China and the Shaping of Indonesia, 1949-1965

CHAPTER 8. Pramoedya, the China Metaphor and Cultural Radicalism

234 China and the Shaping of Indonesia, 1949–1965 234 CHAPTER 8 Pramoedya, the China Metaphor and Cultural Radicalism Frankly, I admire the tenacity, skillfulness, industriousness, honesty, and revolutionary characteristics of the Chinese People. Indonesian people, not bourgeois, can learn a great deal from China, especially in terms of nation building. Never in history has such a gigantic construction happened within so short a time. Such a revolution has changed the face of the earth and human beings! And this is the People’s Republic of China. Pramoedya Ananta Toer (1960)1 Chinese writers occupy a high position and their voices are heard by the society. Together with politicians they constitute the country’s spiritual leaders, who hold an extremely important role in nation building of today. Pramoedya Ananta Toer (1957)2 China’s revolutionary writers and artists, writers and artists of promise, must go among the masses…. Literature and art are subordinate to politics. Mao Zedong (1940)3 The Manifesto was a statement openly refusing the validity of the slogan, “politics is the commander”. Goenawan Mohamad (1988)4 1 Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Hoakiau di Indonesia (Jakarta: Bintang, 1960), p. 37. 2 Pramoedya Ananta Toer, “Sedikit tentang Pengarang Tiongkok”, Mimbar Indonesia 3 (1957): 22. 3 Mao Zedong, Talk at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1965), pp. 19, 26. 4 Goenawan Mohamad, “The ‘Manikebu Affair’: Literature and Politics in the 1960s”, Prisma 46 (1988): 82. Pramoedya, the China Metaphor and Cultural Radicalism 235 The previous chapter has established that Sukarno’s favourable perception of China helped shape his vision for Indonesia, which in turn contributed to the country’s profound political changes between 1956 and 1965. This chapter shifts our attention to the cultural arena and analyses China’s role in perpetuating Indonesian cultural radicalism during the same period. The centre of discussion is Pramoedya Ananta Toer (1925–2006); there are two major reasons for this focus. In the first place, he has been widely regarded, within and without Indonesia, as one of the country’s most influential intellectuals.5 Pramoedya’s attraction to China and his attempt to utilize its politico-cultural concepts was a key factor in shaping his thought and actions during the crucial years between 1956 and 1965. Second, the change of Pramoedya’s political and cultural visions was not merely a personal matter; instead, it had greater significance. Pramoedya was one of the most important writers behind the trend of cultural radicalization in the late Sukarno era (1959–65). As Boen Oemarjati puts it, “his role in the Lekra [the Institute of People’s Culture] in the early sixties gave rise to a counter-literary movement that marked the history and development of modern Indonesian literature with yet another milestone”.6 There are a number of important studies regarding Pramoedya’s intellectual journey and his place in modern Indonesian culture. It has been generally agreed that the year 1956 marked a turning point in his intellectual and political life, and his central role in the cultural radicalization process has been carefully documented. Nevertheless, existing studies pay little attention to Pramoedya’s perception of China and its implications. The only English-language, dissertation-length study of Pramoedya devotes merely a few sentences to his views of China and their relevance to his changing insight about Indonesia.7 A. Teeuw, a leading scholar on modern Indonesian literature, is a major exception. He suggests that Pramoedya’s 5 Benedict Anderson, Language and Power: Exploring Political Cultures in Indonesia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990), p. 10; Jamie James, “The Indonesiad”, New Yorker (May 1996): 40–8, 93. For a useful website on studies about Pramoedya, see . 6 Boen Oemarjati, “The Development of Indonesian Literature”, in Dynamics of Indonesian History, ed. H. Soebadio and C.A.M. Sarvaas (Amsterdam: Elsevier/North Holland, 1978), p. 328. 7 Savitri Scherer, “From Culture to Politics: The Writings of Pramoedya Ananta Toer” (Ph.D. dissertation, Australian National University, 1981). 236 China and the Shaping of Indonesia, 1949–1965 1956 trip to China represented a milestone: “It was on his return from Peking that the dream of the poet was exchanged for the action of the social fighter.”8 However, Teeuw does not examine in any detail why his China trip was so significant and how his views of China affected his vision for Indonesian culture and society.9 The gap on Pramoedya...