthaca: Cornell University Press, 1978), p.118; Soerojo, Siapa Menabur Angin, pp. 201-3. The weapons as well as the vehicles, trucks, buses, and jeeps used belonged either to the Air Force or to Cakrabirawa. 18 Anderson and McVey, A Preliminary Analysis, p. 13. Emphasis added. 19 Melekan: The practice of staying up all night in prayer, meditation, or asepsis to draw on the power of the supernatural world. Ibid.

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realize what had really happened. For although she was annoyed by the behavior of the Tjakrabirawa troops, it was the President's habit to summon the Chief of Army Intelligence at unusual hours, and till that moment she had believed that, as on many previous occasions, he had been summoned for a secret conference at the Palace.20 The Chief of Army Intelligence was the only general among the seven victims who left his house in his uniform, leaving behind his wife who believed that her husband was "summoned" by the President and was being escorted to the Palace by the Presidential Guard. The squad's visit could have appeared to be an ordinary incident of antar-jemput, in which the Presidential Guard came to escort a highranking army officer to the Palace. After all, the core of this surprise delegation was made up of members of the Palace Guard, and their targets were top army generals who doubtless had kept frequent and close contact with the Presidential Palace. As the above description shows, depending on the manners and modes of operation and the views of those who interpret the acts, the simple and seemingly identical maneuvers of coming to pick up someone (in this case the seven generals) in order to take them some place (Lubang Buaya) can be interpreted differently, either as Presidential "arrest" or Presidential "summons." In this context, perhaps, General Parman's case was not good enough to support the theme of brutal raids. This was the reason, it seems, that the newspapers, or the army information service which provided the information, had to insert a small piece of information that the telephone was picked up and taken away, that is: stolen. The message is clear. The visitors acted not as those who were acquainted with the generals or their household members. Unlike the Rengasdengklok Affair, in which the kidnappers were Sukarno's anak buah, the kidnappers in the 1965 coup were treated as a group of strangers in deceptive uniforms, who forced their way into the houses. They were outsiders, and therefore identical with pickpockets who belong to the streets. Six out of the seven houses raided were located in Menteng, originally created as an exclusive European residential area in the early twentieth century. 21 It still is one of the best residential areas in Jakarta, with large, spacious houses shielded under the deep eaves of rosy-red tiled roofs and a canopy of stately trees. Reading the accounts of what happened there in that fatal morning while recalling what Menteng looks like now, I find it surprising how easy it was for the raiding parties to enter the generals' courtyards. It should perhaps be noted that the thick and high imposing walls that surround most houses in Menteng constitute one of the phenomena we observe in New Order Jakarta. The walls now tell passers-by that if we fortify our houses and courtyards with high fences, we will be able to protect ourselves from those armed invaders who belong to the streets, outside our households, outside the protective network of related people, and outside the air-conditioned enclaves. In this light, the way in which the team led by Sergeant-Major Surono raided the house of General Soetojo, Auditor-General and Law Inspector of the Army, appears to be the most authentic "kidnapping" mission among the seven raids. 20 Ibid., pp. 13-14. 21 Abeyasekere, Jakarta: A History (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1987). See especially plate 19, the photographs of" A street in the new European suburb of Menteng."

44

Young Heroes The group opened their assault by sealing off Djl. Sumenep where their victim lived. Next the civil defense guards on the street were disarmed one by one. Then, as in the case of the other Generals, the group divided into three squads, one each at the front and back of the house, the third charged with carrying out the kidnapping itself. They persuaded Soetojo to open his bedroom door on the excuse of bringing a letter from the President, then seized and overpowered him. He was blindfolded, with his hands tied behind his back, and pushed into an awaiting truck, which then drove rapidly back to Lubang Buaja.22

There is no doubt in the above description that General Soetojo was kidnapped forcefully by a group of determined attackers, who did not assume the neighborhood civil defense guards' respect for the uniform of Presidential Guard. They relied primarily on their own force, rather than on Presidential authority. General Nasution, Coordinating Defense Minister /Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, escaped the raid because his adjutant was mistaken for him. General Yani, Minister /Commander of the Army, told the Cakrabirawa that he wanted to take a bath before changing his pajamas with uniform, and was gunned down by young raiders when he closed the glass door behind him. (Recall that Sukarno in the Rengasdengklok Affair wore the ill-fitting uniform over his pajamas, understanding full well the danger of contradicting the agitated pemuda, who, perhaps for the first time ever, were trying to COMMAND their seniors.) Two other generals were also killed in their houses, and then their dead bodies were carried off in the trucks to the Crocodile Hole. It was, however, as "kidnapping [penculikan] and killing [pembunuhan]," and not as the legal "arrest" (tangkap) or Presidential "summons," that the Army led by then Major General Soeharto chose to define Untung's early morning maneuver. After recovering control of the Jakarta radio station, the Army made the following announcement in its first broadcast, at 8:45pm October 1: Announcement No. 027/1965 of the Army Information Center. 1. On October 1, 1965, an incident occurred which was carried out by a counter-

revolutionary movement, which called itself the "September 30th Movement," in Djakarta. 2. They kidnapped a number of high officers, namely: 1. Lieutenant General A. Yani. 2. Major General Suprapto. 3. Major GeneralS. Parman. 4. Major General Harjono M.T. 5. Brigadier General D.I. Pandjaitan. 6. Brigadier General Sutojo Siswomihardjo. 3. They were able by force to gain the use of the Djakarta Studio of RRI [Radio Republik Indonesia] and the Djakarta Central Telecommunications Office.23 So the whole operation was identified as having been carried out by force without any supportive authority, a description which immediately transformed all the "arrests" and Presidential "summons" into "kidnappings" and made all the 22 Anderson and McVey, A Preliminary Analysis, p. 14. 23 "Selected Documents," Indonesia 1, p. 158. Emphasis added.

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participants in the operation criminals. It was not Presidential Guards who came into the house to arrest a member of the household. It was armed robbers and kidnappers. To establish this statement as legitimate, the Army also needed to have President Sukarno on its side, for at that time he was the only source of authority. His voice was as yet unavailable, however, and therefore his official titles were made use of, implying that his body as well as the whole official establishment were safe and well. 4. His Excellency, President/Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces/Great

Leader of the Revolution Bung Karno, and his Honorable Minister Coordinator for Defense and Security /Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, General A. H. Nasution, were able to be brought to safety and are in a safe and well condition. 24 One wonders what might have happened if President Sukarno had made a statement over the radio, supporting the movement and identifying the early morning operation as a series of "arrests of counter-revolutionary generals," preempting Major General Soeharto before he defined it as a series of "kidnappings of revolutionary heroes." Sukarno's voice could have changed the course of the coup and, hence, history. This means that arresting someone and kidnapping someone are identical acts. Both take someone from somewhere to somewhere else. It is, therefore, a matter of strategic interpretation whether the act was carried out with legitimate authority or merely by force. It is also useful to keep in mind that both kidnapping (penculikan) and arrest (penangkapan) belong to the same family of antar-jemput. They constitute identical acts with different names. This is the reason the choice of a name can change the course of history. 2. I DROVE THE TOYOT A JEEP, ALONE Many conflicting interpretations of the abortive coup have been offered in large part, it seems, because the movement of key figures can be interpreted differently. 25 On that fateful day, October 1, 1965, President Sukarno, PKI Chairman Aidit, Air Force Commander Omar Dhani, and members of PKI-affiliated Gerwani (Women's Movement) and Pemuda Rakyat (People's Youths) were all found at the Halim Air Base, which served as the base of the September 30th movement. Lubang Buaya, Crocodile Hole, where the generals were brought and killed, was a part of the Halim's training field. Were they there because they were in the coup group? Or were they kidnapped and brought to Halim by the coup group in a manner similar to the Rengasdengklok Affair? Let us now examine Untung's second maneuver: the protection of President Sukarno and other prominent leaders in society. Aidit, Coordinating Minister of Sukarno's Dwikora Cabinet and Chairman of the PKI's Central Committee was there in Halim on October 1, but why he was there remains obscure. In his biography of Sukarno, J. D. Legge raises a list of questions about the PKI's involvement in the coup attempt in connection with Aidit's presence at Halim. 24 Ibid. 25 Crouch, The Army and Politics, pp. 101-34.

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All interpretations have their inconsistencies to be explained away. If the PKI was as innocent as it claimed, how did Aidit happen to be at Halim on the morning of 1 October? On the other hand, if the coup was a PKI plot, how was the absence of key PKI leaders-Njoto who was in Medan with Subandrio's party, Lukman and Sakirman who were in Semarang--to be explained? Why were they not standing by to assist in the direction of events? Why were not plans made for a mass insurrection to support the coup if necessary? Why was there no prior deployment of communist forces to seize power outside the capital? How does one explain the extraordinary clumsiness by which Harian Rakjat, the PKI daily, came out in support of the coup on 2 October, after it had been effectively crushed? Why did the PKI subsequently take no steps in its own defense, but passively await its fate? Had it, perhaps, as some observers argue, become implicated in a plot which was not of its own making? 26 Note that among the eight questions Legge raises, there is only one which directly conflicts with the PKI's claim of innocence. That is:" ... how did Aidit happen to be at Halim on the morning of 1 October?" Aidit's letter to Sukarno dated October 6 explained his movement in the following manner (I have no means at this point of knowing whether the letter is authentic or not): 1. On September 30th, at midnight, I was taken by people wearing the Cakrabirawa uniform (whom I did not know [tidak saya kenal]) with the following explanations: [I was] summoned to the Palace for an emergency cabinet meeting. However, the vehicle proceeded toward Jatinegara. Later [we] changed cars and then went to a kampung where [I was] placed in a small house. There I was informed that arrests were going to take place of members of the Council of Generals. On October 1, I was informed that the operation aimed at the Council of Generals had already been successful. I asked "Has this been reported to PYM [His Excellency]? And [they] answered that it had and he [beliau] had given his blessing. 27

There are, of course, different versions of Aidit's movement that day. If he were the mastermind of the coup, surely he should have known at least where he was to be escorted on that crucial night? At least, he should have had control over his whereabouts. Soegiarso Soerojo, who is convinced of Aidit's complicity in the coup, writes: Before that [operation] at 22:00 on September 30, Air Force Major Sujono had the duty of menjemput [picking up] D. N. Aidit, Chairman of CC PKI, who had waited in the house of Sjam, in Jalan Pemuda. According to the confession of Sujono before the Special Military Tribunal he arrived with a Toyota jeep. D. N. Aidit was ready to leave for Halim with Major-General Pranoto.28 26 Legge, Sukarno, pp. 391-92. 27 Soegiarso Soerojo,

281bid., pp. 217-18.

Siapa Menabur Angin, pp. 232-33.

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Mrs. Aidit, on the other hand, was reported to have told Army authorities soon after the coup that "her husband had been kidnapped by rightist elements and taken to an unknown destination." 29 Anderson and McVey also point out that "an antiCommunist Islamic paper which would not be likely to put Aidit in a favorable light" reported Aidit was "kidnapped [dilarikan]."30 Thus Aidit's movement during the critical moments, and therefore the PKI's involvement in the coup, still remain open to different interpretations depending on how one views the single fact of his being escorted to Halim. Another fact pointed out as evidence of the PKI involvement is the presence of , Gerwani and Pemuda Rakyat members at Lubang Buaya and their participation in the killings. Anderson and McVey provide a revealing analysis of this matter: Almost all of the "confessors" were people who had been receiving military training at Lubang Buaja on a regular basis for the past two months, and who indeed had been at the base at least since September 28 carrying out their normal exercises. The routine had evidently been established that they would be picked up from their homes in trucks, lodged in tents at Lubang Buaja for the duration of the training period, and then taken home again in the same way. 31 Thus by establishing a simple routine of sending vehicles to pick up (menjemput) people, "the conspirators cut successfully into the line of [PKI] hierarchy and effectively assumed control of these lower cadres without anyone being the wiser."32 Antar-femput, as we have seen, has by now become a national obsession. If we fully consider the wide range of possible interpretations of this kindly act in Indonesia, however, we may well think twice before gratefully being picked up at the airport. The movements of President Sukarno on the critical day in October 1965 have been examined most thoroughly by scholars and journalists. The more details are "revealed," however, the more contradictions and unanswerable questions seem to surface. He left his third wife Dewi's house at about 6:30 a.m., and arrived at Halim, rather than his official residence, Freedom Palace, almost three hours later, at 9:30 a.m. From there, he left for his palace in Bogor twelve hours later. At the time of Untung's first radio broadcast, Sukarno was still in his car traveling somewhere in the streets of Jakarta. The following account is found in a recently published, controversial book, whose author is said to have had special access to Army intelligence and is against the PKI and Sukarno. The task of inviting [menpersilakan] President Sukarno to set out to Halim that night [September 30] was not successful either, because the President apparently was not to be found in his Palace. After giving a speech at Munas Teknik [National Conference for Technicians] in Senayan, the Friday night on September 29 Anderson and McVey, A Preliminary Analysis, p. 69. This is attributed to AFP report from Singapore, October 7, 1965. 30 Ibid. This is attributed to Duta Revolusi, October 9, 1995. 31 Ibid., p. 21. 32 Ibid., p. 23.

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Young Heroes 29 [sic], 1965, Bung Karno went to pick up [menjemput] Dewi at Hotel Indonesia.

And he stayed in the house of Ratna Sari Dewi ... Brigadier General Supardjo was in the Palace from 6:00 in the morning [October 1]. His task was to meet [menjemput] President Sukarno [at the Palace] and escort him to Halim. 33 Sukarno himself later made a statement about his journey to the Air Force Base.

6. President Sukarno' s First Press Interview after the collapse of the September 30th Movement. Given and Published on October 14. [The translation is based on an Antara report carried in the Protestant newspaper Sinar Harapan, October 14, 1965.]

... He explained that when, at his own desire and not because of pressure or threats from anyone, he left Freedom Palace on the morning of October 1 to go to Halim Perdana Kusumah Air Base, those responsible for escorting and guarding him were units of the Tjakrabirawa, who carried out their duty most effectively. "So, too when I left Halim for Bogor, those who escorted me-'escorted' in the good sense of the word [mengawal in de goede betekenis van het woord]-were the Tjakrabirawa. Also at this point I wish to stress once again that my departure to Bogor was at my own desire [alas kehendak saja sendiri] and not because of any pressure or threats."34 He had to make such an emphatic, even apologetic, statement about his own movements because he had been escorted by his guards, Cakrabirawa, all the time. The presence of the guards gave rise to questions about whether Sukarno went to Halim voluntarily or was forced to go there by the guards or someone behind them. Sukarno asserted that he went there voluntarily, of his own free will, to underline his control over his own movements. Twenty-four years after the coup and twenty years after Sukarno's death, however, those who had escorted him to Halim in the morning of October 1 talked about their journey in the following New Order language in the weekly magazine

Editor: This alternative was not adopted, because Colonel Saelan [Deputy Commander of Cakrabirawa Regiment] gave the instruction to take [membawa] the President to the Air Force base in Halim. Mangil [Adjunct High Police commissioner, and Commandant of the Personal Bodyguard Detachment] could accept it because it was in accordance with the established guideline, which stated that, in case the President was in danger, he could be driven [dilarikan] to the nearest military barracks, Halim Perdanakusuma Air Base ([where] the presidential airplane Jetstar was always ready to take off), Tanjungpriok ([where] there was the Navy boat Varuna awaiting), or the Bogor Palace ([where] the [Presidential] helicopter was ready).35 33 Soerojo, Siapa Menabur Angin, p. 218. 34 "Selected Documents," Indonesia 1, pp. 154-55. 35 A. Luqman, "Bung Karno di Saat Kudeta Komunis yang Gagal: Duapuluh empat tahun sesudah kudeta berdarah PKI terjadi. Masih saja ada pertanyaan: Terlibatkah Bung Karno?," Editor 4 (September 30, 1989): 15.

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In September 1989, when Editor was trying to trace Sukarno's footsteps on that fatal day, the most sensational news in Jakarta was the murder of a twenty-one-year old woman whose corpse had been discovered headless. The dead woman had been identified by her mother, who had often massaged her daughter's legs and feet. On Wednesday morning, August 30, apparently, Buti [the victim's fiance, a preliminary suspect who was soon proven innocent] only escorted [mengantar] Titin [the eventual victim] to a place in accordance with her wishes. From there, Titin was taken [dibawa] by her secret lover to a motel, where they stayed until the evening.36 Note the difference in the tone of two words, antar and bawa, through which the two identical acts of taking someone somewhere are differentiated. Antar is invested with the meaning that her legitimate fiance took her to a place in his car in accordance with her wishes, while bawa is used to describe the actions of her illegitimate lover and would-be-murderer taking her to another place irrespective of her wishes. Titin may have gone to the motel voluntarily, even willingly, thinking that she was being escorted (antar) by her secret lover. But the reporter is apparently imagining a murderer prevailing over his victim, and hence the word bawa: to bring, carry. It seems significant enough that the same word bawa was used for Sukarno's movement by his former bodyguards. Does it mean that the old president, who was sixty-four years old and had health problems then, had already become the caged bird of his escorting bodyguards who now say that they decided where to take (bawa) him? The statement could be well-intentioned in the sense that they were trying to distance their former bapak from the coup group and protect him from the accusations about his involvement in the coup, but the very word, bawa, makes Sukarno subordinate to his anak buah's decision and thus underlines his loss of control over his movement and hence the development in that crucial moment. The article on the beheaded woman, Titin, continues: And according to the latest news, the following Sunday night around 23:00 the man [the suspect supposed to be her secret lover] was driven [dilarikan] to the Indonesian Police Hospital in Krama~ati. The suspect, it is said, tried to kill himself by cutting the artery in his hand.37 Both Sukarno and Aidit were similarly reported to have been driven (dilarikan) by someone else to Halim, and to their fatal destinations. In the midst of all these obsessive activities of picking someone up and/ or being picked up by someone, however, there was one man who drove his vehicle to his own destination, his office, all by himself. 36 Toriq Hadad, Moebanoe Moera, Agung Firmansyah, and Muchsin Lubis, "Asmara-Asmara

di Balik Kematian Christine," Tempo 30 (September 23, 1989), p. 84.

371bid.

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Young Heroes I drove the Toyota Jeep, alone, without anyone giving me a command, without anyone guarding me, toward the Kostrad [Army Strategic Reserve Command], passing through Jalan Kebon Sirih and Jalan Merdeka Timur. 38

KOSTRAD Commander, Major General Soeharto, left his house at six in the morning on October 1, after receiving reports of unknown military maneuvers. His was the "departure without escort." The person capable of ignoring the national tradition of antar-jemput was also capable of recognizing the possibilities of its different interpretations and implications: As for the Generals who had been summoned [by President Sukarno at Halim], I forbade them to go, since, quite frankly, in my estimation Halim was the center of the "Movement" and I did not want to lose any more Generals.39 His next task was to remove Sukarno from Halim before he sent out troops to attack the base of the coup group. I then repeated it: The task you must now carry out as adjutant is to move [pindahkan] Bapak [Sukarno] from Halim. I will be very thankful to God if you can manage to move Bapak from Halim. Evidently the adjutant understood what I meant, and later did his utmost, since at about 10:00 pm I got a long-distance call from Bogor saying that the President had already arrived there. 40 The posture Soeharto assumed then apparently impressed itself in the minds of Indonesians. Not only is the phrase describing him driving his vehicle alone quoted repeatedly, but twenty-three years later his behavior was described by a leading journalist in one of the quintessential New Order weeklies, Tempo, as follows. That morning a number of generals were reported to have been arrested or murdered. By the afternoon, there was no one who knew precisely what had happened to the Head of the State. In this confusion appeared one senior officer named Soeharto, who took a step forward. He succeeded. Since then, Indonesia has come to know one new leader of its own.41

3. NO MORE KIDNAPPINGS

By the evening of October 1, the coup was aborted. There were no Nishijima and no Maeda who stood outside the direct confrontation between the kidnappers and the kidnapped and yet were powerful and sympathetic enough to help them achieve their goal through compromise. The first Army broadcast on the evening of October 1 concluded with the following clause: 38 Soeharto, Soeharto: Pikiran, Ucapan, dan Tindakan Saya, p. 119. See also "Selected Documents," Indonesia 1, p. 162. 39 "Speech by Major-General Suharto on October 15, 1965, To Central and Regional Leaders of the National Front." Indonesia 1: 160-78. 40

Ibid., p. 171.

41 Goenawan Mohamad, "Pemimpin," Tempo, March 5, 1988, p. 29.

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5. The Leadership of the Army is temporarily held by Major General Soeharto, Commander of KOSTRAD. 6. The general situation is again under control and security measures are being actively carried out. The general public is urged to remain calm and continue their respective tasks as usual. 42

The new era was about to begin. On October 15, 1965, Major General Soeharto gave the first detailed official explanation and clarification of the event and explained the presence of Air Vice Marshal Omar Dhani, Minister /Commander of the Air Force, in Halim this way. Secondly I got information that Air Marshal Umar Dhani, who according to the first reports had been kidnapped, had actually been taken to safety [diselamatkan] by his own men [anak buah] at about 3:00 am, i.e. about one hour before the affair broke out-since the affair occurred roughly between 4:00 and 4:30 am. 43 The use of the passive voice diselamatkan (taken to safety) spared the Air Force Commander from being accused of his active participation in the coup. Use of this single passive verb downplayed the fact that the air force base was used as the base of the September 30th movement, that air force trucks and weapons were used in the operation, and that air force personnel trained PKI-affiliated teen-aged boys and girls in the base and led them to participate in the killing of the generals who were still alive when they arrived at Lubang Buaya. Soeharto also said that Omar Dhani, "who according to the first reports had been kidnapped, had actually been taken to safety by his own men." He thus made it clear that he was not kidnapped. In the Rengasdengklok Affair, Sukarno was kidnapped by his own anak buah. In the New Order language which was being born there and then, however, Omar Dhani was not kidnapped and could not be kidnapped, but brought to safety, diselamatkan, because it was his own men who took him to Halim. Kidnapping by one's own anak buah was about to disappear with the birth of the new language. Before we get fully immersed in that language, however, we still need to examine what anak buah were trying to do to bapak on that fateful day of revolution, Indonesian style. In the aftermath of the Rengasdengklok Affair, Sukarno never punished his hotheaded revolutionary-kidnappers-anak buah, who eventually became high-ranking government officials in Sukarno's Guided Democracy. Nor did he blame his anak buah bodyguards, Cakrabirawa, for the abortive coup. He reportedly said "that sort of thing is usual in a revolution." 44 Perhaps he recalled his own experience in the Rengasdengklok Affair when he made this statement, showing his understanding that the September 30th movement was revolutionary in character as was the Rengasdengklok Affair. Recall what Untung said at his first radio broadcast. 42

"Selected Documents," Indonesia 1, p. 158.

43 Ibid., p. 164. 44 May, Indonesian Tragedy,

p. 99; Soeharto, Soeharto: Pikiran, Ucapan, dan Tindakan Saya, p. 130.

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Young Heroes Lt. Colonel Untung appealed to all Army officers, non-commissioned officers, and soldiers in the whole motherland, to be resolute and to act to eradicate completely the influence of the Council of Generals and its agents [kaki tangannya] in the Army. Power-mad Generals and officers who have neglected the lot of their men [anak buah] and who above the accumulated sufferings of their men [anak buah] have lived in luxury, led a gay life, insulted our women and wasted government funds, must be kicked out of the Army and punished accordingly. The Army is not for generals, but is the possession of all the soldiers of the Army who are loyal to the ideals of the revolution of August 1945. 45

The anger against the generals expressed in this statement echoes that of the pemuda which exploded twenty years earlier. Wikana, who had been an anak mas [favorite pupil or protege] of Sukarno, brought the meeting to an emotional climax by clearly implying that Sukarno was failing to live up to his role as bapak.46 Untung thus declared clearly and equivocally that the coup was directed against "Power-mad Generals and officers who have neglected the lot of their men [anak buah]." The difference, however, is found in the juxtaposition of the official army hierarchy and the informal bapak-anak buah relationships. The expectation that lies behind Untung's statement is that the generals should be and should act as bapak to all their subordinates and protect them as their anak buah. These generals reportedly erred because they chose to protect only part of them, those whom Untung called their "agents" [kaki tangan]. In the afternoon of October 1, 1965, the following statement was thus issued:

Decision No. 2 concerning Demotion and Promotion in Rank (Text as read over the Djakarta radio at approximately 2:10pm on October 1) 1. As all authority in the State of the Republic of Indonesia on September 30, 1965, was taken over by the September 30th Movement and as its Commandant is an Officer with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, all ranks and equivalent grades in the Armed Forces of the Republic of Indonesia above that of Lieutenant Colonel are herewith declared invalid.

All officers who were previously of a rank higher than Lieutenant Colonel must state their loyalty in written form to the Indonesian Revolutionary Council and only thereafter have they the right to use the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Lieutenant Colonel is the highest rank in the Armed Forces of the State of the Republic of Indonesia.47 Instead of making himself a general, Lieutenant Colonel Untung decided to remain a lieutenant colonel and all the officers senior to him were required to come to the Revolutionary Council to state their loyalty and accept their demotion. 45 "Selected Documents," Indonesia 1, p. 135. in a Time of Revolution, p. 72. 47 "Selected Documents," Indonesia 1, p. 138. 46 Anderson, Java

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This is equivalent to the Rengasdengklok kidnapping. Bapak was forced to come to the place of his anak buah. Yet the idea of making bapak subordinate to anak buah never occurred even in this statement. Even in a revolution an anak buah was only able to demand that his bapak live up to his role as bapak, or otherwise he would be finished off. 48 It was revolution, Indonesian style, and was never meant to deny the bapak-anak buah relationship itself. What was it meant to be, then? "Decision No. 2" continues: 2. Because the September 30th Movement is basically a movement of lower-

ranking Soldiers, especially of Enlisted Men and NCO's, it is herewith stated that all Enlisted Men and NCO's of all Armed Forces of the Republic of Indonesia who support the September 30th Movement are promoted to two grades above those they occupied before September 30, 1965.49 To put it in a different way, the movement was an attempt to restructure the army, approximating its inner structure to the bapak-anak buah relationship, simplifying its rank hierarchy and reducing its structure to Bapak and Anak Buah. After all, this had been its ideal since the revolutionary days under Sudirman. But officers higher than lieutenant colonel in rank had no reason to be enthusiastic about the movement, and this Major General Soeharto exploited shrewdly to rally their support to his camp and to destroy the movement. Thus Soeharto arrived at the scene and announced that the anak buah by definition cannot possibly "kidnap" his bapak and that he can only bring his bapak to safety. This was a way of saying that the anak buah can never rebel against his bapak and reverse the route-map. The time of revolution, Indonesian style, was over. Eko's mother's privilege was guaranteed linguistically then. The possibility of revolution was eradicated from the language itself. Soeharto defined the nature of the event in a new, fundamentally anti-revolutionary language as early as October 15, right after Sukarno failed to establish the nature of the incident in his own terms and long before Soeharto made himself Second President of Indonesia. The act of taking someone somewhere thus acquired its new godfather, one who would identify and name particular instances of antar-jemput, and by doing so, regulate the flow of Indonesian history.

48 I owe this point to Rudolf Mnizek. 49 "Selected Documents," Indonesia 1, p. 139.

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Father knows best. Schoolchildren are shown Soeharto pictured on the Pancasila Sakti Monument constructed in Lubang Buaya in 1973.

Arrival of the New Order Bapak

Schoolchildren view the diorama at the museum in Lubang Buaya showing Lieutenant General Ahmad Yani being murdered in his house in the early morning of October 1, 1965.

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mall children are the primary source of delight for many Indonesians I met. On a number of occasions, I saw people in rapture in the presence of their adored, sweet, and-to my eyes-oddly pampered children. The child in Jakarta in the 1980s may be described as a small tyrant who is nonetheless designed and manipulated by others-shall we say a puppet tyrant? He is an object for adults to play with. The more arbitrarily he acts, the more amusing he becomes. But he can become one of those "Javanese children" in an instant, as Hildred Geertz describes in her book, The Javanese Family, who "are markedly well behaved, obedient, and quiet." 1 Children are lucu, funny and amusing, and they do and say unexpected things, because they "have not learned things yet." With this single word accompanied by laughter, any departure from norms, such as assertiveness, refusal, or protest, is tolerated, and anything unique or new is merrily rendered insignificant. Before we see children in the classroom, let us examine some aspects of their early family life to understand the meaning and attributes assigned to childhood, motherhood, and family life in New Order Indonesia. 1. HANGAT, SENSATION OF HAPPINESS

Every morning a little after 5:30am, when the dim, opaque, and drowsy sky is about to be replaced by fair, clear morning air, I used to watch from the window of my room a young man, barely twenty years old, and a baby. The baby was wrapped up and carried in a long shawl, called slendang, which was looped over the man's right shoulder. Here is an excerpt from my note: He leisurely walks around the cool and still neighborhood street, and eventually finds someone to chat with. He would often be sighted, a half hour later, still squatting at the foot of the black iron gate at the house of his neighborfriend, who usually is either washing, polishing, or admiring the new Mitsubishi family van parked just inside the gate. They exchange a cigarette from time to time and once in a while, as if waking up from meditation, some words. It is the warmth of the baby, held close to the man's left chest in the faded blue and red cotton slendang and quietly watching and listening to them with the patience only a baby can show, that makes this serene early morning picture so perfect. It is as though they belonged to this neighborhood corner, unconcerned and unmoved, in the way a stately old tree does. 1 Hildred Geertz, The Javanese Family: A Study of Kinship and Socialization (Prospect Heights, Illinois: Waveland Press, 1961), p. 115.

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Hangat is the word they use to signify the warmth which arises out of happiness of their family life. The word normally is defined as warmth, heat. When applied to family life, it means the sensation of physiological and emotional warmth people feel in their comfortably sheltered, cozy, intimate, and snug, shared relationships. They carry a baby frequently in a slendang, and they remember they were once carried in it. This forms the basis for their image and longing for the sensation of warmth which can easily be revived in their senses and memories. Young women sometimes twist their bodies, in a manner both sensual and childish, when they utter the word hangat in conversation. Hildred Geertz makes this observation: Carrying a baby in a shawl is called nggendong; and it is this action that is usually re-enacted as symbolic of the mother's total care-for instance, at the wedding ceremony or at the harvest when the first ears of rice are carried home in a slendang. The slendang represents complete security, and most infants under three seem to prefer to be carried rather than to be left to run around, often begging for it from their mother. When an infant or child is sick, even up to the age of six or eight, the mother takes him again in the shawl rather than leave him lying on the bed.2 This suggests that the most commonly practiced daily routine of infant care makes children desire the kind of comfort which they cannot obtain by themselves. It is the affectionate but nonetheless arbitrary whim of the mother, or any other caregiver, that gives them the pleasure of hangat in the slendang. All children must do to receive what they are made to desire is to be incapable. The delightful sensation of hangat is the reward for their helpless dependence, either because they are infants or because they are sick. The departure from this cozy warmth and security in the slendang will constitute the first step toward initiative and maturity. In this quotation, Hildred Geertz argues that nggendong, carrying a baby in a slendang, signifies the mother's total care and that the slendang represents complete security. It is important to note, however, that it is not the children who make nggendong "symbolic of the mother's total care" and that it is not the children for whom "the slendang represents complete security." The infant who is carried in a slendang needs no symbol to represent the sensation he is enjoying there then. Nor does he need any word to signify the warmth in which he has been held since he was born. The slendang represents complete security for those who have already lost what it once offered them. And it is the mother, not the child, who carries a six- or eightyear-old child in the slendang rather than leaving him lying on the bed, even though lying on the bed might be more comfortable, physically at least, for the older child. This is because the mother, more than the sick child, believes in what the slendang represents. It is grown-ups, the adult members of the family and society, who value and treasure complete security and the warmth the slendang provides for children. They intensely remember the sensation of warmth in the slendang because they have lost it. The sensation of hangat is a constructed memory. In other words, hangat signifies their early childhood in the slendang, its warmth and happiness, which they know they have lost and cannot recover. It derives its deeply felt meaning from the 2 Ibid., p. 94.

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collective memory shared by all who have lost it or might have never had it. The heat of hangat becomes intense, because they have created it as something they long for. I quoted this passage from Soeharto's autobiography in a previous chapter: Toward sunset, now, everyday, I have to see my grandchildren. I need the warmth [kehangatan] of the family atmosphere after being buried under the heavy workload. 3 A friend of mine in her sixties commented on this passage thus: Oh, he cannot avoid seeing them. He made all his children build their homes in the courtyard of his own house. They all live together. 4 So, it is the little cosmos of protection and affection that has now become the space where kehangatan, warmth, is generated. The courtyard is an extended, over-sized slendang in which all the family members, both adults and children, nestle and snuggle together for comfort, security, and warmth. It is the warmth remembered and to be remembered. In the daily context of child upbringing, a young, fat, soft infant who offers the joy of hugging is preferred to a skinny infant or an older bony boy. The mother of a little skinny boy would readily regret that fact and hastily make an excuse or two before others notice and refer to it. The nursemaid does her best to fatten the infant in her charge, chasing him, or his mouth, with a spoonful of soft food and feeding him all the time. Indonesians sometimes say that parents want to have fat children because they signify a good economic situation. But this sounds almost like an afterthought. Whether economically "identified" or not, parents desire to have, hug, and display sweet, soft, fat children. Hangat is not limited in its sensual manifestation to the inside of slendang and family courtyard. The word may also describe an ecstasy of love, the heat of passion between the two madly in love. Though I do not see him, I know he is watching me closely. So close that my cheeks feel hot and my body feverish, my chest difficult to breathe. He pulls me madly, and I am not so strong as to push away his forceful hands. I close my eyes when something hangat sucks my lips. I do not know where my senses are. Up in the air, in the heaven. Ah, no, I am in his embrace, hangat and delightfully delicious [nikmat], which I do not want to let go. 5 The sensation of love is experienced and expressed as hangat and nikmat, delicious. The seemingly innocent word, hangat, which Soeharto seeks for in his grandchildren's hugs, contains in its depth the heat of passion and desire that grips the heart and body of a housemaid madly in love with her master's younger brother.

Soeharto, Soeharto: Pikiran, Ucapan, dan Tindakan Saya: Otobiografi seperti dipaparkan kepada G. Dwipayana dan Ramadhan K.H. (Jakarta: PT. Citra Lamtoro Gung Persada, 1989), p. 233.

