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Bonnie Triyana: ‘Selling’ history

A scene from a famous TV action drama shows a group of robbers having dinner with cassava in the middle of a jungle on their way out of a burned village located near Mt

Dicky Christanto (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Tue, September 4, 2012

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Bonnie Triyana: ‘Selling’ history

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scene from a famous TV action drama shows a group of robbers having dinner with cassava in the middle of a jungle on their way out of a burned village located near Mt. Merapi, Central Java, around 12 AD.

It’s a natural scene, except for one thing.

“Cassava was first brought here from the Caribbean in 19 AD. There wouldn’t have been any cassava around before that time,” said Bonnie Triyana, chief editor of Historia magazine, who had watched the TV show a long time ago.

Cassava was brought here as part of the Dutch colonial government’s plan to tackle the country’s famine. Besides being offered as alternative staple food, cassava had also been produced as cheap liquor and then sent to Europe.

Bonny acknowledged that the cassava scene but then he realized that historical facts — on any scale — were prone to manipulation.

“Therefore we at Historia don’t solely discuss the history of political events but also culture and science. And we do this by using popular terms,” he said.

Bonnie certainly keeps his promise. Reading Historia, readers won’t only find “serious” articles.

Whenever readers become fed up with serious themes surrounding the country’s struggle, with the founding fathers and mothers as the main cast, they soon find the magazine has something else to other.

In one of the editions, for example, Historia presented the history of Jakarta’s famous 1980’s nightclub The Tanamur. Those who grew up during the late 1970’s would have experienced, or at the very least, heard about Tanamur.

Today, Tanamur is gone and a restaurant has replaced it.

In another edition, Historia offered an article on why Prince Diponegoro, one of the central, Javanese characters who fought the Dutch in Yogyakarta, decided to wear a turban instead of Javanese royal attire when leading his army.

“We want to embrace as many groups of people as possible. Besides, reading about history isn’t always about politics. We can also have fun finding out the history of many things in life that are worth knowing,” he said.

Fully sponsored by businessman-cum-politician Jeffry Geovani, Historia magazine has been Bonnie’s dream since he was at university.

Graduating from the Semarang-based Diponegoro University’s school of historical science in 2003, Bonnie co-founded the Indonesian Society for the Awareness of Historical facts (Messias), a group with the ambition to introduce historical facts to everyday life.

At that time, a history science journal published by the Indonesian Historian Society was already on the market.

“We were just dreaming to follow in its footsteps and publish a journal about historical facts,” he recalled.

But then Bonnie found something more interesting on a newsstand during his trip to Brazil in 2004, a magazine called Istoria, which served stories about historical events and facts.

“I didn’t have any idea about the language but the photos and layouts really attracted me,” he said.

He also found a similar magazine in the Netherlands, and from that moment he knew exactly what he wanted.

As soon as he got back home, Bonnie brought the magazines to discussions with his friends. They got excited and the dream of producing a publication on historical events grew.

“I and several of my friends then started looking for investors but we struggled. Many doubted the magazine’s ability to generate money in the future,” he said.

Trapped in this deadlock, Bonnie then decided to work as journalist at several publications. He was among the first journalists recruited for the Jurnal Nasional, a daily newspaper which was created by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s close aides.

In 2008, Bonnie decided to end his career at Jurnal Nasional and then spent almost two years as a freelance journalist. Most importantly, he continued to offer his idea of a history publication to investors.

“We didn’t succeed in convincing any investors that our idea was feasible, so finally we decided to go online while keeping on the lookout for serious investors who might be interested in a print version,” he said.

Bonnie and his close friends then founded majalah-historia.com in April 2010.

The statistics weren’t bad at all - as many as 5,000 people visited the website on its initial launching day, according to Bonnie. The online magazine has also used social media such as Facebook and Twitter to boost awareness.

Bonnie’s dream was finally answered when a friend introduced him to senior journalist and poet Noorca Massardi. Noorca, who showed great interest in Bonnie’s idea, then introduced him to Jefri Geovani.

Jefri then agreed to finance the magazine and starting from April 2012, Historia was published in a printed version and Bonnie’s dream had come true.

Bonnie expects the magazine to serve as learning curve so that the people can live better lives.

“I hope that people use history the way a driver uses a rear view mirror. Take a look at it just before they turn a new turn,” he said.

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