Autobiographical Fictions: Indonesian Women's Writing from the Nationalist Period

=== [PDF page 1] === INFORMATION TO U SERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. 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(University of Hawai’i) 1990 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction o f the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy South and Southeast Asian Studies with a Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality in the GRADUATE DIVISION of the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY Committee in charge: Professor Sylvia Tiwon, Chair Professor Robert P. Goldman Professor VeVe Clark Fall 2000 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 4] === UMI Number 3002257 UMI UMI Microform 3002257 Copyright 2001 by Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 5] === Autobiographical Fictions Copyright 2000 Julie Shackford-Bradley Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 6] === Acknowledgements I wish to extend my deepest gratitude to the following individuals without whom this dissertation could not have been completed: The members of my committee, Sylvia Tiwon, Robert P. Goldman, and Veve Clark for their critical input and ongoing support; The first cohort of the Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality and Critical Feminist Inquiry Group for their honest theoretical engagements and commitments to non-linear writing; Paola Zamperini and Rocio Ferreira for extensive discussions on writing and gender and the dissertation writing process, and their creativity and communal spirit; Ben Abel and James and Yvonne Parkes for their support at Cornell University; Hersri Setiawan, Sidik Kertapati, Pak Oei, and Joesoef Isak for guidance in revisiting the events of post-1965-6 Indonesia, and for telling their stories in Amsterdam, The Hague and Jakarta; Puri, and Ida Nurhadi, for acting as ahli waris of their mothers’ legacies and stories, and sharing information and their memories or their mothers; Chace and Ren Kendro for assistance with research accommodations in Amsterdam and Jakarta, and for tackling tough translation questions; Joseph and Kaye Shackford for financial and moral support and for advice in negotiating academic bureaucracies; Ray Chandrasekara and family for enduring friendship and neighborliness; And Jonathan, Jasmine, and Simone Bradley for their sacrifices, fortitude and humor throughout the dissertation-writing process. Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 7] === A Note on Spelling and Abbreviations I incorporate numerous spellings, reflecting the changing of spellings that occurred during the nationalist period. In the early decades, “tj” was used for what is now “c” (pronounced “ch”); “dj” for “j”; “j” for “y” and “oe” for “u.” Even within a text, the spelling can change, particularly of foreign, mixed words, and neologisms; I have attempted to render these as they appeared. For this reason, the word sayang may appear as sajang in the same paragraph. Finally, I move between identifying authors by first names and last names, in accordance with the ways in which they identified themselves. Some authors have only one name as in “Hamidah;” others took their husbands last names, as in “S. Rukiah Kertapati” and “Suwarsih Djojopuspito;” and will be referred to as “Rukiah” and “Suwarsih.” This is not gender-specific, as, following convention, I use the name “Sutan Takdir,” for the prominent male writer Sutan Takdir Alisyahbana. In short, the use o f a first name does not reflect a contrived intimacy or a lack of respect, or last name the reverse o f this, but rather the complexities of the naming system within Indonesia itself. Abbreviations BhG Buiten het Gareel, Suwarsih Djojopuspito Empat SerangkaU Suwarsih Djojopuspito Kedjatuhan dan Had, S. Rukiah Kertapati Kehilangan Mestika Fatimah Hassan Delais Laycnr Terkembang, Sutan Takdir Alisyahbana (STA) Manusia Bebas, Suwarsih Djojopuspito Pujangga Baru Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 8] === Introduction Between Two Fields My overarching objective in the following pages is to demonstrate the ways in which two fields that appear to be theoretically opposed-Indonesian Studies and Postcolonial Studies-inform one another on a multitude of levels. The basis of opposition between the two fields is not difficult to locate. Where the latter calls into question the very idea and legitimacy of the nation, the former deals with the grounded realities faced by those who inhabit the geographical and discursive space that of Indonesia and the Indonesian language, bahasa Indonesia. The spaces in which these two approaches inform each other, however, are more difficult to ascertain. On one level, it is clear that Indonesian Studies’ past association with colonial scholarship and lingering dependence on strategies of inquiry based in a dualistic model requires the kind of general criticism and self-scrutiny that Postcolonial Studies is known for. But scholars of Indonesia-Indonesian and non-Indonesian-rightly hesitate to distance themselves too far from particulars with new theoretical approaches, making the valid point that Indonesia is unique, lain dari yang lain, (different from all others). It is in fact the case that the Indonesian experience of nationalism’s uniqueness opens to Postcolonial Studies new modes of inquiry. Thus far, postcolonial critics have focused primarily on theories and literatures composed in exile, literally and figuratively, either by scholars who had gravitated to Western centers of power, or by those who expressed themselves in European and Commonwealth languages, even while living within the nation-state. The focus remains on those European/Commonwealth languages and cultural codes even as the processes hybridization, through the introduction of words, syntaxes, rhythms of native languages-resulting in creoles and pidgens-are emphasized. The same is true in Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 9] === discussions of the hybrid “subjectivities” as constructed through the mixing of linguistic and cultural systems. The problem with this approach is that those nations that have either entered the 20th century with a non-European language hilly instituted, or adopted a local language as a lingua franca, as in the case of Indonesia, tend to be erased. To prevent this erasure, it is necessary to usher in a new phase of inquiry that examines the imagining of nation and the subsequent questioning of those imagining processes from inside national languages. By national language, I am referring here to a language that is chosen to play the unifying role that, in other emerging nations, was given to English, French, or Spanish. In the Indonesian case, the regional language of Malay was chosen to play this role. Called bahasa Indonesia, it became the site for conflict and of productivity, filled with the nuanced distinctions of class, gender and ethnicity that in other contexts, were expressed in the choice to speak in one of many tongues: native, creole, or polished French, for example. In the name of unity, I will argue, Bahasa Indonesia was used to disseminate an authoritative discourse-an admixture of ideas and syntaxes from a variety of sources- through print media by a small elite with access to the means of production. As more people and groups gained access to print, the national language became the site of struggle over multiple imaginings of the nation, through the creative use of mixing languages, discourses, syntaxes, rhythms.1There is thus a complex and 1Several Western scholars have written on the development of Indonesian as a national language, but from different perspectives than the one I offer here. H.MJ. Meier, for example, in his article “From Heteroglossia to Polyglossia: The Creation of Malay and Dutch in the Indies,” argues that, through the development of a lingua franca in Indonesia, a heteroglossia emerged, which “is always running the risk of being curbed by some hegemonic center which is able to forge societal and linguistic forces in such a manner that centripetal forces gain the upper hand over the centrifugal ones”(48). The forces that Meier focuses upon are, however, Dutch forces of “Mr. and Mrs. Know-it-all from Holland w ho... showed their contempt of the cultural anarchy they saw around them and called the way people expressed themselves ‘gibberish’” (48). These types of colonizers worked toward the separation of Dutch from local languages to maintain its purity and at the same time, to create a Malay Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 10] === interlocking relationship between the discourse of nationalism and the language through which it is articulated, that, at certain points, becomes tightly constricted, just as European languages did for colonized speakers. The national language, in its early stages at least, functioning consciously as a unifying agent, is not to be confused with a “mother tongue,” even as nationalists desire it to take on that important role.2For nearly all writers of the nationalist period, it was a second language, a space in which to hash out agendas, to try on new identities, and to be creative and innovative in articulating one’s ideas and one’s self. We can, then, refer to the particulars of the Indonesian history of nationalism to recast a question that has been raised by Postcolonial scholars: How might writers or speakers construct themselves as “hybrid” or “multiply organized” within the national language? How are subjectivities formed and contested across lines of gender, class, and ethnicity in this language? In asking these questions, my approach diverges from language that was uniform and bureaucratic (also known as “High Malay”) through the educational system. Benedict Anderson, writing about bahasa Indonesia as a political language in his Language and Power describes the language as “flat and simplistic,” and “lack[ing] cultural resources;” this allows the language to be reshaped according to desire as a “unifying language” as well as a “language of resistance” (during the revolution) and a “language of hope for the future,” (Language 139-40). Anderson also refers to the language as a “bridge to modernity,” or, more precisely, an “enterprise for the mastery o f a gigantic cultural crisis, and a partly subconscious project for the assumption of modernity within the modalities o f an autonomous and autochthonous social-political tradition” (124). It seems astonishing that these feats could be performed through such a “flat” and “simplistic” vehicle, but this paradox is not addressed. James Siegal goes further in his Fetish, Recognition, Revolution to argue that “the processes. .. of the play of languages that can best be seen in writing” were then “co-opted later by the state in the development of the national hierarchy” (8). Siegal takes this argument in different directions than mine, however, to argue that modem Indonesian literature ‘Tailed” because of the fetishes of nationalism and modernity that, as one reviewer put it more succinctly than does Siegal himself, created a “modernity in which the force of nationalism would survive and indeed thwart the more radical possibility of revolution” (Morris 163). 1 See Keith Foulcher’s discussion on this topic, in which he argues that “Whereas, in other postcolonial states, the sense of the past was carried forth in the colonial language, to be confronted at some point along with the postcolonial trajectory, in Indonesia the linguistic link with the past was submerged, actually hidden within the new language rather than displaced by it” (Keith Foulcher, “In Search of the Postcolonial in Indonesian Literature,” 164). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 11] === those taken by scholars of nationalism in Indonesia. First, I focus on literary works and less-visible non-fiction nationalist writing in order to identify particular themes, modes of expression, and the formation new identities through the use of particular narrative strategies rather than mainstream historical trajectories. Second, I read the nationalist discourse from the peripheral position ascribed to, and consciously taken, by women in order to locate a critique of the discourse’s hegemonic propensities from within the language itself. The writers whose works I have chosen to discuss, spanning the period from 1899-1963-Kartini (1880-1904), Hamidah (1914-1953)1; Suwarsih Djojopuspito (1912-1987)4; and S. Rukiah Kertapati (1927-1996)5-present conspicuously contestatory voices in their works, that call into question commonly held views regarding the development of discourses of nationalism, modernity, literature and gender in Indonesia. I will illustrate the ways in which these writers, in the act of 3 Hamidah’s publications include only two poems, “Berpisah” and “Kekalkah” and Kehilangan Mestika, all published in the year 1935. 4 Suwarsih’s publications include Beberapa WanitaJang Terkemuka, (a translation of Sara Bolten’s Lives o f Girls Who became Famous, with Suwarsih’s own essay on Kartini, 1948); Buiien het Gareel (1940), her only work in Dutch; Tudjuh Cerita Pendek (a collection of short stories, 1951); Riwayat Hidup Mohammad (1954); Empat Serangkai (a collection of short stories, 1954); Maryanah (in Sundanese, 1959); Siluman Karangkobar (1963); Hati Wanita (1964); Arlena (1975); Manusia Bebas (a translation of Buiten Het Gareel into Indonesian, 1975); and Maryati dan Kawan2nya (1976). She also published a number of uncollected short stories in journals, including “Berkitjot dan and u,Dongeng dengan Gaya Modern" (1959). s The list of Rukiah’s publications during this period is quite extensive. After a hiatus between the appearance of Kedjatuhan dan Hati in 1950 and Tandus, in 1952, Rukiah published a series of books for children, containing modernized versions of local folktales, poems, and songs. These include: Teuku Hasan Johan Pahlawan (1957); Kisah Perjalanan Si Apin (1959); Si Rawun dan Kawan2nya( 1959); Taman Sanjak Si Kecil (1959); PakSupi: Kakek Pengungsi (1961); Djaka Tingkir (1962); Dongeng2 Kulilang (1962); and Lenting Kuning (1965). She also published a series of short stories in the journals/newspapers: Lentera,Api Kartini, and Harian Rakyat, including “Kembali ke “Pendidikan Anak” (1962) and “Pendidikan Sekolah dan di luar Rumah” (1962). She worked on the editorial boards of Zaman Baru from 1958-1960; Api Kartini (dates unknown), and Lentera with Pramoedya Ananta Toer from 1962-1963. She is reported to have published a children’s magazine during this period as well, named Kutilang. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 12] === resisting the sentiments and styles of their male colleagues, and the constraints of the national language, were simultaneously imagining the new nation on their own terms. In conversation with one another, and with female activists of the women’s movement, they created experimental narrative styles that incorporate alternative symbologies, radical content, and language that infuses the print-world with oral discourses flowing among women in private spaces. In the process of recreating the female self as contestatory and resistant, but at the same time, attuned to the language and sensation of a woman’s discourse, they reshape modem prose to suit their own needs. These elements of women’s writing not only form a contribution to the national literature, but also to the discussion of literatures that emerged from colonial and postcolonial contexts. In order to map these forces and women’s position among them, I have settled upon the concept of the genealogy as defined by Michel Foucault. As he puts it,... the world of speech and desires has known invasions, struggles, plundering, disguises, ploys. From these elements, however, genealogy retrieves an indispensable restraint: it must record the singularity of events outside of any monotonous finality; it must seek them in the most unpromising places, in what we tend to feel is without history-in sentiment, love, conscience, instincts; it must be sensitive to their recurrence, not in order to trace the gradual curve of their evolution but to isolate the different scenes where they are engaged in different roles (Foucault 1984 76). The genealogy offers a model through which we may follow developments in the writing in a way that is not so much a linear progression but rather attentive to all of the forces that coalesced for each writer over a series of decades. To be sure, numerous scholars and thinkers have dug around in the ground I will cover here, but typically with a singular focus that restricts the view of the broad picture. Genealogy, Foucault writes, “operates on a field of entangled and confused parchments on documents that have been scratched over and recopied many times.’’ My intent is to go back to that field and present it as a space in which women questioned the positioning of the female in Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 13] === late 19th and early 20th century societies of Java, Sunda, and Sumatra, a positioning based on the intersection of forces of modernity, tradition, colonialism and nationalism. Women’s writing as a phenomenon, along with the voices projected, and the stylistics will be traced, in chapter one, back to Kartini who serves as a “foremother” through her letters penned at the turn of the century to a series of Dutch women. The letters were published in Dutch in 1911 and translated into Indonesian in 1922. While Kartini was certainly not the first woman writer to appear in the area known before the nationalist period as the Malay World, her use of writing to create a self forged through her imagination and her correspondence with other women marks a significant turning point for both male and female writers in Indonesia. Kartini chronicles a period of her life from the age of 19 to 24 when she died from complications of childbirth. Interlaced with her attitudes, philosophies, desires, complaints, literary and social criticism and much more, the story of Kartini’s attempt to achieve a sense of adulthood, to live as an independent woman, reads like a modem novel. She tries various avenues for escaping marriage, beginning with the letter writing itself, and, through writing, making herself so public and outspoken as to appear as damaged or tainted goods to any suitor. As she becomes increasingly aware of the impossibility of her situation, she demonstrates the degree to which she is attuned to the many forces pulling at her from the colonial apparatus and the Javanese political/familial structures. The result is that, while the outcome is already known, readers cannot help but be drawn in to the progression of events narrated in a kind of real time, as Kartini experiences and analyses them. Her prediction of her own early death is less melodramatic than logical, as her will to gain independence is so great that no other outcome is imaginable for her. The structure of a genealogy coincides most closely with the way I understand women’s writing; the texts themselves form genealogies in the sense that Lionnet describes as involving “the reconstruction of the self through the interpretations that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 14] === integrate as many aspects of the past as are deemed significant by the agent of the narrative discourse (Lionnet 1990 411, n.2). My approach then, situates the “process of self discovery” encountered in women’s writing within the intersection of forces, that brought these women to writing, with all of its challenges and pleasures. In the dissertation I work toward a blend of current deconstructive practices with the internal critique of nationalist discourse and subject-formation produced by Indonesian women. I wish to show that, without the analytical tools available today, Indonesian women fashioned their own tools from both imported Marxism and Feminism from the turn of the century through the 1940s and their own experience, language, and speaking and story-telling styles. The perspectives that these women writers bring to the discussion are drawn from the experience of mediating between the public and private spaces, the home, the neighborhood, the school, the meeting, at home, in the neighborhood, in the schools, markets, meetings, as teachers, editorial secretaries, as daughters who are simultaneously heads of organizations, intellectuals, and leaders of organizations. As such they inhabit a space between rakyat (“the people,” or “the masses”) and the institutions of nationalism, the political parties and organizations, the leadership. Their writing reflects the complexity of their position, as important insights are relayed in a language that is a mixture of the vernacular and the authoritative, the ironic and the earnest, the spoken and the written. The consciously mixed nature of women’s writing works has resulted in their relegation to the category of “marginal,” in the sense that they do not fit into the categories proposed over the decades by both Indonesian and Western literary critics and historians. The voices in the texts are likewise peripheral to the central project of nation building carried out by the great nationalist leaders and revolutionaries. But they are at the same time composed from deeply inside the nation and its discourse, by those who are pre-determined by it Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 15] === Positions I developed an interest in Indonesia through discussions with my relationship with my stepfather Kendro, a Javanese man from “just outside the kraton (sultanate palace) walls in Yogyakarta. I first visited Indonesia in 1986 with the vague objective of understanding certain aspects of Kendro’s life. My questions were personal but also historical and novelistic, based in a general interest in people and their stories. Once in Indonesia, I found my questions multiplying as well as growing in scope as I came into contact with the Indonesian women-the wives of Kendro’s revolutionary mates-who graciously escorted me to various tourist destinations and invited me into their lives as Kendro’s “daughter” (“But you’re not Indonesian, are you?” one woman asked, having expected a blood relative). Through my experiences with these woman, travelling to Yogya, and to Puncak, the mountain town above Bogor, (vacation spot for Jakartans), I was drawn to questions regarding the aesthetic and complexity of Islamic piety for women, and the relationship between the elite and the poor in Indonesia. I was ultimately drawn to Indonesia as a field of study, however, by the most astonishing question of all, regarding the events of 1965-6 when the New Order government under Suharto commenced with massacre, mass jailing and silencing of hundreds of thousands of Indonesians as suspected Communists. I felt this question permeating Indonesian society and culture like an immense family secret, and in 1986, as well as 1991 when I returned for language study, while the subject remained taboo under Suharto’s leadership, I encountered numerous people from both sides of the conflict willing to tell their stories to an outsider, perhaps to explain their side of the story, or because they knew that there was a type of bule (white) visitor who was intrigued by such stories. I now realize that most scholars of Indonesia are obsessed both with this story and with the Indonesian government’s success in erasing truths from the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 16] === historical consciousness by replacing them with a very bizarre story that revolves around crazed female Communists slicing off male genitalia in an orgy of sex and violence.4The aspect of the story that would become particularly tragic to me over a decade of study was the loss of multiple generations of thinkers, artists, writers, musicians who came together across ethnic boundaries in a commitment to reviving local traditions and decreasing the gap between the wealthy elite and the “peasant” and “proletarian” classes. 1965-6 was an enormous brain-drain, not out toward the rest of the world, as people have argued occurred in other parts of the postcolonial world, but, with the exception of Pramoedya Ananta Toer who survived the “Indonesian gulag” to continue working as a writer, and the nameless others who have worked as ghost writers in journalism, translation and other fields all these years, into oblivion. A small coterie of artists, writers, and critics live in exile in Europe as well, and continue to produce works in Indonesian. After I returned to the US, I began graduate study at University of Hawaii at Manoa, and turned my attention to modem Indonesian literature as a point of intersection between my own literary background and interest in this untold story. First reading Indonesian literature in translation, and then in Indonesian, I found that many Indonesian writers addressed the story in their own discreet fashion-or obvious 6 As Tiwon (1995) and Wieringa (1995) and explain, the New Order’s legitimacy stems in part from its rescue of the nation from the powers of drugged-up female communists who engaged in ritual castration of male power-figures, namely 7 generals. The “lubang buaya” story of the crazed female politics has been used to silence women’s speech and, for two decades, frightened female activists from publicly engaging in activity that would be associated with this chaotic Communist force. See Saskia Wieringa’s “Aborted Feminism in Indonesia: A History of Indonesian Socialist Feminism” in Women's Struggles and Strategies, ed. Saskia Wieringa (Aldershot, England: Gower Publishing Company, Ltd., 1988) 69-89; and The Politicization o f Gender Relations in Indonesia: The Indonesian Women’s Movement and Gerwani Until the New Order State fdiss: University of Amsterdam, 1995), and Sylvia Tiwon’s “Models and Maniacs: Articulating the Female in Modem Indonesia, Fantasizing the Feminine in Indonesia ed. Laurie Sears, (Durham: Duke University Press, 1996) 47-70. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 17] === 10 reiteration of the government line, as in the case of Ahmad Tohari7-and that the literature also provided clues to the social and political conditions that made the events of 1965-6, and its strange counter-story possible. However, I was side-tracked from this particular trajectory by what I found to be an inadequacy in the criticism of Indonesian literature from both outside, from Australian and Dutch critics mainly, and inside, by the group of writers and critics who remained in the wake of 1965-6, who were, under the authority of the state, quite limited by what they could discuss. I saw a huge gap between the richness of the literary works I was reading and the reductive readings they were given in this body of literary criticism, and set out to understand the rationale behind it. My general conclusion is that both Western and Indonesian critics inherited from the colonial era a sense of the inferiority of Indonesian literature due to its lack of attainment of “universality,” its provincialism (“local-ness”), its writers’ lack of understanding of aesthetic and philosophical concepts, and its aesthetic paucity, that keeps critics from engaging in actual interpretation. There were well-documented and inclusive works on modem literary history in Indonesia that placed Indonesian writers and ideas in the context of historical developments, and there were sporadic interpretative events.* 7 See Tohari’s trilogy, Ronggeng Dukuh Paruk (Jakarta: Gramedia 198S); Lintang Kemukus Dirti Hari (Jakarta, Gramedia 1986); Jantera Bianglala (Jakarta, Gramedia 1986). 11 have now come to understand that there are two major blocks that obstruct development in this field of study. The first involves the binarial thinking that critics bring with them to the study of texts, resulting in strict boundaries between the “modem” and “traditional,” between “serious” works of Literature and the rest-that which encompassed the political, the vernacular, or degrees of folkishness-and between one historical generation of writers and the next These are legacies of colonialism, in which Classical Realism was the genre that the Dutch colonizers promoted through their educational system as well as the Balai Pustaka, a Dutch publishing company that produced both local literature and translations of modem European novels. The ideal was the novel that produced a fine balance between dialog and description, theme and plot and insights into the psychological motivations of characters. Overtly stated political ideas were not welcomed in these works of classical realism which were meant to channel writers into producing what would later be called “bourgeois individualism.” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 18] === 11 I was gradually able to name what was missing in Indonesian criticism as the field of the “post colonial” developed in the late 1980s and into the 1990s. Works like Henry Louis Gates’ The Signifying Monkey, a study of African oral traditions and socio-religious belief systems that shape African American literature; Ve Ve Clark’s discussion of the marasa consciousness shaping Caribbean women’s writing, Sylvia Wynter’s arguments about the distinct epistemologies that shape literary production and the idea that literary criticism can be a political act; and Barbara Christian’s contention that ... people of color have always theorized-but in forms quite different from the western form of abstract logic. And I am inclined to say that our theorizing (and I intentionally use the verb rather than the noun) is often in narrative forms, in the stories we create, in riddles and proverbs, in the play with language, since dynamic rather than fixed ideas seem more to our liking... (52) all inspired me to read Indonesian women’s writing as containing its own internal logics and theories, and as shaped by structures and guided by symbolisms that are embedded in local practice and beliefs.’ The second block involves nationalism. Keith Foulcher, for example, argues that there was an “unbroken nexus between literature and the nation” in Indonesia (“In Search of the Postcolonial” IS3); James Seigal takes this to another level when he contends that this relationship hindered the development of a modem Indonesian literature because of the “fetishizing” of nationalism, resulting in works that cannot liberate themselves from the immediate context (see Siegal’s Fetish, Recognition, Revolution). The approach to modem Indonesian literature in terms of nationalism requires rethinking, in my opinion, before the literature can be read as literature. The generational categorizing paradigm developed over the decades by these writers-the I920’s novels; the Pudjangga Baru generation; the generation of 194S; Lekra literature; the generation of 1966-in acknowledging the historical contingencies that produce different kinds of writing, diminishes the role of the individual author in much the same way that Seigal does. But what was lacking was a concerted discussion of motifs, tropes, narrative strategies and most importantly contiguities between writers, literary and ideological conversations across texts and traditions, in the development of tropes, genres, voices, narratives, discourses that, to be sure, developed through a relationship of Indonesian writers and Western genres, but which were now indigenous to modem Indonesian literature. 9 See Henry Louis Gates’ The Signifying Monkey: A Theory o f Afro-American Literary Criticism (New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1988); V6V6 Clark’s articles “Developing Diaspora Literacy and Marasa Consciousness” in Comparative American Identities, Ed. Hortense Spillers (Routledge, 1992) and her edited collections Revising the Word and the World: Essays in Feminist Literary Criticism, Eds. V&V& Clark, Ruth-Ellen B. Joeres, & Madelon Sprengnether, (Chicago; University of Chicago Press, 1993) and Antifeminism in the Academy, Ed. VfcVfc Clark (New Y ork: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 19] === 12 At the University of California at Berkeley, Amin Sweeney and Sylvia Tiwon were working in a similar trajectory in the field of classical and modem Malay/Indonesian literature, arguing that this literature had its own rhetorical tropes and structures that were not based on the norms of modem Western literature, but on the exigencies of oral transmission. In her dissertation, Tiwon explored the ways in which modem Indonesian writers both respected and distanced themselves from the rhetorical tropes that had developed in the Malay/Indonesian oral traditions, including the reliance on the sensorial qualities of “beautiful language,” to produce emotional reactions in the audience, opening them to the texts’ moral messages. Modem writers of the 1930s, she argued, now addressing themselves to anonymous, individual readers, first relied on these tropes in their modem fiction, then attempted to reject them summarily, but in the end, those who were aware of their position between the Malay/Indonesian tradition and modem genres, developed a hybrid form that took into account the sounds of language, but injected into them new meanings. In her work, Tiwon also traced relationships between writers, and placed them in conversation with one anther, rather than relying on the tired “generational” arguments posed by Indonesian authors and critics, in which each generation of writers rises out of the death of its predecessor. As I would go on to discover, much of what occurs in Indonesian literature is, in fact, writers responding to one another and to the various Malay/Indonesian literary traditions. Western literary critics in particular, always searching for a Western name to apply to a given work, or locating influences in Western writing, were overlooking this vital and central aspect of modem Indonesian literature. The writers were developing Routledge, 1996); Sylvia Wynter’s “The Ceremony Must be Found: After Humanism” Boundary 2 (1983-4): 19-69, and “On Disenchanting Discourse: ‘Minority’ Literary Criticism and Beyond” Cultural Critique (Fall, 1987): 207-244 and Barbara Christian’s “The Race for Theory,” Cultural Critique 7 (Spring, 1987): 51-63. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 20] === 13 their own theories about their own literature through these internal conversations and debates. Not insignificandy, these debates often concern the ways in which writers address their problematic positioning between traditions, cultures, epistemologies. My approach took shape between the experiences of reading and discussing, in Ve Ve Clark’s consciously feminist/womanist classroom, works by such African and Caribbean women writers as Flora Nwapa, Simone Schwarz-Bart, Miriama Ba, and Buchi Emecheta, and Assia Djebar,10and the body of criticism devoted to these works, and working with Sylvia Tiwon on “articulations of the female” in Indonesia and orality as a space of resisting what she called the “print patriarchy.”" The African and Caribbean works are woven together by threads of oral tradition, which include proverbs, beliefs, speech styles that define relationships across generation and gender, untold, and hidden histories; it is the main repository of women’s histories and women’s stories. But the oral tradition can be both liberating and constraining, these works show. Schwarz-B art’s The Bridge o f Beyond in particular illustrates the duality of the knowledge that women pass from one generation to the next; while proverbial wisdom teaches women the tools they need to survive in plantation society, it also constrains them by offering no escape. However, when injected into writing, which was primarily a colonial domain, and, in nationalist movements, a male domain, that Held of discourse that includes women’s talk, gossip, knowledge passed among women, kitchen talk, women’s complaints about men, women’s revelations about 10 Flora Nwapa’s E/uru (London: Heinemann, 1966); Miriama B&’s, So Long a letter (trans. Modupd Bod6-Thomas London: Heinemann, 1989); Buchi Emecheta’s Second Class Citizen New York: G. Braziller, 1993); Assia Djebar’s Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade (trans. Dorothy Blair, Portsmouth N.H., Heinemann, 1993); Simone Schwartz-Bart’s TheBridge o f Beyond, (trans. Barbara Bray, London: Heinemann, 1982) " Tiwon, Sylvia, “Women and the Production of Discourse” (unpublished manuscript). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 21] === 14 “private” behaviors and obsessions, destabilizes the power of what Tiwon calls “the print patriarchy.” Examining women’s journals of the 1910s and 1920s, I found examples of women writers incorporating the vernacular to make the writing speak the urgency they feel. Unlike their male counterparts, who frame themselves in rhetoric, women writers leap directly to the point, rather than taking the time to position themselves vis a vis hierarchical structures. Here, authority, the right to speak of oneself, is claimed in an open space where identity is formed through a conscious interaction between a written form that carries its own values of literate civilization and the speaking self.,! Working within this localized context, I have found localized examples of how women articulate themselves in ways that “expand and unbalance dominant ideas of the contours in which familiar subjects are made (Tsing 232). Tsing, for example, locates among “eccentric subjects”-non-literate female shamans from Kalimantan-a variety of modes in which women resist local and state configurations of gender, from a “disorganized support for fleeting refusals of male desires” (119) to the invocation of “amazement” that denaturalizes those configurations while providing critical comment” (229). In her more recent work, Tiwon focuses as well upon orality as a space in which knowledge is passed among women, contending that this knowledge must be understood as part of a “separate discursive system” with its own “cognitive processes” (Tiwon “Domesticating” 5). Both scholars emphasize the ways in which orality and the written-read authoritative-exist in a zone “in which multiple overlapping (and 12 Here I am referring to Caribbean writer Edouard Glissant’s discussion on the “reconciliation of the values of literate civilization and the long repressed traditions of orality,” quoted in Francois Lionnet, “The Politics and Aesthetics of Mdtissage,” Women, Autobiography, Theory: A reader, Eds. Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson, (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1998), 325. In Indonesia of the nationalist period, oral traditions are not “long repressed,” but are in the process of being repressed as part of the nationalist agenda. See also Tiwon’s discussion of the repression of oral Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 22] === 15 sometimes contradictory) discourses commingle and collide” (Tsing 323). Tiwon reminds us, however, that the field in which the discourses commingle is configured in terms of power-relations; she argues that orality, “to save itself, incorporates elements of a literate master narrative” which will lead to its ultimate dissolution. Yet she still believes that orality can be identified as a site of resistance to “The-Name-of-the-Father” that has become “language” itself through the all-encompassing powers of text-based religion and the state. These scholars emphasize that women’s stories and their writing exhibit a consciously inscribed hybridity as a reaction to intersections of forces of constructions of gender and power. When women’s writings are read in conversation with one another, I discovered, the particular modes of resistance and contestation they employ result in a productivity that extends beyond the merely responsive. These writers, I will show, develop a style over the decades that incorporates pleasure on a number of different levels. They open themselves to the pleasure of writing itself, in environments in which women’s voices were not welcomed in public, as their autobiographical or semiautobiographical narrators linger over descriptions of their “sins,” which range from simply experiencing their own bodies to engaging in premarital sex with no remorse. They engage in rhetorical play, honing their discursive weapons through the use of double entendres, veiling meaning through symbolism, and establishing the juxtaposition as a central figure in their work as a means to inhabiting the many contradictions implied in the phrase “pengarang perempuan" (woman writer). traditions in Indonesia in her “Domesticating Discourses: A Comparative Analysis of Malay Women’s Narratives” (unpublished manuscript). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 23] === 16 Indonesian Women’s Writing in Local and Universal Contexts Drawn to the extensive body of work appearing in the 1990s on women and nationalism, I began to locate connections between “print patriarchy” and the development of nationalist discourse in Indonesia. It was clear to me that Indonesian women writers were themselves nationalists in the Andersonian sense of “imagining community.” The question became, how were they imagining differently? How were they negotiating what Anderson rightly referred to as the “fraternity,” and what I discovered to be its imagined female, the silent partner to her nationalist husband, the mother as vessel of traditional values? Where did modernity fit into all of this? In order to understand what, precisely these writers are contesting and why, it is necessary to read women’s imaginings in conversation with those of the “fraternity” that Benedict Anderson has described in his Imagined Communities. To locate that conversation, and then understand the strategies women employed in contesting nationalist discourse and creating their own “imagined communities,” it is necessary to rethink the ways in which the nationalist period has been configured in the historical imagination. Until very recently, scholars have focused primarily on “unity,” excising from their studies elements that point to disruptions in the unifying process. For this reason, works on nationalism necessarily leave out women’s contributions and roles in this historical period.15 Women seldom appear in the multitude of texts on nationalism, or if they do, they are given a separate chapter. The same tendency is found in works on the women’s movement, and on women’s participation in the nationalist and revolutionary 13 Christine Dobbin first addressed this issue in her 1980 essay, “The Search for Women in Indonesian History” in Kartini Centenary: Indonesian Women Then and Now (Monash University, Center of Southeast Asian Studies Lectures, 1980) 56-86. In the essay, Dobbin focuses upon three major texts, Anderson’s Java in a Time o f Revolution; Ingleson’s The Road to Exile: The Indonesian Nationalist Movement 1927-1934; and Van Niel’s The Emergence o f the Modern Indonesian Elite. We may also include Kahin’s Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia and more recently, Takeshi Shiraishi’s An Age in Motion. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 24] === 17 periods-the latter primarily from the 1980s and 1990s. Here, the focus is mainly on women’s struggles, with mention given to those men who supported, in varying degrees, women’s demands for equality.'4 Commenting on the lack of unity within the women’s movement, Vreede de Steurs imagines a time when women will be able to “realize how interdependent all the members of that large family, the nation, are” (Vreede de Steurs The Indonesian Woman, 165). Saskia Wieringa uses the provocative phrase “aborted feminism” argue that the demise of feminism is a result of the inability of women’s groups to reach consensus on major issues, (Wieringa “Aborted Feminism”). My purpose is not to present an alternative history of women’s successes; such a history does not exist in the context Vreede de Steurs and Wieringa have laid out. Rather it is to ask different questions in order to demonstrate that women writers of the nationalist period created a framework for Indonesian feminism that outlasts the “failures” of particular legislative projects and even transfers of power. I contend that the critical approaches of early feminist writers and their imaginings constitute a framework for contemporary feminists to build upon. My goal in this text is not to return to the narrative of the development of the women’s movement, already attended to in much detail by both Indonesian and Western feminist historians, but rather to 14 See for example Cora Vreede de Steurs’ The Indonesian Woman: Struggles and Achievements, (’s Gravenhage: Mouton and Co, I960) and historical texts by Indonesian women from the 1980s, including Peranan Kedudukan Wanita Indonesia: Bunga Rampai Tulisan-Tulisan, eds. Maria Ullfah Soebadio and T.O. Ihromi (Yogyakarta: Gadjah Mada University Press, 1983); Petjuangan Wanita Indonesia: 10 Windu Setelah Kartini 1904-1984 (Jakarta: Departemen Penerangan RI, 1984); Lahimya Kelasykaran Wanita dan Wirawati Cottar Panca by Dra. Ima H.N. Hadi Soewito, (Jakarta: Yayasan Wirawati Catur Panca 1992) and Seribu Wajah Wanita Pejuang Dalam Revolusi '45 (Jakarta: Penerbit PT Gramedia Widiasarana Indonesia, 1995). The latter presents the women’s stories of the revolution gathered through contests. Other stories of women’s experiences can be found in the weekly newspaper Harian Rakyat which featured a column entitled “Ruangan Wanita: Notes Gerilja” that presented the memories of women who fought in pro-Communist guerilla units during 1948*9. A number of biographies of major players of the nationalist/women’s movements including I.N. Soebagijo’s S.K. Trimurti: Wanita Pengabdi Bangsa (Jakarta: Gunung Agung, 1982) and Gadis Rasid’s Maria Ullfah Soebadio: Pembela Kaumnya (Jakarta: Bulan Bintang, 1982). What I have found is that, in biographical works, as well as autobiographies, an integration inevitably occurs Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 25] === 18 explore the rhetoric and discourse of nationalism developed around the “woman question” that entrapped women of all social classes so profoundly. This is only possible, however, when the discussion of the male and female imaginings of the nation and of discourses of liberation and independence are read dialogically, following the way they were produced in the historical context. “Successes,” to engage in the discourse described above, of women in the nationalist period can be found paradoxically in the increasing tension between men and women as inscribed in written works. Reading through the bulk of material produced during the nationalist period it becomes clear, that there was indeed a dialog between members of the nationalist and women’s movements regarding the imagining process, the gendered meaning of “freedom” and “independence,” women’s roles in the new state and that the tenor of this dialog changed over time. As early as 1917, the feminist writer Saadah Alim was alerting her audiences to the gendered meaning of merdeka (independence, freedom, a by-word of the revolution that continues to resonate today, particularly among older men). Alim argued that, when uttered in the context of women, merdeka was misconstrued to mean “the desire to associate freely with men” (Alim, “Minangkabau” 31). The question of what merdeka as well as kebebasan (freedom, liberation) means for women is central to women’s writing of the nationalist period. Women’s narratives illustrate how, unable to use these and many other terms-including the word perempuan-mlhout invoking schematized meanings, the authors had to create alternative modes of expression that flexed the national language and enriched it. To this extent, we find the same kind of productivity that Benedict Anderson calls attention to in the meeting, in nationalism, of “power, fraternity, and in which the female activists are presented in, or describe their own relationships with prominent male figures and their disagreements and eventual partings over political issues. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 26] === 19 time.” As women were excluded from the fraternity in ways I will discuss further in the dissertation, their productivity was generated from a different relationship. That is, between marginality and the promise of writing as a space in which to create themselves in the form and the words recognizable to themselves and the kaum perempuan (community of women) as they focused attention both on the position ascribed to women and to the relationships between the individual and her communities. It is necessary, then, to return to the texts produced during the periods of nationalist and women’s “awakenings” to show how women writers of the nationalist period were both constructed by, and created themselves as subjects through an assemblage of the languages and discourses of modernity, tradition, colonialism, and nationalism. R. Radhakrishnan’s questions: Why is it that the advent of politics of nationalism signals the subordination if not the demise of women’s politics? Why does the politics of the one typically overwhelm the politics of the “other”? Why could not the two be coordinated within an equal and dialogic relationship of mutual accountability? may be employed to steer the discussion of Indonesian nationalism in new directions. When we begin to examine the dialogical relationship between the two movements, we can see, for example, the gradual eclipse of the women’s movement by the nationalist movement. This eclipse begins in the 1930s after women of the 1920s demonstrate and experience the power of their voices in print, as they sense, from reading the words of their “sisters” from other areas of the archipelago, the national women’s movement was taking shape. Nationalists were, in this early period, caught under the glare of the Dutch, who argued that the poor treatment of women was indicative of the “less civilized” ways of the Indonesians and women took advantage of the situation to advocate for such rights as equal education, postponed marriage, the end of polygyny. By the 1930s we see women constructing arguments demanding the right to be fully included in the nationalist process of state formation. In response, the rhetoric of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 27] === 20 “orthodox femininity increases in nationalist discourse. In the arena of the personal, feminists complain of their “progressive” husbands’ conservatism in the home, and their taking of mistresses and second wives. By the time of the revolution, as women were taking advantage of the opening of the revolution to cut their hair, wear men’s clothing, leave home, even take up arms in some cases, the rhetoric of nationalists regarding the “women’s question” became increasingly conservative. Reading Rukiah’s Kedjatuhcm dan Had, we find her asking the question that Gayatri Spivak would pose some 40 years later as to why: even if, in the crisis of armed or peaceful struggle, women seem to emerge as comrades, with the return to the everyday, and in the pores o f the struggle, the old codings of the gendered body, sometimes slightly altered, seem to fall into Spivak’s question reconfigures the framework in which the post-revolution period brought about the conditions of the women’s movement’s ultimate “failure.” What were the old codings of the gendered body, and how did they fall back into place so easily? How did women themselves respond, even facilitate this return?15 15Contemporary feminist readers of Indonesian women’s prose have addressed some of these constructions in their discussions of representations of the female in literature and political discourse-as well as film-and the contestatory voices presented in women’s writing. Vreede de Steurs, Hellwig, and Hatley have illustrated the ways in which women writers do not acquiesce to, as Hatley puts it, “dominant ideologies.” The nature of these “dominant ideologies” has been explored in depth by both Indonesian and Western feminist critics since the 1980s, as part of a general critique of the New Order or post-1965 government under President Suharto. The term kodrat wanita has served as the basis for such discussions. Meaning “women’s destiny” or, as Toeti Heraty puts it “women’s endowment,” kodrat wanita is used, critics argue, to essentialize the female in terms of her biological destiny, her ultimate difference. Feminists including Madelon Djajadiningrat-Nieuwenhuis (1987), Julia Suryakusuma (1996), and Saskia Wieringa (1988) have focused on the currency of this term in New Order discourse to argue that it has been used to keep women under control by ascribing to them specific roles contained to the household, and in the service of husbands and children. Hatley (1995), Hellwig (1994) and Chudoori (1990) have studied the ways in which the concept of kodrat wanita crops up in numerous works of literature produced by both male and female writers from the 1930s into the 1980s, perpetuating stereotypes that ultimately serve the dominant ideologies of the New Order. And Hellwig, along with Benedict Anderson (1996), have gone further to argue that women writers from the 1970s to the present have become entangled in these schematics and have as a result presented ambivalent portraits of female characters that end up upholding the dominant ideology they set out to disrupt Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 28] === 21 We can trace the conservatism of the revolutionary period and aftermath through discussions of fashion, as has Jean Taylor Gelman, who comments on the glaring difference between nationalist garb for men and women, the former constituted of the western suit and the latter, in a “colonial” form of the traditional Javanese outfit the kain kebaya (sarong and blouse).'* The full force of this rhetoric comes, however, from texts produced by prominent nationalist leaders who would become heads of state and their advisors. These are texts that scholars of nationalism generally ignore, in which such major historical figures as Sukarno, Ki Hadjar Dewantoro, Sutan Takdir Alisyahbana and others discuss “the women’s question.” Women, as I will illustrate in Chapter 2, were positioned as both deeply inside the nation, as the signifiers of “tradition,” the foundation on which the nation is imagined, and the wombs from which would issue the nation’s future generations, and outside the nation-building and imagining processes. Shetty has referred to this paradoxical positioning as the “containing horizon” for the female within nationalist allegory, upheld and disseminated, in Layoun’s words, through the “grammar” or “grammatiki” of nationalism. That is, “the ‘correct’ or orderly use and placement of the constituent elements of the nation... the proper and acceptable situation and use of language,” as well as the multiple counter-texts overlooked by scholars of nationalism up to this time (Layoun411).17 Intrinsic in the grammatiki of nationalism was a symbology of motherhood that, in Indonesia as elsewhere, was recruited to gloss the anxieties outlined above, and to 16 See Jean Gelman Taylor, “Official Photography, Costume, and the Indonesian Revolution” Women Creating Indonesia: The First Fifty Years, Ed. Jean Gelman Taylor (Clayton, Victoria: Monash Asia Institute 1997) 91-126. >TFor a discussion of this “grammatika” in the Indonesian context, see for example Anton Lucas and Robert Cribb, “Women’s Roles in the Indonesian Revolution: Some Historical Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 29] === 22 perform the “birth” of the new nation, from practically nothing but a few ideas. Granted the transcendent power of the sign, as “mothers of the nation,” women were obliged to comprehend the material world, or their "everyday" experience, in terms of their essential being, their kodrat or fate as female, as always linked to this symbolic transcendence. As the vessel of morality, civilization, and “tradition,” the female was given the responsibility for upholding social order, in the sense Indonesian writer Sutan Takdir Alisyahbana describes, she will be blamed when that order is “unhinged.” As in other print-based national births, the family became the operative metaphor through which the new society would be imagined and ordered. In the development of nationalist discourse, proper roles were defined for the father (Bapak), mother (Ibu), brother {Bang), and the sister (notably a Dutch loan word, Zus). The modem idea of the nuclear family gained cultural currency through works of literature produced by Dutch colonial administrators, who founded and ran the Dutch publishing company, the Balai Pustaka. Conceived as a “multi-functional agency of socialization,” the Balai Pustaka promoted the belief that “the Western understanding of modernization, of progress, and of civilization-regarded as universally valid-should be cultivated (Jedamski 24-25). Indeed, the cultural categories of both orthodox femininity and masculinity owe their existence in large part to prose fiction, where they persuasively drawn and could be imagined in increasingly familiar cultural contexts. These patterned thoughts were translated into the national language and culture, mainly through literature, an ideal medium for the naturalizing of social structures. In chapter 2,1 will discuss individual works of fiction in which these tropes are employed, contending that these figures became the basis upon which, as Layoun puts it, the Reflections.” The Heartbeat o f the Indonesian Revolution, ed. Taufik Abdullah (Jakarta: Gramedia Pustaka Utama in cooperation with Program of Southeast Asian Studies, LIPI, 1997) 70-93. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 30] === 23 nationalist program “seeks to construct its history or to posit a narrative past (usually as continuous and uninterrupted) in an assertion of legitimacy and precedent for the practices of the narrative present” (Layoun 411).“ The Balai Pustaka was also instrumental in facilitating educated Indonesians’ embrace of a “new interiority” that readers, isolated from the collective audiences of performed traditional literatures, experienced “in silent colloquy with an unseen interlocutor.” As modem literature developed in Indonesia together with the practice of reading, this class of Indonesians was also embracing the values of humanism, which, as Tony Davies reminds us, are textualised: “its virtue and eloquence, its recklessness and moderation... are all grounded in texts, taught through texts, rehearsed, '* My work has some commonalties with Tineke Hellwig’s In the Shadow o f Change: [mages o f Women in Indonesian Literature, as she also draws together male and female writers in a comparative study. Along with Postel-Coster, Sumardjo, and Heraty, Hellwig assembles a large number of works from which to determine, in Hellwig’s words, “how female characters in modem Indonesian literature are portrayed and to what extent this portrayal helps to create a general image of women in Indonesian society” (I). Hellwig discusses 25 texts; Els Postel-Coster discusses 10 out of a possible 30 texts; Sumardjo identifies 53 women writers worth mentioning; Heraty counts 33 novels written by women. On one hand, these numbers point to the significance of modem Indonesian literature as composed by both male and female writers; on the other, the brief overviews of each work that this approach allows underemphasize the work’s and the writer’s individual contribution. In my view, the sociological approach to modem Indonesian literature needs to be rethought before the literature can truly speak to readers in the way it was written. Bourdieu’s approach to French literature, which has been treated in the opposite manner, as a realm of mysteries that can never be unlocked, is helpful here. In his discussion of the treatment of European literatures, he complains that “the study of aesthetics inherent in ‘literary hagiography’” has deferred interest in “social” and “scientific” approaches. As we move in the opposite direction from the sociological and historical to the literary, Bourdieu’s notion of an integrated paradigm is helpful. A means to overcome the “desire to savor the mystery of the text,” that which "offers an ever insurmountable resistance to whoever would translate it into the identity of a concept," requires the merging of "scientific analysis of the social conditions of the production and reception of a work of art" This will "intensify literary experience," through the location of points of intersection between the temporal and the timeless, the individualistic and the communal: “This is why scientific analysis, when it is able to uncover what makes the work of art necessary, that is to say, its informing formula, its generative principle, its raison d ’etre, also furnishes its artistic experience and the pleasure which accompanies it, with its best justification, its richest nourishment (Bourdieu xvi).” It sometimes appears as if women’s writing in Indonesia, as well Indonesian literature in general, has had nothing “mysterious” about it for critics to engage, and that its transparency leaves it open to sociological analysis only. Following Bourdieu’s model, it is only by contextualizmg women’s writing in particular as feminist, political, and literary that their raison d ’etre emerges. Here, Bourdieu imagines a middle ground between the scientific and aesthetic studies of modem literature, one that takes into account the values transmitted, and the atmosphere in which they are transmitted, as well as the means by which the writer creates and persuades. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 31] === 24 elaborated, and disputed in texts” (Davies 91-2). As I will argue in chapter 2, texts were also the place in which modem writers began to construct male subjectivity in the fashion of “what Milton first termed as a “master spirit’ (Milton, 1644).” Davies goes on to point out that “so many of the... subjects and addresses of humanist discourse are women, and the activity of reading (lettura) is feminised,” while “the discourse itself is a manly one, a discipline of mastery.” Canonical texts of the nationalist period produced by male writers illustrate the ways in which greater proximity to the colonial authority resulted in an anxiety of influence among male writers who had first inhabited that “feminised” position as the readers of the great European classics that, according to their colonizers, their own culture lacked. Ultimately, these writers learned how to appropriate “the master’s tools” in constructing themselves as subjects able to lead, speak for, and shape the new nation.” However, anxieties remained and were multiple; on the material level, they were inspired by signs of modernity, industrialization, urbanization, increased movement, money-economies, and thus the destabilization of social structures. Nationalists experienced not only the blatant racism of the colonial interface, but also the more nuanced racial and philosophical formulations of Enlightenment-era thought. Ultimately, I will argue, they developed what W.E.B. DuBois called the “double consciousness,” of the colonized intellectual, “this sense of always looking at oneself through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity” (DuBois 364).” If we 19 Radhakrishnan gives a sense of how Indian nationalists addressed this problem and the unintended results when he writes that ‘'the very mode in which nationalism identifies its inner reality privileges the externality of the West, and the so-called inner or true identity of the nation takes the form of a mere strategic reaction formation to or against interpellation by Western ideologies” (“Nationalism” 88). 20 Evidence to support such an argument comes in the form of a private letter written by a nationalist leader who “The feeling of double consciousness, to see yourself through the eyes of a white person, with all the inner conflicts bound up with that experience. Two souls, two ways of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 32] === 25 understand that the hegemonic aspects of nationalist discourse developed not as a property of “the nation” as a autonomous force, and not as the outgrowth of a conspiracy among a male elite coterie, but rather the result of deep-seated anxieties, we can see how the replacement of old hierarchies with new ones brought about a sense of order and stability that was otherwise lacking. In the 1930s, during the development of pre-Revolutionary nationalism, intellectuals were suspicious of dialectical thinking that recast the problem from one between colonizer/colonized to a more universal discussion of the powerful and powerless. Writer/editor Achdiat Mihardja’s question of “If there is no West and no East, what must we choose?” (Mihardja 10) suggests that nationalists needed to frame their struggle in these antithetical terms in order to maintain their focus. Embracing Enlightenment philosophy, that casts the rational Subject in opposition to a non-rational Other, both nationalist leaders and novelists worked, in different ways, to distance themselves from the image of the “native” projected upon them by the Dutch. Thus we see the nationalists’ sense of insecurity in their desire to modernize the nation in a fraction of the time it had taken for Western civilization from the Greeks onward. Such a desire causes even the most progressive thinkers to separate themselves from the mass populous as the educated elite, then lump together “the rest,” who is transformed into the “Other,” to a mass of children (Mihardja, Polemik, 46-48). Gender, another site of anxiety, is likewise divided and hierarchized in terms of “orthodox” masculinity and femininity as cultural categories “determined not by what thinking, in the one person” (Foulcher “In Search of the Postcolonial,” 147). Notably, these sentiments are expressed in private correspondence, for in the public domain, we can find nationalists adopting an aggressive strategies for avoiding and eluding the problem, all of which center around the construction of new hierarchies that would be internal to the new nation, topped by the rational, authoritative urban male. Foulcher and I take this evidence in different directions. He argues that ‘"the overriding legitimacy of the nationalist project never opened up a space for a linking of nationalist ideology... to a questioning of the SelPOther binary” (164). I will demonstrate that this critique does appear, but in ways that are not overt Rather, they are embedded in literary works in which writers consciously avoid this Enlightenment construct Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 33] === 26 men and women are like... but by the function of these concepts in structuring social hierarchies” (Hogan 90). The female was then subdivided again, through the influence of Dutch protestant ethics disseminated through education and literature, between those women who would be considered-and often considered themselves-as "civilized" and morally superior, and those who inhabited the "lower" realm of human existence, of the rakyat yang bodoh (ignorant masses).21 Examining nationalist texts with a consideration of gender and class, I began to see how the female became a screen for the projection of anxieties and a vessel in which they are contained. Ultimately, there is no singular pattern to the casting of Self/Other in nationalist discourse and literature. We will see women and the rakyat being constituted as the materiality of the nation, to be ordered and shaped by the rational male. We shall also see dichotomies between the public, speaking male, speaking for the silent or erased home-bound female dichotomy as well as the splitting of the female into its own opposition, as the traditional and modem, the ideal and the deviant, the “model and the maniac.”” The bifurcation of the female into traditional and modem parts is yet another strategy for assuaging the anxieties brought on by double consciousness; she can both represent the strength of tradition or Indonesia’s progressiveness, and she can be blamed for the society’s stagnation, or the breakdown of society through the loosening of morality. These kinds of pairings call attention away from the opposition that nationalist literature reveals to haunt the modem, rational urban male, that is, his relationship to a shadowy and silent br/other constantly reminding him of his position 2lSee Francis Gouda, “Teaching Indonesian Girls in Java and Bali, 1900-1942: Dutch Progressives, the Infatuation with ‘Oriental’ Refinement, and ‘Western’ Ideas about Proper Womanhood,” Women’s History Review4A (1995): 25-62. 22See Barbara Hatley, Indonesian women in the Household and Beyond: Reconstructing the Boundaries, and Tiwon, “Models and Maniacs.” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 34] === 27 in the world’s hierarchy in which the Indonesian male is placed perhaps slightly above the savage. It can be difficult to sort out the various “others” that were constructed in the nationalist project, but as Lydia Liu points out, quoting Benita Parry, it is best not to conflate distinct and specific modes of oppression “for the sake of another totalizing theory” (Liu “The Female Body” 41).” There was a general agreement, among both men and women, that women-of the upper classes at least-could claim moral superiority, based upon their being bom female, coupled with a consistent adherence to the rules of "civilization" or peradaban. Thus, using the rhetorical tools available to them at the time, feminists argued that the “decline” of civilized society was due to the practice of polygyny and high divorce rates resulting from the male “nature.” Women were blocked consistently, however, from making this moral argument into a “national” and thus political issue, as it could easily be deferred as a matter of the household and family. The claim to moral superiority was instead harnessed by writers over the decades in the depiction of the tragic heroine who suffered from her purity and other innate female qualities, particularly her willingness to sacrifice herself to the greater good in the form of the nation or family, i.e. the family, the nation. Marginality and the urge to engage in their own nationalist imaginings caused women to interact dialogically with the nationalist discourse that has been glossed by those scholars, like Anderson, who focused on “unity.” Unity, I contend, need not be synonymous with the monological, but in fact requires, in the Indonesian context, a balance of forces. This does not mean that the notion of “sorority” be appended to the a Interestingly, some Indonesian feminists of the 1930s conflated themselves with the rakyat, in order to characterize the oppression they were experiencing from their nationalist counterparts. Women fiction writers, I will show, were more attuned to distinctions between their own sense of oppression and the problematic use of “the people” in nationalist discourse as symbols and as bodies used for fighting. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 35] === 28 “fraternity” but rather that women’s writing, in both fiction and non-fiction, consciously present multiple perspectives, voices, and attitudes in response to the urgent goal of anti-colonial unity that nationalist leaders articulated. The lack of consensus, while resulting in legislative “failures” can be viewed as strategic, particularly in the 1920s and 1950s women’s magazines consciously drew together voices of women from different parts of the archipelago and the world as a means to contesting the monologic discourse of nationalism. In women’s fiction, as I will show, a similar strategy is used in the presentation of multiple voices and perspectives, sometimes verging on the chaotic or non-rational. With this construction of women’s writing, I enter volatile territory, as it is easy to proceed from this point to the association, already circulating in Indonesia, of the female women as representative of the chaotic principle as opposed to-and by-the male stabilizing principle. This is a very important issue in Indonesian studies for the fact that the New Order State has appropriated the association of the female with chaos as a central element in its origin myth. I will argue here that the productivity of the women’s movement and in women’s writing was contingent upon women’s embrace of heterogeneity and mixings of voices and forms as a strategy for opposing a monological discourse. I am thus suggesting that women’s use of the hybrid form of autobiographical fiction in conjunction with their embrace of the heterogeneity of the “community of women” was a conscious reaction against the extremely restrictive imagining and positioning of the female in nationalist discourse. In this reaction there emerges an alternative imagining that is productive not only for the community of women but for the nationalist community as well. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 36] === 29 Autobiographical Fictions Women writers, I discovered, not only construct subjectivity differently than their male counterparts, but also discuss their narrative strategies in their texts. A comment embedded deep in Kartini’s letters serves as an introduction to these strategies: when asked by a Dutch editor to write an article about her thoughts on “the Javanese woman,” resisted the totalizing approach, arguing that the topic would best be handled in a series of letters written between herself and another woman writer (Cote, Letters 168). She goes on to construct her own self through this process, always in conversation with her Dutch correspondents. In the women’s fiction that follows, the narrator works as an interlocutor with the author in a similar fashion. There is a distinct feeling of discomfort surrounding the claim of authority-of speaking for a wider constituency, the kita or all-inclusive "we" discussed in Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities, -and of speaking of “universal truths;” as this kita can contain traps in the form of prescribed nationalist identities. To avoid these traps, the writer is always in conversation with another, or with her self, “constructing,” as Lionnet puts it, the narrative in the very gap, the very space where it has deconstructed the identity of the female heroine while reconstructing [herself] as the female writer... moving from woman as tragic or romantic heroine to woman as writing subject or agent of discourse (Lionnet “Autobiographical Voices” 91-3). In all the works, we will see women writers engaging multiple voices and ethoi, in an attempt to avoid reduction these prescribed identities, and in the process, expanding the meaning of perempuan and “woman writer.” At the point at which the female characters of the later texts, Suwarsih’s Buiten het Gareel and Rukiah’s Kedjatuhan dan Hati, experience the feminine at the level of the “essential,” surrendering to her “fate,” these characters split into two selves who remain in conversation. This strategy of distancing, or doubling is, according to the numerous critics of female subjectivity in autobiography, a way of writing beyond the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 37] === 30 “master’s voice” that the genre requires. These critics have expanded upon Bahktin’s ideas of double-voicedness in the novel, to address how women channel their voices through their narrators in convey unspeakable truths through the veil of the narrator, while at the same time, maintaining the idea that these truths are discursive, fluid. By working with double-voiced structures, Indonesian women writers call attention to the fact that they are writing “in another’s speech in another’s language, serving to express authorial intentions but in a refracted way” (Bakhtin 324). Serving two speakers at the same time, he goes on to elucidate, it expresses simultaneously two different intentions: the direct intention of the character who is speaking, and the refracted intention of the author... [A]U the while these two voices are dialogically related... it is as if they have a conversation with one another. When the two voices are those of the author and herself, inscribed as a character, the conversation takes on additional dimensions. On one level we may see how the inscribed “I” becomes a representation of the writer’s imagined self; the process of mirroring may also take place, as the author examines herself in writing. Thus, in autobiographical fiction we see the writers engaging the practice of doubling that allows them to address themselves through the vehicle of the narrator in order to gain an understanding of themselves and their situations by “separating the knower from the known,” or, quoting Lionnet again, “engaging] in self-portraiture, the engendering of the self,” that “allows a writer to subject a great deal of her ordinary experience to new scrutiny and to show the polarity fact/fiction does not establish and constitute absolute categories of feeling or perceiving reality” (Lionnet, Autobiographical Voices 92). These writers create a sense of distance between themselves and their narratives through the use of fictional narrators in order to “engage in an attempt to excavate those elements of the female self which have been buried under the cultural and patriarchal myths of selfhood” (Lionnet, Autobiographical 91-3). Autobiographical fiction Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 38] === 31 becomes a space in which to draw horizons in order to destabilize them, through a rejection both of metaphorical discourse and its universalizing and totalizing tendencies and the construction of subjectivity projected through this discourse. The play between the autobiographical and the fictional is critical in Indonesian women’s writing, as they invent futures for their characters that they themselves wish to avoid, or imagine themselves in writing in ways that their socially-inscribed bodies make impossible in reality. A great deal of tension lurks in this border area between autobiography and fiction, between the narrator and author, which adds to the depth and breadth of the text. At the same time, the fiction writers who followed Kartini are writing their stories against the grain of discursive norms where, for example, the heroine either married or dies. In the process, they are also reworking the tragic end to the Kartini story, the loss of so much potential through forced marriage and childbirth. Each work of autobiographical fiction is cyclical, ending at the beginning of the writing, so that, just as all seems lost for the character, we know she will proceed to sit down and write her story. Through my research of the writer’s own biographies, which I will discuss further in a moment, I discovered the real significance of the genre of autobiographical fiction for women writers. Writing at critical moments in their lives, they begin with their own stories but produce tragic futures for their characters that enabled them to experience different real-life futures. Biographical research also reveals, however, that these victories must be seen in relative terms, as the writers, like their counterparts in other places, have been subject to multiple childbirths, forms of domestic abuse-mainly of a psychological nature it seems-, early death, and silencing by the state. In addition there are various aspects of their lives that remain shrouded in the mystery of multiple and conflicting stories, or which constitute silences shaped by the limits of Indonesian mores. The urge to write these autobiographical fictions, then, can be viewed as a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 39] === 32 mechanism for survival that exceeds the boundaries of the individual, and takes on national/feminist proportions. Inspired by Lionnet’s concept of the metissage, I will examine how these mixings result in the creation of a new logic through which women writers create themselves by “braiding together all the traditions at [her] disposal,” to “elaborate discursive patterns that will both reveal the ‘hidden face of Eve’ and displace the traditional distinctions of rigidly defined literary genres” (Lionnet “Metissage” 261). In their writing, Indonesian women authors call attention to their desire to “speak plainly,” to avoid the stylization and hierarchical relationship between author and audience, and they also engage without apology, in women’s vernacular that includes gossip, complaint, lament, and unspeakable revelations about domestic situations, as well as love stories, stories about relationships, and other narratives associated negatively with the female, with emotion, and sentimentality. In the process, they offer commentary on how women’s talk and women’s narratives are devalued in the national and literary discourses as omong kosong (empty talk) and “bourgeois,” romantic, and socially and politically useless. These are in fact the charges leveled at their works by critics who have focused on the “childishness,” and “amateurishness” of women’s writing, but have yet to understand how the infusion of modem fiction with women’s vernacular is strategic rather than a weakness. In their writing, these authors project into the “print patriarchy” the voices which were otherwise silenced or erased, along with the critique of nationalism voiced in such marginal spaces as women’s organizations and the home. Deleuze and Guattari’s definition of “minor literature” helps to situate this strategy in political terms when they write that, in minor works, everything is political. In major literatures... the individual concern (familial, marital, and so on) joins with other no less individual concerns, the social milieu serving as mere environment or background... Minor literature is completely different. Its cramped space forces each individual intrigue to connect immediately to politics. The individual concern thus becomes all the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 40] === 33 more necessary, indispensable, magnified, because a whole other story is vibrating within it (“Minor Literature” 59-60). Deleuze and Guattari go on to illustrate the ways in which the “major” and “minor” modes are always relational, each constituted by the other, thus providing one type of framework through which to approach modem Indonesian literature. Already “minor,” in relation to European literature-a fact that Indonesian writers were never allowed to forget, and that many Indonesian critics have intemalized-modem Indonesian literature can be further subdivided into its own major and minor modes. Among those writers whose works have become canonized in the context of modem Indonesian literature, some strove toward “mastery” over their texts by depoliticizing their characters’ situations in an effort toward creating texts that were “universally” acceptable. What I will argue in the following pages is that their female colleagues, whose works are also always invoked in listings of modem works, composed in the minor mode constructing alternative subjectivities that display a suspicion toward “mastery.” These writers privilege in their works what “in great literature goes on down below, constituting a not indispensable cellar of the structure,” i.e., the personal, the familial. Here, these matters “absorb everyone no less than the matter of life and death,” as Deleuze and Guattari put it. In order to fully comprehend women’s autobiographical fiction, one is forced to transcend the many binarial constructions that have developed around and through “Third World” and postcolonial writing, between the private and public, the individual and collective, the literary and the vernacular, and the aesthetic and the political. In chapter 3,1 discuss Hamidah’s construction of the female self through her mixing of narratives including the Shakespearean and the nationalist rantau genre, feminist activism and feminine tragedy, all posed as a question to her “esteemed audience” regarding the meaning of fate and independence for women. In chapter 4, 1 trace Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 41] === 34 Suwarsih Djojopuspito’s construction of subjectivity through a mediation between Dutch and Indonesian languages and epistemologies, as she struggles with the role of the female in nationalist ideology. In chapters 5 and 6,1 explicate Rukiah’s creation of the ambivalent revolutionary who locates herself between extreme binarial positions in order to destabilize them and in the process, question the legitimacy of the new nation. Through my engagement of these texts, I locate contiguities between women’s construction of the alternative subjectivites within the nation and the national language under the auspices of what Frangoise Lionnet has defined as “comparative feminisms” through which we may locate certain “universals” in women’s construction of subjectivities that ultimate dislodge, in Lionnet’s words, the idea of universality from its place in Enlightenment philosophy (Lionnet Postcolonial Representations 5). Research Tales The final step in the research for this project thus involved a journey to Indonesia to locate the writers or their friends and associates to locate intersections of life and text, as well as discontinuities. When I first set out to leam more about Indonesian women writers of the nationalist period, all of whom were by then deceased-Rukiah had died the previous year-I was surprised at how little published information was available on Fatimah Hassan Delais, who used the pen-name Hamidah, and S. Rukiah Kertapati.2' While both are (almost) always included in lists 24 Sri Rahayu’s Pengarang Wanita Indonesian dalam Prosa is the only full-length published text devoted wholly to women’s writing in Indonesia. In her short yet focused explication of Indonesian women’s writing, Sri Rahayu separates the writers from the characters they draw, asserting that “the woman fiction-writer always has a female protagonist who functions as a vehicle to express the author’s emancipation and her protest against the rigid traditions and the arbitrariness of men” (Heraty 123). However, she also demonstrates the numerous ways in which the authors “fail” to produce exemplary modem texts. Paradoxically, each of the failures to which she alludes become, in my study, signs of innovation, alternative approaches to the modem text, and elements that constitute women’s writing as an entity. Searching for coherent themes, “to which all elements of the story must Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 42] === 35 of modem writers, along with a set of basic facts that include dates and places of birth and death, schools attended, participation in organizations, associations, and publications, there is little insight offered into their actual lives. In contrast, most likely because she is considered a Dutch writer by the Dutch, there is far more available on Suwarsih’s life and work, particularly through the interest of Dutch critic Gerard Termorshuizen.Kartini’s life, as we shall see below, has received the most scrutiny of all, because of the position she was granted during the nationalist period as “mother of the nation.” What follows are my gathering of fragments of the lives of Fatimah and Rukiah in an introduction to the problematics of authorship those women experienced. The library of Indonesian literary critic and editor H.B. Jassin houses some fragments of information on the two missing writers in the form of newspaper clippings, letters written to Jassin, and Jassin’s own reviews. Fragments of biographical study of Hamidah and Rukiah are also found in excerpts from Pramoedya AnantaToer’s Ensiklopedia Sastra (Encyclopedia of Literature) which was never published in full, but of which he published excerpts in his 1960s newspaper supplement Lentera.a The loss of the Ensiklopedia-it was reportedly destroyed when an “angry mob” burned Pramoedya’s home in 1966-offers insights into the reasons be related,” Rahayu finds that much of Hamidah’s text is digressive and ultimately unnecessary” (Rahayu 4-5). Suwarsih’s Buiten het Gareel is to be excluded because ua novel written in Dutch is not Indonesian literature” (15). Her short story Artinah “fails” in its use of the flashback technique, because the teller of the story inteijects herself in the midst of her telling (16). As each of these points will be taken up in the following chapters as strategies rather than failures, it appears that Sri Rahayu, in pointing them out, may have been constrained by a logic not her own in her criticism. She comments positively on each writers’ cyclical form, in which the beginning is the end, but never takes the next step of allowing this prominent feature to reshape her thinking about linear and coherent texts. Ultimately, her objective, structuralist stance serves her well in the sense that she produces important insights and does not leap to facile conclusions. At the same time, her limited reading demonstrates the ways in which a consciously feminist approach can liberate the critic from structural constraints. 25 LerUera was the weekly cultural supplement for the newspaper Bintang Timur, edited by Pramoedya AnantaToer from 1962-1965. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 43] === 36 behind the dearth of biographic research on modem writers and the lack of discussion about it. Political urgencies throughout the 20* century have tended to usurp time and funds for all biographical research of this kind. At the same time, as I discovered while doing research, a century of censorship-during the colonial period, the nationalist period, and under the reactionary New Order government of 19661999-has created an environment in which information is used as a tool of that oppression. Opening the life of a woman writer to scrutiny is thus similar to opening the proverbial can of worms; amid uncorroborated gossip26 and conflicting images, verifiable facts emerge that locate the writers in tragic historical and personal patterns. There is too much in women’s lives that cannot be said without damaging the reputations of either the writers or their associates, family members, and assorted others who have already suffered various forms of political and personal oppression. Because I do not have the option of changing the identities of the characters in this narrative for the sake of their privacy or safety, I will tread carefully here, respecting the silences that I have been asked to maintain. For the most part, I have arranged the biographical information I will present here and in the following chapters around the stories I heard from the writers’ official representatives, their eldest daughters who have taken the role of ahli wans, guardians of their mothers’ estates and legacies. The position brings no financial reward, as there are no royalties to be collected, nor does it require much work as the writers are relatively unknown. Nevertheless, the position is important in the sense that it entails 261 was particularly attracted by stories about romantic and/or sexual liaisons of the writers, not because of prurient interests, but because of Western examples of romantic/ intellectual relationships between such prominent writers as Byron and Wollstencraft, Beauvoir and Sartre. I came to realize, however, that even if the stories I had heard could be printed, they would not be understood in the context I imagined them. Rather, I think that the interest in such stories would be based on the urge to break through what people view as a Victorianism cynically perpetuated by the New Order government as a further means of control. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 44] === 37 the shaping and preservation of the mothers’ stories, of their memory in the public consciousness. The stories these daughters tell are generally limited to their own memories and in some cases, materials they have maintained and information they have collected. I was interested both in the facts of their mothers’ lives that were excluded from the very concise information presented in the lexicon, and in the daughters’ impressions filtered through their own experiences of their mothers that provide insights that are invisible to historical studies. I thus asked questions about familial issues, the number of children, the states of the writers’ marriages, the mothers’ working conditions, the nature of their deaths. The daughters were clearly proud of their mothers’ accomplishments, and, to some extent, did not mind releasing family secrets that exemplified the difficulties that women of their mothers’ generations faced. It was in my discussion with Fatimah’s youngest daughter-not the ahli waris-who still lives in her parents’ old house in Palembang, that I encountered the most disturbing aspect of her mother’s story. That is, the fact that, after her premature death in 1953 from complications of malaria, her husband burned all of her papers including the manuscript for a second novel. No one, to my knowledge, had ever sought out the surviving family members to ask about Fatimah. The research experience gave me a new appreciation for serendipity as well as fate. To locate her relatives, I rode the bus from Jakarta to the Sumatran city of Palembang with the vague idea of locating the local Taman Siswa school and asking for help. By luck during a conversation in the parking lot of a Padang restaurant, I met a man who had attended that very school. An enterprising woman at the school by chance had an uncle who had worked with Fatimah’s husband, also deceased, and she not only located the address of Fatimah’s Palembang home, but also accompanied me there, where her youngest daughter still lived. From this daughter I obtained the directions to Fatimah’s home on the island of Bangka, where I traveled Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 45] === 38 the next day, accompanied by another stranger who I met in a Palembang department store, an elementary school teacher who considered “Hamidah” a national hero. Together with my husband and this teacher, I rode down the Musi River on a hovercraft and across the Bangka Strait to the small harbor town of Mentok, Bangka. I arrived at Fatimah’s home in the middle of a wedding, to which we were all invited, and at which many of Hamidah’s relatives were conveniently gathered. Amidst the karaoke singing and hundreds of photo opportunities, I questioned these relatives about the life of Fatimah Hassan Delais who took the pen name Hamidah back in 1935. On the bus trip back from Palembang, overwhelmed by my good fortune, I misplaced a bag that contained one of my research notebooks, losing the names of the taman siswa teacher as well as the kind man who brought us to Hamidah’s home, and was never able to thank them for their help. I waited until our second meeting to ask Fatimah’s ahli waris about the burnt papers and the reason behind them. She repeated what her sister’s had said about their father’s “emotional state” upon their mother’s premature death from malaria-the youngest child was only 1 year old at the time, and there were four more to care for. The phrase “banyak emosi” (excessive emotions) functions as a kind of containing jar for all of the exigencies surrounding the act. Perhaps the manuscript contained a negative representation of the husband, perhaps the burning had something to do with his quick marriage, after his wife’s death, to one of his students who had come to live with the family, they speculated, after some urging. Generally speaking, this detail does not overshadow Fatimah’s daughter’s image of a woman who was “Gentle, yet with an edge,” (lemah, tetapi tajam), who wrote, taught, created and operated a school, while bearing five children over the period of about 12 years, until her death at the age of (40). It is only when we consider Fatimah/Hamidah as an author, in the sense that Foucault describes, that the emotional husband and burnt manuscript become Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 46] === 39 significant These aspects of Fatimah’s story were not included in the official version I first received from her eldest daughter, nor the version I encountered on the island of Bangka, where the author is hailed as a national hero, with a building named after her (notably Gedtmg Hamidah, or the Hamidah Building, reflecting her literary persona) in the capital city of Pangkal Pinang." They function, rather, to reveal how, in unofficial histories, we find clues to the larger questions that surround the issue of women writers in Indonesia regarding why they are so few and why their careers appear to be so brief or relatively unproductive. Such questions may be recast so that women’s writing in Indonesia emerges as a contestation between the will to articulate and recollect stories and lives and forced silences. Those texts that are available must be read with the knowledge of other, phantom texts. Such texts haunt the life and oeuvre of Rukiah Kertapati, whose papers were also destroyed when she was about 40 years old, when she was forced to flee military persecution. As her daughter explained to me, Rukiah’s shortened life as a writer-she spent the last 30 years of her life in forced silence-was as hectic as Fatimah’s. She bore and raised six children between the years of 1952 and 1965, while publishing a series of books for children, articles in a number of journals on whose editorial boards she was listed, and traveled to Europe for a 6-month period as a representative of the cultural organization LEKRA. Her daughter recalls her mother working in the pendopo, an open-air attachment to their house, and visiting offices around Jakarta monitoring the publication of her works. She adds to her description her impressions that her mother “always had time for the children” and was “actively involved in their schooling.” 27 Fatimah/Hamidah’s local/national reputation comes not only from the fact that she is Bangka’s only nationally-known writer, but also from her work creating her own school (in Palembang) during the Japanese occupation, which she eventually turned over to the Indonesian government after Independence. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 47] === 40 Rukiah’s daughter’s image of her mother corresponds with impressions offered by Rukiah’s associates: she was reserved (orang pendiam) and proper, always wearing the kain kebaya (national dress), and on top of that, “the most beautiful Indonesian woman writer,” but also, like Hamidah, “tajam,” sharp-witted, and incisive.” The story of Rukiah’s death is also invoked by her daughter to reflect the spiritual power she accumulated through extensive meditation and fasting in her later years. After years of bad health, Rukiah choose to die peacefully in her sleep and spent her final days visiting friends and relatives as if to say goodbye.2’ The moving story of Rukiah’s death, which had occurred only a year before I conducted my research, was critical to Rukiah’s daughter’s memory of her mother, whose life had been marked by turmoil and anxiety. The life is given closure that brings a sense of peace to both the dead and the living. As Rukiah’s story unfolds, unofficial details reveal the aspects of her life that problematize official histories. These details are provided by Rukiah’s husband, Sidik Kertapati, also asked that much of what he would recount of his early years of marriage be kept “off the record.” I will present here the aspects of the story that explicate the contingencies of women’s writing and silencing. Recalling the early years of their marriage, Kertapati described how he had pressured her into becoming a “traditional” Indonesian wife. He had been self-absorbed, to the point that he had not understood his wife’s place in Indonesia’s literary scene until the 1980s, when he was interviewed by “ Comments from Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Pak Oei, and Joesoef Isak, in interviews from July-August, 1997. 29 In the Indonesian context, a planned or otherwise controlled death is highly respected and desired, and signals the deceased’s heightened mental and spiritual capabilities. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 48] === 41 another Western scholar interested in her work.30His violent experiences as a guerilla fighter and the aftermath, during which he was repeatedly beaten up, shot, and jailed, had lasting effects. Fragments from a bullet left in his hip resulted in lead poisoning that he experienced as a vague, lingering illness. His position in Parliament did not bring a large salary, but, as he put it, he was unwilling to compromise his ideals by engaging in “corruption and collusion ” Moreover, unlike the nationalist soldiers returning home from the war, he was not considered a hero, but rather a traitor, and pariah.31 He found in Rukiah a partner who was interested in defending his views and the views and actions of his organization through her fiction. In his account, she was also instrumental in helping him write his book Sekitar Proklamasi 17 Augustus 1945, composed during the first year of her marriage. Overall, Sidik Kertapati was full of regrets that were clearly the product of his extensive soul-searching during 30 years of separation from his wife from the mid1960s until her death in 1996.31The separation was caused by the events of 1965. 101 am referring here to Annabel Gallop, who wrote a Master’s Thesis on Rukiah in the 1980s. Notably, Gallop does not include information gathered from her interviews with Rukiah’s relatives, or Rukiah herself, who was unwilling to talk about her past 31 From his own description of his youth and young adulthood, it is clear that Sidik had led a difficult life. He was bom in Bali to a Javanese family and later moved to Java where he was sent to stay with relatives, as was a frequent practice among large families during that time. While he was able to gain a good education, he was not raised in comfortable surroundings. As an example of the rough nature of his childhood, he recounted witnessing the killing of a female relative by her Dutch husband with a bottle. The Dutchman was never tried for the murder. After completing high school, he wandered around, working on the docks and other industrial areas at low-level bureaucratic jobs. During this period he became interested in socialist politics, an interest that was augmented by his reading of journals and newspapers, including Pesat, published by the known leftist, S. K. Trimurti. Eventually he joined a group of leftist filmmakers working in Jakarta who were drawn into the non cooperation movement. 32 In a strange twist, Sidik’s attempt to return home in the 1980s was met with the same “wall" that Rukiah described in her 19S0 novella Kedjatuhan dan Hati, in which her character turns away her former lover after he returns from prison. Where in the earlier text she created the scenario in order to catch Sidik’s attention as a reader, she ultimately comes to enact that scenario much later as a safety measure. Sidik was still considered a fugitive in die 1980s, and as a family friend Hersri put it, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 49] === 42 Sidik had been abroad in China when the tensions erupted, and, to save his own life, remained in China until he moved to the Netherlands in the early 1980s. Rukiah was in turn left with their six children and headed back to her hometown of Purwakarta where she was eventually incarcerated while the children were split up among relatives. As evidence of his regrets, Sidik showed me letters that contained apologies to his wife and attempts to make amends. The letters Rukiah wrote in reply constitute the phantom text that haunts her published writings as well as all of the works that were confiscated and destroyed by unidentified individuals when she was forced to flee to Purwakarta.” In the remaining 30 years of her life, during which time her name and contribution was erased Indonesian literary history, she apparently kept a promise to refrain from writing to ensure her children’s safety.14While it is possible that other letters remain, I am not aware of them. Despite their brevity-they were written over only a two-year period (1989-90)-the letters present the picture of a woman who was forced to raise six children in impossible circumstances, separated from her husband and denied the ability to work because of her status as a suspected political prisoner or ex-tapol. Rukiah describes suffering a range of illnesses, including hypertension, kidney infections, exhaustion and dizziness that make it difficult for her to write, and she apologizes for shakiness of her hand and inability to write for extended periods. She laments the fact that she has had to rely on her parents, and then her children for her livelihood and for a “she had reached a balance, had finally achieved some normalcy which she did not now want to be disrupted” (Interview with Hersri, Den Hague, summer 1998). 33 According to her daughter, Rukiah was writing a book for children that centered on the stories behind her own children’s names in Sundanese history and lore. 34 After 1965, Rukiah’s name and contribution was erased from reprints of from H.B. Jassin’s anthology Gema Tanah Air (Echoes of the Nation), and replaced by those of another woman writer, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 50] === 43 place to stay, as the only work she could find was making cakes to sell, which required to her rise at 3:00 am and work until midnight. She frames these hardships in the repeated phrase “24 years,” which then becomes “25 years” in 1990; the phrase functions as a mantra, encapsulating resentments aimed in a number of unspoken directions. But this resentment is tempered by her sense of responsibility for what transpired over the quarter-century period, as she writes: “Wasn’t this what we planned for, ever since we married? Did we not know we would have to accept this as our fate (imenerima nasib ini)?”” Rukiah then implores her husband to accept this fate as well. With this statement, Rukiah claims the last word in her own story that she could not otherwise achieve in the post-1965 political climate of Indonesia. Her marriage to a member of the radical left, her political activities, and the repercussions she experienced are inscribed in this loaded fragment as part of a larger plan that included personal sacrifice for one’s ideals. She asserts indirectly here that she was consistent over the “24 years” in maintaining her integrity, in completing what she started. Researching Rukiah’s life I could not at first comprehend or penetrate the strange silence that surrounded her name, until I discovered that she herself had taken it on as a kind of mantle of protection for her children’s and her own safety and sanity after 1965. Over the years, both Western literary critics with an interest in her work, as well as her former associates, had tried to get her to speak but ended up respecting her silence with their own. When 1 asked questions of the former associates, members of the leftist cultural organization Lekra who had survived imprisonment on the island of Siti Nuraini. Compare the 4th and 5* editions of Jassin’s Gema Tanah Air: Prosa dan Puisi (Djakarta: Balai Pustaka, 1959 and 1969). 35 Letter to Sidik Kertapati, November 20, 1990.1 wish to thank Pak Sidik for his generosity and trust in granting me access to the letters. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 51] === 44 Burn, I discovered that this silence had been filled with all kinds of speculation. Rukiah’s eldest daughter was able to dispel some of these rumors for me, but only under the condition that I not publish what she had to say. In searching for the details of Rukiah’s life, I was drawn in to the world of the 1965-6 story that had originally fascinated me, but for which I was totally unprepared. Because I was staying with one of Kendro’s old-time military associates, who was no fan of Suharto but at the same time feared and loathed “Communists,” I was forced to lie about my daily activities. I’m sure the Lekra members first thought I was a stiff, as I was accustomed to dealing with people who observed more formalities in language, dress, and manner. After they advised me to loosen up, however, I was pointedly questioned as to my motives: was I coming to Jakarta to gather stories, which I would then go off and publish them in order to achieve my degree or position, leaving the subjects of those stories behind to take the heat? What was my level of commitment to the ex-tapols, the hundreds of thousands of individuals who had been accused of political crimes and never tried, and who were, along with their families, blacklisted and harassed? I was especially drawn to the stories of the ex-tapol children who now were about my age, and who had grown up amidst the rhetoric that demonized their parents and everything they stood for, impoverished them, and robbed them of educational and economic opportunities. As I flirted on the margins of a community of people, originally drawn together by a common vision for the Indonesian nation, and then by the experience of having their lives jettisoned, I could not locate a position for myself. I saw other outsiders, Australians mainly, who were clearly committed to the struggle for Indonesian democracy that brought together the ex-tapols, with the members of the opposition movement While action was possible, writing and publication was another issue altogether. I had stumbled upon one of the tools of the New Order government in silencing any discussion of their massive family secret, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 52] === 45 which itself centered on the institution of the family. By forcing entire families to suffer for the supposed crimes of their parents and relatives, the government forced people to be silent in order to protect, not themselves, but their kin. Through their experiences as the destitute children of ex-tapols, forced to scramble to survive, and shamed about their parents’ activities, the children learned that silence was a mode of survival. Would I take responsibility for opening up their lives to gain a degree or a position? No. Would that mean not telling the stories that need to be told? Yes, for now. The situation remains unresolved for me, even in the wake of Suharto’s ouster, because the New Order is still in control. Hybridity and Translation in Academic Discourse By piecing together these stories, and comparing them to the stories they presented in their autobiographical fictions, I encountered theoretical insights embedded in the gaps between what Sidonie Smith identifies as the three vital elements of autobiography: the bios, the aute, or formation of an identity, and the graphia, the act of writing oneself (Smith, Poetics 7). I was able to understand that Indonesian women writers subjected their autobiographical characters to certain tragic circumstances as a strategy for avoiding them in real life, and at the same time, to locate their characters within the kaum perempuan or community of women, merging self and collectivity. I developed an increased awareness of the urgency with which women came to writing to avoid or at least postpone some of the inevitabilities of women’s lives, as well as to inscribe themselves as they imagined themselves to be, escaping, temporarily at least, their socially inscribed bodies. Writing was thus a means of distancing themselves from their experiences, in order to gain analytical insight and renewed sanity. However, the writers also sacrificed a great deal to write, and suffered from the knowledge they gained as writers, readers, and thinkers when forced to confront the gaps between their Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 53] === 46 imaginings and the realities they lived. While predominantly middle class, or of the aristocracy, these writers’ life experiences bore the truth of Audre Lourde’s famous saying that “poetry is not a luxury.” As I encountered the myriad ways in which these women experienced silencing, I felt my own work take on increasing significance. My job was to draw from the texts which are available to us as much as possible to compensate for all those texts that were burned, disappeared, or were never written. Because I felt compelled to integrate these stories into my literary analysis, I found myself engaging in the same kind of mixing of genres as the writers. I came to realize that literary biography involves a different kind of voice, explicative rather than analytical, and that blending them within the text was challenging. It is hard to keep this voice from overflowing into the analytical voice, and to keep the drama of the narrative contained, once it is allowed into the text. At times I felt myself wishing I was writing a novel rather than a dissertation. In retrospect, I see that a text on the hybridity of women’s writing is best written as a hybrid itself, and here I have mixed theory and academic discourse with biography, as well as the translation of large segments of the texts under consideration. Because the texts are otherwise unavailable to the nonIndonesian reader, and to most Indonesian readers as well, I include these large segments in both English and Indonesian, and some Dutch as well. The translating I have done in this academic work is specialized; it is as literal as possible, as it is mainly for the purposes of demonstrating what the writer is doing in Indonesian, Dutch, or between Indonesian and Dutch as the case may be. In fact, the whole project is oriented around what Lydia Liu has termed “translingual practice,” which “examines the processes by which new words, meanings discourses, and modes of representation arise, circulate, and acquire legitimacy” in what she calls the “host” or local language (Translingual Practice 26). In my discussion of women’s writing, I encounter numerous examples of what others have called “imported” concepts like Communism, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 54] === 47 humanism, individualism under the umbrella concept of “modernity,’' but which, following Liu’s configuration, “are not so much ‘transformed’ when concepts pass from the guest language to the host language as invented in the local environment of the latter” (26). As I will demonstrate in the following chapters, translingual practice is nuanced in Indonesian literature, so that modernity, for example, is not necessarily found in the embrace of “universal” values of “democracy” or “humanism,” but will rather be reinvented as it is brought in to serve numerous and conflicting interests.’4 1 realize that, as I am now taking these reinvented concepts to a new space, that of academic discourse in English, I run the risk of reversing the process by reducing and flattening meaning in order to fit into my argument. I can only hope that I have erred in the opposite direction, in an effort to open these texts to new readings. 36 Here I am responding obliquely to James Siegal’s stunning claims that “There is little substance of modernity in [Indonesian novels of the 1920s]. One does not find expressions of equality between races, cultures, speakers of different languages, or the two sexes, and there is no notion of independence. There is no insistence on equality just as there is no insistence on liberty (Fetish, Recognition, Revolution 147). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 55] === 48 Chapter 1: Kartini and The Problematics of Authorship Having always traced its own limits while going beyond the limits of its assigned role as expression or communication, [writing] may be viewed as that which does not translate a reality outside itself, but, more precisely, allows the emergence of a new reality. TrinhT. Minh-ha, Woman, Native, Other 22. Of Subjectivity and Erasure In this chapter I consider what Lionnet refers to as the “problematics of female authorship” in Indonesia. Whereas Lionnet examines these problematics through close readings of women’s texts, I will broaden the concept to include the experience of authorship among female writers as I create a shape for a genealogical study of women’s autobiographical fictions. While researching women’s lives in conjunction with their autobiographical novels, I was struck by the urgency with which women came to writing as evidenced in the young ages in which they produced their works. Kartini composed volumes of letters between the ages of 19 and 24; ‘ Hamidah was 21 when she published Kehilangan Mestika (The Loss of the Precious Thing) in 1935; Rukiah was 23 when her Kedjatuhan dan Hati appeared in 1950. Although Suwarsih was 28 when her Buiten het Gareel was published in 1940, she had actually composed much of it far earlier in her native language of Sundanese, before translating it into Dutch. For these women, writing would become the replacement for the normative transition from girlhood and womanhood which was, across class as well as the ethnicities that made up Indonesian society, framed in the ritual and symbolism of the engagement and marriage ceremonies. Writing from the borderline between “daughter” and “woman” with all of the attendant meanings I will discuss throughout the dissertation, these 1Kartini’s letters were first published in 1911 in Dutch as Door Duistemis tot Licht, and translated into Indonesian in 1922, and again in a different translation in 1938, both of which were titled Habis Gelap, Terbitlah Terang. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 56] === 49 authors urgently introduced new subjects into Indonesian literature, that is female characters coining to age on the edges of culturally defined categories. Their embrace of writing as a means of liberation from the constraints of womanhood and as a vehicle through which to create themselves on the page in recognizable forms was a matter of existence and disappearance. While their urgency is personal and individualized, their goals in becoming writers and pursuing other careers that would free them from gendered constraints are imagined in the context of raising up the kaum perempuan or community of women as a whole. As Hamidah put it, I read intensely and personally each book that was published. Was it not also possible for me to produce something like those writers? Was it not possible for me to raise the position of Indonesian women through the act of writing like they did? These thoughts prompted me to plunge myself into the world of literature.2 The writers’ beliefs in the power of both the written (in the form of letters) and printed word can be traced to both traditional and modem contexts. Describing classical Javanese court-poets’ understanding of this power, Florida writes: Writing was a highly esteemed practice, and a practice that was self-consciously absorbed in its own worldliness, its being-in-the-world or circumstantial reality. The best of the traditional writers... wrote with an acute awareness of the potential power of their words in the world. These writers wrote strategically to produce certain considered effects in the sociopolitical milieus in which they wrote. They meant to produce texts which were prophetic not just as records of already determined foreseen futures, but rather as kinds of writing whose very inscription itself could (or would) materially effect was to come (Writing 397). We will see this belief emerging in the authors’ use of writing as a strategy of avoidance of predetermined futures as well as of self-portraiture. The selves engendered on the page, through the use of particular tropes and the inhabiting of multiple ethoi, break through 2 Pramoedya AnantaToer, "Hamidah” Leruera, June 8,1962. "Saya suka membatja buku2 jang berhubungan dengan keperempuanan terutama jang dikarang oleh perempuan sendiri... [s]aja membatja buku2 itu atjap terbit di hati saja dengan sendirinja: Tidakkah saja dapat berbuat djuga seperti pengarang2 ini? Tidakkah saja dapat memangkat deradjat perempuan Indonesia dengan djalan karangmenarang seperti meteka itu? Pikiran2 inilah jang mendorong saja mentjeburkan ciri kedalam dunia karangmenarang” (From a letter addressed to the Balai Pustaka dated 12 February, 1936). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 57] === 50 boundaries placed around both female experience and expression in daily life and interactions. However, women writers and others who used this power to question and problematize national institutions, this sense of the power of the word have been subject to various forms of silencing and erasure from the historical and literary fields. The circumstances under which Indonesian women wrote and have been read or not read have led me to reconsider the idea of “the author” in the Indonesian and other contexts. Since the 1970s, when Barthes’ and Foucault’s declarations of the “death of the author” appeared in English, the author has gradually disappeared from literary criticism in the West. In contrast, in Indonesian literary studies, the author has barely appeared. The absence of the writer in each context is based on opposing trends that ultimately meet in a cyclical fashion in a space of pre- and post-modern “anonymity.” In their expulsion of the “author-God” and “author function” from the literary field, Barthes and Foucault react against the overdetermination of the author which they argue, limits possibilities for reading. As Barthes puts it, we should not place works in a “process of determination by which one person (the author) would be the origin, but rather works traversed by that great mythical writing in which humanity tries our its meanings, that is to say, its desires” (“The Death of the Author” 77). Foucault, in turn, confronts critics who “[discern] in the individual [author] a ‘deep’ motive, a ‘creative power’ or a ‘design’” which he contends “are only a projection, in more or less psychologizing terms of operations that we force texts to undergo, the connections that we make, the truths that we establish as pertinent, the continuities that we recognize, the exclusions that we practice” (“What is an Author?” 110). He calls instead for “depriving the subject (or its substitute) of its role as an originator,” and for “analyzing the subject as a variable and complex function of discourse” in a field of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 58] === 51 “anonymous discourse in which it no longer matters who is speaking.”3 This would allow critics to move the focus away from issues of “authenticity” and “originality” (119). The problem with following Barthes’ and Foucault’s approach in the arena of Indonesian literary studies is that the majority of Indonesian writers have yet to become overdetermined in the same ways as the nineteenth century “author-God” of Barthes’ critique. Indonesian authors-particularly those of the pre-New Order period-have yet to resemble, the “author worthy of the killing,” that, as Sean Burke points out, Barthes creates as “the tyrannical deity, but also the bourgeois man himself... ‘the epitome of culmination of capitalist ideology’” (Burke 26). There have been, to be sure, Indonesian authors who have intended to achieve such a position, borrowing the ideas of 19th century humanism in order to position themselves, as writers who were responding to the tendency to be seen as just emerging from a “pre-modem” anonymity. Writers and thinkers of this generation, known as the Pudjangga Barn (New [Court] Poets) who situated themselves firmly in the modem understood their role as one of naturalizing, through realistic prose, an ideology based in Enlightenment-era humanism. Armijn Pand, one of the best-known early writers of modem fiction, and a central figure of the Pudjangga Baru, argued that successful realist fiction was a form through which an author could “communicate personal conviction to the reader without the reader’s being aware of the novelist’s voice” and in which an author’s “political, religious, or philosophical viewpoint would merge as the logical outcome of interplay between plot and character” (Foulcher 1980,16-17). Ideologies were transmitted in this way in order to re-shape readers” thinking without their even being aware of it. Indonesian writers cannot be faulted for attempting to achieve a level of universality through the appropriation of the modem Western aesthetic, in which, 31 stop short of imagining this move, as does Nancy Hartsock. as a conspiracy. As she put it, “Why is it that just when subject or marginalized peoples like blacks, the colonized, and women have begun to demand a voice, they are told by the white boys that there can be no authoritative speaker or subject?” (quoted in Lila Abu-Lughod's ‘Towards a Feminist Anthropology,” p.17). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 59] === 52 as Eagleton explains, “It was not the business of literature to communicate... beliefs directly,” but rather to transform one’s own political positions from “ideological dogma” into “reasoned positions” that would appear, in literature, as “timeless truths.” Ultimately, this would result in the “installing and naturalizing of new ethical habits” while “mystifying the rules that regulate them” (Ideology, 43). Indeed, as I will illustrate in the following chapter, they were quite successful in their pursuit of these goals. Despite the achievements of the Pudjangga Barn writers, however, subjectivity has not become an issue in the study of Indonesian literature, nor have writers become overdetermined, considered as “godly.” Part of the problem is that there is a dearth of biographical study of writers-for political, as well as economic reasons-has meanwhile prevented any excessive projection of deep motives and designs based on individualist psychology. Rather, the tendency to read writers in terms of historical and ideological collectivities-but not in terms of genres-has diverted attention away from the study of authorial subjectivity.4 In other words, Indonesian literary studies have not passed through the stages to reach the kinds of conclusions that Barthes and Foucault reject. But it is not my intention to try and retrace the European trajectory in a study of modem Indonesian literature. Indeed, it would be impossible, given the ways in which literary and socio political concerns are linked on every level in Indonesia, to extract the writer from his/her socio-political milieu and view subjectivity as purely individualistic and thus transcendent. Rather, it is possible in light of the modernist rejection of bounded categories to weave together stories of the writers’ lives with analyses of their works in the larger socio-political context in order to draw out the complexities of the relationships between individual and community and aesthetics and politics. 4 In a recent example, anthropologist James Seigal stresses the interchangeability of a group of Sumatran authors from the 1920s, commenting that he could have used any of a number of examples of texts from a small mass to make his points (256, n. 7). The exception to the rule here is Pramoedya Ananta Toer, a writer who has published works over a 50-year period, and thus transcends such categorization. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 60] === 53 This is particularly important in a study of women writers of an environment in which women tend to disappear from the historical record or are erased or recast through editing where aspects of their lives disrupt the flows of official histories. This phenomenon is prevalent enough in Indonesia to warrant a sub-Held of historical and gender studies focused specifically on instances of erasure and editing. Florida, for example, introduces into the historical record a woman writer of the 19th century, Princess Sekar Kadhaton, “a noted intellectual, writer, and mystical traveler,” whose works have all but disappeared, but whose memory lives on in the stories of contemporary female residents of the Solonese court in Java.5 Pramoedya Ananta Toer describes the disappearance of an early Javanese feminist/anti-colonialist of the 1910s, Siti Soendari, in his novel Rumah Kaca, and continues to search for information about her.6 Vreede de Steurs presents an example of the reshaping of the image of the 1920s Sumatran educational reformer, Rankayo Rahmah El Yunusiya, through the obscuration of her status as a divorcee (Vreede de Steurs “The Life” 55).7 5 Florida writes “Women of today’s [palace in Solo] still talk of Sekar Kadhaton’s supernatural trips to Mecca where she went almost daily to perform her evening prayers... It is said that the virgin would return to the palace just after nightfall with thistles stuck to her skirts-avariety of thistle that grows only on the sacred hill of Arafat. [She] spent her final years in darkness; she had been blinded by ascetic practice that involved staring into the sun” (216). 6 See Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s Sang Pemula (Jakarta: Hastra Mitra, 1985), in which he presents Siti Soendari’s writings, and Rumah Kaca (Jakarta: Hasta Mitra, 1988). At his request, I searched the photography archives in Leiden the Netherlands for information about her, but encountered only a different Siti Soendari who studied in the Netherlands during the 1930s. In the same vein, Pramoedya Ananta Toer mentions a woman named Betsy, who attempted to gain entrance into the STOVIA school for Doctors in 1911, but who, "in the end, failed to do so” (Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Sang Pemula, (Jakarta: Hasta Mitra, 1985), 80. Later he expands this slightly to say that she tried to “break through” (menerobos) to enter the school (94), suggesting that her “failure” was not, in fact, based upon perceived incompetence, but upon what basis is left unclear. TSee also Christine Dobbin, “The Search for Women in Indonesian History,” who asks: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 61] === 54 In the following section I will continue with this line of inquiry to present examples of the editing and erasure of the modem women writers as discovered through biographical research. My purpose is to create a foundation from which we may pursue the lines of inquiry that Barthes and Foucault introduce, which are of particular importance in the nationalist context. That is, where “meaning is not bom by repetition, but by difference,” where we turn attention to the “unusual word, the unique moment” rather than the normative, and where “language is not the predicate of the subject, language is the subject” (86). Each of these new lines of inquiry are useful in demythologizing and in reversing erasure, particularly where, in women’s writing, language takes on such importance as the means by which gendered identity is deconstructed and reconstructed. Kartini and the Potential Power of Writing Kartini harnessed the power of the written word with two objectives: to express herself in ways that were impossible in her immediate surroundings and in the process, to create a future for herself that was other than that prescribed for her as a daughter of the Javanese aristocracy. As these two objectives intersected, that is, as Kartini began to create herself in writing as a woman who would be undesirable to Javanese suitors, she became increasingly aware of the forces pulling at her, critical of her cultural orientation, and focused on means of escape. The urgency and resourcefulness with which she attempted to If the intellectual ‘trends’ among the early male graduates of westem-style institutions of learning are interesting, so are those among comparable women. The views of the nine women consulted during the Declining Welfare Inquiry, published in 1914, make fascinating reading, concerned as they are not only with family matters but also with education, female wage rates, regulation of female labour, etc. The large numbers of women’s organizations founded in the second decade of the twentieth century, too, deserve at least some mention; what, for example, of the Wanito Utomo of Yogyakarta, which encouraged lesser priyayi women to engage in commercial and business activities? What of the significance of women in the earliest days of the Sarekat Islam, when so much of that organization’s activities were directed towards fostering the batik trade? What of the PKI’s recognition of the importance of women in its propaganda machinery, and its very rigorous attempts to politicize them? What of the very interesting ‘women’s mosque’ movement in Java? (65-66). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 62] === 55 write herself out of her situation resulted in her creation of an increasingly complex and tormented discursive self. Testing different lines of escape, she engaged in the field of intellectual discourse of her time, through her reading and commentary on contemporary works on socialism, feminism, and humanism. She tries on multiple ethoi, through which she inscribes herself as “multiply organized,” in Lionnet’s words. She engages a language and style of writing that pushes boundaries through its excess of emotion, its use of juxtaposition and irony, its articulation of the unspeakable. Tensions reach their peak when Kartini finally breaks and surrenders to marriage. After this point, her writerly ethos and social identity merge into a more appropriate and conventional style of women’s speech, characterized by its indirectness and hidden messages, until silence descends at the end of her pregnancy up to her death in childbirth. Because so much has been written about Kartini, and because she left hundreds of pages of letters, I will here sketch out a brief picture of Kartini’s circumstances, then focus specifically upon these developments in her writing, and their abrupt termination.8 As is well known to scholars of Indonesian studies, Kartini was the daughter of an aristocratic family in Jepara, a region of north central Java. She remained, for the majority of her life, within the walls of her family compound, but her father sent her to the local free school established for “Dutch and Eurasian children” where she came into contact with the 8 Works on Kartini can be roughly divided into four categories: translations of the letters into various languages and in various forms, including the collection of extracts; biographical sketches or longer works, discussions of Kartini in her historical context, and deconstructions of the mythologizing and imagemaking through which Kartini became known as “mother of the nation,” symbolizes idealized femininity, is alternately viewed as a “construction of the Dutch,” a spokesperson for the rakyat or “people, or symbolizes the greatness of the Javanese dynasties. Representative of each category are: Joost Cotd’s Letters from Kartini: An Indonesian Feminist. 1900-1904 and On Feminism and Nationalism: Kartini’s Letters to Stella Zeehandelaar with strong introductions; Beekman's “Kartini (1879-1904): The Paradox of Colonialism;” Jean Taylor’s works, including “Kartini in her Historical Context” and “Once More Kartini;" Pramoedya’s Panggil Aku Kartini Sadja and “Motor Gerakan Emansipasi Wanita” from Sang Pemula; Kenji Tsuchiya’s “Kartini’s Image of Java’s Landscape;” Tiwon’s “Models and Maniacs;” and Danielle Rutherford’s “Unpacking a National Heroine: Two Kartinis and Their People.” In the latter two works, Rutherford and Tiwon deconstruct Indonesian renderings, including those found in Pramoedya’s Panggil Aku Kartini Sadja (1963), Sitisoemandari Soeroto’s Kartini: Sebuah Biografi (1977), and Tashadi’s RA. Kartini (1985). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 63] === 56 outside world. As she notes in her letters, her father hoped that she and her siblings would benefit from some schooling at that level but did not predict that she would develop an interest for increasingly higher levels of education. As was the custom with Javanese girls, she was forced at the onset of puberty into seclusion known as pingitan where she was expected to stay until marriage, at which time she would become a raden ayu and official wife/mother of another polygynous family. Kartini began writing letters to her Dutch correspondents at the age of 19 and continued until her death at the age of 24. Unlike the modem fiction writers, Kartini has been overdetermined, not quite in the sense that Foucault and Barthes describe, but certainly as a personality who is known for letters that people rarely read. However, while Kartini the historical/biological figure has received a great deal of attention over this century since the publication of her letters, less attention has been given to the letters themselves as discourse rather than as a representation of the historical/biological Kartini. Part of the problem is that her letters were significantly edited by her Dutch editor Henri Abendanon for the purposes of “protecting” living people, and were again recast in the Indonesian translation in an effort to smooth out Kartini’s persona as “mother” of the nationalist movement. These developments have significantly hindered an understanding of Kartini’s subjectivity, that is, the self she inscribed in her letters through a discourse she created in Dutch and in conversation with Dutch women. As Tiwon has discussed extensively, Kartini’s persona and her message are transformed in the translation process through slight changes in syntax. For example, her words “I long t o... never have to marry” were altered to “never be forced to marry” and taken as an argument against forced marriage as opposed to marriage for love (Tiwon “Models and Maniacs” 55). More dramatically, the overarching story of Kartini’s experience in a polygynous household and her relationship with her two mothers is extricated from her narrative in the original Dutch editing. As we now know, Kartini was raised in a family compound in Java with her father, who was a bupati, a native administrator of the colonial government, and an extended family which included an official Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 64] === 57 wife (padmiy-a woman of a high-caste family who carried the title of the raden ayu-and a secondary and unofficial wife (selir). Significantly, Kartini was not the daughter of the official wife, but rather of the selir, a woman from the village chosen by her father who maintained a tentative status living at the margins of the compound. In the act of erasing the evidence of polygyny, Abendanon, as editor, recast Kartini as the daughter of the raden ayu, thus officially blotting out the image of Kartini’s real mother and altering Kartini’s identity as hybrid or mixed in the sense of being from two contradictory worlds. A series of recastings follow. When Kartini’s interactions with local woodcarvers led her to embrace a form of socialist philosophy, the underlying sense of solidarity she may have felt is transformed into a discourse of noblesse oblige that aristocratic nationalists would embrace decades later. Kartini’s socialist-feminism is based on a yet more personal awareness of the class-based oppression of women through the experience of her mother, who was officially subordinate to her daughter in the family hierarchy. Because the genesis of her feminism is erased through the editing out of her mother, she is accused, as were her followers in the women’s movement, of being unduly influenced, by Western forces and books. Kartini wrote letters to female Dutch correspondents, including Rosa Abendanon and M.C.E. Ovink-Soer both of whom were the wives of colonial administrators.9 She also wrote to at least two Dutch women in the Netherlands, one, Estella Zeehandelaar, the editor of a Dutch socialist/feminist women's journal De Hollandsche Lelie who answered Kartini's request for a “penpal” and another girl from Friesland about whom little is known. The letters that were published, written in a refined Dutch style, contain a rich fusion of Kartini’s personal story, the stories of other women she knew, her ideas about 9 Rosa Abendanon was the wife of Henri Abendanon, who, in addition to editing and publishing Kartini’s letters, was a colonial administrator and leading proponent of the Ethical Policy of the late 19th century and early 20th century which promoted, among other ideas, increased education for the native population as a means to alleviating poverty. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 65] === 58 politics, requests for books and information, comments on texts she has recently read, and details of transactions between herself and Rosa, as a broker for local crafts.10 In my discussion I will rely on recent English translations of the unedited versions of Kartini’s letters to Estella Zeehandelaar, hereafter known as Stella, and Rosa Abendanon, the wife of Henri Abendanon.11Through the letters, we can chart a strategy where Kartini first establishes the trust of her correspondents, then, through the correspondence, comes to an awareness of her ultimate objective to become an “independent woman” with a “noble profession;” her “ambitions” {Letters 29) range from the professions of writer, teacher, doctor, or mid-wife. At one point she asserts that she will become a "kitchen maid" in order to live an independent life. The main point is to make myself independent... Were I to choose an occupation it would have to be something that was fitting! Work which we would like to do, and which would not shame my most noble and high placed family is so beyond our reach! {On By writing on a daily or weekly schedule to women who support her vision, however, and by voicing, in writing, her views on the damage that polygyny causes in her household, she is able to convince herself that she will achieve “victory” over her own situation, and in the process, open paths for other women. 10Unfortunately, Kartini’s correspondences with Indonesians and other non-Dutch men and women have never been collected, and thus remain an issue of speculation. There are also numerous letters whose presence is suggested but which were destroyed for various emotional and political reasons. And there are those which were kept in Holland and not printed, ostensibly in order to protect Kartini's and others' reputations until as recently as 1986. Much of the publication and translation of the letters has either revolved around presenting the best image of Kartini, the least fragmented or most coherent, that which was thought best for the development of the Indonesian nationalist movement, or to best further Kartini's own goals, and a negotiation between what has been included and what might have been excised. In other words, for all of the writing Kartini herself produced and that has been produced around her writing and her image, the story of Kartini and her letters is very much about the control over the written word and the negotiation of silences. 11 Because these letters are composed by the daughter of a prominent member of the native/colonial bureaucracy to the wife of a member of a colonial administrator, they can be viewed as an exploration into the boundaries of the colonial experience from both sides. Without Rosa's replies to Kartini's letters, this collection presents an interesting reversal of the norm in pre-nationalist colonial-era literature, when the colonizers do most of the talking. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 66] === 59 The urgency of Kartini’s letters, coupled with the sense of freedom experienced when “there is no one to correct” the words, results in the effusion and excess that speaks beyond “the Kartini story” to her readers. The beauty of this excess, which many critics have found troubling-the descriptive terms “rash of cliches” and “intrusively cloying” come to mind here- is that any attempts to reduce Kartini to a singular sensibility can be contradicted by reference to other personalities and discourses that arise in the voluminous letters.12 It is this multiplicity that I would like to focus on here, as we see a complex consciousness emerging in her letters that is shaped both by her struggles on numerous personal and institutional fronts, and her sense of writing as a free space in which she can experiment with various styles, ethoi, philosophical systems. Early on, she writes in terms grounded in the discourse of Enlightenment; she brings the experience, or the “longing” which requires the words from outside, from the “civilized, reformed Europe,” in the form of “articles and books” to “fertilize the seeds, strike roots, grow and thrive” (On Feminism 2). Certainly throughout, in her comments on tradition and modernity, Kartini adopts the metaphorical imagery of the light, as the Dutch title of her collected letters Door Duistemis tot Licht (Out of the Darkness and Into the Light) suggests. The Japanese scholar Kenji Tsuchiya, has explored in great detail Kartini’s romantic voice, which he associates with her reading of novels from and personal interactions with the “mestizo” culture in the Indies local-born and/or raised Dutch who immersed themselves in local culture (Tsuchiya “Kartini’s Image” 80). As Tsuchiya rightly points out, this discourse entraps Kartini; in her descriptions of nature peopled by the native Javanese, she begins to perpetuate nature/culture Enlightenment/colonial divisions. However, I believe that Tsuchiya overstates things when he asserts that Kartini gained “self-enlightenment” at the expense of her fellow Javanese. While her engagement of Enlightenment discourse helps her to begin to construct herself as subject of her own writing, this vehicle does not bring her to the 12See Tsuchiya 75-6; see also Cot6, Letters viii. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 67] === 60 point of envisioning the world as split into facile and clean oppositions. Rather, it is infused with struggle and tension, as illustrated in the following passage: On Sunday after receiving your letter and again this Sunday we went with Anneke to the beach. Ah, if you could have been with us, to look at the rough action of the waves, at the unbelievable play of colors which the glittering sun conjured up in the sky. Such a strong wind was blowing that in no time at all, our coiffure was destroyed and we had difficulty holding our clothes together...These then were the ‘teachers’ and the refined ‘princesses’ who were running and skipping with tangled hair and flapping clothes!... The next morning we went again... the sea had lost its fury... Sunlight danced like diamonds on the water’s surface which reflected the beautiful blue of the sky. We went into the water, the bottom was smooth, without stones, without seaweed, without m u d... We went into the water till the water reached up to out chin... From the distance, [the babu (maid)] could see five heads drifting about—we were dancing and our lively singing echoed over the water... (Kartini, Letters 188). Here we see Kartini placing her own body into the natural surroundings and narrative of naturalism; the babu relegated to the background. The passage is striking, however, for its response to 19lh century Javanese court literature, in which female sensuality is invoked as a site of male pleasure. At the same time, Kartini is contesting the image of the ideal aristocratic female as “wooden doll” whose every movement, including facial expressions, are rigidly disciplined. The pleasure she takes for herself is doubled; she derives a second level of sensation through the act of describing her transgression with the details of her broad strides, untied hair, loosened clothing, and body immersed in salt water. In this scene, she both refuses the institution of womanhood descending upon her by reverting to childhood, and infuses adolescence with what, in the Javanese milieu, would be associated with an animalism or peasantism opposed to “civilized” human behavior. The presence of the frightened babu witnessing Kartini’s rejection of female aristocratic deportment from the shore highlights the tensions of the passage, reminding us that Kartini always writes from the hazardous intersection of classed and gendered interests. Kartini presents quite a different ethos elsewhere, when she presents to Stella a critique of the colonial opium trade, the conditions of the colonial education system, the details of institutional racism. Notably, these critiques are voiced in her first letter to Stella, in which she is introducing herself. Together with the issues that affected Kartini Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 68] === 61 peisonally-the constraints of adat (customary law) for girls, the state of marriage, she includes a discussion of the colonial role in the opium trade with the very pointed comments: “The greater the use of opium in Java, the fuller the Treasury,” and, “I read in one of the daily papers that the government had prohibited the use of morphine in the sale of opium because the use of morphine would lessen the use of opium” {On Feminism 4). It seems unlikely that these issues would be of a personal concern to Kartini, and she suggests herself that her opinions on the opium trade are gleaned from other sources, but she is able to weave them in to her self-portrait as a critic of colonial as well as local injustices. Such passages have led Indonesian critic Daniel Dhakidae to characterize Kartini as “the first woman journalist” of Indonesia (Dhakidae 27), asserting that she raises issues of political and economic policy, that she came to understand through her personal experience as a daughter of the aristocracy. Gearly she is gathering material from her surroundings; she appears to be presenting her father’s argument against the downsizing of the native bureaucracy, and cites her brothers opinions on education, while her own views on the oppression of women emanate from a combination of personal experience and the “gossip” that circulates in women’s conversations. She writes, for example, about “an older sister of Mama’s (official mother) who refused to marry... ” and another woman for whom “Heaven was merciful, three months before the wedding, cholera took her away.” She then inscribes this realization: “Even in mother’s time there were rebellious girls... We have been constantly lectured that we should blindly obey our parents” (Letters 135-6). The story of a “woman of the people” who was so upset about her husband’s second marriage that she “refused to take part in other polygamous weddings.. .” becomes a model for resistant behavior {Letters 140). This material is then presented to her readers in a mixture of discursive systems and worldviews, formal and informal language in Kartini’s version of reportage. She has no difficulty, then, in adding to the mix her views on various colonial texts of fiction and non-fiction, through which she is introduced to feminism and socialism as Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 69] === 62 well as orientalism.13 While she first appears to take the European written word as truth, once she finds contractions with her own lived experience as a woman, she begins to develop a critical voice toward colonial scholarship and the Enlightenment approach in general. The trouble begins with her introduction to the writings of the famous Indologist/Orientalist Snouck Hurgronje. She has asked for information about laws concerning unmarried or “independent” women in Muslim society, ostensibly hoping that Muslim law might override Javanese custom in her favor: Another big request I must make—would you be so kind when you next see your friend Snouck Hurgronje to ask His Honour if amongst [Muslims] there are laws concerning adulthood... I would so very much like some information about rights and duties-or better still, laws dealing with [Muslim] women and daughters. A nice state of affairs—I should be ashamed that we do not iaiow this ourselves. But, keep them stupid, ignorant, then you will retain authority {Letters 196). The latter sentiment, shame at how ignorant she is of her own culture, quickly dissipates when she discovers Hurgonje’s ignorance on the same topic: We are very saddened that precisely Dr. Snouck, the great man would be against our struggle. Does Dr. Snouck know all of Java thoroughly? ... Will Dr. Snouck still say, in cold blood, ‘they are contented’ after His Honour has seen everything that we have seen, knows everything that we know? I have [also] transcribed an address made by Professor Max Muller, the great German scholar of Eastern languages, history, etc. It goes something like this: ‘Polygyny as practiced by Eastern peoples is to the advantage of women and children who could not live in their country without belonging to a man, without having a protector.. .’ Max Muller is dead, we cannot call him here to show him the benefits of this As is made clear in this passage, Kartini’s research into possible articulations and praxis of independent adulthood for women brings a difficult realization, that is, that the Indologists to whom she looked for information offered instead undocumented Orientalist opinions. In 13 See the extensive list of reading materials she comments on during the course of her letter writing is extensive, ranging from European non-fiction and fiction works on Java and the Indies to European novels to non-fiction works on women and socialism, to a range of journals, including those from the Netherlands, those published by the Dutch in the Indies, and nationalist journals produced by Javanese intellectuals (in Dutch). Some examples: articles by Augusta de Wit (author of Java: Facts and Fancies); Multatuli’s Max Havelaar, a number of works by the Dutch colonial writer Couperus, Modem Maidens by Provost; Hilda von Suylenburg by de Jong; Barthold Meryan by Huygens; Quo Vadis by Sienkiewicz; Women and Socialism, the writing of Sumatran nationalist Abdul Rivai in his journal Bintang Hindia. See Pramoedya’s comprehensive listing of Kartini’s reading material from in Panggil Aku Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 70] === 63 response, her romantic voice is replaced with a critical voice laden with sarcasm, irony, and excess of a different sort, namely frustration. Hurgronje and Muller are not only wrong, but they appear to be in solidarity with the Javanese male on these issues; her faith in the wisdom of the colonial scholar tarnished as another door closes. Frustration and rage build in the letters during and after the period in which her father forces her to convince her sister to accept a polygynous marriage. These emotions are marked physically by an increase of underlines and exclamation points, and discursively, by Kartini’s opening of her writing to the unspeakable. When she writes “It is not right for a daughter of a regent to go out to work, but it is alright for the daughter of a regent to be placed on a platter and passed out to potential admirers” (Letters 131), she stops just short of making the comparison to concubinage; and of accusing her own father of the act of selling his daughters to the highest bidders. In the process, she questions the moral foundations on which the entire Javanese aristocracy was based, notably, in the absence of a Dutch humanist critique. She begins to lose faith in Enlightenment discourse: We believe you have to know what we think of aspects of your Society because you seem to think we consider the European world an ideal. What we consider the true ideal you have known for some time, and we know you have similar views, true civilization is by no means yet generally to be found in civilized countries. It is possible to find the real thing amongst peoples whom the mass of the white race, convinced as it is of its own excellence, regards with contempt (311). As her respect for the paternalistic system decreases, so too does her awe of her father, and she begins to see her relationship with the latter not as based on “love, goodness, and tender care” but as a battle of wills. Once Kartini loses faith in the discourse of Enlightenment, with its false promises of equality, justice, and the rational, she attempts to find respite in the mystical realm. When she realizes that her father has used her sense of filial piety to force her to submission she imagines a symbolic break from him by becoming “a child of a Chinese holy man, the Santekkong of Welahan.” This turns out to be “a small golden statue of the Kartini Sadja (136-154). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 71] === 64 Buddha,” which ”incite[s] the influence of important spirits” (Letters 320). She writes: “My poor, poor, father! For him it would have been better that I had not become a child of the Buddha, then he would have possessed me completely, undivided, even if it was only in his memory.” However, while she is now able to “separate love from idealism,” she has entered into a discursive territory shaped by a system that is no less susceptible to the laws of patriarchy. Kartini describes her two mothers, who had always remained separate and unequal, joining forces under her father’s imperative to convince Kartini to submit to marriage by any means. The mothers consult a paranormal or psychic, who makes the following pronouncement: ‘[The visit to Holland] will lead to the ruin of the entire family... Do not let the child continue thinking about going to Holland. If she should still go, great difficulties will result. If she does not go but continues thinking about it, then the child will develop consumption’ (Letters 282). The paranormal speaks in a rhetoric that reinforces gendered inequality, reiterating the general opinion that, “In the case of a man, education brings good fortune. The good fortune of a woman is obtained through the man, by directing her household” (Letters 291). His understanding of human nature is more problematic for Kartini, however, as he has ascertained the crux of her problem: her desire. She must not only not go to Holland, but cease desiring to go, she reports to Rosa. Her mothers are charged with acquiring the clothing so that the paranormal may, as she puts it, “put us under hypnosis... How that will happen, what transformation our clothes will have to endure, we do not know, but we do know that these clothes, fresh from our bodies have to act as mediums'’ {Letters 312, Kartini’s emphasis). Kartini’s focus is clearly diverted as she describes keeping a vigil over clothing that contains the essence the paranormal wishes to extract, and how she attempts to foil the plan by giving new clothes. The problem is this: Whether we believe in it, we are not sure, we ourselves have not experienced it. Now we have the opportunity to experience personally the ‘silent power.’ While we are curious about it, we prefer not to make ourselves available to be used as an experiment. We think it would be playing with fire (321). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 72] === 65 Here, Kartini uses the phrase stille kracht (silent power), as a point of reference for her Dutch reader who would be aware of the colonial novel of the same name, in which a group of colonists are in turn fascinated and terrorized by Javanese mysticism.14 In her description of the episode, however, we see that the paranormal is far more astute than she might give him credit for, the process itself has instilled in her mind the idea that she is not in complete control over her destiny. Her focus is diverted from her “noble aspirations” to the daily problems of protecting her essence from misuse, as her body is ascribed a power that her rational mind cannot full comprehend. Were she a true believer, she might have been able to conjure her own protection, and in this sense, her partial engagement with the Dutch epistemology leaves her vulnerable. In an environment in which all forces are directed toward marrying her off, including, now, metaphysical forces, Kartini begins to break. In my reading, the tragic aspect of Kartini’s letters is not in the epilogue in which her death is announced, but her narration of the process of defeat, presented in increments, as she experiences and gains awareness of them. Still searching for lines of escape, she describes herself making herself “ugly” by Javanese standards by gazing directly into the eyes of her interlocutors, stating her goals to study abroad in public, interacting more with the Dutch in the public eye, and using the system against itself: “We had spread enough rumors about ourselves to have frightened everyone away from us” (Letters 431). She has even become a vegetarian. On the positive side, she has, amidst all this, started her school for girls and applied for scholarships to study in either the Netherlands or Jakarta. When forces finally come together to overpower Kartini, she notably does not describe them in terms of her “destiny;” rather, she repeats the words of the two “fathers” that entreat her-her own and the husband of her correspondent, Henri Abendanon-with a variety of 14See Louis Couperus. The Hidden Force, trans. Alexander Teixeira de Mattos, (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 198S). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 73] === 66 reasons that she cannot refute. Whereas her father uses the fear factor, convincing her that if she does not follow his choice, another, less respectable suitor will force her hand, Abendanon is also convincing with his rationale, which we will see repeated in nationalist discourse. Here is how Kartini restates his argument: ... we had never realized that [our enterprise would be endangered by] our haughty self-confidence, or self-confident pride... Totally involved in our own excitement, we thought little... of the opinion of our public. Indeed, we even took pride in defying her where her opinion was different to ours, completely ignoring her criticism where we were thoroughly convinced of the correctness of our aims.. . We continue to believe that this is right, but in this instance, we must not take this view, we must take account of the attitudes of the public. After all, it is for the public we want to work and then it is not appropriate to have it against us by roughly interfering in its ideas with which it was raised and grew o l d... People would be fearful of giving their daughters an enlightened education, if this would produce creatures as we are made out to be to men (On Feminism 109-10). Points of tension emerge in this parroting of Abendanon’s words; it appears that Kartini was not so easily convinced of the virtues of succumbing to public opinion for the sake of producing educated girls who will still be appealing as wives-to-be. But by this time, Kartini has already given in, and is apologizing to her Dutch correspondents for letting them down. Her letters suggest that she has suffered a break accompanied by psychic illness brought on by an accumulation of forces that eventually overwhelmed her. Her letters tell what she does not explain in direct terms to her correspondents, namely that it took the interventions of a series of individuals, including her two mothers, her father’s doctor, a psychic, Abendanon, an unnamed suitor and his thugs to construct a wall of reasoning between her and her objectives to become an “independent woman.” 15 15The restored versions, found in Joost Cote’s Letters from Kartini: an Indonesian Feminist 19001904 (Clayton, Victoria: Hyland House 1992,430-431) and in Dutch in Kartini: Brieven aan mevrouw R.M. Abendanon-Mandri en hoar echtgenoot met andere documenten, Ed. F.G.P. Jacquet (Dortdrecht: KTTLV/Foris Publications 1987), actually leave more questions than answers. Interlopers (whom Kartini never actually saw) burst into the compound, “strangers and their servants rummaged through our house as it were to find us” with a questionable marriage proposal. The letter of the unnamed suitor threatens that he has spies among her father’s subjects, and moreover that he will use guna-guna or black magic to capture her (Beekman “Kartini” 397). Kartini becomes alarmed at the nature of the “Javanese man,” who, “when imprisoned by desire... will brook no opposition” and gives in to the proposal from the more reputable Regent of Rembang. All of this occurs while the telegram containing the scholarship offer from Jakarta letter is mysteriously delayed; it arrives the day after she accepts the marriage proposal. These strange scenes Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 74] === 67 This moment of transformation in Kartini’s life captured the attention of two contemporary writers-Suwarsih Djojopuspito and Pramoedya Ananta Toer-who, reading the earlier, edited versions of the letters, created their own interpretations of this and other partially constructed aspects of Kartini’s life.16 In each of their works on Kartini, these writers focus on the contours of the gaps in Kartini’s letters, and the reasons for them.17 Addressing the gaps they find significant, both authors wonder, for example, about Kartini’s relationship with her real mother, not knowing that the passages in which she discussed this relationship were at that time stored in Dutch archives. Unaware that it was Abendanon who erased Ngasirah, the birth mother from the narrative, Pramoedya, writes, “Kartini never writes about her birth mother. Why? In light of the fact that she was such an honest and courageous person, it is not possible that she would conceal the truth... Was she forced to conceal this in order to protect her father’s name?” (Panggil 34). Pramoedya takes this as testimony to Kartini’s deep love for her father, her immense capacity for kasih sayang (empathetic love typically associated with women) (36). He reads as a tragedy what he interprets as Kartini forced choice between the figurative “death” of the father, if she revealed his true identity as a polygynist, or the mother if she excluded her from her own story. In the absence of information, Pramoedya commits the same error that he seeks to remedy when he asserts that we must de-mythologize Kartini by locating the facts behind her story. Here he imagines Kartini in terms of a series of feminine ideals shaped by an told in Kartini’s increasingly desperate voice point to a conspiracy of forces between those inside and outside the compound directed toward forcing Kartini to marry and suggest that she never had a chance. 16Suwarsih placed her essay “Kartini, Perintis” at the front of her 1948 translation into Indonesian of Sarah Bolten’s Lives o f [American} Girls who Became Famous while Pramoedya published his Panggil aku Kartini Sadja (Just Call me Kartini) in 1963. 17 In her 1949 essay, Suwarsih quotes Abendanon as saying “I only included parts that, according to my estimation, were those [Kartini herself] would have wanted to be circulated” (“Kartini” 8). She then wonders if perhaps Kartini kept a diary that would give a different story, one she implies would be uninfluenced by a colonial view of what Kartini might have wanted Pramoedya, some 14 years later, would put the problem in characteristically harsher terms: “Kartini has become a mythical character... and this has taken away from the greatness of the person... the less people know about a person, the greater the strength of the m yth... In fact Kartini is far greater than the sum total of all the mythology about her” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 75] === 68 unquestioned love of the father (filial piety), and kasih saycuig, which we have seen, Kartini abandoned part way through her resistance to marriage. When the two writers turn their attention to the transformation that Kartini experienced when she finally submitted to the idea of forced marriage, they also fill the space created by a lack of information with insightful interpretations. Suwarsih asks what transformed “Kartini the revolutionary (pemberontak)” to the “Kartini who was patient, wanting to obey, wanting to acquiesce (bersabar, ingin menurut, ingin menerima pula)" (“Kartini” 25-6).'8 Suwarsih prefers a more text-based interpretation, in the context of Kartini’s own early statements to one of her Dutch correspondents: The old Eastern traditions are firm and strong but I could shake them from me, break them, if it were not for that other bond, even more strongly and securely fixed than any centuries-old tradition, which binds me to the world: the love I have for those who gave me life, to whom I owe everything, everything. May I, do I have the right to break the hearts of those who throughout my life have shown me nothing but love and goodness and have surrounded me with such tender care? I would break their hearts if I indulged my desires... (On Feminism 1). Whereas Kartini strengthens her resolve to “break the hearts” of those who, she comes to realize, were not entirely benign over the course of the text, Suwarsih suggests that at the moment of decision she experienced a relapse of “weakness” and “ambivalence.” However, she does not blame Kartini but rather patriarchal culture, in which women are socialized to submit to the desires of the father “she was forced t o... make a difficult choice... between her own satisfaction in pursuing her aspirations and to assuage her father’s heart... ” (“Kartini” 27). Pramoedya adds to this interpretation a critique of the anti-colonial apparatus and its sexualization of the female when he argues that the colonial apparatus, conspired to silence Kartini by sending her to the “nuptial bed” (ranjang pengantin): (Panggil xi-xii). “ She then notes that Kartini’s scholarship went to Haji Agus Salim who became a prominent nationalist in the 1920s, while Kartini herself died in childbirth a year after her forced marriage. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 76] === 69 ... what is the way, the road, the face that contains the possibility for someone to break through this dense jungle to arrive in the modem era?... The girl from Jepara [Kartini] in all her uncertainty left a legacy of eternal values through her writing. People say that women begin their lives on their ranjang pengantin (nuptial beds). Many of the Governor Generals of the East Indies also believed that women must be silenced by climbing on to that nuptial b e d 19 As Pramoedya, in other context, associates this “nuptial bed” explicitly with rape,20 it appears that he blames not sexuality but forced sexuality with a silencing of the female. Certainly, Kartini’s letters, after marriage, do present signs of a woman whose spirit has been broken. She appropriates the discourse of the ideal wife and “official” mother to a set of children who are not her own (the discourse of a Raden Ayu): I bless the day that I laid my hand in his whom the Almighty has given me as my companion through this broad and often difficult life... I consider myself privileged above thousands of others to be allowed to stand in life beside such a noble man. He is someone who commands respect and admiration, whom one must hold in high regard... How small and insignificant I feel beside him. Everything that had been presented to me as being of beauty and refinement I see realized here... When we are together so often I am moved by the fact that we are so much at one in our feelings, thoughts, and ideas... (Letters 483) If you could only see me as the young wife and mother, whose happiness streams from her eyes, and whose lips and pen cannot find sufficient words to announce her wealth. {Letters 485). Kartini, who has never been at a loss for words, cannot find any to do justice to this new situation. However, if we read between the lines, we can find traces of the former voice, offering apologizes for her lack of time to write because she has been forced to take over her husband’s correspondence {Letters 489) and the lengths she will go to keep up her own writing: “I am writing at 4:00 in the morning. The children are awake and hanging around chair. Moeder [Mother, i.e., Kartini] has to give them bread and milk... ” (486). 19See Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s Jejak Langkah (Kuala Lumpur: Wira Karya, 1986). The trope reemerges in 1962, when the critic M. Balfas argued that Rukiah had “stopped being a writer when she climbed on to the marital bed.” When asked about this statement by Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Rukiah responded that she “would continue writing in all conditions and situations.” See “Dia Redaksi ‘Lentera’ jang Bam.” {Lentera, June 29,1962). 20 Here I am referring to scenes in Pramoedya’s Gadis Pantai and Bunu Manusia in which, with intricate detail, he describes the deflowering of terrified virgin girls by Javanese and Dutch figures of authority and wealth; the former, an official of the Javanese colonial bureaucracy, bears a resemblance in stature and age, to the Regent of Rembang. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 77] === 70 She also gives hints of the restrictions being placed on her by her husband; he cuts off her a community of women, declaring that she should “meet with the wives of Native Officials on a fixed day and to be unavailable on other days... He dislikes superficial chatter” (490). In sum, it appears that it was not so much the “nuptial bed” as the demands of being a Raden Ayu and her domineering husband that ultimately silenced Kartini, much like her modem counterparts. The Problematics of Audience In her letters, Kartini exhibits an increasing awareness of the possibilities that her letters’ audience extended beyond the singular addressee. Not only did she expect that the husbands of her correspondents-colonial officials-would be influenced by what she wrote, but she was also asked in 1903 if parts of her letters could be published in Dutch journals. Ultimately, her strategy spun out of her control, as she realizes that she is being used by the Dutch liberals for public gain or to further their colonial desires: Do you think we do not know why De Echo is glad to publish pieces of ours, no matter how insubstantial? It is good publicity for the journal. The Holl. Lelie offered to make its columns available to me, and requested the previous editoress time and again to publish letters of mine, why? For die publicity! Letters from a real daughter of the East, from a ‘genuine young Javanese girl,’ thoughts from one of those half wild creatures and moreover, expressed, by herself, in a European language, oh how ‘terribly interesting!’ {Letters 312). She then continues, presaging her future: “And i f... God preserve us-if we should die of broken hearts because of our murdered ideal then it would be oh, so tremendously interesting!” In order to understand how Kartini’s relationship with the Dutch liberals could go so awry, we have to examine the nature of her authorial contract with her Dutch correspondents and its basis in the native/colonial exchange. Kartini struck a dangerous deal with her Dutch correspondents; in exchange for books and inform ation, as well as a sense of hope about her future, she offers to entrust her story to them. It becomes apparent that she is bartering her secrets and a knowledge Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 78] === 71 about native society and her own family for a promise of freedom from that society and her position within it. The worth of these secrets is explained this way: A European, no matter how long he has lived in Java, not being acquainted with the circumstances of native life, could never be as fully informed about everything in our society as a native person. All kinds of details which remain unknown even to an Indologist, a native person can explain (Kartini, On Feminism 17). The knowledge she offers is indeed a commodity at the turn of the century, when a new liberalism was inserted into colonial politics. One of the principal advocates of the policies constructed out of this liberalism was in fact Rosa’s husband, Henri Abendanon, architect of the Ethical Policy that included education reforms for the “natives.” Aware of her power as a native informant, with a probable interest in influencing Abendanon through the mediation of his wife, Kartini makes the most of her situation. He, likewise, constructed and enacted his ethical policy through the interaction with Kartini, publishing her letters in 1911, as an example of the success of an “experiment” to see if “natives” could become “modem.”2' In this complex arrangement, she pleads for "encouragement," and "affirmation" of her goals and of the self that is created in the process of the correspondence in exchange. As she writes to her friend correspondent Stella, a socialist/feminist editor in the Netherlands, “... Stella, keep that fire well-stoked! Do not let it go out. Make me warm, let me glow, Stella, I beg you, do not let me go” (On Feminism 20). Tensions arise in her letters through Kartini’s cognition of her eventual fate, which she attempts to avoid by establishing these epistolary relationships. It retrospect, it is possible to see that the contract that Kartini sets up with her private audience of Dutch correspondents is based within the colonial enterprise through which humanism came to be both shaped and articulated. Her father’s fears of the loss of control that would result if Kartini’s name were “whispered on the lips of strangers” and 21 This critique originates in Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s novel Bumi Manusia, when his main character and narrator Minke discovers that he is the object of one such experiment Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 79] === 72 her plans were to become general knowledge are paradoxically realized. The first signs of trouble come when she discovers that she has become an object of study for the sociologist van Kol, who is examining “the effects of European education on girls of the aristocracy.” She imagines herself taking advantage of the situation by engaging his commitment to “her cause,” which has by now been refined as starting a school for girls. His wife gets involved, providing more encouragement, but then asks if she can publish a private letter Kartini has written to her in a journal. Mrs. van Kol exhibits here a prurient interest in a letter “not meantfo r publication” for its authentic revelations about the Javanese that the Dutch were constantly seeking. Kartini sees herself becoming fully entangled in the colonial production of knowledge, which, promoted by Liberals as benign, is based on colonial self-interest. While Kartini became increasingly aware of how her writings might be exploited in the colonial context, she was apparently unprepared for their use by Henri Abendanon who was so convincing in his argument against her travels to Europe for education. As both Pramoedya and Suwarsih imagined, the discussion on the beach with Henri Abendanon contained a hidden ingredient, namely deep insights into the workings of Kartini’s mind and heart that he quite likely gained by reading the hundreds of pages she wrote to his wife. From this knowledge he crafted the argument against her travels that her Javanese relatives could not construct or articulate. As she repeats his justifications in her letter to Stella, we see how Abendanon exploited her fears about the Javanese public’s sense of her as “vain,” a “coquette” and a woman trying to catch a Dutchman. At the same time, he exploits her sense of mission, compelling Kartini to abandon her “self interest” and to recognize what would be best “for the cause.” Understanding that Kartini has rejected the notion of filial piety-as the antithesis of “egoism”-he replaces it with nationalist sentiment. As we shall see in the following chapter, these were the same arguments that nationalists used in compelling women to follow the roles assigned to them in the nationalist discourse. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 80] === 73 Kartini’s Legacy for Modern Women Writers Clearly, it was the Dutch language that allowed Kartini to articulate and engage ideas that were not yet possible to consider in her hierarchical Javanese language environment.22 But it was in the space of writing that she was able to create herself as recognizable, liberated from the identities that had been her birthright, aristocratic, loyal daughter and future wife, but also confined for the most part to the textual. This use of writing qualifies Kartini for the appellation of modem subject in the sense that she distinguishes herself from her community as an individual through the specific discursive processes associated with writing, and in ways that were impossible for her in oral discourse. However, the multiplicity I have located in Kartini’s letters requires us to recast the idea of the modem, and of the modem subject. The modem can no longer be constituted as that which is “non-traditional” or “enlightened,” but rather the meeting of multiple forces in such a way as to defy characterization based on exclusivity. Kartini’s philosophical and emotional journey was not a linear one “out of the darkness” of tradition and “into the light” of modernity, but rather, through a thicket of ideas that were both liberating and constraining. Ultimately, Kartini commits the modem act of reproducing, in writing, voices that had remained ephemeral until her letters were published. These include a feminist response to Orientalist reductionism as well as the contestations to Javanese social and gender structures articulated in women’s discourse that Kartini named “gossip” and “stories” she had heard. I will return to this aspect of her letters in a later chapter, as I explore further the relationship between orality and the writerly in women’s texts. For present purposes, I would like to conclude by making the point that the resistance that remains the foundational principle of her Kartini’s letters, need not overshadow, or be considered as oppositional to the pleasure that she clearly takes for herself in writing. As has been widely discussed, 22 For example Tsuchiya, Cot£, and Beekman (see note 8). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 81] === 74 Kartini was prevented from publishing anything of a personal nature, in which she would “express her own opinions” during her lifetime, due to her father’s fear of his daughters’ names being “on all tongues.”23 However, through her letters, Kartini offered to women writers the idea that composing lines of escape out of restrictive encodings of the female through narrative was not only a struggle worth pursuing but also a site of pleasure. Modem women authors composing for publication, perhaps because of Kartini’s model, came to writing with a greater awareness of the ramifications of publication with an emphasis on public?* Like Kartini, they came to writing with a belief in its power, which, as we will see in the following chapters, they also attempted to harness in order to avoid distinct pressures of socio-biological determinism, the fate of being bom female. At the same time, through their interactions with Kartini’s voice and her story, with its triumphs and frustrating gaps, influenced their own development as writers, literary critics, and as writers of autobiographical fiction. Along with Suwarsih and Pramoedya, the modem authors write with an increased awareness of how mythologizing, editing and erasure can distort female experience. As they wrestle with such distortions, they are forced to examine the relationship between the individual subject, her writing, and the discourses through which biological, historical, and I would add, writerly selves emerge. Women’s incursions into the field of print also place them into the arena of the nationalist imagining described by Benedict Anderson, into the field of modem Indonesian literature, and into the public sphere. While women’s publishing was welcomed in these 21 See Tiwon’s discussion in “Models and Maniacs,” 49. Kartini did publish three essays of a non personal nature in three different Dutch journals while she was alive, and was repeatedly asked to publish more. 24 It is here that my approach differs from that of Partha Chatetjee who understands the small but significant number of Bengali women’s autobiographies to mean that the history of women’s participation in the nationalist struggle “is to be found less in the domain of political conflict and more in the ‘inner’ space of the middle class home" (Chateijee, The Nation and Its Fragments 137). While the content of autobiographical fiction of Indonesia is also home-based to a certain degree, the fact that it was published “disturbs the symmetry of public and private” as Bhabha puts it, (Location o f Power 10-11) and this binary is broken. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 82] === 75 arenas, certain types of writing were viewed with more suspicion than others. As we shall see in my discussion of women’s autobiographical fiction, it is the intersection of the domestic and the national-through revelations about the opinions and actions of prominent nationalist figures and of the dysfunctional familial relationships in the public sphere-that women writers disrupt official nationalist discourse with “unhomely” representations.25 In the next chapter I reconstruct how the nationalist context created new “problematics of female authorship,” that were not so different from those Kartini faced and, consequently, yielded similar results. I the process, I will be laying the groundwork for discussion of these writers’ strategies for creating threatening and critical counter-texts that were no less “nationalist” in the sense of engaged in the imagining process. 251 use the term “unhomely" as Homi Bhabha has defined it in reference to Henry James: “the recesses of the domestic space become sites for history’s most intricate invasions... [T]he borders between home and world become confused; and uncannily, the private and public become part of each other, forcing upon us a vision that is as divided as it is disorienting.” (The Location o f Power 9). Transposing this concept into the postcolonial/feminist sphere, he continues, “By making visible the forgetting of the ‘unhomely’ moment in civil society, feminism specifies the patriarchal, gendered nature of civil society and disturbs the symmetry of private and public... [T]his results in redrawing the domestic space as the space of the normalizing, the pastoralizing and individuating modem techniques of power and police (10-11). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 83] === 76 Chapter 2: Nationalism as a Containing Horizon The ‘obviousness’ of the allegorical mobilization of Mother as sign-vehicle-however successful historically in engaging the addressee subjectively and binding him/her through effect or fantasy-invites us to see it as a topos where the devices of national enunciation are made visible Sandhya Shetty, “(Dis)Figuring the Nation” (52) In this chapter I will engage Sandhya Shetty’s metaphor of the “containing horizon” to explicate the ways in which the idea of “woman” was circumscribed, women’s discourse framed, and the female body wrapped up in the rhetoric and symbolism of nationalism in Indonesia.' The containment metaphor invigorates the discussion of the relationship between the women’s and nationalist movements by emphasizing that the former constituted a force that constantly threatened to overflow or overstep certain boundaries. The metaphor thus forces a reexamination of the relationship between the two movements, which I will show to be dialogical, arguing that this dialog guided the direction of their development and tenor of their discourses. As we shall see, the dialog between nationalists and feminists was not one in which the former acted and the latter reacted. Nationalists frequently take a defensive position against the gains women were making, working to contain feminist discourse as well as women’s voices in the nationalist discourse. The relationship that emerges in fact comes to resemble that of the colonizer/colonized. As nationalist leaders claimed from the Dutch the position of “father” and “master,” feminists, as we shall see, take an opposite approach, embracing multiplicity and fluidity of identity as tactics for evading the confines of nationalist discourse, at least where the female was concerned. 