3 4

Interview, December 1990, Jakarta.

5 Lastri Fardani Sukarton, Kisi-kisi Hati (Jakarta: Pustaka Kartini, 1987), pp. 76-77.

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Mothers and their young children

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2. KEHILANGAN, SENSATION OF LOSS

The word hilang means the disappearance, or loss, of someone or something. The cold, empty sensation that accompanies the loss of someone or something dear and precious is most beautifully represented by Pramoedya Ananta Toer in his short story, "Jang sudah hilang" (Things gone). The Lusi River encircles the southern section of Blora. During the dry season, its bed of rocks, pebbles, mud, and sand churns up and strains toward the sky. The water is just a few inches deep in its shallow places. But when the rains start to come down and the mountains in the jungle are covered with clouds and the sun stays hidden for forty or fifty hours, the (greenish) water seems to changeyellow, thick, filled with mud. Its depths surge out of control. Sometimes twenty meters. Sometimes more. And the water which had flowed peacefully, suddenly churns madly. Clumps of bamboo along the banks are carried away like grass pulled up by little children. Banks are destroyed by it and fields of the local people are swept away. The Lusi: It destroys its own banks. And in this life sometimes a rapid current carries away a man's body and fate. And without knowing it, he loses [kehilangan] a part of his own lifeFrom the front of our house we could see the dark green tops of bamboo. When the wind blew, they bent seductively (as if in mourning). Sometimes they whistled quietly in the rustling of the wind. And when I was little, all this seeing and hearing often frightened me. Quickly I would run to the lap of my mothercrying. Even now I still hear my mother asking. "Why are you crying?" And her hand, which no longer had its girlish softness, stroked my thin cheek. And my childish voice, still uncertain, answered between sobs: "Mamma, the bamboo is crying." And at this, mother took me and sat me on her lap. And speaking, she gave me courage: "It isn't crying. No, it's singing." Then she sang. Her soft voice never failed to still my fear, sadness, or aversion to something. They were Javanese songs. Often her voice was softly plaintive, inviting me to fall asleep. Sometimes during the singing I caressed her hair which had been blown by the wind. I played with her ear which was decorated with a diamond earring. Later I heard the voice, its song finished. "You're sleepy," it said. "Come, let me put you to bed." And I opened my eyes wide so I could enjoy mother's song some more. But I couldn't keep my eyelids open any longer-But now, all of this has vanished [hi/ang]. Vanished like the riverbanks and the bamboo clusters, swept away by the high water of the Lusi River. And I am powerless to stem the great current which nature spouts in each human being. I am touched by how easily man is set aground by the waves of time, from place to place, from feeling to feeling.6 6 Pramoedya Ananta Toer, "Yang sudah hilang," Tjerita dari 8/ora, (Jakarta: Balai Pustaka), pp. 13-14. The quotation is from an unpublished translation by Benedict Anderson, pp. 1-2.

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Kehilangan, this breathtakingly delicious sensation of loss, so beautifully captured by Pramoedya in these passages, is evoked by the innocent beauty of what is lost and the mighty force that carried it away from the little boy. It is sublime because it is lost beyond retrieval. One may stand on the destroyed river banks and reflect on the old banks and one's childhood, swept away by the waves of water and time. But the old river banks are no longer there and precisely because they are no longer there, one recreates the old banks in one's memory which are perfect, sweet, and desperately desirable. It is the loss itself that makes what is lost genuine and the longing for it re all v real. The sensation of loss is constructed against man's powerlessness to resist the waves of water and time. In the passage quoted above, any mention of levee works and hydraulic engineering for flood control on the Lusi would destroy the purity of sensation and appear irreverent and indecent. Pramoedya recreated "things gone," yang sudah hilang, in his passages and in so doing reproduced in the reader's mind the sensation of loss this little boy-now grown-up and looking back at what he had lost-felt. What is lost is the childhood world remembered with mother's soothing Javanese songs and words. It belonged to the Javanese world. But what is produced in Pramoedya's story is no longer Javanese but Indonesian. The creation of a new world for the young nation thus began with the creation of its "lost" past, its childhood, from emptiness. Constructing its past and the longing for it, the nation embarked on the creation of its own national landscape, family, and history. It is this national memory of childhood and mother, thus constructed, that now comforts and calms the young man in Pramoedya's story who remembers things gone. The more dangerous and hostile the outside world looms, the more secure and warm that small, once lost and now recalled, sanctuary becomes. This is how one becomes an Indonesian today. It is this shared nostalgia, the sensation of loss, that forms the foundation for Indonesia's national culture and history.

3. KASIH SAYANG, UNCONDITIONAL GIVING

You know, we have too much feeling of love [kasih sayang] for our children. We want to give them the best of whatever we can? This is what a young research assistant at a teachers' training college told me in our conversation about the relationship between parents and children. Kasih sayang is the name given to the parental love and affection. As is clear from her remarks, kasih sayang means the parents' unconditional giving to children. We can see how this is represented in picture books for the elementary school children. Breakfast

When his mother was cleaning up the dining table, Maman just came out of his bedroom while carrying a pair of shoes and a bag. Then, Maman sat on a dining chair, and put his shoes on. "Eat first, Man," said his mother. ~----~-------

7 Interview,

September 1989, on IKIP Jakarta campus.

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"Then, I'll be late, Ma," answered Maman while putting his books into the bag. Though he has finished it, Maman remained standing beside his parent who was still cleaning the dining table. "You said you would be late. How come you are still here?" said his mother. "Expense money, of course, Ma," answered Maman asking to be pampered [dimanja]. "You are sure taking a pedicab, yes," asked his mother. "Isn't Maman very fat, Ma? So, Maman can't walk fast," replied Maman. Hearing Maman's words, his mother could not help but smiling while giving him money. Maman, too, affectionately kissed his mother's cheek. "Maman is going, Ma," he said while hurrying out. Seeing the behavior of her only son who was getting fatter, the mother could not help but smile.s In this book, Maman's mother is free of any doubt or twinge of conscience as she pampers her fat child and gives him money. Another story follows: A Lazy Girl Evy's daily habit is to take food to her bed. While lying down and reading, her mouth is always chewing food. This is how Evy falls asleep quickly. This habit of Evy's often causes trouble for her mother. It is not rare for her mother to take remnants of food from Evy's mouth when she is sleeping. But it often wakes Evy up and makes her angry when remnants of food are taken from her mouth. The mother, afraid of disturbing her child's sleep, occasionally let remnants of food stay in Evy's mouth.Y The story says that because the mother is afraid of disturbing her child's sleep, she cannot keep her grown-up daughter's mouth clean. This is an excuse for her mother's "neglect" of her daughter's oral hygiene. We should not take this story to be about parental indulgence of children. "Indulgence" indicates gratifying a child's desires, desires which, in terms of socially accepted moral principles, should be restrained. This is not the case here because there is no such moral restraint. The moral is that the mother gives everything she can to her children, her love, energy, time and all. Evy's mother would have cleaned her daughter's mouth every night if the exercise hadn't awakened the child. That is the role expected of the mother. Unconditional giving is the hallmark of motherhood. 4. ANAK TERTUA, THE ELDEST CHILD

Though unconditional giving may be the hallmark of motherhood, it is obviously impossible for a mother to give everything she can to all her children all the time. Predictably, a crisis takes place when a younger child is born and arrives at home. How is this crisis solved? There are children's picture books available which prepare their young readers for facing this dilemma. A friend of mine, who was expecting the 8 Pembayun, Makan PaRi (Jakarta: Inti Sarana Aksara, 1985), pp. 18-20. 9 Pembayun, Pemalas, Seri Kesehatan anak-anak, (Jakarta: Inti Sarana Aksara, 1985), pp. 14-6.

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arrival of her second child in a few months, bought one for her first son. It was titled

Rani Punya Adik (Roni Has a Younger Sister /Brother). It starts this way: Roni goes to school-kindergarten Each morning he is antar-ed by Father It is Mother who comes to jemput him after school One day Roni asks Mother Why he does not have an adik [younger sibling] like his friends Pray to God so that He will bring you an adik, says Father At the hospital Mother gives birth Father and Roni call at the hospital That is Rani's adik, says Father Oh, thank God Our prayer is heeded Roni prays in his heart Rani's adik is now at home Her name is Ita Ita is pretty and fat Everybody is joyful10 Then comes the crisis. Now Mother does not jemput Roni anymore Roni comes home with his friends Each day Mother takes care of Ita Roni has to play by himself. Because the younger sister needs more protection and care, Roni cannot expect to receive his mother's total care anymore. This is the essence of the crisis, and by undergoing it, he grows up to maturity. This theme recurs in literature, even though it is quite common in Indonesia for a young mother with a newborn baby to have extra help available from such persons as her sisters, relatives, neighbors, and housemaids; this was true, for instance, of my friend who bought the book, Rani Punya Adik, to her son. When Rani's crisis is dealt with and resolved in the book, we recognize a standard cultural answer to the question of how children grow up to maturity under such unrestrained parental love. Let us examine how the crisis manifests itself and what cultural resolution is presented in the story. The crisis surfaces in this way: Returning from his office Father nggendong Ita too Ita is held on his lap Roni cries from jealousy, seeing Ita held on Father's lap

lO Sahid Putra, Rani Punya Adik (Semarang: Mandira, 1988).

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Roni suffers from the sense of deprivation and jealousy because of the sudden withdrawal of parental care and attention. When Ita is asleep Mother washes in the kitchen Quietly Roni goes to his adik Ita is lightly stroked and then her foot pinched Ita is awakened and cries One pinches someone when the other is powerless. Pinching someone can mean either showing one's sense of affection or hatred. Either way, pinching demonstrates one's power, a power that can either protect or threaten the other's well-being, and in either case, makes the other understand or feel his/her powerlessness. The feeling of warmth can be shared, but not the pain of pinching. Warmth is the expression of togetherness; pain of separation. Roni experienced the pain of loss which made him aware of his separation from his parents. Pinching his baby sister and making her cry, he underlines his separation from her and shows his power. The family harmony, togetherness, and warmth are disturbed. The crisis that confronts Roni manifests itself in Ita's cry of pain. To overcome this family crisis, the little boy has to control himself and to learn how to live without the warmth of his parents' laps, without the comfort of the slendang, which he has been made to desire since he was born. There are many ways to deal with the crisis. The boy, for instance, might be taught the joy and excitement of leaving the family courtyard and joining the neighborhood gang. But that is not the way it is dealt with in the book. Hildred Geertz points out another way for the children to mature in Indonesia, which she calls "conditional love": Parental surrogates are said to have a feeling of mesakake for the children even if they are their own nephews and nieces, which in many contexts could be translated "pity" but here is better rendered as "conditional love." The children always feel a little stiff with them, a relationship often expressed in their use of respect language [krama] instead of the natural familiar language [ngoko] they use with their own parents. Living with them is a good opportunity to learn the variations and nuances of behavior associated with the terms wedi, isin, and sungkan, obedience, shame, and respect.ll The "natural" familiar language represents the togetherness of speakers who share the warmth in a slendang, an environment of unconditional love. The respect language signifies the separateness between the speakers and simultaneously establishes relations among them. It is only after the child is separated from his parents and from the warmth of slendang that he can establish relations with others. But this is not the story told in the book, either. In the book Roni suffers pain when he loses his mother's total care, so he pinches Ita, and she cries. The double pains signify the separation of Roni from his parents and Ita. But the pains do not lead to their reconnecting as the respect language might. Hildred Geertz says that when children live, shall we say, with "conditional" parents and learn the respect language, they also "learn the variations and nuances of 11 Hildred Geertz, The Javanese Family, p. 117.

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behavior" associated with the notions of "obedience, shame, and respect" and so, they grow up. The language defines relations between speakers and teaches how to control power and to acknowledge power. But Roni does not have "conditional" parents. How, then, does he overcome his crisis, learn to control himself and to reconnect himself with his parents and his younger sister? It is thanks to the mother, ever wise and attentive, that Roni overcomes the crisis. When Ita cries out of pain, the mother understands perfectly well what is going on and how to deal with the situation. The story goes this way: Help watch Ita, do you, Roni, said Mother This is a picture book, sit with adik When Father comes back we will eat together On Sunday we will take a walk in the plantation Wah, Ita's pants are wet, Mother Get a change from the bedroom, said Mother And don't forget the talcum powder Roni is happy to carry them out In the book, Roni's baby sister is described as an infant unable to use her hands, which are also both wrapped up. She is totally vulnerable and helpless. Roni was requested to watch this helpless baby, report her mishaps to his mother, and carry out his mother's instructions. In other words, he becomes his mother's trusted assistant. This is the way the crisis is solved in the book. The little boy is given his new position as his mother's assistant care-giver and in this way reconnects himself with his parents and his younger sister. The warmth on his parents' laps is substituted by the warmth of the baby he now holds on his own lap. Now Roni is always joyful He enjoys helping Mother to take care of Ita He loves [sayang] adik, and also Mother and Father Father and Mother enjoy seeing him The last illustration in the book describes Roni's Father and Mother watching and caressing him with affection, while Roni is pointing his finger at his baby sister as if redirecting the flow of parental attention from him to his sister. He is giving away to his sister the parental love he once monopolized. Roni has grown up and is now a mature member of his family. This is the way he learns to repress his desire and finds the joy of giving himself in for others. In other words, one grows up to maturity when one learns self-control and self-sacrifice, and one learns self-control and self-sacrifice when one accepts one's position as the mother's assistant in the family hierarchy. The mother's parental attention now takes the form of commanding, trusting, and rewarding him with a share of the household tasks, which is her recognition of his maturity. He is now successfully reintegrated in the harmonious cosmos of the family courtyard.

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It is at this moment, when he becomes his mother's assistant, that hangat, the sensation of warmth he once had as an immediate physical experience, gives way to kehangat-an, the memory of warmth, endowed with the moral value of self-sacrifice, countersigned with the sensation of loss, and constructed as heavenly sweet. It is also at this moment that the family emerges as a lasting cultural and social entity. His relationship to his parents loses its immediacy, which the warmth in a slendang has signified, and is given new meanings by the trust and recognition given him by his parents. He now holds the institutional position in the family hierarchy. Like the holy child, Roni, the grown son, transmits the parental love to his younger sibling, and by so doing transforms the nature of the unconditional love to the restrained affection endorsed by self-control and sacrifice. The family is constructed as the site where the parental love circulates. One becomes a mature member of the family through self-control and self-sacrifice, that is, by passing and transmitting the parental love on to younger members. While circulating, parental love assigns the positions, roles, responsibility, and power to the members. The family, which otherwise would have remained a biological accident, becomes a lasting social and cultural institution. The family sphere thus conceptualized is inherently extendible and is extended, well beyond its immediate biological family and relatives, to include anyone who accepts the "family" values and relations. 5. TERIMA KASIH, MAMMA

The family hierarchy is thus originated in, sustained and energized by, the parental love, which practically means mother's love. Without mother's love, Roni would have nothing to lose and nothing to sacrifice for his younger sister. Mother is central to the family cosmos in this sense, without whom the family simply cannot exist. As a sentence in the entry hangat in the official Indonesian dictionary says, Kasih sayang seorang ibu memberikan kehangatan dalam rumah tangganya, Mother's love brings the warmth in the household. 12 How is mother constructed in Indonesian and how does one become a mother who can bring warmth to his household? Like childhood, motherhood is rendered sublime when remembered. The following passage is from the back cover of the book, lbu (Mother), published by the Department of Education and Culture in 1981. The nobleness of mother's heart her affection [kasih sayangl and love [cinta], and her spirit become an everlasting remembrance. The sensation of longing, respect, gratitude, appreciation, and adoration for mother makes the inner strings of writers quiver to write stories and letters which are collected in this book.13 As this passage says, mother has been constructed and reconstructed countless times in contemporary Indonesian literature. Here is an example from a story in the same book.

12 Dcpartemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan, Tim Penysun Kamus Pusat Pembinaan dan Pengembangan Bahasa, Kamus Bcsar Bahasa Indonesia (Jakarta: Balai Pustaka, 1989), p. 296. 13 Klub Pengarang Indonesia AKSARA, lbu (Jakarta: Kucica, 1982).

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Mother [Emak]

We were covered with [her] full love [kasih sayang]like layers of blankets. The rain increased its force outside, thunder and lightening struck one after another. But we felt warm [hangat] and calm [tenteram], listening to the strains of father's strong voice reading [passages from] the holy book and seeing mother [emak] sit close to him with a calm countenance. We fell sound asleep and the next morning we got up as usual, forgetting the fearfulness of the night before. 14 In love stories, children's picture books, school textbooks, and films, there are perhaps as many versions of the remembrance of mother as there are mothers in New Order Indonesia. But many of these stories strike me with their monotonous compassion, longing, and gratitude, as if they were singing one same song with different voices and as if there were only one possible model of mother for women to emulate. What do they tell us, then, about how a young woman becomes a mother?

Terima Kasih, Mamma [Thank you, Mamma] It was really too much that we only thought about our study and play every day. But now, for the first time, I understood how heavy her [beliau] duty was as a mother [ibu]. Her energy and thought were all given to us. She never

complained; I only saw a narrow beam of disappointment in her eyes from time to time when we argued against her wishes. When her work piled up, sometimes she held and creased [the skirts she was sewing] until very late at night. There was no holiday for her. Finally I have come to realize how pampered I was all the time. As the eldest child [anak tertua], I should have helped her a lot and should not have made things difficult for her. Regret rose up in me. Mother's illness must have also resulted from the burden of her work. Without knowing it, tears began to wet my cheeks. How heavy her responsibility was! It was only last night that Mamma was carried away to the hospital, and we are now overwhelmed. The house feel desolate, all of us are gripped by the sense of fear. In a moment like this, Mamma's service and sacrifice for us is deeply appreciated. 15 The title phrase of this recollection, terima kasih, means "thank you," but its literal meaning is "I accept your love." The story is plain enough. The mother is lost, just for a night, and the writer, a high school girl, comes to realize what she has lost and what she has been given. This way, her mother is dissociated from her milieu that has automatically accommodated all her needs, and becomes, for the first time, separate from her self. The distance that emerges between her self and her mother makes her picture her mother in her mind's eyes and use the respect form, beliau, to refer to her. It is at this moment that her familiar mamma is for the first time associated with the venerable ibu, which in turn makes her understand her own position in the family hierarchy: she is not only Rina to her mamma, but also the l4 Daoed Joesoef, "Emak," ibid., p. 22. 15 Sari Narulita, "Terima Kasih, Mama," ibid., p. 137.

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eldest child, anak tertua, of the family. Then she grows up to maturity. She now understands her responsibility, and starts to pay back what she owes to her mother. Gently I picked up Mamma's dish and began to feed her. I saw Mamma's eyes were flooded with tears.16 Rina becomes a mother, taking over the role from her mother, in this case, in the symbolic act of feeding others. Mamma's eyes softly returned my deep intense gaze, the gaze which was warm [hangat] and full of love [kasih sayang]. "Rina, Mamma can hardly believe the change in your self. You have suddenly become so mature, though I feel as if it was not a long ago when Mamma breastfed you and Papa was still alive."17 Rina's maturity thus manifests itself in her act of giving to her mother and her younger siblings. Mother remarks on her maturity as if it had arrived suddenly without any transitional stage between her infanthood and her maturity and as if she had been breastfed until she was suddenly found to be a mature woman. Indeed, maturity seems to come suddenly in Indonesian. In other words, one is either mature or immature, that is, either the care-giver or the recipient of maternal care. Rina crossed this divide in one night when her mother was taken away to the hospital. Now Rina and her mother talk to each other as two mature women. There is a mutual trust, respect, and comradeship between the two. "There are, it seems, many things Mamma could not understand as mother!" said Mamma. I knew what she meant. Surely she was comparing my previous easy-going way with my present efficiency. Mamma regretted that she had often scolded me for only thinking of playing. 18 By now, the logic that informs this passage should be familiar. Mamma says she was not a perfect mother because she scolded Rina, whereas a mother should give everything she has without blaming her unheeding, ungrateful children. The unconditional giving is the moral duty that makes "mother" what it is. In other words, it is not an inherent quality any biological mother has, but something that has to be learned culturally that makes one mature and become a mother. In this sense, the difference between the mother and the eldest mature daughter is very small indeed, far smaller than the divide that separates maturity and immaturity. Once the eldest daughter grows up to maturity, the relationship between her and her mother is normally the most equal in the family. I came across many occasions in which eldest daughters volunteered straight advice to their mothers, took the mother's place when she was away, and commanded all family members. Rina's grandmother, Mama's mother, also joins this club of mature women: 16 Ibid., p. 138. 17 Ibid., pp. 139-40. 18 Ibid., p. 140.

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"But don't leak our secret [to Mamma], yes, Grandma?" Grandmother pinched my cheek with passionate affection. "You are exactly like your mamma when she was still small, so sweet and pampered," Grandmother also said. 19 Here the sequence is curious. Rina talks to her grandmother as an equal. Grandma accepts her maturity, noting her personality which is exactly like her mother. This means that the grandmother accepted Rina for what she is when she has achieved maturity. In other words, the personality of a woman only emerges out of her maturity. She is accepted for what she is because she is mature, and she is mature because she has learned to control herself and to give everything she has to others. Without self-control and self-sacrifice, she is immature, a child who may be lucu, funny and amusing, but has no personality. And now that Rina is mature, she is ready to take responsibility as a mature woman, that is, a mother. From the distance I saw Mas Ganda, an elder brother of my friend who was granted Master of Economics last year, smiling at me. I returned a smile. 20 A mature woman who can take her mother's place any time is ready to become a wife. A qualified wife-to-be is a mature woman who has already incorporated motherhood into herself. The loss of mother, even for a night, thus makes the eldest daughter arrive at maturity, becoming a mother culturally, well before becoming a mother biologically. What does the death of mother do to her son, then? Does he become another giving figure like his female counterpart? What is the difference between Rina, the mature eldest daughter, and Roni, the mature eldest son? Here is an example. This took place in an apartment in Paris, when a man received the news of his mother's sudden death. He was in a state of shock when his wife and daughter came back from a walk. Suddenly the door of my study opened. My child came in with her face beaming, coming closer to my seat, jumping, and offered me a handful of wild flowers she had picked in the woods near the playground. "For Bapak," said she with affection [kasih ] while kissing my cheeks. "And for you I brought back chestnuts that you are fond of!" said my wife, thrusting her head into the room. Apparently my wife and child had just come back from the park. "Did you enjoy studying?" asked my wife while hanging her coat at the clothes hanger near the door. I nodded. On the face of my wife appeared the face of emak [mother] that was handsome and beautifuL21 191bid., p. 142. 20 Ibid., p. 142. 21 Daoed Joesoef, "Emak," p. 24.

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He finds in his wife the very image of the mother whom he has just lost. She stands, in the eye of her husband, for his mother. 22 The motherhood in his wife is signified by her gift, chestnuts, the rich produce of nature and the land. His daughter also gives him a bunch of wild flowers and a kiss. Three generations of women give him the warmth of love. In return, he would give them protection. He makes the love circulate and maintains the family life. The source of them all is, of course, his mother who gave the names to his family and taught him to treasure them. "I am proud of having your wife as my daughter-in-law. She ought to be called 'diamond' and my grandchildren that she will bear 'pearls,' yes, truly the pearls of the household." I remember emak saying this to me several times. 23 His mother, in his memory, gave meanings to what he has: this wife and daughter. He imagines her saying, "Your family is your treasure. I gave the name to it, I gave life to it. I sacrificed myself for it. And I am always in your family."24 The following advertisement in the weekly magazine Tempo reflects this family structure. "Ssst ... from BungHari [Brother Hari; Flower of the Day; Interest Everyday]! For you and for our little daughter!" Ssst ... You also want to know what BungHari is, don't you? BungHari is the unique savings from the Bumiputera [Son of the Land] Bank which gives surer and securer profit. You may compare it with other savings. Are you ready for picking bunga [flower; interest] everyday? Really everyday!25 The advertisement, playing with the word bunga, which means both flower and interest, equates interest with the flower which signifies love of the mother /land. In the ad's illustration, a husband is giving a piece of jewelry to his wife, and a little girl is holding a large stuffed animal, evidently a gift from her father. Both gifts come from BungHari, Brother Hari/Flower of the Day /Daily Interest, that is not only from the bank but also from the land and the mother. The little girl gives her father what the embrace of a soft pink stuffed animal would give, and therefore he gives her a stuffed animal in return. His wife is a treasure to him, and so he gives her a diamond in return. This happy exchange of love in the family originates in his motherland. She is the one who gave life to him and taught him the value of the family. Though she 22 Harry Aveling writes: "In Armijn Pane's Belenggu, most of the mutually-destructive friction between the sensitive Dr. Sukartono and his Westernized socialite wife arises because she absolutely refuses to mother him ... [while] Jah, Sukartono's mistress, knows how to look after him." '"Care for him'-she tells Sumartini-'do what he wants, attend to those little things that he likes which are so important.' For, as she says, 'all men are the same,' all are little boys who need continually to be spoiled, and mother must slave for her little man if he will not look after himself." Harry Aveling, "The Thorny Rose: The Avoidance of Passion in Modern Indonesian Literature," Indonesia 7 (April 1969): 72. 23 Daoed Joesoef, "Emak," p. 24. 24 Ibid., p. 24. 25 One-page advertisement inside the back cover of Tempo, May 5, 1990, and other issues. BungHari plays with the word bung which means "brother," and bunga, which means both "flower" and "interest."

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might have been long lost to him, she is always there in all the values exchanged in his family. A painting of the land covered with full of flowers is hung on the wall in the back ground. The New Order bank ad stops short of saying that it is capital that bears interest, which would inevitably associate the mother-land with money. The interest capital produces is translated into the mystery of motherhood. It brings life/flower/interest to this world. We can only accept with gratitude that it comes from Mother /Land/Bank. 6. LUCU, AT THE DROP OF A GREEN CANDY

How does motherhood work in everyday life? Here is an excerpt from my note. It was one of the monthly lottery parties [alisan] of a Jakarta trading company's

office workers and their wives. Men were sitting in the shaded front garage. About a dozen of their wives were seated inside the front sitting room. A small crystal bowl of candies was passed around. Inside the bowl were many green candies and some red candies, all wrapped in transparent cellophane. I passed the bowl to a girl about five years old (perhaps another of my many mistakes) who wore a white cotton dress with red flowers scattered on it. She had been quietly clinging to her mother. The girl appeared perplexed at receiving the bowl in her hand, then looked into it intensely, and chose, I thought, a red candy which was at the center-top among other green candies. Just a second before her tiny fingers picked up the red candy, however, her mother picked up one of the green candies casually, but with firm swiftness, unwrapped it and placed it in the tiny pink mouth of her daughter. The girl, after a moment of immobility, used her tongue to push the green candy out of her mouth; it dropped onto the floor. Some women in the room who noticed the incident laughed, saying, "Lucu [funny, amusing]!" The mother resumed her conversation with the woman next seat who held a newborn baby on her lap. The girl stood still, alone, as if unable to fathom the taste of the lost candy in her mouth-which candy did she lose, the red one or the green one?-staring at the green candy left on the cool, gray, stone tiles. This incident was disturbing enough to make me think about its meanings for quite some time and to talk about it to others. One of the people who responded to my description was an American graduate student who had just arrived in Jakarta for her research. She was disturbed, first of all, by the image of the green candy, a little wet after traveling in and out of the girl's mouth, being left on the floor. "Didn't the mother pick up the green candy from the floor immediately?" she asked. "Didn't the mother say something to her daughter for her spitting a food out of her mouth like that?" I told her that no particular attention was paid to the green candy left on the floor. I have often seen small children, when chased around with spoonfuls of food, spit out the food casually or with a menacing smile as they run away from their nursemaids. Some nursemaids have a piece of cloth ready in their pocket to clean the floor on these occasions. No fuss is made over the food children spit out. Children are trained and expected to act "like children," which in Indonesia means they are

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not expected to control themselves. The basic "civilized" response to such culturally defined "childish" behaviors is to manage the situation nonchalantly, as if nothing that matters has happened. The graduate student sighed and said reflectively, You know, we Americans can't leave anything on the floor, even if it were not trash. Even if it were a pretty green hat which may very well match the calor of the carpet. We just keep picking things up from the floor. We won't even stop our conversation while doing it. It's just an unconscious thing. The little girl's mother did not pick up the green candy dropped on the floor, but she did pick up the green candy and place it in her daughter's mouth in the same manner as one could imagine an American casually correcting the misplaced hat. She never really turned her attention from the problems of baby care about which she was giving advice to the young mother who sat next to her. What, then, provoked her into that action which probably was half-unconscious? What disturbed her in the way an American would be disturbed by a hat on the floor, that is by something that was not serious but could not be left uncorrected? I told this story to a middle-aged primary school teacher without any comment or explanation, and this is what she told me. Yes, it is a quite common practice here. I have seen such things myself. It happens both to girls and boys. It has not changed at all. I do not know what we can do about it. It has been implanted in us from generation to generation.26 She did not explain what she meant by "it" and "such things," obviously because it was self-evident. I had an appointment with the rector of a teacher's training college. She was upset when I visited her, because one of her books had been banned just a few days before. She said I would have five minutes to interview her. I only asked one question, the meaning of the mother's behavior. She looked at me for the first time, sat back on her chair, and said: Aha! It was quite usual when I was small. There still are such mothers around, I know. That is precisely what we are trying to change by educating them. That is what I have been trying to change in the last twenty years of my career. You will see it happen time and again, if you keep your eyes open. But of course I would not do such a thing to my children. They should choose what they want, what they like. They should be free [bebas].27 That is it. "They should choose what they want, what they like." So, "it" and "such things" meant not letting children choose what they want, what they like. When the mother noticed that her daughter stretched her hand out to choose and take what she wanted, she responded and casually corrected her behavior, as if correcting the position of a misplaced hat. In so doing, she showed no emotional commitment. She stopped her daughter from choosing what she desired to have; she 26 Interview, Jakarta, May 1989. 27 Interview, Jakarta, May 1989.

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gave her a green candy; and she did not punish her by denying her a candy altogether. She thus proved herself to be a mother capable of making highly intricate maneuvers. The girl has to learn that she will not get what she wants if she reveals her desires, as American children learn that a hat has to be kept on the hat stand. The little girl, however, had actually chosen the red candy, and she knew her own choice was rejected outright by her mother. In response, she refused to accept her mother's commanding choice and spat the green candy out of her mouth. At this moment, she saw her mother as an overbearing figure who dominated and controlled her life, the figure entitled to make all choices for her. That is the other side of the ever-giving figure. Meanwhile, the housemaid cleaned the green candy away from the floor. After the initial mistake (occasioned by my passing the crystal bowl to the little girl, not to her mother) and the small impulsive rebellion, the girl accomplished her share of restrained behavior admirably by keeping the loss to herself. She did not scream, she did not cry, she did not protest. The party proceeded as if nothing significant had happened. The whole incident was, after all, a mere drop of a hat. But evidently it was a very important matter for the rector. She explained its significance, granted me another interview, and invited me to visit her class where a new method of teaching was being followed experimentally. Recounting the green-candy incident invited many unexpectedly strong reactions. Here is one more example. A few days after the incident, I outlined it to my friend who had invited me to the party in the first place. She was in the living room with me and noticed it when it happened, but paid little attention to it then. When I recounted it in her dining room over a cup of afternoon coffee, however, she immediately started to tell her own story. She told me how her parents did not allow her to marry the man she chose. There was no reason, she said, for them to oppose the marriage, and they never explained why they disapproved their marriage. The man she wanted to marry was a Catholic as her family was, and he was a policeman like her father. She did not understand why her parents opposed it, but still very young-eighteen years old then-she could not take any action resisting parental disapproval. This was what came to her mind when she heard the story of the little girl and the red candy, and now she saw her parents' disapproval in a new light. More than twelve years after that painful event in her life, she said she now understood why her parents did not allow her to marry the man. It was simply because he was her own choice. He was the red candy she desired to have. Her parents did not approve her marriage with him less because of who he was than because of her making the choice herself. Her parents, however, did not provide her with another young man of their choice, or the green candy, and thus failed to impose their choice on her. She met a Muslim office worker a few years later, married him without waiting for her parents' approval, and moved to Jakarta with him. What would happen, then, if children rejected their mother's giving in the first place? In the story, "Breakfast," Maman, the sweet fat boy, suffers an acute stomach pain later that day and a doctor is called in. The doctor says that he is suffering stomachache because his stomach was empty when he ate the fruit salad snack, rujak. Rujak is known to stimulate the stomach, sometimes too much, and his stomach was empty, as we may recall, because Maman had failed to eat the breakfast his mother prepared for him that morning. The logic is curious. One could say Maman came down with a stomachache because he ate rujak, but the story says it happened

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because he failed to eat the breakfast his mother had offered him. It is Maman's rejection of his mother's gift that causes him pain. Likewise, in the story, "The Lazy Girl," Evy eventually suffers a toothache, which she could have avoided if she had let her mother clean her mouth at night. Had the two characters accepted what their mothers offered them gratefully, they would not have suffered any pain. This is the moral. It is the children's moral duty to receive with respect and gratitude what their mothers give them. But their duty does not stop here. The sacrificial giving of the mother obliges her children to receive and, like the opening gift binds the Trobrianders, to make a return gift.28 The child is obliged to receive a gift and to make a gift in return. And "the return is," as Marcel Mauss rightly points out, "always bigger and more costly."29 Mother's gifts are, by definition, never completely repayable. Once the mother-child relationship is constructed on the moral principle of giving love and returning gratitude, and once the nation-state is identified with child-parent relations, the government can demand the unlimited sacrifice and loyalty from its people simply by taking the place of the parents. All the government has to do is praise the mother's love and teach the moral obligation of children to their sacrificial mothers. The mother is sublime because she gives everything and demands nothing. And this is also how the New Order heroes are identified and inaugurated. They gave all that they had and demanded nothing in return. 7. THE COUP STRIKES THE FAMILY

Soeharto arrived at the center stage of national politics in October of 1965 as a new, powerful, counter-revolutionary bapak who would never allow the kidnapping of a bapak by his anak buah. His toughness, a quality hidden behind his "fatherly" smile, figures as a favorite topic for gossips in Jakarta. Here is an example of such gossip, shared among middle-class Jakartans in their living rooms, involving a time when a business scandal linked to one of the presidential sons surfaced in 1989: "Bapak is a military [tentara] man, you know. He was so angry that he chased the son with his heavy military belt in his hand to give him a whipping." As if the image of the father punishing the son satisfied the public, people quickly let the scandal rest. And when I asked what might have actually happened to the son-"Was he really whipped?"-they answered with conspiratorial smiles, as if sharing a family secret with me: "Don't worry, his Mamma must surely have bailed him out of trouble." So, there is no question that Soeharto reigns as the powerful bapak whose only weak point is his motherly wife. But in the shadow of this bapak, the general descriptions of father and husband at home are not very many and not so impressive. Their features in fictional and non-fictional stories, for example, in women's magazines and serialized popular literature for youth, give little sense of presence or individuality. They are mostly stereotypical, portraying middle-class white-collar executives either in government or in business, distant from their children, and dominated by wives at home. Most often this executive appears much like the eldest son-Rani 28 "Total prestation [giving] not only carries with it the obligation to repay gifts received, but it implies two others equally important: the obligation to give presents and the obligation to receive them." Marcel Mauss, The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies (New York and London: W. W. Norton, translated by Ian Cunnison, 1967), p. 10. 29 Ibid., p. 63.

