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Library for the future: Ex-'Tapol' builds Medayu Agung to prevent past mistakes, suffering
Oei Hiem Hwie intends to pass down the wealth of knowledge and history he has accumulated over at least the last five decades to the younger generation through the collection of his Medayu Agung library, lest they forget and repeat the mistakes of the past.
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Living history: Oei Hiem Hwie, who was imprisoned without trial during the New Order regime, stands among the vast collection he paintakingly gathered at his Medayu Agung library in Surabaya, East Java. (JP/Ivan Darski) (JP/Ivan Darski)
T
em>This article is the last of a two-part story on Oei Hiem Hwie, a former political prisoner and close friend of award-winning author Pramoedya Ananta Noer who runs the Medayu Agung library in Surabaya, East Java.
Now 85, Oei Hiem Hwie, was sitting on an old sofa on his veranda, pasting newspaper clippings into a folder when The Jakarta Post visited him at home on Sept. 13. The former political prisoner during the New Order era, who goes by Hwie, now runs a library called Medayu Agung in southeastern Surabaya.
He had dreamed of the library for decades, even before he was imprisoned without trial in 1965 and shuffled between various prisons until he was released in 1978.
"My hands are shaky already. Lately, I’ve been struggling with vertigo. My speech is slurred and my movements are slow. Seems like it’s true that age doesn’t lie," Hwie said.
His library is a collection and archive of the books he feels will help the succeeding generations avoid the same pitfalls of the kind of authoritarian government under which he and many others suffered.
Historical heritage
Prior to his arrest, Hwie was an active member of the Indonesian Citizenship Consultative Body (BAPERKI), an organization with a membership composed entirely of Chinese-Indonesians and targeted by the New Order due to its close ties to the nation’s first president, Soekarno.