11 am referring here to Shetty’s essay “(Dis)figuring the Nation: Mother, Metaphor, Metonymy,” differences 1 3 (Fall 1995): 50-59. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 84] === 77 My purpose is to set the stage for the discussion of women's fiction in future chapters by establishing a foundation from which to trace continuities between the strategies women used to evade or escape the terms of containment in speech, political writings, and literature. I will argue in future chapters that participants in the women’s movement found in the genre of autobiographical fiction a certain freedom of expression that their activist sisters could not achieve. However, I make this argument with the understanding that female novelists were enabled by the women’s movement and their participation in it, and were inspired by its articulation of possibilities, its questioning and ultimate restructuring of the terms of debate through the interjection of alternative forms of discourse and counter-texts into the public sphere. Bearing in mind Saadah Alim’s contention, presented in the introduction, that the ubiquitous term merdeka (freedom, independence, liberation) was sexualized when conceived in terms of the female, I contend that one of the main problems that Indonesian feminists faced in moving for their own independence was one of discursive slippage. The nationalists, with greater access to the modes of production, and in positions of authority, defined the terms according to their own desires. Terms such as “tradition” and “modernity” as well as “nationalist” and even “woman" were filled with numerous and often conflicting meanings, making it difficult for women to present a measured, rational response. Despite what Shetty refers to as the “obviousness” of nationalist allegory and other forms of rhetoric, women were easily entrapped in the nationalist sign-system. How to argue against a rhetoric that mobilizes the “complex matrix of cultural reference” in the figure of the National Mother? How to position oneself as outside a binarial structure in which the female is circumscribed in terms of conforming, moral, righteous vs. wild, outside of society, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 85] === 78 sexually suspect? How to escape tautological statements such as Sukarno’s, who argued that women are possessed of a “woman’s spirit” because they are women? In this chapter I will take up a point that Shetty offers in passing, namely, that it is the “celebration of the mother in nationalist ideology that establishes the sovereign male subject of nationalism” (55). I will expand upon her point to argue that male subject construction occurs not only through the celebration of the mother but also the binarizing of the female to represent problematic oppositions such as East/West; tradition/modernity; wife/mistress, and so on. I would like to say at the outset, however, that I am concerned about Shetty’s approach, specifically, her avoidance of the issue of human agency, or put another way, her excessive attribution of agency to nationalist discourse as an independent and all-encompassing force. In contrast, I will identify individual nationalist leaders, intellectuals, and writers who were instrumental in both creating and reifying the idealized Indonesian woman, not only in specific terms, but also in specific circumstances, namely in speeches, texts, and novels addressed to specifically female audiences. This last point is key in establishing the dialog between nationalist and women’s discourses. As women were constantly reminded of their duties and their true natures, their feminine souls, and so on, we must ask ourselves why did nationalists feel so compelled to articulate these ideas and remind women of their true “feminine essence.” We may also examine the specific goals these nationalists harbored in their reification of the ideal female; to what degree were these goals nationalistic and to what degree were they of a personal nature, reflecting desires, and perhaps more importantly, their anxieties? When nationalist discourse is read in terms of the specifics of its construction, its power is delimited; it becomes a process among other processes. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 86] === 79 Feminist scholars from both inside and outside Indonesia have documented the women’s movement in Indonesia from the standpoint of organizational and legislative strategies, and wins and losses, as well as the personal and institutional obstacles women faced throughout the nationalist period and beyond.2With this body of work as a foundation, I will examine the discursive obstacles women faced in their work to create themselves as individual and political subjects of the emerging nation. Let me begin by saying that in Indonesia we find many of the same elements of nationalist rhetoric and discourse as have been discussed in India as well as other colonized nations. The Mother Goddess is invoked in the phrase “ibu pertiwi” (mother of the earth/land, from “dewi pertiwi,” goddess of the earth) which came to connote “the Motherland.” Kartini was transformed, in the discourse, from aristocratic daughter to Mother of the Nation and its people {Ibu Bangsa); once mythologized, she was (and continues to be) represented by a youthful photograph that erases the historical details of her forced marriage and death in childbirth.” Female “power” in these usages is articulated as vast, transcendent, and righteous, with no basis in the law, civil society, or in economics. As Shetty has illustrated in regards to the Indian context, the Mother functions as a “donor/figure through which the nation is brought into being and nourished,” in the creation of an entity where before there was none; as such it becomes a very serious element in the imagining process. (Shetty 52). She argues that the allegory fills in for “the 2The works of Cora Vreede de Steurs are particularly important in the discussion of the Indonesian women’s movement, as are those of Saskia Wieringa, whose 1995 dissertation The Politicization o f Gender relations in Indonesia: The Indonesian Women's Movement and Gerwani Until the New Order State (University of Amsterdam, 1995), provides a history of leftist women’s movement Indonesian works providing in-depth analyses of the women’s movement include Nani Suwondo’s kedudukan Wanita Indonesia Dalam Hukum dan Masyarakat, (Jakarta: Ghalia, 1981) and Departemen Penerangan R.I., Perjuangan Wanita Indonesia 10 Windu Setelah Kartini 1904-1984, Jakarta: Department Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 87] === 80 missing presence of the nation or totality of ‘India’ [which] is itself a missing presence, finally unappropriable by language” (53). On one level this required, as Anderson has phrased it, the pathos that would inspire individuals to sacrifice themselves for a revolutionary or anti-colonialist cause. Whereas the Dutch created Indonesia as a space from which natural resources could be extracted to fill Dutch coffers, the nationalists would have to reinvent this space as a nation. But the kind of unity required for the project of nation building is based more on the construction of a common enemy than a commonwealth; to reinvent Indonesia as a space inspiring “unity in difference,” nationalists needed a positive, constructive force of community based on commonalties. This is why the allegory of the family is such an integral aspect of nationalist discourse; it introduces a natural order into a chaotic moment. Thus, while in Indonesia, the metaphor of ibu pertiwi fulfilled this purpose, nationalist thinkers and writers exhibited a pragmatism in their mobilization of the female as mothers of future generations, vessels of traditional morality, signs of the nation, and also as workers. The national family became the manifestation of unity and internal order. The public space, including the space of print literature and nationalist rhetoric, was here as elsewhere a space of “mimicry and hybridity” as nationalists “selectively appropriated” Western modernity (Shetty 54, characterizing Chateijee’s arguments). The female was also associated in Indonesia, less with the private space of the household than with a hybridized maternal role-modelled on the mother of the European-style nuclear family-of the nationalist “family.” In this manifestation, the mother “tropes a secular private space as a condition of modernity” (Shetty 57). While in this position she occupied an interior space-inside the nation and its discourse, as opposed to involved Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 88] === 81 with nation-building and anti-colonial activities-in the secular arena of nationalism, women were not sequestered inside the home. Rather women were given a very visible, if silent and a-political role, as signs and vessels of those elements of tradition that nationalists appropriated with the same selectivity as they did of modernity. The beauty of the literal and figurative mobilizing of Mother/mothers is located here; as Shetty points out, “as a negotiated strategy within nationalist discourse, [the mother as allegorical construct] possesses multiple valences, some politically oppositional, others socially conservative” (56). Here we see evidence supporting Shetty’s argument that the “mother as sign-vehicle” was successful in nationalist discourse precisely because it engag[es] the addressee subjectively and bind[s] him/her through effect or fantasy” (52). Ki Hadjar’s imagining of the female as and agent of regeneration and protector of the species through both careful copulation and education inhabits this category of desire: When we privilege the concept of womanhood in the efforts of [our organization], this means none other than that our primary intention is to improve the lives of our future generations by improving the lives of our children. In these efforts we emphasize the future of womanhood, because, according to our religious teachings and the teachings of civilized society, the most vital and important role for women in this world is her role as the manager of our future generations (Ki Hadjar Dewantoro, Soal Wanita 2). Sukarno expands upon these ideas in his Sarinah published in 1947, a compilation of materials he gathered for courses he planned to offer on the women’s question:1 The difference between male and female bodies... facilitates the perfection of the achievement of the goals of kodrat alam (earthly purpose/natural order), the goal of creating an heir and raising that heir. For a man, to provide the zat anak 1 See Sarinah: The Responsibilities o f Women in the Struggle for the Indonesian Republic. Published in 1947, midway through the revolution (1945-1949), the text is a lengthy (329-page) amalgam of theories and examples culled from a variety of texts, through which is interwoven Sukarno’s own opinions. Notably, Sukarno does not recognize or draw upon the contributions of Indonesian feminists in his analysis of “the woman problem,” apart from such prominent women Kartini, Dewi Sartika, and female revolutionaries who fought against the Dutch, including Cut Nya Dinh. Rather, he relies primarily upon the works of Western socialist-feminists including Clara Zetkin, Rosa Luxemburg, and Henriette Holst Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 89] === 82 (literally, the essence of the child, or, the sperm); for women to receive the zat anak, to carry the child, give birth to the child, breast feed the child, and raise the Sukarno then explains to women that their souls (djiwa wanita) are infused with kasih sayang (empathetic love) toward the husband and children: Women may be modem, may be feminists, may even attain a high position, or they may be the most oppressed, giving their fullest to fifteen hours of factory work per day, but they will always be women, who want to love, who want to take care of others, and who want to bring happiness to their husbands and children (79)/ For these mothers of the nation, the work is never done: Even if the body is weakened to the point of breaking down, and the back is broken from exhaustion,-the moment the woman returns home from her work in the factory or the garden, she must work further,...for her husband...for her children. She cannot disengage herself from this pull of her soul. Because she is.. Nationalists like Sukarno argued that women needed to be reminded of their true natures in the wake of colonialism and its western influences. Yet he, like his compatriots, refers to the West and the discourse of modernity to make his point. By consulting texts produced by men and women from around the world, including Gandhi, Lenin, Holst, and others, he confirms repeatedly the point that “If she must choose, of course she will ‘Perbedaan bentuk tubuh... hanja untuk kesempumaan tertjapainja tudjuan kodrat alam ini, alam mengasih fungsi dan alat-alat ke”laki-lakian” kepada laki-laki dan mengasih fungsi serta alat-alat ke”perempuanan” kepada perempuan: Buat laki-laki: memberi dzat anak; buat perempuan: menerima dzat anak, mengandung anak, melahirkan anak, menjusui anak, memelihara anak. ’Wanita boleh modem, boleh ‘feminis,’ boleh mendjadi orang pangkat tinggi, atau orang kali hinadina jang limabeias djam sehari membanting tulang dipaberik,-tetapi ia tetap Wanita, jang ingin tjinta, jang ingin kasih, jang ingin membahagiakan kepada saami dan anak. Meskipun badan telah letih seperti remuk, pinggang telah patah karena tjape, -setiba wanita dirumah dad pekerdjaan dipaberik atau dikebun, ia akan bekerdja lagi, membanting-tulang lagi, memeras keringat Iagi buat suami buat anak. Ia tidak akan dapat melepaskan diri dari tarikan djiwa jang demikian itu. Sebab ia wanita! Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 90] === 83 choose her children [over work], this is the certainty, demanded by a woman's soul 0memang demikianlah harusnja djiwa wanita)” (,Sarinah 233). In nationalist discourse, the inextricable link to tradition is inscribed through the reproductive or "uterine" aspect of the female. In the association of the female body and tradition found in nationalist discourse, various religious discourses are cobbled together. In the courtly literature of the Javanese tradition, woman is ascribed the role of the vessel of morality; in the nationalist discourse, she is the container of the bangsa and of kebangsaan, (nationality, essence of the nation.6 Mothers were de-sexualized and Victorianized in Indonesian as well as Indian nationalist discourse in response to the hyper-sexualization of the native female in colonial discourse; at the same time, they would be compelled to dress in the nationalist attire of kain kebaya (sarong and full sleeved blouse). The outfit exaggerated not only women’s femininity but also their sexuality, by tracing the contours of the female body. With these contradictory images of the national mother and mother of the nation, nationalists were able to have it both ways. They were able to argue that biases against women were rooted in tradition, thus displacing responsibility for their own desire to master the female as a mysterious cultural force. Women were then given the 6 One finds a similar rhetoric in Gandhian nationalism, based in part on the same Hindu tradition: Female sexuality was essentialized through Gandhi’s appeals to the “female” virtues: chastity, purity, self-sacrifice, suffering... The notion of female suffering in the Hindu tradition is dangerously glorified... The subconscious hold of socialization patterns inculcated in girls through the popular mythological stories of the ever-suffering Sita as virtuous wife, or the allsacrificing Savitri who rescues her husband from death are all part of the preparation for suffering in the roles of wives and mothers... Sexuality and spirituality were confounded through powerful mythological tales... where women’s fertility is both feared and revered... Male power and male sexuality and legitimate female sexuality, understood as female power, must be controlled and bounded through social custom, primarily within marriage. See Ketu Katrak “Indian Nationalism, Gandhian ‘Satyagraha’ and Representation of Female Sexuality.” In Nationalisms and Sexualities, Eds. Parker, et al (New York: Routledge, 1992) 398. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 91] === 84 responsibility of maintaining and indeed embodying tradition in the face of the chaotic forces of modernity, and thus encouraged to perpetuate patriarchal norms. Not surprisingly a battleground emerged between mothers and their daughters who saw through these tactics, but these daughterly voices appear only in fiction, while female activists were less able to critique on that level. Indeed, to argue for emancipation and equality, activists felt they needed the aspect of righteousness that association with ibu pertiwi granted them and presented arguments based on moral grounds. While the success of this line of argument is not apparent in the official history of the women’s movement, it is possible, as I will discuss further below, that women used the Mother metaphor ironically, or some might say cynically, thus appropriating it for their own purposes. Because so much emphasis was placed on this idealized female, it was imperative that women conform to the ideal; hence the constant repetition, in nationalist rhetoric, of the righteousness and naturalness of the image they constructed, and the demonization of women who did not conform. Here is where the construction of what Layoun had called a national grammar or “grammatiki” (Layoun, 411) comes into play. The Indonesian language emphasized gender differences and conforming or transgression. An unmarried woman is referred to as gadis, which translates, in an older form of English as “maiden,” and in plain contemporary English as “virgin.” The term stresses the idea that girls do not have sex before marriage. In contrast, young men are referred to as laki-laki before and after marriage or the onset of sexual activity. Women are also referred to as perawan tua (old maid) when they have reached the age of about 20 without marrying; there is no equal term for men. The ubiquity of these terms during the nationalist period suggest that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 92] === 85 women only became adult women when they married and marriage was expected by the age of 20. Motherhood was of course expected soon after, to reflect the success of a union. A string of qualifiers can be found in Indonesian texts from the nationalist period to reflect the proprieties and improprieties of female behavior before and after marriage. Gadis-gadis are described as manis (sweet); cantik (pretty); genit (flirtatious) molek (cute); langsing (slender); malu (exhibiting a sense of shyness); these reflect expected behaviors and characteristics for girls attracting a mate. Wives, or isteri-isteri were described with a different set of ideal characteristics: menurut (willing to acquiesce); sabar (patient); bakti (devoted/loyal); good mothers were known to possess, or be full of kasih sayang (empathetic love). Women who did not conform would be described as liar (wild); jalang (untamed, undomesticated); or, in the most extreme circumstances, called sundel (whore). As Kris Budiman demonstrates, the female is made passive in the Indonesian language, particularly in the arena of the sexual, even to the present day. She is for example married off (dikawinkan) and never marries (mengawini) and never acts, in language at least, as the agent of a romantic encounter, but rather is kissed, embraced, grabbed, and so on (Budiman 78). As Anderson has argued, nationalists created quite a different kind of identity for the male through their widespread use of the term bung (brother). During the revolution, he notes that bung “expressed the real fraternity of the national struggle” (Language and Power 141), by erasing age and socio-cultural differences between the participants. Anderson has also called attention to the term “tokoh kita” (lit: our protagonist, also, our hero) of nationalist literature which he wisely translates as “our young man,” despite the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 93] === 86 absence, in the phrase, of gendered differentiation. There is a notable lack, in the masculine appellations that Anderson cites, of information given in these terms beyond the aura of nationalist/revolutionary solidarity; they thus do not give a sense of being gendered at all. In contrast, feminine appellations call attention to gender by placing an emphasis on sexual status and the woman’s relationships to male relatives (as daughter/wife). One nationalist term that Anderson neglects to discuss is Bapak, (Father); this is a term conscripted by the prominent nationalist leader Ki Hadjar Dewantoro to be synonymous with “leader” or “head.” He applied the term to himself, designating himself the Bapak of the nationalist organization, the Taman Siswa. As I will discuss further below, Ki Hadjar’s adoption of the term Bapak was calculated, as he modeled his organization around the idea of the extended family, with a strong and wise patriarch at the helm. Paradoxically, Ki Hadjar did not designate his wife or any living female as the Ibu, or mother of the organization; rather, the Ibu was abstracted as the organizational philosophy. Nationalist writers also split the female into binaries; she serves in nationalist discourse and literature as the representation of tradition or modernity, East or West; later, she serves the male as either his wife or mistress and serves the nation as either wife/mother or as “warrior.” The binarial form of containment reflects a sense of anxiety about the new nation that inspired writers and thinkers to imagine the female as the central structure around which the new national family would be oriented. She was thus imagined as the sacrificial mother, fully in touch with her kodrat or essence; or, as a young woman, fully aware, to use Ki Hadjar’s words, of her position as “candidate wife” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 94] === 87 and acting accordingly. She would be modernized to a certain degree, but never beyond the limits of her kodrat or natural essence and destiny. Where the prevalence of the binary opposition signals a nationalist need to create, order through the disciplining of the female, it also points to nationalists’ claim to power through the vehicle of Enlightenment discourse. As we shall see, nationalist writers and thinkers utilized the figure of the binarized female to project their own transcendence over the oppositions they inherited from the Dutch colonizers. It was, after all, the Dutch who first introduced the ideas of the opposition between East and West as part of their project of constructing the colonized subject as “Other,’’-native, barbarian, Muslim, etc. It was also the Dutch publishers at the Balai Pustaka who encouraged Indonesian writers to imagine their world in binarial terms and exaggerate the opposition between the “traditional” society of the village, or region, and “modem” society of cities where Indonesians erased their differences. Modem intellectuals who wished to transcend these stultifying constructions displaced them on to the female; creating male subjects around which binarized female characters orbited, they were able to project their own mastery. This projection was amplified by the ethos nationalist speakers/writers took in their writing about the female. We see an appeal to universality through the use of transcendent language regarding “natural law” and the true meaning of life. Finally, by way of introduction to this chapter I would like to point out that my purpose in tracing the gendered logics of these streams of nationalist and women’s discourses is not to identify women as victims, but rather to ultimately demonstrate the ways in which women writers and historical actors escaped containment. I will argue that those women interested in imagining the nation differently did so by locating themselves Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 95] === 88 in an in-between or indeterminate space between tradition/modernity, between symbolizing the nation and participating in its imagining, and at times between the normative male/female oppositions. These were precisely those spaces nationalists considered dangerous or tragic for women, but as we shall see, the discourse of the women’s movement was characterized by a multiplicity of strategies and the strategy of multiplicity, in contrast to the national focus on unity. My interest here is in three particular modes of escape or breaking through. The first is the infusion of the written text, in the journal, the newspaper, the novel, with oral modes of discourse that break through the logic of linear prose and transform the realm of print into an alternative space. The second involves women’s reinscription of gendered identities with new meanings through speech and printed texts that express their own nationalist desires. The third constitutes a slightly different tactics, based on the idea that identities are themselves fluid and/or superficial, to be changed or worn as disguises at will. The boundaries between each of these tactics are thin, and I will not attempt to categorize acts or work by reducing them to one tactic or another. Rather, we shall see women employ these and other tactics in different configurations and combinations throughout this chapter and in women’s fiction as well. Dimensions of Containment For evidence of both the obsessive nature of the nationalist containment of the female and its complexities, let us turn to the 1935 special edition of the journal Wasita, published in honor of the Kongress Perempuan Indonesia (meeting of the Indonesian Women’s Congress) of the same year. First, some information about Wasita: it was Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 96] === 89 produced by the women’s wing of the Taman Siswa, the nationalist educational organization The Taman Siswa movement was conceived by Ki Hadjar Dewantoro (bom as Soewandi Suijaningrat), after obtaining a teaching certificate while in exile in the Netherlands from 1913-1917. The movement’s philosophy developed out of discontent with the colonial education system yet interest in alternative Western and Indian approaches to teaching, or as Ruth McVey puts it, “it was a reaction to disappointment in the fruits of westem-style education as much as it was an attempt to make that schooling available to the Indonesian public” (‘Taman Siswa” 133). Such radical theories as Montessori’s were integrated with local beliefs on education found in the village-centered pesantren Islamic school system, and were fused as well with teachings conveyed through Javanese music, art, and dance. The organizational ideology of the taman siswa was that of the “spiritual family of which Ki Hadjar Dewantoro considered himself the Bapak (father), and the system’s founding principles the mother.” In 1936, the institution broadened its goal to include a Marxist approach based on the principle of kerakyatan (“people-mindedness”) and egalitarianism among the brothers. Thus Ki Hadjar advocated that senior teachers should not amass personal or family wealth, but free themselves from personal property to increase the level of their spiritual power.7 This edition of Wasita presents the Women’s Congress proceedings, complete and excerpted speeches given by some well known and lesser-known women's rights activists of the nationalist period in both Dutch and Indonesian. The topics of the speeches are 7 See Ruth McVey’s. ‘Taman Siswa and the Indonesian National Awakening” Indonesia 4 (October 1967): 128-149, as well as Kenji Tsuchiya’s Democracy and Leadership: The Rise o f the Taman Siswa Movement in Indonesia. trans: Peter Hawkes. (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987) for English-language discussions of the Taman Siswa. Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 97] === 90 varied: women's roles as educators of children, advice on educating children under the age of seven, "The Meaning of Women as Mothers of the Nation;" "The Position of Women in Islamic Law;" "The Fate of Women during this Era of Economic Depression;” "and "Problems of Female Laborers." This kind of range of topics is characteristic of journals of the women’s movement, which might offer recipes and fashion and make-up tips together with more radical critiques regarding labor, colonial and national institutions, and world politics. In this edition of Wasita, Nyonya Sri Mangoensarkoro offers a conventional view of the role of “The Meaning of Women as Mothers of the Nation:” women have a specific role to play in the nation, namely the protective nurturing of the lineage (139). Her discourse expands upon that evinced by nationalist leaders, as her purpose is to raise women’s consciousness to increase their influence in the nation; women will then influence the nation by educating young people to sacrifice themselves for the “needs of the national struggle” and to “achieve [for the nation] a level comparable to other nations.” In the article on “The Position of Women in Islamic Law,” Nyonya Ratna Sari also expands upon conventional nationalist sentiments when she quotes the Prophet that “women are the foundational poles (tiang) of the nation if she is good, the nation is good, if she is destroyed the nation will be destroyed” (141). Her main target in the short article is the talak, (instantaneous divorce via declaration that is only available to men); thus she argues that only through increased cognition and respect [among men] of Quranic law regarding the proper treatment of women will women be able to perform their desired function in the nation. In contrast, the articles on economics and labor call for localized Women’s Committees that would dispense legal and advice, protect women from injustices, and ensure that women are paid for their (often forced) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 98] === 91 labor. Nyonya Soemadi attacks talak from another angle; it creates economic hardships for women and encourages men to exchange wives periodically to fill the coffers of the local marriage officials. In Nyonya Suwami Pringgodigdo’s discussion of “The problem of Women Workers in Indonesia,” nationalist discourse is likewise absent; Suwami argues that the only kind of work women are allowed to do is low-paid labor and she calls for labor laws that protect women and the support of women’s labor unions (142). The notable range of topics and diversity of views presented in the Indonesian portion of Wasita are glaringly reduced and thus contained by two framing essays by male writers. In his piece entitled "Education for Our Girls" Ki Tjokrodirdjo, asserts that: Our girls have been introduced to numerous ill-mannered attitudes by the West, and as a result, these girls have become crude in their thinking, their actions, and their ideas (Ki Tjokrodirdjo 126-127).* He places the blame on none other than Kartini: Kartini [in her published letters] opined that girls must obtain their view of the world through school. Kartini never considered the fact that we already have our own way of educating girls derived from the past, that is, through the arts and through literature. Because of this, Kartini is described as advocating a sense of merdeka (freedom) in which girls are allowed to interact in society, rather than one which is more in accordance with our own adat-istiadat (customary law, also, ‘tradition’).9... girls who enter Western schools and are not educated in the manners of their own community that are taught in their own homes become girls who are kasar (crude, unrefined) in all that they undertake and always *Gadis-gadis kita berkenalan dengan beberapa persifat kekasaran-kekasaran dari Barat, dan hatsilnja gadis-gadis itu mendjadi kasar didalam fikiran, perboeatan dan pengertiannja. 9 Kartini (Van [sic] Duisternis tot Licht) memandang, bahwa anak-anak perempoean haroes dapat penerangan dari sekolah-sekolah. Kartini ta’ pemah merasa bahwa kita soedah mempoenjai tjara mendidik moelai dari dahoeioe, jaitoe dengan kesenian dan ilmoe bahasa (kesoesasteraan). Hal ini menjebabkan pendidikannja Kartini tjoema ditoedjoekan kepada kemerdekaan oentoek bergaoelan dalam masjarakat, tidak kepada pendidikan jang selaras dengan adat-istiadat kita (Culturele opvoeding). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 99] === 92 wanting to widen their horizons. With ease and happy hearts they interact and stroll about with boys. People think that this is the meaning of freedom that is desired in [Kartini’s published letters]. Many of our girls become the victims of this misinterpretation.10 Here, Ki Tjokrodirdjo is advocating traditional education as an antidote to excessive modernity which has led girls to associate the freedom to interact in society with crude behavior and licentiousness. He aims to reverse many of Kartini’s progressive ideas concerning what women want or need, paradoxically by making a link between proper behavior in Java and the nation and the European elite that Indonesians never get to witness: Among the polite class of Europeans, people are not allowed to dance, to speak in an undignified manner, bathe with men, or go walking at night. In the aforementioned class, [girls] are taught music, they leam to speak and move their bodies gently and softly (lemah lembut)... Our girls don’t get to associate with or experience this group of civilized Europeans,... they only come into contact with the [less mannered] class of the bourgeoisie." We will recall that the issues of women’s speech and body movements were precisely those raised by Kartini as signaling the feudalistic attitudes of the Javanese aristocracy toward women; here Ki Tjokrodirdjo calls for their return, not as traditionally Javanese, but as an emulation of European high culture. With this statement, the writer sets up a class paradigm that demonizes those in the middle, i.e., the ill-mannered bourgeoisie who 10... gadis-gadis jang masoek dalam sekolah Barat dan tidak pemah diadjar kesopanan kebangsaan didalam pendidikannja diroemah temjata mendjadi gadis jang seringkali kasar didaJam segaia perboeatannja dan kerapkali sampai melebihi batas. Dengan gampang dan senang hati mereka bertjampoer gaoel dan berdjalan-djalan dengan anak laki-laki. Orang mengira, bahwa inilah kemerdekaan jang dimaoekan oleh “Duistemis tot Licht.” Banjaklah sekali dari gadis-gadis kita jang mendjadi korban dari salah pengertian ini. " Di kalangan bangsa Eropah jang bertabiat sopan santoen, orang tidak boleh berdansah, bertjakap-tjakap seagak keras, bermandi bersama dengan orang-orang laki-laki dan berpergian pada waktoe malam. Di kalangan terseboet diadjarkan moesik, orang berbitjara dan menggerakkan badan dengan lemah lemboet... [G]adis-gadis di tanah air kita ta’ pemah dilihat dan dirasakan... [J]ang dilihat hanya tjaratjara bergaoel dari gadis-gadis bangsa Eropah jang “burgerlijk” (bourgeoisi). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 100] === 93 have such a negative effect on “our girls.” While this demonization may resonate with Marxists of past and present, it is important to recall that, during the nationalist period, girls of the middle (i.e., mid-level bureaucrats, merchants, and low-level aristocrats) gained increasing access to education and, through their relationship with Dutch women, acquired some of the language and structure of emancipatory movements. This relationship with progressive Dutch women certainly must be problematized, along with the erasure of female labors and strikers of the period as middle class women in the women’s movement, became increasingly visible.12 At the same time, we must also unpack the specific targeting of what would later be termed the “butjuis” influences on Indonesian women, and the “buijuis woman” herself. These are the evil influences of modernity that alter women’s movements and speech, and the feminists who, as the Wasita articles show, were becoming increasingly politicized. As we shall see in my discussion of Suwarsih Djojopuspito’s Buiten Het Gareel, the term burjuis became a tool of toman siswa discourse as well; along with egoisme (connoting selfishness among women), it was invoked to contain women’s 12 See for example Francis Gouda’s discussion of Dutch colonial education for Indonesian girls, in which she describes their educated in the arts of perpetuating “Western ideas about proper womanhood” based upon the ideals of noblesse oblige. (Gouda, “Teaching" 26): The twentieth century rhetoric about simple women in the kampung or the desa-ihe volkerouwen who composed the silent millions of the islands of Java, Bali, and other regions of the Indonesian archipelago-revealed a remarkable symmetry, whether deployed by priyayi daughters educated in Dutch schools, their Dutch women teachers, or social workers (51). As evidence of this she quotes from an article published in Widoeri, a journal produced by women of the Javanese priyayi class: the mother in the desa slogs and slaves away. She carries loads on her back as heavy as lead; in the middle of the pitch-black night she pounds bran and com so she can trudge the enormous distance to the market... in order to earn a few cents... if only she could stay at home and learn to care better for her children by meeting her housewifely obligations then enough time would remain to earn additional income by doing some light agricultural work or, even more desirable, some spinning, weaving, or making batik... (44). See also Saskia Wieringa’s discussion of women’s labor organizing in the 1920s in The Politicization o f Gender Relations (61-2). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 101] === 94 activities and desires by assigning to them a contemptible appellation. Activist women of this class would always be caught between ill-defined notions o f propriety, “bourgeois” behavior, and modernity. Women of this in-between space were particularly difficult to categorize; thus they would be identified as “queens” (raja) of their households and authorized to take on aristocratic values. A second essay frames the Wasita articles, appearing at the end of the journal. In this essay, Taman Siswa leader Ki Hadjar Dewantoro invokes “the women’s problem” (so’al wanita) to remind of their place (kedudukan) and their [biological] destiny (kodrat) in the emergent nation; By calling attention to the importance of the women’s problem.... we mean to remind those at future women’s conferences and especially the community of women and the community of those who struggle in general of the serious need of discussion of these issues as we remember women’s destiny (kodrat) as the mothers of our lineage. By reminding women of their position and the proper attitude toward their destiny... certainly we will in the future have no difficulty in understanding all issues regarding women, including both those that are related to the spiritual and those that are related to the physical (“Perempoean” 144).15 Preceding this concluding statement, Ki Hadjar has gone on at length about the science of eugenics that is natural to Javanese society, in an effort to explain to women the importance of their role as mothers of the nation: ... it is necessary that we remember another aspect, which is known and also intended for the progress of the lineage, that is, what is called the aspect of ‘bibitbebet-bobot.' Bibit means one must be good, healthy, whole, and a whole and perfect seed, that is, the body, the material body... (physical requirements); bebet means: one must come from a good lineage, must have the rank of lineage of the ksatriya (warrior class), bebet, a lineage of learned or religious men, etc. 13Dengan mengemoekakan kepentingan so’al keperempoeanan dari pandangan keadaban maka ta’ lainlah maksoed kami hanja memperingatkan kepada kongres perempoean jang akan datang dalam choesoesnja, kepada kaoem perempoean dan kaoem pergerakan dalam oemoemnja, bahoea perloelah sekali didalam kita memperbintjangkan so’al itoe, senentiasa ingat pada kodratnya perempoean sebagai iboe toeroenan kita. Dengan mengingati kedoedoekan- dan sifat- kodrati dari perempoean itoe, nistjajalah kita ialoe akan moedah mengerti akan segala keadaan, dari kaoem perempoean. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 102] === 95 (biogenetic requirements); whereas bobot means: one must be good and strong inside, (requirements of the spirit. Here is the proof that we have a national science of eugenics. Where there is the issue of lineage, (of which women are the queens), there is clearly another extremely important point, that women themselves become a problem that is extremely important, as long as we view women as the queen of the lineage (143).'4 Here we see Ki Hadjar drawing together the Javanese proverb “bibit bebet bobot,” which gives guidance for considering spousal candidates, with the modem concepts of eugenics and biogenetics. As with Ki Tjokrodirdjo’s comments, the overall purpose is decidedly reactionary, given its context: women are reminded of their purpose as procreative and given the inimitable duty of protecting the lineage by traditional/modem or Javanese/colonial means. We might ask here: is Ki Hadjar simply “fetishizing modernity” in his mention of biogenetics and eugenics in the context of the maintenance of a proper bloodline through “traditional” means?15Should we just ignore this kind of rhetoric, because it appears absurd?14Or can we argue that this particular mode of weaving 14... patoetlah poela kita ingat pada sjarat Iain, jang terkenal dan djoega diperoentoekkan bagi kemadjoean toeroenan jaitoe jang terseboet sjarat “bibit-bebet, bobot.” “Bibit" bermaksoed: haroes baik, sehat, oetoeh dan sempoema bibitnja, jaitoe toeboeh djasmaninja... (physieke eisch); “bebet” bermaksoed: haroes berasal dari toeroenan jang baik, bebet atau toeroenan ksatriya, bebet, toeroenan dari pendita dsb (biogenetische eisch); sedangkan “bobot” bermaksoed: haroes baik, dan berat isinja (geestelijke eisch). Disinilah terboekti adanja ilmoe eugenetiek nasional. Di mana so’al toeroenan (dalam mana orang perempoean itoe mendjadi pemangkoe) terang adat soeatoe so’al jang amat penting, maka dengan sendirilah so’al keperempoeanan itoe mendjadi amat penting joega selama kita memandang orang perempoean itoe sebagai pemangkoe ketoeroenan----15James Siegal, in Fetish, Recognition, Revolution has argued that Indonesian nationalists “fetishized” modernity by “following the fashions of the time without thought of changing identity;” (9); the use of terms like “eugenics” and “biogenetics” would in this case fall under the category of modem linguistic ‘fashions” of the 1930s which dress up Ki Hadjar’s conservative Javanese notions of maintaining the purity of the bloodline. 14Benedict Anderson has commented frequently on the lack of coherence and at times absurdities that occur in nationalist discourse, particularly in the speeches of Sukarno. See in particular Anderson’s introduction to The Spectre o f Comparisons: Nationalism, Southeast Asia and the World (London: Verso, 1998). Here, he can only explain Sukarno’s association with Hitler and his rhetoric as “ventriloquizing" (12), which he then elides with “incurable double vision,” seeing simultaneously up close and from afar.” Whereas this “double vision” sounds suspiciously like “double consciousness” to me, Anderson creates Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 103] === 96 traditional and modem concepts is strategic, a means of appropriating the modem in order to delimit its possibilities in the reconstruction of gender roles? Both Ki Hadjar and Ki Tjokrodirdjo were responding, in their characterization of the proper and ideal Indonesian female, to the sexualization of the native female by the colonial power. Rather than rejecting this characterization of their women out of hand, however, they express their own anxieties about “their girls” morality, particularly when facing the pressures of modernity. As Ki Tjokrodirdjo puts it: Our objective is to do away with all aspects that are dangerous, that will lower the rank (deradjat) of our girls, and to make progress in the form of education for our girls that fosters good behavior and character... Only with good behavior and strict politeness and pure thoughts can our young girls take their place in the days to come as mothers of a valuable national lineage.'7 In presenting these arguments, nationalists appropriated the role of the father from the colonizer, casting their paternalism in nationalist terms. Caught in the web of “mimicry and hybridity” that characterizes, in a general way, the relationship between nationalism slippage here, shifting the discussion to his idea of the “spectre of comparisons” as an element of the scholarly dilemma, rather than symptomatic of Sukarno’s, or nationalism’s own psychosis. Scholars who are captivated by Ki Hadjar’s socialist ideas pay little attention to his ideas regarding gender. Ruth McVey, for example translates Ki Hadjar’s note on “Women in the Taman Siswa” and directs readers to his further discussion in his pamphlet So 'al Wanita (The Woman Question, which will be discussed further in this chapter) but does not take up the issue of Ki Hadjar’s reactionary, as opposed to progressive views toward women. Part of the problem is that she compares the Taman Siswa to another educational movement, the Muslim-based Muhammadijah, to compare degrees of progressivity. It is only when we compare Ki Hadjar’s approach to “the women question” with the progressive discourse of the women’s movement that we can see Ki Hadjar reacting against women’s gains. What we might call the “Ki Hadjar question” persists in Indonesia today. While the toman siswa's multi-cultural and socialist underpinnings have become a viable model for localized socialism and an education movement in Indonesia, and its founder, Ki Hadjar Dewantoro, remains not only a nationalist hero but a guide for members of the pro-democracy movement, his attitudes toward the female, as we can see here, are anything but egalitarian. 17Kewadjiban kita ialah menlenjapkan segala hal-hal jang berbahaja, jang dapat merendahkan deradjat gadis-gadis kita dan memadjoekan mengadjar kepada anak-anak kita perempoean oentoek dapat watak dan boedipekerti jang baik, djanganlah sampai semaoe-maoenja mengikoet gelombang kemoderenan jang tidak berharga. Tjoema dengan boedipekerti jang baik dan adat kesopanan jang keras dan fikiran jang moelia anak-anak kita perempoean akan mendapat tempat dikemoedian hari sebagai iboe-iboe dari toeroenan bangsa jang berharga. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 104] === 97 and the West,1*they zealously selected elements of traditionalism and modernity to construct a sovereign national subjectivity. This subjectivity is based in a paradigmatic dualism that reveals nationalists’ struggles with double consciousness, struggles that led to overcompensation. Ki Hadjar quite systematically constructed the Taman Siswa in these dualistic terms. One image was presented to outsiders, that is, to the Dutch, while another turned inward, toward the Indonesian community, suggesting the blossoming of a democratic society. Internally, however, the structure was defined as a benevolent dictatorship (Tsuchiya Democracy and Leadership, 114-51; 143). Ki Hadjar’s positioning of himself as the Bapak (father/benevolent dictator) of the organization, married to his own creation, the Taman Siswa philosophy itself yield various interpretations. Tsuchiya asserts that Ki Hadjar formalized the appellations Bapak and Ibu as a rejection of the Dutch Meneer and Juffrouw (138) but it is important to ask whether this was less of a rejection than a replacement. The internal patriarchal structure was also considered necessary for controlling the image of, and maintaining order among the many disparate individuals in the movement to lessen the possibility of Dutch oppression. When we examine the contours of Ki Hadjar’s discourse, however, we see that the maintenance of internal order serves a different purpose, namely, the establishing of male subjectivity. In his framing of the Women’s Congress proceedings, he works to contain not only the " In Sarinah, Sukarno appeals to science as well, exhibiting his rhetorical skills by engaging numerous discursive streams simultaneously. In a “modem” voice, he denounces the “out-moded” perspective toward the female as “weak... ignorant... narrow-thinking...nn'mo (accepting)" (Sukarno Sarinah 33). “Science,” he writes, tells us the opposite of what has been thought, namely “that women are predestined to be different than men in all capacities, that men are the freedom fighters, that only they should take positions as officials, and become society’s champions, while...women are asked only to cook rice, guard the household, and be perceived as “objects” (Sarinah 36). At the same time, however, he relies upon such concepts as “natural law” to explain his own opinions on ideal gender relations in the new republic. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 105] === 98 female but also women’s emancipatory discourse. Not only does Ki Hadjar not honor the ideas that women presented at the 1935 Women’s Congress, but he takes the opportunity to confirm his sovereignty to the female audience by presenting his own reductive counter-text. Similarly, in describing the structure of his organization, Ki Hadjar again reverts to a self-serving combination of ideas; from the West he borrows the notion of “Eastern” values, arguing that the Taman Siswa “attaches the greatest importance on the unity of all individuals... one with the whole... master and servant become one” (Tsuchiya 141). Even if the latter were true, the unity of the organization would be based on everyone’s knowledge of their natural or biologically determined place; and if they are in danger of forgetting that place, Ki Hadjar would be there to remind them of it. Trapped between Tradition and Modernity Nationalist discourse was constituted by different strands that, when examined closely, share more commonalties than differences, even if their interlocutors would disagree. In contrast to Ki Hadjar, Sumatran intellectual and novelist, Sutan Takdir Alisyahbana, founding member of the Pudjangga Baru literary journal openly and consciously embraced modernity and the discourse of modernity as an essential component of nationalism. In the 1930s, Sutan Takdir instigated a dialog or “polemik” among nationalist leaders and thinkers of the period about the relationship between modernity and nationalism. In a series of essays published in a variety of journals and collected in the late 1930s as Polemik Kebudayaan", Sutan Takdir argues that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 106] === 99 Indonesians need to embrace “egoisme"(egoism) without any fear of becoming “enslaved to materialism” as those who argued against embracing modernity feared.® Sutan Takdir takes an unabashedly positive approach to individualism and capitalism that follows the line of reasoning presented in such modem novels as Robinson Crusoe21: Truly our people are lacking in intellect, lacking in individual freedoms, we are too sympathetic, too willing to give alms to everyone, so that people do not give enough attention toward gathering material things. Our culture can only move from being static to dynamic if our intellect is cultivated in the most calculated ways, when individuals in our society are allowed to live as they like, and if we lessen the tendency toward generosity, toward the giving of alms... (,Polemik 39).a 19These essays were collected and published by Achdiat Mihardja as the Polemik Kebudayaan in the late 1930s. Participants in the Polemik were diverse, including Sanusi Panl, Sutomo, Purbatjaraka, Adinegoro, and Ki Hadjar Dewantoro. Perhaps because Sutan Takdir was the instigator of the Polemik, or because he was so certain of his own ideas, he monopolized the discussion, presenting aggressive and accusatory responses to each of the other participants. When Sutomo disagreed with his views about individualism, for example, Sutan Takdir accused him of being “anti-modem,” anti-individual,” “anti progress.” In frustration, Sutomo withdrew from the discussion. 20As he puts it, “we can say that our bangsa (society) is terlampau murah hati (extremely generous), extremely willing to give alms/donations. In our negeri (nation), people don't die from starvation, in our nation, people practice tolong menolong (mutual aid), in our nation, people allow one another, whosoever, to mencari rezekinya (seek a livelihood), and gather as much wealth as they like.. Polemik Kebudayaan 39. 21 Robinson Crusoe was one of the novels translated into Indonesian by the Dutch publishing company Balai Pustaka, of which Sutan Takdir was an employee. Compare Ian Watt’s comments on Robinson Crusoe’s “economic man” to Sutan Takdir’s imagining of the new Indonesian society: Robinson Crusoe has been appropriately used by many economic theorists as their illustration of homo economicus. Just as “the body politic” was the symbol of the communal way of thought typical of previous societies, so “economic man” symbolized the new outlook of individualism in its economic aspect... The hypostasis of the economic motive logically entails a devaluation of other modes of thought, feeling, and action: the various forms of traditional group relationship, the family, the guild, the sense of nationality-all are weakened and so, too are the competing claims of non-economic individual achievement and enjoyment, ranging from spiritual salvation to the pleasures of recreation" (Watt 63-4). 23Sesunggunhnja soal bangsa kita jang sebenar-sebenamja soal kekurangan intelect, soal kurang hidupnja individu, soal terlampau pemurahnja (kurang egoismenja) tiap-tiap orang, soal kurang giatnja orang mengumpulkan harta dunia. Masjarakat bangsa kita jang statisch ini hanja dapat mendjadi dynamisch apabila intellect bangsa kita diasah setadjam-tadjamnja mungkin, apabila individu dalam bangsa kita dihidupkan sehidup-hidupnja mungkin, apabila sifat permurah hati jang terlampau besar dikalangan kita Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 107] === 100 In Takdir’s translation of the concept of the economic man, he introduces the concept of personality (persoonlykheden [Dutch]), which he defines as "the right as human beings to receive the blessing of one's own feelings and thoughts” (mendapat rahmat perasaart dan pikiran sendiri), and to make one's own decisions about one's ties to adat (‘customary law’), ties to local beliefs or superstitions (tahyul), ties to family, ‘norms,’ and a variety of other matters. With the help of Western education, he continues, "one can begin to think about oneself, one is not afraid to face oneself... One begins to struggle for one’s own self-interests and for the interests of one’s nation” (40). Forging the link between individualism and nationalism, he clarifies this last point by saying, "one begins to value money and material goods and one begins to work towards collecting money and goods, which becomes a right and responsibility of every person” (40).a Individualism, having been introduced to Indonesians through the mechanisms of Capitalism, becomes positively linked to it, with the results of positivism and "progress" toward equality. The Sad Dramas of Modernity When Sutan Takdir turns his attention to modernity and the female, however, his rhetoric takes on an ambivalence that contrasts the positivism of the remarks quoted above.24Rather than advocating that women be sent back to tradition, he imprisons them 23Oleh didikan Barat ia mulai memikirkan dirinja sendiri... ia tidak takut mengemukkan dirinja. .. Ia mulai berdjuang bagi kepentingan dirinja dan kepentingan bangsanja Ia mulai menghargai uang dan harta, jang sebenamja mendjadi hak kewadjiban tiap-tiap orang. 24 In the Polemik Kebudayaan’s deliberations regarding modernity, the female are absent Even if we consider the gender-neutral use of pronouns in bahasa Indonesia to raise the possibility that women are being addressed as well as men, when gender enters into the discussion, it is restricted to the putera (young man), while the puteri (young woman) is not mentioned. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 108] === 101 in an indeterminate space between the tradition and modernity, setting up a situation that is characterized by impossibility. He addresses “the woman question” in an article devoted to women’s writing of the East, in which he discusses Hamidah’s Kehilangan Mestika along with novels written by Japanese and Turkish women and those composed by Indonesian men featuring female heroines. Here, Sutan Takdir presents modernity as a “sad drama” (lakort). He sets the stage with the following configuration of women and tradition or adat istiadat: Generally speaking, in most [Eastern] places, women are more controlled by adat istiadat than men. She is more tied (terikat) to the village, to the house, to the extended family and in this limited area of association, her life is more restricted (diikat) by various social norms and by adat isitadat. At the same time, those who hold on to (memegang) the ties of adat istiadat are also women (STA “Kedoedoekan” 156-7, Sutan Takdir’s emphasis).25 Through the use of italicized “di” and “me/m” prefixes, Sutan Takdir emphasizes women’s passive and active relationship to the ties and pull of tradition to suggest that women conspire in their own oppression. He uses the same imagery of the “foundational poles” {tiang) as Ratna Sari, excerpted above, to argue that women hold up, not society, but adat or “tradition,” and that, in upholding that tradition, they are responsible for their own victimization by it. However, when women attempt to break free of adat, they are likewise responsible for the breakdown of society, which causes women only more suffering: When the group of women who are most strongly pulled by (dipegang) and who hold on to (memegang) adat istiadat most tenaciously are acquainted with the Western spirit of freedom or individuality there is a tremendous upheaval, “Oemoemnja dimana-mana perempoean iebih koeat dipegang oleh adat istiadat dari pada lakilaki. Ia Iebih terikat kepada doesoen, kepada roemah, kepada kerabat dan dalam lingkoengan pergaoelan jang ketjil itoe, hidoepnja Iebih rfi-ikat poela oleh berbagai-bagai kebiasaan dan adat istiadat. Sebaliknja jang terkoeat memegang adat istiadat itoe ialah perempoean poela. (Sutan Takdir’s emphasis). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 109] === 102 because the pillars of society that adat istiadat hinge upon become truly shaky. Thus the old society upon which adat istiadat was hinged loses it sturdiness, and everything becomes uncertain. Generally speaking, a large part of the East is now in such a situation.16 When one comes across a place that is in a shaky, uncertain state, a state of upheaval, one will certainly find as the root cause women who have been infected 0ditoelari) by the spirit of freedom and perseorangan... but we must also say that it will be women who suffer most profoundly from this state of upheaval.17 With the term ditoelari, (infected, contaminated), Sutan Takdir further widens the gap between male and female interactions of modernity by pathologizing the female experience. Whereas modernity invigorates the male-centered, modem national society he imagines in the Polemik Kebudayaan,a this socio-economic force poses the dangers for women of a contagious disease that Sutan Takdir himself will attempt, in his own fiction, to curb. The full extent of the “sad drama” of modernity for woman is revealed: having suffered under tradition, she desires the liberation that modernity offers; however, if she abandons tradition, everything will come crashing down, leaving her sisters especially vulnerable. The embrace of individualism is not any more an option for women in Sutan 26 Apabila golongan perempoean jang terkoeat dipegang dan memegang adat istiadat itoe berkenalan dengan kebebasn atau perseorangan semangat Barat, maka terdjadilah pergoentjangan jang hebat didalam masjarakat, sebab tiang agoeng masjarakat jang bersendikan adat istiadat itoe benar jang mendjadi gojah. Maka masjarakat lama jang bersendikan adat istiadat itoe hilanglah kekoekoehannja, segala sesoeatoe mendjadi gelisah. Oemoemnja sebahagian besar dari negeri Timoer sekarang ini masih keadaan demikian. "Dan dalam keadaan jang tidak tetap, jang gojah dan bergoentjang itoe, pastilah kaoem perempoean jang telah ditoelari oleh semangat kekebasan atau perseorangan Barat itoelah jang teroetama sekali merasakan, malahan agaknja dapat kita berkata, jang teroetama sekali menderita pergoentjangan itoe. “In the Polemik Kebudayaan, Sutan Takdir argues for example, that the previously “static” Indonesian society would become “dynamic” [he uses the Dutch terms statisch and dynamisch] through its embrace of modernity. He also suggests that Indonesians will experience psychological health; they will develop “self-respect,” they will spread happiness to those who work and struggle to have reputable lives” (membangkitkan keinsafan akan kepentingan sendiri dan menggembirakan orang berdaya upaya dan berdjuang untuk kehidupan jang layak...) (40). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 110] === 103 Takdir’s imagining than it is for Ki Hadjar Dewantoro. And as with Ki Hadjar, it appears that Sutan Takdir is here exhorting an audience of women to postpone or curb altogether their interest in pursuing the individualistic aspect of modernity. His rhetoric has changed from that used in the Polemik, in that he rarely uses Dutch and English terms, but rather takes the opportunity to translate the ideas of individuality and egoism into Indonesian. Thus in place of individualism, or egoisme or persoonlykheid, he uses the phrase kebebasan atau perseorangan semangat Barat, the Western spirit of freedom or perseorangan, an approximation of individualism. There is no sense of the liberation or universalism that modernity brings to the readers of the Polemik, as indicated by the opening of the language to foreign terms and ideas. Here, the movement is inward, toward the pillars on which society is based, the social structure as upheld by women. In this interior space, the “sad drama” of modernity is played out among women who suffer from their awakening to their own desires as individuals, much like Kartini. Sutan Takdir succeeds in creating yet another image of containment for women in his discussion of this “sad drama.” Not only do women suffer from the effects of backward societies that thwart their progress, but also from the fact that the majority of their sisters will remain figuratively “dead” or, in accordance with Enlightenment rhetoric, “in the dark:” It is truly great and full of sadness, the drama of the struggle of Eastern women to free themselves from ties to adat istiadat. In this struggle, heroic women who with broken hearts rise up, aspiring to reach the highest pinnacle of humanity/humanism, but their numbers are not great, as the majority are 'dead’ in dark and low places, unknown to and acknowledged by anyone (STA, “Kedoedoekan” 156-7).® ® Sesoengoehnja hebat dan penoeh kesedihan iakon perdjoeangan perempoean Ttmoer meiepaskan dirinja dari ikat adat istiadat. Dalam perdjoeangan itoe bangkit pahlawan-pahiawan perempoean jang dengan kalboe jang remoek, dapat metjapai poentjak kemanoesiaan jang tinggi, tetapi berapa poela tidak banjak djoemlahnja jang ‘mati’ ditempat yang gelap dan rendah, tiada diketahoei dan tiada dipedoelikan orang. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 111] === 104 In this interior space, women’s struggle for their own self-interests is not directly associated with the “interests of one's nation’’ as are the self-interests of men, according to Sutan Takdir’s argument of the Polemik. The components of modernity, such as individuality and materialism are not addressed here; rather, women are left in the indeterminate space between tradition and modernity, pulled down by their unenlightened sisters. Caught between the oppositional forces of tradition/modernity and individualism/community, woman can do nothing but suffer or, Sutan Takdir suggests in his novel Layar Terkembang (Sails Unfurled) of 1936, marry a sovereign nationalist subject. In his novel, he presents the indeterminate space as exceedingly dangerous to women, equivalent to an illness that can only be cured by heterosexual love and marriage to an enlightened male. The main character of the novel, Tuti, is first presented as a charismatic speaker of the women’s movement, but who finds herself suffering from indeterminacy; through her work in the women’s movement she has become disconnected from her female essence, and suffers torment as a result. In the throes of emotional turmoil, on the verge of transformation into the woman she is meant to become, Tuti struggles between what the author defines in binarial terms as her own “clear and rational thought” and the characters of a romance novel who were able to “imagine the radiance of love,” but only because they had “no particular goals in life” (140): She felt she could not endure the torment of being pulled between either worship and surrender or her strength and position as a speaker in the women's movement Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 112] === 105 Tuti is described as “experiencing a major crisis in her batin (inner being)” which, her future husband opines, “could be good for her. If nothing else this crisis will menyempumakan (make more mature, perfect) her attitude toward life” (155). Tuti’s “maturity” does indeed occur as she admits her love for the novel’s hero, and ultimately marries him. Marriage, for Sutan Takdir, functions as the resolution of the crisis brought on by women’s “infection” with the ideas of modemity-self interest, egoism and perhaps most importantly, desire. Mastering Women’s Discourse In his essay on Eastern Women writers, Sutan Takdir argues that, while one could study the phenomenon of the “sad drama” of modernity through social scientific analyses, documentation and statistics,... one must listen to the analysis of [female?] artists who can provide one with examples of living human beings, of flesh and blood; one can hear the patter of laughter of joy of young teenage girls who have just begun to feel a sense of personal freedom and have just become aware that they have their own desires, their own dynamism, and are clever enough to create themselves [in writing?] in accordance with their desires and dynamism... (157)30. My parenthetic questions within the quote indicate my uncertainty as to whether Sutan Takdir is arguing that we must look to women’s writing to see how women create themselves as individuals. Part of the problem is syntactic, as he never refers specifically to female writers, nor to “women” per se, but rather “gadis moeda remadja" or “young adolescent girls” who have just begun to feel a sense of personal freedom. Is this how he "[orang] haroes mendengar oeraian ahli seni, jang akan dapat memberikan kepadanja manoesia jang hidup dari darah dan daging; ia akan dapat mendengar gelak berderai kegirangan gadis moeda remadja, jang baroe merasakan kebebasan dirinja dan insaf, bahwa ia mempoenjai kemaoean sendiri, mempoenjai tenaga sendiri dan pandai berboeat sendiri menoeroet kemaoean dan tenaganja. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 113] === 106 characterizes women writers? Or is he conflating women writers with the fictional characters-the young women- who appear in both men’s and women’s writing? It appears as if the latter is the case, and that, while he refrains from mentioning his own novel in the essay, the author imagined that his own novel Layar Terkembang of 1935 could be added to the list of novels which present analysis of the tradition/modernity "problem" through depictions of flesh and blood "teenage girls." Conflation of female characters and women writers works to the author’s advantage, as it is Sutan Takdir’s own conception of “feminism” that is conveyed through the mouth of his protagonist Tuti. The author employs the free indirect discourse, which critics remind us, creates the stylistic effect of "an uninterrupted flow of narration" which leads to “the perfect illusion of a transparent mind,”31to blend Tuti’s ideas regarding tradition and modernity with his own. Tuti opposes the idea of “clear, rational thinking” to surrender to emotion and sentiment, in accordance with the Western tradition of humanism of which the author had become a strong advocate. Her depiction of pre-modem society, ostensibly presented in a moving speech for the Puteri Sedar women’s organization has distinct similarities to Sutan Takdir’s own critique of tradition articulated in the Polemik: Black, extremely black was the existence of our nation's women of the past, murkier than the darkest night. Women were not even considered as human beings, like men, having their own lives, women were only slaves, women were only servants who had to work and give birth to the babies of men, without any rights of their own. At the most, she was an ornament, a plaything, who was esteemed only as long as she was desirable, but was then thrown away and exchanged when her light had faded, when she had lost her glow (49).n 31 See Lydia Liu, Translingual Practice, 111-113. Sutan Takdir also uses the classical trope of the “internal audience” Tiwon has described in Breaking the Spell to provide self-validation for his views. The narrator of Layar Terkembang frequently assures the audience that “Tuti’s” words are fully appreciated by the audience of young feminists in the text 32Hitam, hitam sekali penghidupan perempuan bangsa kita dimasa jang silam, Iebih hitam, Iebih kelam dari malam jang gelap. Perempuan bukan manusia seperti laki-laki jang menpunjai pikiran dan Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 114] === 107 Tuti cites two discursive traditions: courtly poetry of the reign of the Yogya sultan Mangkunegara IV and syair (courtly as well as popular poetic form) as evidence for the fact that, in this context, desirable women had no personal desires of her own, and were in nature acquiescent. In both texts, women are advised to work diligently to follow their husband's orders, and to know the value of her husband's wealth and guard it. When she concludes that "advice such as this is still passed from generation to generation throughout the archipelago" (49-52), Tuti creates the link between past and present which, in the author’s discourse of modem nationalism, forms the basis of the “sad drama” of modernity for women. With his depiction of the modem Indonesian feminist, Sutan Takdir attempts to close off two alternative modes of discourse that actual feminists utilized to their advantage. The first is a discourse that breaks through the boundaries of the monological Enlightenment thinking the author projects as feminist, based upon the distinction between the darkness of tradition and light of modernity, between which women remain imprisoned. Because Sutan Takdir based his fictional feminist organization on one with an extensive historical record, we are able to contrast the rhetoric and atmosphere of the fictional meeting to those of the real Istri Sedar.” I will begin with the impressions of such a meeting offered by the Dutch writer Edgar du Perron, then quote liberally throughout the rest of the chapter from Istri Sedar publications. In both cases, we shall pemandangan sendiri, jang mempunjai hidup sendiri, perempuan hanja hamba sahaja, perempuan hanja budak jang hams bekerdja dan melahirkan anak baji laki-laki, dengan tiada mempunjai hak. Setinggitingginya ia mendjadi perhiasan, mendjadi permainan, jang dimulia-muliakan selagi disukai, tetapi dibuang dan ditukar, apabila telah kabur tjahajanja, telah hilang serinja. 33This organization is of particular interest to me because it was founded by Suwarsih Djojopuspito’s sister, Suwami Djojoseputro Cater, Pringgodigdo) in 1930. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 115] === see how the monological vision of feminism offered by Sutan Takdir’s Tuti is broken apart by what is in some cases a chaotic scene at meetings, and a rhetoric in speeches and in the Istri Sedar journal Sedar. In du Perron’s depiction, female speakers the speeches presented are laden with irony and anti-colonialist rhetoric, while audience members adamantly voice their reactions to the speeches' content, and the meeting is eventually broken up by native officials. In the meeting, Suwamih Pringgodigdo, the sister of Suwarsih Djojopuspito, is quoted as presenting the following remarks: And if we go to watch a performance of the wayang, and see the old-time stories that are so wonderful, no? And how Mrs. Sumbadra... e e h... no, Sumbadra is not a Mrs and how Sumbadra is victorious over her competitors, then we join in the laughter and later say: ‘Exi, how wonderful, no? Aijuna has gotten himself another young wife’ (Du Perron 323). By giving the wayang, considered one of the most sacred cultural/artistic representations of tradition, a modem reading, Suwami problematizes the position in which female audience members consumed the stories and the ideology contained within them. In order to consider the wayang stories as “wonderful,” female audience members become complicitous in the perpetuation of the polygynous system. By being ironic and thus indirect, she places the onus of understanding on her audience, then raises the stakes by taking a more direct approach. According du Perron, however, over the course of her speech, she became more direct in her attack on polygyny and the men who practiced it, leading some of the male audience members to yell out: terlalu, Zus! (“too much, sister!”).” Du Perron’s recollection presents the possibilities of women’s resistance as a ” The actual percentage of polygynous marriages in the Indonesian archipelago was not overwhelmingly high. The census of 1930 indicated that in Java it was only 1.9%, and only 4.2% on the island of Sumatra; the latter percentage was raised by the high rate in isolated areas, such as Fort de Kock, Manindjau, and Oud-Agam (14.6,15.7, and 19% respectively). However, divorce rates were exceedingly high, with 70% of marriages ending in divorce in Bandung, W. Java, during the years 1929-1930. These Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 116] === 109 continual pushing against the unspoken boundaries of propriety. The use of irony and slippage, and of the tactics of going “too far” can be seen as discursive strategies for testing those boundaries. Istri Sedar’s use of rhetorical figures to generate multiple levels of critique is lost in Takdir’s representation of the “Puteri Sedar” speech. Given that, in his description of an Istri Sedar meeting, Du Perron also notes the frequent inability of women to understand one another, due to language barriers and attempts to speak in the often newly-acquired lingua franca, we can imagine as well that there were multiple levels of understanding within the Istri Sedar audience. In contrast, in the representation of Puteri Sedar, there is no danger of misinterpretation or misunderstanding. All of the concepts pertaining to the new woman and her sense of individuality are rendered in Indonesian terms, even though Tuti is described as a reader of foreign texts, and it can be imagined that her audience of Puteri Sedar members were also educated in the Dutch system. Takdir’s feminism takes on an apolitical monologic quality that limits the multiplicity of meaning encountered in feminist texts from the 1910s-1940s. Whereas Sutan Takdir represents the discourse of the women’s movement in the language of Enlightenment epistemology (the darkness of tradition, the light of modernity), the women of Istri Sedar utilized the space where languages and discourses meet to present a more sophisticated attack on, not tradition per se, but the selective appropriation of elements from tradition, as well as colonialism, to contain the female. figures come are listed in Suwami Pringgodigdo Perlindoengan Dalam Perkawinan (Batavia: Kenanga, 1937) 13. Suwamih uses the figures to argue against the prevailing notion that polygyny created a balance where there was a higher percentage of female to male. Her text demonstrates that members of the women’s movement were spurred on to focus on the polygyny problem because of the treatment of wives as expendable or exchangeable, either in polygyny or in divorce, and to politicize the issues of respect for Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 117] === 110 The general critique of tradition was, and continues to be an integral part of the discourse of the women’s rights movement in Indonesia. From Kartini onward, feminists formulated arguments regarding the misogynist aspects of feudal Javanese society in numerous pamphlets and historical studies of women’s oppression in Indonesia.", In the 1930s, however, the women of Istri Sedar took the discussion to a new level when they made an explicit link between feudalism, colonialism and nationalism. In the June/July 1931 issue of the journal Sedar, a group of writers makes this link by responding to comments about women and politics published in the journal Padoman of the Java-based nationalist organization Budi Utomo. They accuse the Budi Utomo writer, who they refer to as “G,” of perpetuating a stelsel kuno, or out-moded/old-fashioned system when he argued that women should not be involved in politics (Moedinem 8). While Istri Sedar activists frequently used pairings of stelsel and misogynistic practices- including pingitstelsel (system of pingitan, or forced isolation of adolescent girls) and the selirstelsel, (system of taking second or unofficial wives) (Boerdah 12)-in their rhetoric, women and personal responsibility for men. In advocating for marriage reform, feminists were attempting to create public policy around an issue that was considered, in nationalist discourse, a “private” matter. " More recently, Indonesian feminists have returned to this line of argument to produce even more nuanced and situated demonstrations of the link between “traditional” and modem patriarchies. Wardah Hafidz and Tati Krisnawaty for example quote from the 19thcentury Javanese Serat Centhini to demonstrate the links between past and present patriarchal systems (Hafidz and Krisnawaty 1-6). A. Sudewa goes a step further to make the link between the sexualization and biological determinism of the female and trivialization of her voice, in his quoting of quotes portions of a number of pre-20lhcentury texts: a society is empty without a king, a face is empty without sirih, and a woman is empty without children... A woman’s importance is constituted by nothing other than the well-roundedness of her two breasts, there for observing while holding in the hands in the bed” (4 1 )... Don't listen to women because you will be ridiculed by others, you will be shamed as well as impoverished by it (44). While these contemporary critics do not focus specifically on nationalism-as-patriarchy as did their predecessors of the 1930s, the recent work helps to clarify the link between desire and the silencing of the female in nationalist discourse. The sexual aspect is muted while the biological one is amplified, but as we shall see in my discussion of fashion at the end of this chapter, nationalists were able to blend the two in the institutionalization of a national/traditional dress for women. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 118] === Ill here they are concerned specifically with G’s contention that women should not be involved in nationalist politics. For full effect they repeat his comments: the duties of every woman are to serve men (berbakti pada lakinja)... Men have been fated to become the ‘sign posts’... so it is their obligation to protect the safety, the security, and the well-being of society. Therefore it is men’s duty to become active in the field of politics, and then add their own commentary: Hm, so there is an agreeable fate that has been bestowed upon men; women had better not get involved in the movement, they aren’t fated to work together with men for the needs of the nation (Tanahair). Well they can, b u t, only in the household. We’ve repeatedly heard those theories that women must respond to nationalist exigencies only by building up the household. We often hear these theories that the role of women in nationalism must be in improving the household. Monitor the household to ensure that as in order, of anything else, woman must never speak; this is what has been fated for women (“Soera Koeno” As they continue to quote G, they turn his argument around to serve their own purposes; thus they threaten: “Man must watch out, because women seem to want to step into an arena which is not their place... ” They then take on G’s ethos in a sarcastic tone: “Listen, readers, note please with your two ears: politics must be cleansed of the involvement of wom en... The Movement, the Nation (Tanahair) must be for men only.” G’s comments, his attempts at constraints, are transformed into fighting words, and a call to action for the feminist audience as the Istri Sedar speakers/writers engage the same “Dengarkan apa yang dimadjoekan oleh toewan ‘G’: ‘kewadjibannja tiap-tiap perempuan (ialah) berbakti pada lakinja’... ’Si Iaki berdjalan keloear roemah... ’. ‘Orang Iaki sudah ditakdirkan mendjadi ‘penoendjoek djalan,’ djadi kewadjibannja ialah mendjaga keamanan, ketentreman, keslamatan dalam pergaoelan hidup. Maka dari itu kaoem Iaki wadjib bergerak dalam lapangan politiek. Hm, djadi adalah takdir jang enak jang di djatoehkan pada Ielaki; pada Ielaki; perempoean djangan tjampoer tangan sadja dalam pergerakan; tidak takdimja oentoek bekerdja bersama-sama oentoek keperloean Tanahair... Betoel boleh, ja tapi dalam roemah sadja. Soedah seringkali kita mendengarkan theorie bahwa aandeelnja perempoean dalam keboetoehan nasional ialah harus tjoema memperbaiki roemahtangga. Djagalah bahwa semoea di roemah ada lengkap, tentang hal Iain djangan toeroet bitjara; itoe soedah kodratnja kaoem istri. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 119] === 112 rhetorical tools of opposition that nationalists used on the Dutch.” Among these tools is the use of wordplay, an economical way of conflating misogynist/hegemonic systems under which women were doubly/triply colonized. These speakers/writers convey their sense of empowerment in claiming their freedom to state their ideas publicly and take pleasure in annihilating the “enemy” through critical engagement of his ideas. Tuti’s voice, in contrast, carries none of the play and sense of power associated with that play, nor does she make the link between the critique of tradition and nationalism, to advocate for a greater role of women in politics. We may now see that Sutan Takdir also makes an important move when he changes the name of Istri Sedar to Puteri Sedar. While the former appears to strengthen the conflation of wives and women, it can also be read as a counter-text to the idea that women are depoliticized when they become wives/adults. By changing the name from Istri to Puteri, this writer attempts to maintain a distinction between wives (i.e., adult women) and politically-minded women, preferring to imagine politics as a stage that girls pass through before finding their jodoh (proper mates) and marrying. His narrative suggests that, while girls might harbor political desires, these naturally dissipate with the awareness of a certain “feminine essence.” In this context, “Istri Sedar,” which conveys the idea of conscious or politicized wives functions to expand the nationalist imaginary; it opens the political field to women of the post-adolescent age and opens the role of the wife/mother to include a variety of other identities. 57See for example James Siegal’s discussion of Ki Hadjar Dewantoro's (Soewardi Soeijaningrat) “If I were a Dutchman” in Fetish, Recognition, and Revolution (26-35). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 120] === 113 In fact, much of the discourse of the women’s movement published in women’s journals inhabited that indeterminate space between what Sutan Takdir and others considered the traditional and the modem and others considered the male and the female; this was the source of its power for women readers. By infusing writing with women’s voices and the ethoi of women speakers and performers, women were able to change the terms of the debate and of the political frame. In an article published in the 1919 in the Sumatran journal Perempuan Bergerak, for example, we find the (now unknown) writer Sabariah utilizing oral discourse in such a way as to reshape not only the rhetoric but also the idea of the feminist journal itself. Following conventions of oral modes of speech making, she prefaces her remarks with formal apologies, referring to herself as hamba (your humble servant, or your humble speaker): Your humble speaker apologizes to my comrades... and hopes that my sentences and grammar will not be laughed at, because your humble speaker only wants to join in the activities of our garden (taman), so that your humble speaker forces the pen to write these w ords... The notion of the garden in which these feminists will meet and congregate brings a sense of proximity and community to a group of writers spread across Sumatra and Java. Sabariah sets the mood with her conventional introduction; however, although she politely apologizes for errors made in the transition from speech to writing, she soon engages those “errors” for her own purposes, energetically inhabiting the space between writing and speech to make the most of both. As with the writers of Sedar, here, Sabariah responds to an letter written to Perempuan Bergerak by a male writer suggesting that women might suspend their interest in writing and publishing to return to their womanly duties. Sabariah’s response soon loses the sobriety of her introduction; she utilizes graphic representation to display her emotion and vehemence: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 121] === 114 what’s the point of our lives, if we are not granted... the rights of true human beings???????... How will our lives be lived, if we do not have the same freedom (kemardahekaan) as other servants of Allah??????? Continuing in this vein, she includes the word “Tjemboeroeoeoeoeoeoeoe” (“oe” sounding as “u”), to stress her accusation of “jealousyyyyyyy” which she is conferring upon the male contributor who had suggested the “ladies” quiet down. She concludes, “as long as there is still life contained in my body (hayat dikandoeng badari), I will come again to play in this garden” (bermain ketaman ini) (Sabariah). In the garden of speech/writing one can make writing work like speech, while imagining oneself speaking to an immediate and present audience of women across the archipelago. As long as writers had faith that writing could perform as speech, their world expanded multiple-fold as they brought that speech to print. The women’s movement was open to all feminists, from those who practiced Islamic feminism to Catholics and secularists; from those who felt it was women’s moral imperative to keep a good household to ex-selir who used their access to wealth to publish journals. It was to women’s advantage to accentuate difference as this emphasized the nationalism of the women’s movement. The 1930s description of an Istri Sedar meeting excerpted above offers a glimpse into how difference looked and sounded at such meetings, and Sedar editors did their best to maintain that sense in their journal. The following is an example of a syair composed by a woman from Kalimantan published in Sedar that contrasts the lengthy discussions of policy and irony-laden rhetoric of the journal. Here, a woman using the pseudonym Teratai Mengembang (B loom ing Lotus) describes the violence and humiliation witnessed in a battle waged-complete with machete and rice pestle as weaponry-between two wives. What Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 122] === 115 this author has done is to create a feminist syair, taking a popular form that typically conveys stories of common people and reorienting some of the conventional imagery to voice her complaint about polygamy. The poem begins conventionally, with an opening verse describing the coming of the day to the kampung (barrio. However, the writer asks a question before beginning that already signals that this syair will be unconventional: “Just what year is this? It feels as through we’re back in ancient tim es...............” The rhythms of the kampung day are quickly interrupted by the screams of a whip, “impassioned insults hurled,” “wailing, lamenting,” “scorn heaped unrelentingly” as two women engage in a fight “in the middle of the yard, next to the school, just over there.” “Hacking” with a machete is answered by a pummeling with a rice pestle, “as strong as the hands of a championship fighter.” The elements of the poem; its imagery, sound, as well as its content, are not atypical; syair often present fights, even fights between women, with similar modes of description. However, where these images normally function as entertainment, they are invoked here with a sense of dismay at these characters’ loss of self-respect in this very public display of violent emotion. The situating of the fight “next to the school, just over there,” reminds readers that the publicness of the trouble involves all members of the community, not only the participants. The poet effectively transforms the syair into a feminist statement when she offers an explanation for the scene: It’s said [the dispute] had begun much earlier, Polygamy, that’s the reason for it, Men bear the blame, For not following the syarat of Islam. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 123] === 116 The city of Kandangan is full of such stories, Among the people, in their relationships, To marry many wives is still a way of life, Women are like sweet treats cut up into slices. (Teratai Mengembang).3* The poet commits a series of reversals when she argues that men practice polygamy illegally, and when those women likened to “sweet treats” reveal themselves in public as aggressors who are “as strong as championship fighters.” Conveyed through this form, the ideas contained in these reversals are not expressed with the same combative tone or the irony displayed in the Sedar journal and yet the poem is not simply a lament. By appropriating the syair form for feminist ends, Teratai Mengembang gives the impression that a variety of modes of articulation are open to the feminist message, from the oral to the written; from the political speech to the poem, from Java to Kalimantan. These examples stand out in the journals in which they are found for their material intensity, not only in imagery or their mode of enunciation but the merging of both in an effort to strike readers on sensory levels. They serve as reminders that modernity and nationalism occur at points of convergence, in this case, between what are considered traditional discourse and the modem media, between poetic discourse and political platforms. Male Writers/Female Readers In Layar Terkembang, Sutan Takdir effectively appropriates feminist discourse and recasts it in his own ethos. In his frame, women are presented with a rather limited * Kononlah itoe asal moeianja, Polijgamie djoega sebab karenanja, Laki2Iah memikoel salahnja Syarat Islam tidak diketahoeinja. Kata Kandangan poenja riwajat, Dalam pergaoelan sesama ra’jat, Beristeri banjak masih berhajat, Perempoean ibarat djoeadah bersajat. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 124] === 117 choice: the slavery of tradition, the sickness of politics/the women’s movement, or modem, nationalist marriage, marriage, that is, into which the female character and her story disappears. Meanwhile, in his monologic representation of Istri Sedar’s discourse, Sutan Takdir effectively “masters” it; Layar Terkembang functions presently as a canonical nationalist text, while the words of the real Istri Sedar are virtually lost to history. Despite his vehement acceptance of the role of modernity in nationalist discourse, however, Sutan Takdir effectively straddles his own opposition between modernity and tradition in his fiction where it suits his desire as a nationalist. His novel Layar Terkembang shares many similarities with the 19* century literary form that Nancy Florida has identified as the genre of didactic literature called piwulang estri or “lessons for women.” Florida argues that the images of the imagery of the female found in 19* century literature was not more than “the fantasies of certain segments of the Javanese ruling class” disseminated in writing by elite male authors [who] wished both to reassure themselves and, perhaps more to the point, to replicate and enforce their fantasies on (ideally receptive) female Florida sees the intensification, in the mid to late 19* century, of the imagery of beautiful submission and proper wifely behavior, as well as in descriptions of punishments of female transgressors as a result of increased Dutch sovereignty. She locates a relationship between the Javanese aristocracy’s loss of power to the Dutch and women’s loss of power, in writing, at least, to strict new codes of behavior for elite women. This notion is supported by Peter Carey’s findings that: [aristocratic] women in Central Java, at least up to the end of the Java War (18251830) enjoyed a good deal more freedom than their sisters later in the century and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 125] === 118 certainly had more scope to make their mark on areas later regarded as quintessential male preserves, namely military affairs and politics (“Spirited Srikandis” 33). Consulting a variety of Javanese and Dutch sources, Carey characterizes female “power” of the early 19th century and preceding era in terms of kesakten, or great spiritual power, of which women were considered to be “quintessential vessels;” this power “enabled them to confer suzerainty on suitably potent partners and guarantee the legitimacy of succeeding generations” (15-17). However, even in this context, the female was cast in terms of her “destructive” and “fertile/beneficent” energies, the former evidenced in “flaming genitals” that only the most potent male could “tame” in order to achieve the latter (15). In texts of the piwulang estri genre, writers discussed modes of “taming” women through reiterations of strict guidelines for female behavior and frequent descriptions of the harsh punishments meted out on transgressors: Willfully surrendering herself body and soul to her husband, the perfect wife, it is said, should not be averse to whatever her husband wishes-even should his pleasure be flailing wives alive. To cross one’s husband would be tantamount to crossing one’s parents, one’s king-and ultimately to crossing God. Divorce by her husband, the texts warn, would be the worst disaster that could ever befall a woman. And defiance of her husband’s authority would condemn her to the eternal torments of hell (Florida “Sex Wars” 210). While these punishments are dramatic, Florida calls attention to a far more pernicious form of taming, that is, through the recasting of stories of real-life female transgressors in literary texts. She offers the example of the Sekar Khadaton who after refusing to marry the Solonese Sultan Pakubuwana DC, was transformed, in a text he commissioned, into the “perfect Javanese wife, the very figure [she] refused to become” (“Sex Wars” 216). In the text, she is at least temporarily tamed in the story through an indoctrination process Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 126] === 119 performed by her parents which includes listening to stories of “byperbolically submissive wives” (217). In a cyclical fashion, her own revised story becomes part of the oeuvre to be used on an unruly daughter of the future. Layar Terkembang, engages a similar form of taming through the transformation of the politicized female, Tuti, into the ideal wife. In his depiction of Tuti’s transformation into a “real” woman in touch with her essence or kodrat, the author makes a rather strong statement about political women, including those of one of the more radical and outspoken organizations of the 1930s, the Istri Sedar, recasting them as “unformed,” “cold,” and suffering from a psychic illness. As he put it some three decades later, “like women of every era, Tuti longs to surrender herself to the love, domestic life, and the joy and laughter of children” (STA Indonesia 43). Just below the novel’s surface there lurks a powerful message for the unsuspecting female reader in which the politicization of the female is linked to disease, or at least dis-ease. It is Tuti’s “marriage” to her political organization-with its homoerotic subtext- that brings on this state of psychic illness; health is only restored when the feminist organization is replaced by a real man. What is unique, and apparently modem, about Tuti’s transformation is that it begins not with parental indoctrination, but rather with the reading of a romance novel specifically identified as European. The reading of the novel conjures in Tuti an unintended reaction; she is reminded of her feminine essence and begins to soften up enough to recognize her feelings of love for Joesoef. The appearance of the novel in his own is not arbitrary; Sutan Takdir was attempting to align himself with a modem European form. However, he also saw himself as a writer of didactic works, in his role as Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 127] === 120 a new pudjangga (court poet). Synthesizing the two, Sutan Takdir produced his modem manifestation of the piwulang estri, a text that would remind “cold” Indonesian feminists of their true feminine essence. He stops just short of having Tuti reading Layar Terkembang itself and experiencing its projected transformative power. Reduction of the Female in Nationalist Discourse and Revolutionary Rhetoric Whether arguing for the modem, like Sutan Takdir of the Pudjangga Baru, or for a nativist approach to nationalism, like Ki Hadjar of the Taman Siswa, nationalists borrowed from the well of images of the female located in traditional literary forms, including court-based poetry, more popular forms like the wayang kulit, and informal story-telling. This borrowing was decidedly reductive, however, given the vast array of images that appear in traditional forms.39In this section I will demonstrate how processes of reduction of the female reveal the nature of nationalist anxiety and desire. I begin with an examination of depictions of the female as binarized, that is, as representing half binary oppositions that caused anxieties among nationalist thinkers and writers: East/West; tradition/modernity; rural/urban, etc. In the modem novel, these binaries 39While women were frequently represented in court literature of the Malay world as objects of desire and exchange, as catalysts for battles, and reasons to compose beautiful poetry, the vast spectrum of “traditional” literature allows for a vast array of female characters. For a discussion of the more conventional female characters, see Monique Zaini Lajoubert’s “Imej Wanita dalam Beberapa Karya Sastera Melayu Tradisional Dari Abad-Abad ke-17 dan 19” (Alam Melayu, 2, April 1994,29-55). Some notable transgressor that come to mind include a female character who aborts the child of the sultan; the woman who had “40 lovers on an elephant’s back;” girls who avoid marriage by donning a “pig face" Many highly respectable female characters also appear, including women with vast tracts of land; queens of mythical worlds; pious women, and female ascetics. As Ruzy Suliza Hashim points out, women today continue to be inspired by these female characters in a variety of ways. Not only are traditional female characters revered and treated like saints, but they have also captured the attention of modem women writers like the Malay poet Zaihasra who explores her relationship with her “mythohistorical” ancestors by retelling their stories from the feminine perspective. Ruzy discusses Zaihasra’s poem “Balada Tun Fatimah” in “Malay Re-visionary Writing: An Assessment,” Commonwealth and American Women "s Discourse: 155-167. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 128] === 121 formed an internal structure that replaced the external structures of courtly literature (i.e., framed as exhortations to cosmic powers, following structures based on known texts such as the Mahabarata and Ra.maya.na.). In contrast to the diverse representations of the female encountered in pre-modem genres, the female was reduced, in the modem binarial structure, to types associated with modem urban spaces. As they are represented as orbiting around central male characters, they are limited even further to the roles of girlfriend, wife, mistress, and mother. Through this structure, male writers were able to construct subjectivity in a fairly formulaic manner. Binarial Imaginings of the National Female In contrast to the feminist discourse of evasion through multiplying identities, nationalist writers constructed a literary convention in which female characters personified the two sides of the binary, whether representing East and West as in Mas Marco Kartodikromo's Studen Hidjo, the traditional (conventional) village girl vs. the urban, Indo (mixed race) woman in Salah Asuhan; the traditional/sentimental vs. modem/politicized sisters of Sutan Takdir’s Layar Terkembang, the lazy and jealous (Minangkabau) village wife vs. the hardworking and respectable (Javanese immigrant) wife of Hamka’s Merantau ke Deli, or the modem (cold) wife vs. the traditional (sexualized) mistress in Armijn Pane’s Belenggu. In each manifestation of this binarial construction, there was no less at stake for the writers than the construction of fully realized subjectivity in the modem novel. The binarized female characters perform an integral function in this process, as the site of displaced male anxieties regarding colonial influences, double consciousness, and the desire for sovereignty. By locking the female Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 129] === 122 into colonial binaries, the male authors of these texts are able to imagine mastery through transcendence; the male characters are depicted as fully formed centers around which the half-formed female characters orbit. As such, these novels become a primary vehicle through which secularized Enlightenment epistemology is institutionalized in the nationalist context, as a replacement for the pre-20th century structures based on the cosmic order and court-based hierarchies. In Mas Marco’s nationalistic Studen Hidjo, the author responds to the colonial institution of the nyai, in which native women were taken as white men’s concubines by focusing on the lust white women convey for the Javanese male. His protagonist is seduced, while studying in Holland, by both a Dutch girl and what is depicted as a libertine aesthetics of the ballet (Western culture) but returns home to take as his wife a woman who, while always traditionally attired, shares his anti-colonial views. Regarding those works produced by novelists of the matrilineal Minangkabau area of Sumatra during the 1920s and 1930s, (including Salah Asuhan and Merantau ke Deli) Tiwon has argued that at issue was nothing less than the transition from a matrilineal to patrilineal social structure.40In such novels, writers privilege not only marriage for love but also and more importantly the nuclear family headed by the father figure.41In the consciously modem works of the Pudjangga Baru writers Sutan Takdir and Armijn Pane, 40See Tiwon’s Women and the Production o f Discourse, manuscript 41Merantau ke Deli stands out from this set of works both because it was composed at such a late date (1937) and because the author, who proudly acknowledges that he was not educated in Western schools (but rather the Islamic educational system, including study in Egypt) weaves into his modem novel some of the more provocative elements of the poetic tradition of the syair of the common people, a rhymed form which is open to improvisation and often invokes the seamier side of life. Hamka borrows from this tradition the cat-fight scene in which his hapless protagonist’s two wives go at it, pulling hair and screeching. Where often clothing is ripped off in such scenes, here, Hamka substitutes the ripping of a piece of material (kain) the two women are fighting over. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 130] === 123 constructions of the female as either traditional or modem function as well as a critique of the middle class female who, through her experiences with the women’s movement, demands her independence.42 Because the form of the secular modem novel was perfected by members of the Pudjangga Barn organization of the 1930s, I would like to focus on two novels produced by this group to demonstrate how successful these authors were in, as mentioned in the previous chapter, presenting their views in Enlightenment discourse as timeless truths. As mentioned previously Layar Terkembang presents Tuti’s transformation from cold politicized female to one capable of love. Her transformation is facilitated in part by her sister Maria, depicted as flirtatious and romantic, and uninterested in politics or education, who introduces Tuti to the romance novel that causes her identity crisis. The novel’s subject/hero, Joesoef, is first attracted to Maria, but when she dies, turns his romantic attentions to Tuti, who, by then, is ready to receive them. With this move, “tradition,” symbolized by Maria, dies so that the modem, synthesized female might emerge; only when this embodiment of ethereal, rootless tradition dies that a new entity, a synthesis of East and W est- the modem female who understands her true feminine nature-can emerge. But at the same time, Joesoef develops through his interactions with both tradition and modernity, amused, as a youth, with the first, yet committing himself to the second as he becomes a man. To better understand how well the novel performs its functions, I turn to a contemporary reading delivered by Indonesian literary critic Faruk, who, because he is 42While I am unable to pursue this point here, it is apparent that Pand was influenced, as were many writers of the period across the world, by the Ibsen play The Doll House. In his novel, however, the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 131] === 124 sympathetic to Sutan Takdir’s objectives, captures the author’s intentions in a way that reveals their Enlightenment foundations: Maria constitutes a representation of the East because in her one finds contained. Eastern attitudes such as the power of feelings, emotions, and a mythical unity with, and thus dependence upon, her social and natural surroundings. Tuti constitutes a representation of the West because she carries attitudes generally considered western, such as a strength of thinking that arranges, manages, and takes charge and thus is distanced from social and natural surroundings (Faruk 63V5 Faruk engages a series of binaries here, in which the traditional, the eastern, and the close relationship to “nature”- which may here refer to a Rousseauian nature or a Sukamoian knowledge of true feminine nature-is contrasted with the modem, the western, and the distance from that nature. Faruk also appreciates the author’s projection of the male protagonist, Joesoef, as the master-subject who bestows meaning upon the female characters and facilitates their coming-to-being. He comments in passing that, while Tuti is the central character of the text, Joesoef in fact occupies the center of the text. Rather than pursuing the implications of this comment, Faruk goes on to explain Joesoef s role. In the process, he describes the fundamentals of subject-construction as practiced by Sutan Takdir: As creatures who are not or not yet fully mature/formed, Maria and Tuti must orient themselves toward Joesoef. Maria learns from Joesoef how to become an autonomous person (manusia yang mandiri)... Tuti learns from Joesoef how to become a person who is at one with her nature (manusia yang alamiah), who does not deny her ultimate fate (kodrat) as part of the great overwhelming power of point of view is mainly that of the male protagonist, Tono, while we are given some insights into Tini’s thoughts through the use of indirect discourse. "Maria merupakan representasi dari Timur karena di dalamnya terkandung sifat-sifat ketimuran seperti adanya kekuatan perasaan, kesatuan yang mitis dan dengan demikian ketergantungan pada lingkungan sosial dan alam. Tuti merupakan representasi dari Barat karena mengandung sifat-sifat yang dimengerti umum sebagai kebaratan, misalnya kekuatan pikiran yang mengatur, mengendalikan, menguasai, dan dengan demikian beijarak dari lingkungan sosial dan alam, kemandirian dari lingkungan sosial dan alam. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 132] === 125 nature... She cannot fight against her kodrat as a woman who needs mythical unity with a ma n... Eventually she begins to open herself up to social and natural desires." To follow Faruk’s assertions to their ultimate conclusions, true autonomy is not within the realm of possibility for the modem woman; Tuti’s “maturity” only comes once her sense of autonomy is tempered by her acknowledgement of her kodrat. Meanwhile, Joesoef is already a fully formed, or complete man with the ability to bestow completeness on women. Faruk overlooks the role of the romance novel-or the author-in precipitating the crisis that ultimately leads to Tuti’s completion, but in giving Joesoef full responsibility for Tuti’s maturation process, he in fact submits to the author’s intentions. Joesoef serves as his representative in this text, and there is a direct relationship between his and the author’s subject formation. However, the relationship is purposely veiled in the modem realist mode, giving the appearance that the processes the text depicts are natural and unquestionable. The cold modem wife/gold-hearted mistress binary of Belenggu has solicited a great deal of positive and negative attention as projections of the author, Armijn Pane’s, modernist amoraiity. The main character Tono’s infidelities-which are not judged by the narrator-may also be contextualized in nationalist rhetoric, in which, as Ki Hadjar put it, “Men cannot control their masculine passions” (So'al Wanita 2) and practiced what Suwami Pringgodigdo called “Aijuna-isme,” (Aijunaism), a form of machismo. It is all the more interesting, then, that just below the surface we find in the novel a fear of the " Di hadapan Yusuf Maria dan Tuti merupakan makhluk yang tidak atau belum sempuma sehingga, untuk mendapatkan kesempumaan, mereka hams berorientasi kepada lelaki tersebut. Maria belajar dari Yusuf cara menjadi manusia yang mandiri, yang aktif dalam pergerakan. Tuti belajar dari Yusuf cara menjadi manusia yang alamiah, yang tidak meningkari kodrat dirinya sendiri bagian dari kekuatan alam yang maha besar, maha luas, dan tidak terbatas yang mengatasi dirinya...Ia tidak dapat Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 133] === 126 female that Pane answers with the nationalist tools of mastery: reductivity, binarization, and trivialization. In contrast to Sutan Takdir, who presents the idealized modem woman as one who has become a synthesis of all that the author believes is good and right in modernity and tradition, Pane critiques the modem middle class woman as hard and cold, possessing a soul that is “obstructed from view by a stone, iron, a layer of ice that encompasses her heart and soul.” At the same time, she is conniving or at least impossible to understand, as her thoughts are “as slippery as an eel.” Her sexualized opposite, the nurturing mistress, conversely, has “nothing dark, nothing hidden, she is the wide perspective under the rays of the sun” (79). The mistress functions in the text as a free-floating signifier of open space upon which meaning can be inscribed. She is thus depicted as a singer of the popular keroncong music the author appreciated, while always at home to dispense traditional wisdom, and respond empathetically to his woes. As she kneels before him, removes his shoes and mbs his feet we know that the author has borrowed 19th century fantasies into his modem novel and that, while the wife represents the author’s anxieties, the mistress represents the limitlessness of his desire. Like Sutan Takdir, Pand connects with his protagonist in veiled ways, constructing himself as subject of the text through the male protagonist, pulled by modem anxieties and traditional desires. Through his characterization of the modem middle class woman, with ties to the feminist movement, Pan€ presents a harsh critique of women’s discourse of emancipation. When this character Tuti speaks, she mouths a shrill feminism associated with bourgeois egoism: menolak kodrat dirinya sebagai wanita yang membutuhkan persatuan “mitis” dengan lelaki... Tuti berangsur-angsur mulai membuka dirinya terhadap kehendak lingkungan dan alam. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 134] === 127 You can go out, why can’t I? What’s the difference between you and me? Must I sit quietly, as a guardian of the telephone? I did not marry you with a desire to become your servant, answering to your every order, and waiting for the phone to ring. What are the servants for, then? (73). In a letter to her younger sister, Tini projects similarly contained views of the nationalist female: Ju, nowadays there are two roads from which girls of our nation can choose. Before, there was only one, that of marriage. And whosoever deviated from that main road-which was actually quite narrow-would be ridiculed, the object of whispering, that she tidak laku (was not desirable or effective). (86). The alternative offered in this context, however, leads only back to the middle class egotism alluded to earlier: Ju, must it be that we women, who have just begun to know how to truly love, have to think only of his pleasures, that we cannot think of ourselves, that our enjoyment comes only from protecting him?... I’m confused, Ju, don’t we have the right to our own lives? Don’t we have our own desires? Must we kill off our own desires? In Belenggu, Pane’s representation of the woman’s organization casts a jaundiced eye on the “movement,” represented here as more of a social club where Tini goes to call attention to herself and other women gather to gossip. Her final decision to leave the marriage is enunciated through the following vague ideas regarding “freedom” heard at a “women’s congress:” “The tumult that had all this time affected her heart had now completely disappeared. The shackles that had bound her spirit were now opened. In front of her eyes, that spirit gazed calmly down the road that she had now chosen” (169). Notably, this road leads out of the text The ultimately tragic mistress Jah disappears as well, headed for New Caledonia, a space that is foreign to the text and its readership and thus connotes unimaginable distance, the wilderness, the last outpost from which one Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 135] === 128 never returns. The master subject of the novel is left on his own, playing his violin and ensconced in existential angst; he is empty without his anxiety and desire, but also free. Sumbadras and Srikandis As an alternative to the image of the cold, egotistical middle class feminist, and the nurturing mother, nationalists offered to women the image of the Srikandi warrior woman. The Srikandi alternative gained prominence in the 1930s, reportedly upon the advice of the nationalist leader Sukarno,43providing a space for women to participate in revolutionary activities as more than what was known as “the rear guard,” in the public kitchens and the Red Cross. Known through the wayang (popular shadow play) lexicon through which the Hindu Mahabarata was disseminated in Indonesia, Srikandi also functions as half of a binary, as the antithesis of her co-wife Sumbadra. Whereas Sumbadra represented in nationalist discourse the nurturing wife and mother of the nation, the term Srikandi represents both the mythical figure that Aijuna placed in charge o f the security of one of his many kingdoms and the women warrior corps that Javanese rulers established in their courts. According to Dutch as well as Javanese representations, these female forces were skilled in shooting and martial and equestrian arts, as well as singing and dancing (Carey 18). In 18th and 19* wars with the Dutch, Javanese women dressed in the clothing of male soldiers, so that among the dead, Dutch colonial officers discovered, to their surprise, female as well as male bodies. 45According to Wieringa, Sukarno introduced the idea of the “Srikandi” woman warrior in 1929. Ironically, he used this “metaphor” in a speech in which he declared himself “strongly against polygamy ” Saskia Wieringa, The Politicization o f Gender Relations in Indonesia: 74. Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 136] === 129 Women sensed in the figure of the Srikandi a broadening of their horizons as Suwarsih Djojopuspito indicates in her fictional representation of the period: These were truly strange times: marriages now occurred between men and women who shared the same political beliefs, and who would have never met before; young men and women married without questioning matters of lineage or title. Everyone was everyone’s comrade (saudara). And no one protested when [Sujkamo himself made his maid into a member of his own fam ily... People chose as their friend for life women warriors, ‘Srikandis,’ rather than ‘Sumbadras’ Taman Siswa member Sitidjauhari Sudiro reports a meeting in the early 1940s of the women’s wing of the Taman Siswa in which it was decided: Members who were still free (not yet married) and ready to take an active role in the opposition movement,... would be given the title of Srikandi. As is well known, Srikandi is a woman warrior who was courageous and quick-witted. Those who were already caring for children and had other responsibilities, and thus were unable to take an active role,... would be given the title Sumbadra. This character from the Mahabarata was known as a women whose batin was extremely strong, and who was thus always ready to suffer for the happiness of her family (Sitidjauhari Sudiro 173)." We may hear Ki Hadjar in the background here, reminding women, in his discussion of “women’s basic human rights,” that “Even before becoming a woman, before marrying, she must already be aware of all that links her to her position as a colon ibu (candidate for wife)” (Soal Wanita 10). While this voice was drowned out in the urgency of the Japanese occupation, female nationalists did not abandon convention altogether; only 44 Memang, jaman aneh; perkawinan dilangsungkan menurut keyakinan politik antara pria dan wanita yang dulu-dulu tak akan jumpa satu sama lain; pemuda dan pemudi kawin tanpa menanyakan asal usul dan gelar. Semua orang adalah saudara. Dan tak ada orang yang menyangkalnya, oleh karena Kamo sendiri memperlakukan pelayannya sebagai anggota keluarga sendiri Orang memilih sebagai kawan hidupnya seorang pendekar wanita, seorang “Srikandi,” dan bukan seorang “Sumbadra.” 47Para anggota yang masih bebas (belum kawin) dan bersedia mengikuti perlawanan secara actif. .. diberi sebutan golongan “Srikandi.” Seperti diketahui, Srikandi adalah prajurit wanita yang tangkas dan berani. Yang karena sudah mengurus anak dan karena mempunyai tanggung jawab Iain tidak dapat ikut menentangnya secara aktif,... diberi sebutan “Sembadra.” Tokoh dari Mahabarata ini terkenal sebagai wanita yang kuat sekali batinnya, dan selalu siap untuk menderita demi kebahagiaan keluarga. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 137] === 130 unmarried women were to become Srikandis, and the role of Sumbadra was clearly valorized in these remarks. Generally speaking, the “Sumbadra” element of this paradigm was valorized. Because the two identities were so tightly bound, through the central character of Aijuna, the Srikandi/Sumbadra paradigm was cast within nationalist discourse as another containing horizon for women. Evidence suggests, however, that the actual Srikandis of the revolutionary period were generally unmoved by the containing aspect of the nationalist rhetoric." In her memoirs, Sintha Melati (a pseudonym) recalls her training as a Srikandi during the Japanese occupation with those who were, or who had contact with, some of the female leaders in the underground opposition movement against the Japanese. She recounts her engagement with a cast of female characters who appear in a number of texts, including the well-known Trimurti along with her cohorts, Sri Panggihan, and Ibu Pri, all of whom continued to be active on the Left throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, and acted as teachers to younger activists who moved up in the ranks of various political/women’s movements of the period." Discussion of these women in biographies and memoirs, who are not present in mainstream historiography, reveals the fact that not all women in the nationalist movement were “wives” or “wives-to-be.” One of these Srikandis, Ibu Pri, is described as residing in a kampung in the town of Pekalongan with her sister, who ran a u While the history of modem Srikandi forces has yet to be fully explored, it is known that, in Eastern Java during the Japanese occupation, villages and districts were expected to send one or more delegates to highly secretive Srikandi training camps that produced opposition forces and that, during the revolution, women formed paramilitary units known as Barisan Srikandi and Lasjkar Putri. See Nugroho Notosusanto Nierras, ed 30 Tahun Angkatan Bersenjata Republic Indonesia Jakarta: Departemen Pertahan Keamaman, Pusat Sejarah, Abri, 1976, quoted in Taylor. " See Saskia Wieringa’s discussion of Sri Panggihan’s activities in The Politicization o f Gender Relations in Indonesia, 205. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 138] === 131 kind of gambling house, despite the fact that she was married (Lucas, 47-8). Another, Sri Panggihan, was an ex-selir (secondary wife) to a high-level official of the native bureaucracy and by all accounts, never remarried while working as a teacher to younger leftists (Soebajiyo 26). Her status allowed her to live relatively freely while working for the opposition movement; she opened her home to her cohorts, including Trimurti who stayed for an extended period with her Mend to start a woman’s magazine. Trimurti’s biography describes the pair creating a small batik concern at the house to make money for personal and revolutionary expenses. Meetings of like-minded female revolutionaries were held in the fields, under cover of the rice harvest (Soebajiyo 25). Whether these women ignored nationalist discourse, or constructed Srikandi differently, that is, outside the wayang paradigm is unclear. It is simply not an issue in these memoirs, in which women are described or describe themselves in a variety of marital states, divorce, or, as Sitidjauhari Sudiro put it, “still free.” Such texts do give an indication of the specific hardships that these “women warriors” experienced. Rape is a constant threat,” leading women to masquerade as men. Women were separated for long periods from their families, or, in Trimurti’s case, jailed while pregnant, and forced to raise children in jail. Trimurti’s biography also describes her beating and torture by the Japanese shortly after giving birth, explaining that the Japanese officers let her go home to breast-feed her newborn. 501 have never read of an example in which a woman described her own rape; the matter is so sensitive that women tend to allude to stories of other women’s experiences or to describe the fear of imminent rape. Representations of the Japanese occupation in 61ms and novels, conversely, present numerous rapes of local women by the Japanese. The 61m Budak Nafsu of the 1980s is particularly focused on rape, presenting dozens over a 2 hour viewing interval. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 139] === 132 When such stories are presented in women’s biographies, memoirs, and recollections of women’s experiences published sporadically in newspapers and journals, and collected as interviews, the relationships between women founded on mutual trust. and interdependency are foregrounded, while the major players of official histories serve as a backdrop. In this arena, women are not affected by the divisions constructed for them in nationalist discourse. The identities they claim for themselves are both diverse and fluid; one could be a divorcee or ex-selir, a mother, and a war-criminal/patriot/nationalist. While the movement was organized from above by males, these memoirs suggest that women formed their own separate communities in the opposition movement where they were free from nationalist conventions regarding gender.51However, these stories were themselves subject to containment, as they were erased from official nationalist history.” They form an interstitial history in that non-space between conventionally gendered histories of freedom fighters and Red Cross nurses; and as such are rendered invisible by the forces of mainstream historiography. 51 One location for the formation of a separate community of women is in jail. Sintha Melati describes prison as a place in which women of various nationalities, ethnicities and backgrounds were thrown together, developing a mutual respect despite their differences. She writes, for example, about her relationship with a Chinese Christian in prison, with whom she felt solidarity through a mutual hatred and fear of the Japanese. 52 Anton Lucas, who edited and published Sintha Melati’s memoir, defines the text and others of its genre as "history from below," most likely because of its very unofficial quality in both the actual physical form which he describes as follows: There were 79 pages of photocopied text in different types, some parts were barely legible and the handwritten corrections were mostly unclear. Parts of sentences and pages appeared to be missing or discarded, names had either been erased or abbreviated, and the story seemed to end abruptly leaving the reader in mid-air. The text contained many Javanese or Javanese-Indonesian words, place names and references to obscure local events in Java during the Japanese occupation. The author later helped clarify many of these problems, as did other Indonesian informants (Local Opposition vii). And yet, the author exhibits a sophistication of style and intimate knowledge of the larger deign of the opposition movement; it is the form rather than the actual historical content of the text which suggests it’s organicism. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 140] === 133 Wrapped in Tradition By the revolutionary period of 1945-1949, when girls were cropping their hair and donning trousers in their eagerness to join the revolution, the response from male leaders was one of either open hostility-one military leader called a female corps girls from Solo “fanatical” (Taylor, “Official Photography,” 100)-or a less aggressive containment of the female in the national dress, the kain kebaya. If we look, as historian Jean Taylor has done, to official portraiture of the nation-the raising of the first flag, funerals, important speeches and so forth-we can see that the kain kebaya is the only attire in which women are shown.51Women wearing skirts and short-sleeves were simply cropped out (Taylor 99). We might say they are excised from nationalist history in much the same way as women’s accomplishments during the nationalist and revolutionary periods are missing from official historical narratives produced both in Indonesia and in the West. Also excised from official history are women’s critical reactions to the kain kebaya as “national” fashion. Not surprisingly, the first in a series of criticisms of the outfit comes from Kartini, who complained in 1903, that, when worn in public spaces, the kain kebaya placed women, particularly unmarried girls, in a vulnerable position. When 55The outfit underwent a series of evolutions throughout Dutch colonialism and into the nationalist period. In the nationalist design, legs and arms are modestly covered and protected from the sun. This design was clearly influenced by the colonial encounter as well as Islamic mores; the blouse had replaced a simpler upper-body covering-the breast wrap-and previous to that, bare breasts. Increasingly elaborate coverings for the breasts, as well as shoulders and then arms had been introduced in various degrees with the arrival of Hindu, Muslim, and finally European traders who brought their religious beliefs to the archipelago. As clothing, the kain kebaya was versatile and comfortable enough to facilitate most activities in which women would engage, as much as its European equivalent of the period, the “frock” or skirt, blouse, and heels. From the tum-of-the-centuiy onward, women can be seen working in factories with Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 141] === 134 donned in a proper and demure fashion, the kain kebaya restricts women’s movement-only small steps are allowed, and when she tries to move quickly, she is only more appealing, as she appears to float above the ground like a bidadari or nymph of classical literature and dance. Kartini describes turning down an offer to study in the capitol city of Batavia (today Jakarta) because, among other reasons, “In our traditional clothing we girls would not be safe anywhere in public.” She had been led to believe that young men could not control their lust, and would act out their desires on girls made vulnerable by the native dress, and thus concluded: “at this time it is still not possible for a young native girl to be independent, to work independently in public” (Cote, Letters from Kartini 430-431).M Some thirty years later, Ki Hadjar would remind Indonesian women that they were responsible for “maintaining their purity” in response to “the aggressive attitudes of men” who, he admitted, were “unable to control their masculine passions” (Soal Wanita 2). Paradoxically, however, they were asked, as a sign of their patriotism, to dress in clothing that made them all the more vulnerable to such “uncontrolled passions.” The nationalist dress of the kain kebaya for women constitutes perhaps the most overt expression of male desire based on anxiety and desire. In her discussion of official photography, Taylor rightly focuses attention upon the stark contrast between male and female nationalist attire. For men, nationalist dress consciously signified a blatant rejection of tradition associated with the feudal Javanese aristocracy. In response to both feudalism and colonialism, nationalists adopted the white suit-along with the military heavy machinery, and engaging in such agricultural industries as tapping rubber trees and producing kapok in various versions of the kain kebaya. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 142] === 135 uniform- topped by the velvet Turkish-style cap or peci.. The significance of this choice can be traced back to the Dutch Law known as the wet samaran or “Law of Disguise” in which fines were exacted from natives or Chinese who deliberately attempted to deceive by donning attire that was not racially consigned.” It also constitutes a response to the feminization of the native in the colonial encounter and objectivization of the native male in the colonial gaze.96As Sukarno explained, regarding his choice of the white suit as early as 1928, the sarong (male version of the kain) caused men to “hunch over and thus adopt a servile and subservient attitude” (Taylor 119). Depicted in colonial literature as alternately lithe, metallic, and swarming, the “native” had recourse only to the appropriation of mastery through the donning of the colonial suit which de emphasized equatorial sexuality and replaced it with an immediately identifiable sense of 54At that historical moment, as Kartini also points out, wearing “Western” clothing carried an additional connotation for native girls: namely, that they were on the prowl for Dutch husbands. "See James T. Siegel, Fetish, Recognition, and Revolution 86-7. See also Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s Jejak Langkah (Footsteps) in which he addresses this issue; a young native man attending the STOVIA medical school for native doctors in Batavia (now Jakarta) in 1901, is forced to wear the sarong and slippers so as to remain in his “place” among Dutch teachers and Eurasian students: ... angry and offended, I went to my room and... farewell to you all, my European clothes! First my shoes, my trousers, my stockings. In place of my felt hat was the destar. I hadn’t worn a destar for years. My honored feet, once clothed in shoes and stockings, were now chicken claws in their nakedness (6). After being taunted by a Eurasian student, Minke, the hero/narrator tries to fight the youth, but ends up on the floor, “my sarong had been tom away and my underpants glared in their whiteness.” ‘Traditional” clothing is understood here to render males vulnerable as well; only after being stripped naked does this hero rise as “Adam” and attack the Eurasian. Using moves associated with pencak silat, the local martial arts form, he reclaims a sense of masculinity from abject humiliation, by transcending identity associated with ethnicity-based attire. 96This is especially pronounced among women writers including de Wit, Lulofs and the ScottishAmerican writer K’tut Tantri who provide extensive accounts of the beauty and exotic nature of the Javanese male physique. The latter, in her book Revolt in Paradise presents an exemplary description of “lithe, agile brown men, their bare shoulders and strong legs gleaming like metal in the equatorial sun.” These are contrasted against the “Lordly Dutchmen and other Caucasians, cool in starched white duck or seersucker,” who “stood aloof from the antlike activities of the natives” (6). See Augusta de Wit, Java: Facts and Fancies (New York and Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1984 [orig. 1905]); Madelon Lulofs, Coolie, trans. G J. Renier and Irene Celphane (New York: Viking, 1936); K’tut Tantri, Revolt in Paradise (New York: Harper, 1960). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 143] === 136 style and power. The suit’s whiteness constitutes an obvious appropriation of the attire and attitudes of the colonial fathers. The addition of the black peci, signifies the head, held sacred in Javanese iconography-it must never be touched, nor positioned lower than that of a woman or other subordinate-as the site of indigenous identity. What was most important in the institution of the suit and peci as national attire for men was the perceived relationship between “bodily behaviors” and other external attributes and “inner moral states” as understood in local beliefs regarding the inter-relationship between the lahir and the batin, inner and outer essences, container and thing contained, form and purpose.” The same may be said for the institutionalization of the kain kebaya and slippers for women. As the embodiment of tradition, the national female would bend so that her male counterpart could stand erect; her dress would symbolize the ideal female traits of subservience and surrender as “gentle, loyal, patient, diligent, and accepting” partners to their nationalist husbands. The kain kebaya was de rigour at meetings of women’s organizations and in important public moments, which leads to speculation that women wore it as a disguise in order to lessen male anxieties regarding their radical intentions. A cartoon from 19S3 gives us an indication of why women were compelled to employ such a strategy. The cartoon depicts an Indonesian woman in tennis shorts and shoes, halfway out the door with her racket while her husband, in servant’s posture, is left giving the baby a bath. The house is a mess, with dishes stacked up and so on. Under the image is the caption: “The ” Shelly Errington, “Recasting Sex, Gender, and Power A Theoretical and Regional Overview,” Power and Difference: Gender in Island Southeast Asia, eds. Jane Monnig Atkinson and Shelly Errington (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990) 17. It should be noted that Errington’s central contention in this essay, that “Island Southeast Asians tend not to be biological reductionists" (40) is disputed in this paper. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 144] === 137 Results of a 1/4 century of the Women’s Movement (?).” It is so easy for this cartoonist to symbolize a general decline of “morality” among women, who have forgotten their duties, with the wearing of shorts, and to blame it all on the Women’s Movement, why give critics that opportunity? Feminists, particularly those who, like the women of Istri Sedar argued that their organization could not be “otherwise than intrinsically tied to nationalism, because we also understand our responsibilities to the people of Indonesia” knew that, in order to be taken seriously, they would have to conform.5* Examples of women’s use of disguise to confuse the enemy are, after all, widespread in the history of both nationalism and war in the Malay world. However, whereas women dressed as men during wars with the Dutch in the 19"1century as well as the revolution, they took the opposite approach in dealing with the Japanese and their native collaborators by recreating themselves as conventional women. In both Sintha Melati’s narrative and Trimurti’s biography, a great deal of emphasis is placed on the Srikandis’ use of disguise to facilitate a necessary fluidity of identity. As single, independent women were quite rare, they would gamer suspicion and gossip, thus both married partners in the movement and used their marital status to pose as regular citizens in the various communities they infiltrated. When necessary, they would pose as market women to carry messages and even mortars in her baskets, peasants harvesting rice to hold meetings, midwives, to carry out a rescue of a young girl kept in a brothel. However, her point regarding the relationship between the inner essence, the lahir and the outer form or container, the batin is well-documented. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 145] === 138 The well-known nationalist/feminist Maria Ulfah employed a similar strategy when she donned the kain kebaya for a ritual disembarkation from the ship from Holland, where she had become the first Indonesian woman to receive a Law degree. As her biographer explains, newspapers of the period focused primarily on her appropriate choice of attire for returning to Indonesia, exhibiting her proper attitude of “modesty and simplicity of carriag€\rendah diri, dan pembawaannya yang sederhana) (Rasid 35). Having dressed in western clothing while in Europe, and continuing to do so while working as a cabinet minister after 1949, it is clear that Maria Ulfah understood the signification of the kain kebaya in the nationalist grammatiki and utilized it to her own advantage. As Taylor notes, Maria Ulfah’s more typical style of dress was the short skirt [below the knee] and fitted blouse, found to be inappropriate by prominent nationalists, including Sukarno. “Western costume [came to be associated], not just with the privileged, unmarried school graduate, but with women’s participation in the public arena of politics, in the world of modem education and jobs” (Taylor 120). Like other women of the period, she used the kain kebaya when necessary as a disguise to legitimize her position within the national imagining. Ultimately, a certain inversion occurred during the nationalist movement as educated, and radical women wore the disguise of tradition while nationalist leaders with a conservative, traditionalist disguised themselves in the Western suit. As we have seen, nationalists’ desire to contain the female was based in large part on anxieties they experienced as they worked to usurp the position of master/Father/Subject from their colonizers. However, while nationalists constructed binaries for the female-both in terms of character and in women’s positioning as deeply inside the nation as the embodiment of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 146] === 139 tradition and outside the nation-building process-women created for themselves a free zone in the indeterminate space between these binaries. It is difficult to gauge scientifically the successes that women achieved in their tactical engagements with nationalist discourse. Certainly when we move from an abstract discussion of discourse to a materially-based discussion of the body, we are reminded of the extreme difficulty of women’s struggles to define themselves in the nation based on a patchwork of ideas culled from various sources-call the “modem,” “European,” “traditional,” “Javanese”-that served male desires and concealed their colonial anxieties. The evidence I have presented here suggests that feminists remained attentive to the processes of containment, using them as material for their own gains, inscribing counter-narratives of the nation [that] continually evoke and erase its totalizing boundaries-both actual and conceptual-and disturb those ideological maneuvers through which 'imagined communities' are given essentialist identities (Bhabha Location o f Culture 149). In the following chapters, in which I turn to women’s fiction, I will show how women writers were enabled and inspired by the women’s movement to continue the work of questioning and critiquing nationalist discourse through the rhetorical modes of mixing narrative styles, reversing nationalist imagery, and forging identities and ethoi in indeterminate spaces. We shall see these writers finding themselves repeatedly entrapped within the sign system and grammatiki of the female in nationalist discourse and locating lines of escape through experimental styles. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 147] === 140 Chapter 3: Finding the Precious Thing: Hamidah’s Kehilangan Mestika “The woman writer constructs her narrative in the very gap, the very space where it has deconstructed the identity of the female heroine while reconstructing them as the female w riter... moving from woman as tragic or romantic heroine to woman as writing subject or agent of discourse. Fran9oise Lionnet, “Autobiographical Voices” .. who else is crowded into that T? ” Hertha D. Sweet Wong “First person Plural” Introduction: Weaving the Hybrid Text As we have seen in the previous chapter, the framing and containing of the female in nationalist discourse closed off possibilities for female “independence” of either personal or nationalist dimensions. Consequently, the challenges for a woman writer who wished to compose a modem novel with an individuated female protagonist were multiple, and relatively few women did express themselves in this form during the nationalist period. Hamidah took up the challenge in 1935 with her novel Kehilangan Mestika -one year before the appearance of Layar Terkembang-out of a sense of purpose both to the “kaum perempuori" or community of women she hoped to “raise up” through the act of writing and to herself. She was enabled in this objective by her awareness of the various discursive tools at her disposal, that is, an array of narratives that she would weave together to write herself and the female in ways that corresponded to her own vision. In the novel, we encounter threads of Kartini’s voice; Sitti Noerbaja, (a popular novel of the 1920s); travel narratives, also popular in the period; Shakespeare-Hamidah was a noted student of English-an unnamed American film featuring the Mexican revolution and the discourses of the nationalist and women’s movements, all woven into a story that is a combination of autobiography and fiction. Because Malay, which formed the basis of bahasa Indonesia was Hamidah’s native language, she exhibits an ease in her weaving that comes from Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 148] === 141 writing as speaking or telling, and she thus adds to her assemblage the rhythms and cadences of the oral storyteller. As a result, Hamidah produces a “transitional” or hybrid text, and what I will also call a multi-valent text infused with the ideas and ideals of both oral story telling and the modem novel. As a weaver of narratives, Hamidah places herself in the tradition of the pudjangga of the pre-20* century courts and of orally-conveyed literature in general, for whom, as Nancy Florida explains: [the creation of good poetry] involved, among other things, skillful borrowings from and intertextual weaving of a number of sources. The act of citation itself could be used as a literary device which would allude to "familial" relationships, and hence shared meaning, between the "parent" and the "derivative" texts. The literate audience, recognizing, even if only subliminally, at least some of these borrowings, would then read-in or hear-in the textual meaning alluded to in the citation (Writing the Past 259). She employs this strategy in a novel about coming-of-age, about social and personal change that operates in some ways as a European Bildungsroman, or, in the Indonesian context, as the rantau novel, which I shall explain further below. As Hamidah situates herself in these narrative structures as the heroine of her text, she encounters certain obstacles as a woman and in the process, calls attention to the inhospitability of these structures to the female protagonist. The self-conscious hybridity of the text is one strategy for confronting these obstacles to enter the field of modem Indonesian literature as a woman writer. In the following chapter, I will explore this and other strategies Hamidah employs in her construction of a discursive self, as the subject of her narrative. Gendered difference occurs in Hamidah’s text in its initial splitting of the subject between two selves, that of the author, Fatimah Hassan Delais, and the character Hamidah who is also posited as the author of the text. While sections of the text convey Fatimah’s lived experience, and experience as writer, these are woven together with the story of the fictional Hamidah and the latter’s insights on the challenges of self-expression. This splitting operates on a number of different levels. The personal nature of the story and pointedness of the social and intimate critique that occurs therein certainly warrant a veiling Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 149] === 142 of the author’s identity through the use of an alter-ego and pseudonym, as well as a mediation through the use of a fictional voice. Fatimah deflects criticism of the “truths” she speaks onto Hamidah who is, after all, a construction; this in turn allows the author to speak those truths more freely than she might have, had her own name appeared on the book jacket. The necessity of this doubling is exacerbated by Fatimah’s use of the aku, or intimate, but also literary ‘T ’-unprecedented in the fiction published by the Balai Pustaka until her novel appeared, that creates a further sense of intimacy as well as selfconsciousness or consciousness of the self. Writing in the first person about one’s own life was uncommon practice for both men and women, but all the more unprecedented in the feminine voice. Until today, as contemporary critic and essayist Goenawan Muhammad explains, aku “has a negative connotation of arrogance, even egocentrism. It is used in a negative way as in the derived forms 'keakuari meaning sense of ego, or ‘mengaku-aku:’ meaning to talk in a boastful way about oneself' (Muhammad 72).1 For these reasons, the aku form was unconventional from a literary perspective. As was made clear in the previous chapter, novelists of Fatimah’s generation who published both with the Balai Pustaka and the Pudjangga Barn generally used third person narration, free indirect discourse, as well as quoted dialogue to give the illusion of a seamlessness between the narrator and characters, miming classical realism and constructing a universal subjectivity. Fatimah/Hamidah takes a different approach, getting to women’s “truths” by refusing literary conventions-except where they serve her purpose-and telling the story directly. In adopting this approach through the aku form, she challenges perceptions regarding the articulation of the individual, of authority, and ultimately, of subjectivity by unapologetically presenting herself as the individual author of her own life. 1 Muhammad concludes that Indonesians continue to view the idea of individualism with suspicion, continue to see the individual as a "threat to the group:” "We are still afraid of aku. We feel safer using the third-person plural inclusive pronoun kita, meaning 'all of us’ to refer to 1.'” Notably, Goenawan himself uses the kita to describe these views of aku. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 150] === 143 We may also find significance in Fatimah’s re-naming in the meta-text, that is, the socially inscribed meanings of the names Hamidah and Fatimah in the Indonesian context. Fatimah, in Islamic nomenclature, is the daughter of the Prophet, and as Kartini explains in her rendering of the Fatimah story, offers women a model of self-respect and power: O f Fatimah, the daughter of the Prophet it is said that when her husband brought home a new wife, her father asked her what she thought of it and she answered proudly, “Nothing.” Her father gave her a raw egg which she held against her heart. The Prophet took it back, broke it open, and the egg was cooked. She leant against a banana tree and immediately the fresh leaves withered and where her body had leant, the tree trunk was burnt. Since then, women’s hearts have not changed Here, Fatimah’s burning heart signifies the power of emotion to speak the unspeakable. With the taken-name Hamidah, the burden of signification is lessened; the name refers, in the Arabic, to “one who is praised or deeply thanked,” (from the verb yahmid, meaning “to praise). We will see both “burning emotion” and celebration of the self in the text as the authors weave the two feminine experiences together. In this text, the first person aku does not represent the autonomous individual as much as a crowd of voices of which Hamidah and Fatimah are only two. At times, Hamidah takes on the range of voices mentioned previously: Kartini, Shakespeare, Sitti Noerbaja (the main character of the novel of the same name), the female activist; at others, she speaks as a member of the collective she hopes to raise up, the kaum perempuan. Subjectivity is constructed through this multiplicity; as Fatimah/Hamidah assembles a series of voices and narratives that they weaves together in their aku, they do so selectively, exhibiting a self-consciousness in the space of writing that ultimately reveals a consciousness of self. The text presents further dimensions of mixing, as the author, composing her text during a transitional period in the development of the modem Indonesian novel, has her character take on the seemingly divergent roles of the storyteller and the novelist. As the storyteller, Hamidah engages in the immediacy of the telling as she inteijects direct address to the audience in such phrases as “TjobalahT' (Think of it!); she likewise engages the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 151] === 144 rhetorical trope of apostrophe associated with an oral or epic tradition when she addresses Time (Waktu) and Marriage (Perkawinan) directly, as well as God (Tuhan). In the process she engages what Walter Benjamin calls “counsel,” a “wisdom” characterized by its “usefulness” in the form of a “m oral... practical advice... a proverb or maxim” CIlluminations (86). From the opening lines onward, she shapes her “counsel” in terms of the negotiation of fate, here defined in terms of untung (fortune) and malang (bad luck): Untung! Untung! J a u n tu n g! Is it true that every person is bom from God into this world, each carrying with them their own untung? Can what happened to me (lit: occurred upon my person) be named 'untung''! So that this might be judged by my esteemed audience, allow me to write here all of what has happened to me (KM 5, author’s ellipses).2 By offering her story, the story of her life, up to an “esteemed audience” that is expected to offer some kind of judgement Hamidah emphasizes the interactive nature of the authoraudience relationship. Readers may not simply consume the text and move on, but rather, are asked to deal with its implications: are her troubles as laid out in the story based on fate or on outmoded social structures? This is a question that Hamidah will ponder throughout the text, offering evidence on both sides in the guise of both experience and “what people say” about fate, such as “untung takdapat diraih, malan tak dapat ditolak'’ (good luck cannot be seized; bad luck cannot be prevented) (KM 36), and on the continuity between the notions of fate and will: Sometimes so matter how great is the organization of a given plan, no matter how great are our hopes, no matter how hard we work, it is fortune who becomes the final judge. He/she decides, success or failure (KM 37).3 2 Untung! Untung! J a untung! Betulkah tiap-tiap manusia itu dilahirkan Tuan kedunia ini dengan membawa untung masing-masing? Bolehkah hal jang telah terdjadi diatas diriku dinamakan ‘untung’? Supaja dapat dipertimbangkan oleh ahli budiman, biarlah kutuliskan disini apa-apa jang kedjadian diatas diriku itu. 3 Terkadang-kadang biar bagaimana bagusnja susunan sesuatu perkara, biar bagaimana besamja harapan kita, biar bagaimanapun sukamja kita berdaja-daja, untung djuga jang mendjadi hakimnja. Ia akan menentukan, sampai atau tidaknja. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 152] === 145 However, within this narrative structure, Hamidah will question the usefulness of the untung/malang view of life as she asks the novelist’s foundational question regarding the meaning of life itself. She takes the text in the direction of the modem novel as she attempts to see “the unity of [her] entire life” in order to overcome, the “duality of inwardness and the outside world” as Benjamin describes it (99). As the novelist, she will not encounter the answer, but rather engages in the act of “grasping at the unattained, and therefore inexpressible ‘meaning of life’ passed on to the reader” (99). In her text we find that confrontation of which Benjamin speaks between the novelist’s “meaning of life” and the storyteller’s “moral of the story.” Rather than to attempt to discern “the totally different historical co-ordinates of these art forms,” however, I will show how Hamidah weaves these philosophies into her multi-valent, hybrid text. The novel’s title, which presents a riddle that the text never explicitly solves, functions as an allegory on which the text’s multi-valence turns. Kehilangan Mestika is a phrase loaded with possibilities. It may refer to the Loss or the Losing of the Precious Thing/Amulet/Entity, and/or to the process of Losing that force that the mestika offers to ward off misfortune or to bring luck. As we are never told what the mestika is, the text is opened to multiple layers of meaning. The urge to frame the novel in terms of a particular identity of the mestika has led critics to follow the lead of A. Teeuw, the first reader of whom I am aware to publicly take a stab at solving the riddle. For Teeuw, the mestika is quite clearly Hamidah's progressive father who sent her off to school and supported her progress even when it meant standing up to their community and extended family. The father’s death results in Hamidah's transfer to the responsibility of her narrow-minded brother, and all of the troubles that occur thereafter. The author's daughters, however, recalling family lore, believe that the mestika is a real-life personage who is represented by the character Idrus in the novel, from whom Hamidah is separated by familial intrigue.-Both readings narrow the text’s possibilities, situating it in well-defined categories. The first locates this text in a patriarchal Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 153] === 146 context; the second, in a romantic tradition in which obstructed love and forced marriage are certainly central themes. The text offers other concrete possibilities: the loss of innocence, the loss of the self, of the confident, aspiring activist who traveled and lived as an independent woman for a brief time, and who’s "star was shining brightly" as she organized a literacy campaign for women back in her home town of Mentok, Bangka, due to social and familial pressures, i.e. “misfortune.” This reading is based on the notion that a "self' cannot be lost unless it has once been possessed, and the novel is very much about “self-possession.” What is lost in life may, then, be re-collected through the act of writing, to be presented not only for judgement but as a cautionary tale for other readers. Ultimately, however, we shall never know the identity of the mestika; and are left contemplating the text’s unknown territories, its openings. The Rhetorical Question The plot of Kehilangan Mestika exhibits the complexities and convolutions of both a pre-modem court-based romance and a romantic novel.4 However, embedded within these intricacies are Hamidah’s commentaries on various issues, and slippages between autobiography and fiction. Let me begin with a brief synopsis of this complex plot, after which I will demonstrate how knowledge of these slippages transform the text from a melodramatic novel of complaint to a space in which the author struggles with the larger questions of authorship, authority, and subjectivity. The novel traces Hamidah’s movement from the island of Bangkar-just off the Eastern coast of Sumatra-to a teacher-training college in Padang Pandjang, Sumatra and her subsequent search for employment as a teacher on Sumatra, against her family’s wishes. As she puts it, she wants to “make a proper living while avoiding the gossip of 4 One contemporary Indonesian reader insists that Hamidah was influenced by her reading of Jane Austin or the Bronte sisters, although there is no direct evidence of this (Conversation with Ida Nadia, July, 1997). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 154] === 147 outsiders” (KM S3). After working for some disreputable individuals, she returns home to Bangka to set up a school for girls. Intertwined in the story are Hamidah’s love affairs with two young men who are supportive of her goals, but obstructed from pursuing a relationship with this independent woman by devious relatives. Upon her progressive father’s death, Hamidah is sent to Jakarta to live with her conservative brother. He holds her hostage in his home, a period she refers to a pingitart, until he marries her off to a friend. She and her husband return to Sumatra, but the marriage faces a crisis when Hamidah does not conceive a child, and she allows her husband to take a co-wife. She soon realizes that her husband has no intention of following the Islamic principle of equal sharing between wives, and demands a divorce. She receives a good settlement and becomes a businesswoman for a short period, until her business suffers the effects of the economic depression (jaman malaise) that hit Sumatra in the 1930s. At the end of the novel, she returns home alone and impoverished. On the surface, the novel charts a series of failures in Hamidah’s teaching career, love affairs, and business. When read in these terms, the novel’s ending would appear to exacerbate the melodramatic quality of the text when Hamidah asks her audience, “What is the point of a life such as this?” However, this ending may also be read as a rhetorical question: What indeed would the point be of a life such as the one Hamidah has described? It was, in fact, the pointlessness of such a life that the author of the text wished to avoid-and succeeded in avoiding-by composing and publishing the novel. According to the author’s daughters, their mother composed the novel at a traumatic moment in her own life, when, as a woman who had failed to bear children for as long as five years of marriage, was threatened with polygyny by her own husband who was, like the character in the novel, only claiming his right to have heirs. The daughters contend that their mother Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 155] === 148 succeeded, with the publication of the novel, in dissuading, their father from taking such a path.5 We may now consider the text in terms of one of its functions; it is composed as a threat to her husband, an ultimatum, and as a strategy of avoiding the outcome it inscribes not only for the protagonist but also for the husband who is divorced by his wife. Hamidah is depicted as an assertive woman in her marriage; she not only negotiates a deal in which her husband and second wife must turn their first child over to her to raise, but also comes away from the marriage with a generous settlement. In sum, she prophesizes difficulties for her husband in her portrayal of a wounded, yet persevering woman. By ostensibly revealing her husband to be an impious Muslim who does not follow the Syariat law of equality between wives, she threatens him on another level, exerting the potential power of the pen to reveal the unhomely aspects of the household that men assume will remain outside of the public sphere. Because this ultimatum is built into the third and final section of the novel, we must now consider its overall structure to better understand how autobiography and fiction are woven together in the course of the text. The first section of the novel portrays Hamidah's life as a student, a single woman, and a teacher and an activist, while the second chronicles 5 The "official" date of Fatimah’s birth, for example, given in the Leksikon Kesusastraan Indonesia Modem (The Lexicon of Modern Indonesian Literature) is 1914 (Emeste 69). There is a question in the “Lexicon” as to whether the birth is located in Palembang, Sumatra, or on the island of Bangka, a question that might cause discomfort among inhabitants of Bangka who have embraced Hamidah as their national hero, honored by the Gedung Hamidah (Hamidah Building) that stands in Pangkal Pinang. (Notably, the building honors the pseudonymic writer Hamidah, even as Fatimah Hassan Delais’ nationalist activities in Palembang, where created what is now Elementary School # 17, are also well-known.) But it is the date of birth, provided by Fatimah's husband in a letter sent by him to the literary critic HJJ. Jassin after her death, that is in question here. In that letter, the husband wrote that Fatimah published the novel Kehilangan Mestika when she was 19 years old (Jassin, Pengarang 73). These "official" facts are contradicted by the story told by Fatimah's daughters, who believe that Kehilangan Mestika was published after their mother had been married five years, when, as discussed previously, she had not been able to bear children, and feared that her husband would take a second wife. The possibility that her husband falsified the date of birth, perhaps in order to suggest that Fatimah published the novel before marrying, is strengthened by biographical details presented by Pramoedya Ananta Toer in his Bicyclopedia Sastra Indonesia (Encyclopedia of Indonesian Literature), published in Lentera, the cultural supplement of the Harian Rakyat Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 156] === 149 her move to Java (Jakarta), in which she is forced into a form of pingitan. While I will devote the majority of my study to the first section, in which Hamidah constructs her subjectivity, the second section is important for its invocation of Kartini rather than the actual experiences of the author. Like Kartini, Hamidah’s only means of communication during her internment is through letters which she notably sends out, but to which she never receives a reply. It is as if the author interjects the experience of pingitan into the text in an effort to speak to and through the kaum perempuan for whom she writes and to project a sense of solidarity with Kartini. Because Hamidah’s experience of pingitan occurs well after Hamidah’s numerous (platonic?) love affairs and her experiences traveling about on her own, her evocation of it here appears more as figurative than literal, that is, as a generalized experience of female entrapment. As she notes, she was the first girl from Bangka to avoid pingitan and to receive an education; here, she looks back to that community of women who remained “encaged,” as both she and Kartini describe it. Hamidah comes, during this period, to understand a collective experience of young womanhood that the author herself was able to avoid, and to contemplate the role and responsibility of woman writers, like herself and Kartini, who are able to imagine, at least, alternative possibilities to the normative female experience. With this three-part structure, the author disrupts trajectories encountered in conventional literary texts. Whereas in novels of the period written by Sumatran authors, Java represents a site of independence and education, for Hamidah, Java becomes a site of encagement. Her travels to Java, which, as I will discuss further below, constituted, for the nationalist hero, an opportunity to fraternize with men from all over the archipelago, are here portrayed as the reversal of the typical rantau narrative. In this space, she is advised not to mingle with the “foreign” neighbors, forced into pingitan, not by her father but her brother, and then marriage to a stranger. Later, Hamidah’s experience of motherhood, or daily newspaper, which locate Fatimah teaching at the sekolah rendah or primary school in the year 1926 as a teacher's aid (Pramoedya AnantaToer, "Hamidah," Lentera June 8,1962). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 157] === 150 surrogate and notably single-motherhood will not be based in a happy marriage, but rather on the terms of a separation agreement, commencing only after her “family” has broken apart. By recasting formulas and inverting chronologies, Hamidah is able, in contrast to other heroines of modem literature, to survive to tell her story. While Hamidah has, in a sense, followed Kartini into pingitan, she will not follow Kartini to her death. In the third section of the novel, refuses the position of passive co-wife and achieves some success as an independent, divorced businesswoman. It may be disappointing for some readers that the novel does not end on this relatively high note, but within her time and context, it is mere survival to the end of the text that constitutes an important feat. Generally speaking, the choices available to female characters of modem novels of the 1920s through the 1940s were: marriage or death. There was no literary precedence for the “happy ending” that Hamidah almost achieves. The abrupt, tragic ending, then, speaks to the limitations of the modem novel of the 1930s on both fictional and “real” planes. Throughout the text, Hamidah is presented as barely avoiding those forces that seek to constrain her and to reduce her identity into conventional schematic representation, just as her text barely defies schematic readings "modem" or "traditional," as political or romantic/tragic. While she might avoid the identity of the co-wife through divorce, the alternative life as a janda is not much of an improvement, particularly on the fictional plane as there was no model for a janda, (widow or divorcee) who would not be conceived as a tragic figure or viewed with suspicion by the community.6 Thus she is finally caught, entrapped by her story and her only solution is to go home. Despite the tragic nature of the novel’s development in the third section, we can see Hamidah taking her pleasure throughout the novel in her writing of the female narrative of 6 As Ratih Hardjono writes, the status of the janda “is particularly low in Indonesian society, especially if she is young. Believed to be out to get herself a man at any cost, she is considered a potential ‘husband stealer’ by other women” (55). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 158] === 151 becoming, of reversing the male-female relationships and hierarchies, as well as the pleasures of excess of experience and language. Because of their transitory nature, caught in what is for Hamidah an extended interlude between becoming an independent adult and marriage, they are stolen pleasures that Hamidah seizes for herself as she reminds her audience of the brevity of life and necessity of making the most of every opportunity. Modern Conditions Thus far I have suggested that Hamidah’s novel is a hybrid of the modem novel and a tradition of oral story telling. I would like to now look briefly at the conditions out of which the writer and her novel emerged, to show that, in the rapidly changing environment of the early 20* century, the forces of modernity and tradition were already locked in complex, interdependent relationships. In her narrative, she focuses on the difficult situation for women on the island of Bangka,7 just off the Eastern coast of Sumatra, who wished to escape pingitan, pursue and education, and make something of their lives: Because in my region (negeri) I was the first tc open the door of pingitan for girls, various insults reached the ears of my family. The people in my region were at that time were still ignorant and old-fashioned. They could not differentiate between religion and customary law (adat). Much of adat that had been institutionalized was thought by them to also originate in the Islamic law (sjarat). Girls still had to be forced into isolation (dipingit) and could not be seen by anyone who was not of their family or more 7 Fatimah’s hometown of Mentok, Bangka is still a tiny port town where, even today, everyone knows the location of the compound in which she grew up. Walking down the street in Mentok that leads from the harbor, lined by houses with their porches and windows allowing for prime viewing, it is not difficult to imagine that, back in the 1910s and 1920s, everything was public knowledge, every difference duly noted, as Hamidah describes. At the same time, the island of Bangka was far from being a backwater, unaffected by colonialism and even global influences. The journey from Palembang, Sumatra, to the harbor town of Mentok is relatively easy: one follows the Musi river-lined with villages and mangrove swamps-out to a short crossing of the Bangka Straits. The levels of both river and sea shift dramatically with the tides, so that large expanses of tidal plains appear each day, so that pole houses jut up out of the water across the Strait. The area was, according to Heidhues, dense with pirating activity, facilitated by the gentle marine conditions. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 159] === 152 importantly, who was male. It was this adat that had to be fought first. This was my aspiration... (KM 22).8 In this and other passages, she makes the distinction between the local custom, the adat, and Islamic law of sjarat, a distinction that Kartini was unable to ascertain, due to her lack of information on the topic. In this representation, she joins Muslim feminists from across Sumatra and elsewhere who made this issue central to their activism.9 In the novel, she is aided in this process by her father, whose progressive views toward education for girls were instrumental in shaping her future. Hamidah makes much of her father’s difference from the majority of traditionalist Muslims in Mentok, that is, those who followed the local adat. In the novel the father, who was a Haji (had completed the Haj) exhibits a progressiveness borne out of some measure of participation in the movement for Islamic modernism in Sumatra and Java, which, facilitated by the Haj, brought Indonesians in contact with modernist Egyptian theories of education and gender roles.10 As Heidhues notes, Bangka's "Malay Muslim upper class" was heavily influenced by "the new Islamic 8 Karena dinegeriku akulah pertama sekali membuka pintu pingitan bagi gadis-gadis, maka bermatjamlah tjatjian jang sampai ketelinga kaum keiuargaku. Orang negeriku pada masa itu masih terlalu bodoh dan kuno. Tak tahu mereka metnbedakan jang mana dikatakan ada dan jang mana pula agama. Kebanjakan dari pada adat jang diadakkan disangkakan mereka sebagian djuga dari sjarat agama. Gadis-gadis mesti dipingit, tak boleh kelihatan oleh orang jang bukan sekeluarga lebih-lebih oleh laki-laki. Adat inilah jang lebih dahulu mesti diperangi. Inilah jang kutjitatjitakan. 9 The work of Dewi Sartika and Rankayo Rahmah El Yunusia, among others in the 1910s onward, is representative of this movement’s early configuration. In an effort to provide education for girls in an Islamic environment, these founders of schools created spaces not only for young, unmarried girls but also for married and divorced women as well to acquire skills. While the schools’ focus was on education in cottage industries rather than intellectualism, it was the creation of these spaces in which women gathered under the auspices of improving conditions for women that provoked radical change. See Vreede de Steurs’ The Indonesian Woman: Struggles and Achievements (*s Gravenhage: Mouton and Co, 1960). s ee Lena Ahmad’s Women and Gender in Islam (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992) 131-133 for a discussion of the economic and social reforms proposed by Muhammad Ali, Egypt’s’ ruler from 1805-1848. She notes that as early as 1935, Egyptian intellectuals, influenced by experiences in Europe, began to recommend equal education for girls and boys. She also points out that, in the early 1900s, the reformer Abdu “was probably the first to make the argument, still made by Muslim feminists today, that it was Islam and not, as Europeans claimed, the West, that Erst recognized the full and equal humanity of women” (140). His argument stems from the notion, often voiced by Muslim feminists in Sumatra from the late 1910s onward, that “monogamy was clearly the Quranic ideal,” and that the original intent of the Quran had been ignored,” resulting in “harmful practices” and “‘backward’ and ‘degraded’ customs that had led the Islamic nations into a deplorable state of ignorance.” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 160] === 153 currents from Singapore and the Near East, or of Islamic schools in Java and especially Sumatra," which led to a rise in hajis on the island from the late 19th century to the early 1920s (Heidhues 9 5 ).11 Hamidah’s analysis of the distinction between conservative traditionalism and modernist Islam is thus shaped, not by the kinds of Dutch sources to which Kartini looked, but by the Islamic modernism movement developing in Egypt that Indonesians encountered in their travels to Mecca, Egypt, and other areas in the Middle East. Her views on the modem and the modem woman in particular thus do not fit neatly into the categories that the Dutch constructed between an Eastern “tradition” and Western “modernity” that entrapped thinkers like Sutan Takdir Alisyahbana. Islamic traditionalism, or adat shaped by a particular reading of Islamic texts, most likely functioned in Mentok and other urban areas and centers of commerce on Bangka to emphasize the differences between the various groups congregated in this relatively small space. These included, along with the coastal (Muslim) Malays the Chinese, the Dutch, and the orang asli, that is, Malays who had fled to mountainous areas to practice swidden agriculture and maintain an agricultural lifestyle to escape the adverse effects of two layers of colonialism. The first manifestation of colonialism occurred on Bangka not with the Dutch but rather the Chinese who had arrived on the island in the 18* century to open tin mines. The kongsi or cooperatives that the Chinese set up, and through which they ran their tin mining operation for a century, were dismantled by the Dutch in the 1800s. As Heidhues explains, the Dutch established a new hierarchical and exploitative system at this In Mary Somers Heidhues, Bangka Tin and Mentok Pepper: Chinese Settlement on an Indonesian Island (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1992), she notes that: the 20th century witnessed an acceleration of Tslamization’ because of a number of factors: the first was increased trade and communication, much of it thanks to pepper ‘prosperity.’ Supporting evidence for this was the number of persons who could afford to undertake the Haj, who were over 200 in 1914 and in 1920, actually climbed to more than 500...A second factor was the spread of education (103). These lines of communication were weakened by a Dutch crackdown in the late 1920s and this aspect of early nationalist history was downplayed in the discussion of modernity in nationalist discourse. The point of origin of Islamic modemism-Egypt-makes this influence on Indonesian nationalist problematic, given the Western gaze of many of the inscribers of nationalist history both from Indonesia and from the W est Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 161] === 154 time, which they attempted to run with a small cadre of bureaucrats protected by military force, but which was soon corrupted by illegal channeling of the tin and pirating.12 As they augmented their presence on the island, the Dutch deepened divisions between Chinese and Malay populations by declaring that, while "natives" had no individual rights of ownership over their land or homes, Chinese inhabitants "could be assigned, subject to revocation, small parcels of ground not in native areas [i.e. forests] to plant crops or erect buildings" (Heidhues 97). With the rapid changes of the 20* century, it is not surprising that certain segments of the Muslim Malay population felt a need for self-preservation and acted on this need by focusing on the protection of the purity of the female. This is the basis of the constraining adat that Hamidah and her father broke through in Mentok. According to Heidhues, the Muslim Malays only began to pay attention to education in the wake of ethnic Chinese efforts in this area. Thus, “native education [was] upgraded in 1921. Instruction in village schools... improved greatly with the import of twentyseven teachers from the West coast of Sumatra... and in five towns [including Mentok] there were two-year courses for village teachers" (104). Elementary-level schools created by the Dutch of the sekolah rendah variety-similar to those attended by Kartini in Java-opened in significant numbers in the 1920s; the government school in Mentok had 165 pupils in 1930 (104). This was the environment in which Hamidah received her secondary education, and to which she returned to build a literacy program for women after attending teacher training school in the Sumatran city of Padang Panjang. It was in this polyglossic and heterogeneous context of the Mentok port that Hamidah and her father promoted social and educational changes, and in which Hamidah begins to imagine herself as a “modem woman.” In the novel, she relates the difficulties her family encountered in their attempts to break through the defensive barriers of identity 12 The harbor town of Mentok appears to have played a central role in colonial activities in the late 1800s, including both the illegal distribution of tin and the trafficking of coolies for the Dutch tin and bauxite mines and plantations (pepper and later, rubber) (Heidhues 59). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 162] === 155 that had been constructed in the Muslim community of Mentok, the port town on Bangka that was the author’s birthplace: Because my father was at that time a chatib and a member of the religious council, the insults increased. My father, people said, went outside the boundaries of our religion, letting his daughter go about freely... Because my father accompanied me each day to school, he was considered to have become Dutchified, because, because as far as people knew, only white people followed this custom. Because our house and garden was close to the sea, we would meet there each Sunday to eat lunch. This created more uproar, just seeing a man and woman associating this way in public. More than once my father received an anonymous letters full of insults about us, but he paid no attention to them. He called upon me to never lose my faith in myself, even if it meant engaging in activities that were considered improper, and opposing the social norms (kesopanan umum). I thought I would cry hearing him utter those words (KM 22-3).13 As the first local chatib (mosque official/preacher) and penghulu (local leader) in Mentok to imagine sending his daughters to school, Hamidah’s father placed himself at some risk but also, in Hamidah’s portrait, prevailed upon her to continually question the legitimacy of social norms. In the text, Hamidah’s critique is primarily an internal one, rather than directed at the multiple layers of hegemony she would have encountered as a female colonial subject. The author would have been constrained from offering a critique of the Dutch, given that her text was published by the Dutch-controlled Balai PustakaM Hamidah does manage to 13 Oleh karena pada ketika itu bapaku mendjadi chatib dan anggota dari dewan agama, maka makin besarlah tjatjian orang. Bapaku kata mereka telah keluar dari garisan agama, sebab membiarkan anaknja berdjalan kemana-mana... Karena bapaku tiap-tiap hari mengantar dan djemputku kesekolah, ia dipandang orang kebelanda-belandaan, sebab menurut pengetahuan orang-orang itu hanja orang kuiit putih sadja jang beradat demikian. Karena rumah dan kebun kami dekat laut, boleh dikatakan hampir tiap-tiap hari Minggu kami pergi kesitu sambil membawa makan-makanan. Inipun mendjadikan tjatjian pula bagi kami, apalagi dilihat orangorang itu kami laki-Iaki perempuan bertjampur gaul sadja. Bukan sekali dua bapaku mendapat surat gelap berisi tjatjian tentang diriku, tetapi sekaliannja itu takdipedulikan beliau. Suatu kali aku dipanggil bapaku ditjeritakannja sekalian itu kepadaku. Dimintanja kepadaku, supaja aku djangan menghilangkan kepertjajakannja kepadaku, berbuat sesuatu pekerdjaan jang tak iajak, jang melanggar kesopanan umum. Rasa akan menangis aku mendengar perkataan beliau itu. As we shall see in chapter five, writers who did include open critiques of the Dutch in their works were simply refused publication by the Balai Pustaka. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 163] === 156 dehumanize the Dutch in her text by never referring to them as such.15 Rather, she uses the term “Bankatinwinning” or Bangka Tin Conglomerate as a synecdoche that elides them with their mining/industrial efforts on Bangka. When requesting money from Dutch women for her literacy project, she will refer to these women only as isteri pegawai Bangkatinwinning, or wives of Bangkatinwinning officials. She will likewise accuse the “Bangkatinwinning” of engaging in a land grab for sacred places, including Mt. Menumbing near Mentok, and causing the disappearance of the “stories” of place (29) telling of “mysteries” that took the shape of sacred animals like the white crocodile inhabiting the river there.16 The health resort built by the Bangkatinwinning there not only caused the disappearance of the river, but created class-based rifts between the locals, the majority of whom were not permitted to visit. While it becomes a site of desire, with its “magnificent views,” reflecting pools filled with koi, and sports such as tennis, and pingpong, chess, and cards... " which, she writes, were "not only good for the body, but for the mind” (KM 29; 84), the desire is not framed so much by the lure of the colonial or a fetishizing of the West, but rather modem pleasures that had supplanted those encountered in sacred spaces. Speaking from the geographical periphery of Bangka, and from the female experience at the cusp of social and economic change, Hamidah offers a different perspective on the binaries that preoccupied intellectuals of the 1930s. Her perceptions of “tradition” and “modernity” are situated in a local context in which those general terms do 1^ At one point she offers commentary on Chinese merchants who “come from their own country to seek their livelihoods in the merchant city [of Palembang]... make a lot of money and then take it home with them” (27). This suggests she was not fully aware of the dynamics of the Chinese community at that time. 16 Di Mentok sendiri, ada gunung Menumbing, mempunjai tjeritera gandjil-gandjil dan dipandang orang mentok seperti gunung jang sakti. Sepandjang kata orang tua-tua disitu ada sebuah sumur, didalamnja ada seekor ikan pari dan buaja putih. Sumur itu berhubungan dengan laut Kalian. Tetapi, sekarang segenap gunung itu telah diperiksa orang. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 164] === 157 not suffice to articulate the complexity of a meeting of forces and ideas and struggles for identity; they also undermine the pairings, emphasized by thinkers like Sutan Takdir, of tradition/periphery and modemity/city. Her descriptions of Bangka and her own efforts to bring change show that these peripheral areas, where citizens were immediately affected by Dutch policies of discrimination and land grabs, became the primary sites of contestation over the meaning of the modem in terms of Islam, education, and gender, and ultimately of Indonesian identity. We shall see how, because Hamidah is female, she is forced to return to Bangka and is compelled to advocate for change in this peripheral space, rather than imagining the space from urban centers like many of her male colleagues. In the process, she is forced to confront her own biases as an individual who inhabits the boundary space between the space of the center where ideas of the modem and national were generated, and the local, in which conservatism was a means of cultural survival.. “Our Young Woman:” Recasting the Rantau In Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson traces the creation of an “embryonic imagined community” in 1920s Indonesia back to the appearance of a literary figure of "a young man who belongs to the collective body of readers of Indonesian” (his emphasis). In the 1920s and onward, a literary genre formed around the process of becoming Indonesian in which writers narrated the movement from the village or region to urban centers on Sumatra and the nexus, Jakarta. This type of movement has an extensive history in the Sumatran context; but where it was primarily motivated by economic reasons in previous centuries, during the nationalist period and in its literature it came to be framed in ideological terms as a movement from a “traditional” local space into that of into “the nation.” 