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reshaped as an adult-who is the mother's trusted assistant. It is as though writers find it necessary to diminish the stature of Indonesian fathers in general to prove that Soeharto is the only true New Order bapak, the leader of the family, and others are his inferior imitations. I have noticed, however, one literary genre in which the sublime descriptions of father and husband at home are found in abundance. It is the government supported "non-fictional" fictional literature on the abortive coup of 1965. The top army generals who were the targets of the raids in the early morning of October 1 are each represented in this literature as the "father and husband of the family" rather than as powerful military officials involved in complex politico-military maneuvers at the time. They are officially named as New Order Indonesia's "Revolutionary Heroes," less because of their achievements or courage than because of their deaths and sacrifices. New Order Indonesia is built on their sacrifice as the New Order family is built on mother's love and sacrifice. Who are the kidnappers in this discourse? In the 1985 film, Penghianatan G305/PKI, [Treason of the September 30th Movement/the Indonesian Communist Party], the adolescent murderers at the Halim Air Base indulge in erotic dances and sexual orgies. They are the ones who got what they desired, and therefore they have to pay for it, while those who did not demand anything and sacrificed their lives are entitled to be given everything, not only the lives of kidnappers but also the lives of hundreds of thousands of "communists." Pipit Rochijat writes: About two weeks after the events of October 1, the NU (especially their Ansor Youth) began to move, holding demonstrations which were joined by the santri masses from the pondok and pesantren around Kediri. They demanded the dissolution of the PKI (Indonesian Communist Party), and that the death of each general be paid for with those of 100,000 Communists.30 And indeed, an enormous number of people were killed in the aftermath of the coup: Harold Crouch estimates the number of victims at 250,000 to 500,000.31 By the time I did my research in the late 1980s, the coup and the mass killings that took place in its aftermath had long been couched in the New Order family language. In this language, the coup plotters kidnapped the fathers from their children, the husbands from their wives, and a daughter from her parents (the six-year-old daughter of General Nasution was wounded in the raid and died a few days later). This is the way the raids are described and made comprehensible. 32 The national language has turned a hugely important national political event into family affairs. The following quotation is from a novel based on the screenplay of the film Penghianatan G305/PKI about a raid in the early morning of October 1, 1965. The author is Arswendo Atmodiloto, whom we will meet later once again. In his story the 30 Pipit Rochijat, "Am I PKI or non-PKI?!," translated by Benedict Anderson, Indonesia 40 (October 1985): 43. 31 Harold Crouch, The Army and Politics in Indonesia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978), p. 155. 32 A man I met in Bukit Tinggi told me: "the communists will take your wife away from you" and "they will take your mother away from home."

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coup is presented as a communist conspiracy, as the title plainly suggests. 33 Note the shift in emphasis from the passages I quoted earlier in chapter two. In those quotes, women were eyewitnesses who did not quite understand what was going on. In the following passages, however, they are central and fully in charge. The gang kept going forward. Sergeant Bungkus pounded on the door violently. The reverberation was heard in Pak Har[yono]'s bedroom. It was so violent that the rooms swayed. Bu Har woke up first, paid attention to the direction of the sound. The poundings increased in strength and were repeated ... Bu Har touched Pak Har who was lying asleep, stretched out in a sleeveless undershirt and white undershorts. Endah [their youngest daughter who was sleeping with them] in a green and red sarong was still sleeping contentedly. Her two legs were folded like those of a baby still in the womb and in need of protection. Bu Har tried to shake her husband's body, but stopped herself. Bu Har felt compassion seeing Pak Har. In his sleep, evidently, Pak Har was really able to take a rest. Last evening, he attended a meeting of technicians in Senayan. And now he was finally taking a rest. For the last several days, Pak Har was clearly very tired. Bu Har in fact even found Pak Har seeking a place to rest in the backyard of the house, among orchids he loved and birds he cared. In that dusk, Pak Har appeared lost in thoughts, alone.34 There follows Mother Haryono's unhurried flashback recalling the affectionate family conversations in the backyard of their house. "Is Papi sick?" Pak Har opened his eyes widely. Ade giggled a little. Her flu felt half gone. "Papi? It's you who are sick, Ade." His strong hand softly stroked Ade's hair. Being treated like this, Ade felt very close to her father [ayah]. The intimacy emanating from Pak Har was indeed quite special. It was the intimacy very deep and thick in these moments in family life. But he could also be tough if he felt something was wrong. The Surabayan blood flows in him since his birth in that town on January 20, 1924. Endah, the youngest daughter, did not want to be left out. She trotted to her father. Pak Har roared with laughter, then stroked Endah's hair. Endah felt equal with her older sister. "Wow, doesn't want to be left out," cracked Bu Har. It was not over yet, for Adri and Riri appeared. Immediately the two did not want to be left out of being spoiled. "Let us have a share, you know, Pap." 33 The film was made a huge success by the government, which requires school children to see the film on TV every year on the eve of October 1, a requirement instituted ever since the film was produced in 1985. A friend of mine who knew the film director well once told me in December 1986 that Soeharto liked the film so much that he saw it many times at home in 1985 and 1986. 34 Arswendo Atmowiloto, Pengkhianatan G30S/PKI (Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan, 1986), pp. 106-7.

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Pak Har laughed broadly still. His concerns vanished in the noise of his children. "Ya, love ought to be shared equally. Fair enough. Come here! The little one, the big one, the middle one." All of them had their hair patted. Bu Har watched with the sensation of happiness as ibu. 35 Naturally, however, the eldest son is left out. He is not allowed to demand anything, which makes him what he is, the eldest son. The story continues: While straightening out Endah's skirt, Bu Har saw Babab, the eldest son, peeking out of a window. "Babab, what do you want?" The family's favorite bird Beo shouted at him. Everyone laughed. Babab was embarrassed. The Haryonos are thus presented as a paradigmatic happy family, its happiness staged on the family courtyard. Joyful and cloudless, the family atmosphere is warm [hangat]. And always intimate. This is what is felt as happiness in establishing a household, establishing the relationship between children ffPd parents. Yes, it is in this sort of atmosphere that all family members together feel the sensation of warmth [kehangatan] and love [kasih] all at once... Then follows an account of General Haryono's career since his elementary school days under the Dutch for two pages before the story finally comes back to the early morning of October 1: "The pounding at the door increased in vigor." The raiders should have been hammering on the door to start a historic incident for quite some time by now . . . . Bu Har descended from the bed, tidied up her pale blue lounging gown, while automatically her hands smoothed her hair ... The door was opened, the Cakrabirawa troops were apparently already on full alert. Sergeant Bungkus came forward. "Evening, Bu." "Evening. What is this?" Bu Har's voice was calm. "We are ordered to bring Bapak to see the President." "Now?" "Now." Bu Har walked back to the bedroom. Passing by the door of the front room where Babab and Adri were sleeping. Still sleeping. In the middle room Ade and Riri were also sleeping. Riri's arms were thrown around Ade, as if protecting her, who was still suffering from the flu, to keep the striped blanket up round her neck. 35lbid., pp. 107-8.

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It was the peaceful sleep of father, mother, brothers, and sisters that was in danger in this morning at Mother Haryono's home.

Bu Har woke up her husband. Pak Har got up, sat, his left hand still supporting his body. Sitting on the bed with his two legs crossed. He first saw his daughter Endah, who was still sleeping soundly. The feeling of drowsiness still weighed on him. "Just make them come back at eight o'clock. Later, at eight o'clock." Bu Har returned to the front. Opened the door a little. "Bapak said to come back at eight o'clock." Bungkus was very tense. "No, I can't, Bu. The situation is critical. Right now Bapak has to set out. We have to take Bapak now."36 Thus the "gang" pounded on the door to destroy the intimate and affectionate family life, to take a tired husband and caring father away from home. It was as if to say that the targets of the coup were the ideal husbands and fathers of the family rather than high ranking army generals. The coup struck the family courtyard in the early morning of October 1, 1965, not the state or the army. Or did it? 36 Ibid., pp. 106-10.

LINEAGES OF BAPAK ... My assistants [i.e., ministers] report problems in their fields. They ask me about guidance [petunjuk] or check [mencocokkannya] [with me] whether their plans are correct, whether their way of thinking is correct. There are people who say, "What is going on there[?] After ministers call on the President, they always say, 'in accordance with the President's guidance."' But it is indeed like this actually. That is, if they come to me, they need my guidance, what is my opinion about this and about that. As a matter of fact, they already have their own ideas, opinions, about it. But they need to check [menge-check] [with me], so that they do not make mistakes or cause complications. I give them guidance, so that they do not take actions alone. That is the way it is [Begitulah]. 1 This is from Soeharto's autobiography, where he explains what it means that he gives guidance, petunjuk, to his assistants, that is: cabinet ministers. By now, this passage should have a familiar ring, for the working relationship between Soeharto and his ministers is isomorphic in structure with the mother and the eldest son Rani as her trusted assistant. The ministers are given positions as assistants by Soeharto in the national government to take care of their younger siblings. They are expected to be mature enough to control themselves and to follow his guidance and instructions, whatever ideas and opinions they themselves have. They are Ronis under Father President Soeharto in the family that is Indonesia. Ruth McVey writes on this family concept: The organization of a group, or of the state and society, on a "family basis" has been a continuing theme in modern Indonesian thought. It has served to justify paternalism in government and social relations-the much-condemned bapakism-and to discourage internal challenges to leadership; but these have been results of the concept rather than its origins. 2 As McVey says, the concept of kekeluargaan, the abstract form of keluarga or family, which we may translate as family-ism, has a powerful and pervasive ideological presence in modern Indonesia. It is enshrined in the 1945 constitution, and the family language is inseparable from the political language of Indonesia's New Order.3 The question is, as McVey rightly points out, its lineage, where the concept itself came from, and how it has reached what it is now.

1 Soeharto,

Soeharto: Pikiran, Ucapan, dan Tindakan Saya: Otobiografi, seperti dipaparkan kepada G. Dwipayana dan Ramadhan K. H. (Jakarta: PT. Citra Lamtoro Gung Persada, 1989), p. 430. 2 Ruth T. McVey, "Taman Siswa and the Indonesian National awakening," Indonesia 4 (October 1967): 137. 3 For the notion of the family principle that informs the constitution, see Wilopo's 1955-speech, 'The Principle of the Family Relationship," included in Herbert Feith and Lance Castles, eds., Indonesian Political Thinking: 1945-1965 (lthaca: Cornell University Press, 1970), p. 379.

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1. ITS ORIGINS

The historical origins of family-ism go back to the colonial period. Kenji Tsuchiya points out that family-ism found its first institutional expression in the 1920s in the establishment of the Taman Siswa national educational movement: Taman Siswa's public declaration of familial unity was important not only as a self-definition, however, for in setting forth for the first time the idea that the internal order of an organization should be sustained by familial bonds, and in providing a clear model for the form of future Indonesian organizations, it was epoch-making within the nationalist movement. 4 With the rise of Indonesian nationalism and the arrival of modern popular politics, nationalist schools were established in Indonesia in the 1910s and 1920s. Taman Siswa was one of the most important, along with the Moehammadijah and Tan Malaka's ill-fated rakyat (people) schools, and its loosely associated extensive network of schools spread from Java to the "outer islands." 5 The adoption of kekeluargaan, or family-ism, as the organizational principle for Taman Siswa was publicly announced at its national congress held in Yogyakarta in August 1930: First to speak was Tjokrodirdjo, who spoke of the familial unity of Taman Siswa. He pointed out that the Mataram branch had made sacrifices in bearing a large part of the burden of the overall running of the Taman Siswa schools. In this sense the Mataram branch had carried out the duties and responsibilities of an elder brother towards its younger siblings.6 Here we can see an already well-developed formulation of family-ism. As Tjokrodirdjo put it in this quote, the Mataram (Yogyakarta) branch of Taman Siswa made "sacrifices" and carried out the "duties and responsibilities" of an "elder brother" to its "younger siblings." The question is how this concept of family came into being as an ideology and how it obtained its present meanings in the early history of Indonesian when it was still called Melayu? The direct origin of the concept can be traced back to "Javanese nationalists," a group of Dutch-trained Javanese intellectuals who called for the reconstruction of Javanese Culture in the late 1910s.7 Its leading proponent was Soetatmo Kenji Tsuchiya, Democracy and Leadership: The Rise af the Taman Siswa Movement in Indonesia, trans. Peter Hawkes (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987), p. 114. For the lineage of the family ideology from the Taman Siswa to the New Order, see also David Reeve, Golkar af Indonesia: An Alternative to the Party System (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1985). 5 For more on Taman Siswa's expansion, see Tsuchiya, Democracy and Leadership, pp. 55-88; McVey, "Taman Siswa," pp. 131-2. 6 Ibid., p. 112. 7 For more on Javanese nationalism, see Akira Nagazumi, The Dawn af Indonesian Nationalism: The Early Years af the Budi Utomo, 1908-1918 (Tokyo: Institute of Developing Economies, 1972); Savitri Prastiti Scherer, "Harmony and Dissonance: Early Nationalist Thought in Java" (MA thesis, Cornell University, 1975); Takashi Shiraishi, An Age in Motion: Popular Radicalism in Java, 1912-1926 (lthaca: Cornell University Press, 1990); Takashi Shiraishi, "The Disputes between Tjipto Mangoenkoesoemo and Soetatmo Soeriokoesoemo: Satria vs. Pandita," Indonesia 32 (October 1981): 93-108; Kenji Tsuchiya, Democracy and Leadership; Kenji Tsuchiya, Kartini no Fukei (Tokyo: Mekong, 1991); Kenji Tsuchiya, "Javanology and the Age of Ranggawarsita: An 4

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Soeriokoesoemo, the future first president of Taman Siswa when it was founded in 1922, who established the Committee for Javanese Nationalism and published the monthly journal Wederopbouw (Reconstruction) as its organ in 1914. The aim of Wederopbouw was expressed in its title. "Reconstruction" meant the restoration and rebuilding of the Javanese ideals of social structure, social morals, and social dignity, which had been lost as a result of foreign rule. These ideals were conceived of as order, tranquillity, prosperity, and good fortune in society, and the unity of kawula and gusti [master I god and servant] in human relations. 8 The Committee for Javanese Nationalism was a youthful vanguard of the Boedi Oetomo, a culturally proud but politically timid, progressive, Javanese association, and was joined and supported by Dutch-educated young Javanese aristocrats in Yogyakarta and Surakarta. 9 The journal was entirely Dutch, though the politically and culturally loaded Javanese and Sanskrit words such as kawula and gusti were freely used in juxtaposition with their Dutch renditions. They argued that Javanese Culture had been lost and called for its reconstruction. To say that Javanese Culture had been lost, they had to explain what they meant by it. They argued that its essence is in the kawula-gusti, master-servant, relationship. Their ideological position was therefore reactionary, but it was also restorationist in a curious way. They were fully aware that the gusti in colonial Java, vorsten or princes in Yogyakarta and Surakarta, had no power, prestige, nor authority. They therefore had to search for its functional equivalent which would replace the master-servant relationship as the core of reconstructed Javanese Culture. 10 The journal Wederopbouw acted as a forum for discussions of this ideological and cultural endeavor. Tsuchiya writes on its significance:

Wederopbouw also showed a remarkable ability to "translocate" history and culture (not just those of Java but of other parts of the Indies and of the West), which stemmed from the act of expressing Javanese culture in the Dutch language. This act meant that a wider readership than just Javanese was assumed, and it resulted in Javanese concepts being expressed in terms of more "universal" concepts (for example, those of Theosophy) that had already been expressed in another language (especially Dutch). At the same time, the more important Dutch concepts of the time (for example, democratie, ontwikkeling, God) were explained and associated with Javanese concepts.1 1 Introduction to Nineteenth-Century Javanese Culture," in Takashi Shiraishi, ed., Reading Southeast Asia (lthaca: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 1990). 8 Tsuchiya, Democracy and Leadership, p. 39. 9 Soetatmo came from the Paku Alam house in Yogyakarta, while its patron was Prang Wedana, the future Mangkunegara VII. lO Ibid., p. 100. 11 1bid., p. 40.

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In short, Wederopbouw was an attempt at the construction of Java in Dutch and an attempt, also, at taking back "Java" from Dutch Javanologists.1 2 In their contributions to this journal, Javanese nationalist intellectuals were creating a model for the future of the Indies and their new identity in the name of the reconstruction of Javanese Culture. In his debate with Indies nationalist Tjipto Mangoenkoesoemo, Javanese nationalist Soetatmo Soeriokoesoemo made his case this way: In this debate, Soetatomo advocated Javanese nationalism, arguing that the nation could and should be built on the basis of common culture and language. Javanese nationalism had its basis in the common culture, language, and history of the Javanese, whereas the cultural bases of Indies nationalism were nonexistent or, at best, a product of Dutch colonial rule. Javanese nationalism was the means of self-expression for the Javanese, while the Indies nationalism of the Indische Partij [Indies Party] or the Islamism of the SI [Sarekat Islam, Association of Islam] were no more than a reaction to Dutch colonial domination of the Indies. Therefore, he argued, only Javanese nationalism had the sound cultural basis on which the Javanese could establish their future political community. 13 The 1910s was a time of uncertainty when modern popular politics arrived and revolutions in China, Russia, and Germany made their repercussions felt in the Indies. Soetatmo's target was popular radicalism which manifested itself in the Sarekat Islam and challenged the Dutch Indies state and the Dutch-Javanese colonial order. Popular radicalism appalled him as chaotic, and he sought the source of chaos in the nature of the Dutch Indies colonial state. He understood the colonial state as a "democratic" state and identified it with a family in which: the father is henpecked and the mother, only indulging in pricking herself up, neglects her duties to the children. If the mother persistently neglects her duties, collision is unavoidable. And when it-this collision-comes, the children will triumph. The roles will be turned upside down and the father and mother will have to obey. And we will here see the picture of the Democratic state. 14 It is not entirely clear what he means by father and mother in this passage, and the fact that he compares the fundamentally racist Dutch Indies colonial state to a family makes one wonder whether his intent was to present the Indies "Democratic" state as a hopelessly broken family in the first place. But the vital question is why he thinks the "Democratic" state is in the sorry state of a broken family. He writes:

If men had equal rights, they would have no duties to fulfill, each individual would rely on himself, on his own rights, and no society is possible. The child 12. For the cultural conquest of "Java" by Dutch Javanologists, see Kenji Tsuchiya, "Javanology and the Age of Ranggawarsita." l3 Takashi Shiraishi, "The Disputes between Tjipto Mangoenkoesoemo and Soetatmo Soeriokoesoemo," p. 96. 14 Ibid., pp. 101-2.

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would be left to his own lot, because he insists that men respect his rights. There would be no unity, but only differences, no order but chaos. 15 Soetatmo thus blames democracy for chaos, but his logic may need translation. He equates democracy with equal rights, no duties, and he simply cannot imagine such democracy creating the solidarity (which he calls "unity") on which society is built. Think of the husband of my friend who described the tourists' group discussion on the street as "confused." 16 The only unity Soetatmo understands is an ordered hierarchical relationship which, in the absence of kawula-gusti, he locates in the relationship between the parents and their children and between elder and younger siblings. It is useful to recall the story, Rani Has a Younger Sister, in this context. Indeed, the extent in which the family relations defined by the founders of Taman Siswa movement are faithfully reproduced in contemporary Indonesian children's literature is impressive. In the story of Roni, the mother gives to the eldest son the position as her assistant, guides him to learn self-control and self-sacrifice, and restores peace and harmony in the family. The parental love, above all the mother's love, gives warmth to the family, but it is Roni who lets the parental love circulate in the family sphere. Read Soetatmo's family metaphor in this light. In his broken family in chaos, the mother pays no attention to her children, and as a consequence, her children do not learn duties and responsibilities in their family. Soetatmo calls for the restoration of the family order to put an end to the democratic chaos. He makes this argument by focusing on solidarity, which he calls brotherhood and equality. Equality and brotherhood ... are also preached by the wise; but not the equality of democracy, which speaks of equal rights, but the equality in the family, where the eldest son plays a more important part in carrying domestic burdens and duties, and so enjoys more rights than his younger, still playing-around brother. There are no equal rights in such a family and yet among the children there rules equality and brotherhood in the fullest sense of the word. 17 The Javanese nationalist model Soetatmo proposed as an alternative to the colonial state was therefore a family state with the wise father, the caring mother, and their children who know their places, duties, and responsibilities. The family relationship with its own equality and brotherhood was invented and identified as the functional equivalent of the long lost kawula-gusti relationship, which was now to be reclaimed as the cornerstone for a new national community and state in the name of reconstruction of Javanese Culture. Needless to say, it was not the only model proposed in the 1910s for the future Indonesia. Tjipto Mangoenkoesoemo, a leading proponent of Indies nationalism, proposed a satria's democratic republic model against Soetatmo's family state. He quoted from the wayang story of Arjuna's young son, Abimanyu: 15 1bid., p. 102. 16 See pp. 29-30, chapter 1, this text. 17 1bid., p. 103.

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Young Heroes No, grandfather! You can't reject my request. Because I have now made up my mind to visit my father. If you tie me up, I'll tear myself loose. If you lock me up, I'll break away. With satisfaction the grandfather looks at his youthful grandson. He takes pleasure in the fact that his upbringing has borne fruit. Good, my son! I know that I haven't taught you the qualities of a satria for nothing. I notice your satria-ness in your determination, which cannot be weakened by any kind of difficulty .IS

Here Tjipto is presenting a family which is different from Soetatmo's. Instead of the wise father, the caring mother, and their children who know their places, duties, and responsibilities, Tjipto finds in Abimanyu the figure who is not afraid of standing up against his grandfather. The scene depicted in the passage above resembles the Rengasdengklok Affair as told by Sukarno in this sympathy for youthful rebels. As we may recall, Sukarno did not want to be commanded by his anak buah, children, but could fully understand and appreciate their youthful determination and love for Indonesia. In Tjipto's view, the popular radicalism that challenged the Indies state and the Dutch-Javanese colonial order signaled the awakening and moral revival of the people, not chaos as Soetatmo perceived it. He therefore envisioned the birth of "Indiers," citizens of the future Indies state, in the transformation of Javanese into satria, as signified by their political and moral awakening.l 9 We can see in the two models, Soetatmo's Javanese nationalist model and Tjipto's Indies nationalist model, the origins of the two opposing models for the bapak-anak buah relationship. Soeharto's reactionary Father-knows-best model and Sukarno's revolutionary Rengasdengklok Affair model. But they were models, ideas and concepts conceived in Dutch, and it was Ki Hadjar Dewantara who translated the family idea into Malay-Indonesian and exemplified the Indonesian bapak in person for the first time in history. 2. BAPAK WAS BORN

In the early days of Indonesian independence, Adinegoro, now celebrated as the Father of Indonesian Journalism, used to tell his children and young journalists that Indonesia did not have any culture of its own, that it only had the national language, and that they had to create their culture and identity in this language. In short, he said, Indonesian was, and still is, a huge national project. 20 In 1899, about a century ago, Kartini wrote in a letter to her Dutch pen-pal about the lingua franca, Malay:

18 Tjipto Mangoenkoesoemo, De Wayang als Kultuuruiting van ons volk: Inleiding voor het XI Indiers Congres (Semarang; n.p., 1921), pp. 25-31, as quoted in Takashi Shiraishi, "The Disputes," pp. 107-8. Compare the passage with the statement made by a student leader in the 1970s, Heri Akhmadi, General Chairman of the Students' Council of the Bandung Institute of Technology, in Breaking the Chains of Oppression of the Indonesian People: Defense Statement at His Trial on Charges of Insulting the Head of State (Ithaca: Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, 1981). 19 Shiraishi, "The Disputes," p. 108. 20 · Interview with his daughter in Jakarta in September, 1990.

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What do we speak at home? What a question, Stella, dear. Naturally, our language is Javanese. We speak Malay with strange people who are Easterners, either Malays, Moors, Arabs, or Chinese, and Dutch with Europeans. 21 As Kartini says, the lingua franca Malay or Melayu was spoken with strangers and not used in the family. It was not spoken by the parents to their own children at home. This means that in the lingua franca, bapak, ibu, and anak, that is MalayIndonesian "father," "mother," and "child," did not have any socially and culturally articulated fatherhood, motherhood, and childhood attached to them. They were signifiers without anything yet to signify. Benedict Anderson writes about the historical significance of this vacuous Malay-Indonesian for the making of Indonesia. This was all the more possible because Malay as an "inter-ethnic" language, or lingua franca, had ipso facto an almost statusless character, like Esperanto, and was tied to no particular regional social structure. It had thus a free, almost "democratic" character from the outset, which had its own appeal to an intellectual class, which at one level (the desire to be on equal terms with the colonial elite) aspired to egalitarian norms. 22 To put it in a different way, it was precisely because the language was tied to no particular social structure that it could become a project in itself. The lingua franca Malay had long circulated in market places of the archipelago among peoples who had shared no linguistic or ethnic heritage in common, and it was subsequently used in army barracks, judicial courts, hospitals, offices, schools, and media during the colonial period. It was then adopted as revolutionary Malay-Indonesian to forge an anti-Dutch front across the complications of ethnic, regional, and status lines. Speeches were made at rallies in Malay-Indonesian, newspapers and pamphlets were written in Malay-Indonesian, teachers taught in Malay-Indonesian at nationalist schools, unions and strikes were organized in Malay-Indonesian, and a revolution was planned in Malay-Indonesian.23 Anything Indonesian, including the Indonesian family, was created with this language which planted its roots in the future wouldbe-nation. As Anderson says, Indonesian was the "language of hope for the future."24 The legitimacy to define and imagine the future was increasingly monopolized by this language. When Soetatmo called for the reconstruction of Javanese Culture with the family relationship as its essence, he wrote in Dutch and did not use Indonesian bapak (father), ibu (mother), and anak (child). But they were there, ready to be translated 21 Raden Adjeng Kartini, Letters of a Javanese Princess, ed. Hildred Geertz, trans. A. L. Symmers (New York: W. W. Norton, 1964), p. 45.

22 Benedict R. O'G. Anderson, "The Language of Indonesian Politics," Indonesia 1 (April1966): 104.

23 Hanneke Ming, "Barracks-Concubinage in the Indies, 1887-1920," Indonesia 35 (April1983), pp. 65-93; Takashi Shiraishi, An Age in Motion. 24 Anderson, "The Language of Indonesian Politics," p. 105. Dutch, which native intellectuals used more often than revolutionary Malay among themselves, could not become the vehicle for an anti-Dutch nationalist united front at the mass level, as English did in India, because of the colonial government's educational policies to limit Dutch language education to a very small elite segment of the native population.

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from Dutch into Indonesian, and it was Soewardi Soerjaningat, future Ki Hadjar Dewantara, who did the translation and embarked on an enterprise to give social, cultural, and political meanings to the Indonesian family language. Taman Siswa was established by Soetatmo Soerjokoesoemo and Soewardi Soerjaningrat in Yogyakarta in 1922. Soetatmo became the first president, but he died in 1924. Taman Siswa schools spread from Java to the "outer" islands under Soewardi's exemplary leadership. Here is Ruth McVey's portrait of Ki Hadjar Dewantara: Ki Hadjar Dewantara dominated the official personality of the Taman Siswa almost completely. As the founder, guiding spirit, and General Leader [who officially held the right of "dictatorship"] of the association, he was accorded a very great respect, and his word was not questioned publicly, however much disagreement or disobedience his policies may have confronted in practice. The appointment and reshuffling of the central bodies of the Taman Siswa was very much in his hands, and although a gradual expansion of the membership of the governing board provided greater representation for outlying schools and other opinion, the guiding force remained that of the group associated with Ki Hadjar from the beginning. 25 On his birthday in 1928, he abandoned his Javanese title, Raden Mas-like Soetatmo, he also came from the Paku Alam House in Yogyakarta-and changed his name from Soewardi Soerjaningrat to Ki Hadjar Dewantara. Ki signified a man of learning respected for his knowledge of the secret lore of religion and the cosmos; Hadjar or ajar meant teacher; and Dewa-antara literally meant mediator of god, dewa. In the same year, he started the monthly journal, Wasita (Word of the pandita), as the official central Taman Siswa organ. 26 Two years later, in 1931, it was succeeded by Pusara, the official monthly organ, which was published with the purpose of providing "a guide showing the path; a teacher imparting learning and education; and a guardian keeping watch over the conduct of our daily lives." 27 Children's education was an important part of the nationalist movement from its beginning, and in the late 1920s and 1930s the network of Taman Siswa schools provided an important institutional base for the movement. Educated, idealistic, but jobless, young men and women joined Taman Siswa and became its teachers. They were influenced by European educational theories of the time. Maria Montessori and Rudolf Steiner were their heroes in education, as Karl Marx and Gandhi were in politics. They experimented with a new "family-style" educational method in their classrooms. Children were told to address their teachers as bapak (father) and ibu (mother) in Indonesian. The teachers, fathers and mothers that is, let their children, anak, play and learn at their own pace and direction, while they remained in the background, watching and guiding them from behind. 28 Taman Siswa teachers not only introduced family-ism, kekeluargaan, as the method of classroom teaching, but also made it the organizational principle of their 25 McVey, "Taman Siswa," pp. 147-49. See also Tsuchiya, Democracy and Leadership, pp. 112116. 26 Tsuchiya, Democracy and Leadership, pp. 63-64. 27 Ibid., p. 124. 28 McVey, "Taman Siswa," pp. 128-49.

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school system. 29 The Taman Siswa had no employees. Instead, its schools had "family members" who jointly formed the organization and shared its resources. They addressed each other as bapak and ibu. This family-style organizational principle turned out to be highly effective in integrating members with diverse social, linguistic, ethnic, regional, and kinship backgrounds. Anyone who joined Taman Siswa and shared its ideals was qualified to become anak to its leaders, bapak and ibu. The family relationship between bapakjibu and anak, that is parents/teachers and children/pupils, provided a new bond to create a new community. A new social model was presented in practice for peoples with many different languages, histories, and cultures to see, understand, and emulate. Ki Hadjar Dewantara, who was the school's first officially designated Bapak, later wrote on the origin of bapak and ibu in the history of Taman Siswa: We used the terms "Bapak" and "Ibu" because we considered that the terms of address currently in use, "Tuan" [Sir], "Njonjah" [Madam], "Nonah" [Miss], and the corresponding Dutch terms, "Meneer," "Mevrouw," and "]uffrouw," and also the terms in use in Java, such as "Mas Behi," "Den Behi," and "Ndoro," which implied superiority and inferiority of status, should be abolished from Taman Siswa. We introduced the use of the terms, "Bapak" and "Ibu" not only for when pupils spoke to teachers but also for when younger teachers spoke to older ones. We never once spelled this out as a "regulation," but this kind of appellation soon came to be used in educational institutions across Indonesia. Not only that, after the Indonesian Republic became independent, it was even suggested that these terms should be used formally by younger officials in addressing older officials. 30 The Taman Siswa teachers created new social relations which would potentially liberate people and be themselves liberated from the colonial hierarchy through these terms of address: bapak, ibu and anak. That was possible precisely because the lingua franca's familial terms were vacuous. Although Colonial-Malay accommodated the colonial hierarchy as demonstrated by such terms of address as Tuan, Njonjah, Nonah during the colonial period, its family domain apparently remained less affected by the change that took place. Taman Siswa's new system of address simplified the complex hierarchical relationships which had been produced in Colonial-Malay, in Colonial-Dutch (with such terms as Meneer, Mevrouw, Juffrouw), as well as in Javanese (with such terms as Mas Behi, Den Behi, Ndoro), and marked only the distinctions made in terms of gender and age. The power and influence of Dewantara's Taman Siswa movement upon other nationalist organizations was most clearly manifested in 1932 when Taman Siswa successfully led the nationalist front in protesting the "wild school" ordinance. On October 1, the Indies government introduced the ordinance that required all the teachers to have license issued by the government in order to control the "wild schools," that is private schools unsubsidized by the government. The November issue of Pusara published the court hearing of the Taman Siswa teacher who was arrested on the charge of violating the ordinance. Tsuchiya writes: 29 Tsuchiya, Democracy and Leadership, pp. 112-19 30 It is quoted in ibid., pp. 114-15.

