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167 eight The Baperki Wars A less determined or less principled man, or a more sensible one, might have fled the ordeals Yap faced one after another in 1959 and 1960. But he seemed to thrive on them. It was an astonishing period for the energy he expended on lost causes. Only in his church did he and other ecumenists enjoy some success in creating a unified synod for the three provincial Chinese reformed churches of Java. But for the rest, Yap rushed from one disastrous front to another. In Baperki he refused to relinquish his largely solitary and entirely hopeless battle to restore the organization to its original purpose, as he understood it. In the Konstituante in mid-1959, he delivered a memorable speech against adopting the 1945 Constitution, to no effect except to enrage other Baperki leaders. A year later he engaged in the most significant debate yet, in Star Weekly’s pages, over the integration-assimilation issue, where he opposed the dominant positions on both sides. In December 1960 he gained some unwanted respite, absenting himself from Baperki meetings after his open confrontation with Siauw at the Semarang national congress. The struggle over the issue of supporting the 1945 Constitution began in Baperki but then shifted from that obscure peranakan stage to the national arena of the Constituent Assembly, where the dilemma became plain. On the merits, because of the obviously discriminatory Articles 6 and 26, the 1945 Constitution had to be unacceptable to peranakan citizens. But the Siauw group had attached Baperki to Soekarno’s star, which complicated its position. On 25 April 1959, Baperki members of the Konstituante, including Siauw and 168 The Baperki Wars Yap, met at Oei Tjoe Tat’s home to discuss the situation. On the question of what to do about the 1945 Constitution in the debates, Siauw told the group that Baperki had not yet determined its position. He agreed with the general disapproval of Articles 6 and 26, but stated that the problem now was how to make the best of the situation.1 This apparently meant swallowing hard and supporting the 1945 Constitution . Siauw himself was torn. In his speech to the Konstituante on 11 May, his misgivings were obvious. Despite the 1945 Constitution’s shortcomings, said Siauw, Baperki nevertheless saw no reason to reject the government’s proposal to restore it in full, without amendment. But Siauw treated Article 6 at length, as he had to for the sake of Baperki’s membership, insisting that it had to be viewed in its historical context and that the spirit of the Constitution was not racist. He hoped that the new People’s Consultative Assembly, the highest organ of state under the 1945 Constitution, would eventually improve the document and eliminate all references to asli (native).2 Siauw and the three other official Baperki delegates would, therefore, support the government. Five other delegates who were Baperki members, the so-called “Faction of Five” which included Go Gien Tjwan and Yap, split four to one, with Yap going off on his own to give one of the most compelling addresses in the debates. Go half-jokingly reported that the “Faction of Five minus one” supported the government proposal to restore the 1945 Constitution. When his statement appeared in the press the next day (13 May), Khing was furious at Go for spotlighting her husband. At a time that was so politically tense and uncertain, danger seemed pervasive and Khing was nervous. Yap appeared to be alone and vulnerable and taking chances. Within Baperki, the reaction to his stand was hostile, and there were angry demands that he be thrown out, but no other repercussions.3 Outside of Baperki and a few curious Konstituante circles, however, no one paid much attention to him. Yap had labored over his speech, which turned out to be an exercise in both political courage and realistic, prescient political analysis. His losing battle with Siauw freed him to speak beyond Baperki, and for the first time he addressed issues and an audience unconstrained by minority ethnic or religious interests. Yap’s arguments with Siauw over Guided Democracy had revived his longtime interest in constitutional law and deepened his newer worries about abuse of power. The political drift of Guided Democracy confirmed all of his suspicions. Not least, the legal system had begun to erode, setting off alarms in Yap’s mind. In early 1959 Chief Public Prosecutor Soeprapto had been dismissed for political reasons connected with...

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