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Learning how to treat foes and benefit from Marxism
"Poppy *Sjahrir's wife* tried to get Sjahrir to receive medical treatment abroad
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"Poppy *Sjahrir's wife* tried to get Sjahrir to receive medical treatment abroad. President Soekarno agreed to Sjahrir leaving the country, but still maintained his status as a detainee. The choice then fell on Switzerland. All costs were born by the government. Minister of Foreign Affairs Subandrio had to issue Sjahrir a diplomatic passport."
"As a student in the Netherlands, Sjahrir seriously studied Marxism. Marxism could be used as an analytical instrument for understanding community development.
In his youth, during his twenties, Sjahrir was already influenced by the revisionist movement that criticized Marxism. He was not anti-capitalist."
These two paragraphs are among the most interesting descriptions by the country's most senior and experienced journalist, Rosihan Anwar, in his book Sutan Sjahrir, Demokrat Sejati, Pejuang Kemanusiaan (Sutan Sjahrir: True Democrat, Fighter for Humanity).
The bilingual book - in Indonesian and English - comprises two essays by Rosihan and a preface by Dr. Ignas Kleden. Jaap Erkelens worked for about two years to collect 100 photos on Sjahrir to be included in the book, edited by The Jakarta Post senior editor Sabam Siagian. Sabam is also a member of this newspaper's board of directors. The book, published by Penerbit Buku Kompas, will be launched March 5 in Jakarta.
The first paragraph (page 141) beautifully describes how the country's first president Sukarno demonstrated his statesmanship and sportsmanship against his fierce political opponent by allowing his former political ally to enter self-imposed exile. Sukarno was generous to Sjahrir by ordering the government to cover all of Sjahrir's medical bills and even issued him a diplomatic passport.
On July 21, 1965, just two months before the Indonesian Communist Party's (PKI) alleged attempt to oust Sukarno, the president allowed Sjahrir to seek treatment for his worsening hypertension in Switzerland. He was accompanied by his wife Poppy and their two children, Kriya Arsyah and Siti Rabyah Parvati. Sjahrir lived there until his death on April 9, 1966.
Sukarno arrested Sjahrir on Jan. 16, 1962, and he was imprisoned without a trial. He was appointed the country's first prime minister at the age of 36, a few months after Indonesia declared independence on Aug. 17, 1945. He had to give up his premiership two years later because the radical left saw him as a serious threat.
Immediately after his death, Sukarno declared Sjahrir a national hero, and allowed his body to be buried at Kalibata National Heroes' Cemetery on April 19.
It is difficult to find a comparable figure among Soeharto's jailed political enemies.
As if to tease the paranoid behavior of all of Sukarno's successors - an exception is only the country's fourth president Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid - against the ghost of communism, in the second above paragraph, Rosihan in a very smart way told the readers that we can learn from Marxism as a school of thought. Sjahrir took an interest in studying socialism, and according to the writer of the book, he was deeply influenced by Marxist zeitgeist in Europe after World War I.
"To broaden his knowledge on socialism, Sjahrir befriended extreme radicals, mingled with the left, mixing in circles of anarchists who abstained from everything capitalist," writes Rosihan (page 37) who had a long personal relation with many of our founding fathers, including Sukarno and Sjahrir.
Sjahrir founded the Indonesian Socialist Party (PSI) in 1948. However, the party failed to garner significant support in the country's first democratic general elections in 1955.
To find out why, Rosihan quoted the argument of Ucu Aditya Gana in his doctoral thesis at the University of Indonesia in July 2009.
"Apparently Sjahrir's ideals did not obtain widespread support from the Indonesian people. Many people were of the opinion that Sjahrir's ideals were far ahead of his time," Ucu wrote in Sosialisme-Demokrasi: Pemikiran politik Sutan Sjahrir (Democratic Socialism: Political thoughts of Sutan Sjahrir).
- Kornelius Purba