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Siswa side only Indonesian. In the section covering the "court" hearing, the Dutch is translated into Indonesian, while in the exchange between Soekardi [headmaster of the Cikoneng Taman Siswa school] and the assistant resident, the original Dutch is cited. Both sides must have understood each other perfectly and yet conversed in their own different languages.31 The resistance was supported by virtually all the nationalist parties and many different social, educational, religious, and ethnic associations and committees. Among them, for example, were Sukarno's Association of Political Organizations (PPPKI, or Permufakatan Perhimpunan-perhimpunan Politik Kebangsaan Indonesia), Islamic and Catholic groups and their schools, teachers' unions, students' associations, peasant organizations, Chinese associations, Arabs, women's' groups and girls' schools. The government ultimately repealed its own ordinance, an unprecedented act for the colonial government and the first-ever triumph for the nationalist movement. The day the ordinance was initially slated to take effect, October 1, was named by Taman Siswa leaders as the "day true freedom was born." Throughout the struggle, Tsuchiya notes, "the Taman Siswa leadership stressed 'order and tranquillity' [tertib dan damai, Indonesian] above all else, while the colonial government cited the 'order and tranquillity' [orde en rust, Dutch] of native education as its reason for enforcing the ordinance. The conflict highlighted the two different versions of order and tranquillity, and the government failed to impose the Dutch version, rust en orde, on Taman Siswa's Indonesian tertib dan damai. 32 This constituted a victory of the Taman Siswa family order over the Dutch Indies colonial order. The figure of bapak, personified by Ki Hadjar Dewantara, established its outstanding position in the Indonesian national tradition-in-the-making with the unforgettable memory of this victory. Hence the potency of family-ism. 3. BAPAK'S HISTORICAL JOURNEY

The bapak-anak relationship was the only hierarchical relationship in nationalist's Indonesian, which, as Dewantara said, resisted all the other hierarchical relationships embedded in Dutch, Javanese, and other languages. It should not be surprising, therefore, that the Indonesian national revolution started with anak standing up against bapak two days before the proclamation of Independence in the Rengasdengclock Affair, and gave birth to a new, revolutionary tradition, Indonesian style, as Tjipto envisioned in the wayang story of Abimanyu and his grandfather. During the revolution, the more egalitarian terms of address, saudara (brother I sister) and bung (brother, comrade), were preferred to bapak and ibu. But bapak and ibu, born in the Taman Siswa classroom, started to make their presence increasingly felt in government offices in the post-independence, post-revolutionary Indonesia, as Taman Siswa teachers and graduates joined the government and became its officials, achieving their unrivaled ascendancy under Bung Karno's Guided Democracy. 33 Now political leaders and government officials were 31 Ibid., p. 179. 32 Ibid., p. 151. 33 Note that "bung" survived as "Bung" with capital B, as in "Bung Karno" and "Bung Hatta," that is, as part of the name.

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addressed as bapak and ibu. Sukarno's Guided Democracy derived part of its theoretical underpinnings from Dewantara's democracy and leadership. Bapak and ibu gained stable referents in the classrooms and increasingly in government offices. The portraits of Bapak President Soekarno and Kartini, now called Ibu of the Indonesian nation, were often hung in the classroom looking down at the bapak/ibu teacher and anak pupils. The classroom emerged as a metaphor of Indonesia. Differentiations between the national leaders, school teachers, and parents, all of whom could be identified as bapak or ibu, were still embryonic. Soekarno, the Great Leader of the Indonesian Revolution and the Extension of the People's Tongue, was also the Father Teacher par excellence. The terms bapak and ibu spread, along with Indonesian, from the classrooms to government offices and beyond, through school education and radios. Parents were proud of their children speaking and singing in Indonesian. Young parents even sang Indonesia Raya, the national anthem, as a lullaby for their babies. The coup and the mass killings that took place in its wake marked a major turning point in the history of bapak. It is not just that Soeharto put an end to the Abimanyu-Rengasdengklok Affair tradition which allowed anak to stand up against bapak, as we have discussed earlier. In the wake of the coup, three hundred to five hundred thousand people were killed in Java, Bali, Aceh, and elsewhere. But this enormous tragedy has never been fully discussed and confronted within Indonesia. Indonesian, so central to the nation and its project, kept silent in this crucial hour, and refused to reveal the truth behind the bloodshed. Security and order were restored in silence and fear by military might. Soeharto, who emerged as the new bapak in October 1965, was different from the first Bapak President. If Sukarno was known for his deep baritone voice with which he made speeches in Indonesian, Soeharto was introduced, as 0. G. Roeder did, as the knowingly smiling general. 34 His smile keeps silence behind which the unspoken truth of the killings was stashed. His arrival coincided with the coming of the TV age in Indonesia. TVRI, Indonesia's national broadcast company, had started its operation in August 1962.35 In October 1965, the state funeral for the six army generals killed in the coup was broadcast. President Sukarno did not attend the funeral. On the TV screen, Nasution, whose daughter was fatally wounded during the attack and died soon after the funeral, made the emotional speech. Soeharto appeared on TV, standing in silence behind Nasution, with his dark sunglasses. The age of the orator Sukarno was about to end. Soeharto formally became Indonesia's second President in 1968. As Sukarno's voice came to be known to Indonesians during the Japanese occupation when every village was given a radio set and Sukarno was provided access to radio broadcasting by the Japanese, Soeharto's smile became familiar to Indonesians as the TV age progressed. In the mid 1970s, the government required every village to have a TV set and to have villagers watch the national news and cultural programs. Electric generators spread TV to villages ahead of electrification. In 1989, there were six million registered TV sets, about one TV set each for every thirty-three persons. By 1990, TVRI with its thirteen regional stations, 350 transmission facilities, and six thousand employees had reached 40 percent of the territory. This theoretically meant 0. G. Roeder, Emi wo Ukabeta Shogun: Ajia no Idai na Shidosha Suharuto, trans. Hideaki Kase (Tokyo: Gunun Agun, 1970). 35 See Vista TV, Special Anniversary Edition, August 1992.

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that 70 percent of Indonesia's population was provided with national TV news programs from Jakarta every evening at seven and nine o'clock. Soeharto's image continues to appear at the beginning of news programs almost every day, and his portraits are on walls of government offices and school classrooms throughout the archipelago. The New Order has been built on this silence. He is there, smiling, but people know that he is capable of killing tens of thousands of people, as petrus, mysterious killings, demonstrated as late as in the mid 1980s. The nation is thus addicted to the national pastime of guessing what is behind the silent smile of Bapak Presiden, who watches over his children, that is grown-up citizens, from behind. Public opinion polls are rarely conducted. The mass media pay little attention to the "public" opinion. What matters are Bapak Presiden's thoughts and decisions which the media try to guess or report. "Guiding from behind" is the phrase which best captures Soeharto's leadership. In Javanese-turned-Indonesian, it is tut wuri handayani, a phrase used like a mantra that generates a sense of mysterious Javanese wisdom and the aura of its authentic antiquity. Its basic image comes from the common practice of guiding an infant from behind, holding up his/her two little arms and assisting him/her to walk. As Soeharto himself notes in his autobiography, the concept was originally given its national educational significance by Ki Hadjar Dewantara. 36 Soeharto elevated it from an educational to a national political principle for his New Order. But this entailed a major shift in the meaning of tut wuri handayani. When Dewantara introduced the concept in the Taman Siswa classrooms, it was a guiding principle for an educational method that would act as an alternative to the regimented classroom. Guiding from behind in this context meant an attempt to allow children to have more freedom and initiatives in the classroom. But once transported to national politics, the same phrase signified the punitive eyes that watch children-citizens from behind. European reformist educational theories which originally informed Taman Siswa were left out and buried under the darkening shadow of putative Javanese Culture. The journey bapak made in history in the past eighty years, however, has been highly arbitrary and unplanned. The definitions given to bapak in the official Indonesian dictionary published by the Department of Education and Culture tells us its eventful past and present: 1. male parent; ayah; 2. a male relative who may be regarded as the same as ayah (such as ibu's brothers or bapak's brothers); 3. a person who may be considered a parent or a person of respect (such as a teacher, the village head); 4. address for older male; 5. one who protects (a pioneer leader, anyone with many followers): Ki Had jar Dewantara dipandang sbg bapak pendidikan nasional [Ki Hadjar Dewantara is regarded as the bapak of national education]; 6. official: biaya menghibur dan menjamu makan bapak dianggap mengurangi laba kotor perusahaan [The expenses to entertain and dine with bapak are considered to reduce the gross business income]." 37 36 Soeharto, Soeharto: Pikiran, Ucapan, dan Tindakan Saya, pp. 582-83. 37 Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, p. 80

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Though granted his place as bapak in definition "1," the actual father in the family is rarely addressed as bapak even in Jakarta. It remains a term used as part of a national project. The meanings used most often today are presented in definitions "5" and "6." The strong association between Ki Hadjar Dewantara and bapak is not lost, though the author of this dictionary entry seems to have forgotten that it was Dewantara who embodied the figure of bapak for the first time in history and gave the meaning to the vacuous word. And it is government officials and business executives who now exemplify the figure of bapak in today's Indonesia. 4. BAPAK'S AMBIVALENT LEGACY

Historically, the concept of kekeluargaan, or family-ism, was born and developed in Taman Siswa. It then migrated to government offices as Taman Siswa teachers and graduates joined the government. Family-ism therefore manifests itself most clearly in modern, national, bureaucratic organizations. It resides most comfortably in government and corporate offices and school classrooms where Indonesian is used. Whatever their social or ethnic backgrounds are, once employed, people in government and corporate organizations-directors, managers, secretaries, clerks, security guards, janitors, and drivers-address their bosses "Pak So-and-So" or "Bu So-and-So" in Indonesian when they meet, and bring the relations of bapak/ibu and anak into being. The flexibility, openness and effectiveness of bapak-anak relations in integrating peoples with different linguistic, social, and cultural backgrounds are historically proven. The nature of the relationship is programmed in the terms of address they use. The bapak-anak relationship thus emerges instantly in any official relationship between the boss and his/her subordinates when they speak in Indonesian to each other. Despite its long historical journey and the emergence of the counterrevolutionary Father-knows-best bapak, however, the bapak-anak relationship still carries with it an anti-colonialist heritage in a curious way. This manifests itself most often in its defiance of law and regulations. In its early days, family-ism was proposed as a counter-hegemonic organizational principle opposed to the then dominant Dutch organizational ideas and practices. Juxtaposing Indonesian and Dutch terms in his characteristic way, Ki Hadjar Dewantara defined the family principle of Taman Siswa in contrast to the "normal organization" of the time this way: In other words, organisatie [Dutch: organization] points to our body; and keluarga [Indonesian: family] shows our spiritual unity. Who are the members of our great sacred family? Normal organization is bound by "articles and regulations" [statuten dan reglementen] and anyone who pays his "dues" [contributie] may belong to it. He may do what he pleases providing he pays his "dues" and abides by the rules. Unity of the members can be found only in the fact that they attend the "meetings" [bervergadering] where there are speeches and debates, motions are introduced, and after heckling, protest, and even bargaining, decisions are made by a majority vote. Our situation is very different from this. The members of Taman Siswa are not those who only speak at meetings occasionally. They work everyday for us-because they are bound together by

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"one ideal" at the bottom of their hearts, not because they are paid by Taman Siswa ... such people should be called family members [anggota keluarga]. They must not think that they are tied by regulations; they must believe that they are united because of the purity of their feelings [rasa kesutjian], which is named the family [keluarga] bond.38 The discursive structure of the quotation above corresponds to what it describes. It consists of three parts. First, Dutch organisatie is based on statutes and regulations. The members are required, most importantly, to pay "dues" and abide by the rules. In the face of this Dutch organisatie, and this is the second point, the bapak declares: Our situation is very different from this. Taman Siswa is different from Dutch organisatie, he says, because "our" members are family members united by the family bond, though family was an empty signifier in Indonesian. The important fact here is that Dewantara made these statements and subsequently emerged as bapak with new forceful voice. And he placed "the purity of their feelings, which is named the keluarga bond" above statues, regulations, dues, and meetings. It is not that Taman Siswa had no statues, regulations, dues, and meetings. It did. But it had to be different from Dutch organisatie, because being different was in itself an essential feature of Taman Siswa. Its distinctive characteristic was sought in the MalayIndonesian keluarga, family, because this was not Dutch. Keluarga, an empty signifier with no specific family system to signify, was an effective name for the nationalist organizational principle primarily defined in terms of negation: the members of Taman Siswa are NOT those who only speak at meetings occasionally; they work everyday for us, because they are bound together, ... , NOT because they are paid by Taman Siswa; they must NOT think that they are tied by regulations. Keluarga meant that Taman Siswa was NOT DUTCH, but OURS, which "we" are determined to uphold as a counter-institution against the Dutch, "normal," hegemonic system. It was defiance that keluarga, an empty signifier, in fact signified.39 This means that keluarga needed, and still needs, organisaties, that is normal, modern, bureaucratic organizations with statues, regulations, dues, and meetings against which family-ism can establish its identity. Taman Siswa was an organisatie, but it was made different, because those employed were called family members, not employees, and because Dewantara said it was different. The difference he introduced in Taman Siswa, therefore, was not sociological, but nominal, classificatory. It was an effort to replace Dutch with Indonesian, and to express their members' new solidarity and aspirations in the language liberated even from their ethnic mother tongues. Indonesian bapak, in this sense, represented both the agent to create and speak the language as well as the new principle for organizing members of this new group. The bapak thus did just fine in leading Taman Siswa as a counter-hegemonic nationalist institution, as long as the Dutch were there with their laws, regulations, dues, and "normal" organizations. But once Indonesia became independent, and the pationalists occupied the government offices, the situation turned problematic almost at once. As Daniel Lev tells us, "the substantive law of post-1945 Indonesia remained almost exactly the same as it was in 1941. Important procedural changes 38 K. H. Dewantara, "Pertalian Lahir dan Batin dalam Taman siswa," Pusara 1: 6-7 (December 1931), pp. 43-44, quoted in Tsuchiya, Democracy and Leadership, p. 141. 39 "Counter-institution" is Tsuchiya's word. See ibid., p. 115.

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aside, an oblivious attorney could take up in 1950 (or for that matter decades later) as if the war, occupation, and revolution had never happened." 40 The family idea was adopted in the 1945 constitution, but not the designation bapak. Bapak has remained legally undefined until today. In written Indonesian, it is confined to the family courtyard where it means "father" and to the schoolroom where it means pak guru, or father teacher. It also appears in the back pages of newspapers and magazines, where it signifies an informal, shadowy figure. In politics, bapak inhabits the world of spoken language with its original spirit of defiance still kept alive. Bapak has thus inherited the colonial duality of language which the first bapak so skillfully exploited. He still speaks the language of defiance against organisatie, but there is no longer any clear-cut distinction made between Dutch and Indonesia, the language of the colonial state and the nationalist stateless language, hegemony and counter-hegemony, organisaties and family. Bapak inhabits both worlds. He heads the organization, while he undermines it. When people meet in their office, face to face, and address each other as "Pak So-and-So," "Bu So-and-So," the anti-organisatie structure of the mutually protective keluarga, family, emerges right in the midst of the organisatie. Visit any shiny new glass-and-steel high-rise building in Jakarta, open the door and enter an office, you will find secretaries and clerks in homely worn sandals enjoying lax sleepy afternoon chats. President, ministers, directors, managers, army officers, in fact anyone becomes bapak the moment they are addressed "Pak!" by their subordinates with respect, affection, and expectation. They are morally bound then to strive to protect their men and women and take care of their interests even if it means circumventing laws, regulations, and dues. Dewantara's ghost is still roaming in the language bapak speaks, for the language requires bapak, above all bapak government officials, to do what bapak is expected to do in defiance of laws and regulations of the state they are supposed to uphold. 40 Daniel S. Lev, "Colonial Law and the Genesis of the Indonesian State," Indonesia 40 (October 1985): 69.

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osses try hard to live up to the image of bapak as a caring father for his children/ subordinates who meets their endless expectations. As we have seen, today, parenting is equated with unconditional pampering. The Bapak has to be generous to his subordinates and protect their interests. Children in turn accept what their bapak offers them with respect and gratitude. The boss, whether in government or in business, has to find a right balance between his role as an executive responsible for running a modern bureaucratic organization and his role as a bapak responsible for taking care of his anak and keeping his familyorganization happy and harmonious. Here is a description from my notes of the bapak-executive who apparently is well-respected by his subordinates: Budi is an executive director, the second in command as a matter of fact, of a company with its office in a posh high rise building in Jakarta. A handsome welleducated man in his mid-forties, son of a retired army general, and nephew of a provincial governor, he is very well connected. With his warm smile, sophisticated manners and dress, he is adored by his subordinates. Budi is capable and hardworking. He works everyday, seven days a week, in and out of the office, out of town, and out of the country. His subordinates faithfully do what Budi personally instructs them to do. That is, he has to give every order personally, including most minor routine details. He has to sign even a driver's sick leave form, because if his assistant who is designated to sign such forms does so, the forms won't be processed for some time. The driver who needs to get his weekly pay without delay catches Budi whenever and wherever he is available, for his signature will insure the form is immediately processed with no questions asked. The organizational chart of his company exists only on paper. When Budi is out of office, half of the office workers disappear, the rest chatting among themselves in their cozy disorganized office. Telephone operators are not found at their posts. Secretaries do not bother returning calls. The owner and chief executive officer of the company once confided me that Budi's pay disappears before it reaches his home. His subordinates are always in need of his personal help. Their children are sick all the time and need heart surgery once in a while, their wives either faint or give birth, their sisters marry and remarry, and their parents and in-laws die. Budi rarely refuses to offer assistance. The company president has set up a special fund in a bank for Budi's wife. The owner and chief executive officer is a Chinese-Indonesian who does the hardest part of business, that is making money. He sees to it that Budi can play bapak as he pleases. That is why Budi is one of the sweetest bapak I have met.

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There are many stories such as this about bapak whom people love to describe and discuss. It does not matter whether they are true or not. What matters is that those stories and their portraits of bapak are strikingly similar. Here is another example from my notes: Oh, he was a bapak. He was a real bapak. He was extremely intelligent and also warm in his heart. He was always helpful to everybody. He gave me everything. All I have now, including my training, knowledge, connections, I owe him. He worked very, very hard. And his life was so simple. He lived in a small humble house, and he had only three sets of gray business suits to wear. He treated me as his daughter. 1 Here the speaker, a woman, is talking about the intelligence tzar in the early years of the New Order, who was known for his dark sunglasses and sinister, ruthless political machinations. Apparently he had a different face for his own men and women, even though he could not be as sweet as Budi. In between these two brief portraits of bapak, there are many cases which tell us how bapak is constructed in the New Order. What portraits of bapak are presented in Indonesian, both spoken and written, and what do they tell us about the family system? 1. GENEROSITY AND CORRUPTION

News weeklies carry many stories about Soeharto's ministers and inner-circle members. They are trusted elder children of the Indonesian family headed by Bapak Soeharto and Ibu Tien (the First Lady, or rather the First Mother), and at the same time are bapak to their subordinates and citizens. One good example is Bustanil Arifin, minister of cooperatives in the fifth development cabinet, former chief commissioner of Bank Duta and PT Berdikari, and former vice minister of cooperatives and head of National Logistics Agency (Bulog, Badan Urusan Logistik). The quotation below is from a news weekly reporting on a scandal in which Bank Duta lost $420 million in foreign exchange futures speculations. Bustanil Arifin is held for oversight, but the tone of the article makes him appear as a family hero. People say that Bustanil gives trust and donations to people too easily. He is known to be extravagant. One example: he attended an exhibition of paintings organized by the Indonesian Artists Cooperative in Taman Ismail Marzuki, Jakarta, four years ago. He stopped in front of the painting which depicted a kiosk of the Village Unit Cooperative. Though he was told that the price of the painting was Rp 8 million, Bustanil paid Rp 10 million. "So that the Artist's Cooperative will have a strong financial base," he said. Such was the case too, when he visited Aceh. There he happened to know that the shooting of film "Tjoet Nya' Dhien" got stuck. The producer did not have enough money. Immediately, Bustanil groped around in his pocket and contributed Rp 50 million. This sort of behavior went to such an extent that it invited protest from his wife. "Just like Santa Claus. Rp 50 million of money is 1 Interview, Jakarta, January 1991.

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spent in five minutes." Such was her complaint, which was imitated by her husband later on a social occasion with the artists. 2 Bustanil obviously enjoyed giving money to others and being called Santa Claus. Born in Padangpanjang, West Sumatra, he started his political career as a revolutionary like other bapak of his generation. He joined the Third Battalion of the Medan Area Special Regiment which operated in northern Sumatra. After the revolution, he stayed in the army. He served in many military operations. He survived military politics and infighting and forged many useful connections with his fellow officers. He climbed the army hierarchy and eventually reached the rank of lieutenant general. He also did very well in government and business. Tempo writes: In the world of business, Bustanil stood out again. According to the magazine Eksekutif, he achieved one of his successes when he was appointed as the caretaker [English in original] of PT Berdikari in 1973. Bustanil had just completed his mission as consul general in New York, USA, and took over the company, which was then in a terrible shape. According to the article, the government-owned company was restored to health by him. In fact, it immediately started to scoop up money like fish in the first year of Bustanil's entry. 3 PT Berdikari did very well under his leadership because of the bureaucratic clout he had as Jakarta head of the Logistics Agency, the position he was given simultaneously with the PT Berdikari job in 1973. His official positions also helped him a great deal in his own business. Officially, Bustanil does not have any private business. But various businesses are run by his sons and a daughter. The holding company of the family's corporations is PT Citra Sari Makmur. According to the data compiled by Pusat Data Bisnis Indonesia [Indonesian Business Data Center], there are eighteen corporations gathered in this group. They have entered many fields, starting from commerce, fishery, food, livestock, finance, construction, pharmacy, to the paper industry ... Some of them are quite prosperous. PT Dafa, for example, is counted as the largest diluted milk producer in Indonesia. The group owns the fourth largest pulp enterprise. The assets owned by the group reached Rp 100 billion [$50 million], and their total sales Rp 176 billion [$88 million]. The figures are for the year 1988.4 Side businesses, which bring in an extra income in addition to the government pay, which hardly matters, are extremely important for bapak. Such businesses may be run norninqlly by his family members, that is his wife, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, in-laws, and other relatives and friends, but what really matters are his official positions which give him the bureaucratic clout useful in many ways. 2 YH, "Seorang Komisaris yang Menyesal," Tempo 29 (September 15, 1990), pp. 86-87. 3 1bid. 4 1bid.

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Bustanil used the Bulog-he relied on its Jakarta office initially and the entire agency later on-to restore PT Berdikari to health and to build his own business. But it is also important to note that the bapak needs money to be generous as Bustanil is. He needs to raise a lot of money, not only to support his wife, children, brothers and sisters, in-laws, and friends in the family courtyard, but also to support his extended family in his office, that is his subordinates and their families. Money is raised in many different and creative ways. State corporations are milked. Commissions, donations, and kickbacks are demanded. Side businesses are run by his family members. Foundations are established to raise money. To see how creative government offices are in raising extra money, one only need look at idioms cited as part of the entry for "uang,"or money, in the official Indonesian dictionary: uang administrasi (administrative money), uang kopi (coffee money), uang pelicin (smoothing money), uang semir (lubrication money), uang sogok (bribery), uang tinta (ink money), uang tempel (stamp money), and many others. Family-ism in this context has a real, highly pragmatic meaning for family members. Money raised by their bapak and his family, both at home and in the office, supports their life, supplementing their meager official government pay and providing security when they are in need of extra money. The family spirit of mutual help has a practical side to it. It is not hard, then, to guess what would happen to the bapak if he failed to live up to his children's expectations. Here is an example: The public prosecutor demanded a thirty-month jail term for the director [called MS] of PT Sumber Tani Agung, a state-owned company, for corruption. Prosecutor Adnan Palyadja also demanded that the South Jakarta District Court fine MS Rp 10 million and order the defendant, MS, to pay Rp 104 million back to the state. Adnan said during the trial last weekend that MS changed the cubic content of a pesticide brand from 2.9 cubic meters per ton to 4.4 cubic meters per ton, which enriched him with extra Rp 73,278,507. MS also requested a phony 15 percent increase of the transportation tariff from the board of directors of PT Pertani, from which action he collected another extra Rp 1,139,315,373. Adnan said MS's seam lasted from 1985 to 1988. However, part of the money he obtained was paid to PT Pertani's transportation department and to the Bhakti Sejahtera Foundation which was the cooperative of the PT Pertani employees. That left MS with Rp 594,425,502, said Adnan. He said the public prosecutor's office had seized thirteen trucks from the home ofMS. 5 There is no reason to believe that MS was more corrupt than Bustanil, the Santa Claus. But one can perhaps say that MS was not generous enough to support his subordinates at PT Sumber Tani Agung. It seems there is a very fine line that divides corruption from the familial practice of mutual assistance when the bapak makes an effort to live up to his children/ subordinates' expectations. 5 "Company director faces 30-month jail term," The Jakarta Post (March 19, 1991), p. 2.

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2. BAPAKASFAMILYMAN

Bisa diatur, it can be taken care of, is the phrase for which Adam Malik is known; Malik was an anak, a pemuda or "youth," to be more precise, who participated in the Rengasdengklock Affair and ended his long successful political career as Soeharto' s Vice President in 1978-1983. 6 This phrase captures the bapak's duality beautifully, suggesting both his bureaucratic clout, which comes from his control over organisatie, and his legitimacy as bapak, which he derives from his bisa diatur flexibility. How does the bapak take care of his family members, then, and how are his typical actions described? To answer this question, we can begin by examining a newspaper article that describes a case in which an uncle-government official gave a "personal" gift to a young boy. The newspapers rendered this incident as a beautiful story about family ties and family considerations. The article below is titled '"Angel's Foot' for Mohammad Sukron." The coming of an uncle, Pramono, about three months ago changed the life of Mohammad Sukron. No one knows which wind guided [meng-antar] Pramono, Head of Social Department of Karanganyar Regency, to Pucungroto, Magelang, which he had not visited for more than ten years. The uncle was so shocked at witnessing his nephew suffering a defect that he decided at once to assist Sukron. 7 The language implies a heavenly intervention, as the opening sentence clearly suggests. The man, a local government official who happened to be an uncle of the boy, brought in a heavenly assistance in the form of a UN social welfare program. It so happened that a test project to make artificial limbs (prostheses) had just started at the Prof. Dr. Soeharso Rehabilitation Center in Solo. The project was assisted by the UNDP which worked together with the Social Department. One article of the agenda was to offer prosthetic limbs to those who suffered foot defects in Surakarta Residency. Pramono therefore registered Sukron's name among the fifteen who suffered foot defects in Karanganyar Regency as a candidate to receive a prosthetic aid from the UNDP program for free [gratis].8

The article then describes the boy. When his mother became pregnant with the boy, it says, the parents did not want to have any more children. The couple tried to abort him, but he was born anyway, with a physical defect. The parents accepted the terrible fate most graciously without complaint. The father, a village school teacher, gave the baby a beautiful name, Sukron, which literally means gift from God. Now it is God's turn to reward the parents' submission to His command. 6 See Adam Malik, Semua Bisa Diatur: Untaian Wicara ADAM MALIK 1983-1984 (Jakarta: Lembaga Penunjang Pembangunan Nasional). 7 Ardus MS, Irwan Julianto, '"Kaki Malaekat' untuk Mohammad Sukron," Kompas, April 13, 1991, p. 16. 8 Ibid.

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It seems that Sukron is indeed the beautiful gift for Munsutanto's family. In his class he occupies the first rank. "His grades are all eight and nine," says his father proudly.9

And now, the parents and the child are rewarded with the "angel's foot." The picture which accompanies the article shows the boy's parents with the gifts of God, the boy and his new foot. The UNDP, the source of the artificial foot, is unceremoniously referred to as pihak, that is "side" or "party," while the uncle, who happened to be a government official responsible for administering the UN program in the locality is portrayed as if he were the agent of God, even though what he in fact accomplished was an act of nepotism, rewarding his nephew unfairly, at a cost to other candidates, with benefits supplied by an international UN welfare program. The underlying theory that makes this story of nepotism beautiful is simple enough: God rewards the humble, undemanding, gracious, little people, using the government official as His agent. The boy was chosen by God because his parents had accepted their fate and demanded nothing. I asked friends to comment on the article. No one questioned nepotism. Their comments ranged from touching, mengharukan, to good, bagus, to normal, biasa. If people who demand nothing are rewarded beautifully, one can easily imagine how people would be treated if they demand too much. Here is an example. Siti Rahmani was the second wife of a high-ranking official from the State Secretariat, a man named Dewanto, who killed her. Sinar Harapan reported: "Siti Rahmani was killed because she was too demanding. First she asked for a house, asked to be formally married, asked DOS [Dewanto] to stay with her every other night." In the same vein, Suara Karya wrote: "Siti Rahmani was killed because she demanded 'equal rights' with the first wife.''lO Another example is the mistress of a middle-ranking police officer who was about to be promoted to become bupati (regent) in East Java. The officer, Suyono, tried to kill her unsuccessfully with the help of his subordinate. Saraswati Sunindya writes: The [Regional] Police Command of East Java announced the motive: extortion. "Unexpectedly, the victim [Mrs. Supadmi] who had been the mistress of [Police] Lieutenant Colonel Syn [Suyono], demanded a large allowance-a house and a car." 11 The theories behind these newspaper reports are quite similar: both Siti Rahmani and Mrs. Supadmi were not content with what was given them and demanded more, thus inviting their own deaths. In other words, they were not satisfied with the green candy and asked for the red one. They got what they deserved. It is the other side of the same idea that informs the Sukron story. Sukron's parents demanded nothing, 9 Ibid.

10 Sinar Harapan, May 17, 1981, and Suara Karya, May 8, 1981, both quoted in Saraswati Sunindyo, "Murder, Gender and the Media: Sexualizing Politics and Violence," Paper presented at Perspectives on Gender in Indonesia Conference, University of Washington, Seattle, June 13-16, 1991, p. 11. 11 Ibid., pp. 3-6. Her sources are Berita Buana, Sept. 4, 1980; Kompas, Oct. 8, 1980; and Sinar Harapan, Aug. 27, 1980.

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and therefore were rewarded with God's gifts; the two women demanded too much, and therefore earned God's wrath. In these stories, government officials-as the uncle, the husband of the second wife, and the lover of the mistress-act as the agents of God and are represented as loving fathers and husbands. These stories tell us of bapak as a popular notion. They are not concerned with individual men named Suyono or Dewanto, who are criminals who happen to be government officials. The categorical logic that lies behind this narrative pattern goes something like this: the government official is by definition bapak; bapak is by definition a man of family, keluarga; and the man of family cannot be other than the loving father and husband. If he killed or tried to kill his second wife or his mistress, it is because he had to protect the happiness of his family from the woman who was the enemy of the family and therefore deserved to be killed. Mrs. Supadmi, Police Lt. Col. Suyono's mistress and victim, had to defend herself against the unstated accusation that she must have demanded too much and by so doing threatened the family structure that constitutes of love and sacrifice. Her defense was: "God protected me.'-12 She did not say that she did not demand anything. Instead, she emphasized the fact that she was not killed, which was the proof of God's protection, and hence her innocence. It is indeed striking that no one questioned his motives-in other words no one questioned the assumption that he tried to kill her because she demanded too much-and that even though it was hinted at, no article mentioned the possibility of his motives involving an ambition to be promoted to bupati. In the New Order, the family is a profoundly significant political entity, and if the bapak's family life at home is not in good order, it may well become a reason for his failure to win promotion. Everyone knows this, yet the issue was never raised in the media. The bapak has to be there, whether generous or murderous, as the man of the family which God blesses. The suggestion that a government official who wanted promotion-red candy-might kill someone to further his own ambitions is too dangerous politically for-the media to bring out. The bapak as family man remains a concept, a figure, too sacred to question. One might ask whether these women-one a second wife, the other a mistressproved vulnerable to attack because of their "anomalous" positions in the family structure. Yet it appears that even the first wife may be justifiably murdered if she presses the bapak, her husband, too hard. In one such case, a high school principal killed his legal first wife in favor of his second wife because the first wife demanded more money, whereas the second wife had given birth to a baby whom the principal loved dearly. 13 The principal protected his undemanding second wife and the baby from his demanding first wife. In the Indonesian media, Police Lt. Col. Sayono's legal wife, State Secretariat official Dewanto's first wife, and the high school principal's second wife were spared not because of their positions in the family, but because they had the sense to restrain or suppress their demands. Needless to say, we do not know any real reasons why they were killed or not killed. What we do know is that there is a simple meta-discourse at work here which manifests itself in many different versions of these stories describing the actions of bapak, from the beautiful Sukron story to murder stories. 12 Ibid., p. 10. 13 See note 12 in ibid.

