History, herstory, whose story?

Julia Suryakusuma ,  Jakarta   |  Wed, 05/06/2009 9:20 AM  |  Opinion

I recently had an unpleasant reminder about how fragile the past can be, in the form of a brochure for the recent V International Women's Film Festival at Salihara Arts Center (April 21-26, 2009), celebrating Kartini Day. The brochure said "V" (for "vision") was the first international women's film festival in Indonesia. Hardly! In fact it was just the latest of several such festivals.

But the claim hit me hard, because I was the one who had conceived and organized what really had been the first one - the Jakarta International Women's Film Week (JIWFW), held way back in March 1996 to commemorate International Women's Day.

Soon after that event I left for Japan and when I got back, I discovered that the UN agency that had supported the event had now appropriated it, commissioning a literary foundation (which does translations and probably thinks gender is a musical instrument) to organize a follow-up for 1997. Did they know they were in receipt of stolen goods? I made sure they did! Despite that, I did not get to play a role in the 1997 film fest beyond receiving a perfunctory and nervous mention at the opening.

Reading the V Film Fest brochure reminded me again how quickly we forget history. The distance between 1996 and 2009 is only 13 years, and the existence of a pioneer event, delivered with excruciating birth pangs and rewarded with a wham-bam-not-even-thank-you-ma'am, is already forgotten, perhaps because my JIWFW '96 was before Internet days, and many people these days are only literate through Google lenses!

Despite all this, I enjoyed the V Film Fest (especially after they corrected their brochure!), not least because the open-air caf* at Salihara is perfect for meeting friends between films.

Sitting there last week, I reflected with Nia Dinata, one of Indonesia's foremost film directors, on why the past is so often so easily forgotten. I asked her, why do we mindlessly celebrate "heroes" constructed by past, oppressive regimes, usually with not-so-hidden political or ideological agendas?

Take Kartini (1879-1904) for example, the hero whose birthday was the occasion for the V Fest. Who was she, and what did she really do? Did she pioneer the setting up of girls' schools that spread across Pasundan (West Java) and Bukittinggi in West Sumatra, like Bandung's Dewi Sartika (1884-1947) (http://www.indonesialogue.com/destinations/tracing-dewi-sartikas-struggl...)? Did she take over her dead father and husband's armed jihad against the Dutch like Cut Nyak Dien (1848-1908)? Did she, like Cut Nyak, agree to marry again only if she could keep fighting in battle against the Dutch (http://www.asnlf.net/asnlf_int/acheh/history/tjutnyakdhien/tjoet_njak_di...)?

This was the condition Cut Nyak imposed on her second husband, Teuku Umar (1854-1899), also an Acehnese hero. Or was Kartini imprisoned for six years like the famous orator, H.R. Rasuna Said (1910-1965), for making inflammatory speeches against the Dutch colonial government?

Nope. None of the above.

So what exactly did Kartini achieve? The child of an aristocratic father, RM Adipati Ario Sosroningrat, and his concubine commoner wife, Ngasirah, she was a smart chick who loved to read and write, and had a ton of Dutch pen pals. She was famous for her critical letters about Dutch colonial policy, published as From Darkness to Light by JH Abendanon, who thought it was cute that a native Javanese woman could write like that. Besides, it fitted nicely with the new colonial Ethical Policy (1901-1942), based around educating a few elite "inlanders" to make up for all the nasty things the Dutch did to the rest of them for hundreds of years before that.

Good for Kartini . just a pity that she was also famous for her na*vet*, ambiguity and inconsistency, like, for example, entering exactly the sort of marriage that she had so vehemently opposed for so long in her writing: An arranged polygamous one.

In any case, none of this stopped Sukarno proclaiming her a national hero in 1964 (in fact, the polygamy was probably a plus as far as he was concerned!). And of course, she kept hero status under the Soeharto regime, famous for its stupidization policy as much as for its patronizing attitude towards women.

But what now, in the new age of freedom of democracy? Do we all just keep on mindlessly celebrating her birthday? I had at least expected a bit more critical thinking from my fellow feminist friends!

But then I extended my reflection to Indonesians' sense of history in general and realized there's just one word for it: weak. Most Indonesians haven't rethought the Nugroho Notosusanto version of history that legitimizes the military takeover in 1965-1967, despite the removal of the armed forces from government a few years ago. In fact, nobody seriously questions who our national heroes should be. Instead, we all keep officially idolizing people who have no business being idolized - Kartini being just one among many.

Popular history in Indonesia? It's a joke, with only the most vestigial link to the true discipline of history (yes, it still exists, folks!). Just look at 1965-1966, for example: there is a ton of material now about what really went on then, about the role of Soeharto, the army and the Muslim youth groups among others, but does any of this percolate into popular history? Or have Indonesians all got collective Alzheimer's? After all, it was only a few months ago that reformist party the PKS even proposed that Soeharto (of all people) be officially listed alongside Kartini as a national hero. So much for running on an anti-corruption ticket.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" Thus spake George Santayana, a famous Spanish-born American poet and philosopher, whom we all would do well to remember (the PKS especially).

So, is repeating the past what's going to happen to us? Having lived through the New Order, I sincerely hope not, but when we let human rights abusers run for the presidency, we're already in deep trouble - even more trouble than when we forget who organized the first ever women's international film festival in Indonesia!

The writer is the author of Sex, Power and Nation.

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