17 As Kato observes, during the 1920s, “the major figures in the novels are 17 For an in-depth discussion of the rantau in the Minangkabau community, see Tsuyoshi Kato, Matriliny and Migration: Evolving Minangkabau Traditions in Indonesia. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982). See also Els Postel-Coster’s essay, “The Image of Women in Minangkabau Fiction” for an analysis Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 165] === 158 perantau” (men who have moved into the rantau, which is also articulated as a space) who have “come into contact with different ethnic groups in Indonesia with various languages and traditions” which brings a “heightened consciousness of their own society” (Kato, Matriliny and Migration 197). In the nationalist manifestation, as Rodgers puts it, the rantau autobiography contains a vision of “growing up toward Indonesia” and “toward critical forms of consciousness [associated with a] revolution of the spirit... and an invention of modem Indonesia” (Rodgers 8, her emphasis).18 She continues: By the end of each narrative, the stories' new almost-adults look toward the rantau (the social and moral precincts outside the Sumatran rural ethnic home regions) with a sense that these polyglot areas contain a future that will bring personal and public liberation from the shackles of “unthinking traditionalism.” Modem Indonesia lies out there, these memoirists aver, in the hearts and minds of young people (Rodgers In the following sections I will present a brief examination of the rules of the rantau movement and the rantau as literary genre is to show that Hamidah’s literary rantau is unprecedented and bordering on the scandalous. In her depiction of Hamidah’s desires to merantau-to go on the rantau-and her experiences in the space of rantau, the author Fatimah ultimately disrupts the institution while at the same time, reveals its fundamental inequalities as obstacles to women’s active participation in the nation. Hamidah’s rantau is not surprisingly, unsuccessful in the nationalist sense; she returns home as a penniless divorcee, full of untapped potential. However, previous to her forced marriage, she experiences moments of the promises of autonomy and sovereignty in the rantau space as she fashions herself, in the writing as a female hero, and as “our young woman” through whom the kaum perempuan can imagine itself through her narrative. of the gendered construction of the rantau in Minang society in Indonesian Women in Focus, Eds. Elsbeth Locher-Scholten and Anke Niehof (Dordrecht, Holland: Foris Publications, 1987) 225-239. 18 The nationalist rantau narrative may have been facilitated by socioeconomic changes in the 1930s, when the “circular” rantau-in which the participants were expected to return home-was replaced by what was called the “Chinese rantau” set up permanent homes in the rantau, returning only for holidays and interim visits. This in effect freed up the modem novel as well as opened the possibilities of nationalist rantau narratives to follow the linear trajectory into the future. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 166] === 159 As a woman writer in the 1930s, Fatimah produces a counter-text to nationalist discourse which calls into question the male-centered invocation of what is in fact a gender neutral term in Indonesian (tokoh kita, lit: “our character”) and which asks, why must the heroes be male? In the process of producing a character who moves at the margins of a series of communities, including those defined by gender, the author of Kehilangan Mestika focuses attention on the alienating aspect of the imagining process. Through her hero/ine, Fatimah introduces into the nationalist context a figure who, as an individual, inhabits and speaks to and of multiple communities simultaneously. Neither wholly “belonging to,” nor entirely alienated from the community of which Anderson speaks, the character Hamidah opens avenues for alternative modes of imagining that respects the indeterminate, the hybrid. Before entering a discussion of Hamidah’s narrative of the rantau I would like to look generally at the conspicuously “male” qualities she exhibits in the text. She is ambitious, assertive, outspoken, she is curious and fearless. She travels across Sumatra and on to Java and back home to her small island of Bangka, in search of an education and looking for ways to serve the community as an educator and activist. At one point she exclaims, “Let me succeed! I will make sacrifices however small or great! Give me the power! I want it all!” (51). In the process, Hamidah is pursued by suitors, whose attentions she welcomes. The first, Ridhan woos her on a boat with his victrola ([mesin nyanyi) under the full moon, proposes marriage in a fit of passion; she councils him to be patient. He whisks her around the romantic city of Palembang on sampan (boats), in taxis, even in an airplane before his sudden and tragic death. The second and third suitors fight over Ham idah in a graphic reversal of the trope of the binarial female trope. Here, Hamidah considers their differences: About to choose Anwar, Idrus’ face would come to mind. He was a thinner young man, a bit pale, and not very handsome, but was possessed with a beautiful soul. He had strong and refined convictions, was skilled in music, a poet whose verses I found quite agreeable. And unbelievably patient to o... He was always there to help, even when I didn’t ask. It’s true he was not wealthy, but he was intelligent While not devout he did his daily devotions. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 167] === 160 About to choose Idrus, my thoughts went to Anwar’s big and robust countenance. How agile he was in jumping and running! I could see his energy flowing that day when I could have almost died slipping down the rocks as we walked along the shoreline at Tandjung Kalian. He had a larger salary than Idrus, and his father was well-to-do, but he himself was extravagant. His attitude toward his parents left something to be desired (64).19 When she chooses Idrus, he thanks her profusely. In such passages, notably located in the first section of the novel, Hamidah conveys the fact that she is desirable, and yet in control of the desire unlike the many hapless victims that appear in both court-based and modem literature. And as the writer of such passages, she is free to place male characters in the same kinds of binarial categories as her male colleagues have done to the female. The binary here, between the athletic and robust young man who is lacking in intellect and sensitivity and the thin and pale young man whose poetic and musical skills are particularly compelling is as universal and timeless as the trope of the wife/mistress. The difference between the two is of course the absence, in the former, of the aspect of sexualization, even as pleasure certainly plays a role. The first to gain an education on Bangka, Hamidah is sought after by activists who come to the island to initiate a literacy movement for women. With her local knowledge and leadership skills, she soon rises to the top position. Later, she starts a school for girls and women on the island, at which time, she relates, “At that time, my star was shining brightly. It could be said that I was known to everyone in my negeri. I was respected by all” (KM 55). She takes responsibility for opening Bangka to the modem age, seeing as the 19 Akan kupilih Anwar, terlihat-lihat olehku rupa Idrus. Ia seorang pemuda jang kurus, serta putjat sedikit, rupanja tak gagah, tetapi hatinja amat mulia. Perasaannja amat halus, kepandaiannja tentangan musik amat sempuma, sjari-sjair buatannja amat kesetudjui. Sabamja bukan buatan pula... Pertolongannja kepadaku bukan sedikit pula, meskipun kadang-kadang tak kuminta. Sungguhpun ia bukan seorang kaja, tetapi amat tjermat. Walaupun bukan orang jang saleh, ada djuga beribadat Akan kupilih Idrus, terbajang-bajang pula olehku rupa Anwar jang bagus dan sehaL Alangkah tangkasnja ia melompat dan berlari! Terlihat olehku kesigapannja terdjun menolcngku tempoh hari, ketika aku hampir tewas tergelintjir dipantai Tandjung Kalian. Gadjinja lebih besar dari pada Idrus, bapanja orang berada pula, tetapi ia sendiri seorang jang pemboros. Kelakuannja terhadap kepada orang tua-tua, kerap tak berkenan dihatiku. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 168] === 161 “result of her work” in the community the fact that “Women now had the freedom (kemerdekaan) to leave the cages of their houses and experience the fresh air.” (56). These achievements are conveyed through the intersection of the rantau novel the European Bildungsroman, and the foundational fictions of the nation. As I have mentioned, the rantau was a space that, associated with the achievement of adulthood and hopefully, wealth for males, shaped much of Indonesian literature and society of the nationalist period. The institution of rantau spawned a genre of modem rantau novels from the 1920s onward as well as autobiographical works that associate male adulthood, sovereignty, and membership in a national community. In its modem manifestation, this genre can be compared to the European bildungsroman, given that rantau novels contain many of the same structural and thematic elements, as novels of “education, of apprenticeship, of adolescence, of initiation” (Labovits 2). They feature the thematic elements of intergenerational conflict, “ordeals by love... search for vocation... spiritual growth” as their protagonists, who are typically autobiographically based, make their way from “provinciality to the larger city” (Buckley, 23). It follows that Hamidah’s story would recall that of female Bildungsroman in which women writers voice their appreciation of their educational experiences. In her “female Bildungsroman," Memoirs o f a Dutiful Daughter, Simone de Beauvoir writes: “Up to now I had made the best of living in a cage, for I knew that one day-and each day brought it nearer-the door to the cage would open; now I had got out of the cage and I was still inside” (175). Like both Kartini and de Beauvoir, Hamidah comes to understand that for women with ambitions to learn and to serve the community, the struggles never end. Hamidah, too experiences a series of cages and liberations throughout the novel that center around her position as an educated, ambitious woman in a world not yet prepared for her. As she puts it, For four years I stayed at the dormitory in Padang Panjang, before I had come to know the reality of this transitory world. I was not aware that I would eventually be on my own, trying to study the problems of real life, and struggling to make a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 169] === 162 living for myself. I did not yet know I would someday become the mother of children, and the guide for inhabitants of my kampung (KM 6).20 As Labovitz explains, In whatever terms they do express the need education for the female heroine can be viewed by the reader as the touchstone of Werden [Becoming] for the Bildungsroman protagonist. At the core of Simone [de Beauvoir’s] thirst for education lies the process of Becoming... ‘every year I would become more and more myself, and at the same time faithful to the schoolgirl whose birth I was celebrating this very moment’ (96-7). As a rantau protagonist, Hamidah has experienced her awakening in her first journey to the Minangkabau area of Padang Pandjang in West Sumatra where she attends a Dutch secondary or “Normal” school: The pleasure I experienced while living in the dorm, I cannot describe it here. Padang Pandjang, so prosperous, a safe city, with such pleasant weather, in the middle of the famous Minangkabau region, such a fertile land, so different from the tin-laden soil of my negeri. (region)... How our tears overflowed when the teachers we had temporarily grown to love, gave us some final advice before leaving (KM 7).21 Her differentiation between the barren soil of Bangka, and fertility of West Sumatra is not merely geographic. The theme of fertility and barrenness will arise again in the novel, when Hamidah’s own inability to conceive a child precipitates the final tragedies of polygyny and divorce. In her own story, Hamidah equates fertility with the acquisition of knowledge and social service to her community, the kaum perempuan. In so doing, she rejects the nationalist narrative centering around the heterosexual union. In her narrative, men are characterized as a constant distraction; they speak in the voice of the “social order” that she 20 Selama empat tahun aku tinggal di Padang Pandjang didalam intemat itu, belumlah aku mengetahui dunia jang tak kekal ini. Beium aku insaf, bahwa aku pada suatu waktu akan berdiri sendiri, mentjoba mempeiadjari soal penghidupan dan berdjuang mentjari nafkah diriku. Beium pula aku tabu bahasa aku nanti akan mendjadi ibu bagi anak-anak dan penjuluh untuk ini kampungku. 21 Kesenangan jang telah kurasai tinggal diintemat tidak akan dapat kukatakan disini. Padang Pandjang jang makmur, kota jang sehat, dan njaman hawanja ditengah-tengah tanah Minangkabau jang termasjhur subumja, tidak seperti tanah timah negeriku sendiri... Tak tertahan air mata kami ketika guruguru jang senantiasa kami kasihi memberi beberapa nasihat Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 170] === 163 has pledged to oppose. Her first love Ridhan, for example, articulates the normative fears for a woman entering into the public space alone: You know that young women or gadis (unmarried women) are in a lot of danger. It is so easy for her to believe what people say. Especially when she has fallen in love... Moreover, there are those who are unable to control their [physical] desires {hawa nafsu) and surrender themselves to men with sweet talk, and in the end, bring insults on themselves, having lost their inner purity (kesutjian batin)... I’m telling you that when a man wants a woman, he’s not afraid to harass her in all ways, as long as he achieves his goals. And then when he’s satisfied, his gaze shifts to another... (31).22 In this monologue, Ridhan restates the litany of fears regarding women’s weaknesses in the face of male desire that Kartini named as the main obstacles to her travels to Jakarta for an education, some 30 years previously. Hamidah, in contrast, will not be sidetracked, and she responds, dryly, “Thank you for all that, Ridhan, I assure you that I will do my best to protect my purity, of both the inside and the outside (lahir dan batin)" (31). Young men, she argues to her reader, are “truly ignorant.” They spend their time “dreaming while chasing butterflies and picking flowers” (27). Their marriage proposals are questionable: Ridhan says, “I only want a woman who knows her responsibilities as a wife who can help me spiritually and physically so that my body will be healthy (menolongku lahir batin supaja badanku selamat)” (34). Another suitor, Anwar demands: “Don’t you want to be queen of the household kingdom (ratu keradjaan rumah tangga), “manager for your husband mother, and educator of your children?” which he defines as “God’s wishes” and “the law of nature” much like Sukarno would a decade later. Hamidah will comment ironically on this phrase later in the text, after she has thanked God for the long-awaited deaths of her in-laws and finally has her house to herself: “Aku seolah-olah mendjadi ratu keradjaan rumah tanggaku itu (I felt as if I had become the queen of my household 22 Engkau tahu, barangkali, bahwa perempuan tnuda atau seorang gadis amat banjak berbahajanja. Ia gampang sadja mempertjahai mulut seseorang. Lebih-lebih apabila ia djatuh tjinta... Tak kurang pula jang tak sanggup melawan hawa nafsunja menjerahkan dirinja kepada orang bermanis mulut, dan achimja mendjadikan hina dirinja sendiri, tak mempunjai lagi kesutjian batin. Kukatakan kepadamu, bahwa apabila seorang Iaki-laki menghendaki seorang perempuan, ia tak takut merugi dalam perkara apa sadja, asal jang dimaksudnja itu sampai. Kemudian apabila telah puas, matanja memandang lagi kepada perempuan lain. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 171] === 164 kingdom) (98). A sentence that follows clues us in to her resistance: “Impiemku setjara seorang perempuan telah sampai.” The key word “setjara,” meaning, “as if,” or “in the manner o f ’ interrupts the sentence so that it translates as: “My dreams, [if I felt as a woman should feel/in the manner of a woman] were realized.” In the meantime, however, while in the rantau, these normative voices both distract and at times seduce her into giving in to the passive view of the female. With each forward movement, she encounters social and personal obstacles that prohibit the possibilities of narrating her rantau story as a straight, linear movement. The juxtaposition between the desire to seek independence and liberation (kemerdekaan) and an array of obstacles in the text becomes a rhythm of starts and stops. Throughout the text, Hamidah exhibits a desire to exceed other (male) writers in the area of travel description, tapping into the rantau genre’s metonymic representation of progress through awed indulgence in scenes of vehicular movement, whether on dokar (horse-drawn carriages), ships, railways, and automobiles. In rantau novels, these modes of transport became modem sites of plot development and part of the imagining process of modernity in which Indonesians could enjoy the products of industrialization and technology as consumers rather than laborers. Hamidah, too, engages this discourse; she boards trains, ships, and sampans, and motors around in taxis and on buses and rushes around from town to town, visiting markets, taking in movies, playing dominos and asserting her right to travel in public as an unmarried and independent young woman. The author, Fatimah then tops other rantau writers by placing her character in an airplane.23 It is precisely this kind of juxtaposition that characterizes both Hamidah’s movement and her development in the novel. She is often on the cusp of danger on her travels, from leering older men, as buses break down in the middle of the night in isolated 23 Airplane exhibitions were a popular form of entertainment in Sumatra in the 1930s; thus Fatimah's inclusion of the plane ride is not fantastic. However, Hamidah does not see Palembang from the air because her eyes were shut in fear for the duration of the trip. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 172] === 165 towns, or when awakened at 5:00 am by a friend demanding her hand in marriage. Moreover, she misses buses, shows up a week ahead of time, and must be constantly vigilant about the letters of permission and required for moving about and staying in various places. Later, as I have noted, she will take a movement backward from a narrative of the rantau to one of pingitan and then to that of the “misused woman,” as one Indonesian critic calls i t 24 While we may link these juxtapositions with the female bildungsroman, which as Labovits and de Beauvoir suggest does not follow the linear trajectory of the male manifestation, Hamidah’s problem is also located in her relationship with the rantau narrative, that offers mixed messages and historical distortions to the female reader. In the following section I will take a closer look at the gendering of the rantau narrative and then return to Hamidah’s engagement of this narrative to show how she raises consciousness about gendered exclusivity of this genre, which would become the basis for one of the nation’s foundational fictions. Rantau and Gender In its earlier literary manifestation, the space of the rantau was fraught with ambivalences specific to the speakers’ positioning in the colonial setting. As the 19th century Acehnese poem Hikayat Ranto describes, the space lures young men with promises of wealth and passion: “most men [in rantau] are fooled by Iblis,” [the Devil] but neither the old nor the young are aware of it./ They are ants at the sight of syrup, thinking they can guzzle all of it, the pot included./ They are never satisfied, but they die and their corpses pile up./ Lust is our shadow in the morning:/ The more we chase it, the more it runs aw ay. .. (Drewes 17). Hamka’s 1939 novel Merantau ke Deli presents a similar perspective on 24 See Ratih Hardjono’s “The Misused Woman in the Sentimental Novel," PRISMA, #43, March 1987, 53-59). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 173] === 166 the rantau space, which he describes in the opening scenes as a carnival of prostitution, drugs and alcohol and gambling (cockfighting): Today is the first day, the first night of the new month, all the contract laborers rush from the [payroll] office after receiving their wages... Before receiving the wages, they are intelligent, their memories intact, of what they need and what they are lacking. But after [the money] is in their hands, they grow confused... right and left they head to their huts hearing the clamor of the vendors’ cries, selling material, rice, soups, martabak, and various medicines. Along side these vendors, one can see various gambling masters opening their gambling mats shaking the dice.25 While emanating from different historical periods and places-19* century Aceh and the Minangkabau region of the 1930s, the two texts place a great degree of blame on the female. In the former, women are blamed for pressuring the protagonist to accumulate goods in the rantau that will increase their status in the village while in the latter, it is the woman in the rantau who is blamed for luring men into sex for the same materialistic reasons: The female coolies are more confused than the men. With just a compliment, someone says she is pretty, or if she’s with her husband, that her husband looks much younger than she does, she’s ready to throw all of her money to the clothing vendor... The ones who fare best in this environment are the coolies who are pretty... If they are “slick” with their eyebrows, they may be picked up (dipungut) by a “big boss” (tuan besar) to become a concubine (nyai). This is the genesis of the nyais of Deli who have become so well-known in the people’s stories. And among them too are those with sweet voices, and those who are talented in Javanese dancing, so that they can’t be bothered working during the day; instead they become ronggeng dancers.26 And if one is really pretty and successful, and the “big boss” is not happy about it, she can become the wife of a head foreman {mandur besar), the third or perhaps fourth wife! (Hamka Merantau ke Deli, 79).27 25 Hari sekarang malam satu, malam tanggal bulan jang barn, orang2 kontrak berlarian dari dalam kantor seteiah menerima gadjinja masing2... Sebelum menerima uang itu mereka tjerdik, banjak jang teringat banjak jang perlu dan banjak jang kurang. Tetapi seteiah ada dalam tangan, mereka bingung... dikiri kanan djalan jang mereka Ialui menudju pondok, kedengaran riuh rendah orang menjorakkan djualnja, pendjual kain, nasi, mie, martabak, strup dan obat. Disela-sela pedagang2 itu kelihatan pula beberapa orang djuara djadi mengembangkan tikar djudinja, memutar dadu. 26 Ronggeng dancers perform a type of seductive dance and invite men to join them; in some instances, this is a prelude to prostitution. The ronggeng emanates from Javanese agricultural traditions and was exported along with laborers to various parts of the archipelago. 27 Kuli perempuan itupun lebih pula bingungnja dari pada jang Iaki2. Baru sadja dipudji sedikit, dikatakan dia tjantik kalau bersuami dikatakan bahwa suaminja lebih muda dairpadanja, maulah dia rasanja Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 174] === 167 In this passage, from the relatively late date of 1939, Hamka reinforces the divisions already in place in pre-nationalist rantau imagery between a victimized male and a conspiring female. While men labor, women are free to use their sexuality to avail themselves of easy and wealthy lives, elevating themselves beyond the reach of their brethren. As Sumatran women would ostensibly not enter the rantau, these women are notably all Javanese. Hamka exoticizes them by locating their difference from, say, Minangkabau women in the erotic, their association with the nyai (typically connoting concubines taken by Dutchmen) and the ronggeng dance. In Merantau ke Deli, Hamka reinforces the idea that women in the rantau, liberated from familial and social constraints, are sexually suspect, due to a natural inclination to prostitute themselves. In these configurations, male protagonists are presented as doubly victimized by what is misconstrued as gap between “tradition” and “modernity,” but is in reality a colonial economic system that altered socio-economic systems in the village, making them dependent upon rantau wealth.28 Consequently, the images of the rantau that circulated in a pre-nationalist context were shaped by this sense of double-victimization mediated by ambivalence toward the freedoms and temptations that the rantau, which came to be associated with modernity, offered. Meanwhile, while at home, the female is exaggerated as well as covetous and indifferent, “foreign” women-women from outside one’s ethnic group, religion, or even family-are given an exaggerated sense of power as they are placed mentjurahkan uang pendapatannja tadi sama sekali ketukang-tukang pedagang kain itu... Jang agak senang hidupnja ialah kuli2 jang tjantik... Kalau agak iitjin’ keningnja, dia boleh dipungut oleh ‘tuan besar’ mendjadi njai. Dari sanalah asal njai2 Deii jang telah masjhur didalam riwajat itu. Setengahnja pula, mana jang merdu suaranja dan teiah ada pula kepandaiannja menari ditanah Djawa, asal sadja tidak terganggu pekeidjaannja berkuli siang hari, dia boleh mendjadi perempuan ronggeng. Dan kalau sekiranja dia tjantik dan penghasilannja besar, sedang ‘tuan besar’ tidak sudi kepadanja, bolehlah dia mendjadi isteri unandur besar’, entah isterinja jang ketiga atau ketudjuh! 28 Similarities arise with Sutan Takdir’s configuration of the female as both tied to and perpetuating the oppressive aspects of tradition, but the writers I discuss here are not as intent upon embedding meaning in syntax and subtext, and get right to the point. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 175] === 168 in the landscape of ambivalent male desire.29 Neither male nor female characters emerge as heroic in this manifestation of the rantau; indeed, by the end of Hamka’s novel Merantau ke Deli, his male protagonist has been reduced-after marriage to a Javanese and Minang woman simultaneously-to the position of street-hawker with a pair of baskets slung over his shoulder. However, in those novels that do feature recognizably heroic characters who enter the rantau for education and contact with the greater world in the process of becoming “the nation,” we can see the traces of the anxieties that these two author project. Thus, in the nationalist rantau narrative, the female in particular continues to function as a site where anxieties precipitated by unauthorized desires are inscribed. Certainly the terms change as the space of rantau comes to be associated not with the colonial plantation and industrial centers, but rather, sites of nation building. But as both Abdullah and Kato note, for young men, particularly of the matrifocal Minang region, rantau was practiced as “an institutional oudet for the frustrations of unmarried young men, who lack individual responsibility and rights in their own society”30 in which, as the local saying goes, “When a little wind blows, [the husband/father] is gone” (Kato 58). Thus, as Tiwon explains, through her interrogation of the struggles between what has been referred to as “tradition and modernity” in the 20s and 30s, the rantau comes to be a space in which men from matrifocal societies can imagine themselves not as marginal but as patriarchs of modem nuclear families (Women 86-7). Tiwon forges the link, in her discussion of Sumatran 29 A notable shift occurs in Merantau ke Deli, as the Javanese woman who is first inscribed as sexually suspect is transformed into a sincere and hardworking woman. Such a transformation is necessary in the author’s formation of a perfect binary with the spoiled Minangkabau wife who symbolizes, among other things, the dangers of bringing a village wife into the rantau. 30 Taufik Abdullah, quoted in Friedus, p. 18, n. 43. Here, the author is referring specifically to the Minangkabau community whose matrifocal economic system left young men without land or other wealth with which to attract wives. Minang men were thus forced to seek their livelihoods in the rantau. The rantau institution can be found throughout the archipelago, in cultures that are both matrifocal and patrilineal, in various forms to augment the economies of areas that have depended on subsistence means such as agriculture or fishing. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 176] === 169 writers of the 1920s and 30s, between this movement from the specter of matrifocal “tradition” to the emergent nationalist society with its focus on patriliny. Paradoxically, however, this move is often told through the trope of the victimized female who we already met in the previous chapter in Sutan Takdir’s 1936 essay on women and literature. This trope, which as Tiwon notes was borrowed from court-based poetry, functions in the rantau novel not only to stir the readers’ emotions but also as a site of displacement of the author’s sense of victimization. A case in point is found in the comparison between the life of Minang writer Marah Rusli and the story he presents in his novel, Sitti Noerbaja. As Joy Friedus describes, while in the rantau, studying in W. Java, Marah Rusli married a Sundanese woman without his family’s consent. He later submitted to a second marriage to a Minang woman arranged by his parents (Friedus 22).31 The novel offers a critique of the system of forced marriage and parental control in the Minang region, packaged as a regressive and stagnant adat. Upon the publication and distribution of the novel, the author was exiled from his own community, who did not approve of his critique, and he remained in the rantau for the rest of his life (Freidus 23). In the novel, it is the female protagonist, Sitti Noerbaja, who suffers from forced marriage to the evil Datuk Meringgi to pay off her father’s debts. Certainly the male figure, Sjamsulbahri, suffers from the loss of his love; he is not only disowned by his father for being intimate with Noerbaja despite the fact that she is married to another, but he later commits suicide after Noerbaja is killed by her husband’s henchmen. But why not tell the story the way it actually happened? Why displace the brunt of victimization on to a female character, thus distorting the historical perspective? 31 This is much like the character who appears in Hamka’s Merantau he Deli as well as similar to the story of the great Sumatran poet of the 1930s, Amir Hamzah. The protagonist of the former, significantly, is wholly disrespected by the author, Hamka. By the end of the novel he has sunk from the position of storeowner to that of a hawker of almonds with twin baskets slung over his shoulders. While the Minang wife is blamed for most of this character’s problems, he is depicted as weak-willed and passive. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 177] === 170 It is only when we read against the grain of the text that we can see just how Noerbaja signifies Syamsulbahri’s weakness and ineffectivity in the struggle between “modernity” and “tradition” and at the same time, will not let him escape that “tradition” even while he is off studying to be a doctor in Batavia (Jakarta). He cannot protect her from the “traditional” forces that cause the women to be viewed as objects of exchange, or the violence of spumed husbands. At the same time, while he is off experiencing liberation from the suffocating Minang community, Noerbaja brings her local troubles to him, in the form of the two silat (martial arts) thugs hired by her husband to follow her. While drawn as an extremely sympathetic character, and a woman who would do almost anything to be with her love, Noerbaja also functions as the obstruction to Sjamsulbahri’s road to progress. This is through not fault of her own, rather, it is the qualities that make her make her ideal in the feminine sense that contribute to her and Sam’s troubles. Beautiful, she becomes desirable to the evil Datuk Meringgi; the daughter of a shopkeeper, she becomes an object of exchange; always loyal, she is unwilling to give up her love for Sam, even if it results in both their deaths. The character Noerbaja is this drawn as both Sam’s greatest support and the tie-that-binds him to the quagmire of “tradition.” It is in the arena of subject construction that these displacements and distortions have their greatest impact. Sitti Noerbaja, the tragic heroine, is ostensibly the central protagonist of the text, but in fact, Sam is quietly established as the subject while Noerbaja suffers and dies. As we shall see in the next section, the text’s gaze is turned toward him through Noerbaja, whose existence depends on her love for him. As she suffers under the rubric of tradition, he enters the rantau to seek an education and to attempt, at least, to develop as an individual outside the constraints of that tradition. A Split Reading of the Rantau Novel Now let us imagine the response of the female reader like Hamidah to a novel like Marah Rusli’s Sitti Noerbaja. The expectation is that she will identify with Noerbaja, who Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 178] === 171 exhibits many of the characteristics of the ideal woman; she is a poet, skilled in exchanging pantun couplets with her lover with all of their hidden meanings and inferences. When Sam enters the rantau, she vows to wait for him, but at the same time, she exhibits a strong sense of filial piety by trading herself to man she despises in exchange for the erasure of her father’s debts. She remains loyal to the hero, imagining, against all odds, the future they might spend together as husband and wife, unto her death at the evil husband’s command. But Hamidah, who envisions herself as a nationalist and a heroine, identifies with the real subject of the text, Syamsulbahri, the one who sets out on a ship with his family waving jubilantly; he is off to see “the world” -i.e., beyond his Sumatran region-and to seek an education, with the vision of future service to his community as a doctor. As Hamidah tells the audience; “I heard the call of the times, to hidup dengan tegak sendiri (stand on my own two feet) !” (KM 15). She will leave family and home against all protestations to make her way in the world; she will, likewise, write about her accomplishments in direct and self-satisfied tones. Throughout, as I will show, the author is caught in what Schweickhart describes as a “division of self against self’ in the novel, as she attempts to write herself in Syamsul’s path, while being unable to cast aside the spectre of Noerbaja as other. As Schweickhart explains, this type of reading occurs among female readers of texts featuring male heroes, whose evolutions, if not constructed subjectivities, are based on their relationships with formulaically reduced female figures. Schweickhart uses the example of D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love to explain her point that “[the woman reader] reads the text both as a man and as a woman. But in either case, the result is the same: she confirms her position as the other” (48). As she reads the novel, she unconsciously rejects identification with the reductive and victimized Ursula, induced, instead, to identify with Birkin... [which is] emotionally effective because, stripped of its patriarchal trappings, Birkin’s struggle and his utopian vision conform to my own. To the extent that I perform this feminist reading unconsciously, I am captivated by the text” (43). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 179] === 172 However, in the process, “ I am drawn into complicity with the reduction of Ursula and therefore to myself’ (43), and caught in an “endless division of self against self’ (41). Over an extended period of reading only of male heroes and their female others, Schweickhart continues, women readers are “emasculated... taught to think as men, to identify with a male point of view, and to accept as normal and legitimate a male system of values’’(42). For the author Fatimah, there is no resolution to the problem and the text traces Hamidah splitting through the course of the text, between the identity of hero and of victim, lamenting, “I blame myself, why was I bom from God into this world with the attitude of a woman?” (KM 53). If we contrast Syamsulbahri's glorious departure from Padang to Java to Hamidah’s hapless travels from Bangka to Palembang we see how the world, metonymized through the names stenciled on to ships' hulls: “Eropah...Hindustan, Arab...Bombai, Kalkuta, Mesir (Egypt),... Tjina dan Djepun... Pinang, Singapura... Inggeris, Djerman... Djakarta... “ (SN 78-9), is opened to Sam. Hamidah, alternatively, can barely escape from her family, who is: ... afraid of receiving insults from other people in our kampung (village) for allowing a gadis (lit: unmarried virgin girl) to seek a livelihood by being sent on the rantau. Of course I did not heed their demands because, first of all it was my certain desire to work and secondly, my father did not raise any objections (25).32 However, while Hamidah’s rantau extends only as far as Palembang, by glamorizing this city as the “Venice of the East,” because of its many canals, and its many poets, she imagines the world that is not open to her. Women were generally expected to remain at home while their men entered the rantau; functioning as a support for, and gauge of male modernity and progress which would be then mediated by their attachment to “home. The novel Sitti Noerbaja reifies these 32... mereka takut mendapat hinaan dari orang kampung kami tnembiarkan seorang gadis mentjari nafkahnja dirantau orang. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 180] === 173 ideas. In the novel, Noerbaja’s love for Sam provides her with a reason for doing, being, suffering and even speaking, while she remains as Sam’s anchor to his community. As he sets off on his journey, she accompanies him to the harbor, listens to his concerns without any sense of envy or desire on her own, with only his best interests at heart as seen in the following conversation: ’[In Jakarta], I’ll see the capital of the nation of Indonesia, the largest and greatest city of our homeland. And there as well I will be able to study that which will make me into a truly educated person. B u t... my heart is truly heavy to think of leaving the city of Padang, the place of my birth... Because here is my mother and father, my whole family, and my close Mends and confidants; whereas there I won't know anyone... all this time I’ve been looked after by my parents, but there, I’ll be all on my own.’ Noerbaja responds: ‘It’s true, Sam. It’s indeed difficult to leave one’s mother and father, friends and associates. But as I see it, you won't feel like an outsider for long. Every beginning is difficult. After you've been in Jakarta a short while, all the difficulties will fade Staying home, real and literary women not only guarded traditions but also became the vehicles through which male authors of both fiction and autobiography accessed the nostalgic visions of childhood innocence that ultimately anchored the nationalist narrative. As we have seen in the previous chapter, women who did enter the rantau on the same terms as men, like Maria Ullfah, had to publicly display their ties to “tradition” in order to gamer respect. In biographies of women like Maria Ullfah and S. K. Trimurti who became important figures in both the nationalist and women’s movements, travels from home to Permintaan tentu sadja tak kuturut, sebab pertama memang keinginanku hendak bekerdja dan kedua bapaku tak berkeberatan. 33 . disanalah aku akan melihat ibu negeri ini, kota jang sebesar-besamja dan sebagusbagusnja, dal am tanah air kita. Dan disanalah pula aku akan beroleh peladjaran jang akan mendjadikan aku seorang jang berilmu. Tetapi... berat sungguh hatiku akan meninggalkan kota Padang ini, tanah lahirku, tempat tumpah darahku, kampung halamanku. Karena disinilah ada ajah bundaku, kaum keluargaku, serta handai tolanku; sedang disana belum kuketahui dengan siapa... Sampai kepada waktu ini aku biasa diperlindungi orang tuaku, tetapi disana, tentulah aku akan hidup seorang diri.’ Tentu sadja, Sam. Memang tak mudah bertjerai dengan ibu bapa, handai tolan dan teman sedjawat. Tetapi pada sangkaku ketjanggunganmu itu tiada berapa lama. Hap-tiap permulaan biasanja susah. Akan tetapi apabila telah sampai engkau ke Djakarta kelak, tentulah akan hilang djuga segala kesusahanmu... ’ Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 181] === 174 centers of nationalism are not described in terms of rantau. Hamidah’s narrative, then, serves to fill an important gap in the nationalist and literary narratives of the period, in which women present their critical views on the nationalist space. At times in the novel it appears as if Fatimah is rewriting, through Hamidah’s experiences, scenes from Sitti Noerbaja in order to recast the experience of the female out in the public space and in so doing, create a narrative of the female rantau. In a description of Hamidah’s first real excursion into the rantau, on her way Palembang offers a correlative scene to one found in the earlier novel featuring male rudeness to women in public spaces. In Noerbaja's experience a pair of deck hands are portrayed speaking lasciviously about her in Dutch, thinking that she is a prostitute (SN 185). Later, after listening to some music with questionable lyrics, one of the men makes his move: "Why don’t you follow me to a nice spot and if you menurut kemauanku (lit: surrender to my desires), I’ll pay you all the money you ask for..." Noerbaja responds, finally, in Dutch, that she will report him to the captain. "Do you want to jeopardize your job? Do you think I'm an evil woman? Open your eyes and look clearly: don't confuse a good person from an evil one! Now, go from here!" (SN 189). In similar circumstances on the boat to Palembang, Hamidah updates the scene with a more modem, assertive sense of agency: Because I was travelling on a government grant, I had to sign a receipt. The clerk who handed me the receipt was clearly someone who had no sense of respect, did not understand the ways of polite interaction, did not possess a sense of humanism (perikemanusiaan). He saw only that I was an unmarried woman, who was easy to play around with. Of course as a ship-worker who was still an adolescent, he probably reacted this way habitually, to all kinds of women. You certainly are vulnerable creatures, eh, my fellow women (kaumku perempuan). You become the playthings of despicable men. But, y a we need not be bothered by men like this ship clerk. They're not worth that much respect. Faced with a strong woman, he lets loose words which are less than proper. At first I wanted to respond in such a way that he would know that I was not just any woman. But then I thought, what’s the use of us bothering to respond to someone like him? We would also be shamed by it (KM 28).34 34 Oleh karena aku berlajar dengan ongkos Gubememen, maka aku harus menanda tangani sehelai surat keterangan. Klerk jang memberikan surat itu kepadaku, sungguh seorang jang tak mempunjai adat kesopanan, tak tahu akan adat pergaulan. tak mempunjai perikemanusiaan. Disangkanja aku seorang gadis, jang mudah sadja dapat dipermainkannja. Maklumlah seorang anak kapal masih muda remadja, barangkali Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 182] === 175 The flow of this passage, in which she slips between telling her story and addressing "my fellow women," with advice as to how a "strong woman" and "humanist" should react in such a situation, illustrates her modus operandi in updating Noerbaja’s voice. Here, Hamidah moves beyond the "good woman/evil woman” dichotomy that Noerbaja invokes in her defense, toward a view of perikemanusiaan, ("humanism") in which tolerance and education improves human interactions. Knowing that she speaks to her audience with the intention of “raising them up,” we can hear in her voice the ethos of the teacher as well as the comrade as she presents this female pioneer’s guide for navigating the complexities of “freedom.” Hamidah ultimately distinguishes herself in first person voice from Noerbaja through her positive sense of membership in the kaum perempuan, community of women. For this character, membership in this community is constituted as endless suffering. When given a voice by her author, Marah Rusli, Noerbaja speaks like so many female characters found in androcentric novels when she complains, in fairly lengthy speeches, about the misfortunes of womanhood. In one of these speeches she covers the trials of pregnancy, the pain of childbirth, the responsibility of women in caring for the child-and the husband's abdication of such responsibility as a woman's duty-, which extends even after the child has married. She goes on to bitterly relate the fact that children do not respond in kind to their mothers, but return "mother’s milk" with "poison." Women are, moreover, not allowed to develop their thinking like men, because of these duties and responsibilities, and because of the fact that, after experiencing the freedom of childhood, they are "caged like birds" at the age of 7 or 8 years, in the kitchen (Minangkabau women did not perbuatan demikian sering dilakukannja terhadap kepada perempuan lain. Sesungguhnja engkau machluk jang lemah, hai kaum perempuan. Engkau mendjadi permainan sadja bagi Iaki-laki jang bengis. Tetapi, j a. bagi seorang laki-laki seperti klerk kapal itu tak dapat kita sesalkan. Ia tak Iagi mempunjai rasa kehormatan. Dimuka seorang perempuan berani ia mengeluarkan perkataan jang kurang lajak. Pada mulanja aku hendak mendjawab supaja diketahuinja, bahasa aku bukan setnbarangan perempuan sadja. Tetapi terkenang puia olehku apa gunanja kita bersoal djawab dengan seorang jang demikian itu? Kita djuga jang mendapat malu. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 183] === lie experience pingitan). God is blamed for giving women bodies which force them into this position, while granting mortal men the right to marry and divorce women at will. Perceiving themselves as the masters, and women as their slaves, men are depicted as spoiled, easily angered, restrictive of their wives’ actions. She concludes, “and if we try to resist, we are thrown out like dogs” (SN 215-220). Much of the speech does not seem to correspond with Noerbaja’s character, since she has never given birth to children, has never experienced the sorrows of motherhood described here. She thus speaks as a representative of “woman” and for “woman” in a general, or imagined sense. We might say that she becomes the voice and figure of Kartini in the text; her speech is delivered, significantly, just before her own tragic and untimely death.35 However, in Marah Rush’s interpretation of Kartinian feminism, then, women locate their sense of victimization in the terms of kodrat, the fate that is ascribed to women by a mixture of God and biological determinism. Hamidah, in contrast, picks up on that stream of Kartinian consciousness in which the limitless possibilities of the female are imagined, if men would leave them alone. Her time spent with other women is not wasted with complaint about the trials of being female, but rather, characterized by a goal-oriented idealism that extends beyond descriptions of experience to her interaction with her female readers. Just as she guides them in the art of public movement, so too does she offer her own experiences as the leader of the literacy movement on Bangka as a guide for women’s activism. More than Imagining: The Activist Narrative In such passages, as the ones I will excerpt below, Hamidah changes the shape of the rantau narrative by bringing the skills and education she has learned “abroad” back to Bangka to effect positive change. The community that the author “imagines” through her 35 Tiwon notes that Minang writers were preoccupied by the figure of Kartini (Women 84); we also see Sumatran writers, including Hamidah, and Sutan Takdir, imagining that Java is a far more progressive place than Sumatra for both men and women. Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 184] === 177 engagement of the rantau narrative is not located in faraway urban centers, dispersed throughout the islands, in local contexts open to transformation. Hamidah speaks to this dispersed community through the medium of the hybrid novel which contains a variety of desirable elements, including tension, romance, tragedy centering around a heroine speaking to readers in a conversational voice as “I.” She then adds another dimension to the text, the voice of the activist who, through her description of her own successes and failures in starting her literacy program on Bangka, offers advice and strategies for others. With money obtained from the Bankatinwinning wives, and permission from leaders, we began our work. We obtained a schoolhouse from someone who agreed with our mission, as well as teaching supplies. Then we propagandized our school everywhere, but became distressed hearing people here and there who said, “We want to study, but we are already grown. And we aren’t like you all, walking here and there in public." Hearing this, we became aware of our mistake. We had forgotten that the girls of our region, whether young or old, were not allowed to leave their homes. Much less walk around, or display themselves on the street, none of it was allowed. Adat pingitan! They have to wait in their homes until someone comes to propose marriage. For girls in Palembang, there were handicrafts that were done by women, such as embroidery and weaving. But how was it for the girls in my negeril In the past there had been women weavers, but because the prices were high, not too many people could hire them. So for these girls, marriage became the most important fact of life. For me at that time, it was not marriage that I found terribly important. ‘To live without having to endure people's derision, that was number one.’ So we were forced to change our strategy. We would take turns going to meet those who desired our help in the struggle against illiteracy. With a blessing, diligence, and patience, our work succeeded. Not a few girls and women gained the skills of reading and writing (KM 53).36 36 Kami mulailah pekerdjaan kami. Rumah perguruan kami dapat dengan pertjuma dari seseorang jang menjetudjui maksud kami, begitu pula alat pengadjaran. Ketika kami mempropagandakan sekolah kami kesana-kemari, kesal benar rasa hati kami, sebab disana-sini kami dengar orang mengatakan: ‘Kami mau beiadjar, tetapi kami sudah kebesaran. Dan kami bukan seperti saudara sekalian dapat berdjalan kesana-sini. Mendengar ini insaflah kami akan kesalahan kami. Kami Iupa bahasa anak-anak perempuan dinegeri kami, manakala sudah besar sedikit, tak boleh lagi ketuar rumah. Usahkan berdjalan, memperlihatkan diri dari djalan sadja tak boleh. Ada pingitan...! Mereka mesti menunggu-nunggu sadja dirumah sampai kepada waktunja dipinang orang. Bagi gadis-gadis di Palembang ada kerdja tangan jang dikerdjakan mereka jaitu menjulam dan bertenun. Tetapi gadis-gadis dinegeriku bagaimana? Betul dahulu ada djuga orang bertenun, tetapi karena ongkosnja terlalu mahal, taklah semua orang dapat melakukannja. Bagi mereka, seoiah-olah kawin itulah maksud hidup jang terutama sekali. Bagi diriku pada waktu itu, bukanlah itu jang teristimewa. 'Hidup dengan tak menanggung hina itulah jang nomor satu.’ Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 185] === 178 Hamidah’s language reflects the transformation she undergoes as an idealistic rantau returnee. She shifts from the aku or I to the kami or we when detailing the efforts of her group in importing nationalist but internationalist strategies for women’s economic and personal liberation and finding their efforts thwarted on multiple fronts. A Gandhian weaving project is undermined by the lack of solidarity among the populace demonstrated by the undercutting of prices. The group overestimates the possibilities of “propagandizing” their school to women who are afraid or unable to leave their homes. Through this particular kind of narrative, Fatimah conveys the difficulties of nationalistfeminist activism of the sort Hamidah imagines. To counter the opposition to their project, the group begins to move toward a nationalist ideal of the feminine conveyed in terms that have been previously absent in Hamidah’s text, radjin dan sabar, diligent and patient. More terms that we have not yet seen in Hamidah’s narrative enter the text as her group struggles within a space of misinterpretation brought on by competing desires; she beings to speak about “batin Timur” and “kesopanan Timur” the “Eastern essence” and “Eastern propriety” and “kebaratan,” or “westernization” as boundaries are drawn around kemerdekaan or freedom for women. The problem is that Hamidah’s experiment with kemerdekaan in her community has seemingly gone awry, the girls have distorted the notion of freedom by taking on the ethoi of “movie stars who carried their mirror, brush, and make-up wherever they went,” and arriving at school “not wearing the kain dan sarung, but skirts! Iya, if those could be called skirts! Think of it!” With girls wearing outfits that leave “an opening almost up to the thigh, with the shoulders, chest, and back bare,” she asks: Is that what can be called "clothing?" Is this what could be called "progress?" Is this what could be called "die end of an era?" ! For me, this was all a mistake. How could I do away with this westernization 0kebaratan) that poked one in the eye like that? Djadi sekarang tjara kami bekeidja terpaksa ditukar. Kami berganti-ganti pergi mengundjungi orang jang berhadjat pertolongan kami untuk memerangi buta huruf. Dengan berkat radjin dan sabar. berhasillah pekerdjaan kami. Bukan sedikit gadis-gadis dan ibu-ibu jang telah pandai membatja dan menulis. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 186] === 179 Only after bearing a series of lectures about “Eastern propriety” do “Those who had misinterpreted our meaning of kemerdekaan [start] down a new road which was more in accordance with the Eastern soul.” 37 In this section of the novel, Hamidah encounters the containing horizon of what was at that time in the process of becoming nationalist discourse; efforts and strategies for achieving widespread literacy among women are buried under a rhetoric of abstractions and binaries. Very shortly thereafter she presents what might be a speech of someone stepping down from her leadership post, complete with dramatic pauses and a formal voice, signified by her shift to kita, a formal, all-encompassing “we”; As it turns out, being a leader is not an easy job, one that can be taken up as a sideline. A truly sincere leader sacrifices everything for the needs of those he/she leads. How fortunate are we (kita) were who consider ourselves to be ‘leaders’ to fully understand our responsibilities as leaders. Don’t wish for a leader who is going to use his/her position to gain glory, respect, o r to add to the contents of their own pockets. It’s not the people for the leader, but the leader for the people. Even though we (kami) didn't really have the right to claim the status of a leader, the pleasure that we felt at that time cannot be expressed in mere words (57).38 Something is missing here, signaled by the now familiar phrasing-recalling Kartini’s postmarriage letters- regarding what “cannot be expressed in words.” Here as elsewhere, the 37 Bukan sedikit pula kehilatan gadis-gadis jang tak ubahnja seperti bintang film, kesana kemari membawa sisir, tjermin, dan bedak. Mana-mana jang lagi menduduki bangku sekolah tak mau memakai kebaja dan sarung, tetapi berbadju rok! Ja, itupun kalau boleh dikatakan badju! Tjobalah! Dibawah terbuka sampai kepaha, tangan pendek hingga bahu, dada dan belakang terbuka. Inikah jang dikatakan ‘berpakaian?’ Inikah jang dikatakan ‘kemadjuan?’ A tau ! Bagiku serba salah. Bagaimana aku harus membuangkan kebaratan jang menjolok mata itu? ... Saudara-saudara jang salah pengertian tentangan kemerdekaan jang kami maksud, mulai menempuh djalan bam jang sesuai dengan batin Timur. 38 Rupanja mendjadi pemimpin bukanlah pekerdjaan gampang jang dapat disambilkan sadja. Pemimpin jang sedjati mengurbankan apa sadja untuk keperluan jang dipimpin. Alangkah bemntungnja kita jang mengaku dirinja ‘pemimpin’ mengetahui kewadjibannja sebagai pemimpin itu dengan sebenaraja. Djanganlah hendaknja seorang pemimpin mempergunakan pangkat itu untuk mendapat kemulian, penghormatan, ataupun penambah padat kantung sendiri. Bukan rakjat bagi pemimpin, tetapi pemimpin bagi rakjat. Meskipun kami belum berhak untuk mendapat pangkat pemimpin, tetapi kesenangan jang kami rasakan pada wakm itu bukan dapat dikatakan dengan perkataan sadja. Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 187] === 180 phrase is not simply formulaic, but rather functions as a gesture toward what is left unsaid. Having lost contact with the “I” in this section, Hamidah cannot step out of the collective to give her own analysis of the situation, but is able to insert into the historical record that, whatever happened, she maintained her integrity as a leader throughout. The Pleasure of the Telling At this moment, Hamidah signals a transition in her story, not through a chapter break but rather a broken line and the exclamation “Unimaginable!” (Tak disangkasanglca!)', she will go on to present another romantic episode leaving the previous issues behind. Here we can see Hamidah performing one of many gestures in her text that, in Benjamin’s words, signal “the role of the hand in production,” that “old coordination of the soul, the eye, and the hand,” virtually lost in the written text (108). It is in such co ordination that the pleasure of the text-its expansion beyond the limits of “historical interest” and “representation of the female voice” is located. Hamidah is a storyteller who inscribes gestures toward the discourses, ideas, and voices she gathers together in her narrative. She is less interested in producing a mirage of seamlessness than in opening her text to the processes through which she creates herself in writing. The author does not allow her reader to read only for the content, the plot and its structuration, but invites the reader to experience the act of writing along with the writer. For Hamidah, this telling/writing process is integral to the story because she is drawing together ideas which in other contexts are incompatible, “Iet[ting] difference surreptitiously replace conflict,” in Barthes’ words (Pleasure 15), to the point where she will “unsettle the reader’s historical, cultural, psychological assumptions, the consistency of his tastes... ” (14). We can see these forces at work in Hamidah’s engagement of Shakespeare: she begins with a gesture inviting him into her narrative: “It so happened that that afternoon I was reading a book by the English poet Shakespeare who was explaining what one could do to make a young man and woman fall in love... ” (65). She will then recreate a scene from “Midsummer Night’s Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 188] === 181 Dream,” a picnic in a glade on Bangka, embellished with the scent of ripe durian and the promise of blackened (extremely ripe) mangoes just about to fall from the branches. She then moves into a Shakespearean ethos as she stops to philosophize about her taking of pleasure in a world imbued with suffering: Is it possible that this world can bring such pleasures to humankind? If the answer is ‘yes,’ than how can there be people who say: ‘Why is it that this world brings me no joy? There is no happiness... ’ Ya, there are many reasons why we set out on the road of suffering, those reasons that we bring on ourselves, and those that befall us. Are there not a great variety of forms of suffering? As for me, I believe that the world is full of pleasure and happiness, but not lacking in the antithesis of these as well. Happiness is available for those who don’t allow opportunities to grasp it pass them by, and for those who have been chosen by God to receive it. From this perspective, it would be hard to believe that there are those who, for their whole lives, are never visited by joy (KM 67)39 Having transformed the peripheral space of Mentok, so recently bound by the conservative adat, into a Shakespearean glade, Hamidah takes on a Shakespearean ethos, expressing her belief that human beings have the potential to shape their own destinies by seizing moments of happiness. This during the period of her life when her “star was shining brightly” with success as a young, independent woman working in service to her community. However, in accordance with the untung/malang structure, she quickly shifts from the one mode to the other, so that moments later, she gestures toward another discursive approach to the meaning of life. As her chosen, Idrus, plays the “music of longing” on his violin there in the glade, music that “slices through the heart,” Hamidah’s thoughts shift away from the possibilities of happiness to its temporality, and the cruel indifference of the passage of 39 Sebenamjakah dunia ini memberi kenikmatan bagi manusia? Dapatkah tiap-tiap orang turut mengetjapnja? Kalau ‘ja’ mengapakah ada orang jang berkata: ‘Apakah sebabnja maka aku tak pemah merasa kesenangan didunia ini?’ Memang, tak adakah kesenangan itu? Ataukah sengadja untungku jang malang?" Ja...boleh djadi banjak sebab-sebab jang membawa kita kedjalan sengsara, baik oleh karena perbuatan kita sendiri, maupun sebab hal-hal Iain jang menimpa kita. Bukankah banjak matjam dan ragamnja jang boleh dikatakan kesengsaraan itu? Begitu sendiri, aku pertjaja, bahwa dunia ini penuh dengan kesenangan, kegembiraan, tetapi tak jurang pula kebalikannja. Kesenangan itu tersedia bagi orang jang tak membiarkan kesempatan untuk mengetjapnja ialu sadja dan mereka jang memang sudah ditetapkan oleh Tuhan untuk mendapatnja. Tetapi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 189] === 182 time, which “pays no heed to the tears and the lamentations” of those who want things to return to the way they were: Each new change that comes, while it might please those who have truly awaited it, means nothing to those who only experience the world’s limitations. Suddenly catching my eye were the plants and flowers that grew so robustly along the banks of the stream A question arose in my heart: Can they be everlasting, these adornments of the stream that so please the eyes of the beholder? What will become of them when the rains flow down, brutally flooding the river? Will they not be wiped away? Of course they will! But after they are all destroyed, they will just as quickly return again, perhaps even more beautifully than before. Time is truly cruel, but yet compassionate and loving. [It] destroys the old, but that which is destroyed is always replaced, yet different the next time around. Time! Time! You come and you go (KM 69, author’s ellipses).40 The final line of this soliloquy is so formulaic that it is difficult to translate precisely and poetically at the same time: “Kehidupan manusia mesti takluk kepadamu," (the lives of human beings bow down/submit to you). However, the rest of the contemplation is not a stream of formulas, but rather Hamidah’s interaction with a philosophical concept, conveyed as if she is speaking directly to the audience with the melancholy music playing in the background. If we were to classify these two philosophical perspectives, they would appear to be mutually exclusive, the first a contemplation of human will to happiness, of personal choice, the second, a surrender to the cyclical movement of time in nature, allegorized through a story of the annual flooding of the stream. Hamidah is not interested in locating conflict, however, in her heroic contemplation of the meaning of life and love. Later, she will gesture toward Kartini, in her quest for meaning. Alienated from her brother and his family because of what she considers their narrow-mindedness, she will sit dalam pada itu, tak mungkin rasanja ada orang jang seumur hidupnja tak pemah didjeiangi oleh kesukaan. Terkenang aku akan hai diriku sendiri. 40 Tiap-tiap perubahan baru jang datang, menjenangkan kepada jang memang menunggu pertukaran itu, tak berarti bagi mereka jang merasa dunia ini sudah sempit untuk dirinja. Terlihat olehku tumbuh-tumbuhkan dan bunga-bungaan jang tumbuh ditepi anak air dengan segamja Terbit pula suatu pertanjaan dihatiku: ‘Akan kekalkah ia mendjadi perhiasan bagi anak air ini, penjedapkan pemandangan bagi si pelihat? Bagaimanakah halnja nanti manakala hudjan deras datang menimpa, membandjirkan air sungai dengan bengisnja? Tidak binasakah ia? Tentu sadja! Tetapi selekas itu ia punah, akan setjepat itu pula gantinja datang, oleh djadi pula lebih sempuma dari pada jang bermula. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 190] === 183 in her bedroom on Java with letters as her only means of communication and name this experience pingitan. In this space she finds solidarity with the encaged woman, speaks in her voice, “Liberate me, Idrus, Liberate me!” to an empty room. Here, she contemplates again the gendered meaning of kemerdekaan, freedom, realizing that, “Ya, for women, it is only marriage that brings them freedom. Freedom to work, freedom to think!” She continues: Fortunately my situation was different from the other girls in my region who, from the age of 12,... were stored away by their guardians between four walls... they were forced to wait until the moment at which a husband would be dropped down to them by God as their new traveling partner on the road of life which would bring them a bit of latitude (87).41 While Hamidah speaks in the critical voice of Kartini here, she adds another layer of meaning or counter-meaning to her discourse. Here, as elsewhere, Hamidah takes conventional words and phrases such as “kawan mendjalani djalan kehidupan baru” (new traveling partner on the road of life) and repeats them in a voice that is not quite satirical or ironical but rather, conveys enough suspicion to empty the words of their initial meaning. By adding the juxtapositional phrase kelonggaran sedikit (a bit of latitude) to the end of the sentence, she ensures that all that came before will be problematized. At times, this tendency takes her into the realm of the unspeakable, as when she writes, “untunglah tak lama kemudian bapa mertuaku meninggal dunia” (fortunately my father-in-law died shortly thereafter) and for her mother-in-law: “Dengan kehendak Tuhan jang pengasih dan penjajang, meninggallah ibu mertuaku” (By the grace of our compassionate and loving God, my mother-in-law died and we were freed from all family ties”) (98-99). Through the text there is a constant struggle between the socially appropriate and approved and Sesungguhnja waktu itu bengis, tetapi pengiba dan penjajang djuga. Ia memusnahkan jang lama, tetapi jang dimusnahkannja selalu digantinja, meskipun sering berlainan. Waktu! Waktu! Engkau datang dan pergi. Kehidupan manusia mesti takluk kepadamu......... 41 Untung sadja haiku tak serupa dengan keadaan saudara-saudara dinegeri kelahiranku, jang dari umur dua belas tahun... disimpan oleh ahli masing-masing diantara empat dinding... Mereka terpaksa menunggu, sampai pada suatu ketika seorang suami diturunkan Tuhan untuk kawan mendjalani djalan kehidupan baru jang memberi kelonggaran sedikit. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 191] === 184 Hamidah’s own opinions and feelings, so that there is a constant underlying tension between language and meaning that occasionally erupts on to the surface. Ultimately, we can take nothing that Hamidah writes as totally sincere, but at the same time, this should not be misconstrued to mean that she is insincere or an unreliable narrator. Rather, once she has established the element of play in her use of schematic phrases and concepts, we can assume there is always the potential for the element of play. Hamidah brings this element of play into her discussion of her role and purpose as a writer, particularly in this second section of the novel in which she is in Kartini’s territory. In this section, she includes letters in full text as well as poetry, the authorship of which she ascribes to others, and takes a moment to offer the audience a short history of her own attempts to write poetry: "I had already tried repeatedly to write [poetry]. But, everyone I asked to read the poetry said the verses were trite, and did not have sukma. One from among these readers said: ‘The beauty of a poem does not depend upon the organization of the words therein. Choosing and organizing words is not so difficult, but infusing the poem with sukma, that is something everyone can do. Because of that, not everyone can become a poet.’ Because of that I thought to myself: ‘... It would be better to write a regular letter full of the words and feelings of my own heart. This would certainly be more direct’ (KM 79).42 Having published her poems in the Pudjangga Baru and working for the journal on an editorial basis, Fatimah was undoubtedly familiar with the philosophy of writing presented there, and comments upon it here. As Tiwon has explained, the Pudjangga Baru poets incorporated the notion of sukma into their discussion of poetry as a translation of the European Romantic idea of "inspiration, of nationalist sentiment, a way of making the old 42 Sudah atjap pula aku mentjoba membuat [gubahan]. Tetapi, setiap orang jang kuminta membatjanja mengatakan gubahanku itu hambar, tak bersukma. Salah seorang diantara mereka pemah mengatakan: ‘Kebagusan suatu gubahan, bukannja bergantung kepada susunan perkataannja sadja. Jang terutama ialah sukma jang terkandung didalamnja. Memilih dan menjusun perjataan tak seberapa sukar, tetapi memasukkan sukma kedalamnja, taklah dapat dilakukan oleh setiap orang. Oleh karena inilah tak segala orang dapat mendjadi penggubah.’ Sebab itu aku berpiidr sendiri: ‘Apa gunanja aku mengirimi dia gubahan jang tak tentu maksud dan sadjaknja. Lebih baik kutulis sadja surat biasa berisi perkataan dan perasaan hatiku sendiri. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 192] === 185 spirit “new.” It was also used as a vehicle through which to separate out the “truly original” from the “common,” the individual poet from the burgeoning age of mass production [Breaking the Spell 27.) Here, Hamidah gestures toward the Pudjangga Baru then goes on to reject what she poses as their elitist view of writing. She will not only address her audience with the “words and feelings of her heart” but undermine the hierarchy of taste further by associating her writing with that of the dime store romance novel so anathema to the “new pudjanggas:” In the past, when I read books that portrayed the situations of people who had been separated from their sweethearts, with proverbs like this, ‘To see you in the afternoon means to dream of you at night’ I condemned the writers of such books, because then I thought that such feelings weren’t realistic, it wouldn’t happen that way. There were no people like that. But after I was now feeling like what people call falling in love, I was forced, like it or not, to rescind my condemnation (KM Hamidah will not indulge distinctions between the literary and the popular, is unafraid to admit that her novel is woven from fragments of the romance novel as well as well as other forms. With this gesture, she locates herself among the audiences of those popular texts; speaking these words from pingitan, she is moreover of the collective, the kaum perempuan to whom she writes. Here, Fatimah prefigures the women’s novels of the 1970s, which, as Hardjono writes are “largely didactic, containing as they do a strong message for the men who created... conventions that demand different, and unequal, standards of behavior from men and women” in order to raise the consciousness of their fellow women. It is the home of these writers that be condemning those attitudes which isolate one woman from another and even put women at each other’s throats and by causing the woman reader to identify with and feel sympathy for the downtrodden heroine, they may encourage a strong bond of sisterhood among women to emerge (54). 43 Dahulu, apabila aku membatja buku jang menggambarkan keadaan orang jang ditinggalkan kekasihnja jang seperti kata perhibahasa, ‘Siang terlihat, malam termimpi-mimpi,’ aku tjela pengarang buku itu, sebab pada perasaanku ketika itu, hai itu tak mungkin, takkan boleh djadi. Masakan ada orang jang sedemikian. Tetapi setelah aku sekarang merasai bagaimana jang dikatakan djatuh tjinta itu, terpaksa aku mau tak mau menarik tjelaan itu kembali. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 193] === 186 The pleasure of the text is thus discovered through the awareness of the multiple discourses and narratives woven through, as the author eschews the modem illusion of seamlessness for the texture of hybridity. We have read in Kehilangan Mestika the rantau narrative, the activist narrative, the autobiographical narrative of self-celebration, the romance novel, the novel of complaint, we have heard the voices of Kartini and Noerbaja as well as Syamsulbahri and the hero of traditional stories with his many suitors; we have encountered Hamidah the daughter, the philosopher-heroine, the traveler, the love-sick woman in pingitan in need of rescue and the wealthy but defeated divorcee. The thread of the text is located in the voice of the storyteller who projects into the field of modem Indonesian literature an alternative subjectivity that is at once speaker and writer, craftswoman and artist, woman and hero, individual and of the collective, singular and plural. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 194] === 187 Chapter 4: The Task of the Translator in the Colonial and Nationalist Contexts: Suwarsih Djojopuspito's Buiten het Gareel and Manusia Bebas It is the task of the translator to release in his own language that pure language which is under the spell of another, to liberate the language imprisoned in a work in his recreation of that work. For the sake of language, he breaks through decayed barriers of his own language. -Walter Benjamin, ‘Task of the Translator” Translation as Survival in the Colonial/Nationalist Context Whereas Fatimah Hassan Delais inhabits Malay/Bahasa Indonesia as storyteller and writer, Suwarsih Djojopuspito’s writing is constituted by a self-consciousness of her position between spoken, written, and nationalist languages. An author whose fiction spans four decades (1930s-1970s) and three languages (Sundanese, Dutch, and Indonesian), Suwarsih performed the unusual feat of translating her autobiographical novel from the original regional language Sundanese to Dutch as Buiten het Gareel; in 1940, and finally to the national language of Indonesian as Manusia Bebas in 1975. Suwarsih thus presents a situation in which Walter Benjamin’s profound comments on the nature of translation and language, and the dialog they have generated, are substantiated in surprising ways. As Suwarsih explains in this work of autobiographical fiction, she originally wrote in Sundanese in response to Sukarno’s call for writers to compose in regional languages, but rewrote the work in Dutch to ensure that it would be published.1 She experiences a certain level of ambivalence in the choice of Dutch, which she considers “nothing but a foreign language,” and in which “the Indonesian ways of thinking” could not be fully expressed. To write in Dutch, was also to move consciously against the nationalist current in which Indonesians were intent upon “enriching” their own language and “contributing to 1 The original Sundanese version, she explains, was rejected by the Dutch Balai Pustaka publishing house both because of its “subversive” aspects and because of its use of a “low-level” or vernacular Sundanese that the Dutch considered to be “corrupted" (Manusia Bebas 251). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 195] === 188 their own body of literature” (BhG 13; MB 5). Dutch was, however, Suwarsih’s language of education and writing, while Sundanese was her language of speech; even her Sundanese prose was shaped, according to her Dutch readers, by a Dutch syntax and an excessive “modernity” (MB 280). Thus, writing itself was for this author an act of “intercultural translation” in which, to use Benjamin’s words, Suwarsih was constantly “expressing the central reciprocal relationship between languages” (75). As she moves from Sundanese into Dutch, she is not only working on the level of substituting one word or phrasing for another, but also as a mediator between much larger constructs: what it means to be modem, to be educated, multilingual, to be Javanese/Chinese/ Muslim/Indonesian, to be a colonial subject, and a woman, in various language, eras, and discourses. Indeed, for Suwarsih, these acts of intercultural and inter-linguistic translation were central to her survival as she was bom into an inter-ethnic, inter-linguistic household. Her father was a descendent from the Javanese Cirebon dynasty, while her mother was from a wealthy Chinese-Muslim family. She was raised in a small town near Bogor in the Sundanese area of Java. According to Termorshuizen, Suwarsih's father "was a gripping story-teller and dalang who used to give performances with his own puppets" (Termorshuizen 30). From these details alone it emerges that Suwarsih lived among at least three spoken languages as a child, to which would be added Dutch as a language of writing and erudition as well as “civilization.” Suwarsih entered the local Kartini School, established by the Dutch for "girls from the indigenous aristocracy" at the age of 6, where she studied, among other subjects, "proper Dutch and... Dutch table manners" as well as other "modem" habits such as regular and sleeping patterns. (31). The seemingly trivial issue of regular sleeping patterns suggests how such hybridity is not immediately a reason for celebration, but rather, as Radhakrishnan has written, hybridity as an excruciating act of self-production through multiple traces" (Radhakrishnan “Posteoloniality” 751) Dutch colonial notions of discipline were based on a work-day rather than the mystical path or Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 196] === 189 prayer schedule of Muslims whose religion required that they wake frequently during the night for prayer and ascetic activities. To thus leam of one's culture's inadequacies at the young age of six around such intimate issues as proper and improper sleeping patterns (not to mention table manners, another site of difference) would presumably create not only a deep rift between a child and her family, but a sense of destabilization, in which the body is separated from its surroundings. In this chapter I contend that Suwarsih’s response to these conditions is to become a translator, both literally and figuratively, creating connections between a variety of cultural and linguistic gaps. In this chapter I shall focus on Suwarsih’s second interlinguistic move, from Dutch into Indonesian, to examine how her act of translation offers insights into the relationship between language and translation’s "provisional way of coming to terms with [their] foreignness” (Benjamin 72). If, as Benjamin puts it, “The task of the translator consists in finding that intended effect upon language into which he is translating which also produces the echo of the original,” what are the implications for self-translation? As Suwarsih comes “home” to the national language, I will argue, we can see her finding the “echoes” lost in the original Sundanese, and reterritorializing her ideas, modes of expression, and intentions in the Indonesian context. To explain, I borrow the notions of de- and re-territorialization from Deleuze and Guattari (“What is a Minor Literature?”). Their question of: "How many people live today in a language that is not their own? Or no longer, or not y e t... " (61) speaks to the situation for Indonesian writers of the colonial period who “lived” in one or more (regional) languages, while reading and writing in Dutch, and urged to do all three in a third, the lingua franca through which nationalism would be articulated. Using Deleuze and Guattari’s terms in a slightly different way than originally intended, I will discuss the deterritorialization of the “sense” of Suwarsih’s experience of the nationalist movement into what has been called a sparse “strong” Dutch and its subsequent reterritorializing into an Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 197] === 190 Indonesian vernacular in her 1975 translation.2 Through a comparison of the two translations, it is possible to locate not only spaces in which precise equivalences between languages are impossible, but also the ways in which language shapes the sense/intention of the text through sound and context in such a way as to result in radically different meanings. The project is complicated by the fact that the text is autobiographical, to the extent that Suwarsih constructs herself as a subject in the space between languages where “intention” finds some space of “harmony” (Benjamin 79). Given the constraining aspects of the Indonesian language for articulating oneself as female, as elucidated in the previous chapters, Dutch offers for Suwarsih a certain latitude of expression, but the effect is only “temporary,” as Suwarsih herself notes (BhG 13; MB 5). It is in her return to Indonesian, that the original intention emerges, but these have already been mediated by the Dutch, and as such, flex the Indonesian. Lionnet’s comments on the notion of “autoethnography” and self-portraiture shed light on the complexitiy of Suwarsih’s movement between languages in the creation of autobiographical fiction. A self-portrait, she writes, invokes the ethnic reality in which it partakes but, in doing so, puts into question the mimetic principles of description and classification that inform its writing. It thus simultaneously demystifies the writing of both the self (auto) and the culture (ethno) because it involves the self and its cultural constructs in a dialog that transcends the possibility of reducing one to the others. As we shall see, Suwarsih’s sense of self is fully embedded in the context of the nationalist movement in W. Java of the 1930s, and she creates a sense of self through her 2 Deleuze and Guattari discuss argue that German is “deterritorialized” through Kafka’s infusion of the language with the orality of Yiddish. They employ the terms “deterritorialization” and “reterritorialization” on several levels, as they describe the “deterritorialization of the mouth, tongue, and teeth” in speech, and reterritoralizadon of sounds into the “sense” they produce in Kafka’s work (“What is a Minor Literature” 62). I am more interested in the relationship two languages have upon one another, particularly when, as in Kafka’s case, one is a spoken language and the other written. Where Deleuze and Guattari focus as well on the “deterritorialization” of German through Kafka’s infusion of Yiddish, I am arguing that it is not the Dutch language that is deterritorialized through Suwarsih’s incorporation of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 198] === 191 observations of others as objects of self-reflection. Cultural issues are magnified in this context, and Suwarsih’s self is constructed as well through the major ideologies flowing through the movement at that time: humanism, Marxism, feminism and nationalism itself. While Suwarsih contemplates her individuality in this milieu, it is one that is inseparable from this context so that we see a “demystification,” in Lionnet’s words of the relationship between the individual and her “culture.” I use quotes here around culture to stress the fact that it is not “Indonesian” culture about which Suwarsih writes but a far more rarified culture of the nationalist movement and furthermore, from the marginal perspective of the female which affords her a particularly keen space of observation. As an educated woman, the character who represents Suwarsih in the text is not wholly accepted among the men or their wives, and thus takes a mediating position from which she concentrates on the materiality of the movement, the details of interiors, clothing, personalities, and relationships through which she grounds the abstract concepts of nationalism and the other isms circulating through the movement in the realities of the time. Like her female colleagues Hamidah and Rukiah, Suwarsih creates a double through which she will engage in this act of self-portraiture; the character is named Sulastri and she, too, is a writer with only a little less of the author’s distance from her own material. As the main character and the narrator, Sulastri turns to writing as a strategy for avoiding disappearance and silence through marriage. The disappearance is not here into a specifically middle class or “bourgeois” marriage, but marriage itself, and, by association, the nation that required women to sacrifice themselves to become supportive partners to their activist husbands. Sulastri’s hardheadedness (keras kepala) seems to save her from this particular fate, but she is caught off-guard in the course of the text by what she describes in terms of a psychic illness-common in the Indonesian context-in which her spirit leaves her body leaving her with a sense of being broken, or fragmented: Sundanese and Indonesian but rather her own “sense” and “intention.” The difference between Kafka’s and Suwarsih’s situations involves power relations, which in the latter example are based in colonialism. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 199] === 192 By following her intellect, [she had] lost her soul...she was now a different Sulastri, who was not conscious of herself, a Sulastri who was vague, no longer real, without a clear shape...only a specter, just a shadow...and her speech an echo (Buiten het Gareel 135). Sulastri as a character is already removed in a circumspectful way, from the experience she is in the process of describing. At a critical point in the text, in the context of this psychic splitting described above, Sulastri voices the idea that writing allows her to engage what Ong has described as the separation of “the knower from the known” (Ong 114). But where Ong suggests that this separation will bring “objectivity,” for Suwarsih, it brings “subjectivity,” or the hope of a reintegrated sense of self. As Sulastri puts it: She who wanted to become one of the Indonesian women who fought for independence, who achieved independence, was actually [far too sentimental]. Why was it that she could not face her own memories with a calm and resolute heart, write them neatly on the page and, in so doing, conquer them once and for a ll... At [her sister-in-law’s] house, feeling weaker than she had ever felt in her life, she could not see herself with any kind of clarity. She had thought that she would be able to escape from her feelings of despair without honestly plunging herself into depths of her experiences... she would have to reunite with [her husband] Sudarmo again; and Bandung and all aspects of the daily hardships. That, in the end, was what she wanted to write down (BhG 242; MB 278).3 The novel is structured to emphasize the idea that Sulastri saves herself from this state of psychic illness through a splitting of self and soul through the act of writing. Suwarsih, like Fatimah Hassan Delais, creates a second self who is also a writer and through this doubling, is able to contemplate the meaning of being a woman writer and the act of writing 3 Zij, dia een van stijdbare vrouwen van Indonesie wilde zijn, di het toch ook was, ze orderen op papier en ze zodoende overwinnen, voordoed?... bij Lumi, zeker een van de zwakste momenten var haar leven, zag ze minder kiaar in zichself. Zi had gedacht dat ze haar moedeloosheid ontvluchen kon, zonder werkelijk tot de bodem van haar ervaring te zijn gegaan... [H]ad zij Soedarmo moeten terugvinden, en Bandoeng, en het dagelijks leven in zijn hardste aspecten. Dit was het laatste dat zij nog noteren wilde. Dia yang ingin mendjadi salah satu perempuan Indonesia, yang mampu betjuang, yang sebetulnya demikian juga; mengapa ia tak dapat melihat kenang-kenangannya dengan tenang dan ketabahan hati, menulisnya secara teratur diatas kertas dan dengan begitu mengalahkannya, untuk selama-lamanya... [D]i rumah Lurni, tentu saat yang paling lemah dalam kehidupannya, ia tak begitu jelas melihat dirinya dari keputus-asaannya itu, dengan tak menyelami pengalaman sampai dasamya dengan sungguh-sungguh... ia hams menemukan Sudarmo kembali; dan Bandung dan kehidupan sehari-hari dalam segi-segi yang amat kejam. Inilah yang terakhir, yang ia ingin catakan. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 200] === 193 itself. In the opening chapter, Sulastri determines to write her story and what follows is that writing. This first chapter tells of this fictionalized author’s difficulties in writing, translating, and publishing her text while the second chapter marks the beginning of the story, containing a description of the events that led to its composition and of the act of writing itself. The following characterization of Sulastri “living” the story which she is also in the process of writing, allows the author Suwarsih to work on two separate planes simultaneously as she witnesses her own life and at the same time, writes herself writing herself.4 The passages in which Sulastri addresses, in her final chapter, her need and desire to write are framed by her fears that her husband Sudarmo will see what she is writing and divided by an extended section of 4-5 pages in which her thoughts shift to realizations she has had about her husband’s “stupidity” and ignorance {ketololan in the Indonesian) in the world, and the notion that she has to suffer the consequences as his wife. These interruptions, read together with thoughts on her inability to understand her life with “clarity,” suggest that she is afraid of confronting certain truths about her situation: namely her marriage and what she has become as a wife. On one level then the text can be read as a long complaint about this tyrannical character who heaps abuse on his wife, protects his masculinity by refusing to allow her to work outside the home, yet complains that she in burjuis in her habits and requires extensive “self evaluation” in the Marxist tradition. On another level, the text’s content occurs as part of a broader questioning of how much may be revealed in the public space about the unhomeliness of nationalist households, not only for Sulastri but nearly all of the female characters therein, and a questioning of the relationship between these dynamics and those of the nationalist “family.” Sulastri will go 4 Suwarsih appears to have been influenced by the Dutch writer and editor of her work, Edgar du Perron who in his own autobiographical writing about his growing up as a Dutch boy in the region of Sunda, used what he called the “Bruland method, borrowed from the French writer Stendhal (Beekman 433). The method involved for de Perron the invention of a character through whom he would “understand what manner of man I have been” (433). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 201] === 194 on to write the text that she fears to start; it is ostensibly the text we are reading as the text completes itself in a cyclical fashion; she will thus gather the strength to both confront and reveal as a strategy for survival. In the passage, she characterizes the process of writing in an equally cyclical way as she situates the act of writing, not in an isolated space where distance of “knower from known” would typically be imagined, but rather within the context of daily life. She thus argues that understanding comes not from distance from the world but rather proximity, and her writing reflects this contention as she builds her stories through a reiterating of the minute details of spaces, interactions, gestures. What I would like to argue here is that, through a mixing of narrative and epistemological territories Suwarsih creates a hybrid text that reflects the complex terrain of the nationalist movement. The location of mixing or hybridity is in the use of vernacular in the novel, conversation, “women’s talk,” the interweaving of discourses of modernity, nationalism and feminism, allowing the tensions to emerge. By focusing upon the particulars of lifestyle and personality, she introduces the everyday materiality of her wing of the nationalist movement in 1930s Java into the realm of official discourses of historiography and national narrative. Read as both modem, realistic prose featuring an individual protagonist, and as a marginal and thus competing narrative of nationalism, her works revolve around that point of "incommensurability" that Homi Bhabha has articulated, in his critique of Anderson: he misses that profound ambivalence that [Walter] Benjamin places deep within the utterance of the narrative of modernity. Here, as the pedagogies of life and will contest the perplexed histories of the living people, their cultures of survival and resistance, Benjamin introduces a non-synchronous, incommensurable gap in the midst of storytelling. It is from this incommensurability in the midst of die everyday that the nation speaks its disjunctive narrative. From the margins of modernity, at the insurmountable extremes of storytelling, we encounter the question of cultural difference as the perplexity of living and writing the nation (Bhabha Location 161). Coming to the narrative of nation through the individual, she makes the opposite move from that described by Anderson, wherein the nation is imagined through the collective image of an anonymous "hero" situated within a "socioscape." As discussed previously, this configuration posits a void between discourses of nationalism (community) and of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 202] === 195 modernity (individual). In Manusia Bebas, however, it is possible to read the nation as imagined between the individual and community, and between the various language and cultural systems in which a variety of characters operate, characters who circulate around, and are viewed by, the narrator. It is through this interpretation of individual interactions on the ground level, where vernaculars collide and/or rub up against one another, that the "disjunctive narrative" of nation is revealed. For some critics, the strategy fails, the familiarity through which Suwarsih approaches her subject matter becomes “school-girlish."5 While the majority of critics have been impressed by the Dutch novel, the familiarity of the Indonesian translation has caused other critics to argue that the text is “weakened” by the author’s use of a “ 1970s vernacular” which makes it “smell of pop.”6 It has been suggested as well that Suwarsih’s success was based entirely on collaboration with the Dutch.7 For my purposes, these criticisms are 5 See Eko Endarmoko’s “’Empat Serangkai’ Suwarsih Djojopuspito: Mempertanyakan Arti Emansipasi.” Horizon 20: 1 (1986):13-19; A.R.’s “Empat Serangkai” Siasat 25 (June, 1958) n.p.; H.B. Jassin’s “Soewarsih Djojopoespito: Pengarang ‘Manusia Merdeka’ (Buiten het Gareel)” manuscript (June 2, 1968); and Teeuw’s discussion in Modem Indonesian Literature Vol. 1,212. Others find the Dutch to contain a strength that the Indonesian lacks, perhaps the “foreignness” of the Dutch masks the familiarity of the text for Indonesian readers. 6 Conversation with Eko Endarmoko, July 1998. 7 The comments of the Sumatran writer Hamka, presented in the introduction to one of Suwarsih’s later books Riwayat Nabi Mohammad (The Life of the Prophet Mohammad) illustrate the ways in which a woman writer associated with “the West” is doubly suspect. Here he is explaining why he ignored the manuscript for the text for an extended period of time before editing it for publication: Because she was a woman with a Western education, I thought, surely she has only consulted western sources about the Life of the Prophet Muhammad. Even though I had heard her name mentioned quite a long time ago as a woman who had a great proclivity for literature, [I also knew that] she had gained recognition for one particular work written in a foreign language. I was apprehensive; if the resources for the book only came from western books, the influence of western writers would, to a greater of lesser degree, enter into [her] thoughts as she wrote. And if the work was circulated around, she would receive vociferous criticism from the Muslim community. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 203] === 196 interesting for the insight they offer into perceptions of the Indonesian language as inadequate and “weak,” in contrast to the strong and expressive Dutch. A connection emerges between the language used to describe Indonesian and women’s writing, also located on the negative pole of the opposition as trivial and immature. We may transcend these oppositions when we compare the texts with an interest in the deterritorializing and reterritorializing of the author’s voice and intention as the text is translated and retranslated. Throughout this chapter I will be considering the implications of these interlinguistic movements on the articulation of the female and the construction of subjectivity in autobiographical fiction. Let me introduce the process here with a brief comparison of the openings to the Dutch and Indonesian versions of the novel to demonstrate how what might be considered weakness is rather a poeticizing of discourse previously shaped in the economical Dutch idiom and to argue that there is in fact much more going on in the movement between languages. The Dutch opening to the novel is as follows: Het was een voldongen feit, dat haar manuscript was teruggestuurd. De hoop of de uitgave ervan, de gedachte haar werk in een vaste vorm gegoten te zein, had haar gedurende twee voile jaren vastgehouden. (It was already an established fact that her manuscript had been rejected. The hope that it would be published, the thought that her work would be cast into a fixed form, had sustained her these past two years.) In the Indonesian, this opening was translated in such a way as to take advantage of internal signification and complementarity of intonation: Sudah nyata baginya sekarang bahwa naskahnya telah dikembalikan. Harapan bahwa naskahnya itu akan diterbitkannya dan dengan demikian menjadi bentuk yang nyata pula, telah menjadi buah pikirannya dan mengekang dirinya selama dua tahun ini. Hamka assumes that Western education has “contaminated” Suwarsih’s religious views, and intimates that her “proclivity” in “a foreign language” has made her lose respect for the knowledge produced in the Islamic context His tone is at the same time laden with other disconcerting implications, which appear disingenuous at best considering that this is an introduction to her work. Perhaps he was unaware of her other writings in Indonesian, including an essay on Kartini, but why refuse to mention the title of her novel, and suggest that she was a great writer “long ago?” See “ Introduction” to Suwarsih Djojopuspito, Riwayat Hidup Nabi Muhammad S.A.W. (Jakarta: Timun Mas), 1956. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 204] === 197 Reading the two passages aloud, one notices another difference on the level of musicality. The Dutch progresses with a rhythm of punctuating p's and d's as well as guttural g's, while the repetition of nya in the Indonesian makes the language flow, and at the same time, points to the relationship between the suffix “nya” and the word “nyata.” “Nya’s” connotation of the possessive: naskahnya (“her manuscript”); nyata baginya (“clear to her”); buah pikirannya (lit: the fruit of her thoughts) megekang dirinya (lit: hold oneself back in restraint) directs attention toward the writer and the fact that she is writing about herself in the third person. Difficult to capture in the English, “nyata” can mean what is clear, evident, tangible, real, obvious; here, it is used in a parallel fashion to emphasize the contrast between the tangibility of the rejection of her manuscript and the intangibility of her story which, without publication, is without its own shape. Between the use of the sound and the abstract thought, points of connection are set up between the precarious state of the writer, the character, and her text’s becoming, in terms of what is fully shaped or formed so as to be “known in reality.” A very literal translation might be as follows: It was already tangible to her that her manuscript had been rejected. The hope that her manuscript would be published, and in so doing obtain a shape that was likewise tangible, had become the fruit of her thoughts and a source of self-restraint for the past two years. The Dutch utilizes a “stronger” voice, as exemplified in such phrases as "cast into a fixed form." In comparison, the possessive aspect of “nya” can be associated with a passive voice: “it was made clear to her,” rather than “it was an established fact” The metonymic possibilities created through the use of sound and texture are added where they had previously been suspended in the Dutch to provide a sense of “strength” through economy and agency. The linearity of the Dutch (the thought that her work would be cast into a fixed form, had sustained her) can be contrasted to the circularity of the Indonesian, in which "the hope... that had become the fruit of her thoughts” was that which helped her to be self-restrained, i.e., to continue hoping rather than giving up. It is the materiality of the Indonesian language, in which “thoughts” are articulated as “fruits” or more generally as “things” that allows these connections to be explored. The abstraction in Indonesian relies Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 205] === 198 upon the presence of concrete markers or counters through which, paradoxically, layers of meaning are constructed that are not apparent in the "stronger," more economical Dutch. Clearly, Suwarsih could have made some different choices. Her use of nya as a repetitive sound, signifying an urge to re-poeticize, can be seen as her own Indonesian voice being brought to bear on previous experiences. My point here, which will be revisited throughout this chapter, is that it is not possible to argue that Suwarsih wrote in one language, then translated her text in the conventional sense in which one finds equivalences from one language to the next. The notions that Dutch syntax is heard in the Sundanese, that Suwarsih’s language is “strengthened” in Dutch, or that her Indonesian is tainted by a “smell of pop” speak not only to the ways in which languages move around inside one another, but also to the mechanisms of hearing and registering aspects of language in terms of purity and authority. In the following discussion of Suwarsih’s articulation of subjectivity between languages, I will examine further the alterations of meaning that occur between Dutch and Indonesian as the author addresses such issues as rationalism and superstition, education of the rakyat or masses, individualism and collectivity, male and female. Countering the idea that the Dutch version is definitive and the Indonesian a weak substitute, I suggest that each language served its purpose in its own time for Suwarsih’s construction of a discursive self. The “strength” of the Dutch represents both the power of the anti-colonialist and the individual attempting to give her story a “tangible shape” that is separate from her self, while the Indonesian version “brings home” much of the meaning that was exoticized through its decontextualization and thus made unrecognizable. Narrating the Human and Discursive Landscape of Nationalism In the autobiographical novel Buiten het Gareel, Suwarsih depicts a young woman’s coming of age and to writing through her association with the socialist subsection of the nationalist movement whose members identified themselves as the “intellectual Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 206] === 199 proletariat.” Sulastri, the main character is drawn in this third person narrative as a young teacher who marries a man 10 years older who is a teacher in the “wild schools” movement of the 1930s, an off-shoot of Ki Hadjar Dewantoro’s Taman Sisw a8 Suwarsih was one of four girls, along with her sister, to move on from the Kartini school to an advanced level of education at the M.U.L.0 school in Bogor. In 1928, at the age of 16, she moved to Surabaya (Java) for three years to attend the European Teacher Training College, one of only two Indonesian students in a class of thirty. Termorshuizen documents, through readings of Suwarsih's memoirs and conversations with the author in the early 1970s, the author's simultaneous sense of alienation and growing nationalism that developed through her Dutch education experience. The perception that she was racially inferior led her to excel, while at the same time it influenced her to join the Nationalist movement Jong Java (Young Javanese) and later to become a teacher like her older sister Suwami Pringgodigdo, the leader of Isteri Sedar of the 1930s, as discussed in chapter 2. Suwarsih began teaching at a nationalist school in Jakarta (then known as Batavia) in 1931, where she met and eventually married Soegoendo Djojopuspito. Seven years older than Suwarsih, Soegoendo had been working in the "wild schools" movement since 1928, after leaving Law School. His education for the most part mirrors hers in the fact that it was also entirely in Dutch schools, although presumably he did not study "needlepoint and cleanliness" in the all-boys schools. Soegoendo also had the added experience in the political arena as a member of the Youth Congress in which the Sumpah Pemuda or declaration of nationalism was first introduced. In this fictional representation, he is portrayed as his wife’s teacher” in issues regarding nationalist politics and ideology. The wild schools movement is populated in Suwarsih’s text by young ideologues who left their posts in Dutch government schools to create a nationalist educational system that would be conducted in Indonesian and reflect the values of nationalists influenced by 8 For more information on the Taman Siswa, see chapter 2. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 207] === 200 socialism; teachers from a variety of backgrounds joined together to set up schools in villages for the children of the rakyat, masses or peasantry. Shortly after Sulastri’s marriage to her husband Sudarmo, and movement to the fringes of Bandung, a city in the Sundanese area of West Java, the movement is declared illegal by the Dutch colonial government and its participants are forced to go underground. As a dutiful wife, Sulastri follows her husband from city to city as he attempts to start up new schools after the previous ones fail due both to colonial interference and to Sudarmo’s lack of leadership abilities. Eventually, Sudarmo’s right to teach is revoked by the government after an ex associate turns him in, and the couple’s increasing poverty and lack of prospects causes the decline of their marital relationship. Like the characters in the novel, Suwarsih followed Soegoendo's nomadic lifestyle as they attempted to stay one step ahead of Dutch crackdowns on nationalists and non-government schools. As teachers, they moved to Bandung (1932-1934), to Bogor (1934-1937), Semarang, (1937-1938), back to Bandung (1938-1940), to Jakarta (1940-1942) and then to Yogyakarta, where they finally settled. During this period, Suwarsih also taught temporarily in Purwakarta (1932), and temporarily separated from her husband again to stay in Yogya in around 1936-7.9 The term borrowed from European socialist discourse was “proletar intelektuil” or “intellectual proletariat” which offered the kind of mediating space inhabited by Sudarmo and his male compatriots, who were inspired by a sense of nationalism to move out of a string of different “centers,” beyond Indonesian colonial “society” to villages and/or urban kampungs, and beyond the Dutch educational/propaganda system, to teach village/underclass children, and produce newspapers and other media. Sulastri’s passage through this landscape constitutes a narrative of “unlearning,” of what was then decried as “bourgeois” values, as well as the sense of inferiority and 9 See G. Termorshuizen, (manuscript) "Episoden uit het Leven van Soewarsih Djojopoespito, Schrijfeter van "Buiten het Gareel," verteld door Tonny Pringodigdo," p. 3. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 208] === 201 Otherness encountered in the Dutch educational system. While the difficulties of “unlearning” the colonial mindset has been explicated in post-colonial criticism and fiction, here, it is the difficulties of inhabiting indeterminate space between epistemologies, ideologies, languages that are conveyed through Sulastri’s constant movement and homelessness. As a writer, Suwarsih makes the most of that space by, using-as does Hamidah-the array of narrative tools available to her to construct herself in that landscape. In her text she employs a mixture of narrative styles, each of which signals an ideological trend in the nationalist context. I will focus on five such styles here, one culled from the Malay tradition of story telling, another from the Romantic movement, the third, the Marxist dialectic, which coincides with a Malay trope of the lahir-batin, and finally, in the following section, discourses particular to women. My objective is to show how Suwarsih gives us not only a glimpse into the 1930s “wild schools” and nationalist movements, but also to portray the complex of ideologies that circulated during the period. Several of the chapters open or close with finely crafted scenes of natural surroundings including the following paragraph which appears at the opening to Chapter 11: Time marched on. The trees had replaced their leaves, and everywhere the sensation that the blossoms/leaves brought new life to the stems, as the first rains fell. The grass was fresh, tender in its delicateness, and coated with a dusty film, when the sun heated the earth. Here the rays of the sun brushed the sprouts of grass embedded in the moist soil, where new life propels the shoots up and out from the earth's matrix, where is carried to fruition the seeds of growth from which emanates all that characterizes life itself < m b ikuo The chapter introduces a forthcoming birth in language that is fairly schematic in terms of the Malay oral tradition. I will comment further on the passage in a later chapter, but would like to point out here how such passages bring the audience into the text, according to 10 Waktu betjalan terus. Pohon telah berganti daun dan di mana-mana terasa mekamya hidup barn pada ranting-ranting waktu hujan pertama turun. Rumput segar, lembut dalam kehalusannya dan diselaputi wama keabu-abuan, jika matahari membakar bumi. Di sini cahaya matahari meiintasi pucuk-pucuk rumput, tertancap pada tanah yang basah, di mana hidup bam menimbulkan putik-putik ke luar dari pusat bumi, yang mengandung benih pertumbuhan dari segala sifat yang hidup. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 209] === 202 Tiwon with sweet language that “softens” their hearts so that they can accept what will be offered to them in the way of advice or, in Benjamin’s words, “counsel” (Tiwon Breaking the Spell 49-52). Although Suwarsih’s text is not shaped like a text of the court-based hikayat genre, she does exhibit a tendency to begin and end her chapters with the kinds of openings and closings of the court-based hikayat, which reach to a higher level, as if she, like a courtly poet, is mediating between the cosmological and material worlds. Here we are reminded of the contemporary Malay poet Muhammad Haji Salleh’s description of the “traditional author,” who sees himself against the background of the spiritual, social, court and literary environment and tradition. It is only in the interaction with all these aspects of his life that his meaning as an artist and his work as literature may achieve significance at all (“The Mind of the Prologue” 39).11 While this aspect of the text is subverted by Suwarsih’s realism and naturalism, it functions as a narrative stream throughout, particularly at moments of transcendental importance, such as the character’s birth of her first child. Suwarsih turns to the Romantic tradition when she is reaching toward a human universality, as when Sudarmo is arrested by the military police for breaking the “Wild Schools Ordinance” that prohibited the organization and running of non-governmental schools in the 1930s. As the Dutch officers enter her home, the perspective moves from a domestic scene of Sulastri making the bed, to the officers' pulling each book off the shelf looking for something incriminating-their lingering over a book containing the word "heroes" {pahlawan fhelden) in the title exemplifies their ignorance-to Sudarmo's snide commentary, as a reaction to the essence of fear hanging in the room, to Sulastri’s sense of defilement, linked metonymically to an officer’s fingering of her diary and his "undressing" 11 Mohammed Haji Salleh goes on to discuss the importance of openings and closures in Malay hikayat, pointing out that The ritual of the invocationai praise to “God, the prophets, Muhammad and the specific powers that directly influence a person...is a statement of recognition for one's superiors...and one's ancestors, because for the Malays, places and times are always shared and there are always others, human or superhuman, more powerful than oneself.” Muhammad Haji Salleh notes as well that this kind of ritual is not found only in literature, but in most “beginnings” taking place in daily life. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 210] === 203 of her body with his slow-moving glance. As Sudarmo is carted off in the dokar (horsedrawn carriage, the collectivity of this personal experience is drawn through a narrative movement between metonymy to metaphor During the whole experience, she kept feeling that there was an emptiness surrounding her, as if the heavens had been raised up, and everything was expanding, expanding so much, that she was suddenly too smail and without strength. TTiey were not the only ones, she knew, who were undergoing these searches and seizures. All over Java, at that moment, there would be many who were complying, with their mouths tightly set, just like Sudarmo had, amazed that they were now criminals, while maintaining their conviction that there had to be a different kind of justice than that which the police had applied (MB 129; BhG 116).12 The imagery of the sky or heavens suddenly "rising up" and Sulastri’s surroundings expanding around her functions here as metaphorical language through which continuities between the individual and a “universality” constructed here as national identity within a larger scope of “justice” linked to humanism. Sudarmo’s “tight lips” ground the metaphor from expanding too much. Here, Sulastri’s sense of disempowerment is abstracted as a sense of “smallness” in a rapidly expanding horizon. In the Romantic pattern, human emotion and the “human condition” is narrated through metaphoric substitution of similarly shaped natural elements. The sense of economic and spiritual doom that began to pervade the movement in the 1930s (also known as the time of “malaise” in historical parlance) is described by the appearance of a hawk (burtmg elang) which "drops its shadow on the hot grass" in a garden in which 12 Ze bedwong haar nervoiteit, ging kalm aan haar werk en had ondertussen voortdurend het geovel, dat er een leegte was om haar heen, asloof de hemel hoger was gestegen en alles ruim weid, te ruitn, en zij te neitig en onmachtig. Het was niet bik hen alleen, wist ze, dal zulke hiiszoekingen plaats hadden; over hheel Jaca, op[ dit zelfde moment, moesten er mensen zijn die stil meegingen, precis als daammet Soedarmo, verbaasd dat ze plotselinf misdadigers waren geworden en toch overtuigd dat er een ander recht moest zijn dan dat zich hierr door de politie liet gelden (BhG 116). Selama itu ia selalu mempunyai perasaan, bahwa ada kekosongan di sekitamya, bagaikan langit meninggi, dan semua menjadi luas, terlalu luas, dan dia terlalu kecil tak berdaya. Bukan pada merelea saja, ia tahu, diadakan penggeledahan-penggeledahan. Di selunih Java, pada saat ini, tentunya ada orang-orang ikut serta dengan mulut tertutup rapat, persis seperti Sudarmo tadi, tercengang, bahwa mereka telah menjadi penjahat dan biar begitu mempunyai keyakinan, bahwa ada keadilan lain daripada apa yang dijalankan oleh polisi tadi (MB 129). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 211] === 204 the characters are assembled. Indonesia, or perhaps Java, has become the "hot, dry garden," which is "as if dead and desolate," made infertile through its own dysfunction-inter-party rivalries, envy, the will to power-which, in its infertility, has become vulnerable to looming birds of prey. Suwarsih has located herself in this section firmly in the realm of the symbol which, as Eagleton puts it, was thought to “fuse together motion and stillness, turbulent content and organic form, mind and world” to create a sense of a truth “perceived by direct intuition” rather than critical analysis (Literary Theory 22). For the most part, Suwarsih moves away from the symbolic and toward a kind of writing that reflects her belief in the Marxist dialectic in which the abstract is merely a mediating function between the concrete, that “combination of many determinations” that we originally grasp at the “starting point of observation and conception” and what we ultimately “reproduce in our minds” (Marx 352). Or, as Jameson puts it, a selfconsciousness regarding how “raw material” will be shaped in the materiality of the text on the level of the shape of the sentences themselves (Jameson 53). And in such a way, in Eagleton’s terms, to make the link between sense perception and the constitutive structure of human practice (Eagleton, Ideology 199). On the margins of the male realm, yet with a higher education than the majority of nationalist wives, Sulastri’s position in the nationalist landscape the author draws is one of the observer. With both attention to particulars regarding interiors, furniture and clothing, gestures, habits, attitudes, and dialog in which the characters negotiate their class diversity and various ideologies, Suwarsih presents a view of this landscape that focuses on incommensurabilities. In one passage, she presents a breakdown of wages for a group of wild-school teachers and the discussion that surrounds the numbers: According to the adopted standards: each person receives 25 [guilders]. For each year of study beyond the level of Mulo, they will receive f 5,- more. For each child, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 212] === 205 an extra 2,50, and for a wife, 7,50. So that mas Prawira will get 25 + (7 x 2,50) + 7,50 = f 50,- guilders. The highest wage will be f 50-. (MB 34).13 The passage is interesting historically as it lays out, in material terms, the wild school gender structure in which a wife is worth three children. But it is the discussion surrounding this passage that indicates the gaps between the socialist ideology of the movement and its praxis. While Sudarmo contends that he will deal with the wage issue in a “perfectly democratic” manner, one of the teachers complains that “it’s not fair if one person has to suffer for the behavior of others who are not so responsible.” The characters grumble about supporting the Prawira family of seven children and remain highly attuned each others’ financial and class status as resentments build among the group. In Suwarsih’s depiction, these resentments ultimately overshadow the group’s educational purposes, causing children to seek other schools and leading to the group’s demise. Blame is placed on Sudarmo who the other teachers refer to as a “dictator” and a pokrol bambu, a “bush” or unqualified lawyer (the term is used in both the Dutch and Indonesian). Sudarmo, in turn, works to quell any kind of opposition in his so-called “democratic” experiment. In Suwarsih’s realist “insider” depiction, then, the aura of the socialist and democratic ideology succumbs to the material and human particulars. In Buiten het Gareel we also gain an inside view of the ideal “nationalist” marriage between two educated and committed “partners.” Sudarmo’s arrogance blinds him to his shortcomings, which he instead projects on to his wife, accusing her of being “bourgeois” and “egotistical” while she is saddled with the household work and caring for their newborn child while following him from one failed enterprise to the next. Living in poverty, on the edge of various cities, Sulastri is forced to face those “bourgeois” desires, 13 “Sebagai norma kita mengambil: semua orang dapat f 25,-. Setahun belajar sesudah Mulo akan diberi f 5,- lebih. Untuk satu anak diberikan f 2,50 dan untuk isteri f, 7,50. Sehingga mas Prawira mendapat f 25 + (7 x f 2,50)+ f 7,50 = f 50,-. Gaji tertinggi adalah f 50-. Apakah disebut tidak adil, bila orang, yang mempunyai keluarga terbesar, mendapat lebih banyak dari seorang bujangan?” See Ruth McVey, “Taman Siswa and the Indonesian National Awakening” Indonesia 4 (October 1967): 128-149, for a discussion of the standards on wage distribution in the tanum siswa, as delineated by Ki Hadjar Dewantoro. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 213] === 206 frequently commented upon by her husband, while at the same time, discovering that Sudarmo’s progressive politics do not extend into the space of the home. As the author of the story, Sulastri/Suwarsih is intent upon clarifying issues and dismantling distortions through a close examination of human interactions and meaning as it occurs within these interactions. She examines the nature of oppression of the female through her detailed examination of political framework as played out on the individual level, as when Sudarmo feels “hurt” and “insulted” when Sulastri “follows her own desires” because, “according to adatistiadat and culture, a woman was placed at a lower position than a man, even though in theory he had a modem understanding about equality and women’s freedom (kemerdekaan)" (MB 47). Later, she offers a definition for the word burjuis as it was understood in her community during the 1930s: “The word bourgeois is one that contains many meanings, including arrogance, disrespect for others’ feelings, egoism, vanity/self importance, and so on” (MB 54; BhG 53).14 That none of these synonyms deal specifically with class status may be a result of the fact that those using the term were themselves from an emergent educated elite; distinctions would be made on the basis of behavior and attitude rather than class background. Suwarsih delves into the contradictions of the period rather than glossing them in order to explicate the ways in which Sulastri, as an idealistic female who felt she was sacrificing herself for the nation, became entrapped within them. Through her use of the Marxist dialectic, Suwarsih locates a connection between that dialectic and a local epistemology that I will identify through the trope of the lahir-batin (matter/body- spirit, soul, or inner essence) and wadah-isi (container-contained) relationships that emphasizes the interrelatedness of perceived opposites. Florida locates this trope, in “traditional” poetic discourse, describing the ways in which poets would 14 In Indonesian, the list is as follows: kesombongan, tak mengindahkan perasaan orang lain, egoisme, keangkuhan diri. In the Dutch: trotsheid, harteloosheid, egoisme, verwaandheid. Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 214] === 207 contemplate the “nature of man (body and soul)” by “pos[ing] questions that concern the relationship between, and the paradoxical organic unity of, apparent binary opposites” between, for example “inside and outside, body and soul, asceticism and activism, ritual practice and enlightenment, death and life” and “God and man” (Writing the Past 260). In modem literature, discussion of the relationship of the lahir and batin frequently occurs, mainly to characterize people’s emotional states. In the second chapter I discussed an example in Sutan Takdir Alisyahbana’s Lctyar Terkembang, in which the main character experiences a splitting of the two and a subsequent mild despondency and confusion. What I am interested in here is somewhat different, it concerns the introduction, in modem texts, of the interrelatedness between perceived opposites that the lahir-batin trope conjures as a response to the Dutch colonial vision of modernity and the modem subject. This occurs in the Polemik Kebudayaan when Adinegoro questions the use of the “dualistisch” and the “polar gesteld' (Dutch: dualism and constitution of polarities) and, using Dutch terminology, argues for a different configuration of the problem: We cannot differentiate between gees (Dutch: geest, spirit) and stof (Dutch: matter), rather, sto f is gees as the eggshell and the contents of the egg are one (Polemik, 83). In a mixture of languages and concepts, which includes the Indonesian term ibarat, signaling the coming of a metaphor, he argues that the brain or mind is to civilization what the emotions are to culture. In the oral style, he piles on examples to clarify; using metonymic figuration he argues that the two are inseparable like the kulit (the ’surface’ in this context, the ‘hardness’ of the wood’) and its pokok (‘purpose’ or ‘meaning’), skillfully shifting the debate so that the “geest” and “stof’ are made to function within the terms of the lahir-batin or wadah-isi configurations. He goes on to argue that “a rambutan cannot become a mango” and “a duckling cannot become a chick,” to suggest that Indonesia will not produce a “Kant” However, just as fruits are of the same category, so are Ki Hadjar Dewantoro and Goethe, men who are but different containers for the same fundamental essence or inner spirit. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 215] === 208 Suwarsih explores this connection between the Marxist dialectic and lahir-batin trope in her depiction of a meeting of a Kiinkel or discussion group,15 in which one of the participants presents a treatise on subject/object relations. His “translation” of the principle is as follows: ‘N ow... regarding the role of a person as subject and at the same time as object, I will explain with an example: If a person eats too much candy, he/she will develop a stomach ache’ (BhG 186; MB 214).16 This mode of translating abstract concepts into localized particulars recalls that Adinegoro; here as well, Suwarsih moves the discussion from the abstract to the concrete. She then illustrates how this mode can lead to misinterpretation, the wife of the kurtkel speaker asks: “Wouldn’t it be the teeth, rather than the stomach, which is affected by too much sugar?’ While materiality is key to the lahir-batin trope, literal interpretations will not necessarily lead to more insight. Rather, it is in the space between the thing and the idea, the container and contained that meaning is found. Suwarsih demonstrates this concept by offering an example of subject-object relations in the course of the story through which she conveys her own complex meaning: the questioner is berated by her husband for her ignorance and scurries off to the bedroom like a “little mouse.” The discussion shifts to joking to alleviate the tension, but the vision of the mouse-wife lingers, and through it, the multiplydetermined nature of subject-object relations is revealed. Through her example of the mouse-wife, publicly berated by her husband, Suwarsih points out that Indonesians who translated a Marxist dialectic into an understanding of the relations between the colonizer 15 The nature of these kunkel or discussion groups is described by Suwarsih’s sister, Suwami Pringgodigdo, in her essay on the influence of Edgar du Perron in Indonesian intellectual circles of the 1930s. Suwamih Pringgodigdo, “In Memorium: Edgar du Perron,” Pudjangga Baroe 13:1-2 (July 1951): 29-35. 16 ‘Kijk... Dit subject- en tegelijk object-zijn kan ik misschien verduidelijken door een voorbeeld... AIs je bijvoorbeeld te veei suikertjes hebt gegeten dan krijg je buikpijn.' ‘Begini... Tentang peranan orang sebagai subyek dan bersama it sebagai obyck, aku dapat menerangkan lebih jelas dengan satu perumpamaan... Jika orang terlalu banyak makan gula-gula, dia akan sakit perut’ Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 216] === 209 and colonized did not see themselves reproducing those relations on the intimate level of the nation/household. Suwarsih presents this irony through the character of Sudarmo, his talk about the rakyat, in which he struggles to avoid that abstractive logic, and his sense of his wife as a “woman” with all of its inscribed meanings and to whom he has assigned a soul. In his world, even the term “bourgeois” becomes an abstraction, a set of characteristics rather than a consuming class. As a writer who considers herself an intellectual as well, Suwarsih must struggle constantly against the forces of abstraction and thus of objectification, much like the Marx’s workers who are abstracted “with neither needs nor senses” (Eagleton, Ideology 200). She does so first by positioning herself, as Sulastri, as the Other to Sudarmo’s master subjectivity, his “heroism.” Suwarsih utilizes the lahir-batin trope as a counter-text to Sudarmo’s division of the world into rigid categories, thus presenting to the reader a different dialectic, between Eurocentric and localized epistemologies. Du Perron remarked in his preface to Buiten het Gareel that the novel appears to feature Sudarmo, rather than Sulastri, as its “hero” or what I would call its subject (BhG 8). This observation is helpful in understanding how Suwarsih creates Sulastri as an alternative to the kind of subjectivity Sudarmo constructs for himself. Sudarmo is drawn as a man who maintains a sense of self by ordering the world in such oppositions as that between adatistiadat (local law based on spiritual beliefs) and intelektuilisme, between the rational and superstitious, male and female roles, artistry and sentiment, enlightenment and ignorance. His frequent criticisms of his wife’s “bourgeois” habits are juxtaposed against the paradox he embodies: 111 tell you straight out, between myself and the rakyat there is a wall, maybe because of the adatistiadat and perhaps also because of my intelektuilisme. I actually mean well. But they’re afraid of me. And when I try to get close to them, they become suspicious. If I’m friendly toward them they lose their self-restraint and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 217] === 210 forget all about how they’re supposed to behave, and don’t want to hear what I have to say.” (BhG 84-5; MB 90).17 While Sulastri responds to these remarks by calling Sudarmo “arrogant,” the passage itself points to the basis of Sudarmo’s subjectivity through his adoption of the Dutch colonial ethos. In the Dutch, the division between adatistiadat and intelektuilisme is articulated as one between “traditie” (tradition) and “intectualisme,” tradition being a general term that functions as the opposition to modernity. Through the replacement of the Dutch traditie with the Indonesian adatistiadat, the opposition is territorialized within an Indonesian epistemology. We have seen this conflation of adat and “tradition” elsewhere, in the work of Sutan Takdir Alisyahbana, and the sense of “tradition” that Sudarmo projects is similar. However, in Suwarsih’s rendering, she focuses on the complexities that occur in the space in which traditie and adatistiadat meet conceptually and in language. Sudarmo, firstly, exhibits a confusion of ideological desires. His comments reveal that he believes his educated position, or perhaps his upbringing-about which we are told little-affords him a superiority. He contrasts himself to his comrade Supardi who feels himself “of one soul” with the rakyat; understanding their suffering, feeling their pain; Sudarmo goes on to say, “When he cries at seeing skinny little children who thrust out their hands asking for rice, I know his tears are real” (89). But Sudarmo is not simply an elitist. He embodies many of the more complicated contradictions of the nationalist discourse. As a member of the “intellectual proletariat,” he is in a position to express disdain for all things bourgeois and aristocratic-at one point he critiques the Javanese serimpi dance as reactionary-yet as a 17 Ik beken eerlijk, dat er tussen mij en het volk een muur staat, waarshihnlijk een gevolg van traditie of nog beter van mijn intellectualisme. En toch heb ik eerlijke bedoelingen. Maar ze schrikken voor me terug en als ik gemeenzaam word, wordenm ze wantrouwig. Ben ik joviall, dan weten ze zich niet meer te gedragen en willen nauwelijks naar me luisteren. Aku mengatakan dengan terns terang, bahwa antara aku dan rakyat ada sebuah dinding, mungkin karena adat istiadat atau lebih baik lagi karena intelektuilismeku. Tetapi aku betul-betul mempunyai maksud yang jujur. Akan tetapi mereka takut akan aku. Dan jika aku mencoba mendekati mereka, mereka menjadi curiga. Jika aku ramah-tamah, mereka tak dapat mengendalikan diri lupa akan sopan santum dan tak mau mendengarkan perkataan-perkataanku. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 218] === 211 rational modem man he cannot feel a sense of solidarity with a rakyat he sees as superstitious and ignorant. His anxieties around the rakyat are located, however, in his proximity to them as he understands the power of belief and is conscious of the role that these beliefs, ensconced in traditie or passed down through the generations as adatistiadat play in the oppression of the rakyat. He is thus suspicious of Sukarno’s gathering followers or what Sukarno referred to as “cantrik-cantrilc” (disciples), that left those like Sudarmo-who considered themselves modem and individualized-vulnerable to alienation from party-politics. His disdain for superstition, (tahyut) and belief in local spirits, is shown to be based on a fear of their potential for oppression: ‘I can’t abide by that playing with incense. Even if I’m aware of what is good for me and not good for others, there is still a danger and a problem of not taking responsibility for one's own actions. Things that frighten us and that shackle us to a condition of small-mindedness, have to be done away with. Imagine, if there is an old kiai (Muslim leader associated with mysticism) with ganderawo (malevolent spirits) who can overpower us and can scare people with ramalan (predictions) and kwalat. (curses) (MB 60; BhG 58).’18 Between Dutch and Indonesian, or more precisely, Javanese/Sundanese/ Indonesian, and the English through which I am discussing these issues, a reliance on particulars can result in the changing of meaning. As my own translations illustrate, the material intensity of such terms as kiai, ganderawo, ramalan and kwalat defies the possibility of locating precise equivalences in English. If I simply wrote “curses, religious leader, predictions,” for example, the terms would be decontextualized. However, when I keep them in italics, offering their closest referent in parenthesis, I emphasize their intranslatability, 18 ‘Ik viir mij haat dat wierookgedoe. En al zou ik nog zo bewust zijn, van wat goed voor jezelf is en niet voor anderen, dan nog vind ik het gevaarlijk en niet te verantwoorden tegenover jezelf. Dingen, die ons bang en klein houden, moeten weggesmeten worden. Stel je voor, dat de oude kiahi met zijn gandroewo’s ons gevoel nog zou beheersen, en ons bang kunnen maken met zijn voorspellingen en kwalat ‘ (BhG 58). ‘Aku benci akan main-main dengan menyan itu. Dan biar pun aku menyadari apa yang baik bagi diriku dan tak baik bagi diri yang Iain, masuk saja ada bahayaanya dan tak dapat dipertanggungjawabkan terhadap diri sendiri. Barang yang menakutkan dan yang mengungkung klita dalam kekecilan jiwa, harus dihnang Bayangkanlah, jika seorang kiyayi tua dengan ganderewo-ganderewo nya dapat menguasai diri kita dan dapat menakut-nakutinyta dengan ramalan dan kwalat’ (MB 60). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 219] === 212 incommensurability, and essential otherness from the culture of English and academics. The same is the case in the Dutch, where Indonesian words that have no equivalence in Dutch are left in the Indonesian and italicized, with explanatory footnotes. Religious and mystical terms are accompanied in this way by terms that fall under the rubric of “local color;" this would include various kinds of foods and fruit, as well as the word "desa" (village) whose connotation, is inevitably altered when rendered as dorp. There is another category of Indonesian terms in the Dutch, those that are paired with Dutch words in bilingual compounds, in which Indonesian words are made to rub up against Dutch terms, as in kantjil-achug or kantjil-like (kantjil, referring to the mousedeer who, in local lore, makes up for his tiny size through his cleverness); panggung-huis (pole house); ngadjidreun (chanting of the Koran) and tjantrik-schap (taking on the role of the apprentice). The appearance of these compounds conveys a desire to create linkages on the level of the graphic and concrete, between Dutch and Indonesian articulation. The words of the first category, however, which include adzan (call to prayer), danyang, kuntjilanak (other types of spirits), and menyan (incense) refer to an epistemological difference which defies translation; the italics the reader of the presence of an exoticized/italicized Other that is incommensurable with the Dutch rational/Protestant discourse. This raises the possibilities of misinterpretation of what is proposed in the narrative itself. It is only in the Indonesian version, where the terms are "reterritorialized" into the flow of the narrative, that such terms are able to connote the original intention of the author, which was to demonstrate the ubiquity of what of we must term, for lack of better words, mystical and non-rational thought in the nationalist landscape, and the difficulties that rational nationalists like Sudarmo had with this notion. Suwarsih contrasts her character with Sudarmo’s suggesting that there is a different approach to take to the mixing of what for her involves the spiritual and rational worlds. As the author, she will break down the binaries by filling the void between them with meaning/materiality. What appeared first as oppositional is transformed into difference that encompasses a series of degrees. She will then offer her Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 220] === 213 own interpretation, based not on power issues but on the spiritual. She responds to Sudarmo with the following (unspoken) thoughts: “Ya, we are modem. But in our hearts, we still keep a space ready for burning incense (membakar menyan) at that moment when hopes seem to be lost” (60). Notably, her conceptualization of her views, which involves a kita or inclusive we that makes up the community of "modem individuals" of the nationalist movement is contrasted against Sudarmo’s sense of self as singular, suggesting that she believes hers is the majority view. At the same time, she speaks not in generalities but incorporates a metonymy-incense, to create a continuity between the idea and the practice of the spiritual. As she puts it, “incense makes one lose full consciousness, and makes one lose vitality. But for a leader, who has self-knowledge and self-awareness, it's probably a different matter.” Sulastri’s sense of the mystical as a path toward peace and Sudarmo’s sense of the non-rational as a means through which leaders oppress the masses clearly differ, and the point here is that within the rubric of the “tradition/modernity” binary there is a multiplicity of interpretations. Or, in the ideology of the lahir-batin trope, one cannot differentiate between the rational and the non-rational; it is their relationship, wherein each is contained in the other, that is of importance here. Narrating the Female in Liminal Space Suwarsih describes, in the Indonesian version of her novel, writing as a means of becoming “tangible,” of establishing oneself in the material world through the thing-ness of the book. In this approach to what I am calling subjectivity construction, the expression of becoming is rooted in the material world, or more specifically, the space in which the signifier meets the signified. With this aim, Suwarsih works on several levels simultaneously. Part of the process involves Suwarsih/Sulastri’s countering of the identity, or as the author puts it, the “soul” that her husband has “assigned to her” which she knows Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 221] === is “other than that she actually possessed” (BhG 46; MB 46).19 Suwarsih elucidates the nature of this alien soul throughout the text, contemplating its power not only in the intimate context of the marriage but the nationalist experience. Sudarmo’s accusations regarding his wife’s bourgeois attitudes, egotism and sentimentality form a containing horizon for the female who seeks more than a position as wife and silent partner. Surrendering to this notion, Sulastri consents to living in poverty and accepting hand-outs from friends and relatives to honor her husband’s sense of authority even though she is capable of supporting the family or at least contributing financially.20 Sulastri’s authorial aspirations are criticized within the same ideological framework, not only by her husband but her activist sister Marti (a fictional Suwarsih’s sister, Suwami Pringgodigdo, whose writings are discussed in the chapter 2) as well. It is in the relationship between the two sisters that we see the workings of the opposition between individuality and collectivity among women. The opposition is so pronounced that Sulastri does not appear to recognize that both women struggle under similar conditions, that is, under a “patriarchy” (274) that is characterized generally as male selfishness under the guise of traditionalism. However the text can be read meta-textually as a commentary on the choices that women were forced to make in their commitment to nationalism and feminism. The two sisters personify two approaches; for Sulastri, the key term is sacrifice, both to the idea of marriage and family and the nation. From beginning to end the author comments on the nature of the sacrifice, Sulastri gives up her government job as a teacher, 19 Sudarmo telah memberikan kepada Sulastri jiwa yang lain, lain dari pada kenyataanya. [Sudarmo] had Soelastri een andere ziel gegeven dan se in werkelijkheid had... 20 The example Suwarsih presents is not singular, but rather found in a number of texts, including Hamidah’s account of her experience as a wife as well as the biography of S. K. Trimurti, the prominent feminist and leftist writer and activist Hamidah, for example, describes giving up her job as a teacher to her husband, because he can make a larger salary (Hamidah 99). In Trimurti’s biography, this activist is described taking a jail term for something her husband wrote in criticism of the Dutch early in their marriage (Soebagijo 39). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 222] === 215 lives without household help or other niceties, she eventually sells most of her belongings and lives in impoverished and nomadic conditions to follow a set of ideals. Marti is far more practical and gathers the resources needed to further her feminist program, even if it means compromise by living a “bourgeois” existence or contradiction through her response to her husband’s infidelities. Through her characterization of Marti, the author considers the contrasting approaches to nationalism taken by members of her community, the educated elite in W. Java, first offering the following comment on Marti’s nervous sense of nationalism: “Why does Marti, this quintessential nationalist, consider life outside the safe path under government protection, so objectionable?” (MB 277). She goes on to make the distinction between Marti’s “safe” nationalism and her own sense of total commitment and sacrifice: Why are all of those involved in the nationalist struggle, who grope their way down the unknown path, tripping over rocks along the way, seen as crazy, and was it really the case that those nationalists who were resolute in their nationalist stance were brought down by curses? (277). Suwarsih places her character in a unique space in this terrain of nationalist struggle. She is characterized as a woman who believes more in the concept of sacrifice itself than what it is she is sacrificing for. Marti sees this weakness in Sulastri and attributes it in part to her sister’s not only disapproves of Sulastri’s sacrificing nature but also of her sister’s choice of reading material (novels/ “roman-roman”) and her sentimental nature, which leaks out into Sulastri’s poetry, about which she comments, ‘T oo sentimental, it’s just notes on your personal problems. This is of no use to anyone” (190). She suggests instead that her sister read “books that are useful to our women’s movement Or write an article for our journal” (MB 190). The fear here is that Sulastri will drift toward the realm of the imagination, the “solitary mind” as Eagleton puts it, associated with the literary in the Romantic tradition Cliterary Theory 21). Moreover, in the environment of urgency and immediacy, the introspective and analytical writer, alert to contradictions and hypocrisies, is not necessarily welcome. As the text suggests, in her interest in “the truth,” Suwarsih offers an insider glimpse into the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 223] === 216 nationalist households in which the ideology of both the feminist and nationalist movements breaks down. Marti, she opines, suffers from a “nervous condition” brought on by her attempts to ignore this contradiction by ignoring her husband’s actions, while Sulastri is intent upon confronting the “ugliness” as well as the “beauty” of her own life in writing. Still, the author thus must make the argument within her text that that the “memories” that Sulastri revisits in drawing together the fragments of her story have a greater purpose than a contemplation and artistic expression of the individual self. At the end of the novel she has enough of a sense of authorial distance to muse: Was it for Indonesia that she wrote? What was the efficacy of someone else’s memories even if it had all really happened, and even if people knew that it was all true and contained some sort of lessons within. She taught in the wild schools, Sudarmo taught in the wild schools. It wasn’t especially grand, or heroic, but still... (284). Ultimately, the “memories” that Suwarsih revisits in drawing together the fragments of her story show the impossibility, yet necessity for women of negotiating the complex terrain of nationalist and feminist discourses, discourses of sacrifice, compromise, efficacy and idealism. To narrate this story of the wild schools movement, Suwarsih employs a narrative constituted by “women’s discourse,” which here includes women’s talk and female perceptions drawn from intimate proximities out of a desire to, if not improve the conditions for women, as was Hamidah’s objective, at least to understand and clarify those conditions. Here again, as I will show, language plays a role. Suwarsih’s voice is liberated, I will argue, by her movement into Dutch, in which she is no longer constrained by the nationalist language of the feminine. However, as she deterritorializes the female, including herself, in Dutch, something is lost, only to be regained as she returns to the Indonesian and struggles to express the female in this language. It is my contention that the meaning she intends, in these contemplations of the female, exists in the space between the two languages, where, in Benjamin’s words, they find a harmony or relationship of supplementation that reveals the true “intentio” (79). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 224] === 217 With a few exceptions, the women who appear in the novel are not rendered as characters with deeply analyzed motivations and personas. Rather, they form a landscape in which Sulastri sees herself reflected in fragmented ways; through this process she gains a sense of her self as a woman and as an individual. Characterization-that is, apart from that of Sulastri and Sudarmo and a few others-occurs generally through dialog and through descriptions that are shaped by a person’s class status, political affiliation, and or other schematic modes of establishing identity. Through her depictions, Suwarsih suggests that there was not much in the way of introspection among the participants in her wing of the movement except when negatively defined as “egoism” or in terms of the ideologically based (Marxist) “self-criticism.”21 The contrast between Sulastri’s ongoing search for identity in the text and the depiction of other characters in schematic ways suggest that Suwarsih is embarking on new literary territory. The process is thus a difficult one, and Suwarsih documents the obstacles, one of which is that part of Sulastri’s nature as pecik and kecil h a ti, petty, and small minded. She also engages in romanticism and idealization, particularly of women who are not of the bourgeois class, or who defy categorization and thus pique the author’s artistic sensibilities. Her descriptions of a number of the women populating the landscape-nationalist wives-reveal the narrator’s, if not the author’s cattyness. Sulastri sees “her face in 10 years” in that of Ibu Prawira, a haggard, wrinkled woman with eight children (MB 31). Nyonya Saijan is an “hypermodem” woman in the Dutch version, who wears lipstick and make-up, who studies French and English and who moves with the “casual elegance” (Dutch: “losse e le g a n tie Indonesian: gaya bebas yang menggairahkan) of a film star while “making eyes” (flirten; main mata) at other women’s husbands, including Sulastri’s (BhG 100; MB 110). We are introduced to Mientje, the Indo woman whose green eyes make her 21 “Mawas diri” in Indonesian (MB 244) and in Dutch, “bezmning,” which has the more moderate meaning of gaining consciousness (BhG212). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 225] === 218 resemble a hex-maker/ practitioner of the dark arts (heks deden\tukang sihir) (BhG 102; MB 112). Suwarsih describes her body as one of a “decaying woman, with thick hips, a robust but curvy shape and a hobbling gait, as if her feet could not hold up her hips” (een vroeg vervallert vrouw, met dikke heupen, een forse maar gebogen gestalte en een strompelende gang, alsofde voeten de heupen niet konden dragen\ dengan pinggang besar, badan tinggi, tetapi agak bungkukdan gaya langkaknya tersentuh-sentuh, seperti kakinya tak dapat memikul pinggangnya yang besar itu). Sulastri goes on to describe the contradictory ways of her sister-in-law in Yogyakarta who, while a generous woman and a lecturer to women of the radical Marhaen political party about the “parasitic nature of upper class women,” is a “fish in a pond” among friends gossiping about the presence of the Governor at the latest Yogya party and the flower arrangements that were “special ordered from a Dutch garden” and “must have cost hundreds of rupiah” (MB 174). Sulastri describes Herwati as a woman who, before marriage, resembles “a small gray rat in an alleyway, who wanted to jump out into the big world, but was terrified of it” (MB 211). Later, she is transformed into a scampering mouse under her husband’s disdain. Farida is depicted as “seductive and lively in a nervous way,” (charmant, kwiek, nerveus; menggairahkan, lincah, agak gugup) and mollified when men don’t give her the attention she deserves (BhG 184; MB 212). These women have little solidarity; although they come together in moments of desperation, a typical interaction might be; “You’ve gotten so black, precisely the color of the healthy village woman” to which her interlocutor responds, “I love your outfit, but it looks like you’ve become quite thin” (255). Suwarsih does not spare her own character, Sulastri takes part in these miniature verbal battles with equal ferocity, and the author offers evidence on many occasions that her character imagines herself to be superior to these women because of her intellectual capacities. She is often ill at ease among the nationalist “sisters” and left wondering what the others think of her (MB 161). In such passages we see Suwarsih both revealing her own catty-ness and critiquing the general environment in which women interacted. At the same time, she appears to take Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 226] === 219 pleasure in drawing portraits of women. Through the mixing of languages I mean to show the nature of this pleasure, based in an unbounded verbal excess, and through which brings that excessive aspect of women’s discourse into the text. It is through these portraits of women that Suwarsih creates herself as writer/subject, deft with language through which she is able to reproduce the atmosphere and tenor of the world of nationalist wives of the 1930s. Her view of women is not wholly critical, but paradoxically, while she brings the same effusive quality to her depictions of women she admires, she meets the constraints of the nationalist discourse. As example is found in her description of Juhariah, a young woman, barely 18, who serves in Sukarno’s household as maid and help-mate to Sukarno’s wife (Zus Kamo) over whom she gushes praise. It is Juhariah’s character, more than her appearance, or rather, the synchronicity between the two, that attracts the author/narrator’s attention: [She had an] unassuming face and was unused to being noticed by others, if she was not busy working for the women’s movement, she would be going about, paying no attention to the rain or wind and with total commitment to Bung Kamo and his wife. She and her husband were the most intimate associates of Sukarno and stayed there in his house. Juhariah ran the household... She had a fresh sort of intelligence and a healthy perspective. She captured the attention of her audience as she was an unbelievably clever speaker and the movement of her hands made visible the spiritedness that burned in her chest. Besides that, she was agile with the pen, and her poetry was radiant, and captured the heart with its clarity and honesty. She was loyal, honest, and courageous, and besides that compassionate and able to forgive others’ faults (BhG 51-2; MB 52-3).22 22 Deze jonge vrouw van achttien jaar was zo bescheiden en pretentieloos, dat haar figuur onbelangrijk zou zijn, ware het niet, dat ze bizonder actief voor haar vrouwenvereniging werkte, door weer en wind ging en aan de Kamo’s met haar heie ziel verknocht was... Deze eenvoudige jongen met zijh gezonde, firisse intelligentie, waardoor hij geboeid de massa naar hem kon doen luisteren, beschikte over een virtuoos talent van spreken en vurige gebaren, bovendien hanteerde hij vaardig de pen en zijn sprankelende stijl boeide door de eenvoud en welgemeendheid van zijn woorden. Hij was trouw, eerlijk en dapper, daarbij bescheiden en grootmoedig. ... dengan wajah sederhana dan biasa takkan dianggap penting oleh orang lain, jika ia tak bekerja rajin untuk pergerakkan wanita, pergi ke mana-mana dengan tak mengindahkan hujan atau angin dan dengan sepenuh hati setia kepada Bung Kamo suami isteri... Anak muda ini mempunyai kecerdasan yang segar dan pandangan yang sehaL la dapat menarik pendengar-pendengamya karena ia mempunyai kepandaian berbicara yang luar biasa dan gerak tangannya menampakkan semangat berkobar dalam dadanya. Disamping itu ia menggunakan penanya dengan lancar dan caranya ia mendarang adalah cemerlang, dan memikat hati seseorang, karena sederhana dan jujur. Ia setia, jujur, dan berani, di samping itu, bersahaja dan dapat memaafkan kesalahan orang lain. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 227] === 220 In the Indonesian version of this passage, Suwarsih relies on a series of schematic words and phrases to describe her sense of the ideal nationalist female, that to which she herself aspires. The oft-used words simplicity, loyalty, honesty, intelligence, spiritedness, forgiveness (sederhana, setia, jujur kecerdasan, semangat, memaafkan kesalahan) are strung together in this appreciation in such a way as to sound like a nationalist speech. This is not surprising, for as I have shown here, Suwarsih believed in the spirit of total sacrifice to the nationalist cause. Like a religious adherent, she chides herself for not having the strength of character to sacrifice totally. In Juhariah, however, she finds a quality of natural participation that precludes Sulastri’s struggles with her “bourgeois” background and egoism. Suwarsih’s desire to produce prose portraits of nationalist women leads her to her ultimate challenge in the form of Zus Kamo, or the wife of nationalist leader Sukarno in the 1930s. This character is ideal for portraiture both because of her own excessive qualities and her illusory nature as a subject. Suwarsih is again assisted in this process as well by her movement between languages; it is a movement that frees “the pen” as she puts it, by creating a space in which language itself is not a constraint. As an object of study, Zus Kamo offers the opportunity to flex language in multiple directions; perhaps this is why Suwarsih is fascinated by her, as she is a character in whom history, class-consciousness, drama, and discursive possibilities intersect Because of its intricacies, Suwarsih’s portrait of Zus Kamo demonstrates most clearly how this character can only fully realized in the space I mentioned above between the languages through the twin processes of deterritorialization and reterritorialization. Before turning to Suwarsih’s awed response to Zus Kamo I would like to introduce this historical character via another text published in the 1980s, Ramadhan K.H.’s Kuantar Ke Gerbang. As it turns out, Inggit Ganarsih (“Zus Kamo”) inspired the creation of an alternative genre of autobiographical fiction in which Ramadhan relates Inggit’s story-after extensive interviews and research-in a manifestation of Inggit’s voice. He will in the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 228] === 221 course of his narrative reproduce, almost verbatim, Suwarsih’s description of Inggit Ganarsih and her own visit to the Sukarno household in the early 1930s, presented in Manusia Bebas, suggesting that this voice of Inggit is a montage that includes the perceptions of those viewing Inggit as well as her own observations about her experience. Ramadhan’s depiction can be viewed as an attempt to locate Inggit in the “grammar” of nationalism and modernity in order to rediscover a lost history. In his story, Sukarno and Inggit “fell passionately in love” while Sukarno was renting a room in her husband’s home. The nature of their love caused her (second) husband, described as wealthy businessman (orang kaya) to offer her to Sukarno and the nation, in this modem reenactment of a scene from courtly literature: “I am willing if you want to accept [Sukarno's] proposal... Let us make him into a powerful man (menjagokan dia) so that he can become someone important. Let us help him so he can truly become a leader of the people. Support him, help him so he can truly realize his aspirations” (40).23 In fact, Inggit’s story and that of her relationship with Sukarno intersects with a multitude of narratives circulating in Indonesia in past and present. Fifteen years Sukarno’s senior, she is presented as his Khatidjah (First wife of the Prophet Muhammad), selling jamu (herbal remedies) to support him in his studies, and his muse, likened to the uneducated wives of Rousseau, Goethe, and Heine. She is likewise a woman of the people, the muse behind Sukarno’s conceptualization of the Marhaen his version of the proletariat/peasantry also encapsulated in the term rakyav.'. In my heart I also knew [the situation of the Marhaen]. In fact I felt it was I who had always brought my husband closer to people like that. But I wasn't able to explain [their situation]. All I could say was that I loved people like this. When I was a child in my kampung, in the village of Kemasan, I was very close to these people. (63).24 23 Akang rido... kalau Euiis menerima lamaran Kusno itu dan kalian berdua nikah. Mari kita jagokan dia, sehingga benar-benar ia nanti menjadi orang pendng. Mari kita bantu dia sampai ia benar-benar menjadi pemimpin rakyat Dampingi dia, bantuiah dia, sampai ia benar-benar mencapai cita-citanya. 24 Dalam had aku pun mengenal orang-orang macam itu. Maiahan aku merasa justru aku yang selalu mendekatkan suamiku kepada orang-orang semacam itu. Tetapi aku ddak bisa menjelaskannya. Cuma Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 229] === 222 As her husband goes on to discuss these theories with his compatriots, Inggit “just moves around in the background” and “serves the guests.” The passage reveals the opposition posed, both regarding men and women, and between intellectual and rakyat, between what is termed the physis and the techne, the ability to experience and the ability to generate something of the experience, in this case, the political theory of Marhaenism from the experience of this rakyat woman. Though his representation of Inggit Ganarsih, the author validates the idea of the rakyat female as providing the essence, the material, or physis to be shaped by the nationalist leaders into a political ideology or techne, an aspect of nationalist ideology that will come under critical examination in the following chapter. Because we are hearing “Inggit’s voice,” it is as if this is her own interpretation of events; through her narrative, the female again “surrenders” her subjectivity. Read critically, however, her story aligns with Suwarsih’s in its study of the nature of the void between ideology and praxis. Images of prominent nationalists discussing theories of democracy and egalitarianism while being served by Inggit invite such a reading. Overall, little is made in the description of Inggit's life, of her own political background which included activities in the Sarekat Islam and with women's organizations. What does appear, however, suggests that there is a whole other story that remains to be told, as in this description of Inggit-as-dufcum... there were those who asked for my help because they had a sick person at home. I helped as much as I could. Could I be called a dukunl I don't think so. I just read out some verses from the Al-Quran that I had memorized... with my complete devotion. I brought my flask filled with water that I had placed before me while reading the verses. That's how it materialized (61).25 bisa mengatakan, cintailah orang-orang macam itu. Sewaktu aku masih di kampungku, di desa Kemasan aku mengenal orang-orang itu dari dekat sekali. 25... ada yang meminta tolong karena ada orang yang sakit di rumahnya. Aku menolongnya sebisa-bisanya. Apakah aku sudah disebut orang dukun? Aku tidak merasa begitu. Aku hanya membaca-baca beberapa ayat dari Al-Quran yang aku hafal di luar kepala, dengan kekhusyukanku. Aku berikan kendi yang berisi air yang tadi ada di depanku sewaktu aku membaca-baca itu. Demikian lahiriahnya. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 230] === 223 Ramadhan draws fragments like this together to provide the evidence for why she could "accompany [Sukarno] to the gate" as the title Kuantarke Gerbang [of in, dependence/the nation/the presidential palace?] but not pass through with him into the space of the nation, despite her “ideal” qualities-sacrifice, servitude, and her ability to play the roles of “mother, lover, and friend” to Sukarno simultaneously. Reading Ramadhan and Suwarsih’s texts together it becomes clear that, not only was she “too old” and from a “questionable lineage,” but her qualities of excess made her an impossibility within the “gates” of the nation. A comparison with the Indonesian points to some of the discursive traps that Indonesian sets up for possible representations of the female. This graphic is a representation of the Dutch and Indonesian passages placed side-by-side to provide insight into the economy of the Dutch versus the need, in Indonesian, to expand with greater detail on the particulars. The side-by-side English translations of the two passages that follow illustrate the incommensurability of languages, as two different “Zus Kamo’s” appear. Both can be said to illustrate the impossibility of language to contain the excess that this figure embodies. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 231] === 224 Deze zat op een brede, lage divan met een sigaret in de hand, di ze gracieus en coquet naar haar iippen bracht. Op de divan...sliep een jonge man met een deken tot aan zijn kin opgetrokken en om het hoofd een witte doek. Zijn handen die op zijn buik rustten, waren mager en knokig; de wangen en het voorhoofd bruin en goor... [Ze] glimlachte en zei met haar soepele stem, waardoor alle wendingan en golvingen van wat ze sei tot voile expressie kwamen:: “En liefje, vind je het prettig hier? En hoe bevalt je het huwelijksleven?” Ze sprak het “liefje” strelend uit en daarbij hield ze het hoofd opzij toch was er uiterste moederlijkheid en beminnelijkheid in haar fijne trekken, waarvan de laatste bekoring nog niet door de ouderdom was weggevaagd. De ovale vorm van het gezicht, de vloeiende lijnen van neus en kin en de voile wrong op haar slanke. nog voile hals, verleenden haar een jeugdigheid, die in tegenspraak was met de groeven hier en daar en de moede uitdrukking van haar ogen. Haar sierlijke, beweeglijke gestalle deed haar van verre op een jong meisje lijken. Ze was charmant in conversatie en omgang, een echte vrouw, die er een geluk in vond anderen vooral haar man genoegan te doen. Ze sprak verder op haar eigenaardige melodieuze manier met inachteneming van dictie en gebaren in een elegant Soendaas. dat denken deed aan het sierlkijke zweven van een danseres, en Soelastri luisterde er naar met bewondering voor de flair en de hoffelijkheid van deze fijne vrouw. ... De vragen werden om het praten alleen gesteid, en het scheen Soelastri toe dat het antwoord er geen rot bij speelde, alsof Zus Kamo door de elegantie van haar gebaren iedere herinnering wegwiste aan wat er gezegd was. Ze sprang van onderwerp op onderwerp, van huisholdelijke zaken op de vrouwenbeweging en het partijwerk van haar man, op vergaderingen en politieke strubbelingen, met een gemak alsof elk onderwerp het andere ten voile waard en was, haar woorden vergezellend wan het peinzend wegblazen van rookwolkjes uit mond en neus (BhG 49-50). [Zus Kamo] ini duduk di atas dipan Iebar dan rendah. Ia sedang memegang sebatang sigaret yang diangkat ke bibimya dengan gaya yang kenes dan menggairahkan. Di atas dipan...seorang anak muda sedang tidur. la berselimut sampai dagunya dan kepalanya diselubungi sehelai kain putih. Tangannya di atas perumya nampak kurus dan kehilatan tulangtulangnya; pipinya kehitam-hitaman dan agak kotor...[Zus Kamo] tersenyum dan dengan suaranya yang berirama, sehingga semua perkataannya mempunyai nada dan bentuk yang menggairahkan, ia berkata: “Bagaimanakah, sayang, apakah senang di sini? Dan bagaimana rasanya kehidupan seorang penganten baru?” Ia mengucapkan perkataan “sayang” itu dengan suara mengelus dan ia memandang Sulastri dari samping. Biar pun sekenes itu, nampak pada raut mukanya yang halus it kesan pada seorang ibu, yang penuh kasih sayang. Paras ini masih kelihatan cantik, walaupun Zus Kamo usianyua sudaja agak lanjut. Bentuk paras yang lonjong, rautan halus dari hidung ke dagu dan sanggul yang berisi pada lehemya yang masih kekar dan ramping memberikan kepada dia kesan seorang wanita muda biar pun agak bertentangan dengan garis-garis dan kemt-kemt di sana-sini dan pandangan matanya yang agak suram. Badan ramping dan gerak-geriknya yang hidup dari kejauhan memberi kesan, bahwa dia seorang gadis belaka. Ia menggairahkan dalam percakapannya dan caranya ia menghadapi seorang; seorang wanita, yang mencari kebahagiaan dalam menyenangkan orang lain dan apalagi suaminya. Selanjuntya ia bercakap dengan suara halus penuh irama dengan mengindahan tekanan pada kata-kata serta geralk tangannya dalam bahasa Sunda yang luwes. Bahasa Sundanya ini memberikan kesan pada gerakan seorang penari yang dengan gerak tangan halus melindas pada pandangan mata dan Sulastri mendengarkan dengan perasaan kagum: alangkah luwes dan halus perempuan cantik ini. Pertanyaan hanya dikatakan untuk bicara saja, dan dirasakannya oleh Sulastri bahwa jawabannya tak begitu penting, bagaikan dia dengan gerak tangannya menhapuskan kenang-kenangan pada apa yang diucapkannya, Zus Kamo bicara dari soal ini terus beralih ke hal lain, dari pekerjaan rumah tanggas ke pergerakan wanita dan pekerjaan partai dari suaminya, dari rapat-rapat ke kesukaran-kesukaran politik, semua itu dengan kelincahan seperti semua soal sama pentingnya, sambil meniup asap rokok dari hidung dan mulumya dengan pandangan agak ngelamun (MB 51). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 232] === 225 She sat on a broad, low-lying divan with a cigarette in her hand, which she gracefully and coquettishly brought to her lips. On the divan...s!ept a baby boy with a blanket pulled up to his chin and on his head a white cloth. His hand, which rested across his stomach, was thin and bony; his cheeks and forehead brown and dingy.... She smiled and with a supple voice, in which all turns and undulations would give full expressiveness to what she was about to say: “And, love, do you find it nice here? And how is the married life?” She said “love” as she cocked her head to one side, radiating a true and sure sense of motherliness and amicability in her exquisite attractiveness, of which the last bit of enchantment had not yet dissipated in her old age. The oval form of her face, the flowing lines of her nose and chin, and the full twist of hair at her slender but full neck conferred upon her. a youthfulness, that was in contradiction with the lines here and there and the sunken expression of her eyes. Her elegant and agile figure made her resemble a young miss. She was charming in conversation and social intercourse, a true woman for whom happiness is found in producing pleasure for others, especially her man. ... She talked on in her peculiarly melodious fashion with attention to diction and gesticulation in an elegant Sundanese. that made one think of the graceful glide of a dancer, and Sulastri listened with admiration for her flair and courteousness of this fine woman. ... The questions were drawn from all matters, and it seemed to Sulastri that the answers she gave rolled by effortlessly as if Zus Kamo through her elegant gesture waved away the memory of all that was said. She jumped from topic to topic, from household business to the women’s rights movement, and the party-work of her husband to meetings and political difficulties with an ease as if all the topics had the same weight, her words accompanied with the by the meditative blowing of little clouds of smoke from her mouth and nose. Zus Kamo was sitting on a wide, low divan. She was holding a cigarette that she brought to her lips with a [n affected] style both coquettish and alluring... On the divan... a young child was sleeping. It was covered by a blanket that reached up to its chin and his head was wrapped with a white cloth. Its hand on its stomach, looked thin and the bones could be seen; its cheeks were almost black and rather dirty... She smiled and in a rhythmic voice, as if all the words had a tone and shape meant to arouse, she said: “How are you, love, (sayang) do you like it here? And how does it feel to be a new bride?” She spoke the word “sayang” with a voice that caressed, as she peered at Sulastri from the side. As coquettish as she was. looking at her face so finely shaped made one imagine a mother overflowing with tenderness. Her complexion was still pretty, even though Zus Kamo’s age was already advanced. The oval form of her face, balanced by fine lines from her nose to her chin and the full hairbun at her still taut yet slender neck gave to [Sulastri] the impression of a young woman even though this was challenged by the lines and wrinkles here and there and the dull, sad look in her eyes. Her slender body and lively movements gave the impression from afar that she was still a young virgin. She created a sense of arousal with her language and the way she looked at a person; a woman who sought happiness by pleasing others and especially her husband. Throughout, she spoke in a soft, quite rhythmic voice, accentuating beautifully with words and gestures in a flowing Sundanese. Her Sundanese created the impression of a courtly dancer with refined gestures and precise glances, and Sulastri listened with a sense of amazement: how attractive and refined was this beautiful woman. ... Questions were only raised to make conversation, and Sulastri felt that her answers were not so important, as if Zus Kamo was, with her gestures, brushing away the memory of all that was said. Zus Kamo quickly shifted from one topic to the next, from household work to the women’s movement, and her husband’s party work, from meetings to political problems, all so smoothly as if each topic was of the same importance, as she blew smoke out of her nose and mouth with a contemplative gaze. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 233] === 226 Suwarsih, writing during Inggit’s finest hour as Sukarno’s partner /mother/servant-rather than in the wake of her disappearance from history-has an agenda that differs from Ramadhan’s. She will paint a portrait of this figure in words and through the portrait, contemplate her own position as nationalist wife and writer. Buiten het Gareel provides insight into the linguistic freedom that Suwarsih experienced in a language other than her own for exploring the dimensions of Zus Kamo’s femininity characterized by excess and exaggeration. In this description, the mythic female collides with the modem woman, she is seductive and absent, a maternal/virginal smoking princess/dancer in sordid surroundings, flanked by what seems at first like a dirty child but is actually a young man lying next to Zus Kamo on the divan, covered by a blanket. Suwarsih captures this figure and its impossibility through a string of metonymies: hand-cigarette-young man-neckhairtwist-voice-wrinkles-eyes-nose-mouth-smoke and similes: like a mother, like a dancer, like a virgin; the two are brought together by a mediating string of qualifiers: elegant, refined, languid, rhythmic, courteous, gliding, charming. In Dutch, as my translation shows, Zus Kamo is deterritorialized by language. In the series of juxtapositions, it is her universal feminine eccentricity that is emphasized, but she could be any woman, anywhere, so that she loses those qualities that Suwarsih find particularly revealing of the hybrid or multi-valent nature of the nationalist milieu. As Suwarsih reterritorializes Zus Kamo into Indonesian, abstractions in the Dutch are transformed into concrete details that locate Zus Kamo in a particular context. Diction and gesticulation, for example, are rearticulated in what Deleuze and Guattari refer to as “materially intense expression” (“What is a Minor Literature?” 61) as a rhythmic voice that “caresses” and is meant to “arouse” and in which each word is given a particular “tone and shape.” Zus Kamo’s “elegance” (elegcmtie) and charm (charmant) become that which arouses, stimulates desire (menggairahkan) as her gestures become those of a refined dancer of the Sundanese court, characterized by specific hand movements and most importantly, the action of the eyes in provocative glances. The language reflects this Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 234] === 227 context, as Suwarsih introduces a string of signifiers through which the ideal female is articulated: luwes, kenes, halus, cantik, ramping (fluid, flirtatious, refined, pretty, slender). In this context, a different set of juxtapositions occurs as Zus Kamo is characterized as an elderly (relatively speaking) courtly dancer who has become the wife/concubine of the leader of the nationalist movement. Here we have seen the ways in which the Dutch language frees up Suwarsih’s articulative processes in her portrayal of the unrivaled Zus Kamo and how, in reterritorializing this figure in Indonesian, she is forced to work in schemata through which Zus Kamo is drawn as a amalgamation of various schemata. In this description, Suwarsih comes up against the “containing horizon” of nationalist discourse; Zus Kamo is transported from the realm of universal eccentricity to a space defined by a confining aristocratic sensibility. The materiality of her description, however, keeps Zus Kamo from disappearing into the language, and from visibility as she did in nationalist discourse itself. Through her description of the interior of the Sukarno residence, Suwarsih emphasizes the fact that this courtliness is in a state of decomposition, and that Zus Kamo sits on the boundary between worlds characterized as modem and traditional, as aristocratic and of the people, and as an individual woman who exists in no known community of women. This vision of Zus Kamo emerges at the space between languages, where Sundanese has been deterritorialized into a vague, abstracted Dutch, and, in turn, reterritorialized into the national language of Indonesian. Suwarsih has had the opportunity to scrutinize this figure and her surroundings from the various vantages that different languages offer, and through her characterization, achieves a mimetic representation of the times in which no one language was sufficient for expressing a coalescence of ideas and themes. Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 235] === 228 The Loss and Discovery of Self Between Languages Whether pointed or petty, her characterizations of these wives functions to liberate the female from the typing of devoted wife/mother-to-be, prostitute/mistress, or dying victim. It is through the act of writing the female in the plural form, tracing the idiosyncrasies, contradictions, gestures and movements, behaviors and motivations, that Suwarsih ultimately writes herself. As I have argued throughout, we come to understand the Suwarsih/Sulastri character mainly through her characteristics as an observer of others critic, and writer. Sulastri, who is ostensibly the narrator of the text, describes herself as a shy, self-conscious woman who is trying to better herself, to become humble and less “small minded,” who is allowing her bourgeois pretensions and desires to be stripped away through a nearly blind commitment to the ideology of nationalist marriage and sacrifice. Or, as she describes it, to grow into a self from a “bourgeois seed” {yang dapat tumbuh dari benih “burjuis,” yang ada dalam dirinya) (MB 283). Occasionally, through dialog and action we learn that she is considered beautiful and is sought after by men other than her husband. Standing back from the text to examine the interplay between the Dutch and Indonesian versions, we get a glimpse of the writer struggling, through the act of translation, to find her place as a hybrid being as a Dutch-educated Indonesian nationalist female, among multiple and competing epistemologies. The moments in the text in which Sulastri suffers from an identity crisis and breakdown, and in which she turns to writing as her means of reconstituting herself as whole provide insights into the nature of this struggle.. The breakdown occurs as pressures brought on by financial difficulties as well as marital problems force Sulastri to leave Bandung and go to live with her sister-in-law, she finds herself traveling on a train with her infant daughter with a sense of uprootedness and alienation. She experiences a loss of self, a confusion of identity that she begins to describe in both Dutch and Indonesian as a loss of her soul due to excessive dependence on Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 236] === 229 her “intellect” or thinking.26 She continues to offer examples in Dutch and later in the Indonesian to articulate the sensation, and in the process, we can see her weaving the languages and their epistemologies together. I have put the two passages together here to. give a sense of the nuanced differences in meaning that occur across languages: She felt herself broken, both in body and spirit, her self broken down, as if she had risked everything on an impossible game of chance, so that now she was left impoverished, and timid in its wake, and her vital power seemed depleted. She felt her inner self and what contained it had split, she felt old, as if she had been defeated at gambling in which the stakes were too high, and was now poor and faint-hearted, and her physical strength now seemed as though used up/barren as well. Ze voelde zich gebroken, naar lichaam en geest, vervallen zelfs’ als had ze een te hoog kansspel gewaagd, zo bleef ze armlijk, kleinmodig achter, en haar levenskrachten schenen uitgeput. Ia merasa patah, lahir bathin, merasakan sudah tua, bagaixan ia telah kalah beijudi dengan taruhan terlalu tinggi, dan menjadi miskin serta hati kecil, dan tenaga bathinnya, rupa -rupannya telah tandus juga. In the Dutch, she describes a breaking apart of “body and spirit” (lichaam en geest) but as the Indonesian indicates, she has attempted to locate an equivalence, in Dutch, of the idea of the split of lahir and batin, the inner self and the container. She is not referring specifically to a split between a masculine “intellect" and feminine sense of “love” or kasih sayang as Sutan Takdir does in his depiction of the disoriented feminist Tuti, or between body and spirit in the Protestant sense, but something in between that cannot be articulated in either language. Working toward an understanding of that in-between space we can say first that women complain in Indonesian texts about husbands who are unfaithful and take second wives, but Sulastri’s problem cannot be expressed in these simple formulas. Where women have complained about men’s lack of morality from their own positions of moral 26 waar ze meende nu haar ziel achtergelaten to hebben^di mana dia menurut pikiran telah meninggalkan jiwanya Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 237] === 230 righteousness as loyal wives and mothers, Sulastri is concerned with a self that transcends those terms of identity. She is on one level disappointed in her marriage, the “high stakes gamble" that she lost, and the disappointment extends to the nationalist rhetoric itself; she has sacrificed herself as a loyal partner and is by now a mother as well for nothing but poverty and dependence on others. In other words, the loss of self is territorialized in the arena of Indonesian nationalism and feminism, but cannot be articulated in those terms. At the same time, when Suwarsih attempts to describe the nature and experience of her loss of identity, and thus to understand this identity in personal and individuated terms, she encounters a different constraint. What she is speaking of is not quite a split between “body and spirit,” and yet, the idea of lahir-batin is limited as well by its formulaic quality, particularly where the feminine essence is concerned. Suwarsih brings in the metaphor of barren, depleted land signified by the adjectives uitgeput and tandus, finding a connection to a feminine that, while socialized in terms of being domesticated and connected with the female body through the focus on fertility/infertility and production, is yet not restricted to the preinscribed female body. With this connection to the land, she is able to imagine her lost self in terms that transcend individuation and the individuated subject that have been negatively defined as the egotistical, the bourgeois. As Suwarsih goes on describing her loss of identity, she offers further examples that culminate in a space between the Dutch and Indonesian to show how deterritorialization of Indonesian concepts in the Dutch results in compelling poetic figures, while the reterritorialization of these concepts changes the concepts themselves: because Sulastri in Yogya was a different Sulastri, who was an unconscious, vague Sulastri, who was just a specter, she felt, a shadow and an echo. who was not conscious of herself, a Sulastri who was no longer real, vagpe, without a clear Shape like a wayang on the screen, and her speech was like the echo of a voice. een onbewuste, vage Sulastri, die was maar een schim, yang tak sadar akan dirinya, Sulastri yang remang-remang Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 238] === 231 voelde ze, een schaduw en een naklank (BhG 135). dan tak nyata bentuknya, hanya suatu bayangan, ia rasakannya seperti wayang di atas layar dan ucapannya seperti gema suara.) (MB 153). The images of the specter, the shadow, and the echo that offer, through mysterious lyricism, a sense of loss of attachment to the material world become wholly metaphoric. When reterritorialized in Indonesian, the shadow materializes in the context of the wayang (shadow play). In the Indonesian, the wayang grounds the shadow imagery in what might strike modem readers as a cliched, or at least overused figure in the Indonesian context, but it must be recalled that Suwarsih’s father was a dalang, (wayang puppeteer) and that she is thus not simplistically plucking the wayang image from a bank of metaphors. Rather, she is recalling a sensation-of hearing the disembodied voice of the dalang echoing from behind a screen in the night-that is also immediately associated with longing and melancholy. The image is thus loaded with the sensorial layerings to the same degree that the Dutch is stripped of materiality. The interaction between Dutch and Indonesian adds to the wayang metaphor a modem meaning of isolation and alienation which surpasses the sense of “longing” or “sadness” with which is it associated. Reading between texts we can see furthermore how, the separation of the shadow from its wayang referent functions a metonymy for Sulastri’s splitting, capturing the complexities of her situation as a woman who moves between languages and epistemologies herself, and finds no home in any of them. It is necessary for Suwarsih to explore the depths and dimensions of this process of splitting, between herself as a sign and as a referent, between languages, epistemologies, in order to shape herself along the contours of incommensurabilities and convergences. As mentioned previously, Buiten het Gareel is a circular text; its disconsolate ending, in which Sulastri decides to rejoin her husband in his new endeavor in Bogor, to live a life of poverty and uncertainty, constitutes her beginning as a writer. Like Fatimah Hassan Delais, Suwarsih employs writing as a means of avoiding the disappearance into rhetoric that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 239] === 232 Kartini experienced after her death, and uses the circular text to circumvent literal or figurative “death” in marriage that so many female characters experienced in modem Indonesian literature. Suwarsih takes on the added task of reconstituting the self that had been fragmented at the intersection of personal and historical circumstances that include a colonial education, marriage to a frustrated nationalist, the nationalist movement’s internal intrigues and oppression by the Dutch and her compatriot’s reactionary views toward women’s “freedom.” Through her translation of Buiten het Gareel into Indonesian, Suwarsih offers us a glimpse into the processes of constructing the self under conditions of hybridity, in which attention is focused on the possibilities and impossibilities of expression, and of the location of meaning in the interstices between languages and discourses. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 240] === 233 Chapter 5: The Post-National Female: S. Rukiah Kertapati’s Kedjatuhan dan Hati “...among the many selves that constitute one’* identity, there exists a relationship of unevenness and asymmetry since each of these selves stems from a history that is transcendent of individual intentionality.” (R. Radhakrishnan “Postcoloniality,” 764). As narrator she is narrated as well. And in a way she is already told, and what she herself is telling will not undo that somewhere else she is told. (Lyotard, quoted in Bhabha, 1990,301). Introduction: The Ambivalent Revolutionary S. Rukiah Kertapati uses autobiographical fiction to shock her readers out of any assumptions and expectations they might hold about gender, social conventions, and the national narratives of revolution and independence, and to blur boundaries between art, political ideology, and the self. To carry out this mission, she locates her 1950 novella Kedjatuhan dan Hati in one of the more controversial moments in modem Indonesian history, in which, in 1948-9, the nationalist movement in Java split into two factions. The main faction was led by nationalist leaders Sukarno and Hatta, who retreated with their troops to the Javanese city of Yogyakarta as part of a negotiation agreement with the Dutch. A variegated minority faction who dispersed into the mountains in guerrilla units-also known as the lashkar rakyat -advocated “non-alignment,” rejecting any agreements with the Dutch. Her narrator Susi is sympathetic with the latter group and joins them in an encampment at the “edge of the city,” allowing the author to humanize the lashkar forces who would, in the following years, be hunted down by the Dutch and demonized by what Susi refers to as the “Republican generals.” Meanwhile, the guerrilla encampment becomes, in Rukiah’s novella, a marginal narrative space from which the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 241] === 234 author moves into even more controversial territory, that of gender. Susi is portrayed as a young woman who enters the revolutionary space to avoid a middle class marriage arranged by her parents. Rukiah has her character enter that space in the guise of a malefemale creature who is able to engage in the debates of the period on politics, the arts, and the meaning of independence. In this space as well, Susi engages in acts considered immoral, perhaps even illegal:' she has premarital sex and is impregnated by a Communist. Back in civil society after the Communists have been rounded up and jailed, she commits the further transgression of falsifying the child’s paternity to make him appear as a nationalist of the emergent middle class. In her direct, first person voice, Susi recounts experiences in the encampment with no sense of shame. The aku (I) threatens the audience here in just the way that Gunawan Muhammad has described, that is, to upset the terms of the relationship between “speaker and the spoken to” (Muhammad 72). While Susi speaks directly to the reader, she refuses the readers’ sympathy, leaving the “spoken to” in an awkward position of having to make their own critical judgements, and that is precisely what the author intends, because with each judgement, they will have to consider their own evaluative processes. Susi does, however, consider deceit a sin and is driven almost mad by the new contradictory life she leads as a middle class, nationalist housewife, based as it is on a construct of lies. With this image, and through her refusal to resolve the many tensions she has raised in the text, Rukiah structures her story around ’ See S. Pompe’s “Between Crime and Custom: Extra-Marital Sex in Modern Indonesian Law,” Bijdragen 150: 1 (1994): 110-121. in which he discusses the fact that pre-marital sex was, and continues to be punishable by law in certain Indonesian courts. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 242] === 235 the radical revolutionary perspective that saw middle class nationalism as deceit and contended that the real (social) revolution had yet to be completed in Indonesia.2 Because of the many similarities between the author and narrator, which I will discuss in greater detail further below, it is easy to conflate the two, but, as we have seen other writers do, Susi is created as a woman who ultimately submits to social pressures of middle class marriage and filial piety so that her author may avoid them. There is, however, an important point of intersection between author and narrator which is central to my discussion throughout, which I would like to mention here in an introductory fashion. That is the experience of ambivalence in a time in which the world was constructed as a series of binary oppositions.5.” Bom in 1927, Rukiah came of age both as a woman and as a writer during the period of the Japanese occupation (1941-5), national revolution against the Dutch (1945-9), and fracturing of that revolution in its latter years (1948-9). This was a period in which ambivalence and neutrality were suspect, read as a sign of secret collaboration with the Japanese or Dutch, or for Communists during the revolution, called the “accomplice of [bourgeois] nationalism” (Gallop 57). In her work, Rukiah offers a mimetic representation of the times through her depiction of the world as divided into a series of binary oppositions. Of concern was not the old opposition between East and West, but rather, internal oppositions between middle class and radical 2 For more information on this period, see George Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1952) and Ann Swift, The Road to Madiun: The Indonesian Communist Uprising o f 1948. (Cornell Modem Indonesia Project, 1989). 1Her colleagues Pramoedya Ananta Toer and Ajip Rosidi called her “indecisive," and “naive” respectively. In an interview in July 1997, Pramoedya’s words were: “Dia tidak mau memutuskan sesuatu!” (He also noted that Rukiah was “our best woman writer” and “very beautiful.") Rosidi’s perspective comes from his experience in the early 1960s, when Rukiah invited him to a meeting of the LEKRA (People’s Cultural Organization) of which she was a member, not realizing that he would not be welcomed because of his ideological views (Interview with Ajip Rosidi, July 1997.) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 243] === 236 sensibilities, between the nationalist “political” revolution against the Dutch and the communist “social” revolution against class-based conventions and hierarchies. These oppositions led artists and writers of the period to establish their own distinctions between works that promoted the concerns of the individual and those that functioned as a tool of the revolution. Rukiah will add to this mix the opposition, revealed in the discourse of the women’s movement and women’s writing, between gendered meanings of merdeka (independence) and the male and female experience of revolution and the emergent nation. In this chapter I will demonstrate how Rukiah constructs herself, or her subjectivity, in the dangerously ambivalent in-between spaces in these binarial constructions. From her early poetry onward, she displays a distrust of writing’s mediating possibilities as embraced by Suwarsih Djojopuspito. With the opening line to her poem “The Light that Wants to Die,” (Tjahaja Mau Mati): “We do indeed stand between day and night,” and such titles as “Between two Perspectives” (“Antara Dua Gambaran), and in her consideration of the space between that of the “lone wolf’ and “herd of sheep” (Gallop 52-55) Rukiah systematically locates her narrative self in the undefined space between oppositions. As we shall see in the following reading of Kedjatuhan dan Hati, in order to create and expand this space for her individual self, Rukiah must intensify the severity of the oppositions she draws. We will see her using excess and even generalizations to augment this space of ambivalence. Her purpose is not, however, to dramatize and accentuate her own subjectivity/individuality. Rather, she will use this space of ambivalence as what Homi Bhabha has called an “intervention” to position herself as the questioner of the rhetorics of revolution, the nation, society, as Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 244] === 237 well as the rules of literature and the relationship between author and audience. Well before the postcolonial was invented, Rukiah was arguing, from what postcolonial critics have termed the “Third Space,” that, as Bhabha puts it, “the meaning and symbols of culture have no primordial unity or fixity, that even the same signs can be appropriated, translated, rehistoricized, read anew” (Location 37). The title Kedjatuhan dan Hati offers insight into Rukiah’s creative use of the binary opposition to both represent the impossibility of resolution and create openings for dialog and new perspectives. The flexibility of the Indonesian language figures strongly in this process as, as a poet, Rukiah makes the most of the multiple meanings contained in individual words, and the use of metonymy. The title is thus virtually untranslatable into English, because the multivalence of both terms kedjatuhan and hati offers a variety of readings. Let me begin with “H a t i the easier of the two terms, meaning “Heart.” Here, it functions as a metonymy for love/creation/procreation, based on the possibilities of constructing a new society based on different values which, for both romantic and practical reasons, are still based in the institutions of marriage and family. These meanings occur both in the text and in the binarial relationship between hati and kedjatuhan, which conveys the idea of a downfall, of the condition of being brought down, as in a society, the process of falling in a general sense, and the sense of being “befallen upon,” as when fate strikes. Previously, translators of the title have attempted to interpret kedjatuhan in accordance with interpretations of the text’s content-in which a woman commits adultery—as a Judeo-Christian “fall,” as in a fall from grace.4This 4See A. Teeuw, Modem Indonesian Literature and John McGlynn's translation in Reflections on Rebellion who offer the titles:, “The Fall and the Heart,” and “An Affair of the Heart” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 245] === 238 interpretation downplays the issue of the revolutionary destruction of society in the text, and the text’s own urge to precipitate a destruction of social mores through its use of revolutionary discourse. The notion of Fate is also left out. The multivalence of the term allows, rather, a conflation of meanings that includes the idea that the main character’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy was brought on by fate in a moment of revolutionary fervor in which it appeared as if all social structures would be destroyed. These conflated meanings of kedjatuhan are brought together in the landscape of the revolution, in which Rukiah’s male protagonist, a Communist, argues that true “liberation” from social mores includes “free [sexual] love.” As a woman, Rukiah’s narrator takes a more realistic and long term view, considering the consequences of the momentary act in post-revolutionary society. Here is where “heart” forms the binary to “downfall” and “fate” in a gendered construction: Rukiah illustrates that a male commitment to violent overthrow is binarially opposed to a female capacity for love that brings with it a sense of continuity and the future. When she introduces the out-of-wedlock pregnancy into the story of a young woman’s experience of the revolution, then, Rukiah problematizes the relationship between gender and revolution in multiple ways. The story might be read as evidence that young women are essentially vulnerable and weak and thus require protection from their own desires. For Rukiah, however, the pregnancy creates a contiguity between kedjatuhan, and what she elsewhere calls runtuhan (collapse)5and the future that radical revolutionaries could not consider. By including “love” through the metonymy of the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 246] === 239 heart in her oppositional frame, she is associating the female with a sense of the postrevolutionary future, in which life goes on no matter what the outcome. As we can see from this brief introduction into Rukiah’s methodology, she is constantly making double and contradictory moves, intensifying binaries so that she may then question them, but also using the trope of the binary to seek answers about her own motivations, her individuality. Within the work there is a constant juxtaposition and reversal between a will toward order and a desire for chaos, between the rational and the emotional, the male and the female, affirmation and denial, the personal and the political. The connection between “Third Space” and Third World cannot be overlooked here, as the original intention of creators of the latter, was to create the possibilities for non-alignment with the economic and political polarities of the Cold War to help nonaligned nations “articulate their agendas of growth and cultural decolonization in a world dominated by Cold War Rivalries” (Mohan 266).* Postcolonial critics with spatial and temporal distance from the exigencies of Cold War and/or religious politics have been able to theorize the position Rukiah takes in Kedjatuhan dan Hati and infuse it with credibility, even jouissance. As Radhakrishnan rightly reminds us, the conditions of postcoloniality, hybridity, the inhabitation of the “Third Space” should not be overly 5See Rukiah’s poem “Pahiawan” (Hero), in Tandus. In the poem, Rukiah rewrites an earlier work of Chairil Anwar entitled “Diponegoro,” by adding the word “runtuh” and thus the concept of destruction and collapse into Anwar’s inspirational revolutionary ode. * Mohan goes on to make some critical points that I have kept in mind throughout the writing of this dissertation: “The current loose usage of the term “Third World Literature” continues to carry some of this genealogical burden without its critical edge.” She blames “a legacy of area studies and development theories” for this depoliticization, which in turn, left the “Third World” as a vacuum to be filled up by the economic and political maneuvering of the first two worlds” and a chain of signifiers that include “underdevelopment, oppressive tradition, high illiteracy, rural and urban poverty, religious fanaticism, and over population” (Mohan 266). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 247] === 240 romanticized. Critics like Bhabha who speak of these conditions in terms of a jouissance, Radhakrishnan argues, may be guilty of overestimating what he calls a “metropolitan” hybridity- which emanates from outside the boundaries of the nation state-and thus erasing the postcoloniality experienced by those who remain within the nation state. The latter is more likely to be experienced as a series of “agbnizing dislocations” where one is forced to engage in an “excruciating act of self-production by and through multiple traces” (753). In Kedjatuhan dan Hati, we do indeed witness the author’s agony over her position as an intellectual, a woman, and Indonesian; one point her narrator of Kedjatuhan dan Hati asks: Why had I become an Indonesian who knew how to read foreign books... if we were unable to read all this foreign matter, we could be as ignorant as ducksellers who can’t understand... the lessons of democracy and all the recommendations presented in Latin phrases? (KH 165).7 The intellectual portrayed here can neither find the answers she seeks in “foreign books” nor abandon the search; she thus feels herself caught in an impossible bind of responsibility, as an intellectual, for the rakyat, and the futility of the speaking in useless slogans that incorporate the terms “democracy” and “rakyat” itself. Through her narrator, Rukiah is constantly alternating between empathy, materialist critique, and intellectual distance, as conveyed in this passage: I was embarrassed, because the suffering of our own neighbors and others in the area was at that time reaching its peak. No clothes, no food, no money, while the black marketeers, donning the skins of the soldiers who were fighting for our nation’s freedom, had all the power to squeeze the masses and straight out strip 7Mengapa aku didjadikan orang Indonesia jang mesti mengcrti membatja buktfasing, dimana bila tak bisa membatja segala jang asing ini, kita tetap setolol tukang bebek jang tak mau mengerti akan peladjaran Mansur dan Mus tentang demokrasi rakjat dan resep2jang diutjapkan dalam bahasa Latin? Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 248] === 241 them naked... It wasn’t the black marketeers who were at fault but the whole configuration of the revolution. Why should we wear ourselves out making a revolution, if the point is really just to strip the masses bare and accumulate w ealth?... The sad part was seeing the ignorant people of the kampung, who had gone off to fight. Their pants were basically just made of rubber patches. Ya, rubber patches, because all the cotton had been used up. (139).' Here, Rukiah is not merely describing the scene, but offering a critique of the distribution of resources during the revolution, in which only the wealthy and the soldiers were adequately dressed, and, furthermore, arguing that the soldiers’ uniforms have lost their revolutionary signification, and can now be donned by anyone needing a disguise or access to power. I am reminded here of Bhabha’s discussion of the performativity of the term “the people” in nationalist contexts, in which he contends that in this phrase, the “scraps, patches and rags of daily life” are “turned into signs of coherent national culture” (Location 143). Rukiah illustrates the opposite here, namely, that the scraps and patches of a once coherent national culture were transformed into commodities and vehicles to power during the revolution. This is not only a radical critique, but an expression of an agonizing loss of illusions about the nationalist project Later, this text would result in Rukiah’s being branded a “traitor” by a critique who likened reading Kedjatuhan dan Hati to the experience of such “being lined up and blown to bits” (H.B. Jassin, “Jiwa” 168.) * Malu, karena tetangga^u dan orang-orang Iain disekitamja, masa im sedang ada dalam kesesakan hidup jang memuntjak. Pakaian kurang, makanan kurang, uang kurang, sedang tukang2tjatut dengan memakai kulit2badan perdjuangan buat negara merdeka, sangat berkuasa menggentjet dan menelandjangi rakjat bukan buatan... Bukan tukang2tjatut jang salah, tapi keadaan revoiusi jang saiah. Buat apa kita tjape2mengadakan revoiusi, djika revoiusi itu tjuma dibuatnja kesempatan buat menelandjangi rakjat dan menguntungkan diri sendiri?... Paling sedih, aku lihat orang2kampung jang bodoh2jang masuk tentara. Ada kalanja tjelananja itu penuh dengan tambalan karet. Ja, tambalan karet, karena sudah kehabisan djika mau ditambal Iawon. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 249] === 242 Composing her novel Kedjatuhan dan Hati in 1950, Rukiah joined a generation of revolutionary and post-war writers with the same intent, to shock their readers with a new realism, individualism and, in some cases, abject cynicism as a counter-text to the romantic/heroic rhetoric of the revolution. To convey the exigencies and reality of the times, these writers developed a spare, economic style that Chairil Anwar compared to an “x-ray,” showing “the very white of the bones” (Tiwon “Ordinary” 3) and a language of “blood and pus” (8) “ that readers would not expect to find in which was at the time considered “literature.” Innovation in language as well as content-and the conscious interpolation of the two-was the goal. Innovation occurs through the inventions of new words, the hybridizing of the language in the incorporation of foreign words particularly from popular culture (Coca-Cola, cowboys, chanson), as well as words from regional languages, and, in poetry in particular, the combination of what Teeuw calls “sound potentialities in Indonesian” such as internal assonance and rhyme with shocking antitheses. Chairil Anwar, for example, offers the phrase, “Oh red lips, the first sewer of death,” that draws together, with internal assonance, sexuality, beauty, death, and frith in such a way as to draw readers’ attention to the intersection of sound, sensuality, and meaning (Tiwon 7). Control was key as well, and Idrus, for example, intended for his writing to be like a “polished diamond” where “if one word was added... or taken away, it would be ruined.”*The new style required that words were chosen precisely to express the desired sense, and for this reason, writers of the “generation of ‘45” are lauded for creating in Indonesian a “literary language.” Ironically, 9 Interview with Pramoedya Ananta Toer, August, 1997. Pramoedya, who adopted Idrus’ style, notes that “To this day I still am of the opinion that the wasteful use of words is unacceptable.” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 250] === 243 this language is less self-consciously literary and more grounded in everyday speech, Rukiah’s narrative obsessions occur on a more symbolic and level and are conveyed through her use of repetition of a single word within a story or paragraph, as a means to amplify its meaning. Rukiah’s narrators contemplate multi valence of the word “red” throughout her work, and in Kedjatuhan dan Hati she draws together all of the contradictory meanings in a single paragraph: I buried those nights [of the red moon] in my memory, even though those nights were replete with red rays, red dreams, and memories infused with red. This red is not only the red of revolution, which no longer knows the meaning of red, and not only the red of blood from killing, but also the red of love (131). (Kutenggelamkan malam2 [di bulan merah | sekalipun malam itu penuh dengan tjahaja me rah, impian merah, dan ingatan2jang serba merah. Merah ini bukan sadja wama merah revoiusi jang sekarang sudah tidak tahu merahnja lagi, bukan pula merah darah pembunuhan, tetapi djuga merah tjinta). With this kind of repetition, Rukiah mimes the atmosphere of the revolutionary period in which sloganeering and rhetoric resulted in many cases of an emptying of words of their meaning. At the same time, colors played an integral role in this rhetoric, with the “Merah Putih” (Red White) national flag, and the colors of the competing political organizations, Red and White for the Nationalists, Red for Communist, Green and White for Islam. To counter this reductive cclorization, Rukiah gives red a multivalence that contains a series of antitheses or binaries: dreams/memories, revolution/failed social revolution, killing/love which she strings together into a contiguity between past, present, and the future that does not yet form part of revolutionary thinking. While the binaries are magnified here, Rukiah’s overfilling of the word merah causes these binaries to lose their overarching or contextual meaning. The word is thus released from its role in binarial Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 251] === 244 constructions to serve in a poetic capacity, in which contiguities and oppositions are in constant conflict. Through such passages, Rukiah brings to her work the material intensity that Idrus introduced into prose when he infused his short stories of the Japanese revolution with the heightened sensory awareness one experiences in moments of crisis. Idrus creates an apocalyptic vision with his focus on the overloading of the senses with odors of shrimp paste and the sweat of crushed bodies on trains, and visions of tubercular spittle, half-naked bodies and open wounds on the road sides.10Idrus’ apocalyptic vision ultimately leads, however, to the kind of cynicism, conveyed in his famous short story “Surabaya" where there are no sympathetic characters and humankind shows its inherent animalism and ignorance. Rukiah does not share this cynicism, but rather, along with Pramoedya she documents the physicality and violence of social revolution/transformation through the mediation of self-conscious first person narrators who locate intersections between the violence and chaos of the times and their own coming of age. The first person narrator is critical, as it decreases authorial distancing and, though it may seem paradoxical, breaks down the binary between the individual and the collective emphasizing the individual’s participation in, as well as alienation from revolutionary collectives. Historically, “Generation of ‘45” works have been divided in binarial terms between individualized works and those portraying the collective, the former considered “modem(ist), and literary and the latter, political. As Foulcher has Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 252] === 245 explained it, for Chairil “ and bis group... the revolution itself figured in the literature only as much as it provided the setting in which that inner exploration took place and the modernist calling of the artist was realized (‘‘Literature” 237). Pramoedya, in contrast, presents an “’insider’ viewpoint” on the pemuda, a collective of young soldiers and freedom fighters, on their ideology and experience, as well as the moral dilemmas of the revolution (243). In Pramoedya’s writing we see this through his repetition of a scene, occurring in several stories, of an innocent-or perhaps innocent-man being killed by his countrymen in the frenzy of the revolution for counter revolutionary crimes." Typically, the narrator is present, deploring the situation, yet unable to act. Through the repetition of such scenes, as though the writer, or his narrators, cannot free themselves from a recurring nightmare, Pramoedya questions the foundational fiction upon which the independent nation is constructed, and examines the responsibility of the writer/story teller/historian as witness and truth-teller. Rukiah’s work, together with her consideration of the individual in literature in non-fiction prose, emphasizes the weaknesses in such binarized configurations. Throughout her work, she contemplates the idea of the individual as an ideologically 10See Idrus’ short stories from the Japanese occupation and the revolution, collected in Dari Ave Maria ke Jalan Lai ke Roma. Jakarta: Balai Pustaka, 1990. An English translations of his story “Surabaya” is located in Harry Aveling’s From Surabaya to Armageddon, Singapore: Heinemann, 1976. " Here is one manifestation, in which he describes in detail the effects of torture of an accused man named Chalil: His face... had now swelled to two or three times its size, so that his head resembled a small, upside-down water-pitcher. The eyes that had yesterday resembled a pair of small palm-leaf spines had now disappeared, swallowed by a swelling that was dark blue and full of fluid, while here and there were streaked scars from burning cigarettes. The smallpox scars on his neck had disappeared, and even the little mole on his cheek had been burned off. But he walked steadily, giving this impression to all the Revolutionaries who surrounded him: This is I, the one who is able to endure all that you inflict upon me (Pramoedya Cerita dari Djakarta 1IS). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 253] === 246 driven woman and writer. Her early work, “Long Letter” begins with her narrator’s translating of a concept she has located in the work of Aldous Huxley, presented this way: Difficulties will quickly arise when an individual becomes truly aware of him/herself and separates him/herself from the flock of conformists. He/she can no longer follow the “herd instinct.” But he/she will also be too weak to think freely for himself. This is the predicament of many people from modem democracies. They find themselves between two threatening groups, the weak and backwards mass, and the circles of people who are already aware and conscious and the intellectuals (106).12 Rukiah’s narrator then thinks to herself, “It’s so hue. It’s only natural that now many people are taking their own road. It’s because people have become self-aware and want to separate themselves from the herd. This is where people develop a questioning attitude toward life.” As her work progresses, it becomes clear that the “herd” is constituted by Nationalists and those of the middle class who are afraid to break free of social norms and regulations, and the general consensus. Yet, among the Communists, her character Susi encounters a “herd mentality” as well in the constant reification of “isms” or “ismes” from various political texts. “Breaking free from the herd” ultimately involves a struggle, for Rukiah’s characters, with the methodology of learning that involves various forms of imitating the words, styles, voices of others. Her female writer characters are frequently portrayed in one of these three acts, translating concepts from European languages, 12Kesukaran akan segera timbul, bila seorang itu benar2sadar akan dirinja, terpisah dari gerombolan pengekor. Dia tidak akan bisa lagi Iebih lama mengekor “kudde-moraal” itu dengan serampangan. Tapi djuga terlalu Iemah buat berpikir bebas untuk diri sendiri. Begitulah keadaan orang2 kebanjakan dalam demokrasi modern. Mereka tergentjet dalam dua gentjetan, antara gerombolan yang lembek dan lingkungan orang seorang jang sudah sadar orang2intelek’... ‘Ja, memang benar’ - 'Pantas djuga sekarang banjak orang-orang ambil djalan sendirian. Ini tentu disebabkan karena orang-orang ini sadar akan dirinja (ten mau memisahkan diri dari gerombolan pengekor itu. Disinilah mungkin timbul kesangsian terhadap hidup. Dan sangsi terfaadap hidup, berarti sangsi kepada kepertjajaan tentang Tuhan. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 254] === 247 copying passages from romance novels, typing and editing revolutionary speeches. These characters are always in danger of becoming mimics; in “Long Letter” the fear is raised that the character will become a “propagandist,” and in Kedjatuhan dan Hati, the narrator Susi has fully embodied the ideas she learned copying romantic passages into her own diary. This; struggle remains unresolved in Rukiah’s writing, another site of ambivalence. While translating, copying, and miming are modes of learning, Rukiah’s characters are constantly scrutinizing themselves for signs of “herd-like” behavior and seeking the essence of the individual, which, for the author, involves a loneliness and strangeness “keaslian menjendiri” (“Individualisme 4”). In writing, she goes on to say, the truly “internally free” can-and indeed must- “expose the contents of his/her soul” (“Individualisme” 4).'3 It is only through collective debate and experience that Rukiah’s characters achieve an understanding of the individual. In Rukiah’s earlier stories, her narrators are portrayed as staying close to home, eschewing meetings and parties, and content with pursuing a cloistered lifestyle reading and writing. In Kedjatuhan dan Hati, conversely, Susi’s engagement in a series of collectives, first a woman’s organization, then among the nationalists and finally among the assortment of guerilla fighters in the Communist encampment, brings her to the epiphany regarding her “self’ that she ultimately achieves. As I shall discuss further below, this epiphany centers around the notion of self as a collection of fragments and ideas from various beliefs, ideologies, and philosophies, drawn together by worldly experience and an understanding of human nature. She will 11In the article, Rukiah argues that “our dynamic society” is capable of creating “strong individuals” who take responsibility for their actions and, when they are writers, become “true seekers.” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 255] === 248 refer to these fragments as “unregulated sentences’*and describe herself in like terms, part of the larger collective, yet refusing to conform to its regulations. Rukiah demonstrates as well that it is more difficult for women to achieve the level of individuality, honesty, and self-responsibility she bestows upon her male characters. The pressure to marry, the entanglements of family, and women’s immobility limit her characters’ attainment of these ideals. By sending her character Susi into the transformative space of the revolution, Rukiah offers her a chance to develop her individuality. She creates a set of circumstances for her character to make it easier for her character. Her mother is transformed from the gentle and understanding woman of Rukiah’s earlier stories into a monstrous woman who demands, rather than inspires filial piety. Susi transforms herself into a “man”-actually, an asexual creature-and is thus free to engage in the pursuit of knowledge and to pursue a variety of kinds of learning and to debate with the intellectuals of her day on equal terms; both result in her becoming a critical thinker and help her to reach her epiphany. However, Susi’s femininity, her “womanhood” returns at what appears to be an inopportune moment in the text; love will draw her back to a feminine self as she is “reborn” in the camp as a woman who “surrenders” herself to her man and gets pregnant She is forced to return to civil society lose herself in middle class marriage, to surrender to its principles of the exaltation of the husband as nabi (prophet). Susi ultimately experiences a split not unlike Sulastri, in Suwarsih Djojopuspito’s Buiten het Gareel; in Rukiah’s extreme terms, her character “locks away” her intellectualism, rational, critical self with her diary into her writing drawer. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 256] === 249 By drawing her character this way, the author practices the same form of avoidance as her female colleagues as discussed in the previous chapters; in real life, Rukiah will avoid the middle class marriage she fears and avoid joining the very regulated collective of middle class wives. By tracing her character’s failure, she likewise makes a political statement about gender and revolution. Her characters’ contestation of the meaning of “woman” is an integral part of the general questioning and upheaval of that historical moment, and that women’s socially-configured would undermine their radicalism. It is only through writing, Rukiah ultimately argues, that women can not only attain, but also sustain the liberating sense of individuality she imagines. Critics have commented that Rukiah’s work, while associated chronologically with the “generation of ’45,” is marginal to it, “because her writing does not strictly speaking belong to this classification as far as style is concerned” (Frederick, 3). I suggest that the contrary is the case and that, in her work, two trajectories meet, that of the war time writers searching for “new stories” and “truth,” and that of women’s writing in which the meaning of “the female” is fully explored as part of the process of constructing a recognizable self in writing. It is also Rukiah’s “ambivalence” or inhabitation of a “Third Space” that gives her work its difference; whereas the writers of this generation are divided into two polarized categories, we will see Rukiah moving between these polarities while she simultaneously discusses her movement and the polarities themselves in her work. Like Chairil Anwar, Rukiah was intent upon, as Tiwon puts it, questioning conventional middle class morality. But where Charil infused his poetry with scenes of alcohol consumption and prostitution, Rukiah tackles issues she deemed integral to the female experience, such as filial piety, sexuality, and marriage. Like Chairil, she shocks Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 257] === 250 her audience with the purpose of refusing them the opportunity to, as Tiwon puts it, “yield to the enchanting eloquence of traditional poetics” (8), but she will do so with the angry voice of a woman in the process of unlearning all the feminine lessons forced upon her by middle class society. She makes her intentions clear early on in Kedjatuhan dan Hati, when she first asks why, when people write a fables, or a story, they always have to weave into them a love stories between one person and another... Or augment their narratives with stories of natural surroundings, the verdance of the sawah, stories of the sky so blue, or skies that want to be blue, with stories of mountains that seem so peaceful and calm from afar. Whereas I know that stories like this are stories from the past, containing feelings from the past, memories from the past, and faded aspirations (KH 131).“ Rukiah goes on to warn her reader that her alternative story of “transformation from what was soft and gentle to all that has been violently broken apart" will not be “pleasant to contemplate,” but rather will be presented in a straightforward fashion (132). Her point here is to convince the audience of her honesty (kejujuran,) as a writer by eschewing beautiful language that might mask authorial intentions; she will, rather, state her intentions clearly from the outset, thus taking full responsibility for what she will present. Intersections of Self and Text One of Rukiah’s long-time associates, Hersri Setiawan, believes that for the author, the real and literary worlds commingled to the point that “Rukiah lived her life 14Bila orang menulis suatu dongeng atau suatu tjerita, masib sadja mau menjelingkan didalamnja suatu tjerita tjinta antara seorang dengan seorang... Atau pula ditambahnja dengan tjerita alam kehidjauan sawah2. tjerita langit jang sudah biru dan mau biru, serta tjerita gunung2jang kelihatan teduh tenang didjauhan? Padahal aku tabu, tjerita jang begini ini ini, tjerita lama, perasaan lama, kenangan lama, dan pembikinan tjita2jang serba lama. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 258] === like a character in a novel.”15When the multitude of intersections between Rukiah’s life and writing are considered, Hersri’s comments do not seem exaggerated. In her novella Kedjatuhan dan H ati, as well as the stories “Antara dua Gambaran” and “Surat Pandjang dari Gunung,” Rukiah presents first person narrators who share many characteristics with the author, including her interest in the figure of the charismatic and dedicated revolutionary, who bears a strong resemblance to the man who would become her husband, Sidik Kertapati. Like Susi of Kedjatuhan dan Hati, Rukiah lived during the revolutionary period in a mid-sized town-as opposed to either a village or a city-and was the youngest of three daughters of a middle class family; her father was a contractor and her mother, a “housewife.”'* Likewise, the “mysterious background” from which the character Lukman of the same text parallels that of Sidik Kertapati, who, bom in Bali, was raised by his aunt in Java and worked a series of odd jobs as a longshoreman and supervisor before joining the movement of leftist intellectuals and activists in W. Java, where he met Rukiah.17Bach of the three female characters narrating the two short stories and subsequent novella fear and disdain the middle class marriage that Rukiah may have felt was destined for her, in which she would be, as she puts it, “forced to become an ordinary woman with the ordinary job of running a house all day and all night long. I will be made to sew, to receive important guests, and every day, choose a different colored outfit for parties and gatherings” (Gallop 52). The two narrators of the short stories are 15Conversations with Hersri Setiawan, Amsterdam and den Hague, July 1998. 16Interview with the author’s daughter Puri, July, 1997 and conversations with the authors’ son... The house where Rukiah grew up in Purwakarta, W. Java still stands, with its old fashioned kitchen, complete with cooking fire, and giant outdoor well intact It is now surrounded by modem homes. 17Information about Sidik Kertapati, and his relationship with Rukiah comes from interviews with Sidik in Den Haag, Netherlands in June of 1998. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 259] === characterized as teachers and writers who were autodidacts, women who taught themselves about the prevailing ideologies of the day through reading as well as discussions with (mainly male) friends. Some of the characters who appear in Rukiah’s fiction would go on to become the nation’s leading artists and writers, including Pramoedya Ananta Toer, another autodidact, and the painter Hendra Gunawan. Rukiah was also around this time an editor of her own journal Irama and worked as an editorial secretary for the journal Pudjangga Bam for the edition in which Pramoedya’s novella Dia Yang Menyerah was published as a special issue. It appears that, amidst all of this activity, the specter of middle class marriage and an end to intellectual life loomed large for Rukiah. In a society in which marriage was the only rite of passage to adulthood for women, the only possibility of avoiding the fate of the modem housewife was thus to chose a mate whose radicalism would ostensibly allow for a certain freedom within the institution of marriage. Rukiah’s fictional characters, fearing marriage to the “weak,” or “empty” (lembak, kosong) candidates, men she refers to as dimwits (“orang dungu”) thus fantasize about the alternative, an impassioned man (yang bergelora) dedicated to politics and radical, uncompromising patriotism. In each of the texts mentioned here, along with a number of Rukiah’s poems, this figure appears, always as a man beyond her reach, dedicated to the revolution and unable to imagine domestic life and love, and perhaps all the more desirable because of that. Annabel Gallop suggests, there is an integral relationship between Rukiah’s development as a writer in the late 1940s and early 1950s and the figure of the pure revolutionary who remains beyond her reach both in reality and ideologically. Gallop traces the development of a muse in Rukiah’s poetry from a “mischievous spirit” named Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 260] === 253 “Ilham,” to a winged creature and finally, in a poem entitled Ilham II, becomes “the idealistic man she falls in love with.” This muse character appears more frequently in Rukiah’s short stories as the wise revolutionary who encourages her female characters’ writing. In the short stories, this figure becomes a supportive figure who understands, for example, what makes her narrators different from other women who are “pretend” revolutionaries, interested only in the attention it brings them, who are “shallow,” “feudal” and even ugly (Tandus 95). He likewise fathoms that her narrators’ writing is not simply for the sake of individualism or self-promotion, but inspires, through its explication of the “suffering of the rakyat, kampung soldiers involved in the struggle, and a nation trampled upon everyday” (111). Moreover, he imagines, indirectly, that she might one day be capable of winning the Nobel Prize (118). At the same time, this character, gently critiques her narrators for what Rukiah would later associate with a “bourgeois” lifestyle, her closeness with her mother, her innocence and lack of worldly experience (112), thus challenging her to write more pointedly about politics, to participate in the underground movement and take other risks. In both her poetry and fiction, the author couples the appearance of the fierce and judgmental, and deeply respected, revolutionary with both a loss of innocence-the rejection of romanticism, the emergence of sexuality-with a new level of socially responsible creativity. This figure becomes the catalyst for the semi-autobiographical female character of both Rukiah’s poetry and prose to question both her own social background and values and the meaning of art (Gallop 18). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 261] === 254 According to Sidik Kertapati, he met Rukiah on rare occasions during the revolutionary period, and exchanged a few letters with her.11 While he may be understating his involvement with her to some degree, it appears as if the revolutionary figure was in large part an invention of Rukiah’s who functioned in her mind like the “force that guides from behind” or “shadow who bears witness to my inner suffering” (KH 188) she describes late in Kedjatuhan dan Hati who is constantly questioning her integrity and commitments to revolutionary truths, while at the same time, gives her the courage to reject the middle class life that was ostensibly her destiny. This imaginary figure also propels Rukiah’s characters in their search for individuality. Ati, of “Antara dua Gambaran,” for example, distinguishes herself from other women of the revolutionary period when she notes that her story of revolutionary love would be different from those “written in the many short stories circulating at that time” because "[He] was not a TNI [Nationalist Army] officer and I wasn't a PMI [Red Cross] girl who followed him courageously to the front, and then wept beside my fallen officer” (Tandus 83). Their story is, rather, one of a man committed to pure revolutionary ideals, now an enemy of the state, hunted, while waiting in his mountain hideout. As described earlier, these characters do not follow the “herd,” they are free thinkers. In her 1948 poem, “Kenangan Gelita” (Dark Memories) she spins this scenario into inspired verse about a young woman writing from her “cold latticework” prison, to an elusive figure who is hunted in the mountains (Tandus 27). The poet does not wait in vain for a letter from her " As Sidik himself explains, Rukiah had first met Sidik when she became involved with leftist artists in the region of Purwakarta and Bandung. Between 1947 and 1952, when they married, they met on numerous politically oriented occasions and developed a relationship, which was mainly, according to Sidik, through Rukiah's initiative. (Interview, Sidik Kertapati, Amsterdam, June 1998). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 262] === 255 paramour, imagining instead that “cold tiles and white walls” create a pathway for a wind carrying “the voice of the mountains” communication that transcends writing. In response, she vows to continue to write, a tjerita pandjang2, an extended story of their love with “red ink that stays wet and never dries... night after night, until I become an old maid in my prison.” The poem illustrates the imperative that Rukiah experienced through her relationship to Sidik and other members of the lashkar rakyat to humanize the non-alignment position-the refusal to deal with the Dutch- in 1948-9. The lashkar rakyat forces who rejected the nationalist position were not only rounded up and imprisoned, but were also demonized in the media and continue to be considered traitors to the present day.19Thus in this poem she states her intention, as she describes it, it to convey to the outer world that appearances are deceiving: “There is something I still want to say/You are indeed hunted, but are not a defector/I am indeed in a prison cell, but am not encaged.” With this poem, dedicated as it was to “Eska” or S.K. (Sidik Kertapati), the story of Rukiah’s elaboration of the elusive revolutionary figure moves to another level. In the short stories, Rukiah had imagined the disappearance and death of this character, leaving her female narrators with no choice but to marry their doltish middle class suitors. In the novella, she takes the scenario to extremes, imagining her character making love to this figure, becoming pregnant with his child, then, because of his disappearance, again being forced to marry the ignorant, yet kind middle class suitor. These texts appear to function as pleas, warnings, and finally, as an ultimatum to Sidik, urging him to return from the 19See Ann Swift, The Road to Madiun: The Indonesian Communist Uprising o f1948. (Cornell Modem Indonesia Project, 1989) fora discussion of the demonization process. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 263] === 256 revolution to save Rukiah from her fate. In the poem “Kenangan Gelita,” she makes her intentions totally clear with what amounts to a public marriage proposal. The speaker speaks hopefully of the couple’s meeting “between the table and the red blossoms/ while sipping water sweetened with sugar,” i.e. in marriage, at which time they can begin their own “new story.” The poem concludes, “But Eska!... If you ever tire of treading across those mountain rocks... you can inscribe into your diary/we are two people who are in love with love!” Sidik describes reading this poem and responding to it as desired, by finally seeking Rukiah out and eventually proposing to her.® Here we see Rukiah not only employing writing as a strategy of avoidance-she successfully eludes the middle class marriage that would result in an end to her writing career-but also as a site for constructing reality as she desired it to be. In this context, the significance of the lovemaking scene that appears in Kedjatuhan dan Hati cannot be overlooked. As we shall see further below, while Rukiah composes the scene within the required discourse of female passivity, the scene contains a nuanced eroticism. Not only is such a scene virtually unprecedented in modem Indonesian literature, but in a society in which virginity was fetishized, and the adult female was metaphorized as mother of the nation and vessel of traditional values, Rukiah’s public imagining of intercourse with a character inspired by her own life is decidedly courageous.11 * Sidik appears to have harbored his own sense of romanticism. He had hopes that Rukiah would marry him while he was in prison in Jaksa Agung, in Jakarta, and join him there, “like the husbands and wives of the 1920s and 1930s, who lived together in the Dutch prison camp of Boven Digul,” but she declined, and instead waited until his release (Interview, 1998). 21 Paradoxically, Sidik Kertapati, by his own admission, was not ultimately supportive of Rukiah’s writing. With hindsight he understands his lack of support to be a result of the “conventional expectations” he brought to marriage, coupled with his intensive focus on political issues as a member of the parliament These include conflicts between Sumatran farmers and the Indonesian military, which was even at that time working for the interests of “imperialist” agricultural companies. He also explains that throughout his Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 264] === 257 Kedjatuhan dan Hati takes further detours from the autobiographical in the its depiction of Susi’s escape from home into the space of the revolution as she moves to the city and onward to the guerilla encampment at the “edge of the city.” While Rukiah worked for the Red Cross in Purwakarta beginning in 1945, she did not physically leave home like her fictional character Susi.22Rukiah’s home town of Purwakarta, located near one of the guerrilla quarters of Krawang-Bekasi, became a locus for activity among artists, intellectuals, and activists including Rukiah herself. While her character and narrator Susi heads into the mountains to work as a nurse for the guerrilla forces, Rukiah, according to her husband Sidik in a recent interview, remained at home during the period of 1948-49, during which time this revolution within a revolution took place.13 However, it was at this time that she was introduced to a group of intellectuals and writers upon which her lashkar characters are most likely based. Pramoedya describes this period of Rukiah’s life in the following way: In 1949 Rukiah created [the journal] ’Indonesia Irama,’ and held her position as editor while engaging in activities to help the guerrilla forces... She avoided being arrested for these activities on numerous occasions, through her association marriage, he suffered from lead poisoning from a bullet that had never been adequately removed from his hip which brought vertigo and chronic pain. However, while raising her six children during the 1950s and early 1960s. Rukiah continued to write. For a while, she turned from political writing to the publication of local folk tales and oral stories for children, to be used in elementary education. Only in 1962 did she return to the political scene, taking a position with Pramoedya Ananta Toer as co-editor of the cultural supplement Lentera, and on the editorial staffs of Zaman Bant, a leftist journal and the journal of the leftist women’s organization Gerwani, Api Kartini. Around this time she also traveled with her friend and colleague Sugiarti Siswadi to Eastern Europe to represent the left-leaning cultural organization LEKRA for an international conference on literature and socialism. As mentioned earlier, this revival of her career was shortened by the events of 1965-66 during which she was listed arrested as a suspected Communist and later jailed, and after which time she ceased writing altogether. Because Sidik Kertapati was out of the country at this time, and had such a high profile in the Communist Party, he has remained in exile since 1965, first in China and then in Holland. As discussed briefly in Chapter 1, Sidik and Rukiah did not meet for more than 20 years, and then only briefly, although they stayed married until her death in 19%. 22Interview, Sidik Kertapati, Amsterdam, June 1998. 23Interview, Sidik Kertapati, Amsterdam, June 1998. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 265] === 258 with the local Wedana, but she witnessed the killing of one of the guerrilla fighters who she had been harboring in her house. In 1949 she was given the task to visit prisoners of war being held in Bukit Duri (Pramoedya “Dia”). Clearly, the novella’s depiction of physical movement away from home and into the danger zone of the lashkar encampment enhances the drama of the text and is essential to the fictional plot that includes Susi’s pregnancy with Lukman’s child, just as the compound is about to be overrun by the Dutch. But while Rukiah did not make that physical journey, she did follow Susi’s ideological trajectory through books, conversations and activism. In the novella, Rukiah recreates the environment of revolution during which Susi languishes in the uneven pace of the encampment marked by hours of lectures on Marxism and revolution punctuated by the arrival of bloody and mutilated bodies, and the constant fear of attack. Having established a sense of urgency, she reproduces the rhetoric of the period in a series of dialogs between Susi and the guerillas stationed at the compound, presenting extended speeches by three of the guerillas in response to Susi’s questioning of their dogma. As I will discuss further below, this dialectical approach allows Rukiah to present both objections to the radical views of the contra-nationalist forces and gives the men of the camp a chance to respond just before they will be dispersed, jailed, and perhaps killed. Publishing her text in 1950, she is able to present a series of perspectives that had by that time been distorted and officially denounced. Moving Susi out of the domestic space and into the revolutionary space also allows Rukiah the opportunity to explore gender encodings of nationalism and revolution. In characteristically extreme fashion, she elides this movement with Susi’s transformation from girl to man, and then to woman; these transformations first allow Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 266] === 259 Susi access to the male-centered ideological realm of the revolution, and then cause her ambivalence about the utility of the revolutionary project. In the process, Rukiah deconstructs the feminine as it is imagined in the middle class household, then reconstructs it in such a way as to emphasize the constraints placed on women in the emergent nation. Ultimately, this revolutionary space is as much of an imaginary as is Rukiah’s uncompromising hero, and serves a similar purpose, as a site in which the author constructs her independent self outside the boundaries of social, as well as literary regulation. Revolutionizing the Female Rukiah deconstructs the socially-sanctioned feminine by illustrating that it is a learned behavior, rather than a consequence of fate (kodrat) or essence (djiwa perempuan): ... mother often presented dongengan or stories to the three of us about children who paid back their debts to their parents. If a child repaid the kindnesses of her parents well by following their orders, devoutly carrying out the needs of her parents, giving back with loyalty and material things, paradise would be ensured for both sides, she said. Paradise for mother, and paradise for the child. For a daughter, the repayment of one’s debts would not be so difficult, she said. As long as her husband was someone who was already established, then it followed that the desire to repay one’s debt would be easily carried out. All the more so if the wife could attract and then gain full control over, her husband’s heart (135).M u... ibu sering memberi dongengan atau tjerita kepada kami bertiga, tentang anak-anak jang membalas djasa kepada orang tuanja dengan djalan menurut perintahnja, berbakti mengurus kehidupan orang tuanja, memberi balasan berupa budi dan benda-benda, itu suatu surga bagi kedua fihak, katanja. Surga bagi ibunja, dan surga bagi anaknja. Buat anak perempuan pembalasan djasa dan benda-benda ini, tak begitu susah ditjari, katanja. Asal sadja suaminja orang jang berada, tentu keinginan buat membalas guna pada orang tua itu gampang diiaksanakan. Apa Iagi djika si isteri itu bisa memikat dan menguasai hati sisuami. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 267] === 260 Recalling Kartini’s comment regarding a regent’s willingness to “serve his daughter on a platter,” we can see Rukiah presenting the same argument but in more contemporary terms. “Filial piety” is the name given to the act of selling of a daughter’s virginity to the highest bidder in a middle class that is constantly seeking to improve its economic standing by maintaining the feudal aspects of aristocratic society. However, whereas Kartini’s mothers were only accomplices to her father’s crime, here, the mother has become the perpetrator, perpetuating what Cixous has described as “the great arm of parental-conjugal phallocentrism” which leads women into “self-disdain.’”-5The trappings of the nationalist discourse of the feminine are dismantled here to show a disturbing reality in which the “traditional values” the middle class mother passes on to her daughters lead not to liberation and independence, but annihilation of the female. Rukiah suggests that girls naturally reject these teachings, and must therefore be threatened and forced into the feminine: I still remember the horrible way in which mother educated Lina and I, when we had to study the arts of entertaining men. We were not allowed to leave them, if in their presence. We were not allowed to hate them, even if they were ill mannered and disgusting, deserving of hatred. They were all to be spoiled, the food would be prepared for them, and presented by us with sweet smiles. Lina more than once became sick and vomited, because she was so disgusted by the men, but mother forced her until she wanted to serve them. And I too was often sick and cried until my eyes became swollen... If we did not submit to [mother’s] wishes, her anger was fierce. Her angry voice was loud enough to be heard by the neighbors. Horror, mixed with shame (KH 149).“ 25 Quoted in Trinh, Woman, Native, Other (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989) 27. “ Aku masih ingat, bagaimana buruknja ibu mendidik Lina dan aku dulu, ketika kami mesti beladjar bergaul dengan laki2. Kami tak boleh meninggalkan mereka, pabila mereka ada. Kami tak boleh bentji, sekalipun laki2itu kurang adjar dan patut buat dibentji. Dimandjakannja semua laki2 im, disediakannja makanan-makanan dan mesti disuguhnja dengan senjum-senjum manis. Lina pemah sekali sakit dan muntah2 karena terlalu bentji kepada seorang laki2, tapr ibu memaksa Lina supaja Lina mau meladeninja. Djuga aku, sering2sakit dan nangis sampai mata bengkak2... Djika kami tak menurut Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 268] === 261 The rejection is physical, involuntary as the girls regurgitate these teachings and are unable, initially, to internalize them. In the process, however their voices are silenced by the vomit collecting in their throats. Through this economical description, Rukiah portrays the obstacles girls and women faced in organizing an effective response against these domestic dramas. They could not only not speak out in the intimate space of the home and neighborhood, but they were also prevented from speaking by their own internal shame. Rukiah goes on to search out other mechanisms of silencing in her upbringing and education, turning her attention toward the romance novel. As Susi is growing aware of herself as a woman who seeks truth and individuality, she contemplates the ways in which romantic novels had formed her consciousness and shaped her language and the content of her speech. The act of copying passages of such novels into her diary has caused a penetration of their ideas not only into her consciousness, so that her perception of reality has been altered, but into her body: Whenever I wished to say something to [my paramour], I would write it in my diary, full of sentiment, punctuated by old-fashioned words I copied from romance novels, the water of the stream was calm and clear, the voice of the wood sang classical songs, we walked in perfect rhythm through the green grass. As with the depiction of the mother’s teachings, Rukiah makes the personal political here, as she turns attention to consumptive aspect of reading, through which values are keinginannja, dia marah2dengan garangnja. Suaranja terdengar keras ke-mana2 memenuhi telinga keluarga dan telinga tetangga. Ngeri, dan malu tjampur terasa. 27Bilamana ada apa2jang mesti aku tjeritakan padanja, aku tulisi bukuharian itu, dengan penuh kelembutan hati, diselingi katazkunojang kudapati dibuku roman: air kali teduh tenang, suara angin berlagu klasik, atau langkah kita dirumput hidjau penuh rythme... Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 269] === 262 internalized. We might recall the affirmation of this kind of consumption in Sutan Takdir’s depiction of his character Tuti’s transformation, through the reading of a romance novel, from the discontented, gender-confused leader of the women’s movement into a “mature woman” who has come to terms with her feminine self. Moving in the opposite direction of Sutan Takdir’s Tuti, Susi will reject the messages conveyed in romantic texts both intellectually and physically, by turning to “books about history, political history, those teachings that dry up life, eat the brain and force out gentle feelings” (KH 146).“ These books will ultimately lessen her exchange value, by “drying” her up, undoing her fertility/femininity. With Susi’s conscious rejection of the values and social norms projected through romance novels, Rukiah touches upon a critical point regarding the specific targeting of the female reader not only by nationalist writers but the colonial administration. As Doris Jedamski notes, the Dutch Balai Pustaka publishing house had as its emblem an image of a woman dressed in traditional attire clutching a book (Jedamski 39-40). According to Jedamski, the Dutch understood the importance of reaching an emerging demographic of female consumers to whom they would not sell only individual products like aspirin, soap, and baby formula in stories of romances, but a middleclass lifestyle centered around hygiene and modem medicine (38-9). With Susi’s rejection of romance novels in favor of texts on politics and history, Rukiah refuses the position ascribed to her throughout the development of modem Indonesian literature as the vehicle through which a buku2sedjarah pergerakan, sedjarah politik, dan peladjaran2jang benar2mengeringkan hidup, memakan otak dan menghilangan perasaan jang lembut2. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 270] === 263 these values would be conveyed to the general populace. By assuring readers that her own text will be “unpleasant,” she lets it be known that she will not be participating in this enterprise. Susi’s ultimate rejection of the feminine can only occur with her move out of domestic space and into the space of the revolution. Her first act is to cut her hair, which was not an atypical act for young women at that time, but which contains particular significance for Susi in terms of altering her gender. She stops “beautifying herself’ with make-up and clothing. Through the voice of Susi’s mother, Rukiah gives us an indication of conventional middleclass attitudes toward the radicalization of daughters during the revolutionary period: Don’t you realize that the struggle will cause children to lose all sense of filial duty for their parents, the ones who have for who knows how long worn themselves out to raise them? And don’t you know that men don’t want to take responsibility for these radical women, because they know such women no longer consider it important to take care of the household?.. And you? Now you are going to become an old maid, a (virgin) who’ll come to nothing... (KH 145).s The mother speaks a certain truth here, as girls did join the revolution for precisely these reasons. Rukiah will take this scenario to extremes in order to argue that nothing short of total transformation can bring about the unlearning of the feminine. Surface-changes to hair and body are minor compared to what Rukiah enacts upon her autobiographical character next, that is, the murdering (membunuh) of the essence of her femininity, her sense of empathetic love or kasih sayang before it is “raped” or “violated” (diperkosa) by such “social regulations” (KH 143-5). In order to make herself Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 271] === 264 clear, Rukiah brings into her text a materially intense and male-associated imagery of violence and rape to make the link between the unlearning of kasih sayang and the avoidance of forced sexuality. Susi’s body grows increasingly skinny and dry/infertile (Jeering,) until this body is completely emptied of its gender. The author takes her imagery to the extreme by calling forth the imagery of death: ...after a while my tears dried and my eyes sunk deep into their sockets, and the dryness spread to my whole heart... ” (KH 143). Skinny, with sunken eyes (KH 146) I looked in the mirror. How different and how horrible my face now appeared. And how old... (149).30 Between genders, Susi becomes dry, dead, grotesque. Learning from the “dry, political” that male=rational and female=emotional, she takes on an ultra-rational and arrogant (sombong) attitude that completes her transformation from female to male. This manifestation allows her entree into the marginal space, where the “true” revolution is being waged, among the lashkar rakyat at the city’s edge. With this imagery of transformation, Rukiah works into her story, whether consciously or not, a motif from oral tradition. That is, of the “Puteri Babi” (Pig Princess) or “Puteri Muka Kuda” (Horse-Faced Princess) who don sarongs that transform them from candidate wives into hideous women who are allowed to roam freely and dress as men so as to engage in battle and gather wealth.31The same motif is found in numerous 39Tahukah engkau bahwa pergerakan perdjuangan itu djadi menghilangkan kasih-sajang seorang anak pada orang2tua jang sekian tahun ketjapean menguruskan? Dan tahukah engkau bahwa kepada perempuan perdjuangan pergerakan ini tak memandang penting kepada rumah tangga?... Dan engkau? Engkau sekarang mau djadi gadis tua..., gadis jang tidak laku2... 30... lama2air mataku habis, kelopak mata djadi tjekung, dan timbul kekeringan disegenap hati.. . kurus, tjekung... aku... kulihat tjermin. Alangkah bedanja dan alangkah buruknja mukaku sekarang ini. Dan begitu tua! 31The story of the “Horse-Faced Princess” as well as that of the “Pig Princess” is housed in Amin Sweeney’s private collection. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 272] === 265 accounts by women of their experiences of the revolution, which include the cutting of the hair, women’s-or rather, girls’-attempts to make themselves appear “crazy” or ugly so as to avoid marriage, the cutting of the hair, the movement out of the home to urban spaces to join the movement, or to training in women’s corps or lashkar wanitaSWhat these accounts show is how difficult it was for women to imagine the female outside of the terms of the masculine/feminine binary as it was then constructed. Women who did not conform, who entered an indeterminate space between genders can only be seen as grotesque, monsterish, crazy, or as masculine, as temporary men.13There is not positively defined middle space. Thus Rukiah writes, “I want to separate myself from the feeling of being female, and with total determination join the fighting and combat of the men” (151; “Aku ingin terpisah dari rasa perempuan, dan agak tegang menjamai laga laki2pemberontak"). Later she will recall, “I came to the revolution as a man seeking a Rukiah makes clear in the text that the transformation from the feminine is necessary for two reasons. The truths Susi seeks are unavailable and uninteresting to women, of the “generation of ’45,” she tells us, who, even when meeting under feminist auspices, “are too content to talk about clothes, parties, refreshments, and children,” so that when she asked questions about “their own desires,” or issues of “humanity or 32 See Wieringa Politicization (175) for an example; see also Lahimya Kelasykaran Wanita dan Wirawati Catur Panca for descriptions of the Lashkar Wanita. 13lean Taylor, writing about the all-girl troops who fought for the nationalists in the revolution, quotes a military commander’s complaints about the laswi under his command’s refusal to recognize his authority; he suspects as the culprit the influence of other “fanatical” women’s corps (Taylor “Official Photography” 100). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 273] === 266 humanism,” they would “act confused, as if they had encountered a paradox.“ At the same time, the revolution itself is a decidedly male arena where femininity in the form of sexuality is considered a threat to the concentration and solidarity of the guerillas. The writer Idrus spoofs this concept in his short story “Surabaya” when he depicts the famous revolutionary Bung Tomo addressing a “monster rally” (rapat Raksasa) with the words: I am afraid of only one thing: women who are enemy spies. Women, if they have evil souls, are more crafty and cruel then men. When I walked the streets of Malang, young girls looked at me with enticing smiles. But know, girls, that Bung Tomo will only take one woman, and that woman must be no enemy spy. So that for the duration of the revolution Bung Tomo will remain alone, and so don’t bother looking at Bung Tomo with any kind of glances to draw away my passion Later, after Susi has been “reborn” as a woman, she will be accused of disrupting the atmosphere of the compound and causing the weakness, stupidity, mildness, and selfdeception of the leader Lukman, making him “crazy so that he cannot work for the good of the nation and the organization” (166). 34At the same time, she will be urged by the head of the camp and by Lukman himself to be intimate with Lukman so as to help him reach a point of resolution with his feelings for her. In the revolutionary space, women stir men into confusion and destabilize the war effort itself, which is why Bung Tomo MMereka bisa bertjerita, tapi dasamja tjerita itu iebih banjak kepada pakaian, pesta2, minum2, dan anak2muda, sedang bila ditjoba diadjak bitjara seperti orang jang punja pikiran, sekali2mengandung ketjanggungan, mengandung paradox. Djuga pikran buat berbitjara dengan nafsunja tentang dirinya sendiri, atau tentang manusia dan kemanusiaan, pikiran jang begitu itu tak ada pada mereka. 33Yang saya takutkan hanya satu: mata2musuh perempuan. Perempuan jika beijiwa penjahat, iebih kejam dan licik daripada laki2. Jika saya betjalan2di kota Malang, anak-anak gadis pada melihat kepada saya dengan senyum merayu. Tapi ketahuilah, hai, gadis2, bahwa Bung Tomo hanya akan mengambil satu gadis saja dan gadis itu pasti harus bukan mata2 musuh. Sebab itu selama revolusi ini Bung Tomo akan tetap sendirian saja dan sebab itu pula janganlah lagi melihat kepada Bung Tomo dengan pandangan yang merayu2sukma Bung Tomo itu. 34Orang bertjinta itu tiba2sadja mendjadi tolol. Atau: Orang bertjinta itu, sekalipun ia orang extremist, tiba2sadja ia djadi pemurah, lembut, mild didalam ordeelnja. Sering2ia membohongi dirinja jang djadi kleinzelig teriibat2dalam urusan perurusan jang tak dapat dikontrole. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 274] === 267 recommends celibacy, why women were urged into conventional service roles as cooks and nurses and why, in all-women’s units, known as lashkar wanita or laswi, “immoral acts” could be punishable by “a bullet” (Wieringa Politicization 101). Unlike the male characters of the Pig Princess story, the men in the encampment do not honor Susi’s disguise, and instead pity her for being an “old maid,” teasing her for not being the kind of woman they desire. Susi takes care to “never laugh or play suggestive word games with them like women typically do when among men” (151) in order to gain the respect of the Communist guerillas. In the revolutionary space, in the guise of masculinity, Susi then learns the terms of Communist rhetoric and the guerilla’s vision of a total social revolution. Susi begins to question these terms-leading to the author’s presentation of a dialectical discussion of the guerilla agenda-only after she has begun to experience her “rebirth” as a woman. This questioning position is thus enabled by the condition of being in the process of transformation, of being neither nor, indeterminate, in the Third Space. Rukiah articulates this in terms of Susi’s ambivalent possession of both masculine/rational and feminine/emotional perspectives (perasaan dan pikiran). As I will discuss further in a moment, this double-ness provides Susi the insights necessary to both comprehend the import of the guerilla demands but question their utility in the larger picture, that is, for society in general and with a view toward the future. Aesthetics/Politics The reversal of Susi’s fortune coincides, significantly, with the collapse of the guerillas’ brief stand against the Nationalist doctrine which, Rukiah argues, perpetuates a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 275] === gendered and classed status quo in which the world is ordered in terms of male/female and elite/rakyat binaries. However, Rukiah makes the most of this fleeting transitional moment, expanding it into an extended passage in her text in which free and open debate in an environment free from social regulations yields new awareness about society, politics and literature, and Susi’s epiphany regarding the experience of individuality. In the following pages I will show how, in her reconstruction of revolutionary debates, Rukiah challenges the boundaries between the “political” and the “aesthetic”-as they were understood at the times and continue to be understood in certain sectors- in the literary text. In conventional terms, her text would be considered “political,” given the author’s stated intention of refusing the audience the pleasure of comforting scenes of beauty and offering instead what will be “unpleasant to hear and to comprehend.” The appearance of the guerillas’ speeches would seem to confirm the political nature of the text and its disdain of the “aesthetic.” If we take Rukiah’s lead in moving between these binarial categories, however, we can see her capturing the sensorial aspects of Communist and humanist rhetoric as voiced by its primary proponents. We also see her drawing out the difficulties that Indonesian radicals faced in translating these European concepts and rhetoric into the Indonesian revolutionary context, and locate the places in which Susi and her interlocutors speak in different discourses, attempt to find common discursive ground. Finally, I will show how, as she weaves a discussion of aesthetics and politics in literature and society into a hybrid text that blurs the boundaries between the two, we can see Rukiah mapping out the issues that Indonesian intellectuals would confront for the next fifteen years and which postcolonial critics continue to confront today. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 276] === 269 One of the first major issues to arise is that of religion. Susi confronts Harun, one of the more cynical of the guerillas at the camp, with the idea that the mystical path of Islam is as anti-materialistic as Communist ideology, asking, “Is not God a mystery, a destination which is not fixed or inscribed, and thus difficult to follow?” and continues, “since we don’t always recognize this road, we are forced to seek [God] by freeing ourselves from all ties to the material world” (satu kegaiban atau garis jang tiada tentu tjoretannja, pabila tidak dicari... Dan karena kita belum punya ketentuan akan garis itu, kita dimestikan mentjari sambil melepaskan diri dari segala ikatan2 serba njata jang bisa diraba” (161-2). Harun’s reply reflects a number of the problems inherent in Communist ideology and its adherents; he not only speaks down to Susi as if to a child, but also refuses to acknowledge her viewpoint as valid, as it does not fit into the confines of his own rationalist worldview. He begins by telling Susi that she is unnecessarily confusing herself with her religious view. He then goes on to deny the existence of anything that is not tangible and visible: Uncertainty and a lack of knowledge make people afraid of God. We are of course afraid of that which we do not understand... [A]ll of the fears of God, the respect of the spirit world, the fears that we will bum in hell are all illusions. Whereas if we have broadened and fortified our thinking, we can be certain that: God, heaven, and hell are constructions of our own making. When people say that God is not a tangible entity, that behind the tangible is the intangible, people will find themselves in the realm of the intangible themselves. Soon enough their feet are leaving the ground and they’re hanging from the clouds, not dead, but no longer living. Feeling they’re eternal... We may love and we may seek. But seek Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 277] === 270 what is, love what is. For what should be waste our time searching for a intangible certainties? (162).57 As logical and well-plotted as it may be, the rhetoric of the rational constitutes for Susi an impassable barrier that obstructs any possibility of reconciliation between her and Harun’s understanding of the world. As Suwarsih argued 10 years earlier in Buiten het Gareel, the rational telos offers no solace to the rakjat. Thus, Susi reacts to Harun’s condescending attitude with the comment that the elan of the revolution is based on an antiquated heroism, a feudal heroism. Rejecting the rhetoric that identifies the rakjat in a passive capacity, in need of the assistance of intellectuals, she argues that the rakjat will not be able to help each other if they can’t help themselves “Rakjat tak bisa diberi oleh rakjat, djika si rakjat sendiri tak memberikan apa-apa kepada dirinja sendiri" (162). She then asks, “ “Just what and who exactly is the rakjat you speak of?” and continues, “We play at killing, we play at drinking blood, but just what are the results of this killing and blood festival that the rakjat can grasp and see?” (163). Here, Harun cannot reply to her question, and instead launches into a dramatic speech about his role as a leader of the rakjat: ... For me, people who consider themselves leaders of the rakjat must stand among the rakjat whom they serve, in sorrow and joy, in love and loss. He must stand as a guiding torch, not as an angel or a spirit from the abode of the gods, but as an average person with a mustache and beard, sometimes sick from hunger and 57 Ketidak-tahuan dan ketidak-tentuan jang begitu itulah jang mendjadikan manusia takut akan Tuhan. Kita tentu takut kepada sesuatu jang belum kita ketahui atau kepada sesuatu jang belum kita kenal. .. [S]egala perasaan takut dibakar api neraka itu, tjuma angan2akibat dari ketidak-tentuan itu. Padahal bila kita teiah tiba dikeiuasan ruang dan ketentuan pemikiran, kita akan tahu, bahwa: Tuhan, surga dan neraka itu, kita sendiri jang bikin. Bila ada orang jang mengatakan, bahwa Tuhan itu sesuatu jang tidak njata, dan dibalik jang njata itu ada lagi jang tidak njata, orang itu akan terns berada dalam ketidak-njataan. Lama2 kakinja terangkat dari tanah, dan ia akan menggantung di awang^mati tidak, hiduppun tidak. Rasanja dia abadi. Tapi apa arti keabadian djika diri menipu dirt? Kita boieh bertjinta dan mentjari. Tapi mentjari jang ada, dan mentjintai jang ada. Buat apa kita metn-buang2 waktu mentjari jang tidak ada ketentuannja dan tidak njata? Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 278] === 271 dizzy too. The only difference is that he must be a model, a point of perfection among the class that he leads, Surrendering himself to the goals with total willingness and sincerity both in the thrills of the struggle and in the despair and loneliness of a prison cell in the middle of the night (163).“ As Susi puts it, Harun’s speech had reached its “climax” (puntjak) at this point, and we can begin to see the schematics of political speeches emerging; they begin slowly and increase in drama and abstractions that contradict the rational foundation on which they are based. Lukman practices a similar style. In one of his speeches, he begins by explaining to Susi his goals of buying factories from the Chinese to help the rakjat become selfsufficient, and about his desire to teach young children who haven’t been tainted by “capitalism and imperialism” and works his way toward the question: “How can we possibly sleep on a soft mattress, on a bed, when the workers bathed in sweat don’t have one stick of straw to use to make a sleeping mat?" (160). Later, he continues with this apocalyptic vision, also reaching the puntjak of his speech: ... a process will occur through which all those decaying remnants of the past will be destroyed. And when that is complete, out of the millions of oppressed people there will arise a voice that carries a threat to all of those who still live in the p ast... those will be the days of decision, the days of awakening, and the days when the oppressed class will take its revenge” (170).* “... bagiku, orang jang mengaku dirinja mendjadi pengandjur rakjat, mesti berdiri di-tengah2 rakjat jang dibelanjaitu, dalam duka dan suka, disedih dan kasih-sajangnja. Dia mesti berdiri dengan obor didepan, bukan sebagai malaikat atau orang gaib dari kajangan, tetapi sebagai manusia biasa jang berkumis, berdjenggot, kadang2sakit lapar dan pening djuga. Tjuma bedanja dia hams bisa mendjadi model, jang sempuma dari kasta jang dipimpinnja. Menjerahkan dirinja kepada tjita2dengan ichlas, baik didalam kegembiraan perdjuangan, maupun dalam kerugian dan kesunjian cel dimalam hari. *... akan berlakulah proses kehantjuran kepada segala jang mesti mendjadi busuk. Dan pada saat itu akan bangkit diantara berdjuta manusia jang tertindas, satu suara jang mengandung antjaman pada mereka jang berlalu___ Hari2keputusan, hari kebangunan dan hari pembalasan dari kasta jang tertindas. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 279] === 272 This is clearly not a victory speech, and here, Rukiah is giving the lashkar rakjat the last word. In the light of Susi’s previous question about what and who the rakjat is, however, Lukman’s invocation of the “oppressed class” appears problematic here; it is not the proletariat of Marxist rhetoric that he has translated so precisely. While these speeches have a clean logic that makes sense within the confines of the guerilla encampment, Susi’s ambivalence draws out their internal contradictions. After witnessing the mutilated bodies of two of the guerillas with their hands and heads cut off, Susi has a desire to, as she puts it, be like the philosophers of the past, who “freed themselves from all political ties, and from wars of crazy, cruel, and deceitful people” (160). Those philosophers remained separate from the people “because they knew every incident, every story influenced by political games and political propaganda was only temporary, had no lasting quality, was not eternal”® She tells H arun,... Harun offers a characteristic response, telling Susi that she is “exalting” (mendewa-dewakan) art, then goes on to say, “I’m also interested in the arts. But for me, art is nothing more than a tool for the struggle for countering imperialism, serving the interests of the proletarian struggle (KM 161). To make his argument, Harun brings in the example of Chairil Anwar, although he doesn’t name him, to define his notion of art through its binary opposition: And as an example, I think back to an artist who was a friend of mine, who has since d ied Before he died I told him I felt his philosophy of life was of no benefit, and inconsequential. Of no benefit, because it does not directly address the foundations of the revolution and the needs of the rakjat. And inconsequential because he tried to create a following so that they would suffer and be the victims 40Mereka sudah punja tempat jang menjendiri, karena mereka tahu, bahwa tiap sesuatu, atau dap tjerita jang dipengaruhi m a in ^ politik dan propaganda buat sehari sadja, itu semua tidak kekal, tidak abadi. Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 280] === 273 for ideas that only he truly possessed or understood as an artist Maybe this is what is called universality in art, or art for art’s sake, which distances us from what we know and can understand.41 It is possible to glean from Harun’s speech what art should be-in opposition to what it was for Chairil Anwar-: beneficial, consequential, not difficult to understand. As this is a rather limited view, Rukiah turns to another character, Haris, who explains his perspective on the role of literature: I know of nations outside myself... I have become acquainted with America and the people of America, because I read American stories. I know also of the land and people of Russia, because I read Russian stories, through the mediation of Tolstoy, Ilya, Dostojewsky, and others. And I can locate the contrast there, the difference between the way Americans love America and Russians love Russia (164).42 Through Haris, who bears a resemblance to Pramoedya Ananta Toer through his habit of note-taking from books he is reading and the piles of books dispersed around his room, Rukiah introduces the issue of the Cold War, which would of course increase in intensity in the region of Southeast Asia after 19S0. Haris already has a sense of the possibilities of non-alignment that would emerge in 1955 as the Third World was first imagined, but at this early stage, his view is still too utopian: 41 Aku djuga kenal dan mengetahui tentang seni. Tapi bagiku, seni itu tjuma alat perdjuangan buat meiawan imperialisme, buat mengabdi kepada kepentingan perdjuangan kelas proletar. Dan sebagai tjontoh, aku djadi ingat pada seorang seniman kawanku jang sekarang sudah mati pada waktu belum matinja... pemah aku katakan kepadanja, akan pandanganhidupnja jang tidak rieel dan inconsequent itu. Tidak rieel, karena tidak Iangsung mengemukakan dasamja perdjuangan dan kebutuhan rakjat. Dan inconsequent, karena dia mentjoba menjeret orang lain supaja turut berkurban dan menderita suatu perkara jang hanja dia sendiri sadja jang memiliki dan mengerti sebagai seniman. Mungkin ini jang disebut universeel dalam seni, aliran seni buat seni, jang mendjauhi garis2kenjataan. 42-Aku kenal dengan negara2jang ada diluar aku, katanja.- Aku bisa kenal dengan Amerika dan manusia Amerika, karena membatja tjerita Amerika. Aku kenal pula tanah Rusia dan manusia Rusia, karena membatja tjerita2Rusia perantaraan Tolstoy, Ilya, Dostojewsky dan laurtija. Djuga aku bisa membedakan, bagaimana bedanja tjara manusia Amerika mentjintai tanah Amerika, dan manusia Rusia mentjintai tanah airnja Rusia. Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 281] === 274 What’s important for us, though, is to choose humanism, and if we take that path with our own initiative, then all of these ideologies circulating around, fascism, democracy, socialism, communism, will become less important and eventually fade aw ay... Even as the revolution fails and we head in the direction of total destruction, with the government’s increasing enmity toward the revolutionaries, if humanism can take its place in the souls of our people, then the very reasons for fighting and for the flow of blood will fade and disappear. In the absence of humanism there is only power, but humans always come back to their own sense of humanism. It’s the same here, even though the revolution has failed and is headed for disintegration, as our government grows more disgruntled with the revolutionaries, but if humanism can cloak our souls, then the fighting and the destruction will go away. But we must have as our goals firm beliefs, hopes, and love. If we can truly possess those three concepts, we only need to take one thing from them, that is, truth (164).’43 In this section of the text, Rukiah has set up a discussion between Susi, who is searching for eternal meaning as a way to transcend the urgencies of the way, Harun, who rejects all art except that which is beneficial and easy to comprehend, and Haris, who sees in world literature the keys to understanding world politics and his fellow human beings. In the process, she lays out the framework of an argument that would develop throughout the 1950s and reach violent proportions in the early 1960s as the Communists defeated in compounds like this one have returned to power in Indonesia. The debate, which, through the Cold War, reached global proportions, continues to be played out even today, not only in nation states that continue to regulate the arts but also in the Held of postcolonial criticism, albeit with greater insight and more precise terminology. Let me quote at length 43Tjuma pokoknja kita sendiri mesti metnilih kemanusiaan. Dan bila kita telah tiba pada tudjuan ini, dengan sendirinja, matjam faham2jang ada disekitar kita itu seperti fasisme, demokrasi, sosialisme, atau komunisme akan mendjadi ketjil dan hilang.... Begitu pula disini ini, sekalipun revolusi ini gagal dan berdjalan menudju ke-kehantjurannja, serta kaum pemerintah makin lama makin bentji kepada kaum revolusioner, tapi djika kemanusiaan telah meliputi djiwa manusia, maka segala batas perkelahian dan perebutan darah ini akan hilang. Tjuma tudjuan kita tetap pada pertjajaan, harapan dan kasih-sajang. Bila ketiga tjoretan ini telah kita memiliki, kita tjuma bisa tahu dari kumpulan tiga tjoretan ini, ialah: kebenaran. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 282] === 275 a passage from a recent article by Indira Karamcheti, which explains the situation as it is now understood: The strict division between East and West, art and politics, has resounding reverberations in the discussion of postcolonial literatures. First and foremost, according to this view, the texts of the West are fashioned for eternity. The aesthetic beauty of the Western verbal icon seduces as permanently as the frozen desire painted on Keats’ Grecian urn. Counterpoised against this, the texts produced by the Rest do not aim for and do not achieve, supposedly, the Keatsian truth of beauty. Instead, they have the utilitarian rectitude of the political weapon, of revolutionary rectitude. Their lack of regard for aesthetics should be balanced by an emphasis on the moral, on its translation into ethical political action, that is, by the beauty of truth. This, however, does not follow. Instead, their political truths are both plural and lower-case- too local, too temporal, too confined to particular political and historical circumstances to achieve the universal status of truth. So secondly, the eternal universal truths of human nature are contained in the Western artifact, which retains the moral weight of being simultaneously a disinterested object of aesthetic pleasure, uncontaminated by the common world of politics, and the sacred repository of the truths of human experience. The literatures of the Rest, the minor, the postcolonial literatures, have neither the aesthetic beauty nor the moral weight of the singular, the individual-they have only the passing ephemeral qualities of the temporal, the plural, the political (6061). Karamcheti is here responding to Fredric Jameson’s now infamous comments that “Third World” literature will always be political and collective,-and therefore lacking an aesthetic-because its writers work under the rubric of the “nationalist allegory” (Karamcheti 59-60). Postcolonial critics have responded to Jameson in a variety of ways, arguing for example that collectivity and individuality are not binarially opposed,44and in Karamcheti’s case, that the infusion of literature with a political and moral imperative results in a new aesthetic which she calls “minor pleasures.” These pleasures, Karamcheti contends-referring to Barthes’ notion of the “text of bliss,” come in the form of discomforting texts that force readers to question their assumptions about society and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 283] === 276 literary expectations (64-67). Rukiah’s Kedjatuhan dan Hati certainly fits into that category, while simultaneously revealing a contiguity between current debates about “Third World Literature,” colonial attitudes toward the literary production of colonial subjects, the responses of writers to these attitudes in the nationalist/revolutionary contexts and the emergence of Cold War influence in the wake of colonialism. In Indonesia of the 1940s, certain writers as well as literary critics like Chairil Anwar and HB Jassin felt the gaze of the west and worked to produce literature of “universal” quality, while others argued that works valorizing the individual were “bourgeois” and “imperialist” and produced art that would be a “tool of the revolution.”45Rukiah personifies these various perspectives in her characters: Susi voices a desire for the eternal as a means of respite from the horrors of reality; Harun speaks what has now become known as the “Third World” perspective; Chairil Anwar’s figure produces “incomprehensible” poetry that, as others have argued, almost achieves the “moral weight of the singular, the individual” while Haris searches for the “sacred repository of the truths of human experience.” All are caught in the web of ideas developed during the colonial period and reframed in the Cold War, only to be reframed again in contemporary postcolonial criticism as the difference between the First and Third Worlds. “Minor pleasure” occurs, in Kedjatuhan dan Hati, in the fact that the debate is not resolved in the 44 See for example Aijaz Ahmad's response to Jameson in "Jameson’s Rhetoric of Otherness and the 'National Allegory’, Social Text 17 (Fall), 1987. 45 For more discussion of the works of this period in English, see for example Keith Foulcher’s Social Commitment in Literature and the Arts: The Indonesian ‘Institute o f People’s Culture’ 1950-1965 (Clayton, Victoria: Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University, 1986) and Astri Wright’s “Painting the People” in Modem Indonesian Art: Three Generations o f Tradition and Change 1945-1990 Ed. Joseph Fischer (Jakarta and New York: Panitia Pameran KIAS (“Festival of Indonesia”) Exhibit Catalogue, 1990). Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 284] === 277 text; as ambivalence takes the place of resolution, the many sides of the debate are presented and given voice, leaving no possibility of contentment. Emerging from this field of opinions is Rukiah’s idea of individuality, depicted through an epiphanic moment that Susi experiences in the midst of all the turmoil. Responding to Haris’ comment that she is “tom into pieces,” Susi realizes that all this time, she has constructed “a new thought, a new feeling, a new person inside myself,” so as to avoid examining those pieces. “But in the end,” she continues, “I was nothing but a fabricated person” (165). Reading Haris’ books, however, she locates a point of connection between her fragmented self and the existence, in literary texts, of “sentences” (kalimat!) that “had their own individual lives, free from the regulations of society:” Then I realized that apart from the problems of marriage performed by the penghulu or the pendeta (Islamic leader or priest), and apart from the problems of blood-stories and killing, and stories of materialism, there were also strange sentences in Haris’ books, sentences which were possessed of their own individual existence, free from the social regulations (165).“ Here Rukiah draws a contiguity between unregulated sentences of a text and individual thoughts that are free from the regulations of ideology. As a character who possesses a stream of contradictory ideas culled from various ideologies and personal experiences in and out of the encampment yet “apart from political theory, Communist ideology, and the material world,” Susi is herself constituted of a collection of such “unregulated sentences.” Rukiah’s concept of individuality, which her characters have been seeking in “ Kemudian aku mengerti, bahwa selain dari soal2perkawinan jang diuruskan oleh penghulu atau oleh pendeta2digeredja, dan setain dari soal2tjerita darah dan petnbunuhan dan tjerita benda2 lainnja, masih djuga ada kalimat2jang aneh di-buku2 Haris, dan kalimat2 itu mempunjai hidup jang menjendiri, iepas dari aturan2* manusia umum. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 285] === 278 her autobiographical stories and poetry, is revealed here in a metonymic contiguity between self and text. Susi is brought back from this epiphanic space by Lukman’s authoritative warning that reading Haris’ books will infuse her with a moraal burgerlijk (Dutch: bourgeois morality). From this moment, a trajectory appears in which Susi stops reading, wanders confusedly around the camp, submits to Lukman’s advances, realizes she is indeed “a woman,” gets pregnant, goes home and submits to the silencing middle class marriage. In Susi, Rukiah has created a character who is capable of imagining an individuality that is rooted in shards of collectivity, but is incapable of sustaining this idea or living it. Moreover, the times themselves made it impossible; Susi faces the imminent attack on the encampment by the Dutch, the eventual jailing of her child’s father by the “Republican Generals,” and the filial responsibilities of repairing a middle class home broken apart by the revolution. For Susi, then the inhabitation of the Third Space is momentary; the author will force her character back to what Radhakrishnan calls “a certain axiology/ideology/the ‘bottom line’” (753), the feminine, middle class woman locked away behind her stone house and wire fence. She will then remain split into two selves, one rational and one emotional, the latter conflated with her “femininity” and the former, with reading and writing, symbolically locked up in her writing desk at the end of the novel. These selves continue to speak to one another, however. The “emotional” self does most of the talking in this last section of the novella, in language heavy with symbolism and differs profoundly from that of Susi’s rational “guerilla” voice which Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 286] === 279 judges her in terms of her integrity and honesty. Here, the two voices in her head speak to one another: In my heart there were two who spoke. One said, now was the time for my ship to be set out on the open sea, where the tributary of the water of love meets the sea of devotion. All the arrogance, roughness, the dirt and the sins would be shattered to pieces and sink down to the bottom of the blue water. But the other person showed me that this was all a big lie. All the arrogance, the harshness and the dirt, together with the sins, were the truth that could not lie to an honest heart... You’ve already lost the value of respect, and that can’t be exchanged for a foundation of lies (194).47 While Rukiah appears at times to make fun of the “emotional” voice, she also finds symbolism to be the only vehicle for various profound sensations and ideas that are almost inexpressible, and which thus form “unregulated sentences” in her own text. Here, she uses a repeated image of a glass window as a metaphor for that which obstructs her split selves from merging: ... life is just a series of dramas. And this drama could not be grasped, like a hand behind a glass window that wants to grab all of the world outside... Yet crushed and forced to turn back, full of regret, hatred, love, regretting even the feeling of the meeting of the hand’s flesh and the glass... (170).* Susi’s sense of regret for the knowledge and experience she has gained is paradoxically augmented by the notion that the glass is solid yet transparent, so that while she cannot penetrate it physically, she is can always see and understand what is on the other side. With these “sentences,” Rukiah captures the essence of the dilemma of the nationalist- 47Dalam hati ini ada dua jang berbitjara. Seorang mengatakan, bahwa sekarang waktunja kapalku mesti diladjukan kelaut lepas, ketempat batang air tjinta bertemu dengan laut kebaktian. Segala kesombongan, kekasaran, kekotoran, dan dosa2jang dihanjutkannja tentu akan tenggelam mendjadi hilang dalam air jang membiru! Tetapi seorang lagi, membohongkan ini semua. -Segala kesombongan, kekasaran dan kekotoran lengkap dengan dosa^ja itu adalah kebenaran jang tidak membohongi kedjudjuran hati----Engkau telah kehilangan sesuatu nilai kehormatan jang tak bisa diganti dengan kebohongan jang dibikin2. a Terasa hidup ini penuh main2tjuma, Dan permainan ini tak bisa buat diraba, seperti tangan dibalik katja djendela mau memegang segala benda jang ada diluar katja. Tertumbuk, dan berputar kembali menjesali rasa pertemuan daging tangan dan katja jang ada dibalik djendela. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 287] === intellectual who knows too much to take refuge in ignorance or immersion in a singular ideology, who experiences on a daily basis his/her dislocation from the surrounding environment, who regrets the knowledge that experience and individuality brings, but cannot not continue to seek them out. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 288] === 281 Chapter 6: Reclaiming the Mother Tongue The “chaos” of writing, the attempt to anchor ironies and irritations in writing itself, pulls the “literalization of female destiny”... into visibility, even when it is considered an aberration. Writing is therefore a particularly dangerous means of propagating “female destiny,” simultaneously miming it and unmasking it, not taking it seriously and, at the same time, seeking out yet other adventures in its name. -Helga Meise' In the preceding chapters, I have traced contiguities in the works of four women writers to map a genealogy of a female literary voice in Indonesia that is explicitly contestatory, as the writers, like the “folk etymologists,” create their own meanings of “perempuanAvanita” as well pengarang perempuan (woman writer). My purpose has been to show women engaged simultaneously in two projects. They are at once contesting patriarchal norms that formed a significant portion of nationalist discourse and constructing alternative subjectivities in literature that do not depend on the creation of an Other, hierarchical distancing between author and audience, or the projection of a European “universal” ethos. The twin projects of critique and the articulation of self cannot be separated, as both are intimately connected; these authors come to writing with a critical mission only through which they can reach beyond the limitations of literary schemata and normative language to write themselves as recognizable. I have used the motif of weaving to portray the processes through which these female authors experiment with various ethoi, narratives and discourses from women’s gossip to Shakespeare, to literary critic, to idealized nationalist female, to find a voice. With this strategy they resist the codification and reduction that the female experienced in any one of these individual narratives or discourses. They also position themselves as both inside and marginal to the patriarchal social structures they critique; weaving the opponents’ 'Helga Meise, quoted in Chris Cullens, “Female Difficulties, Comparativist Challenges: Novels by English and German Women, 1952-1814” Borderwork: Feminist Engagements with Comparative Literature, ed. Margaret R. Higomet (Ithaca: Cornell University Press) 117. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 289] === 282 languages into their own, they are able to empty words of their meanings and refill them according to their own desires, and reshape the language to articulate their visions. Blending the genres of biography and literary criticism, I have also discussed the urgency with which these authors came to writing, and how this urgency shaped their texts. I have shown how women wrote to avoid what they all define as socially inscribed “womanhood,” a future of submission to the institution of marriage as polygynous, an unequal “national” partnership, or middleclass emptiness. My purpose has been to show that writing functions for women to postpone an inevitable erasure of the female and replacement with what would develop into a metaphor of the mother of the nation, symbol of virtue, and soft spoken partner to the “fatherland.” In women’s writing of both non fiction and fiction, we have seen the response to this tropic system in which women have questioned the terms of nationalist discourse as well as rewritten national narratives including those of the rantau and the revolution. In this chapter, I will illustrate how two of the writers, Suwarsih and Rukiah, situate the female body into the text as both sexualized being and as birthing mother and in the process, destabilize both the metaphorical “woman” and question the legitimacy of the nation itself. As I have emphasized throughout the dissertation, this kind of critique emanates from deeply within the nation, which is why we shall see the authors’ use of sexual deviance-within the very constrained mores of the nationalist period-and materiality of the female body as one of two available responses to the grandiose rhetoric of nationalism. The other, related response involves the interpolation of “women’s talk” and other modes of oral discourse into a predominantly masculinist arena. What is characterized as “empty talk,” omong kosong is granted, in women’s writing, a specific kind of power to convey unspoken and hidden “truths” that women pass among themselves. The authors’ siting of these “truths” in domestic, and therefore depoliticized spaces, appears to lessen their political impact when they are rendered in the public space of print. However, when we examine the author’s intentions, through their critical invocation of nationalist language Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 290] === 283 and imagery we see that they have embedded their political critique in nuanced, yet powerful ways. I will show that the strategy of locating this critique within women’s talk, and women’s stories is a conscious one, aimed at an audience that, if not specifically female, is asked to read from a female perspective. This move is itself political, as it destabilizes norms of androcentric nationalist textuality. First, however, I would like to draw together threads from all four writers’ works as I draw from the texts their theories of why and how women come to writing via personal experience and the national sign system. I will address the authors’ discussions of the “mother tongue,” which I will interpret in a very literal way as the voice-or lack thereof-passed from mother to daughter, and the daughter-writer’s negotiation of that voice in her own writing. My point is to show that the “mother tongue” forms, in women’s writing, the nexus of anxieties that the anxiety of colonial/Westem influence forms for male writers. I will offer further evidence for this thesis in an examination of the women writers’ portrayal of their own motherhood in their works. We shall see how motherhood functions to divide women along class lines and emphasizes the differences between women who have “succeeded” as women (berlaku) and those who inhabit the margins of “womanhood.” It is only when motherhood is wrenched from its role in the patriarchal system, that is, when paternity is falsified and thus controlled by the mother, that the whole concept is altered. As I conclude, I will be asking a question that will remain open-ended regarding the intended audience for these texts. We have seen the writers writing for themselves, telling their stories in order to make sense of their lives and experiences, and to imagine themselves as recognizable. It would be reductive, however, to frame the texts as merely self-reflexive, but how exactly might the connection between the individual and collective audience be built into the relationship between author and audience? Is it possible that these authors are imagining alternative “communities” in their works? I will offer one possible Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 291] === 284 view, with an anticipation of future studies in this area as critics of Indonesian literature continue to think beyond the East/West; local/universal; and male/female binarial pairings. Thinking Back through the Mother What would mother say to see me now? Her hatred would only increase CKedjatuhan dan Hati 149). In the previous chapter I quoted passages from Rukiah’s Kedjatuhan dan Hati portraying a daughter’s intellectual as well as physical rejection of “mother’s teachings” on proper feminine behavior and filial piety. The rejection is temporary, and later, this daughter will surrender to the world view her mother articulates, which requires the heavily symbolic locking away of her writing and writing self in her writing drawer. With characteristic severity, Rukiah maps the source of anxiety for each writer I have discussed here around the prospect of becoming one’s mother, of taking on her voice, or her silence as the case may be. Before I present the details of each writers’ struggle in this arena, I would like to point out that this mother-daughter conflict is general to women’s writing throughout the world, even as it is one of the most “unspeakable” aspects.2 As Adrienne Rich sees it, “The loss of the daughter to the mother, the mother to the daughter, is the essential female tragedy.” Marianne Hirsch expands upon this idea in regards to African-American women’s writing: “‘the cathexis between mother and daughter-essential, distorted, misused-is the great untold story... Women writers find it necessary to ‘think back through their mothers’ in order to assume... ‘the authority of authorship’ and to define themselves identifiably in their own voice as subjects. (Hirsch 415; 416). Hirsch makes the point that, because most women’s writing emanates from a “daughterly ethos,” we rarely gain insight into what she calls where “maternal discourse;” from the daughter’s urgent 2 See Marianne Hirsch, “Maternal Narratives: ‘Cruel Enough to Stop the Blood,’ Reading Black, Reading Feminist, ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (New York: Meridian 1990) 415 and Francois Lionnet’s “Autoethnography: The An-Archic Style of Dust Tracks on a Road," (same volume), 401. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 292] === 285 perspective, this discourse will be rendered as “always repetitive, literal, hopelessly representational. It is rooted in a body that shivers, hurts, bleeds, suffers, bums... ” (Hirsch 417; 426). In Rukiah’s portrayal, the mother voices the patriarchal ethos of the entire community, and her selfishness represents the conservatism of an entire generation; Susi’s rejection of this maternal discourse is her ticket to “independence” of nationalist, personal, and writerly dimensions. The mother and her discourse is so filled, in the Indonesian context, that its rejection is multi-valent as well. What we will see in these early feminist texts is not a critique of “essentialism” per se, but rather, each authors investigation of the relationship between self, the feminine and its essences, and society. Reading the four texts in contiguity, a distinct pattern emerges as each author performs this move through the language and rhetoric of her times as though passing through a ritual of self-production. In the process, each author asks the question of how this feminine will be defined and by whom, and how it will be employed in society, for whose gain or loss? As we examine other women writers’ “thinking back through their mothers,” we find variations on the same theme of betrayal, as well as the problem of maternal absence and silence. Given the authors’ proclivity toward speaking simultaneously in the individual and the collective, these themes and problems take on both personal and political dimensions. Kartini, for example, had two mothers-one biological and one “official”-and describes in her letters the impossibility of negotiating a relationship between them. The daughter of the lower-caste woman of her aristocratic compound, she at first believes it to be strategic to develop a closeness with the “official” mother of the compound to strengthen her own mother’s position. The plan backfires when her biological “Mother” feels betrayed, and she later alienates her official mother by refusing to follow the strict hierarchical guidelines regarding behavior in the household, and later, refusing to marry. Throughout the letters, the paternal voice is notably absent, or rather, filtered through the voices of both Kartini and her official mother. Kartini speaks of her father through a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 293] === 286 daughterly ethos when she imagines “he loves me most,” and “he would never... force me to enter into a polygamous marriage.” Her mothers are given the mission of passing on his declarations, including that which forces Kartini to convince her sister to become an “official wife” so as to protect her father from certain death from a mysterious heart-related illness. The responsibility for reining Kartini back in to the norms of the kabupaten and Javanese society is left to her “official “ mother who reproduces the official patriarchal logic: “Someone who does not marry is not a person! A woman who does not marry does so from vanity... ” (Letters 130). Like Rukiah, Kartini finds respite in rendering this logic in writing, mapping it so that she may prepare a response. As we have seen in the first chapter, Kartini’s response comes in the form of her research into modes of becoming “a person” outside of marriage which she discovered was not possible for a woman of her standing. By “writing through the mother,” then, daughter-writers confront and decode proverbial wisdom passed down from mother to daughter in a society that was doubly patriarchal in its mixing of colonial and late 19* century Javanese “tradition.”1 As a temporary line of escape from this form of maternal discourse-the passing, from mother to daughter, of the patriarchal imperative, Kartini takes on a third mother, naming her Dutch correspondent Rosa Abendanon moetertje or “little mother.”4This title is not mere affectation; in correspondence with this “little mother,” in a "totally different world, so far, far away from the petty mundane affairs of this world..." (22), she is able to create herself as the discursive daughter she would like to be. That is, the young woman requesting books, insights, and advice from her discursive mother, and developing, 1See John Pemberton’s On the Subject o f “Java ” (Ithaca: Cornell University Press), 1994 for a critique of the term “tradition” in the Javanese context 4 While Western critics have focused on the fact that the “truth” about Kartini’s two mothers was suppressed through the editing of her letters in the original publication of Door Duistemess tot Ucht, Indonesian writers such as Suwarsih were able to read through the editing enough to understand that the whole story was not being told. See Suwarsih’s “Kartini: Perintis.” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 294] === 287 through this process of intellectual nurturing, into an ambitious, critical thinker. For Kartini the letters also became a space in which to explore the meaning of “woman” in both her immediate context and universally, drawing upon gossip, her own experience of life in the polygynous compound. Orientalist writings, and feminist texts produced in the Netherlands, France, and India. As she brings to the foreground her own story of struggle with her two mothers, she is better able to understand and articulate their objective, as defined by the paranormal, (psychic called in to “cure” Kartini), of diffusing the force of her desire. This is clearly a critical point, as Kartini not only becomes aware of the force of her desire and its perceived dangers, but also of its vulnerability to an accumulation of forces. As Kartini tries to outwit her mothers, by refusing them access to her soiled clothing-on which, to recall my discussion in chapter 1, she would have left her “essence,” to be used by the paranormal for the creation of an amulet that would quell her desire-the power and vulnerability of that desire is revealed to her. In this pivotal moment, the mothers are depersonalized; she writes through, as in beyond them by locating them as limited agents in a polygynous household, beholden to a system that is beyond their control. Her own struggle expands to a collective one as well, encompassing all those whose desire is studied and its materiality hunted down as a means of reversing its power. The legacy that Kartini leaves to women writers of the future is broad, but centers around this move of writing through and beyond the mother toward a perception of the self as female in both material and abstract, and individual and collective terms. In the autobiographical novels, as all three authors contemplate the meaning of “woman” by writing through and beyond their mothers and beyond, they focus on a specific term, kasih sajang, which becomes a particular point of struggle. The term connotes empathetic love that is associated in their works and in Indonesian parlance with a “motherly” love. In the nationalist/feminist context, the term is double-edged/ It is conceived as a foundation for civil society based on the family guided by values passed from the nationalist mother to her children, and it is simultaneously the essential force that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 295] === 288 compels women to sacrifice themselves for this nationalist family and as such restricts personal ambition and desire. In confronting this problematic, the authors do not argue against the concept of kasih sayang itself, but rather, against the greater epistemological structure in which it is identified as a “natural” feminine attribute, an essence. The slippage between author and narrator discussed previously allows for the possibilities of entering into this complex discursive territory. Thus, Hamidah, who early on laments her mother’s death in childbirth, relates the lack of kasih sajang to her own sense of alienation in the world, but in so doing, defines kasih sajang as learned, rather than essential: Since childhood, I had not been educated by my mother. Had never felt my mother's warm embrace. Had never heard my mother sing a lullaby. I was raised by my father. So of course the education I received was lacking in kindheartedness. While I was sick, I suddenly understood the real meaning of mother. A woman! A woman who felt, thought, and behaved like a woman! Who wanted to be kindhearted! Who understood how to nurture kasih sayang. So different than a man (KM 52).s This lack is the basis for Hamidah’s gender-confusion in the text, which she suggests guides her both toward her greatest successes and her inability to bear children. She is able to hold her own in the male-centered public space of travel, work, and ambition, but, at one point in the text, fears in a foregrounding passage that her batin or internal being will be adversely affected or distorted by her experience working in an all-male environment (52). Later, married yet barren, she suggests that has failed as a woman, by her inability to both have children and to act properly as first wife (103). However, by describing Hamidah’s painful realization that she is not really a woman, and yet, nothing but a woman, the author presents the paradoxical assertion that the story itself would not have been possible had her character been properly instilled with kasih sayang early on. Forced into an ambiguous femininity from her initial lack of a mother’s kasih sajang, she exacerbates this ambiguity ’Dari ketjilku, tak pemah mendapat didikan ibu. Tak pemah bertjumbu dengan ibu. Tak pemah mendengar njanjian ibu, Aku selalu didjaga bapaku. Tentu sadja didikan jang kuterima kurang lemahIembut. Ketika aku sakit bamlah aku merasa betul apa artinja ibu. Perempuan! Perempuan jang berhati, berpikiran dan berkelakukan setjara perempuan! Jang menghendaki lemah-lembut! Jang pandai menanam kasih sajang! Djauh berbeda dari Iaki-laki. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 296] === 289 by engaging in a series of unfeminine behaviors, including walking freely throughout her town, going on the rantau, and taking a public leadership role in the literacy movement. Later, when this ambiguity comes back to haunt her, she substitutes a text-her story-for the child she cannot produce. Rather than resolving her story of ambiguous femininity, Hamidah complicates it further with this substitution, for as a woman writer presenting her story of ambitions, accomplishments, and desires for public judgement, she trangresses the boundaries of the feminine in the most profound way. The transgressive aspect of writing as a form of public speech is emphasized in Suwarsih’s depiction of her mother as nearly mute, and unable to pass maternal wisdom except in the form of silence and lack: For her whole life she was always calm and full of self-restraint no matter what happened; she always pushed her emotions to the back, so that people would not see them and would then sometimes be surprised when she actually did become angry or happy. She as a matter of course went along with everything Father did, so that no one needed to think about her wishes, or take much notice of her tears which rarely flowed. Mother was mother, a frail woman who only wanted peace and tranquillity in her family (MB 139).* She was not even strong enough to give advice to her own children, that’s how modest she was, until the children that she did not know any more grew up to the point that they were more adult than she, and mother was surrounded by intelligent faces that now gave her advice, so that her voice became something of a plaintive whine and with just one or two words she would signal a reproach with a weak cry (MB 144).’ The first part of the description resonates with the qualities of the ideal, aristocratic female as described by Kartini. The second part serves as the response of the daughter-writer to ‘Seumur hidupnmya ia selalu tenang dalam ketegangan apapun juga; ia selalu menempatkan dirinya dalam di Iatar belakang, sehingga orang hampir tak melihatnya dan kadang-kadang merasa heran, bahwa dia juga dapat marah atau gembira. Ia sudah biasa menyetujui semua perbuatan bapak, sehingga orang tak perlu mempertimbangkan keinginannya, atau juga memperhatikan air matanya yang jarang sekali ke luar. Ibu adalah ibu, seorang wanita lemah, yang hanya mcngingini perdamaian dalam keluarga. 7 Ia tak berani memberi nasehat kepada anak-anaknya, begitu rendah hati ia itu, sampai anak anaknya itu tak ia ketahui lagi tumbuh menjadi lebih dewasa daripadanya sendiri dan ibu merasa dikelelingi wajah-wajah yang budiman dan memberikan nasehat kepadanya, sehingga suara ibu menjadi memohonmohon atau dengan satu dua kata menandakan penyesalan dengan nada yang lemah. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 297] === 290 this silent or occasionally plaintive creature. Maternal discourse, in this description, becomes a pattern of gestures, glances, and cries that replicate an emptiness of the spirit. Like Kartini, as well as Hamidah, Suwarsih as daughter-writer fills these silences and empty spaces with excessive verbiage, opinion, description, conversation. In the process, she examines the constraints placed upon the female voice by a hegemonic patriarchal logic, as detailed in a scene in which her mother does speak up for herself. In the singular scene in which Sulastri’s parents appear together, her father is caught in the act of justifying his taking of a third wife who is the same age as their daughter. The sudden news of the third marriage gamers first the mother’s contained, feminine response of “manufactured, stiff smiles” while in the company of her daughter and son-in-law. In the other room, however, out of their presence, she begins to raise her voice to her husband. In her replication of the words of the father, Suwarsih explicates the inner workings of the logic of silencing: In the face of mother’s ridicule, father listened calmly, and replied with a flat voice: ‘Allah bestows great blessings upon those who are good. Would you not prefer to find happiness in the hereafter? If so, you must neglect your own happiness in this life, truly. Bu, you must be willing to accept all that befalls you. Including the fact that my love for you is different, of the spirit, not of this material world’ (MB 1434).* In her text Suwarsih shows that the speech, with its resonating code words- Allah, the hereafter, spiritual love-has its desired effect as the mother retreats back into silence. Rendered in Suwarsih’s text, however, the logic of the word of the father is unmasked as an appropriation of Islamic mysticism to serve his own selfish purposes. In authoring her own story, she writes through her mother’s silence, presenting the critical response that her mother cannot voice. The phrasing of passages through which the mother-daughter * Menentang ejekan ibu, suara bapak terdengar, tenang, tak bemada: “Anugerah Allah untuk orang baik adalah besar. Bukankah kau lebih senang mendapat kebahagiaan di akherat? Kalau begitu kau harus mengalpakan kebahagiaan dalam dunia ini, betul-betui. Bu, kau harus reia menerima semua kejadian ini. Lagi pula cintaku pada kau adalah berlainan; cara rohaniah, tidak dari dunia fana ini. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 298] === 291 relationship is described conveys the same kind of ambivalence expressed by the other women writers: The daughters were always spoiled by her. Sulastri still remembered how she tried to sew a blouse herself with stiff fingers and a sense of futility, because her mother had always taken care of such things for her. When Sulastri was... far from home, she understood her mother’s attentions as kasih sayang and she regretted all of the times when she snapped at her mother impatiently for some small thing. “Mother is just ignorant,” she always said, excusing herself, but it wasn’t true; her mother was distressed by her daughters’ foreign knowledge, they would speak the foreign language in front of her and at times did not even bother to respond to her questions or interest, always expressed with such hesitation (145).’ A pattern appears in which “foreign” education and books precipitate an unnatural reversal of position in the household that leads to the disdain required for these daughters to avoid becoming their mothers. The communication gap that occurs is not merely linguistic but also epistemological, and yet, kasih sayang forms a thread that binds mother and daughter on lower, internal level that creates tensions in the texts. Suwarsih is the only author of this group to render the birth experience in writing, and when she does, the narrative of pregnancy and childbirth becomes a site for the contemplation of difference in the meaning of the feminine across the elite/rakyat” divide. Living among the “intellectual proletariat, the character Sulastri is forced to face her own class bias when choosing between a bidan (modem nurse midwife) or dukun (traditional midwife). Sulastri chooses the former for “health reasons,” but the author’s comparison of two birth experiences demonstrates the ways in which the issue extends beyond that of health, to the splitting of the meaning of the feminine along class lines. Describing a birth of the rakyat class, Suwarsih focuses on the other-worldly vision of the mother (Juhariah’s) grotesque shape on a floor mat, her eyes a terrifying purplishness (keungu- Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 299] === 292 unguan). It is the dukun, however, that becomes the center of this focus, with her long black fingernail acting as a metonymy for the inexplicability of the rakyat, or more specifically, the subaltern female, rendered here as a dark, mysterious, Other (122). Suwarsih’s own subsequent birth with the bidan, in contrast, underemphasizes the physical as the focus shifts to a finely-crafted passage in which birth is allegorized in the natural surroundings, as the “trees replace their leaves,” “blossoms bring new life to the stems,” “rays of sun brush sprouts of grass embedded in moist soil” and “new life propels the shoots up and out of the earth’s matrix” (132).10 The actual birth is absent from the text; Sulastri "awakens" from an extended reverie as the baby appears. Here, Suwarsih paradoxically uses a natural/cosmic allegory most often found in classical court-based depictions of birth to describe the distancing of the mother from her own body that the modem birth experience provides." This new relationship effectively isolates the dukun birth experience as other-worldly, and even, in the context of the text’s discussion of the nationalism, sub-national, a problem that nationalism needs to solve. As Sulastri goes on to view Juhariah as a “sister” who is victimized by poverty, then loses touch with her, class divisions in “the feminine” remain unresolved. ’Anak-anak perempuan dimanjakan olehnja; Sulastri masih teringat waktu ia mencoba menjahit sendiri bajunya dengan tangan yang kikuk dan dengan rasa putus asa, karena ibu sebelumnya selalu sedia untuk membuatnya. Waktu Sulastri ada di tempat lain, jauh dari keluarganya, ia merasakan kasih sayang dari ibu itu dan ia menyesal telah seringkali membentak ibu dengan tak sabar karena hal-hal yang sepele saja. ‘Ibu begitu bodoh, sib,’ ia selalu memaafkan dirinya, akan tetapi itu tak benar, ibu merasa celaka terhadap kepandaian asing dari anak-anaknya, itu, mereka bercakap-cakap dalam bahasa asing di dekatnya dam kadang-kadang tak memperdulikan memberi jawaban atas pertanyaan dan perhatian ibu, yang diucapkannya sangat ragu-ragu itu. 101 have translated the passage in its entirety in Chapter 4, p. 200. " This allegory is most frequently encountered in classical court-based descriptions of birth. In traditional court-based texts, queens who are often of mixed heritage, that is, part human and part bidadari (nymph, typically residing in a bamboo clump) take temporary center stage when pregnant and giving birth to the future raja (king). In the classical Hikayat Aceh, for example, this motif especially pronounced, in extensive descriptions including prophetic dreams, the countenance of the pregnant queen, the aligning of natural and cosmic elements; time is formulated in this extensive passage in a monthly rhythm, corresponding to the future king's development in the womb. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 300] === 293 Rukiah expands upon the connections between class and the socially inscribed feminine in Kedjatuhan dan H ati, alerting readers to the fact that, when the class issue is brought to the surface, underlying social tensions are brought to the point of eruption. In the text, her semi-autobiographical narrator Susi describes the “violation/rape” Cmemperkosa) of kasih sajang by middle class society, and responds to the situation by “killing o ff’ (membunuhkan) the vestiges of kasih sajang!womanhood in her body and spirit. Susi believes that, by emptying herself of her femininity, she will abandon her class pretensions as well, and the author demonstrates that both are interconnected when, as Susi is “reborn” as a woman, she argues that society confers humanity only on those who follow its elitist behavioral prescriptions. Alternative expressions of the feminine remain beyond the boundaries of the text as Susi remains caught within the middle class world view. As we shall see in the following section, while the author has here opened a discussion regarding the class-based definition of the feminine, she also argues that there is not yet a space in which this discussion can go forth, because of the conservativism regarding gender issues that she encounters in the Communist movement. Rukiah’s interpolation of female sexuality into the discussion of self, the feminine, and society adds a new dimension to the discussion, transforming it into a force that is ultimately threatening to foundations of the nation itself. Rukiah’s critique of 1950 constitutes a turning point in the genealogy, in the author’s depiction of an alternative feminine in which sexuality, and even genealogy itself comes under women’s control. Four years later, Suwarsih would continue in this transgressive/critical mode with her Empat Serangkai, which is similarly destabilizing in its angry depiction of the corruption of the feminine in the national narrative. When read together, the two texts constitute a major development in a feminist/post-national critique, but this was a development that was not yet acceptable, and thus not sustainable in the Indonesian milieu. It appears in the historical moment of a post revolution chaos, only to be buried by a new conservatism adopted by both Indonesia’s left Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 301] === 294 and right. Nevertheless, it is worth pursuing here as a flashpoint not only in women’s writing but in modem Indonesian literature as a whole, where fiction becomes a repository for the expression of free-floating radical ideas that have no point of anchorage in society, yet affect that society in an unconscious or semi-conscious way. For the characters appearing in these texts-Kartini, Hamidah, Sulastri, and Susi-the idea of becoming a mother is intricately tied with the fear of becoming one’s mother, and each of these characters experiences failure and/or loss of self in this transformation. Kartini dies in childbirth; Hamidah takes charge of her co-wife’s son, but relinquishes him at the age of 4; Sulastri loses herself, becoming “a shadow, an echo” and Susi locks her “rational” and radical self in her writing drawer. The authors, conversely, reclaim the voices that the mothers appearing in these texts have lost in the act of writing and in the process, transform the mother-tongue by infusing it with a critical, questioning spirit. This final transformation requires one last step in the arena of public, nationalist discourse, the reclaiming of the female body as well. The Post-National Body in Kedjatuhan dan Hati and Empat Serangkai In Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson writes: It is useful to remind ourselves that nations inspire love, and often profoundly selfsacrificing love. The cultural products of nationalism... show this love very clearly in thousands of different forms and styles. On the other hand, how truly rare it is to find analogous nationalist products expressing fear and loathing Imagined 142). The texts Empat Serangkai and Kedjatuhan dan Hati assure us that Anderson’s statement is not a tautology, i.e., wherein only those texts that express love and self-sacrifice would qualify for the category of “cultural products of nationalism.” The texts are fully embedded in the history and discourse of the nationalist project and their critique of that project is issued from deeply within, from writers and their characters who once felt that “profound” sense of “self-sacrificing love.” As I have argued in previous chapters, nationalist discourse coupled with a the vestiges of a colonial Victorianism, in which “native women” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 302] === 295 were viewed as inherently sexualized, forced both Indonesian nationalists and feminists to create an atmosphere of a primness and virtuousness among women and a stoic celibacy among men. As early as 1950, one year after the end of the revolution, and again in 1954, however, we see women writers contesting the gendered foundations of nationalist discourse through images of female sexuality, disruptions of the myth of the strong nuclear family, and domestic space as a peaceful refuge. It is not as if the writers Rukiah and Suwarsih suddenly emerge with graphic images of liberated female desire and passion in their depictions of sexuality. Generally speaking, the two authors adhere to convention when they discuss female sexuality in terms of “surrendering,” {penjerahan) sex itself as a kind of war game, and in Rukiah’s case, her out-of-wedlock pregnancy as a “calamity” (kebentrokan). However, when we look closely at the language they use to see an infusion of print with the kind of sexual punning and innuendo that occurs in everyday speech and see the authors themselves taking pleasure in the textual intersection of sexuality and wordplay. In Kedjatuhan dan Hati, Rukiah, through the veil of Susi’s voice, presents the love scene between Susi and Lukman in the following way: I don’t know why I surrendered myself to Luk that night. Was not this surrender what he meant by taking love to the climax? No, I can’t say anymore about my weakness on that night, and the total absence of my arrogant strength. I could no longer resist what he wanted. I forgot, I forgot, but the event itself cannot be forgotten. Only occasionally through the pressing urges of happiness and fullness of overflowing love, he spoke to me slowly and gently, flooding and killing the strength of thought that had so wanted to overpower emotion, so that now, emotion would be victorious: “Sus, I love you, and we have the right to taste our love to the climax without the decisions of others outside ourselves, without ceremony, and with sincerity as clear as glass” (172).'2 12Dan aku tak mengerti, mengapa malam ini terlalu banjak aku memberikan penjerahan kepada Luk? Tidakkah penjerahan jang begini inilah jang dimaksudkan Luk memiliki tjinta sampai kepuntjak? Tidak, aku tidak bisa mengutjapkan lagi, bagaimana kelemahanku malam ini, dan dimana kesombonganku. Aku tak bisa menolak apa jang dia pinta. Dia lupa, akupun lupa, tapi peristiwa ini tak bisa buat dilupakan. Tjuma sekali2 dalam desakan rasa berbahagia dan kepenuhan kasih jang melimpah, Luk bersuara lembut pelan2 mentjairkan dan membunuh kekuatan pikiran jang mau menguasai perasaan, dimana kemudian perasaanlah jang dapat kemenangan: - Sus, aku kasih kepadamu, dan kita berhak mengetjap kasih ini sampai kepuntjak dengan tidak upatjara, dan dengan keichlasan membening seperti katja.- Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 303] === 296 In his translation of this passage, John McGlynn apparently felt that it was not explicit enough, thus he adds, “I floated along, unable to rest or turn back the tide. I surrendered to the current and let myself ride atop the rolling crests” (Frederick 79). But the physicality of the language-the “pressing urges of happiness” (desakan rasa berbahagia) and the “fullness of overflowing love” (kepenuhan kasih jang melimpah) creates the desired effect. “Surrender” in this passage takes on the double meaning of giving in to another’s wishes and giving in to the moment of pleasure, as Susi’s description suggests. A similar type of scene appears in Suwarsih Djojopuspito’s 1954 collection of short stories Empat Serangkai, to call attention to the forces against which both writers write as female authors who feel that female sexuality forms an indispensable-as opposed to gratuitous-aspect of the stories they have to tell. In Empat Serangkai, Suwarsih offers a similarly impassioned description of a lonely woman’s desire: Suddenly I heard the sound of a flute, quivering, and full of thirst. The voice was small and undulated slowly, full of emotion, as if the flutist was experiencing the loneliness of the night just as I was. My heart began to pound; there arose in me an indefinable sensation, and I could not endure the sense of longing that welled up in my heart. Joining in were the leaves, glimmering, and the flood of moonlight along with the night wind empowered (mengeraskan) the sensation of the flute’s voice, as if its song had penetrated my heart. The undulating song shifted into one with a strong, quick rhythm, then slowed, as if the flutist had grown weary... (ES 6).n Like Rukiah, Suwarsih indulges in the pleasure of contextualized innuendo; in a context in which the flute and the phallus have a metaphorical relationship, the quickened breathing, the penetrating, the undulating and rhythmic fluctuations reveal the author’s song of sexuality. Here, as in Rukiah’s text, sexual freedom contains a hidden danger for the female: the flute suddenly takes on a bewitching quality that foreshadows a loss of control, 15Tiba2 kudengar bunji sending, gemetar dan penuh dahaga, Suaranja ketjil dan ber-ajun2, lambat2 penuh perasaan, bagaikan jang menjuling itu ikut merasakan suasana sepi dari malam ini. Hatiku ber-debar2, bangkitlah perasaan jang tidak2dan aku tak dapat menahan kerinduan hatiku. Tambahan pula daun2 kaju hagaikan ber-linang2, bertjutjuran tjahaja bulan dan angin malam mengeraskan suara sending itu, bagaikan diperdengarkan dekat hatiku. Lagu jang berajun beralih pada irama tjepat, kemudian melambat lagi, perlahan2sampai hanja terdengar sajup2, bagaikan si penjuling mendjadi lesu. Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 304] === 297 “I could see the flute as if gliding across the dark room, like red letters dancing on a hidden string. The flute laughed, “You’re afraid;” the flute teased, “you long for me;” the flute bothered, “you like me;” the flute invited, “come to me.”'4The character’s forbidden passion-she is married to someone other than this flute player, who has abandoned hernext takes the form of a suggestive, but prudent dream: Harjadi faces me, takes my hands and gazes at me with a look that makes my heart quiver. I feel the heat of his hands and his blood as if flowing through my entire body. He asks, ‘How would you feel if our blood were joined, our flesh, our bodies?’... So hot, I feel the grasp of his hand, and he moved closer until our knees touched (12).'5 When the dream becomes reality, the specter of a woman’s losing control returns: And I surrendered. I was just a small woman, weak and lost. I felt as if I had been conquered. After that, he came when he needed me, like a thief in the night... I surrendered completely... Now my body had meaning only for Harjadi... Both Rukiah and Suwarsih take female desire to the limits inscribed in Indonesian translations of the discourses of modernity and nationalism. Unlike female characters of classical court literature who dominate with flaming genitals and unquenchable passion, the desiring women of these stories are betrayed by their bodies. Rukiah’s Susi gets pregnant and is forced to succumb to the feminine teachings she had previously unlearned: “You are a woman, so my mother told me repeatedly. And she was right, too, when she said that one day, that feminine part of me would emerge at a fateful moment (pada saat kedjatuhan) 14Dikamar gelap kulihat bunji seruling meluntjur terus sebagai huruf2 merah me-nari2diatas tali jang tersumbunji. Seruling tertawa: ‘kau takut’ Seruling mengedjek: ‘Kau rindu padaku Seruling mengganggu: ‘Kau sajang padaku’ Seruling mengadjak: ‘Datanglah padaku.’ 15 Hardjadi berhadapan dengan aku, memegang tanganku dan memandang kepadaku dengan pandangan jang menggelisahkan hatiku. Tangannja kurasa hangat dan darahnja bagaikan beralih mengalir keseluruh tubuhku. Belum pemah aku mengalami perasaan sedemikian ini. Ia bertanja, “Bagaimana rasanja djika kami berdua sedarah, sedaging, dan setubuh pula?’ Aku tak menjahut kemaluan, walaupun aku merasa berbahagia sangat Dan aku tak berani melihat mukanja. Ia berbisik: ‘Aku tjinta padamu. Mengapa kau berdiam sadja?’ Lebih hangat kurasa tekanan tangannja dan ia Iebih dekat duduknja sehingga lututnja kena lututku. “ Dan aku menjerah. Aku hanja wanita ketjil sadja, lemah dan tak menpunjai tudjuan lagi. Kemudian ia datang pada waktu ia membutuhkan aku, sebagai seorang maling dimalam gelap Aku menjerah sepenuhnja. Sekarang tubuhku mempunjai arti karena Hardjadi sadja. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 305] === .. ( KH 172). In Rukiah’s case, she creates an elaborate introduction to this “final surrender, ” soon after Susi feels her femininity returning, in the form of kelemahan (weakness, gentleness) that makes her sensitive to the sound of gunfire and death. The problem is not only that Luk and Susi are from different social classes, but also that Luk is committed to the revolution, as opposed to bourgeois society: his idea of a marriage proposal is as follows: “Are you brave enough to come live with me? I have nothing to offer, except a fate 0kedjatuhan) that will continually tear at your heart. I have no more than that. Victory? Defeat? At this point, I only know the struggle” (167). Susi, meanwhile, is bound by a promise she has made to her mother to marry, if not the person of her choosing, at least according to the social expectations for people of their class, with “a huge ceremony, a feast of food, the nuptial bed decorated with budding blossoms, the bride and groom pressed with so much finery” (168). It is important to note that this critique is framed within Susi’s rebirthed “feminine,” emotional consciousness, which is misinterpreted on so many levels in the encampment that Susi herself cannot make sense of it. Her critique is viewed as “bourgeois,” her desire for peace and turn toward “humanism” is read as a desire to “escape” from reality, and blossoming sexuality and fertility are perceived as a threat to the encampment, causing tensions and spreading the “irrational” like a disease. In Suwarsih’s short stories, passionate female characters encounter a double standard: female adulterers are thrown out of their homes and lose custody of their children, and even innocent lust leads to a total loss of control, as a woman confronts the specter of her innate animalism. Suwarsih makes this clear in her the resonant last line of her “The Red Blouse,” which traces female sexuality from desire to a total loss of control. This last line, “I am a wild animal” {Aku itu binatang jalang) is also the title of Chairil Anwar’s famous poem in which he declares his exit from civilized society to a freedom of individual expression and pursuit of both knowledge and pleasure. For Suwarsih’s character, the line signals an exit into despair. Indeed, each of her passionate female characters disappear at the end of her stories to remote villages, to oblivion, and to death. R eprod u ced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 306] === 299 The writers are addressing double standards of male and female behavior where sexuality in and out of marriage is concerned, the limitations of the woman writer in expressing this aspect of women’s experience and ultimately, failed promises of nationalism and revolution. Both Suwarsih and Rukiah argue in their works that the female body and female sexuality are too intricately woven into the social fabric to allow women or women writers the freedom of physical or intellectual exploration that men take for themselves. In Kedjatuhan dan Hati, Rukiah’s depiction of Susi’s experiences among Communist revolutionaries, encampment prefigure the following comments of Frederic Jameson: Historically, all forms of hierarchy have always been based ultimately on gender hierarchy and on the building block of the family unit, which makes it clear that this is the true juncture between a feminist problematic and a Marxist one-not an antagonistic one, but the moment at which the feminist project and the Marxist and socialist project meet and face the same dilemma: how to imagine utopia (“Cognitive Mapping” 355). The irony of Susi’s situation-and by association of the female revolutionary-is made clear by the seduction scene that leads to Susi’s “final surrender.” Updating a traditional motif, Rukiah replaces the suggestive, metaphorical banter of classical scenes of seduction with a debate about the meaning of marriage and love. The “rational” Lukman peppers his argument for free love with the metaphorical phrase “we must be free to taste/take our love to the puntjak (apex, pinnacle), while the “emotional” Susi thinks beyond the immediate to the long-term consequences, for women, of sex outside of marriage. In this “struggle,” Lukman has the benefit of rhetorical skills, and seduces Susi with democratic discourse: “Sus, we have the right to be happy. But we also have the right to pursue our love tonight, all the way to the peak {Sus, kita berhak punja rasa berbahagia... Tapi kita berhak pula mengetjap tjinta malam ini sampai kepuntjak) (170). Susi resorts to “eternal” religious metaphors: “I don’t want to be Eve who brings about the fall by eating the forbidden fruit.” Lukman counters with the argument that “the eating of the forbidden fruit is what brought us knowledge.” In this passage, it becomes clear that the two are speaking in two distinct Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 307] === 300 narratives, one of the male body in the revolutionary moment, the other of the female body in “civilized society” of peradaban and kesusilaan. Rukiah is not merely engaging in melodrama when Lukman promises to marry her, then reneges after sex, using the urgency of the moment as an excuse. She is making the point that the “independence” imagined in nationalist as well as Communist discourses was essentially male-centered. In Empat Serangkai, Suwarsih makes this point with the vehemence and anger of a woman who, like Sulastri of her earlier novel Buiten het Gareel had once placed her complete faith in nationalist ideals. The four stories of this collection portray a series of male characters, all with nationalist ties, who berate, patronize, cheat on, beat, and interrogate their wives like military police. Suwarsih asserts that the male nationalist/revolutionary identity is based on pretense through her depiction of one young man who molds himself in the “style of a hero” (gaya pahlawan)-, a “mustache decorates his upper lip... he wears an elegant shirt like a freedom-tighter who wants to go on fighting for the nation” (ES 42) and keeps up appearances through the use of “vanishing/whitening cream.” She contends that the speech emanating from the mouths of these heroes is “scripted,” and their movements are like those of “actors.” One has actually gained his position as a local district head by using his wife as a human shield during the Japanese occupation. Those nationalists and revolutionaries who are not acting have, she suggests, internalized the violence and fascism of the period, which they have brought into the domestic sphere of the house/nation. In the final story, a man identified as a nationalist and teacher is explicitly compared to a fascist, and then to Hitler in these passages of his interrogations of his wife: A jealous person lives only to find justification for (his) jealous feelings. Like a general, a leader of an army, he plans his attack and his invasion well in advance, so that he can plant his first question carefully, so that his “prey” won’t be the least bit suspicious that she is beginning to be spied upon and attacked. Shrewdly and cleverly, the attacker attempts to make his “prey” surrender and confess to her sins Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 308] === 301 on the first round. His success depends upon the ignorance of cleverness of the prey (89-90).'7 When the “prey” is too smart for him, hiding [its] deceits, according to Suwarsih’s narrator, The jealous one exhibits the attitude and behavior of the secret police and Hitler’s government, and will not stop with his assumptions and his torture until he has gotten what he hoped for (90)." Women as well as men are portrayed working to maintain the social order, Nyonya Hardi, for example, applauds a husband’s unwillingness to grant his wife a divorce with these words: “ That’s a strong man. He knows how to defend his rights. He knows how to punish a wicked wife. He stand as an example for all men; when decency is thus valued, our society will never decline” (98). In another story, a young woman’s mother refuses to accept her daughter back into her home after the young woman has been beaten by her husband and thrown out: ... stupid, what more do you want, a husband who’s strong, young, a good position, owns a nice home and a car, respected. You’re what they call a bad woman, running off from your husband just like that, we have a good and respectable name (51)." A more nuanced form of violence is perpetrated on women through the devaluation of their speech; women are subjected to their husbands’ lessons in how to speak properly, and how to fill what these husbands refer to as “empty speech” (omong kosong). One educated woman, describes her husband as her “teacher” who schools her in the art of proper speech through dictation: 17 Orang tjemburu ada2sadja akalnja untuk mendapat kepuasan bagi ketjemburuannja itu. Sebagai seorang djenderal pimpinan tentara membuat rentjana serangan dan penjerbuan orang tjemburu ini memikirkan dahulu, bagaimana ia haras mengadjukan pertanjaan2jang pertama- ber-hati2dahulu agar supaja si ‘mangsa’ tak tnenarah tjuriga sedikitpun djuga, bahwa ia mulai diintai dan diserang. Menurat kepandaian dan ketjerdikan si penjerang si ‘mangsa’ dapat menjerah dan mengaku dosanja pada pertama kalinja djuga. Inilah tergantung pula akan kebodohan atau ketjerdikan si mangsa itu. " Si tjemburu selalu bersikap dan bertindak sebagai seorang pulisi rahasia dari pemerintah Hitler dan tak akan habis akalnja dan siksaannja djika simangsa belum mengatakan jang diharapkannja. " Kau bodoh, apa jang kauingini lagi: suami tegap, muda, berpangkat tinggi, mempunjai ramah dan auto bagus, dihormati orang. Kau tentu disebut perempuan djahat, lari begitu sadja dari suamimu. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 309] === 302 I believed in him and I was obedient... Everything he said, I repeated b ack... When we had guests, I was not allowed to speak about anything insignificant... When the guests left, [he] would go over what was incorrect about my speech. That was how he taught me and I was expected to be overwhelmingly thankful (5) “ Here we hear resonances of Kartini’s letters, in which she is advised by her husband to avoid “superficial chatter,” elsewhere, Suwarsih reiterates Rukiah’s critique of the romance novel as she gives her female characters the opportunity to finally speak freely among themselves. One such character explains to her friend that she had internalized a romantisch image of proper marital relations through her reading of romance novels which caused a blindness toward “reality.” (49). This character’s husband describes her behavior in favorable terms: “she was submissive (menurut)... she never grew angry... she never exhibited jealousy.” But in his wife’s mouth, the meaning of these terms is reversed: “He never noticed that I had long since become an old-fashioned doll, without feelings, without desires. That is what is commonly known as m enurut and sabar. I was broken, Ti, like a caged bird” (49). The bold print forms part of the author’s strategy to defamiliarize these schematic qualifiers of “woman” that had been institutionalized in the intersection between the romance novel and nationalist discourse. What is “profound” in women’s writing-to use Anderson’s word-is the extent and depth of the critique that these women writers offer, not only through their characters’ articulations of fear and loathing, but also subtexts that are so embedded that they have been thus far overlooked by critics. As with their brief yet memorable expressions of female sexuality, the authors present their critique through symbols, and metaphors, innuendo and doublings that form connections between women’s sexual expression and the unmasking and emasculating of the nation. In Suwarsih’s text, these connections are drawn s e d a n g k a n nama kini baik dan terfaormat 10 Aku mempertjajakan diri kepadanja, aku taat kepada [dia]... Segala utjapannja kjuutjapkan kembaii... Djika ada tetamu, aku tak diperkenankan mengeluarkan omongan jang tidak2 Djika tetamu telah pergi, diulangi oleh [dia] apa jang tak baik dari utjapan2ku tadi. Demikianlah tjaranja ia mendidik aku dan sepantasnja aku harus berterima kasih sekali. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 310] === 303 through the title, which contains an elision that is so recognizable as to seem improbable. It’s title Empat Serangkai is also the name ascribed to the four nationalist leaders Sukarno, Hatta, Ki Hadjar Dewantoro, and Kyai Haji Mas Mansur who were indispensable to the building and winning of the nation. However, as Ramadhan K.H. explains in his fictional autobiography of Ibu Ganarsih, Sukarno’s second wife, the “empat serangkar came together not only in the interests of the nation, but also in the interests of Sukarno’s love life: in 1943, they arranged a hasty divorce for Sukarno so that he could marry the woman he had recently fallen for, and who would ostensibly make a more appropriate first lady. In 1954, when Empat Serangkai was published, Sukarno was in the process of taking a second wife in a polygynous marriage, which caused the disillusionment of numerous women and an outcry from feminist organizations who led protests in the streets that included the smashing of windows (Wieringa 144-5).1' The future of the movement for marriage reform in Indonesia dimmed considerably at that historical moment, and polygyny is still legal. Sukarno defended himself in the language of gendered essences when he told his feminist critics that “I cannot act any differently” (Wieringa 144). The similarity in the titles of Suwarsih’s collection and the four national heroes need not imply that the four male characters of the stories, two soldiers, a revolutionary hero who becomes a district head, and a teacher, are representations of these historical characters. Rather, the title functions to create the connection between official nationalist history and its shrouded counterpart, the home. In this setting, the conflation of female sexual desire and selfexpression, consistently obstructed and/or trivialized by male physical and psychic violence distances the stories further from the “pure” and “noble” ideals espoused in nationalist discourse and central to nationalist history. Suwarsih argues here that official history is 21 See also the journal Gelanggang No. 381 Th. VIII (September 26,1954): “Aksi Perwari dan 16 organisasi iainnya terhadap perkawinan Bung Kamo yang baru,” for discussion of women’s letters that poured into newspapers and journalists, and of the numerous positive responses to Sukarno’s actions, mainly from men. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 311] === 304 reliant upon the silencing of women and the exclusion of their stories and on the continued “play-acting” of the participants at heroism and morality. In Rukiah’s Kedjatuhan dan Hati, the author goes a step further to demonstrate the illegitimacy of the nation, again in a way that is embedded in the story in such a way as to escape notice, particularly because the story is about a woman’s fateful pregnancy and lost love. Clues to Rukiah’s intentions appear in the fact that, as the story makes clear, Susi’s great “sin” is not premarital sex but rather, lying to her husband about her child’s true paternity with the help of her friend, a midwife. She is further denounced by Lukman for constructing this lie in order to uphold the middle class values of her family and the neighbors. As Susi takes on the false trappings of the middleclass housewife married to a prominent nationalist and businessman, Rukiah reminds the reader that she is play-acting, and that the whole scenario is a construction. The reader is also made aware of the child’s illegitimacy, knowledge that the “innocent” nationalist husband does not share. Bom during the revolution, the child “Little Luk” symbolizes the future, but this is a future distorted by secrets and ultimately, based on a false paternity, illegitimacy, or false legitimacy of the child based may be read allegorically on illegitimacy. In this constructed world, “Little Luk,” bom during the revolution, symbolizes the possibilities of the new nation. While the characters in the text remain generally unaware of it, the readers of the text understand that this little Luk, along with the whole scenario of the emergent nation and its middle class is based on illegitimacy. Leaving her story unresolved, Rukiah threatens her readers with the notion that the nation’s illegitimate genealogy will someday be revealed, and that the Communists will one day return to claim their paternity. Resonating here are Lukman’s words: “a defeat today is a victory for tomorrow. If we are defeated in our actions now, what’s wrong with having a second revolution, and if that fails, then a third one... ” (KH 175). In fact, the text threatens its readers on multiple levels. Susi’s falsification of her child’s paternity with the help of a female Mend strikes at the heart of patriarchal Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 312] === 305 insecurity.22 Here, there is nothing mysterious or opaque about Susi’s request to her Mend, the bidan to falsify the due dates so that Susi can marry an unsuspecting “father” and rejoin the ranks of the civilized and the decent Recalling Sukarno’s thoughts on the “naturalness” of patriarchy: ... I love patriarchy. Not because I am a man, but because the laws of nature have determined that patriarchy is superior to matriarchy. Destiny has determined that the law of lineage is more suitable as the law of fatherhood, because only when the law of lineage accords with the line of fatherhood-where a woman is made into the wife of one man and not more-can people be sure who is the mother, who is the father, who carries whose child, and also from whom she has received what is in the womb (41).“ it is clear that Rukiah is not simply telling a story here. The rupturing of this trajectory through women’s secret conspiracies, brings out the fears that make “women’s talk” so suspect. Here, the worst fears about women’s secrecy-the possible threat to patriarchal hegemony through women’s abilities to falsify paternity, are realized. Rukiah demonstrates with this work how relatively easy it is to disrupt the nation’s “foundational fictions, with dangerous writing like this, wrapped in the guise of a girl’s fateful experience of revolutionary romance.24The project culminates in the text’s images of a middleclass housewife, locked in her stone house behind her wire fence, yet harboring a burning desire for her Communist lover. “If I say his name,” she tells us, “it’s as if he’s just behind me, 22See Tiwon's discussion of how, the constant uncertainty regarding paternity, (around which, as Fatimah Memissi and others have noted, laws, prohibitions and guidelines are created of both a religious and secular nature) allows for a slight shift in gendered power relations in favor of the “word-of-the-Mother.” “Women in the Production of Discourse," unpublished. “ Saja adalah pentjinta patriarchat, bukan oleh karena saja seorang laki-laki, akan tetapi ialah karena kodrat alam menetapkan patriarchat tebih utama dari pada matriarchat. Kodrat menetapkan hukumketurunan lebih selamat dengan hukum perbapaan, karena hanja dengan hukum keturunan menurut garis perbapaanlah,-dimana perempuan diperisterikan oleh satu orang laki-laki sadja, dan tidak lebih-, orang dapat mengatakan dengan pasti: siapa ibunja, siapa bapanja,- siapa jang mengandungnja, tetapi djuga siapa jang tneneritnakan ia kedalam kandungan itu. 24In “Irresistible Romance: the Foundational Fictions of Latin America” Nation and Narration, ed. Homi K. Bhabha (London: Routledge, 1990), Doris Sommer writes: What better way to argue the polemic for civilization than to make desire the relentless motivation for a literary/political project? To read on, to suffer and tremble with the lover’s drive towards marriage, family, and prosperity, and then to either be devastated or transported in the end, is already to become a partisan” (84). Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 313] === 306 in my room, in my bed, and in my heart (190),” leaving the lasting impression that the individual imagination is not subject to political and social constraints. Reclaiming the Mother Tongue I now return to the question I posed in the introductory regarding the “mother tongue” in the nation, when the national language is constructed out a combination of languages, discourses, and epistemologies as the nation is itself being imagined by a maledominated elite. Women writers are extremely aware of the inadequacies of both spoken (regional) and written language (colonial/national) in the quest for self-expression through which to engage in and self-portraiture. Kartini expresses the problem first, miming the romantics when she writes, What language, no matter how well one might be a master of it, could properly express the emotions of the soul? It does not exist. Like you, I believe it does not exist, at least not in a form which can be spoken or written. But there is a silent, mysterious language, which is expressed in neither worlds nor letters, but which nonetheless can be understood and comprehended by anyone with feeling, and which is completely reliable because in its entire vocabulary, that little word “lie” is This proves to be an illusive goal for Kartini. Dutch certainly offered her temporary liberation from a Javanese world in which language was both hierarchical and gendered, and in which her movements, actions, and speech were ascribed meanings that grew increasingly out of her control. However, Dutch was also the language in which Kartini was urgently constructing a rational case to her Dutch correspondents to provoke their assistance in her attempted escape from her “gilded cage” and did not necessarily allow the truly “free” expression she sought. In her letters, she offers glimpses into a space which is relatively unconstrained and not organized as any kind of exchange, that is, the arena of “women’s talk,” typically carried out while women are engaged in other activities. In her letters she trivializes this space as just “So many old wives together... gossiping... and bad-mouthing on a large scale... ” (Letters 111), but in fact what she gains from this discursive space is the evidence of women who, like herself rejected polygynous marriage Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 314] === 307 and marriage altogether, and a sense of strength through a vague sense of solidarity. Kartini suffers from a loss of this discursive space after marriage when her husband limits the amount of time she may spend in the company of other women, along with her time to write to women friends. But she has already succeeded in designating a space in which women’s speech and written text come together in resistance against both patriarchal and expressive constraints. This, I argue, is the space in which the author reclaims the “mother tongue” for herself, that is, where she fills the gaps left by absent or silenced mothers, and deconstructs corrupted teachings passed down from mother to daughter, replacing them with her own lessons in transgression and resistance. This space in which the mother tongue can be reclaimed is necessarily between speech and writing, the border at which they meet, as women find both arenas to contain certain dangers for women. The description of Susi’s mother using dongengan-fables, moral stories that are orally conveyed-to impart a common wisdom of filial piety and exchange, and Sulastri’s father’s use of a paternalistic wisdom to silence her mother, read together with Kartini’s description of her mothers’ consultation with the paternalistic paranormal all point to the dangers of “traditional” or pre-print knowledge. The specter of orality’s enchanting powers over women is reiterated in Hamidah’s warning that, "Ya, we women, our love begins to flow immediately upon hearing some melancholy words. Our interest is piqued to hear sweet words. Our anger is let loose to hear kasar (coarse) words” (KM 36). These women writers gain a sense of control over orally-conveyed wisdom through the writing process, stabilizing it in writing in order to then respond with their own critique. The situation is complicated by the fact that, as Sweeney points out, the mere acquisition of print literacy does not necessarily result in a sudden increase in variety of choice for storytellers; it does not necessarily precipitate a fragmentation of stereotype and a richer appreciation of the individual. On the contrary, standardization and proliferation of texts made possible by print may reinforce the stereotypes by codifying them (A Full Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 315] === 308 Hearing 171). As I have shown here in the dissertation, in the arena of writing, women were continually confronted by a new standardization of court-based or “traditional” wisdom regarding gender and the female in particular in nationalist discourse and literature. In my discussion of modem fiction produced by male writers during the nationalist period, I have illustrated the ways in this wisdom was given new legitimacy in modem print fiction. Women writers thus reclaim the “mother tongue” at the place at which writing meets an unofficial, alternative-informal form of orally-conveyed wisdom passed among women when, as Helene Cixous puts it, “no one is there to correct them” (“Coming to Writing” 21). Rendering what has been dismissed as omong kosong or “empty talk,” and gossip in writing and print, these authors demonstrate the power of this talk to convey complaints and stories of female transgressors as in Kartini’s letters and Hamidah’s Kehilangan Mestika, to reveal unspeakable truths about the “domestic” space of the nation as in Suwarsih’s Empat Serangkai, and to disrupt patriarchy, as in Rukiah’s revelation of the mother/mid-wife solidarity in Kedjatuhan dan Hati. This brings me to my final point, regarding the relationship between author and audience in these texts. Through the dissertation I have presented a variety of authoraudience configurations. Kartini, I have suggested, wrote beyond her female correspondents, not to a public, but to a general colonial audience that included the influential husbands of her correspondents in a belief that writing could change the course of her life. Hamidah addresses her text to an “esteemed audience” to whom she presents her story as a kind of “case” in which the forces of fate, adat, modernity, colonialism, and gender intersect. Included here is her own husband, to whom she makes a public threat regarding the possible consequences of his decision to take a second wife. By blending, and thus recasting, popular, foreign, political and intimate narratives in the text, she also writes to and of a kaum perempuan (community of women), not only to “raise their Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 316] === 309 position,” as she put it, but also to inspire activism and solidarity, through her own example. Suwarsih Djojopuspito’s Buiten het Gareel/Manusia Bebas emphasizes the aspect of the audience of the self, the act of writing as a strategy for making sense of one’s own life experience. Translating her story across three languages over a period of 40 years, Suwarsih writes to herself through three different discursive frames, and the audience is invited in to witness this intimate act of self-production. Like Hamidah, Suwarsih blends the political, philosophical, personal and historical in such a way as to allow the audience to experience her writing of herself in a multitude of ways. I see a pattern developing in the response to women’s writing by the time of the publication of Buiten het Gareel in which male critics-constituting an almost complete majority-express their discomfort with that aspect of women’s prose that they describe as “cloying,” “effusive” and “sentimental,” “school-girlish,” and “weak.”55These are “qualities” of women’s writing that, as Keith Foulcher has recently argued, are responsible for “assigning] secondary status” to women’s literature, which he describes as “by women, about women, and for women readers” (Foulcher “Postcolonial” 72). Foulcher’s use of the passive tense here is jarring, as it places the responsibility for assigning the status on the women writers themselves, when what we are dealing with is in fact a critical apparatus that posits a different style and voice as universal and “primary.” To transcend this kind of gendered binary, we need only to rearrange the terms of argument to see how women writers interject an alternative voice into the nationalist and national literary discourse and invite their readers, or as we shall see in a moment, force their readers, to grant that voice an authority. Hamidah, for example, officially invites her audience to hear her story as inscribed on her terms. Suwarsih, highly aware that her writing will be read as “sentimental,” refuses to self-censor or to alter her 23 See Joost Cote’s and E. M. Beekman’s descriptions of Kartini’s letters, as well as the critical response to Buiten het Gareel offered by Annijn Pan6 and Edgar du Perron, the latter, in his introduction to the novel. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 317] === 310 voice. As both respond to these critiques within their writing, they make it clear their authorial choices are conscious ones. As a response to this mis-interpretative possibilities, women writers generate in their texts the same kind of excess or “overflow” that occurs in women’s speech that precipitates the response: “too much, sister!” Such excess allows for reaching beyond the limitations of totalizing images of the female located in nationalist discourse. The multiplicity of voices and stories woven together creates the possibility of locating a “mother tongue” submerged in the arena of print, as a vehicle through which one’s internal perceptions of oneself in the world are integrated with the way one is articulated and viewed in society. For women writers, the challenge was in part to write themselves through the voice that Kartini presented as a “mother tongue” while changing the ending. Writing in a cyclical, rather than linear narrative structure was one strategy. By locating the uncertain end of a woman’s story at the beginning, at the point at which she sits down to write, the author gains control over her “destiny” and causes a rupture in linear progression that Kartini’s letters, composed in “real time” could not circumvent. We are reminded, in all three autobiographical novels that “I am still here to tell my story.” At the same time, in adopting Kartini’s critical and multiple voice, in which various discourses are brought to bear on the issues of nationalism, feminism, and the self, these authors attempt to rewrite themselves in a language that best articulates their own sense of these issues. It is the inscription of this experience in writing, a space in which the “sad dramas’ of modernity are transformed into narratives of becoming, that a new “mother tongue” is imagined. Through such narratives, the issues are “worried,” to use Gloria Anzaldua’s term, causing them to “fester” in the public space of print.5* J* See Gloria Anzaldua’s Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestizo, (San Francisco: Aunt Lute, 1983) 73. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 318] === 311 By the 1950s, Rukiah, along with Suwarsih, begins to experiment with the authoraudience relationship in ways that force the reader to take a stance vis a vis the text and its characters, requiring engagement or total rejection. In her earlier work, she has confronted the issue of writing for someone else’s expectations in her poem “Buku Kosong,” (Tandus 14). Here, she describes a woman given an empty book by her loved one, to fill with all the details of her thoughts and activities while he is away. The loved one's expectations are described through his “requesting eyes... with a soft gleam” as he says, “Enter into it all of the contents of your life, fill each line of the thousand pages, dengan tinta dan tulisan berbunga-bunga,” with ink and flowery, or stylized writing. When he returns, “his hands stretch out to request the book,” but, once placed in his hands, the book is altered, it “appears to be empty, smooth,” with only “dead lines and circular scratches/without meaning!” The poem turns on the perceptions and misperceptions of meaning of one’s writing under the gaze of, or more literally, in the hands of an unsympathetic reader. In her 1950 Kedjatuhan dan Hati, Rukiah intensifies the issues surrounding women’s writing and its audience in a number of ways. She warns the audience that her work will be “unpleasant,” political, and destabilizing but then immediately launches into an intimate description of family relations and the processes of learning the feminine. The text is interrupted by a series of abrupt shifts, from this intimate, domestic space, to an engagement of the political debates of the period as carried out in the guerilla compound and once again, to a narrative of love, family obligation, pregnancy and marriage. As the reader follows Susi’s “transformations” as she passes through these discursive spaces, the reader becomes increasingly entrapped; if s/he sympathizes with the protagonist-whose first person narration draws the reader in-the reader is forced to enter into Susi’s increasingly schizophrenic mind-set Moreover, s/he becomes complicit in Susi’s ultimate betrayal of the patriarchal order. Any stance they take toward the character and her story-even total rejection-requires an engagement of the story’s complexity, as H.B. Jassin’s infamous critique of the text shows, so that the reader cannot experience the text Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 319] === 312 without experiencing to some degree its destabilization of social constructs and official national narratives. Suwarsih’s Empat Serangkai constitutes a different kind of experiment, in which the stories are structured as labyrinths that discourage readers who are unwilling to consume the story on her terms. The story “Artinah,” for example, commences with a depiction of a seemingly marginal character, Roswati, who, while strolling to her friend Rukajah’s home, contemplates, in a seemingly rambling fashion, friendship, the effects of marriage on friendship, and her own chances of finding a husband, given her “plumpness” and advanced age. At Rukajah’s home, there is a diversionary matter of a cat which results in the two characters’ enclosure in Rukajah’s bedroom with the door locked, where they discuss the pros and cons of marriage. Roswati then pleads with Rukajah to tell the story of a woman whose portrait graces Rukajah’s bedside table, and only then does the actual story commence. This lengthy introduction functions as a kind of initiation into the mind-set required to understand the embedded story’s meaning, which is tied to Rukajah’s and Roswati‘s divergent views on marriage in the larger socio-historical context of the unspeakable truths about nationalism described above. The story becomes an intricate puzzle that can only be solved through total immersion in the connections it makes, and Suwarsih structures it so that only those readers who are fully committed will gain access to the truths embedded in its layerings. This is not necessarily an audience of women, although female readers may sympathize more immediately with the issues that these 20something unmarried characters face. That audience may be drawn into the text as Roswati is drawn into Rukajah’s room, with an inexplicable urge to discover some secret hidden there. They will then receive Rukajah’s message, also conveyed through all the stories of the collection: Let the deceased and banished victims of a destructive social system teach us, the living, how to resist and how to live. But in fact the text, along with the other texts discussed here, is available to any reader who is open to the reading experience as a transformative process, through Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 320] === 313 engagement with what S. Rukiah Kertapati calls the “unpleasant,” or, to quote Barthes, “breaking from the comfortable practice of reading” (Pleasure o f the Text 14), in order to “unsettle the reader’s historical, cultural, psychological assumptions, the consistency of his tastes, values, memories, bring to a crisis his relation with pleasure.”17 Neither “woman” nor “woman writer” can function any longer in a sign system imbued with uncomplicated pleasures-national mother, loyal servant, shy seductress, site for displaced ambivalence regarding “tradition” and “modemity’ -after reading these texts, nor can nationalist history be configured in the mode of a unified imaginary. And finally, women’s writing itself can no longer be read as merely representative or descriptive, but rather, considered as one of a number of-often competing-forces of movement, change, and disruption in the Indonesian nationalist/feminist contexts. 27 See Indira Karamcheti’s excellent article “Minor Pleasures? in which she recasts Barthes’ ideas in the field of postcolonial literature. Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. === [PDF page 321] === 314 Works Cited Achdiat Mihardja, ed. Polemik Kebudayaan. Jakarta: Perpustakaan Perguruan Kementerian P. P. dan K., 1954. Adam, Achmat B. The Vernacular Press and the Emergence o f the Modem Indonesian Consciousness 1855-1913. Ithaca: Studies on Southeast Asia, 1995. “A Happy Household.” Editorial. Perempuan Bergerak, 15(Mei 1919): 2-3. Ahmad, Aijaz. “Jameson’s Rhetoric of Otherness and the ‘National Allegory.’” The Postcolonial Studies Reader. Eds. 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=== [Page 231] === 224 She sat on a wide, low divan with a cigarette in her hand, which she raised gracefully and coquettishly to her lips. On the divan...a young man was sleeping with a blanket pulled up to his chin and a white cloth around his head. His hands, resting on his stomach, were thin and bony; the cheeks and forehead brown and dirty... [She] smiled and said in her supple voice, through which all the turns and undulations of what she said came to full expression: "And, darling, do you like it here? And how do you like married life?" She pronounced the "darling" caressingly, holding her head to one side, yet there was the utmost motherliness and amiability in her fine features, whose last charm had not yet been wiped away by age. The oval shape of the face, the flowing lines of nose and chin and the full curve of her slender, still full neck gave her a youthfulness that contradicted the furrows here and there and the tired expression of her eyes. Her graceful, mobile figure made her look from afar like a young girl. She was charming in conversation, in company, a true woman who found happiness in pleasing others, above all her husband. She spoke in her peculiar melodious manner, paying attention to diction and gestures, in an elegant Sundanese that recalled the graceful floating of a dancer, and Soelastri listened with admiration to the flair and courtesy of this fine woman. The questions were asked merely for the sake of talking, and it seemed to Soelastri that the answer did not matter much, as if Zus Kamo, through the elegance of her gestures, wiped away every memory of what had been said. She jumped from subject to subject, from household matters to the women's movement and her husband's party work, from meetings to political troubles, with an ease as though each subject was fully worth the other, accompanying her words with pensively blowing little clouds of smoke from mouth and nose (BhG 49-50). [Translator's note: the page prints this Dutch passage interleaved with its Indonesian version (MB 51), with a parallel sense; the Dutch text is translated above and the Indonesian parallel is not translated separately.] [Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.]