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When I discussed these stories and the bapak concept with my friend Eko, he agreed to the analysis but was ambivalent in his attitude toward related phenomena and their implications. What would happen, he asked rhetorically, if everyone stopped being generous bapak or ibu? He told me about his experience at the office of a leading newsweekly publisher known for its modern management. The employees are paid better than their competitors, and the editor-in-chief has made it his philosophy not to assist anyone by doling out his own pocket money. One day, when Eko walked into the building, a janitor came to him. He was visibly panicked and begged Eko to lend him money. His first baby had been born in a hospital a few days before, but the hospital would not let the baby go home because the father, the janitor, could not pay the bill. Each day, the cost for keeping the baby in the hospital would be added up to the bill. Eko asked how much he owed to the hospital and gave him Rp.lOO,OOO, about fifty dollars, even without asking his name and address. It was a good amount of money, not only for the janitor, but also for Eko who did not have a stable job then. (A live-in housemaid was making Rp.30,000 a month on average in those days.) But Eko was surprised, because the janitor was so desperate as to ask him, an occasional visitor, to lend him money. Obviously, he had no one, no bapak nor ibu, to take care of him in that building, he said. Does modern management mean no family spirit of mutual help, no considerations and compassion for their fellow workers, no boss to take care of people such as that poor janitor? Is it the kind of society "we" want to have, people indifferent to each other, lacking warmth? And indeed, it is tough, to say the least, to live in Jakarta without the protective "family" network to fall back on. There are people in Jakarta who, whether willingly or unwillingly, stay away from the warm family sphere at home or in the office. They are, not surprisingly, living in the wilderness of unprotected urban streets. Here is an example from my notes: The driver of President Taxi-it was already very late at night and I was alone in the taxi-suddenly started to tell me his story in the battered squeaky yellow car. The driver came from Medan. He had a wife and a one-and-a-half-year-old daughter. That is the sweetest age for the parents, I said, and he vaguely agreed. But he did not give his wife any money for their necessities, because he was not working. One day his wife disappeared from their house with the daughter. He looked for them everywhere. He went to see all his relatives and friends and asked them for information regarding their whereabouts. No one told him where they were, though he was sure they knew. At least the wife's parents and his own brother who lived next door should have known where they were gone. A young mother and her infant daughter just cannot disappear like that. He left Medan and came to Jakarta. At night he sleeps in the car that he drives in the daytime. If he slept in a losmen (inn) as others do, he would have to meet with other people (ketemu sama orang). He did not want to meet anybody. I could not say anything to him in response. After a moment of silence, he proposed that he would be happy to antar, escort, me to the airport when I leave Jakarta. Other taxi drivers had suggested taking me to Taman Mini, Ancol (the seaside amusement park in Jakarta), or Puncak (a cool hilltop resort near Jakarta), all of which were popular destinations for tourists, family outings and school trips. The driver, however, told me he would antar me to the airport to say good-bye and see

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me off. His family-his wife and daughter, his brothers, in-laws, neighbors and friends-had deserted him. Now he himself has abandoned the family and friends. Saying good-bye is the most intimate and the only way to communicate with the strangers on the streets. The President Taxi represents Jakarta's wild, lawless, urban streets. Its drivers would do anything to take money from their passengers, middle-class Jakartans say, and the drivers are sometimes found dead, killed by their passengers-robbers. The Jakarta Post reported, for instance, on March 12, 1991: A President Taxi driver was found dead with stab wounds in his left chest in his car in the Halim area, East Jakarta, on Sunday. The victim was found sitting behind the wheel and looked like he was sleeping. A passerby became suspicious because the car's lights were on and he then knocked at the car's window. When the victim failed to answer, he opened the door and discovered that the driver was dead.l 4 The dead driver had a false driver's license with him. 3. TOLERANCE AND ARBITRARINESS

Tolerance is a way of giving people what they want without changing or challenging the order, its laws, regulations, or systems that actually prevent them from getting what they want. Those who are tolerated submit themselves personally to the one who tolerates their acts and disown, in conspiratorial silence, the order and regulations which remain intact on paper. Institutionalized "tolerance" gives rise to the reasoning that if one does not get what one wants, it is because one has failed to establish sufficiently strong personal relations with those in power. In other words, a person has no one to blame but his or her own self, and failure to achieve satisfaction or justice within the system thus becomes the result of a personal failure. It is this informal but systematic reliance on personal tolerance, along with the bapak's it-can-be-taken-care-of generosity, that is the hallmark of the family style management of Indonesia's government and business organizations. The boss of a company, for instance, tolerates his subordinates' use of company cars for the daily jemput and antar of their children. 15 In this way he escapes dealing with the question of pay raises for his subordinates; accommodated in this way, the employees ideally remain content and even if not content, they tend to keep quiet for fear of losing their 14 "Taxi driver found dead in cab with stab wounds," The Jakarta Post (March 12, 1991), p. 2. See also "Tragedi Sopir Taksi," Editor (February 17, 1990), p. 66, and other articles in newsweeklies and newspapers. 15 Jessica Glicken writes: "The cost of transportation for the child and the escorting adult and the lost work time of the adult makes schooling out of the neighborhood prohibitively expensive for lower class families." Jessica Glicken, "Sundanese Socialization and Indonesian Education: the Hidden and Stated Curricula in the Classrooms of Bandung, West Java" (PhD dissertation, Cornell University, 1983), p. 127.

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boss's personal favor; and the boss maintains his personal authority over his subordinates by tolerating their private use of company property. 16 In Jakarta, the question of transportation is of enormous importance for children's education, family health, family outings, and the daily ritual of antarjemput. Jakartans assess what means of transportation people have in order to know their worth. Get a ride in a large black Volvo, the standard car for cabinet ministers, and you can see other cars on the street veer wide to make room for you. Take Toyota Crown, and you can go into any house at your first visit without peng-antar, without a letter of introduction, and without an appointment. Take a yellow beatenup President Taxi, and you will have to explain and prove to the security guard at the gate that you indeed have an appointment to see someone in the house. Take a bajay, small red tricycle, to a three-star hotel, and you will find yourself standing at the back-door for the hotel maids and janitors. The bapak should know all this. Beautiful personal ties are thus established between the tolerant boss, who in fact neglects his duty of keeping organizational discipline, and those subordinates, who expect their boss to live up to the ideal of that generous, it-can-be-taken-care-of, tolerant bapak. Bapak's tolerance also manifests itself in everyday routine organizational "irregularities." As we have noted earlier in that sweet portrait of Bapak Budi, little can be done without bapak's personal intervention, and the bapak who has lost his personal touch with his children/subordinates, faces a serious danger, as Lt. Col. Untung warned. He said on that fateful morning of October 1, 1965: "Power-mad Generals and officers who have neglected the lot of their men [anak buah] ... must be kicked out of the Army and punished accordingly." This is the reason, I believe, that the old national museum in Jakarta routinely closed its door half an hour before its official closing time (in the late 1980s), and the new library was closed for Christmas holidays a few days before its posted holiday schedule. Tolerance is a gift from boss to subordinates which costs nothing to the boss personally. The gift apparently has become the institutionalized entitlement for the subordinates. The phenomenon is not limited to the museum, but is found everywhere and has clearly established itself as a widespread practice. The Jakarta Post matter-of-factly reports, for instance, on government buildings that stand empty of employees the day after the Idul Fitri holiday. Yesterday, the first day after the Moslem holidays, the festive mood of Idul Fitri still affected the activities in many government offices in Jakarta. Many government offices were still deserted as many employees were on leave or showed up at work only for a moment. Such a situation was seen at the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of Information, the Ministry of Transportation, the office of the coordinating minister of population and environment [sic], the Supreme Court building, and the city administration's office complex, all of which are located on main roads around Monas Square, and at other government offices throughout the city. 16 The question of transportation was also important under Sukamo's Guided Democracy, in which class distinctions and conflicts manifest themselves. For a powerful recollection, see Pipit Rochijat, "Am I PKI or Non-PKI?!" trans. Benedict R. O'G. Anderson, Indonesia 40 (October 1985): 37-38.

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The parking lots of the government offices were deserted as compared to the scene on other workdays. Only a few cars were parked there. 17

Bapak's characteristic tolerance and lax organizational discipline are criticized in the media once in a while, though not as a systemic, structural problem, but as "irregular" incidents having to do with individual office workers. Minister for Control of the State Apparatus Sarwono Kusumaatmadja defined the word penyelewengan, irregularity or deviation, as follows, when he answered reporters' questions: The limit of penyelewengan in my opinion? Deviation from the established and valid course is penyelewengan. Those who do not come to work without reporting the reasons, without asking permission, that is penyelewengan. There are so many kinds of things people do that are penyelewengan. 18 The data available in his office, which were based on the monthly reports from each government institution, showed that the number of cases of irregular conduct dropped from 2,290 in the period from April to December 1989 to 1,682 in the same period of 1990. Editor writes: He [Sarwono] rejects [the view] that those [institutions] which have many cases and diligently report them, such as the Justice Department, are poorly managed. In his view, their supervision and bureaucratic discipline are relatively good ... "Is it true that institutions which have not reported irregular cases are clean and disciplined?" "Just from a healthy common sense we know that there is not one that is clean ... ," answered Sarwono.19 Whether reported or not, penyelewengan, that is irregularities or deviations, cannot be fully appreciated if one perceives them as occasional incidents involving isolated "irregular" individuals, for in fact penyelewengan is an institutional mechanism, part of modem Indonesia's deep structure. It has an indispensable function in the bapak's personalized power that manifests itself in his tolerance and organizational indiscipline. Its logic can be examined by looking at newspaper and magazine articles that discuss family affairs. The politico-family language is deeply embedded in New Order politics, and journalists often write on family affairs as a metaphor for national politics. The quotation below is about husbands' penyelewengan or irregularities. Rather, sophisticated [English in the original] wives deliberately let their husbands who are gripped by irresistible sexual drives act unfaithfully and secretly, so that the husbands will be trapped in the sense of fear of being found 17 "The holiday is over but many offices are still deserted," The Jakarta Post (April 19, 1991), p. 1. 18 "Dinikmati Dua Generasi Lagi," Editor 19 (March 30, 1991), p. 17. 19 Saur Hutabarat, "Menyingkap Laporan dari Kotak Pos 5000," Editor 29 (March 30, 1991), p. 16.

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The logic is plain enough: the wife lets her husband commit a moral offense; her husband feels guilty and fearful lest his adultery might be discovered by his wife; the wife, knowing full well what is going on, thus establishes her authority and power over the husband. This logic is built into the act of penyelewengan, irregularities. Office workers who commit irregularities are well aware that they are guilty and that their irregularities are tolerated by their bapak. They thus submit voluntarily to their bapak's personal authority and power. Nor is tolerance bapak's purely personal attribute. The bapak can be tolerant of his subordinates' irregularities, because he has an official position with its power and authority. In the story quoted above, the wife can be tolerant of her husband's sexual affairs with other women and establish her power and authority over him, because she is his legitimate wife. The husband's mistress can only "be tolerated" by her man's wife (but she could be killed if she demands too much, say, asking her man to stay with her every other night) and even if she is actually tolerant of her man having an affair with his wife, she simply cannot have any power and authority over her man. No official position, no tolerance; no tolerance, no moral power and authority. This means that the bapak's tolerance is a way of transforming the power and authority of his official position into personal power and authority. This transformation leads to and manifests the bapak's innate defiance of organisatie, 21 for once he has personalized his power and position, he has the freedom to act arbitrarily. We can see a good example of the arbitrary nature of bapak's power in the cars-with-dark-glass-windows case in Jakarta: The dark blue Volvo emerged slowly, before turning into the office courtyard. Though it was moving slowly, it was not clear who was the passenger in the car. The glass in the car window was quite dark. The handsome car could be identified only because of its number plate and its flag pole, which indicated that this was a cabinet minister's vehicle. Indeed this was the case. The owner was the Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs, Sudomo. 22 There is a regulation against the use of dark glass windows for cars. Many cars in Jakarta violate this regulation and yet are tolerated by the authorities. The article continues: 20 Tempo 27 (September 3, 1988), p. 79. Matra, an Esquire type magazine, had sent out the questionnaires to its readers and reported that two out of three men had done menyeleweng in the past. In the quote cited here, the writer is reacting to the Matra report. 21 Only the senior officials can act "just like father," as only those who hold professional positions that provide them with steady incomes may enjoy "amateurism." 22

MC, Diah Purnomowati, Linda Djalil, Liston P. Siregar, and Tri Budianto Sukarno,

"Sudomo membidik Mobil Pribadi," Tempo 52 (February 24, 1990), p. 32.

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This was interesting. Because, last week, the gray-haired minister, who likes to make strange pronouncements in front of reporters, had produced another surprise. He prohibited cars from having dark glass windows, and made it obligatory for private cars to carry more than four passengers ... Sudomo defended himself against the reporters, "In reality, the use of dark glass [windows] has long been forbidden. But, well, that is the way it is [Tapi, ya, begitulah]. At the beginning, one or two people violate the regulation. Eventually, the violators increase in number and in the end the regulation itself loses its authority. Yes, my car is also among those violating the regulation. But, isn't it for the sake of security?"23 His statement is interesting, because Sudomo, known for his staying power as one of the longest serving cabinet ministers, is so blatantly frank about his arbitrary power. He officially forbade cars to be equipped with dark glass windows, and when asked about his own car with dark glass windows, he said, "But, well, that is the way it is." In other words, he admitted that he contradicted himself, admitted the reality that the regulation was not enforced at all, and condoned it, because he had the power to do so. As we may recall, Soeharto also said, "that is the way it is," when he explained his working relationship with his ministers. It carries the same tone and implication: that is the way it is, you shut up. This should be clear if we compare Sudomo's statement with Ki Hadjar Dewantara's that "our situation is very different from this." There is one crucial difference between the two statements. When Dewantara said "our situation is very different from this," he was opposing Taman Siswa's family-ism to Dutch organisatie, but he had no power to change the laws and regulations of the Dutch Indies. Sudomo, one of the most powerful bapak, had the power to change the traffic regulation if he wanted, but he was not interested in doing so. Instead, he just toyed with the duality of his position as a bapak and high-ranking government official. The implication, however, was clear enough. Sudomo could get away with his begitullah, that is the way it is. But those who lack the clout and influence of Sudomo, the government bapak , may be caught by the police if they attempt to defy the prohibition now that the coordinating minister for political and security affairs has officially acknowledged the regulation's presence. The article in Tempo speculated about whether dark glass windows would be tolerated in the future by the authorities. Middle-class Jakartans were obviously uneasy, because the matter was openly discussed. Many of them were driving cars with dark glass windows. They wondered, why is he making a fuss about it now? Is it a warning that the regulation will be enforced in the near future? And now they knew one thing for sure: the regulation, which had not been enforced thus far, was nevertheless alive, not dead; it had been sleeping on paper, but could be awakened any time; it could be turned against violators at any time, in any place, by the law enforcement authorities, whether the authority happened to be Sudomo or a policeman standing at the corner of a street, whenever personal whim moved them to assert their authority. Tolerance is another name for the arbitrariness of power. Tolerance and arbitrariness go hand in hand in the exercise of power. 23 Ibid.

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Bapak's arbitrary power, however, can go much further. I had an occasion to talk with a former Sjahrir protege and leading PSI politician who "retired" from politics in the 1970s. This is from my notes: He gave a speech to university students and analyzed Indonesia's political situation in 1973. It so happened that a few months later, in January 1974, there was a huge violent student demonstration when Prime Minister Tanaka visited Jakarta. Army security men came to arrest him with the charge that he instigated students. But they had no legal base to back up the charge. His case was never brought to the court. 24 He stayed in prison for a few years without trial, and then was allowed to go home, again, without any explanation. The New Order bapak are powerful because they control the state machine. They are tolerant and arbitrary because that is the way in which they transform their institutional power into their personal power. And people need their protection, because the machine they control works arbitrarily. The bapak is the source of arbitrary power and its remedy. 4. BAP AK IN A SCANDAL

The bapak can be generous, murderous, tolerant and arbitrary as they please, so long as they reside in Indonesia and control the state machine. But they can stumble into trouble once they step outside their cozy, extended family sphere. No money scandal can take place in the family courtyard, because family members by definition cannot steal: they only borrow money without mentioning it. Nor can any money scandal take place in the streets, because invisible pickpockets reside there, and pickpocketing, stealing, and mugging are normal in that wild unprotected space. A scandal takes place only in the space where people are held accountable publicly for their violation of laws, regulations, rules, and contracts. Many such potential scandals are tolerated as irregularities in Indonesia, but not outside. The Bank Duta scandal took place precisely in this interface beyond which the bapak's power does not reach. It tells us how the bapak deal with such a trouble and keep their family systems intact. In 1990, Bapak Menteri (Father Minister) Bustanil Arifin's Bank Duta, literally the Envoy's Bank, figured in the hottest and most widely reported scandal in Jakarta. The bank had already lost $420 million, when its majority stock owner, Bapak Presiden Soeharto, learned the loss and intervened. Soeharto was the chairman of three charity foundations which jointly owned 73% of the bank's stocks. The scandal was reported widely, not only in Indonesia but also in Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Switzerland, and the United States. Let us examine how it was reported in Indonesia: Foreign currency gets bank executives in trouble. Among them are the bosses of Bank Duta. The result is, this foreign exchange bank which had "gone public" only this April suffered quite a large enough loss. And the news also exploded: the majority stock owners of the bank (Oharmais, Dakab, and Supersemar, all 24 Interview, Jakarta, January 1991. For the Malari anti-Japanese riots on January 15, 1974, see see Hamish McDonald, Suharto's Indonesia (Victoria: Fontana Books, 1980), pp. 135-141.

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chaired by President Soeharto) began, on Tuesday last week, to remove managing directors, including the president commissioner of the bank ... 25 The scandal, in other words, was first made public as the dismissal of all the managing directors of the bank. A new team of managing directors was installed immediately, the day after the scandal was first announced. Prescom (President Commissioner) Bustanil Arifin led the transfer ceremony and was himself replaced by Radius Prawiro, the Coordinating Minister for Economic and Monetary Affairs. Editor reports: The outgoing management: Managing Director Abdulgani; Vice Managing Director (Executive Director) Dicky Iskandar Di Nata, and Bey Joesoef, H. Effendi Ishak, and Syamsi Pohan (directors), surrendered their posts to the new management (all of them are from outside Bank Duta). They are Winarto Soemarto (Managing Director from Bank Republic Indonesia), Edward C. W. Neloe (Director), FX Suwarsono (Director), B. S. Salamoen (Director), and Yusuf Sudibyo Wiryosudirjo (Director).26 As we can see, the weekly Editor reported all the outgoing and incoming directors by their official positions and names such as Managing Director Abdulgani and Vice Managing Director Dicky Iskandar Di Nata, and not by the colloquial names their family members would call them at home, such as Pak Gani and Pak Dicky. But the weekly, moving into the next page, tells another dimension of the same scandal in a tone which is softer, more personal and melodramatic. Here is an excerpt: It was a gray Wednesday at the central office of the Bank Duta. Since 8:00 in the morning, last week, office workers in the famed twenty-two-floor building were busy talking about the news in morning papers: the change of all the directors of the board and management of Bank Duta. "Pak Gani (Abdulgani, Managing Director) is dismissed. Pak Bus (Bustanil Arifin, President Commissioner) also?" an office worker burst out, as if unable to believe the news. 27

"Office workers," Editor says, are gossiping about the change of directors of the bank they are working for. But they are, as a matter of fact, talking about their Pak Gani (Abdulgani, Managing director) and Pak Bus (Bustanil Arifin, President Commissioner). Their official names and positions, along with their official responsibilities, are put in parentheses and inserted after their colloquial familiar names. In the parentheses are, needless to say, explanatory remarks Editor added to the original statement. To put it in a different way, office workers are gossiping about the dismissal of Pak Gani and Pak Bus, and not the dismissal of Managing Director Abdulgani and President Commissioner Bustanil Arifin.28 25 Marah Sakti, "Pengakuan Bustanil," Editor 1 (September 15, 1990), p. 11. 26 lbid. 27 Agung Yuswanto, Rahmayanti, Tatiek Saadati Hafidz, Adrianus Meliala, H. A. Purwandari, lbrahim G. Zakir, "Terbangnya Dolar dan Gani CS," Editor 1 (September 15, 1990), p. 12. 28 The parentheses also show that it is translating the official syntax system into something else. It is in fact one of the most important services Jakartan news weeklies such as Tempo and

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The parentheses here suggest that there are two syntactic systems in which the men in the scandal are located. One is built on their official names and positions, such as President Commissioner Bustanil Arifin and Managing Director Abdulgani; the men who hold these positions are now in disgrace and deeply in trouble because of the scandal. The other syntactic system is constructed of personal relationships with the anak subordinates; Pak Gani and Pak Bus, the men who take part in these relationships, are not disgraced. They are in trouble-which makes their story "tragic"-but not disgraced. Editor reports: '"The thing is, the Bapak is not coming to this office again from tomorrow,' said Nove, Abdulgani's secretary, with a grave voice. The woman's face was gloomy."29 No one in the bank, as far as one can tell from media reports, blamed the board and management for the huge loss, let alone demanded their explanations for the management failure. No one questioned its negative effect on the bank customers and the public. Compare the tone of the quotes above with the report below on a university scandal in the United States reported in Business Week in 1991. No one is claiming that Kennedy [University President] tried to profit from Stanford's billing practices. But the episode has been humiliating for him-and could jeopardize millions of research dollars ... Fund-raisers are worried that angry alumni will begin to shut their wallets. "Anything that plants a crisis of confidence in people doesn't help you," declares Elizabeth Sloan, a Stanford development officer.30 In the Bank Duta scandal, however, the question of public accountability, let alone the question of public confidence, was never raised, as if the new twenty-twostory high-rise building, the headquarters of the bank with its fifty-two branch offices and 2,450 employees, were a huge, air-conditioned, cozy, extended family courtyard. Editor writes: It was no joke. No farce. The proof was that the number of office workers who

attended the transfer ceremony Wednesday afternoon on the third floor of the Bank Duta Building showed visibly swollen faces and red eyes as they were seeing all their bosses off. "No particular reason. We have been together for such a long time. So, this is only human if we both feel emotional. After all, from tomorrow we will have to be separated," said an office worker, while wiping off tears with his handkerchief. Nearly all the managers who are leaving had worked for more than ten years at the Bank Duta. "They are just like my own brothers," said an office worker.31 They were in deep sorrow, but no one protested in support of their bapak's innocence. They knew, it seems, that their bapak could not be innocent. If their bosses had always observed the laws and regulations strictly disregarding their Editor offer to their readers, for the reader knows that the official side of the story is only a half of the entire story or perhaps less. 29 "Terbangnya Dolar dan Gani CS," Editor 1 (September 15, 1990), p. 12. 30 Maria Shao, "The Cracks in Stanford's Ivory Tower: Did President Donald Kennedy and the School Overbill Uncle Sam?" Business Week, March 11, 1991, p. 47. 31 Ibid., p. 16.

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subordinates' expectations, they would not have been loved and respected as bapak in the first place. The employees were in sorrow, because they knew this was the end of their relationship with their outgoing bapak. They were acting on the script of a family tragedy, New Order style. But it is not the only script possible. Lt. Col. Untung might have presented an entirely different script, accusing the bapak of wasting the bank's money and neglecting their subordinates' interests and welfare this way: Money-mad Directors who have neglected the lot of their men and who above the accumulated sufferings of their men have lived in luxury, led a gay life, insulted our women, and wasted government funds, must be kicked out of the Bank and punished accordingly. The Bank is not for directors, but is the possession of all the office workers of the Bank who are loyal to the ideals of the Bank's mission. 32 But the bank's employees would never think of using Untung's logic. Having "grown up" as anak under the New Order, they know what happened to dissident "communists" and do not dare to blame the bapak. Before the scandal broke out, Bank Duta had a famed history. It was established in 1966 as a small bank with only fourteen staff members, including a driver. In its twenty-four year history, however, it did very well, becoming the second largest private bank in Indonesia. Managing Director Abdulgani (forty-seven years old in 1990) joined the bank as a director at the age of twenty-eight years old. President Commissioner Bustanil Arifin (sixty-five years old in 1990) joined the bank in 1973. And Vice-Managing Director Dicky Iskandar Di Nata (thirty-nine years old in 1990) started his banking career as a clerk at City Bank upon his graduation from high school and joined Bank Duta as a director at the age of twenty-eight years after his meteoric rise in City Bank.3 3 Dicky Iskandar Di Nata was "the rising star in the banking business," it was said. 34 He was chosen as the "banker of the year" in a business magazine a few months before the scandal. But he told a different story about the bank and his success in a letter he wrote at the Attorney General's office: Bank Duta grew fast from 1978 to 1985, and in 1984 was ranked third to fourth among the national private banks. But this growth was actually in appearance only, because at that time Bank Duta was financially supported by such abundant cheap funds originating from the Bulog [Badan Urusan Logistik, National Logistics Agency] and the Cooperatives [under the Ministry of Cooperatives] that the level of profitability of Bank Duta did not reflect the "Real Economic Value" of its banking business. Besides, other non-fund "Bulog Related Business" such as "Letters of Credit" and bank guarantees, formed the 32 See statement made by the September 30th Movement in the afternoon of October 1, 1965, on Radio Republic Indonesia, included in "Selected Documents Relating to the September 30th Movement and Its Epilogue," compiled by the editors, Indonesia 1 (April1966): 134. 33 See Burhanuddin Abe, "Teka-teki Bankir Bukit Tinggi," Editor 1 (September 15, 1990), p. 17; "Seorang Komisaris yang Menyesal: Bustanil Arifin kecewa kepada Dicky Iskandar Di Nata, ia takut Pak Harto. la mencintai Bank Duta, yang dibangunnya dari negarif," Tempo 29 (September 15, 1990), p. 86; H. A. Purwandari, "Saya Minta Maaf: Dicky," Editor 1 (September 15, 1990), p. 20. 34 Purwandari, "Saya Minta Maaf," p. 20.

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To put it bluntly, he is saying that the bank remained highly profitable not due to the professional expertise of the bank managers, but thanks to the influence of Pak Bus who controlled both the Bulog and the Ministry of Cooperatives. Dicky's letter continues: According to the survey conducted by a foreign consulting firm (Lobue Associates) in 1989, Bank Duta was over-staffed by three-hundred personnel, which means that its productivity level was low because of the inefficiency of the system and other operational procedures. There was overlapping in the roles of supervision and audit, which resulted in the non-functioning of Daily and Built-In Controls. This, together with lax supervision and management, often caused operational irregularities which manifested themselves: for instance, in the counterfeiting of Credit Cards, irregularities of money transfers, etc. In the period from 1985 to 1987, the overhead burden from the projects for Bank Duta "Image" began to be felt with the decline in Bulog and Cooperatives funds which had been shifted to BUKOPIN [Bank of Indonesian Cooperatives] and BRI [Indonesian People's Bank]. As a result, the Bank Duta's level of profitability fell dramatically.36 In short, so long as Pak Bus channeled Bulog and Cooperatives funds to Bank Duta, the bank managed quite well, but once the funds were shifted somewhere else, most likely because Pak Bus no longer controlled the Bulog (he lost his control over the Bulog in 1988), the bank began to flounder. Then, Dicky, "the banker of the year," started to gamble, looking for a way to make the bank profitable again. He speculated in foreign exchange futures and lost. He faked documents to cover up the loss, speculated again to recoup the loss, and lost more. His fraud, it appears, was pretty straightforward. Using secret codes to gain access to the bank's central computer, he simply changed numbers in the balance sheet to hide the huge losses he incurred, losses which reached US$419 million. Sutardjo, the team coordinator responsible for the Bank Duta examination, later testified that no one in the bank had detected the huge loss before it reached $419 million because of its weak control and management system. It was foreign banks that first detected the discrepancy. Alarmed that foreign banks might no longer be willing to do business with Bank Duta, the board and management held an emergency meeting on August 15. That night, Bustanil Arifin visited his bapak, Pak Harto, in his private residence in Cendana, reported the bank's loss, and asked his guidance. 35 "Surat dari Dicky," Prospek 3 (October 13, 1990), pp. 91-92. 36 Ibid.

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Half a year later, Far Eastern Economic Review correspondent Adam Schwartz described the financial market in Indonesia this way: The Finance Ministry is equally concerned with establishing a better regulatory system for the Jakarta Stock Exchange (JSE). The exchange [established in 1989], one of the fastest growing exchanges in the world in 1989, is currently in a slump. The principal reason is the withdrawal of funds by foreign investors preoccupied with events elsewhere in the world. But, at home, shabby enforcement of the rules, greed, and an antiquated settlement system have all helped push the market down the slippery slope. 37 In the eyes of an American journalist, the bapak's tolerant and arbitrary control looks "shabby" and the family principle "antiquated." As the Bank Duta scandal demonstrates, it is at the interface between the Indonesia's family system and the outside world where its warm, sentimental, and beautiful fiction melts away and its deeply corrupt, arbitrary, and ugly reality is exposed. Inside Indonesia, however, the bapak thrive, and the family system marches on. In fact, the family system asserted itself in rescuing the bapak trapped in this scandal. As in the early morning of October 1, 1965, Pak Harto moved swiftly and firmly, even before people noticed the mess. He dismissed all the directors of the bank. Vice President Dicky Iskandar Di Nata, who was married to Bustanil Arifin's daughter and had once been expected to succeed him as the bank's President Commissioner in due course, was arrested, tried, and found guilty. Two Chinese-Indonesian business tycoons donated US$420 million as a gift, hibah, to the bank to cover its entire loss. Shortly after that, the Bapak, it was rumored, rewarded them with gifts in the form of large-scale government projects. Jakartans knew very well what the Bapak was doing, high-level gift exchanges constitute a key ingredient in the alchemy of power and money. It was again a foreign correspondent who interpreted the ongoing deals critically. Adam Schwartz writes: There is no clear explanation why the government would want to push Liem [Liem Sioe Liong of the Salim Group 1 and Prajogo [Prajogo Pangestu of the Barito Pacific Group 1 into the Ex or 4 and RCC projects, as businessmen have suggested will happen. But it is widely believed in Jakarta's business community that their involvement is a payback for their efforts to support troubled Bank Duta in September. Bank Duta, which is 73 percent owned by charity foundations chaired by President Suharto, announced in September that it had accumulated losses of US$420 million from foreign-exchange trading. Several senior business executives and government officials have told the REVIEW that Liem and Prajogo contributed US$200 million and US$220 million, respectively, to the foundations which own Bank Duta in order to restore the bank to solvency. Bank Duta's third-quarter 1990 financial statements, released in October, do not show foreign-exchange losses, but they mention in a footnote that the bank had received a grant of US$419.6 million from the majority shareholders. Bank Duta officials were unavailable for comment.38 37 Adam Schwarz, "Deregulation needs watchdog," Far Eastern Economic Review, April 18, 1991, p. 45. 38 Adam Schwarz, "Plastic Properties," Far Eastern Economic Review, May 2, 1991, pp. 40-41.

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The Bank Duta scandal thus underscores three important lessons: that the "system" is working fine in Indonesia; that it looks quite different if viewed from the outside as opposed to the inside; and that it appears shady if seen from outside because the family language is not shared or available there. Nonetheless, the system works, whether it looks beautiful or shady, less because of the beautifying empty language than because of the programmed silence that renders the national language powerless to name, articulate, and prosecute the guilty. 5. MEMORIES OF FEAR

Why does the system work and do the bapak reign supreme in the New Order? I have suggested earlier one possible explanation when I mentioned that the New Order children/subordinates lack the rebellious qualities that distinguished the pemuda of 1945 and Untung of 1965, and that they fully understand the danger of standing up against their bapak. To understand this point, let us examine memories of the massacre that have been buried under the foundation stones of the regime. One encounters such memories, normally hidden and buried, in many different forms at unexpected moments: in folktale-like stories passed on from one mouth to another; in published stories which, directly or indirectly, graphically describe confusion and fright in those days; in autobiographical accounts of personal experiences; in the investigations into the coup and its background; in sudden bodily and facial reactions exhibited by people who respond to questions about the coup as if they had been shocked by an electrical mechanism implanted in them long ago; in government documents and documentary pictures; and in many others whose links with the past are obscure. Yet memories are there, and the catastrophe still seems to cast a long shadow over the life of the Indonesian nation, influencing the way people live and the language they use, and refusing to be dismissed as past history. The following passage is from my notes-it records a personal recollection, twenty-four years after the fact, of the nightly killings that took place in a village in East Java, as reported to me by the man I interviewed: He was eleven years old then, and lived in a village in East Java. Previously, he had seldom seen automobiles coming into his village. In those days, however, in his memory, almost every night a few trucks passed the road in front of his house going toward the mountains. They were new diesel-engined trucks the Army owned, with the distinctive sound, kreg, kreg, kreg. Every time he heard the sound he hid himself inside the darkened house. Once he dared to watch the trucks from the window, and saw the shadows of people seated on the uncovered truck with their heads deep in their chests.39 It is the sound, kreg, kreg, kreg, that he remembers more than anything else, and it is

this sound that makes him recall the dark nigl}ts of his village. When his ears catch the sound, kreg, kreg, kreg, in the traffic on the streets in Jakarta, the vision of the dark shadows of the trucks bearing their human loads looms in his memory, and his body shakes. 39 Interview, October 1989.

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How do we recall the past? Steve Rose, a neuro-scientist, writes in connection with his discussion on human memories: ... it is retrieval rather than learning which will become "the" question for memory research. For to remember is much more than simply to extract a file from a computer store. It is, in its dictionary meaning, to 'bring to mind,' to 'think of again,' 'to recollect'-terms which suggest a connecting, an assembling, a bringing together of things in relation to one another.40 He argues, therefore, that both remembering and forgetting are active processes. Remembering is not merely a passive inscription of data on the silicon chips of the brain, nor is forgetting an erasure of stored information. Both are related, continuous processes that involve recalling and reassembling things which otherwise would be left scattered in various parts of one's body. The key to understanding the process may be found in the fact that procedural memories, such as the memory of how to ride a bicycle, are not confined simply to the brain but involve other bodily memories. The sound, sight, smell, and so on trigger the active process to start. For the person I interviewed, it is the sound of a diesel-engined truck that brings forth his fearsome childhood memory. Living in Jakarta and meeting with people of different backgrounds means sharing moments of their recollections. But I often felt that there were moments when such triggers, like the sound, kreg, kreg, kreg, functioned negatively to block any thought and image from being recalled and recollected to mind. Triggers, I felt, actively stopped the process of recalling and brought forth moments of blankness in the mind. A sense of shock, confusion and weariness seemed to remain after such moments. This notion of triggers, I believe, is useful to understanding the nature of historical memories of the killings. The truck was an inseparable part of the killings. In the darkness of those nights, one side had many diesel-engined trucks and, if necessary, could procure more vehicles at gunpoint. The other side did not even have modern means of transportation to use as part of their own everyday lives. The capacity to transport a large number of people to a certain place at a certain moment is essential to carry out mass murder and dispose of dead bodies. There are other triggers, as powerful as the sound of diesel-engined trucks, to remind people of the bloody affairs. The worst of all possible triggers, perhaps, is the familiar sight of village landscapes-this small river, that graveyard, this street corner, that bush-against the backdrop of which so many killings took place. In his autobiographical account, Pipit Rochijat gives us this powerful, most graphic recollection: Each day, as Kartawidjaja's Son No. 2 went to, or returned from, State Senior High School No. 1, he always saw corpses of Communists floating in the River Brantas. The thing was that the school was located to the "kulon" (west) of the river and usually the corpses were no longer recognizable as human. Headless. Stomachs torn open. The smell was unbelievable. To make sure they didn't sink, the carcasses were deliberately tied to, or impaled on, bamboo stakes. And the 40 Steven Rose, The Making 1993), p. 319.

of Memory:

From Molecules to Mind (New York: Anchor Books,

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These passages were written in Germany, almost twenty years after the killings. In the writer's memories, the killings are inseparably inscribed in village landscapes and familiar sights such as bananas and chicken. In Indonesia, however, the numerous songs, novels, movies have been produced glorifying the beauty of the innocent countryside. These productions implicitly assert that mountains, rice-fields, bananas, chickens, goat, neighbors, and village houses should not trigger memories of the bloodshed. Rather, they should evoke associations with the heavenly innocence of the olden days, and thus allow the undesirable memories to rest in peace, unrecalled. The following passage is quoted from the home economics textbook titled Keluarga Sejahtera [Prosperous Family]. My Village My village is very beautiful. Birds warble from tree to tree. Plants are greening in various tones. Coconut, nangka, banana, papaya. Cow, water buffalo, chicken, and duck. All are found in the village. Yonder, on the hill slope, rice-fields are becoming yellow. The air is refreshing, and healthy. Houses are beautiful, yards are spacious. Inhabitants are intimate, willing to help. Disputes, they keep away. Life is calm, secure, tranquil and happy.42 41 Rochijat, "Am I PKI or Non-PKI?!" pp. 43-45. 42 Yusni Y. Bahar dkk. Ny, "Desaku," in Keluarga Sejahtera, 3, pp. 50-51, cited in Saya Shiraishi, "Silakan Masuk. Silakan duduk," Indonesia 41 (April1986): 128.

