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Tribute paid to ethnic Arabs for independence efforts

Eighty-one years ago on Monday, a group of young people of Arab descent, led by Abdurrahman Baswedan, also known as AR Baswedan, pledged their lives to Indonesia and promised to fight for the nations’s independence

Fedina S. Sundaryani (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Mon, October 5, 2015

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Tribute paid to ethnic Arabs for independence efforts

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ighty-one years ago on Monday, a group of young people of Arab descent, led by Abdurrahman Baswedan, also known as AR Baswedan, pledged their lives to Indonesia and promised to fight for the nations'€™s independence.

However, his grandchild, Education and Culture Minister Anies Baswedan, remembers him mostly as an active grandfather who enjoyed morning walks and stimulating debates.

'€œHe enjoyed talking with people who had a 30-40 year age difference, he enjoyed interacting with youth. He might have been old in age, but his heart remained young and perhaps that'€™s what kept him dynamic until the end of his life,'€ Anies told The Jakarta Post, reminiscing about how he had been tasked with taking his grandfather on a motorcycle to debates as a teenager.

'€œThere were many things we only realized after his passing because I really only perceived him as a grandfather. When we were at home we just spoke normally, he never acted like someone prominent.'€

AR Baswedan, who was of Hadhrami descent from Yemen, was an avid fighter for Indonesian independence. On Aug. 1, 1934, the Matahari newspaper in Semarang, East Java, published an article that he wrote urging ethnic Arabs living in Indonesia to acknowledge Indonesia as their home country and help fight for independence. The article was accompanied with a picture of him wearing a blangkon (traditional Javanese batik headdress with a small knobbed end).

On Oct. 4 to 5, 1934, he gathered several people of Arab descent who declared themselves Indonesian and pledged that '€œWe have one homeland, Indonesia. And Arab descendants must leave behind their lives of isolation'€ now known as the Arab Descendant Youth Pledge.

The pledge was made six years after the Indonesian Youth Conference in which youth groups made the historic pledge to unite as one nation using Indonesian as the official national language.

'€œ[AR Baswedan taught us] to be brave enough to take a stand, even if it'€™s not a popular [stance] in your time. For example, so many people were angry when he wrote the article addressing people of Arab descent to prioritize Indonesian independence over Palestinian independence. It was not a popular [stance] to take, but he said that Palestine was far away while Indonesia was right in front of our eyes,'€ said Anies.

The pledge proved controversial as at the time there was a three-level class system set up by Dutch colonial rulers that placed '€œforeign orientals'€ (immigrants from the Middle East, India and China, among others) over pribumi (native Indonesians) but under Europeans.

'€œThe pledge was extremely risky at the time because Indonesia as a country was still imaginary; there was only Java, Sunda, Sumatra and others. What would have happened if we did not gain independence? They had already rejected being Javanese or Arab,'€ Anies said.

AR Baswedan eventually became the deputy information minister in 1946 and was one of Indonesia'€™s first diplomats, along with former foreign minister Agus Salim, who gained de jure and de facto international recognition for the Republic of Indonesia from Egypt.

The former journalist also established the Indonesian Arab Party (PAI) after the Youth Pledge congress, a move that historian Anhar Gonggong said further attempted to assimilate the ethnic Arab community with native Indonesians in pursuit of independence.

'€œIndeed, he set up PAI with an objective to diminish the distance [between ethnic Arabs and native Indonesians], especially since, at the time, Arab culture and the community was so thick. He said that we are all Indonesians, his nationalism was really strong,'€ he said of the man he used to share ideas with in his youth.

'€œHe was a very open person and he often spoke about his efforts to urge ethnic Arabs to become more Indonesian.'€

Meanwhile, fellow historian Taufik Abdullah said the Arab Descendant Youth Pledge was historically significant as it was the first attempt to diminish the class differences between ethnic Arabs and native Indonesians.

'€œHowever, it has been overlooked and mixed in with other parts of independence history,'€ he said.

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