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"Life is calm, secure, tranquil and happy" is the message the village landscape ought to bring forth. When the textbook was first published, many "communists" were still kept in jail without trial, a fact which, however, was not printed in the textbooks. The sight of men in uniform with weapons is yet another trigger that causes anxiety in people and shakes their bodies. Here is an excerpt from my notes: I visited the TV station with school girls and their mothers. The daughter of a friend of mine was to appear on a children's TV program with her classmates. At the front gate of the TV station, army sentries in uniform were standing guard, holding bulky guns. Each visitor was requested to register her name, address, and occupation in a notebook and show her KTP (residence identification card). Being preoccupied with the camera and notebooks, I failed to bring my official identification papers. Tri, the twenty-two-year-old younger brother of my friend, could not believe that there was a person who did not have her KTP in the group he escorted in a red Toyota Corolla. He looked at me as if he found Dracula in broad daylight, and screamed in panic just a few steps from the black heavy gun which the sentry was holding in his hand: "Where is your KTP? Where is your KTP? Where is your KTP!" Meanwhile, his sister, who was not a bit disturbed by the discovery or by her brother's panic, negotiated with the guard who sat behind the desk. "Isn't she just a visiting foreign tourist, who is staying in my house? Yes, I will surely be with her all the time inside the TV station." The man in uniform, without a smile but generously, let me follow the group into the station. He did not give me, however, that plastic visitor tag which all other adult visitors received. By then Tri had lost his voice. As usual, mothers with children had little to be afraid of. After all, a caring mother and her protected young child constitute the core from which the family grows and on which the family system is fictionally built. The army stands by the mothers, at least ideologically. Young men, on the other side, are most vulnerable in the New Order Indonesian family. Inside the dark building of the TV station, we had to wait for more than two hours before being invited into the studio. All of us gathered and waited at a corner of the hall, where a TV set, three sofas, and some old chairs were placed. None of the mothers had her visitor tag pinned on her best silky dress. My friend, at one point, caught her brother, who had the tag pinned on his white shirt's chest pocket, and cheerfully said, "Oh, so, you can represent us all. Good." Tri, who looked as though he had lost five kilograms in ten minutes since we came through the front gate, was not comforted by his sister's comment and took his tag off the shirt pocket. But he could not put it away. He kept fondling it with his fingers so that everyone could see he had the tag. After a long five minutes, he stood up, his tag again on his chest, and purposefully walked away from the corner. The mothers were busy chatting among themselves, and paid no attention to the only young man in the group. He was nervous, scared even, of a threat I believe he himself could not identify. The regime is built on this amorphous fear one can not name.

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The source of fear, however, is not only not named, but also is covered up. When Soeharto came to power in a silent coup on March 11, 1966, it was his control over the state coercive power, the military might which killed hundreds of thousands of people in a few months, that mattered most. But he got an official letter on that day, in his characteristic way, to cloak his might. It is called "Supersemar," acronym of the Indonesian phrase, Surat Perintah 11 Maret, which means the "March 11 Letter of Instruction." Here is the official account. The security guard of the Palace was greatly tightened on March 11, 1966. Barricades were set up to block off the demonstrations. The Presidential guards were ready, surrounding the palace with unsheathed bayonets. 43 All official accounts of the event talk about the "tense" atmosphere, accompanied with photos of student demonstrators on and around army-supplied motor vehicles. Photos show a festive crowd of students and soldiers in uniform on the streets of Jakarta. "I met my wife who was a college student then there," a man told me over lunch in 1988. When the Dwikora Cabinet Plenary Session was taking place, the President received the news that in front of the Palace there were some movements by a military unit whose identity was unknown ... Receiving the news, President Sukarno, who was accompanied by his ministers, immediately left the session and flew to the Bogor Palace by a helicopter which had been prepared in the Palace ground, accompanied by Vice-Premier Chaerul Saleh and Dr. Subandrio. 44 Colonel Sarwo Edi Wibowo, the commander of army paracommando regiment (RPKAD), who was instrumental in taking over the communication facilities and the Halim air base from the coup group on October 1, 1965, led the "unidentified" military unit in front of the Presidential Palace. Prior to the March 1966 affair, he was also seen encouraging students to take actions against President Sukarno. 45 This was the beginning of Soeharto's silent coup. After the Cabinet session was over, Soeharto sent three army generals, Minister of Veterans Major General Basuki Rachmat, Minister of Industries Major General M. Yusuf, and Commander of the Jakarta Regional Military Command Major General Amir Machmud, to see the President in the Bogor Palace. Sukarno, "eventually [akhirnya]," acceded to their "request" and signed the letter of instruction dated March 11, 1966, ordering Minister /Commander of the Army General Soeharto "to take all the actions considered necessary to guarantee security and peace, together with the stability of the course of Revolution, and to guarantee the safety of the person and authority of the President/Commander in Chief/Great Leader of Revolution/Mandate of MPRS [Provisional People's Consultative Assembly]."46 43 "Surat Perintah 11 Maret 1966," in Fajar Orde Baru: Lahirnya Orde Baru (Jakarta: Yayasan Kesejahteraan Jayakarta KODAM V JAYA/Badan Penerbit Alrnanak R.P./B.P. ALDA, 1979), pp. 57 and 59. 441bid. 45 A. Luqrnan, "Sarwo di Saat Kudeta Kornunis," Editor 11 (November 18, 1989), p. 20. 46 "Surat Perintah 11 Maret 1966," Fajar Orde Baru, pp. 57 and 59.

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In the Rengasdengklok Affair on August 15, 1945, the youth, as we may recall, confronted Sukarno and Hatta directly, in Abimanyu's fashion, to force them to act in the name of "we," the Indonesian people. On March 11, 1966, Soeharto made a far more intricate maneuver not only not to stand up directly against Sukarno but also to erase evidence of his own role as the agent. He was "sick" that day, stayed in bed, and did not attend the cabinet meeting. The three generals went to the Bogor Palace to see Sukarno, not on Soeharto's behalf, to transfer power from Sukarno to Soeharto, but to discuss the "tense" situation with him. "Eventually," Sukarno agreed to their "request," not Soeharto's demand, to "order" him "to take all the actions considered necessary to guarantee security and peace and to protect the person and authority of the President." Soeharto did not ask for anything. The responsibilities were thrust on him, of course, together with the power. Supersemar set the style of New Order politics. Soeharto's first act was to ban the PKI "in the name of the President." That is, Sukarno still was nominally the President, but Soeharto obtained the free hand to take "all the actions considered necessary" in the name of the President. And soon, the source of the mandate shifted from Sukarno to become the letter of instruction, Supersemar, itself. The following quote is from a sixth grade history textbook: Supersemar is the historical guiding stick [tongkat, lit., stick, baton] for the birth of the New Order and the end of the Old Order. The caretaker of Supersemar, Lieutenant General Soeharto, acted quickly, correctly, firmly, and boldly. With the magic weapon Supersemar, General Soeharto has kept fighting to lead the New Order. The New Order is determined to carry out Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution in a pure and consistent manner.4 7 This is how school children learn of the letter and the President. One can see here history turned upside down as if it were the magical power of Supersemar which deployed the "unidentified" military unit on March 11, 1966, in front of the Presidential Palace, put Soeharto in bed, and sent the three army generals to the Bogor Palace to see Sukarno to give birth to the letter. The textbook continues: Supersemar has played the great role and charted the course for changing the situation in our mother land. Supersemar has escorted [antar] the Indonesian nation to live in a political and economic atmosphere which is calmer and more stable. Supersemar escorted the Indonesian nation to reorganize national life based on the Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution.48 Supersemar thus served as a magic paper to wrap up the deadly truth that it was violence that gave birth to the New Order. And Indonesian, in which the paper was printed, has become a language that maintains a weird emptiness, a void, at its core. It is this truth hidden behind the empty language that prevents anak from standing up against their bapak and allows the bapak to pronounce, begitulah! that is the way it is. 47 Bagas Prama Ananta, Pendidikan Sejarah Perjuangan Bangsa 6 (Jakarta: PT Intan, 3rd ed., 1988), pp. 2-4.

48 Ibid, p. 6.

CHILDREN IN THE CLASSROOM chool childhood" as an experience and a concept has existed for about a century in Indonesia. School education was part of the colonial system the Dutch introduced to the Indies; it was the tool Dutch liberals in the early twentieth century hoped to us to domesticate the "native" mind. The Dutch liberal's euphoria about the native's modern "awakening" as epitomized by Kartini attests this paternalistic attitude. What has been overlooked is the fact that the introduction of school education, both Dutch and Malay, had also marked the beginning of modern childhood in the "native" society. The notion of childhood as a stage in life separated by both time and space from adulthood emerged in modern Europe along with the arrival of the middle class and the spread of modern school education.l As the emerging middle-class family withdrew from communal sociability and began to enjoy the comfort of a private life, the familiar family portrait-the father sitting on a chair and reading a newspaper, the affectionate mother sitting on a chair and holding a baby or knitting, and their happy children playing on their sides on the floor-came to represent an ideal image of respectable, modern, middle-class family life. Children were provided with expurgated editions of classics. The new literary genre, children's literature, sprouted. School became essential to this new world to educate the "innocent children" who were separated from "adult society" by providing them with the good books in order to prepare them for the "future" entry to the adult life.2 The school picture, which portrays all the classmates standing or sitting in front of the camera with their teacher in the middle, captured and recorded their school childhood. It was this notion of the modern school childhood which was transplanted and reproduced in the Indies with the introduction of school education. School, which separates the children from the adult society as well as prepares them for it, has its own space with its own order. Schooling sequesters a certain period of human life in the name of the future. School childhood is shaped by this space and time. The school childhood in Indonesia, like anywhere else in the world, has spread socially from the privileged elite to the entire children's population as more schools are built each year. Moreover, school childhood has become prolonged to include a person's youth, as the number of the children who attend elementary school, advance to high school, and go on to university has increased over the century. Kartini was one of the first "natives" who recalled her school childhood with nostalgia. Kartini, Soetatmo, Tjipto, and Ki Hadjar Dewantara all belonged to the first generation of the "natives" who obtained the Dutch language school education in the Indies. It was after Indonesian independence, however, that school childhood expanded throughout the archipelago. Claire Holt talks about an "enormous amount

''S

1 Philippe Aries, Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life, trans. Robert Baldick (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962). 2 The school education is the "normal instrument of social initiation, of progress from childhood to manhood." The quote is from Aries, Centuries of Childhood, p. 369.

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of school construction, teacher-training, and textbook printing" in 1950s Indonesia. 3 Hildred Geertz also makes this observation about the ongoing "educational revolution" in the 1950s: [Education in the Western form] is rapidly being made available to every Indonesian child, rural as well as urban. Not only are local elementary schools multiplying, but their graduates are increasingly entering secondary schools and universities in the urban centers, with the result that peasant villagers may be becoming increasingly more receptive to novel ways. 4 The social, political, and cultural significance of the national school education is beyond any doubt. In 1985, 36,326,000 students were attending schools (including elementary school through university) in Indonesia. In 1987, 24,931,000 out of 25,689,000 children aged seven to twelve years old (which is the primary school age in Indonesia) attended schools; that is, 97 percent. In the same year, 8,825,000 out of 12,268,000 children aged thirteen to fifteen attended secondary schools: 72 percent. Out of 2,956,100 government employees in 1987, 1,646,000, or 55 percent, were school teachers. Schooling is a huge national project run by the state, and today, school childhood constitutes a fundamental national experience in which children learn Indonesian and become Indonesians. This school childhood in Indonesia had no middle-class private family life as its base in the way the modern childhood in Europe had. Kartini's letters to her Dutch correspondents tell us this crucial fact. The Taman Siswa educational movement was an answer to this problem. Taman Siswa would provide its students both the school childhood and the ideal family model. We have already studied the history of its "family-ism." It is time for us to visit the classrooms in contemporary Indonesia. What order is there in the classroom? What is it that constitutes school childhood for today's children and how are they initiated into it? What has become of the family model? 1. THE FIRST 0 AY AT SCHOOL

Now I am already grown big Tomorrow I have to leave home For the first time to go to school Heavy, isn't it, but ... I am trembling! Ouch, my stomach is stiff! Why is it? I feel I just want to cry! At the moment Mother leaves me at school Huuuaaa, I want to go home! Now I am already grown big 3 Claire Holt, Art in Indonesia: Continuities and Change (Ithaca: Comell University Press, 1967), p. 202. 4 Hildred Geertz, "Indonesian Cultures and Communities," in McVey, ed., Indonesia (New Haven: HRAF Press, 1963), p. 32.

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Tomorrow I have to leave home For the first time to go to school Heavy, isn't it, but ... Mother is going to escort [antar] me! But, eh, wait! Mother told me At school there are many toys and new friends I will memorize their names one by one! There are coloring pencils and books, tools Perhaps the most important transition children go through is their first entrance into school, which they experience at some time between ages five and seven. The whole pattern of their daily life as well as its space changes once children start attending school every day. The first day at school is an important rite of passage in their lives. Observing children on their first day at school is disturbing and exhausting. Children find themselves in the peculiar space called the classroom. This is from my notes: This is the first day of their years of school life. The young teacher in her pink suit invites the white-and-red-uniformed children to come forward and sing a song for their new fellow classmates. One by one they stand in front of their classmates and sing their favorite Indonesian songs, and each receives generous applause. The first day of their long school childhood starts with songs.6 Most children can sing "school songs" because they have learned some of them from their brothers and sisters and their neighborhood friends. These are Indonesian songs with clear historical origins. Some are prewar nationalist songs; some are songs youths sang in the revolution; and some others are more recently composed by the Ministry of Education and Culture. They are printed in primary school music textbooks, and cassette tapes are available at music stores as "children's school songs." A boy who had been hesitating at the outset finally gathered his courage to raise his hand. Precisely at this moment, when this boy had just started to sing, a mother with her child in hand rushed into the room and started to apologize profusely for their late arrival. "The traffic was congested ... " Pressed to the blackboard by this immensely fat, heavily made-up, impeccably dressed woman in a lacy green dress, the boy moved behind the teacher to secure a breathing space. The teacher suggested the mother take her daughter to an empty seat in the back, and a moment later, as if she had just recalled what she had been doing, pushed the boy forward and told him to sing. The boy, pale and expressionless, sang a song inaudibly. His classmates, drawn to the sight of an enormous body trying to accommodate itself into the narrow aisle, did not notice his silent singing. He returned to his seat without receiving applause? 5 "Bila si Kecil Masuk Sekolah," Ayahbunda 12 (June 24, 1986). 6 A day in kindergarden too is full of children's songs. 7 Jakarta, June 1988.

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For the mother, the boy was invisible. She saw only her child and the teacher. Yet the boy could not leave the scene, even though he would have done so if an obnoxious neighbor had interrupted him in the living room of his house. He knew he was in the space called school, separate and different from the space in which he had grown up. In Indonesian songs and stories, children are often depicted as bebek or ducks, happy noisy creatures always in a group. Dengarlah weh-weh-weh Dengarlah weh-weh-weh Suara bebekku

Listen weh-weh-weh Listen weh-weh-weh The voice of my ducks

Selalu weh-weh-weh Selalu weh-weh-weh Tak mengenal Jamu

Always weh-weh-weh Always weh-weh-weh Never get tired8

On their first day at school, however, they find themselves among children they do not know yet. They are there in the classroom without any order. But their mothers will soon leave the room. The children will be assigned their seats. And a new order will start to emerge. Hung on the walls and looking down at the teacher and the children are portraits of national heroes. The classroom windows are placed so high up that only the dark shadow of the roof's eaves and a narrow strip of the remote sky are visible. No dinosaurs (this is not an American elementary school); no cherry blossoms (this is not a Japanese school). Omnipresent is a three-foot by three-foot batik cloth on the teacher's desk, on which a small porcelain vase with paper flowers has been placed. There also are illustrations of a family of four, the parents and their two children, of a school shown as a long flat house with a red-and-white Indonesian flag, and an assortment of paired dolls in ethnic costumes meant to represent this multi-ethnic nation. The representations of the family, the school, and the nation sit comfortably together in the classroom. What is missing here is the neighborhood community: the space where the great majority of families in Indonesia conduct their everyday lives. Children, both young and old, are rarely found in their houses during the day time when school is out. They freely move around neighborhood alleys and the narrow space between houses. Follow them through such alleys and spaces, then you will walk under the eaves of roofs, pass by bedroom windows, run into back doors and kitchens, and bump onto rattan chairs in open verandahs where fruit baskets have been placed. In such spaces, one is treated just like a family member regardless of one's identity or occupation without even being introduced. Neighbors spend hours a day in this communal space which contains a highly heterogeneous population and has no clear b,oundaries to separate the private sphere from the public space. But this communal space is forgotten in the classroom. A leading journalist and a poet, Goenawan Mohamad, writes about the effect school education had on young poets and their poems back in the 1940s: 8 "Suara Bebekku," a children's song they learn in the first grade classroom.

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The poet, who had chosen his place in a town, refused [to go home] when he was visited by a person who came to escort him back to his village in the mountains. To the penjemput [one who came to escort him back]-whom he called an "alien/' even though he was from his own home village-he said: Alien, do not stand at the doorstep I live in front of the open door, That leads to the road whose end unknown You have come too late, [by Asrul Sani] No more doubt: here in this poem is the arrogance of youth ... Leaving home makes liberation possible, and the ocean is clearly like the vast field of freedom, the vast field without neighbors, village elders, customary laws, and family folks Actually, all this is only natural: as a village child fell in love with the literature to which he was introduced through books and magazines; as he aspired to become a poet-a profession which is odd for his village milieu-he had already left home to wander. Harmony with his surroundings is shaken, he is like Adam tricked by the snake to eat the apple. The snake is the education he received at schoot and its result can never be shunted aside.9 In the classroom, Goenawan says, children meet the snake. The apple it offers liberates children from the everyday life of their family and neighborhood, the only life they have known so far. Education, he maintains, teaches children that there is another world down the road, the vast field of freedom, the vast field without neighbors, village elders, customary laws, and family folks. Is this still the case? 2. THE NEW ORDER CLASSROOM

The seat assignment is one of the first crucial moments in the rite of passage that initiates children into school life and its order. How is it done, then? The children were already there, seated, when the teacher entered the classroom, and mothers were standing by their children. The teacher emptied the classroom by asking the children and their mothers to go out. In other words, she did everything anew from the beginning in the newly painted classroom. In Jakarta, more than anywhere else in Indonesia, children come to the classroom with many different social, economic, religious, and ethnic backgrounds. In the school, however, children are treated as if there were no such differences. The school uniform, mandatory in Indonesia, visually effaces whatever diversity there is among children and makes them appear, welt as students (and nothing else) in the teacher's eyes. Children-students are like a blank white sheet of paper, innocent and ignorant, on which things new have to be inscribed from this first day of school. ~9thers who only see their own children (and that is their responsibility and definition) and , differentiate their children from others are irrelevant in this space. 9 Goenawan Mohamad, Seks, Sastra, Kita (Jakarta: Sinar Harapan, 1980), pp. 42-45.

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In the process of assigning seats, the significant issue has to do with seating in the front rows. Mothers who are in the classroom with their children on the first day of school try their best to secure seats in the front rows for their children. The seats in the front rows are important for a class with more than fifty students. Seated in a front row, children will have a better chance to attract the teacher's attention, and no less important, can have a much better view of the blackboard. The blackboard is usually in a poor condition. Often the black color has long faded into vague gray, and its surface has a lot of white holes and rough spots filled with white chalk powder. It is not easy for children seated in the back to see what is written on it, and this can be a serious disadvantage for students who spend most of their time in the classroom copying what the teacher writes on the blackboard. It makes sense for mothers, always prepared to give their children the best they can afford, to do their best to get a front row seat for their children. The teacher, knowing mothers' concerns very well, asked all the children and their mothers leave the classroom. Then, after some difficulty, she managed to organize the children to stand in two lines in the hall, led them into the classroom, and assigned seats to the children one by one, beginning with the first in the line. The idea was as straightforward as the straight line drawn on paper with the aid of a ruler. The classroom space, as it comes into the teacher's field of vision, is ordered by the rows of benches and desks. Her idea is to assign children to seats mechanically in accordance with this order. But the seating process did not proceed as mechanically. Having no idea about seat assignments, some children simply sat down on whatever chairs happened to be near them when the line stopped marching. Some looked back at their mothers in the hall, and seeing their mothers gesturing them to sit down, sat down there. A few seats were left empty here and there, while there were a few who, not knowing what to do in this peculiar space, were standing and waiting as if they were lost. Here is my note: From the hall, mothers were intently watching the seat assignment. Then, a few mothers followed the children into the classroom again. A mother in a white blouse, for example, picked up the hand of her child who sat in a back seat, and pushed him forward to a front seat, while speaking loudly, "Oh, here is your friend Si Anu, why don't you sit next to her?" She then set out to unseat the boy who happened to be sitting next to Si Anu, as if she had never even noticed his presence there. The mother of the boy who was about to be unseated walked to her son in a hurry. This slim woman began to talk to her son in a soft, inaudible voice, while gently keeping her son, who did not understand what was going on, in his front seat. The teacher again asked mothers to leave the classroom. By then, some mothers had succeeded in securing front row seats for their children, while others had not. But they all left the classroom. The teacher did not show any sign of irritation or anger toward the mothers, demonstrating the tolerance expected of a person with power and authority. An order has emerged in the classroom: all the students, equal in the teacher's eyes, are now assigned their seats in the rows of benches and desks, basically in accordance to the teacher's notion of classroom order and in a manner that does not

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reflect their family backgrounds, despite their mothers' last minute interventions. (The teacher can undo whatever mothers have accomplished anytime she wants once the mothers are gone.) The classroom is constituted as a space separate from the family and notionally opposed to it.l 0 In this space, there exist only two relationships. One is hierarchical, that is the teacher-student relationship or in Indonesian the pakjbu guru (father /mother teacher)-anak mu rid (child pupil) relationship. The other is the horizontal relationship among the students. They are seated in the rows of benches, all facing the teacher who stands before the blackboard. All the students are in uniform. And all are equal in the eyes of the teacher, for whom every one of them is a new child student. The classroom order also manifests itself in the name list of the students in a more fundamental sense. After seat assignments and twenty minutes of singing, the teacher opened a black, hard-covered, oversized attendance book and started to read the names of the children who were to become her students. Their names are organized alphabetically in the list and each name is written neatly and carefully in the book between the straight columns and rows. Modern formal schooling starts, in a real sense, with registration of the students' names. When a new school was opened in a small island in the eastern part of Indonesia, one of the first questions the schoolmaster designate asked to his adviser from Jakarta was how to make the children's name list.1 1 The day before the new school year started, calling attendance was one of the major topics the teachers discussed at their meeting. What to do with those whose names are in the list but who do not show up? Some of them might have moved away with their families before school started; some might have gone to other schools; and some might be ill and unable to attend school for a few days. What to do with those whose names are not in the attendance book? This cannot happen. If that happens, it must be a mistake. Children whose names are not found in the book belong to somewhere else, to other lists. All the children in the classroom have their names registered in the list. Now, the teacher read aloud children's names one by one from the name list. The children, who were accustomed to being addressed with their short intimate names, were called their long official names in alphabetical order. For the first time, the classroom became quiet. The children waited nervously for the teacher to read their names from the book in her hand. The teacher knew all their names and their spellings, but did not know the children yet. She identified each name in the list with the child who responded to her voice when she read the name. They were there because their names were in the list and read by the teacher. Her voice gave legitimacy to their presence and established the teacher's authority over the children in the classroom.12 In the beginning of the classroom, we can say, therefore, there is a name list. If a child's name is not on the list, he/she does not belong in that class and is not entitled to a seat there. The rows of desks and benches in the classroom are the physical 10 It is this notional opposition between school and family that made Taman Siswa's, and the educational reformers' of Europe and Asia who influenced the Taman Siswa teachers, "family style" school education innovative in the 1910s and 1920s. 11 Interview, Jakarta, April1991. 12 See in this connection, Sneja Gunew, "Denaturalizing cultural nationalisms: multicultural readings of 'Australis,"' in Homi K. Bhabha, ed., Nation and Narration (London and New York: Routledge, 1990).

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manifestations of the name list. The teacher reads the children's names in the list. By responding to her voice and identifying himself or herself with a name, each student accepts the classroom order. The teacher's authority derives from the list, which manifests itself in the order called "classroom." The attendance call on the first day at school also is the first experience children have with the world of writing and reading in the classroom. They learn, on the first day, that they are there because their names are in the book and that the teacher identifies them with the names when they respond to their names she reads. And they soon internalize the classroom order, as they understand the structure of the daily roll call. They are there because their names are in the book, and the teacher reads their names and identifies them with the names. They are equal as students as the names in the list are equal. Though they have come to the classroom with different backgrounds and do not know each other yet, the foundation for their fraternal solidarity is already there in the list and in the eyes of the teacher. At the beginning, there is the book. 3. CONSTRUCTING THE FAMILY IN THE CLASSROOM

Teaching Indonesian at school involves constructing and reconstructing the family anew and, in its extension, the nation. The classroom is constituted as the space separate from the family where, in fact, the mothers are politely excluded. In the Indonesian textbook, however, it is this family that is constructed and plays the cardinal role. Here is the first chapter of the first grade Indonesian textbook. The great majority of children, including those who spend even less than a year in the classroom, memorize these sentences.13 Ini Ibu Budi

This is Budi's Mother

ini budi ini ibu budi ini bapak budi ini kakak budi ini adik budi

this is budi this is budi's mother this is budi's father this is budi's elder sibling this is budi's younger sibling

ibu dan bapak budi kakak dan adik budi

budi's mother and father budi's elder and younger siblings

In the beginning there is a boy. He is called Budi, which means "mind," "reason," or "right thinking." Budi produces his mother, father, and siblings. This is not something new. The family structure has functioned as the syntax in first-grade Indonesian textbooks since Sukarno's time, surviving a series of curriculum changes until today. 14 In other words, this is the way teachers themselves were introduced to 13 Bahasa Indonesia: Be/ajar Membaca dan Munulis la. This textbook was first printed in 1976. 1988. Private schools often use their own textbooks, but they too

14 Interview, Jakarta, July

start with the family.

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Indonesian, and they teach Indonesian to their students as they learned, even before they open the textbook. Indonesian is the official language of instruction at school. It is bahasa pengantar, the language that guides (antar) children. Disregarding the variety of students' different ethnic and kinship backgrounds, school lessons linguistically construct a single model of the family and all the knowledge given to students in Indonesian in the classroom will be built on this family. Keluarga, family, is a group which consists of ibu, bapak, kakak, adik, and their house, rumah. Everyone is identified by one's relation to someone else in the family: Iwan is Budi's adik, Budi is !wan's kakak. Everyone, every thing, and every word is defined and articulated in connection with someone, something, or some other word that follows. The textbook continues:

ini rumah budi ini rumah bibi

this is budi's house this is aunt's house

itu wati dan iwan iwan budi dan wati iwan adik budi budi kakak iwan budi adik wati

they are wati and iwan iwan, budi and wati iwan is budi's younger sibling budi is iwan's elder sibling budi is wati's younger sibling

wati kakak budi bapak dan ibu wati bapak dan ibu budi bapak dan ibu iwan budi dan iwan adik wati

wati is budi's elder sibling wati's father and mother budi's father and mother iwan's father and mother budi and iwan are wati's younger siblings

Each sentence is repeated over and over again in the subsequent pages. It is difficult not to memorize these sentences. The world expands slowly-the boy, his family members and their relations with each other, their home, things they have, the nature of things they have, their school and teacher-but it reaches its outer limit, the nation, pretty soon.

ini bola itu bola budi ini bola iwan budi main bola

this is a ball it is budi's ball this is iwan's ball budi plays with the ball

ini sekolah wati ini sekolah budi sekolah wati sekolah budi

this is wati's school this is budi' s school wati's school budi's school

ini bendera budi bandera merah putih

this is budi's flag red and white flag [the national flag]

itu sepeda bapak sepeda bapak baru

it is father's bicycle father's bicycle is new

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Any attribute of a person or a thing, "red and white," for instance, comes only after the person or thing has been located first in this network of relations. The flag has to be Budi's before it is said to be a national flag. The bicycle has to be father's, before it is said that it is new. In the classroom, the world is thus constructed as an expanding network of people. Let us also examine the recently changed new Indonesian textbook CBSA, or Cara Belajar Siswa Aktif [The study method for active students]. It starts this way: 1. Keluarga

kakek adik nenek bapak kakak ibu

(Family) (grandfather) (younger sibling) (grandmother) (father) (elder sibling) (mother)

These words are listed this way and framed. It is not hard to decipher why they are ordered this way. The grandfather, normally the oldest in the family, comes first in the list. The mother, whose love is the source of family warmth, is located at the bottom as if supporting the entire family. Just above the mother is the elder sibling, kakak, who has learned self-control and self-sacrifice, while the pampered younger sibling is embraced in between the grandfather and grandmother. Father does not head the list above his aged parents, but is not placed below his elder child and wife, either. The list, it seems, nicely demonstrates the working order in the Indonesian family. Then, the sentences follow on the subsequent page:

saya kiki ini bapak saya ini ibu kiki ini adik kiki

i am kiki this is my father this is kiki' s mother this is kiki's younger sister

There is no fundamental difference between the two textbooks. The replacement of the boy, Budi, with the girl, Kiki, which might be perceived as progressive, has little significance to the family syntax which is introduced to the students. Age, generation, and gender are central in this family construction and its extended networks. Age and generation stand out more prominently than gender in defining the power relations of the family members. Though there are clear divisions of labor between ibu and bapak in family life, they both hold unequivocal parental authority over their anak, children. Kakak [elder brothers and sisters] take care of, and exercise power over, their adik [younger brothers and sisters]. Thus, in the textbook, learning is built on the foundation of the keluarga, family, and the world expands around the family as its extension. In the colonial textbook published by the Dutch government, the native population's typical family and village were presented as places where ignorance resided. The children were taught in the colonial classroom to leave the darkness of ignorance (family and village

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ignorance) behind.l5 Asrul Sani's poem quoted by Goenawan16 is the fruit of that education. It is interesting to note how the message has been altered. Children in the New Order classroom learn that the family and its expanding networks are the foundations of their lives, and those relationships form the nation. The family is the goal and purpose of their learning. Learning is the reconfirmation of what one has and knows-so the textbook pretends-even if the construct offered to represent the family differs markedly from the actual families of the students. New Order education is predicated on the avoidance of shocks caused by collision with unknowns; it shuns the snake which led Asrul Sani and Goenawan Mohamad to that vast field of freedom. The Indonesian family is constructed in the textbook through a process that appears to involve mere translation that simply exchanges exchangeable words between the national language and ethnic mother-tongues. As a result, the Indonesian family remains invisible and, simultaneously, intrudes ubiquitously into everyday life without being noticed. 4. THE TEACHER

In one of his short stories, Pramoedya Ananta Toer writes an unforgettable scene about the teacher in the classroom:

Pak Guru [Father Teacher] shook his head. His heart was sullen. He wanted to hit the bald head of si Ahjat. But Ahjat is not his own child. And his own child is as stupid as Ahjat. Therefore he hit his stick against the blackboard harshly and then walked to a window-to inhale the clear air and compose himself. The chalk, which had already become letters on the board, disintegrated onto the floor. There was no mouth emitting a voice. All the students were afraid. All eyes followed pak guru, who was sullen at the window. Their minds nervously tried to guess hard, right and left. And the girl-students who were seated at the front bench nervously held onto their writing-desks.l7 The teacher is angry. The children cannot run away. They have to face him and his anger there in the classroom. Why is his anger so terrifying? Pramoedya continues: And what they [children] really understood was: pak guru always wants to become a king in the classroom and in his own house he is no different from the chicken that does not spread his feathers in front of his wife. Nevertheless, they were sure that pak guru was as clever as one can ever be in this world.18 To put it in a different way, the teacher lives in two worlds. He may be insignificant outside the classroom in the everyday family and neighborhood milieu-and children may laugh at him in their secret revenge on him there-but he has the other 15 Saya Shiraishi, "Eyeglasses: Some Remarks on Acehnese Textbooks," Indonesia 36 (October 1983): 67-86. 16 See page 127, this chapter. 17 Pramoedya Ananta Toer, "Anak Haram," in Tjerita dari Blora (Jakarta: Balai Pustaka, 1952), p. 227. 18 Ibid., p. 228.

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world which the children can't see. They are sure that their teacher is "as clever as one can ever be" because he has this unknown world. And his anger is terrifying because he knows what they do not know. Pramoedya's angry teacher is not an isolated figure in Indonesian literature. Indeed, teachers were angry in the early days of Indonesian independence, or so they are recalled and remembered, then and now. 19 It is therefore striking to note that contemporary teachers are rarely, if ever, illustrated as angry figures in New Order classrooms, and children themselves say that they have never seen their teachers get angry. They uniformly say that they like their teachers. But when they are asked if they have ever talked with their teachers personally, they say no. As we have seen earlier, according to my own observation, the teachers rarely showed signs of irritation, let alone anger, in the classroom. Teachers I watched were extremely tolerant and patient to the mothers and to the children. They routinely waited for thirty minutes or more for the children to finish just four or five simple math questions, while children busied themselves visiting friends at opposite corners of the classroom to chat about anything but math. The reasons why teachers in Indonesia no longer display-or feel?-anger, but instead appear extremely patient and tolerant, are no doubt very complex. Some parts of these reasons are perhaps ideological. As we have seen, learning is now understood as the reconfirmation of what one knows, and schooling is predicated on the avoidance of shocks from unknowns. The teacher, in this ideological regime, can not be "as clever as one can ever be in this world," because he is now deprived of the unseen and unknown world of knowledge that was his before, a fund of invisible knowledge that intimidated the students. Indeed, there is nothing that fundamentally sets the teacher apart from the rest of the neighbors. This does not mean that the teacher has no authority. He does, but his authority comes not from himself as the source of knowledge, but from what he controls, for instance, the name list in the attendance book. He is the mere agent of the one who composed the list. The anger of today's teacher cannot be as intimidating or terrifying as the anger of Pramoedya's teacher's. It should not be surprising, then, that bu guru appears, in the first-grade Indonesian textbook illustrations, heavily armored in her stuffy uniform, wearing eyeglasses and a wrist watch, with the attendance book held to her breast, and carrying a large square black bag in hand. In other words, she has all the trappings of the teacher. But they are make-believe, or so the illustrations inform the children. Hidden motherhood resides in her shape; she is really Mother Teacher, full of affection. No need to be afraid of her. One of the reasons why teachers are no longer angry nor terrifying is historical. In post-independence, post-revolutionary Indonesia, teachers and schools were politicized and divided. The successful inroads the PKI had made into schools had threatened non-communist teachers and students. The Ministry of Education itself had been divided along communist and non-communist lines, and the large teachers' union, the PGRI, Persatuan Guru Republik Indonesia, split into two in 1964. Then came the catastrophe-waves of kidnappings and killings in the wake of the coup 19 For another portrait of an angry teacher, see Titiek WS, "Bangsa yang Besar, Sejarah yang Benar," in Klub Aksara, Guru (Jakarta: Aries Lima, 1983), p. 63. This book is dedicated to the teacher.

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that has left scars in schools in the form of the teachers' accommodating smiles. Pipit Rochijat writes: This atmosphere of vengeance spread everywhere. Not merely in the outside world, but even into the schools, for example State High School No. 1. There the atmosphere was all the more ripe in that for all practical purposes the school broke down, and classes did not continue as usual. Many students did not come to school at all, like Syom, for example, a friend of Kartawidjaja's Son No. 2, who had to spend most of his time going round helping purge the Kediri region of Communist elements. Kartawidjaja's Son No. 2 saw many cases where teachers and student members of IPPI [Ikatan Pemuda Pelajar Indonesia, League of Indonesian High-School Students/PKI] at State High School No. 1 were held up at knife point by their Nationalist and Religious comrades. With knives at their throats they were threatened with death. They wept, begging forgiveness and expressing regret for what they had done while members of IPPJ. 20 No long comment will be necessary. Where the "students" threaten the "teachers" with death, with knives at their throats, no school, and no education, is possible. The school was once destroyed in 1965, and has been restored using empty rhetoric that purports to value "family," but has, in fact, no genuine referent. The teachers have lost ground to generate haughty anger toward the children in the classroom. 5. TWO VOICES, TWO WRITINGS-LEARNING LEARNING

Voice is an essential component of modern classroom instruction, whether in a fully equipped American classroom, in a standardized Japanese classroom, or in a parent-teacher led Indonesian classroom. It is the patterned arrangements of voice that characterize each educational institution and distinguish one from others. In Indonesia, there are two voices which co-exist in the classroom, the authorized voice and the noise. The authorized voice consists of the teacher's voice and the voices of children who participate in the teacher's discourse either by repeating after the teacher or by answering the teacher's questions. In many cases, their "answers" are also repetitions of the teacher's voice because that is how the question-and-answer sessions are structured. Any innovative or creative answer is regarded as noise, and the teacher simply will not hear it. This process of sorting out the children's voices into one of the two categories, the authorized audible voice and inaudible noise, is managed by both the teacher and the students in a highly orchestrated, even unconscious, manner. In his study on Solo and the Javanese in the New Order, James Siegel reports his observations of a classroom in Solo, Central Java, where he notices that children speak with each other in Javanese, their mother tongue, while answering to their teacher in Indonesian. 21 The authorized voice and the noise are separated along a 20 Pipit Rochijat, "Am I PKI or Non-PKI?" Indonesia 40 (October 1985): 44. For postindependence, post-revolutionary politics and education, see Lee Kam Hing, "The Taman Siswa in Postwar Indoensia," Indonesia 25 (April1978): 41-60. 21 James T. Siegel, Solo in the New Order: Language and Hierarchy in an Indonesian City (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 138-48.

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linguistic line that divides Indonesian from Javanese. In Jakarta, however, children normally speak one language-Indonesian-most of the time. Jakarta is perhaps one of the few places where Indonesian is used not only in the offices, shops, streets, and markets, but also at home. Children in Jakarta, therefore, do not have at their command the ethnic language which the children of the regions outside the capital city use as their inaudible, hidden language in their classrooms. Yet the classroom situations in Solo and in Jakarta still appear to be similar, for students in Jakarta speak "inaudible" Indonesian to each other as freely as the children in Solo speak "inaudible" Javanese, and their teachers appear not to hear or notice any of these children's private conversations. In the classroom in Jakarta, Indonesian therefore plays two roles which, in schools outside Jakarta, are played by the national language and the ethnic language separately. Indonesian in the classroom is divided into two languages which co-exist but never meet. One is authorized Indonesian, which we may call "school Indonesian," which has its own system of intonation and emphases which may be easily recognized in classrooms throughout the nation. This language will be heard in Ujungpandang, in Solo, in Bandung, or in Jakarta, and it is identical with the form of Indonesian used at academic or business conferences and at national ceremonies. The other is the noise children make among themselves during classes. Here is an example of two voices from my notes: The teacher of this fifth-grade class asked the children the name of the new Vice-President of Indonesia who was elected a few days before. All the children knew the answer. They shouted aloud, "Soedarmono!" "Soedarmono!" "Soedarmono!" The teacher, however, ignored them all, as if he had heard nothing. He named a girl, and all other voices died down. She said the name in school Indonesian with that unmistakable intonation, "Soedarmono," while rearranging her seating position to sit bolt upright. Both children shouting their answers and the girl who answered in school Indonesian gave the same answer, "Soedarmono," to the teacher. Moreover, the girl's voice was much smaller than the voice of other students. But children's shouted answers did not count, because the speakers had not been authorized to participate in the teacher's discourse. Their collective voice was ignored as a kind of noise-not suppressed but simply disregarded. It does not matter whether the alternative noise is made in Javanese, Achenese or Indonesian. Who cares whether the noise consists of any one intelligible human language or even the quackings of ducks? The noise is assigned its own separate place where it does not interrupt the authorized classroom discourse. The order of the classroom rests on the separation of two voices. As long as the children do not disturb the order and participate in the teacher's discourse agreeably when they are invited, their private conversations and actions are tolerated because they have been relegated to the domain of "noise." The Indonesian classrooms in general, therefore, can't be described as quiet spaces. In fact, a renowned private school in a good residential neighborhood in Jakarta, for instance, keeps all the windows closed all day, even though the classrooms are not air-conditioned, because the neighbors complain about the highpitched ceaseless noise the classrooms emit. I sat in a first-grade classroom of this school for several weeks. Classes start at 7:00 in the morning and by 8:00, the room

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grows very hot. By 9:00, my body was felt feverish, and I had a splitting headache from the ceaseless noise and the suffocating heat. But the lessons continued. The children learn the separation of the two domains and the way to travel between the two effortlessly. We may discern this process by observing the way they learn to switch between two kinds of writing. The young teacher writes on the large blackboard with white chalk while holding a blackboard eraser in her left hand:

ini mama ini mama nana ini mama nani ini mama nina ini mama neni mana mama nana

this is mamma this is nana's mamma this is nani's mamma this is nina's mamma this is neni' s mamma where is nana's mamma

The teacher does not let the children open their textbooks yet. This lesson is intended to make them feel comfortable when they open the book later. They will find out, then, that they are already familiar with the sentences in the textbook. The theory behind this mode of instruction is, as we have already noted, that children should not be exposed to the shock of unknowns. The presence of unknowns will upset and scare the young tender mind, the teacher told me in all seriousness, and that is not good for a child's health. All precautions must be taken to convince children that they are learning lessons already familiar to them. There is nothing, and should be nothing, in the textbook to upset and scare them. The lesson of Indonesian thus starts with "family" in the textbook, and in the classroom I visited, it started, unsurprisingly, with mother, mama, the term of address the middle-class family in Jakarta often uses for mother. The society-based mama is the means to offer the children the term which is more familiar in their everyday life. For some it is the means to challenge and take over the state-sponsored ibu. But learning how to read and write in the classroom involves more than learning how to write and combine letters. Here is an example from my notes. The teacher nominated a boy to come forward and write a sentence, ini mama nina (this is nina's mamma) on the blackboard. He came in front of the blackboard as an authorized participant in the teacher's classroom discourse, shedding off the invisibility and inaudibility that engulfed him while he was in the domain of noise. It apparently was his first experience writing on the blackboard: He held a piece of white chalk in exactly the same way he held his pencil to write letters in his notebook, and wrote "ini ... " with letters the size of letters he writes in his notebook. He finished writing the sentence, went back to his seat, looked back at his writing on the blackboard and was shocked. His eyes caught his minuscule letters on the blackboard next to the huge letters written by the teacher. Obviously he had not been aware how huge were the letters the teacher wrote on the blackboard. Just four or five of the teacher's giant letters would have filled the entire page of his notebook. Here is another example from my notes: The teacher read each line, which the children repeated after her in unison. Each line was repeated three times. She then nominated a boy to lead the lesson.

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Blackboard

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Teacher and students

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He came forward and stood in front of the blackboard. The teacher gave him her stick, which was almost as tall as his own height. He read aloud the first three lines, which his classmates repeated after him. His was an authorized voice to which other children's voices join. Then: Suddenly he lost track. He hurriedly looked for the next line he had to read. Standing close to the blackboard which towered over the skinny six-year-old boy, he noticed for the first time that the white letters the teacher drew on it were absurdly large and, therefore, were difficult to decipher for his inexperienced eye. He was upset and his eyes ran right and left without clear focus. With his voice cracking, he read the fifth line his eyes finally caught, skipping the fourth. He was not yet prepared for the extraordinary size of the letters on the blackboard. It did not take long for the children to learn how to join their teacher in her authorized voice and then return to their private domain. In a few weeks, everyone was writing letters on the blackboard as large as the teacher's and having no trouble when it came time to switch back to small letters in their notebooks. In other words, they had learned to move back and forth, freely, easily, and almost unconsciously, between their sphere and the teacher's. Switching almost unconsciously back and forth between school Indonesian and everyday Indonesian, between the authorized voice and the noise, between huge letters on the blackboard and normal size letters in their notebook-these lessons, as well as many others which I no doubt missed because of my own years of schooling-will have a lasting effect on children for the rest of their lives. This all happened in the classroom in the first few weeks. Needless to say, there are children who are slow in learning these lessons. There was a girl, for instance, who could not copy the teacher's blackboard writing in her notebook. She could read and write by herself, but she seemed not to understand how to reproduce the teacher's writing on the blackboard in her notebook. She was not upset, but terribly nervous, sitting tight on her little wooden chair in the fifth row, alone, and being left out of the activity the teacher and other children were carrying on together. She gripped her new pink pencil in her right hand, while holding tightly in her left hand the vinyl string attached to her light blue plastic water bottle as if holding onto a life line in a sea. Her notebook lay open, and its white pages remained blank. She seemed unable to understand what was going on around her, not only how to transfer those huge letters on the blackboard onto the small pages of her notebook, but also how it is that all the students act in concert, copying, simultaneously and yet separately. She just kept staring at the blackboard in the midst of incessant chaotic noise. Writing, as we all know, is a highly isolated individual act. If we look the notebooks of ten different students, we can see the manifestations of the ten different and yet oddly standardized minds at work. Take the children's first home assignment: writing their names on their notebooks. This is a highly individual work, and yet every child does it on the same day and more or less in the same manner. This is what classroom instruction teaches. The girl has to learn how to imagine herself as a student among many, as the one among many different names in the name list, names of classmates who work simultaneously together and yet separately. Then she will understand how classroom teaching works, how the authorized discourse is structured, why children are copying the teacher's writing simultaneously together and separately in each of their notebooks. Then she has to

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learn that it does not matter whether or not she understands or agrees with what the teacher says and writes on the blackboard, that she simply has to repeat what the teacher says and copy what the teacher writes on the blackboard. The girl was slow learning all these lessons, but in a few weeks, all students, including this girl, were repeating after the teacher and copying her writings. Learning consists of repeating and reproducing the authorized and authoritative voice and writings with one's own voice in one's own notebook together with all others. By so doing, children are expected to experience the "joy" of accomplishment as they skillfully reproduce the teacher's voice. Learning is reconfirming; learning is repeating and copying; and learning is joining in the authorized and authoritative voice. The excitement of discovery, the excitement sparked by unexpected questions that inevitably arise from time to time in the classroom despite the teacher's efforts to avoid them, is quickly extinguished by being ignored as noise that lacks power to disturb the teacher's discourse. This process effectively implies that there is no such thing as the unknown. 6. WEH-WEH-WEH WEH-WEH-WEH

What happens in the teacher's sphere is only half of what happens in the classroom. The children learn to become students to their teacher and join her voice. But they also learn at the same time how they have been defined in their own sphere. As we have noted earlier, children are likened to happy noisy ducks and treated as such. They are an inherently communal noisy collectivity which does not count in itself unless granted the teacher's authorization. The children learn this construction quickly and reproduce it in the classroom. Let us come back to the classroom on the first day at school and see how this collectivity emerges. Now it is time for math. The teacher draws five large circles neatly on the blackboard. The children are waiting for her to finish her work. They look around and start socializing with others around them. This is their first chance to get to know each other. A boy is showing off his new made-in-Japan pencil-case, which at Rp 18,000 (about US$10 then) is almost three times as expensive as other children's. With a push of a button, a small box which holds a colored eraser will pop out. Another push will make all the pencils stand up like missiles ready to be launched at any enemy target. There are four or five buttons to play with. The teacher fills the circles with illustrations, things such as three open umbrellas, two ducks, four chairs, one desk, and five bananas. When she has finished drawing, she lets the children repeat after the teacher: "They are umbrellas. There are Three umbrellas." "They are chairs. There are Four chairs." The children happily repeat what she says. Then, she draws more circles on the blackboard, and fills them in with four ships, three airplanes, two fish, and so on. In the meantime, the missile pencil case has already traveled to a far corner of the classroom, and a group of children has begun playing with it, untroubled by questions concerning its owner or ownership. The boy who owns it leaves his seat to join the group to play with his pencil case, but does not do anything to claim ownership. Maybe there is no such thing as private ownership in this communal space in the making. The teacher looks back at the children and tells them to copy the drawings on the blackboard and match the numbers of things inside the first five circles with the numbers of things inside the new five circles she has just drawn. It is time for the

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children to work. Before they copy the circles, however, they have to draw a straight vertical line on the left end of the blank page of their notebook to set up margins, using a ruler which they are required to bring with them to school. They may not draw the line free-hand. The teacher erases the children's free-hand lines whenever she finds them while walking along the aisles. Only after the straight line is drawn correctly with the aid of a ruler may the children draw ten large circles. The circles also have to be perfectly drawn. There are plastic rulers which have cutouts of various sizes of circles, and the children have to use this tool to draw circles. But not all the children have these tools with them. Some have left them at home. Some have just lost theirs at this particular moment, for their neighbors are using them. Some do not know what to do, and some just do not care. Some leave their seats and walk over to other children. And they are chatting with each other all the time. Some just wait in their seats, casually, for a chance occasion that may bring rulers onto their desks. The girl who had trouble earlier in copying the teacher's blackboard writing in her notebook is now enlivened; she is fully participating in this noisy incessant formless communal activity now going on. Rulers freely circulate from one hand to another without a word which may signify the act of "borrowing." No one bothers to say "Please ... " or "Thank you ... "It is as if the children as well as rulers and erasers are all animated together. And students chat incessantly, and their conversation has little to do with rulers which are being passed around. 22 The classroom is filled with the noise children make. Some students have finished their work and are now trying to kill their time. Some are still waiting for rulers to appear on their desks from somewhere. This is from my notes: In one corner a small quarrel started between a boy and a girl who sat next to each other. She had picked up his ruler. Unlike other children, the boy protested. The ruler was left on the girl's desk while they quarreled about it. Another boy, who sat next to the girl, found the ruler there, took it without paying any attention to their quarrel, and started to draw a line with it in his notebook. Meanwhile, the owner of the ruler lost sight of his ruler, lost his interest in the matter, and the girl too seemed to have forgotten the assignment. This, I soon found, was a common scene in the classroom, and the teacher did not do anything to change it. She gave the children the assignment. Some finished it, and some others did not. The teacher just waited patiently for everyone to finish his or her work, while doing some administrative work or simply killing time at her desk. And all the while, under her nose, an incessantly noisy and active collectivity, which I can only call a communal body, was emerging in the classroom among the children who had not known each other only a few hours ago. But this collectivity in no way undermined the classroom order and the teacher's authority. It was precisely because the children were caught inside the classroom order which was controlled by the tolerant teacher that the communality among them began to evolve. They were caught in this space, which they could not leave, for the time period dictated by the teacher, working on the assignment given to them. The communal access to the necessary instruments took place because the children had to use them in order to 22 See a description of almost identical scenes in a Sundanese classroom in Glicken, "Sundanese Socialization and Indonesian Education" (PhD Dissertation, Cornell University, 1983), pp. 202-203 and 224.

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complete the work assigned to them by the teacher. She would wait patiently, but would not let them go without finishing. The communal student body would eventually form several networks and groups inside a few weeks time. The process took place, to my eye, as the structural development of the sequestered children's domain. Their communal networks actually transformed the suffocating authoritative classroom into a lively inhabitable space. Indeed, in some loosely administered classrooms in villages outside Jakarta where the children freely walked in and out of the classroom whenever they pleased, I did not witness such intense communal networking inside the classroom. All this has happened in the first few weeks of the students' school life. The classroom, constituted as separate and different from the family and the neighborhood community, has thus produced the family in authorized Indonesian and a new network community in its unauthorized domain. The parent-teacher has the power, which is ultimately derived from her name list, to decide what is the authorized voice and what is not. The order of the classroom emerges not from the suppression of all the unauthorized activities and voices of the children, but from an act of segregation that strictly distinguishes the authorized voice apart from the noise. What has to be guarded to maintain order in the classroom is the border that separates the two.

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National school

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he family portrayed in first-grade Indonesian textbooks invariably consists of parents and their young children. If this is the way the family, and in its extension, the nation, is imagined, where have the youth gone? Is this stage in life-one's youth-notionally distinct from childhood and adulthood? What position is it given in the family ideology and its practice? What does it mean to be a youth, remaja, in the New Order Indonesia? In Jakarta during the late 1980s and early 1990s, we would be most likely to meet the youth-not anak (children), not murid (pupils), not mahasiswa (students), not revolutionary pemuda (youth), but remaja-in the streets and read about them in the newspaper articles reporting on such things as rock concerts, movies, discos, soccer games, and street fights. The contemporary stereotypical image of youth portrays them as an immature collection of people, often loosely grouped together, sometimes wearing school uniforms, undisciplined, inflammable, wild, and, at best, unimportant. They are defined ambiguously in the family and society. They might be the students, unemployed, or semi-employed, but hardly fully employed. 1 They are invisible most of the time. Who are they and what makes them what they are: dangerously frustrated and capable of violent acts, but politically tame in contrast to the revolutionary pemuda of 1940s and the students of 1960s? Let us look at one incident that took place in 1990 and brought the youth into the spotlight. 1. THE MONITOR INCIDENT

Monitor was an enormously successful weekly entertainment information tabloid, which died a violent death in September 1990. As Tempo put it, Monitor put together TV programs "with thighs, breasts, and lotteries," though its exposure of thighs and breasts was quite tame judged by American or Japanese standards.2 Its circulation reached five to six hundred thousand a week before the demise of the publication, a record in the history of Indonesian journalism. 3 Its success was almost entirely attributed to its editor-in-chief, Arswendo Atmowiloto, who was called anak ajaib-the wonder child-of Indonesian journalism.4 He was a prolific, highly successful, writer-poet-playwright-editor in Jakarta in the 1980s. He was the author of Serangan Fajar (Dawn Raid) and Penghianatan G30S/PKI (The Treason of the September 30th Movement/the Indonesian Communist Party), both based on the 1 The unemployment rate for those between fifteen and twenty-five years of age in Indonesia is more than 50 percent. Out of more than two million people entering the job market every year, only three hundred thousand get full-time jobs. 2 Susanto Pudjomartono, "Arswendo," Tempo 35 (October 27, 1990), p. 27. 3 For the history of Indonesian journalism, see Daniel Dhakidae, "The State, the Rise of Capital, and the Fall of Political Journalism: Political Economy of Indonesian News Industry" (PhD dissertation, Cornell University, 1991). 4 Farid Gaban and Djoenaedy Siswo Pratikno, "Jentera 1990: Arswendo Atmowiloto: Tembang Keindahan Wanita," Editor 1 (September 15, 1990), pp. 43-44.

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films Soeharto loved most, as well as many silat (martial art) stories, family and love stories, plays, and poems.s Tempo writes: Arswendo Atmowiloto was, as a matter of fact, a new phenomenon in the Indonesian press. He began his career from the very bottom: writing for the wall magazine [writing graffiti]. Later he began to send his writings to various mass media. Then he became Indonesia's most productive writer. "I write because what I can do is indeed only writing. My motivation for writing is: to look for money and communication," said Arswendo, in the magazine, Horizon, in 1989.6 The incident began when Muslim leaders criticized a Monitor article that reported the outcome of the readers' poll on the "Most Admired People" because they disapproved of the article's treatment of Prophet Mohammed. Within days, groups of Muslim youth took to the streets to protest against Monitor, and ransacked and burnt its office. The government promptly canceled its publication license. In its end-of-the-year review, Editor wrote on the incident as follows:

Monitor Gets Heat [Lher] In the end, Monitor met its tragic fate. The tabloid which had a circulation of more than 500,000 copies was in the end closed down. This is all because the "Five Million Poll for the Most Admired People" caused a commotion? The result of the poll was printed in the October 15, 1990, issue of Monitor-under the title "Here They Are: 50 Figures Most Admired by Our Readers." What made Islamic circles angry was the placement of Prophet Mohammed at the 11th rank-while the Editor-in-Chief of Monitor, Arswendo Atmowiloto (known as Wendo), was ranked lOth. Wendo-after he was discharged from all the positions [he had held] in the PT Gramedia group, which also publishes Kompas-was arrested and interrogated by the authorities concemed.s There was no doubt in anyone's mind about the cause of the incident. It was plainly the name list printed in the October 15 issue of Monitor that invited the ransacking of its office. The list contained fifty names of those whom Monitor readers chose as their most admired figures. Before proceeding to examine the list, however, it is useful to look at the readers who actually purchased this weekly tabloid 5 See, among many others, Arswendo Atmowiloto, Serangan Fajar: Diangkat dari Film yang memenangkan 6 pia/a Citra pada Festival Film Indonesia (Jakarta: Yayasan Loh Djinawi, 1982); Arswendo Atmowiloto, Penghianatan G305/PKI (Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan, 1986); Arswendo Atmowiloto, Tembang Tanahair: Cerita Silat (Jakarta: Penerbit PT Gramedia, 1989); Arswendo Atmowiloto, Dua lbu (Jakarta: Gramedia, 1981); Arswendo Atmowiloto, Canting: Sebuah Roman Keluarga (Jakarta: Gramedia, 1986). 6 Susanto Pudjomartono, "Arswendo," Tempo (October 27, 1990), p. 27. 7 It was called the "Five Million Poll" because Rp 5 million was to be awarded to the one hundred winners chosen from among all the voters who responded to the poll. Amran Nasution, G. Sugrahetty Dyan K., and Sri Pudyastuti R., "Setelah 'Kagum 5 Juta' Itu Diumumkan," Tempo 35 (October 27, 1990), p. 31. 8 "Kaleidoskop '90: Monitor Terkena Lher," Editor 16 (December 29, 1990), p. 57. Monitor called its style of journalism ser dan /her [lust and heat]. The title of this Editor article plays with the phrase.

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covering TV programs, popular music concerts, and film schedules along with a few pictures of the thighs and breasts of popular film stars. Monitor said it targeted "lower middles" as its readers. But the "lower middles" do not necessarily constitute an easily identifiable class of people separate and distinct from the middle middle or the lower class population. In Jakarta, perhaps more than any other city in Indonesia, there are live-ins, brothers and sisters, cousins, nieces, and nephews, and even aunts and uncles, who stay in a house together with its bapak, ibu, and their children, as members of their family household, whether it is affluent or middle class, as long as it can afford to support them. There are also other live-ins, such as housemaid, cook, gate keeper, chauffeur, nursemaid, washing woman, seamstress, gardener, and house boy, in the same household. There are no real boundaries that separate live-in relatives from live-in household helpers. In less affluent households, live-in relatives actually work as household helpers. Sometimes household helpers are neighbors' children who come from the same villages where the bapak and ibu once lived. Some unmarried live-in brothers and sisters are college students or perennial part-time academy students, while some houseboys also attend vocational schools in the evening. Some live-ins are married and have their children back in their home villages, often with their parents. These young live-ins spend most of their time in and around the house, socializing with other live-ins in the neighborhood, caring for the young children of their kakak, elder brother I sister (that is the bapak and ibu of the household), helping with household routines, driving the car to antar-jemput bapak's family members, and opening the gate for guests. They are often found idly squatting, chatting, smoking, or meditating in a group at the roadside near their houses. They hesitate to stay long in others' houses. They usually do their own laundry and ironing-this is true of both men and women-help housemaids cook, and eat separately from their kakak and their children. They are not considered to be full permanent members of the household and are not introduced to visitors. Some are constantly on the move from one household to another, from village to city and from city to village every two or three months. At the height of their youthful lives, they are each dependent on and tolerated by the First Couple of the household. They normally have no stable jobs and no stable incomes of their own. They will eventually get jobs, get married, or return home to their villages, and thus get rid of their present state of suspension, but they may have to remain in this state for years. In the house, they commonly have access to TV and radio, and from time to time they obtain some pocket money. They may even go, say, to Bali, accompanying the First Family of the household on vacation as driver or nursemaid. Some of them live in the most expensive residential areas of Jakarta. They are socially ambiguous and psychologically ambivalent. The younger sister of a friend of mine, who "borrowed" household money from a housemaid at knife point, was one of them. She goes to disco clubs whenever she can and often cries for her fatherless infant son who lives with her parents in a village in Central Java. These young people, ambiguous and vulnerable in their positions, are "lower-middles," and they represent the readers of Monitor whom I know of. The Muslim youths who protested against Monitor and ransacked its office, I believe, are not very different socially from other such youths who live in Jakarta.

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Typically, these live-in members of the household watch TV together and eat noodle soup (bought from a peddler in the late evening) together, after the First Family has retired to bed. Late evening TV programs that follow prime time imported TV programs and national news are targeted to attract this audience. In the late 1980s, many of these late evening TV programs were locally produced family stories. They are quite similar: young men and women suffer under authoritarian, unsympathetic, intolerant bapak and ibu, but in the end, those rich powerful bapak and ibu come to their senses and recognize their mistakes once they have lost their son or daughter. Loss of a young, powerless family member or two, in short, is nightly presented as an effective solution for family problems in the government-owned TV channel. Live-ins go to their small bedrooms only after all the TV programs are over. Their rooms are crammed with their modest possessions-clothes, textbooks, a small desk and a cheap vinyl stool, an old manual typewriter, a pin-up calendar of pop singers and film stars, a guitar, a mirror, make-up kits, a bag or two, a pair of shoes, some accessories, souvenir wood carvings, seashells, left-over snacks and dirty glasses, spoons, and forks. They frequently share their rooms with bulky family picnic sets, a sewing machine and piles of old women's magazines. When the Muslim youth ransacked and burned the Monitor editorial office, President Soeharto announced (according to Lukman Harun, vice-chairman of the Muhammadiyah, who reported the President's reaction following an audience with him) that "what Monitor had done" impinged on ethnic, religious, and racial matters and disturbed national stability, that its editor should take responsibility for the disturbance, and that its publication license was therefore canceled. Soeharto thus made it clear that the government would not protect Monitor, or for that matter any media organization, from the mob's assault, and that Monitor should be blamed for the disturbance and the ransacking of its own office. He also asked, via Muhammadiyah, the vice-chairman, that all sections of society, above all the Muslim youth, do their best to show restraint, to be calm, and to keep themselves from becoming provoked, so that everything could be dealt with in accordance with laws and regulations.9 As Soeharto's pronouncement clearly demonstrated, the government approach to the youth was paternalistic, regarding them as an immature mass incapable of making their own reasonable and responsible decisions and treating them as a group that could be easily provoked into violent actions on the street. Judged according to the government's logic, it is the provocateur, in this case, Monitor, the victim, that should be held responsible for the actions of the attackers; the logic at work behind this conclusion presumes that the youth do not know what they are doing. In other words, the youth, remaja, on the street are no different from anak, children, in the classroom. They are big children who happen to gather outside the classroom, and their wildness in the street is discounted, even disregarded, as was the children's unauthorized noise in class. If they are provoked into violence that disturbs social order, it is therefore not their fault, but the one who provoked them should be held responsible for it. After the disturbance, Arswendo appeared on TV and apologized for publishing the popularity poll result "without editing" it. He also put out an advertisement to 9 Amran Nasution, G. Sugrahetty Dyan K., Rustam F. Mandayun, Priyono B. Sumbogo, "Setelah Breidel, Perlu Penyejuk?," Tempo 36 (November 3, 1990), p. 30.

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the same effect in major Jakartan newspapers. But it was too late. The publication license of Monitor was canceled nevertheless. Arswendo was arrested, brought to court, and eventually sentenced to five-year imprisonment. The court verdict faithfully followed Soeharto's pronouncement. The Jakarta Post reports: The judges said yesterday that Arswendo, as an intelligent editor and writer, should not have published the controversial poll, which could hurt the religious feelings of the Moslems.lO He was found guilty of not editing the poll result for the Monitor's young readers. The court, in other words, said that writers and editors are responsible for "editing," that is distorting and discounting the voice of the young readers as noise in order to avoid provoking anyone. The court confirmed the general, official logic that youth are immature, that their collective voice has no weight, that they should not be provoked, and that if they are provoked, the one who provoked them should be held responsible. 2. THE DANGER OF A NAME LIST

In reporting the Monitor incident, the media wisely avoided reproducing the fatal name list Monitor had published that outraged the Muslim youth. The list recorded names of the poll favorites, ranked in order according to the number of post cards sent in from readers for each individual. The tally ran as follows: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

14. 15. 16.

President Soeharto Prof. Dr. B.J. Habibie President Sukarno (late) Iwan Fals KH Zainuddin MZ General Try Susrisno Saddam Hussein Ny Hardiyanti Indra Rukmana Information Minister Harmoko Arswendo Atmowiloto Nabi Mohammed SAW Christine Hakim Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs Soedomo Nicky Astria Hetty Koes Endang Rhomalrama

5,003 2,975 2,662 2,431 1,633 1,447 847 800 797 663 616 430 405 392 357 350

Based on the poll results, President Soeharto was the contestant who won most outstanding "admiration"; State Minister for Research and Technology, Prof. Dr. B. J. Habibie, an "idol" for those who believe in the development of Indonesia along 10 "Tabloid editor gets five-year jail term for blasphemy against Islam," The Jakarta Post, April 9, 1991, p. 1.

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scientific and technological advancement, came in second; Iwan Fals, a skinny pop singer, won third place; the fourth was Zainuddin MZ, an Islamic preacher; in fifth was General Try Sutrisno, the youthful looking Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces; Hardiyanti Indra Rukmana, better known as Mbak Tutut, in eighth place, is a highly visible businesswoman and Soeharto's eldest daughter; Harmoko, one rank above Arswendo, is in charge of supervising the media; Christine Hakim, in twelfth, is a film star; Nicky Astria is a rock singer; Hetty Koes Endang is a kroncong singer; and Rhoma Irama is the king of dangdut. The list is interesting in itself, for it shows us an odd mixture of "idols" the youth "admire," but for the purpose of our discussion here, the form of the name list may be even more significant than the content. 11 In this list, the Head of the State and Prophet Mohammed are placed on the same plane as if they were in the same classroom together with Saddam Hussein, Soeharto's assistants, pop singers, and so on. Worse, unlike the school attendance book, these names are ranked hierarchically according to the number of votes each name received. Framed in a square drawn by neat straight lines, the list presents the names so that anyone can see at a glance the final rankings. Everyone can see, for example, that Iwan Fals is more "admired" than Information Minister Harmoko. In fact, Tempo reported, it was a second-grade school child who helped incite the protest by raising a question about the list: After the [October 15] issue of Monitor which printed the poll result was circulated, the commotion exploded. The first open reaction broke out in Medan. Waspada, an influencial newspaper there, printed the harsh rebuke of Hasrul Azwar, Chairman of the United Development [Party] representatives at the North Sumatra Provincial People's Legislative Assembly, on the first page of its edition last Thursday [October 18, 1990], just one day after Monitor was distributed in the town. The leading figure of United Development Party [PPP, with strong Muslim constituencies] charged that the poll was invalid, and insulted Islam. "My child, who is still in the second grade of the elementary school, asked me why Iwan Fals was better known than Prophet Mohammed. I found it difficult to answer," said HasruL12 As usual, rumors circulated in Jakarta. One rumor said that President Soeharto acted immediately so that no one would have time to question why he was more admired than Prophet Mohammed. This rumor was based on the assumption that the list could have raised a delicate question about the relationship between the state and the religion of Islam because the list placed the Head of the State and the Prophet on the same plane for anyone to see. Another rumor said that all those people whose names were ranked above the Prophet felt relieved to see that only Arswendo was attacked. And there was even a rumor that claimed Arswendo's name was intentionally planted there as a joke. Understandably, therefore, other magazines did not reproduce the name list in reporting the incident. Instead, they spread these names around g,mong sentences and paragraphs. Here is an example: " 11 See in this connection, James Siegel, Shadow and Sound: The Historical Thoughts of a Sumatran People (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1979), p. 7. 12 Amran Nasution, G. Sugrahetty Dyan K., and Sri Pudyastuti R., "Setelah 'Kagum 5 Juta' Itu Diumumkan," Tempo 35 (October 27, 1990), p. 28.

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The result of the poll, "Admire 5 Million [Kagum 5 Juta]," was announced [diumumkan, lit., made public] in Monitor on October 15, 1990. There was a large enough number of answers that reached the editorial desk: 33,963 post cards. Among them, 5,003 post cards chose Soeharto, thus the President of the Republic of Indonesia occupied the first place, followed by Minister for Research and Technology B. J. Habibie (2,975), former President Soekarno (2,662), singer Iwan Pals (2,431), leading preacher Zainuddin MZ. (1,633), Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces General Try Sutrisno (1,447), President of Iraq Saddam Hussein (847), Mrs. Hardiyanti Indra Rukmana (800), Information Minister Harmoko (797), and the tenth rank was occupied by Arswendo Atmowiloto (663); one step below Arswendo was printed the name of Prophet Mohammed.13 The content in the paragraph above is no different from that of the original list published in Monitor. Prophet Mohammed still comes right after Arswendo. But the paragraph above does not produce the kind of visual effect as the list does, simply because one does not see at a glance all the names placed on the same plane. The Muslim youth were provoked not only because Monitor placed Prophet Mohammed as the eleventh of the hierarchical name list but fundamentally because Monitor included Him in the list with ordinary human beings, as if they were classmates, in the clear authoritative style anyone can see the ranking at a glance. Tempo continues: He charged that what Arswendo did as editor-in-chief of Monitor was the same that Salman Rushdie did: blasphemy against Islam. "The Prophet is Allah's messenger who may not be placed on a par [disamakan] with an ordinary human being whoever he/she may be," he said. In Saleh's opinion, therefore, Arswendo has to be arrested and sent to court.14 Note that in the quotation above, Arswendo, Salman Rushdie, Prophet Mohammed, Allah, and Saleh are placed together side by side in one paragraph, even in one sentence. Arswendo and Salman Rushdie, for instance, come right before the Prophet and Allah. But this article was not accused of blasphemy. It was the list as a form that offended certain Muslims. The sentence, "The Prophet cannot be placed on a par with an ordinary human being .. ," might be written more precisely thus: "The name of the Prophet cannot be placed in a single list with the names of ordinary human beings ... " A list creates a framework in which all its participants can be seen at a glance, whether it is organized hierarchically or, say, alphabetically. It conveys the sense of indifferent finality characteristic of bureaucratic documents. The playful use of diumumkan, announced or made public, the word generally associated with government announcements, in the quote above, underscores the list's "official" authoritative nature. The list as a form, like the students' name list in the attendance book, is associated with authority and should not be mixed up with noise. Monitor erred because it filled the list with names which ought to have been dispersed in disorder. The voice of its young readers is a noise, no different from the children's weh-weh-weh in the classroom, and must be dealt with as such, not as if it 13 Ibid., p. 32. 14 Ibid., p. 28.

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were "official." Their voice is confused and wild, because that is what they are; they resemble and can be metaphorically represented by their own rooms: crammed with textbooks, a small desk, a manual typewriter, dirty plates, spoons, and forks, obscene pictures, make-up kits, seashells, and so on. Such disorder should not be exposed in the form of the list for anyone to see and take seriously. It should be given its own auxiliary place, like the young live-in's crammed bedroom, where it can be tolerated as an insignificant noise. And it had been indeed the style of Monitor which called itself "journalism of ser and lher." Ser and lher are untranslatable vocal utterances of lust and heat. In so doing, Monitor gave the voice of its inchoate young readers a place and granted a shape to its insignificance. Or perhaps we can say that their voice was allowed to have a form of expression as wild ejaculations and that form was Monitor. It nicely fit with the New Order cultural definition of youth and hence its political concerns. Youths are immature, and therefore their voice does not count. But they are wild, and their ser and lher, lust and heat, can be unleashed, because they are immature and do not know self-restraint. They need to be watched carefully and guided from behind if necessary. As editors of the other mass media instinctively understood, the use of a list for such a wild noise was politically dangerous and ought to be avoided. Monitor, therefore, had been tolerated as an immature youthful ejaculation, the weh-weh-weh of the youth on the street, until it published the list shaping and expressing its young readers' voice in a manner that was starkly clear and audible. It was as if young live-ins' meager possessions, such as clothes, textbooks, obscene pictures, make-up kits, and all, together with the smell of their human bodies, had been spread out and exposed at the entrance of Bina Graha, the Presidential Office, or on the polished marble floor of a spacious mosque. No doubt the insult was felt by those who inhabited official spaces. But more important, it figured as a bad joke for those people who were thus forced to eye their own rubbish. Many young people themselves were enraged because they were clearly shown an image of themselves. There was a good reason for Soeharto's pronouncement that Arswendo was responsible for the disturbance, for he indeed created a document that acted like a mirror, enabling the young readers to see their own collective visage: their immaturity, marginality, confusion, and insignificance. They might have even been scared to find their private utterance given the appearance of the authorized discourse. That afternoon, the office of the tabloid Monitor was really in disorder. The window glass was broken and scattered around. The office door had holes here and there. The office furniture, such as editorial desks, typewriters, and computers was turned upside down. Pictures of women in scant clothing-which had become a distinctive feature of the tabloid's style up till now-pasted on the office walls, also became targets: tom and damaged. IS The violence unleashed by the list was directed at the self-appointed clown who made the youth see their reality. They destroyed the small office on the roadside. But that was all. The disturbance itself never seriously threatened the social stability the New Order cherishes, while the potential threat, the clown, who blurred the border 15 Ibid., p. 28.

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that separates noise from audible voice, was put in prison. The youth wanted to stay where they are. Soeharto made it sure that they would get what they wanted. 3. LOVE LESSONS

Are the youth tamed, then? Yes and no. Youth, as remaja, are certainly not revolutionary youth, pemuda. They are not immune from the family ideology and will not think as revolutionary pemuda did that they can force their bapak to act as they wish. They also do not want their official and unofficial frameworks mixed up, as the Monitor incident clearly demonstrated. But as the classroom has two spheres, the official sphere and the children's sphere, the youth outside the classroom also have two spheres, the official sphere accorded them by their bapak and ibu, and their own sphere. As children in the classroom keep two notebooks, one for their official expressions to be examined by their teacher and the other for their own expressions-in the second book they write illustrations, graffiti, games, daydreams, and secret codes for communal communication with their friends-the youth also have two languages, one official and the other unofficial and unauthorized, expressed in their idle conversations in front of late evening TV programs, "pop" stories they read, "pop" songs their idol singers sing, films they see, and discos they frequent. Their presence does not count in the eyes of the government because it remains invisible. Their voice cannot be heard because it is a noise, and as noise it fails to reach those in authority. But whether significant or not to the bapak's eyes and ears, their own sphere both in the classroom and outside is real for the children and for the youth. They must live with school Indonesian or bapak's official Indonesian, whose form is tedious, empty, formal; bearable only because their private, communal languages provide them with a vibrant auxiliary. To see their world and appreciate the way in which they remain rebellious-to recognize that they are not entirely tamed and continue to stir up fun in their own sphere-it is useful to listen to their "school pops." The one quoted below is titled "Love Lesson." Its outstanding feature is a playful replacement of words, contexts, and meanings which originally belonged to the authorized discourse. Indonesian school life is full of love lessons. For instance, "I love Indonesian" is the title of Indonesian language textbooks. Moral Pancasila Education, whose acronym is PMP, includes sentences such as "I love my country," "I love my father and mother," and "I love my brothers and sisters." The word, "love," however, is never used for sexual love, and that is the way the rebellious youth naturally use the word to have fun with that dull, empty school Indonesian and official Indonesian. School pops, like other pop music, are available in cassette tapes at music stores. As the number of children and youths with their own pocket money to buy cassette tapes is increasing, capitalism has found a small niche to market their youthful rebelliousness as a business, keeping their language alive, and making its effect felt. Unfortunately, its comically light tone and melody, which play with the solemnity of Pancasila (five state principles), cannot be reproduced on paper. But hopefully we can get some sense of its rebelliousness from the lyric.

Ambivalent Youth

Mata Pelajaran Bercinta (Female voice) Hoo huaa hoo sayangku Tak sabar lagi menunggu Kepankah kau ke rumahku? Be/ajar berdua, sambil bersantai Oh asyiknya! (Male voice) Hoo huaa hoo manisku Janganlah engkau gelisah Aku pasti menbantumu Aku gurunya, engkau murindnya

Nah dengarlah! (Female): Biolo:si? (Male): mempelajari "body" kamu! (Female): Geografi? (Male): Dimana letak rumahmu? (Female): Sejarah? (Male): Apakah "bokap" mu orang kaya dulu? (Femala and Male together): Hoo huuaa hoo kasihku Alangkah senang hatiku lngin rasanya begini Bercanda bedua, sambil be/ajar Oh bahagia (Female); Matematika? (Male): Mengitung tanggal bertemu! (Female): 0/ahraga? (Male): 0/ah jasmani bersama, eh sa/ah (Female): Agama? (Male): Besok-besok ke penghulu!

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Hoo huaa hoo my love I can't wait any more When will you come to my house? Study together, while relaxing Oh, how nice!

Hoo huaa hoo my sweetie Don't worry I'll sure help you I'll be the teacher, you'll be the pupil Now listen! Biology? study your "body"! Geography? Where is your house located? History? Were your "old folks" rich once?

Hoo huuaa hoo my love How happy my heart is I want to feel this way Be playful together, while studying What happiness

(Female): Tapi yan:s penting . ..

Mathematics? Counting the days till we meet! Physical exercise? Exercise our bodies together, oops wrong Religion? Someday [we'll] go to the [Muslim] religious official! But what is important ...

(Female and Male together): PMP! Pacaran Mesti tau Pancasila (Female): tentu dong ... !

PMP! [Moral Pancasila Education] Sweethearts Must know Pancasila of course ... !

This is how they fight official Indonesian. Indonesian is not fossilized. While only politically safe vocabularies are reproduced and repeated in this song, the tone,

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intonation, and even melody are employed to substitute for forbidden words and sentences in order to enrich the means of expression. For its vitality to regain significance, however, the Indonesian language needs to break the shell enclosing it and become liberated from its imposed dual structure.

CONCLUSION

H

ere is a story, published serially in the children's magazine Bobo in late 1990, shortly after Riantiarno's highly successful play, Suksesi (Succession), drew public attention to the question of presidential succession and was banned in Jakarta. Titled "The Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Thessavio," this is a story about Prince Alfonso, how he has proved his qualifications as the future king. The story goes as follows: Prince Alfonso is the crown prince of the kingdom of Thessavio. One day, he falls in love with a beautiful girl, Nydia. She sells flowers in the market. She is sweet. She is beautiful. She is Alfonso's own choice and love. But this is a New Order Indonesian children's story, not a Disney fairly tale, where the young prince may meet a beautiful girl and they live together happily thereafter. In this story, Nydia, Alfonso's love, kills herself even before the first episode is over because his FatherKing declares that she is a wrong person for his consort. She is not the right person because "tradition" says that the king's consort has to be born at the moment of a lunar eclipse. Every king has come to the throne after he has accepted the right woman. One must learn self-sacrifice and self-restraint before becoming a king. Her death is a great loss for Alfonso, and as a result, he falls seriously ill. Nydia is evidently introduced in the first episode so that Alfonso will experience desire and learn, afterward, what it is to lose someone, or something, precious. Soon after, twin sisters appear before him as the candidates who meet all the conditions set by the tradition. They are Sosya and Yona. They look like Nydia so perfectly that Alfonso even screams "Nydia! Oh ... you have come back! But ... Why have you become two?" All three women, Nydia, Sosya, and Yona, are identical, but only one out of the three is the right answer. His initial choice, Nydia, has turned out to be wrong, and his wrong choice led to Nydia's death. The suitor, Alfonso, apparently made a mistake in choosing Nydia that was very much like the mistake made by the little girl who wanted to have a red candy and, therefore, was denied it. But now he has learned the lesson. He will not make his own choice. But Sosya and Yona do not make it easy for him to discover the right answer. Not only are they perfectly identical twins, but they also dress identically and produce identical weavings. The only difference, and this is hidden, is that one is the right answer, while the other is not. Sosya says Alfonso should choose Yona, while Yona tells him to choose Sosya. "I love you, Sosya," Prince Alfonso says. "And you too, the same, Yona! Don't make me choose. I am incapable. I can't!" 1 To find out the right answer without making his own choice, Alfonso asks the two to show which one is better qualified as the royal consort. He says: "Sosya and Yona, you are the candidates for my royal consort. I will choose the one between two of you who is the most loyal, because the dedication and loyalty of the royal consort have to be perfect. Now, look for the white flower which grows at Nydia's grave. 1 Nona M. Suhardi, "Putra Makota Kerajaan Thessario" [Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Thessario], Bobo 38 (December 27, 1990), pp. 14-15.

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The flower can be found in the Genius Valley. The one who gets it first for me will be my consort. I'll give you four days."2 The two women, however, have already achieved the self-sacrificing, unconditionally generous state that characterizes ideal motherhood. Neither one aspires to become the royal consort nor would either one compete with the other, but rather, each sister would concede victory to her sister. Sosya tells to herself" Actually I know where the flower can be found. Even if I go there by a roundabout route, I can come back to the palace in three days. But I won't do it. I'll wait until the fourth day. Then I'll come back without the flower. Let Yona bring the flower back!" 3 Sosya comes back empty-handed. So does Yona. Now, Alfonso makes up his mind. After all, he has never wanted to become the king. He finds himself in this difficult position because the death of his elder brother has left him as the only candidate, calon tunggal, to succeed the kingship. He tells his people that he will jump into fire and kill himself rather than choosing one over the other, for he does not want to hurt the heart of anyone and cause dissension and disharmony among the people of the kingdom. Making one's own choice is an act of childish immaturity, and he will never repeat a mistake. At this moment the right answer reveals itself. Sosya, who loves Alfonso, lets her personal emotion, emosi, stand in her way. That is, she wants Alfonso to have his own way. Yona, on the other hand, runs to Alfonso, guides him away from fire, and tries to throw herself into fire, because the death of the only candidate will lead the kingdom to disaster. It does not matter how she feels about Alfonso. What matters is the happiness of the people of the kingdom, and it is her responsibility to sacrifice herself in order to save the only candidate for the kingship. Alfonso now declares Yona his royal consort. Sosya quietly throws herself into fire and eliminates the wrong answer. It is the right responsible performance for the wrong candidate. The beauty of the flame that consumes Sosya is the proof that the Moon God has accepted her surrender. This confirms Yona as the right answer. Thus has Alfonso's trial come to a happy ending for the Kingdom of Thessavio. The happy nation is blessed with the crown prince and his consort who have proved their qualifications. By now, many of the elements in this story should be familiar enough to pass without any long comment. Its moral is plainly clear. The crown prince as well as his royal consort must learn self-control and self-sacrifice and prove their maturity before they become the first couple of the kingdom. So must Indonesia's President and his royal consort, the Vice-President. No wonder Soeharto waits until after people come to him and ask him to stay in power as the President every five years to announce his decision to serve as the President for another five-year period. As the only candidate it is his responsibility to sacrifice himself for the sake of people ... In fact this educational children's story was written a year after the publication of Soeharto's autobiography. In that book, the President frankly explained the issues that arose concerning the 1988 selection of the vice-president at the fifth General Assembly (MPR). Once in every five years, the Assembly's one thousand delegates meet in Jakarta and elect the president and the vice-president. Everyone knew that Soeharto would be chosen as President for the fifth term. The focus of interest, therefore, was the selection of vice president. Soedaromono was the candidate who 2 lbid., p. 14. 3lbid., p. 15.

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had Soeharto's unstated yet unmistakable support, but he was not the only candidate because H. J. Naro SH., who was quietly supported by Gen. Benny Moerdani, dared to run for the vice presidency as an alternative candidate. A few hours before the formal voting, however, the "wrong" candidate withdrew in tears under frenzied pressure from party leaders who had been summoned by the president. Soeharto accused Naro and his supporters of using their rights "without observing their responsibility." The punishment for Naro's "mistake" was dire. He was thrown into political death, and now he is nearly a social as well as a political outcast. This lesson, crucial for political survival, was passed on to the younger generation through the "educational" children's stories. Soeharto is the only person who has the power to enforce his decisions and, therefore, know the right answer all the time. The Bapak of all bapak of the New Order personifies both the Dutch Governor General, who headed the state machine and controlled the state violence, and Ki Hadjar Dewantara, who lead the counter-institution and constructed the national tradition. He also embodies the Father-King who judges Nydia to be the wrong candidate, and the Moon God, who establishes the traditions of the kingdom. The story thus tells us in a succinct way the very essence of the New Order Father-Knows-Best Family State ideology, both its logic and its vacuity. Here, it is useful to note that the theory that children should be free and should learn from their mistakes is twisted to become the theory that children have to find out the correct answer hidden behind parental silence and accept it. One proves his maturity when he learns not to make his own decisions and insightfully accepts the right answer without being told it. Alfonso has done so. Having accepted the right answer, Yona, he receives the Moon God's blessing. In Indonesia, like anywhere else, school textbooks and children's books are a good place to study the ideological foundation of a regime in its bare essentials. Children have little control over what they read until after they start buying books of their own choice with their own pocket money. Textbooks are guaranteed "bestsellers" that school children have to buy and read everywhere and every year. Writers, editors and publishers of children's books also set their eyes on parents, teachers, and most importantly, officials from the Ministry of Education and Culture. The ministry in Indonesia, aided by international organizations, subsidizes the publication of children's books and buys them for school libraries. Teachers suggest parents buy "good" books for children, books that supplement textbooks and prove useful for their education and moral growth. School textbooks and children's books therefore reveal the "good" lessons about family, school, and state, as well as many others. What have we learned about the New Order family state ideology and its practice by surveying school textbooks and children's books, and collecting our observations in the family courtyard, in government and business offices, and in the school classroom? Perhaps this much can be said regarding useful lessons learned in our examination of the Indonesian family. First, New Order Indonesia is a huge world of connections. The people in Jakarta, for instance, classify people into two categories: acquaintances, kenalan, and strangers, tidak kenal. All the acquaintances are treated like "family members." Introducing someone to someone ~lse serves as a way to extend one's family network. Escorting someone somewhere, antar, and coming to meet someone to escort him or her to somewhere else, jemput, are two most important rituals for Jakartans to establish connections and extend their family networks. In this world of

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connections, there is only one hierarchical relationship: the bapak-anak relationship. Indonesia established its independence in the revolution, Indonesia style, when the anak stood up against their bapak. The New Order started with the arrival of the new bapak, Soeharto, in the counter-revolution against this revolutionary bapak-anak relationship and in the name of defending family happiness. Second, this world of connections has been built on the notion of family, keluarga, precisely because "family" was, and still is, the empty signifier. The Indonesian family was born and has grown up mostly in the classroom. It has no sociological referent, and even now, it remains a vacuous syntactical structure on top of which school and official Indonesian is built. The Indonesian family, with its own father (bapak), mother (ibu), children (anak), elder siblings (kakak), and younger siblings (adik), thus most comfortably inhabits the modern official spaces: government and corporate offices as well as schools. The family ideology is formulated by several key concepts: hangat represents the kind of immediate warmth one enjoys in his parent's slendang, which, together with the sense of its loss, kehilangan, constitutes the foundation on which the family is constructed. Anak tertua, or the eldest child, matures by experiencing the warmth of, and the subsequent loss of, parental love, kashi sayang. The older sibling [kakak] assists the parents, bapak and ibu, and takes care of the younger siblings [adik]. The family, keluarga, thus becomes the institution in which the power structure is manifested on the name of love and responsibility. Third, kekeluargaan, the family idea or family-ism, is built on this notion of family and facilitates the "family-like" relations in the modern bureaucratic organizations such as schools and offices. It was born in the Dutch era in the Taman Siswa classroom, as a nationalist counter-hegemonic ideology and practice against the Dutch colonial organisatie. Family-ism turned hegemonic as the nationalist bapak became the government officials and, with the arrival of the new generation of counter-revolutionary bapak at the beginning of the New Order, the transformation of bapak was completed. Yet family-ism has inherited the colonial anti-hegemonic nature in an odd way and manifests itself in government and in business as a duality between laws and regulations on the one hand and the bapak's tolerance and arbitrariness on the other. Nor is the classroom immune to this duality. With the school system now firmly under the bapak's control, the duality is being reproduced in the form of the teacher's official sphere and the children's communal sphere, the teacher's official discourse and the children's noise. The children learn not only the national language but also the duality it produces. They develop their skill to commute between two spheres and simultaneously internalize their invisibility as the insignificant collectivity. It seems to me that the unspoken truth of the violence on which the New Order regime stands remains unquestioned less because no one asks such questions (they do) than because such undesirable questions are thrown into the sphere of "noise." Order is maintained not by suppressing all the voices, which would require enormous energy and high efficiency from the government, but by guarding the border that separates the two spheres. The final lesson we have learned is that the national language contains a crucial void at its core. The current regime may be defined by the violence with which Soeharto came into power and which the regime is still capable of unleashing, and yet, the fact is kept unspoken. The blood that covered the land in 1965 is painted over with the flowers, the product of the motherland's love. Learning Indonesian today

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means learning not only its grammar and syntax, but also what must be kept unsaid and how important it is to know what lies behind the silence. The natural outcome is that the children and youth distrust and often refuse to accept what the national language conveys to them. The truth has been kept unsaid, therefore, what is said cannot attest the truth. School/ official Indonesian remains a lingua franca, empty of its referent and disowned by the people who actually speak it every day. Was it my daydream to have witnessed the children being robbed of their language in the classroom? How might Indonesian become the national language, rather than the rootless lingua franca? It largely depends on what will happen to the concept of Indonesian family which has always functioned as the essential element in the history of the national language. Pramoedya and President Soeharto are the two most outstanding architects of images representing the current Indonesian family. All Pramoedya's works, however, have been banned from circulation today. Why? The document the Attorney General produced to ban Pramoedya's recent book, Glasshouse, says that the following quotation from the book, among others, "disparages national moral values." 4 How happy European children are. They are free to criticize, to declare their disbelief in a policy, and without being punished, let alone exiled. Those who are criticized and those who criticize lose nothing, let alone their freedom. Rather, they advance by correcting each other.... Try to criticize your Kings. You would have been killed by the sword before uttering your final words .... " The interchangeability of parent-child with king-subject is, again, striking. The fact that Pramoedya's book has been banned proves the accuracy, the force, of his critique. Pramoedya is threatening to the regime, I think, not only because of his forthright criticism of the way free expression is restricted in Indonesia, but also because of the alternative child-parent model he provides, in this case, in the name of "European children." He writes that European children are happy because they have the right to criticize parents and kings. Compared with the mature, responsible child as portrayed and defined in Indonesian children's literature-one thinks of Rani or Rina-the "European" children Pramoedya depicts stand with their fingers pointing at their parents/kings, criticizing this or that. The censor who shapes New Order literature might well argue that Pramoedya's critical children have learned nothing about respect for parents, nothing about responsibility and self-sacrifice, and nothing about that happiness of being the trusted, mature, responsible, and accomplished family members. For Pramoedya, however, a child's maturity can only be attained by establishing one's self against authority, whether parental, teacher's, or kingly-they mean the same thing in New Order Indonesian. Indeed, a revolution in Indonesian style took place at least once as a revolt by anak against bapak. In the Rengasdengklok affair of 1945, the young revolutionary heroes stood against their senior leaders; they showed a rebellious spirit kin to Abimanyu's or Untung's. The revival of Rengasdengklok would lead to the breakdown of the duality of the linguistic space, for the youth would demand that 4 Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Glasshouse, p. 175. [As quoted and translated in the Decree Attorney

General of The Republic of Indonesia Number: KEP-061/l.A./6/1988]

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their voice be heard. The dialogue between the state authority and the people would replace the current national pastime of the guessing game. The vitality Indonesian still retains in the communal sphere might then make its effect felt in many and interesting ways. Since the very beginning of Indonesia's national history, the cultural construction of the family has been the domain where national politics and identity are contested. The very vacuity of the national concept of family, or for that matter, the vacuity of the national language itself, paradoxically contains the future potential of the Indonesian family as a concept and an actuality. The family, and consequently, the society, can be redesigned as the educational reformers tried in the 1920s or as the revolutionary pemuda did in the 1940s. The recent governmental ban of Pramoedya's works attests that the battle is still going on. The family in politics is not an exclusively New Order phenomenon, and it will remain a significant issue and force even after the New Order regime comes to its end.

Conclusion

Educating young princes

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Children will triumph

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS

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Album Pahlawan Bangsa [Album of the national heroes], 1977. Jakarta: Mu tiara. Anderson, Benedict R. O'G., 1965. M11thology and the Tolerance of the Javanese. Monograph Series. Ithaca: Cornell Modern Indonesia Project. Anderson, Benedict R. O'G., 1966. "The Language of Indonesian Politics." In Indonesia 1 (April1966): 89-116. Anderson, Benedict R. O'G., 1972. Java in a Time of Revolution: Occupation and Resistance, 1944-1946. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Anderson, Benedict R. O'G., 1982. "Sembah-Sumpah [Courtesy and Curses]: The Politics of Language and Javanese Culture." In Change and Continuity in Southeast Asia. Edited by Roger A. Long and Damaris A. Kirchhofer. The Papers of the Distinguished Scholars Series. Honolulu: University of Hawaii. Anderson, Benedict R. O'G., 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.

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of a National Language.

of Family Life. Translated

Asmana, 1988. Serigala dengan harimau [A wolf and a tiger]. Illustrated by Chandra. Semarang: Mandira. Atmono, Tri, 1987. Pancasila Sakti [Sacred power of Pancasila]. Illustrated by Wit N.S. Semarang: Mandira. Atmowiloto, Arswendo, 1982. Serangan Fajar: Diangkat dari Film yang memenangkan 6 piala Citra pada Fesitival Film Indonesia. Jakarta: Yayasan Loh Djimawi. Atmowiloto, Arswendo, 1986. Pengkhianatan G30S/PKI [Betrayal G30S/PKI]. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan. Atmowiloto, Arswendo, 1981. Dua Ibu. Jakarta: PT Gramedia. Atmowiloto, Arswendo, 1986. Canting: Sebuah Roman Keluarga. Jakarta: PT Gramedia. Atmowiloto, Arswendo, 1989. Tembang Tanahair: Cerita Silat. Jakarta: PT Gramedia. Aveling, Harry, 1969. "The Thorny Rose: The Avoidance of Passion in Modern Indonesian Literature." In Indonesia 7 (April1969): 67-76. Badan Penyelenggara Buku Peringaran, 1984. "OWl Windu Orde Baru." In Dwi

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Number 8 Number 9

ISBN 0-87727-126-7 Number 10 Number 11 Number 12 Number 13 Number 14 Number 15

Studies on Vietnamese Language and Literature: A Preliminary Bibliography, Nguyen Dinh Tham. 1992. 227 pp. ISBN 0-87727-127-5 The Political Legacy of Aung San, ed. Josef Silverstein. 1972, rev. ed. 1993. 169 pp. ISBN 0-87727-128-3 The Voice of Young Burma, Aye Kyaw. 1993. 98 pp. ISBN 0-87727-129-1 The American War in Vietnam, ed. Jayne Wemer & David Hunt. 1993. 132 pp. ISBN 0-87727-131-3 Being Kammu: My Village, My Life, ed. Damrong Tayanin. 1994. 138 pp. ISBN 0-87727-130-5

The Revolution Falters: The Left in Philippine Politics After 1986. ed. Patricio N. Abinales. 1996. 183 pp. ISBN 0-87727-132-1 Translation Series

Volume 1

Reading Southeast Asia, ed. Takashi Shiraishi. 1990. 188 pp. ISBN 0-87727-400-2

Volume 2

Indochina in the 1940s and 1950s, ed. Takashi Shiraishi & Motoo Furuta.

Volume 3

The Japanese in Colonial Southeast Asia, ed. Saya Shiraishi & Takashi

1992. 196 pp. ISBN 0-87727-401-0 Shiraishi. 1993. 172 pp. ISBN 0-87727-402-9 Volume 4

Approaching Suharto's Indonesia from the Margins, ed. Takashi Shiraishi. 1994. 153 pp. ISBN 0-87727-403-7

MODERN INDONESIA PROJECT PUBLICATIONS

Comell University Number

6 The Indonesian Elections of1955, Herbert Feith. 1957. 2d printing, 1971. 91 pp. ISBN 0-87763-020-8

Number

7 The Soviet View of the Indonesian Revolution, Ruth T. McVey. 1957. 3d printing, 1969.90 pp. ISBN 0-87763-018-6

Number 25 The Communist Uprisings of1926-1927 in Indonesia: Key Documents, ed. and intra. Harry J. Benda and Ruth T. McVey. 1960. 2d printing, 1969. 177 pp. ISBN 0-87763-024-0 Number 37 Mythology and the Tolerance of the Javanese, Benedict R. Anderson. 1965. Second Edition, 1997. 104 pp. ISBN 0-87763-041-0. Number 43 State and Statecraft in Old Java: A Study of the Later Mataram Period, 16th to 19th Century, Soemarsaid Moertono. 1968. Rev. ed., 1981. 180 pp. ISBN 0-87763-017-8 Number 48 Nationalism, Islam and Marxism, Soekamo. Intra. by Ruth T. McVey. 1970. 2d printing, 1984. 62 pp. ISBN 0-87763-012-7 Number 49 The Foundation of the Partai Muslimin Indonesia, K. E. Ward. 1970. 75 pp. ISBN 0-87763-011-9 Number 50 Schools and Politics: The Kaum Muda Movement in West Sumatra (19271933), Taufik Abdullah. 1971. 257 pp. ISBN 0-87763-010-0 Number 51 The Putera Reports: Problems in Indonesian-Japanese War-Time Cooperation, Moharnrnad Hatta. Trans. and intra. William H. Frederick. 1971. 114 pp. ISBN 0-87763-009-7 Number 52 A Preliminary Analysis of the October 1, 1965, Coup in Indonesia (Prepared in January 1966), Benedict R. Anderson, Ruth T. McVey, assist. Frederick P. Bunnell. 1971. 174 pp. ISBN 0-87763-008-9 Number 55 Report from Banaran: The Story of the Experiences of a Soldier during the War of Independence, Maj. Gen. T. B. Sirnatupang. 1972. 186 pp. ISBN 0-87763-005-4 Number 57 Permesta: Half a Rebellion, Barbara S. Harvey. 1977. 174 pp. ISBN 0-87763-033-8 Number 58 Administration of Islam in Indonesia, Deliar Noer. 1978. 82 pp. ISBN 0-87763-002-X Number 59 Breaking the Chains of Oppression of the Indonesian People: Defense

Statement at His Trial on Charges of Insulting the Head of State, Bandung, June 7-10, 1979, Heri Akhrnadi. 1981.201 pp. ISBN 0-87763-001-1 Number 60 The Minangkabau Response to Dutch Colonial Rule in the Nineteenth Century, Elizabeth E. Graves. 1981. 157 pp. ISBN 0-87763-000-3 Number 61 Sickle and Crescent: The Communist Revolt of1926 in Banten, Michael C. Williams. 1982. 81 pp. ISBN 0-87763-027-5 Number 62 Interpreting Indonesian Politics: Thirteen Contributions to the Debate, 19641981. Ed. Benedict Anderson and Audrey Kahin, intra. Daniel S. Lev. 1982. 3rd printing 1991. 172 pp. ISBN 0-87763-028-3 Number 64 Suharto and His Generals: Indonesia's Military Politics, 1975-1983, David Jenkins. 1984. 3rd printing 1987.300 pp. ISBN 0-87763-027-5

Number 65 The Kenpeitai in Java and Sumatra. Trans. from the Japanese by Barbara G. Shimer and Guy Hobbs, intra. Theodore Friend. 1986. 80 pp. ISBN 0-87763-031-3 Number 66 Prisoners at Kota Cane, Lean Salim. Trans. Audrey Kahin. 1986. 112 pp. ISBN 0-87763-032-1 Number 67 Indonesia Free: A Biography of Mohammad Hatta, Mavis Rose. 1987. 252 pp. ISBN 0-87763-033-X Number 68 Intellectuals and Nationalism in Indonesia: A Study of the Following Recruited by Sutan Sjahrir in Occupation Jakarta, J. D. Legge. 1988. 159 pp. ISBN 0-87763-034-8 Number 69 The Road to Madiun: The Indonesian Communist Uprising of 1948, Elizabeth Ann Swift. 1989. 120 pp. ISBN 0-87763-035-6 Number 70 East Kalimantan: The Decline of a Commercial Aristocracy, Burhan Magenda. 1991. 120 pp. ISBN 0-87763-036-4 Number 71 A Javanese Memoir of Sumatra, 1945-1946: Love and Hatred in the Liberation War, Takao Fusayama. 1993. 150 pp. ISBN 0-87763-037-2 Number 72 Popular Indonesian Literature of the Qur'an, Howard M. Federspiel. 1994. 170 pp. ISBN 0-87763-038-0 Number 73 "White Book" on the 1992 General Election in Indonesia, Trans. Dwight King. 1994. 72 pp. ISBN 0-87763-039-9 Number 74 The Roots of Acehnese Rebellion 1989-1992, Tim Kell. 1995. 103 pp. ISBN 0-87727-040-2

*** Javanese Literature in Surakarta Manuscripts, Nancy K. Florida. Hardcover series ISBN 0-87727-600-5; Paperback series ISBN 0-87727-601-3. Vol. 1, Introduction and Manuscripts of the Karaton Surakarta. 1993. 410 pp. Frontispiece and 5 illus. Hardcover, ISBN 0-87727-602-1, Paperback, ISBN 0-87727-603-X

Sbek Thorn: Khmer Shadow Theater. ed. Thavro Phim & Sos Kern. 1996.363 pp., incl. 153 photographs. ISBN 0-87727-620-X. In the Mirror, Literature and Politics in Siam in the American Era, ed. and trans. Benedict R. Anderson and Ruchira Mendiones. 1985. 2nd printing, 1991. 303 pp. Paperback. ISBN 974-210-380-1 For ordering information, please contact: Southeast Asia Program Publications Distribution/Purchase Orders Comell University East Hill Plaza lthaca, NY 14850 Telephone: (607) 255-8038 Fax: (607) 277-1904 E-mail: [email protected] URL: http:/ /www.einaudi.cornell.edu/SoutheastAsia/SEAPubs.html

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