The Power Of The Pen: Remembering Ananta Pramoedya Toer

 The Power Of The Pen

Remembering Pramoedya Ananta Toer

M. Bakri Musa

 

Allah in His infinite wisdom has endowed every community with its share of the gifted and talented. What it does with this divine gift will determine the community’s fate. 

 

            This Thursday, February 6^th 2025, would have been Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s 100^th birthday. When he died on April 30, 2006, I wrote a tribute to him in The Sun Daily (May 4, 2006). To my surprise, mine was the only mention of this great man of letters in the Malaysian papers. Back in Indonesia, there was a similar paucity. I anticipate this same lack of acknowledgement this Thursday, February 6^th, 2025. 

 

            In that tribute I wrote, “I am ashamed of Pramoedya’s treatment by his own kind, but I am even more ashamed of our culture. A culture cannot aspire to great heights if it does not value its gifted and talented.” 

            

              A prolific writer, Pram as he was fondly referred to, was also a trenchant critique of the capitalist system. America’s support of the brutal Suharto’s Ode Baru (New Order) dictatorship only increased Pram’s contempt for both. Despite that, in 1999 soon after the downfall of Suharto, Pram was honored by the University of California Berkeley with its Chancellor’s Distinguished Honor Award. Earlier he had received an honorary doctorate from the University of Michigan. My greatest regret was not being able to meet Pram when he was at Berkeley. 

 

A year later came the Fukuoka Prize with this citation, “Mr. Pramoedya's writings will continue to influence not only Indonesian literature but also that of the world.” Pram was nominated for the Nobel Prize many times and would have won it except for the very active negative lobbying by the Suharto Regime. Imagine your own government doing that!

 

When Pram was awarded Philippines’ Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1988, there were considerable protests back in Indonesia. His fellow and earlier Indonesian honoree Mochtar Lubis (of Senja Di Djakarta[Twilight In Djakarta] fame), returned his award in protest simply because of their parochial domestic political differences. In contrast, Google honored Pram on what would have been his 92^nd birthday with a doodle depicting the novelist at work on his typewriter. 

 

Not one Malaysian university had seen fit to invite much less honor Pramoedya. Only Jakarta’s Trisakti University recognized, and early, Pram’s talent by appointing him as an adjunct professor despite his not having any formal academic qualifications. 

 

Triskati is Indonesia’s Univeristi Tunku Abdul Rahman equivalent, meaning, established by and catered primarily to Indonesian Chinese. They recognize talent even when not among their own.

 

Pram treasured those honors not for personal glory rather that “every award … is a slap against militarism and fascism in Indonesia.” As for his long battle against Suharto, he had this to say, “Ode Baru has fallen but my writings have been translated into 40 languages.” Truly a magnificent and enduring manifestation of the power of the pen! 

 

Pram was jailed by the Dutch from July 1947 to December ‘49, and also by Sukarno, a leader Pram admired greatly. Despite that, he praised Sukarno for being able to bring that polyglot archipelago under one political entity.  

 

It reflected the basic humanity and decency of the Dutch that despite their brutal colonization of Indonesia, they too recognized Pram’s talent. They invited him and his wife to Holland for an extended stay (1953-54) through STICUSA (its Dutch acronym), an entity “to reform the substance of ties between the Netherlands and its [former] empire.”

 

A poignant passage in his Buru Tetralogy describes the scene one Ramadan when the prison authorities had invited an Imam to give a sermon to those skinny starving prisoners on … the importance of fasting! The cruel irony escaped the Imam. That also reflected the irrelevance of much contemporary Islamic teaching in the Malay world. For contrast, the local Catholic Church donated pen and papers, the only allowed items, to Pram and the other prisoners. 

 

I first heard of Pramoedya Ananta Toer in secondary school in the late 1950s. My Malay Language teacher referred to him as the new generation of postwar writers to rival prewar ones like Chairul Anwar of “Aku” fame.  After I read Maxwell Lane’s excellent translations of Pram’s “Bumi Manusia” (This Earth of Mankind) and “Anak Semua Bangsa” (Child Of All Nations), the first two of his Buru Tetralogy published soon upon his release from Pulau Buru in 1979, I was determined to collect and read all of his works, the originals as well as translations. 

 

Quite a challenge as Suharto’s goons had confiscated and destroyed much of Pram’s works. Further, no library or academic institution in Malaysia or Indonesia has seen fit to collect Pram’s voluminous output, literary as well as his equally sharp political commentaries. The only extensive collection I am aware of is Alex G Bardsley’s at Cornell’s e-Commons. Another good start in Indonesia is Bukulaaela’s “Perahu Yang Setia Dalam Badar” (Steady Boat In A Storm, 2001). 

 

In Alfred T Ticoalu’s “Satu Hari Dalam Kehidupan Pramoedya Ananta Toer” (A Day In The Life Of Pramoedya Ananta Toer), Pram gave this advice: “Kamu jangan takut untuk maju dan bicarakan ide-ide kamu. Sekali kamu takut, kamu kalah.” (You should never fear to advance and argue your ideas. The moment you are afraid, you are already defeated.” 

 

Suharto and his goons are now long gone (except for his son-in-law Prabowo who recently became President). With Suharto gone, Indonesia had seen a blossoming of her artists and writers. Remarkable, considering that Indonesia does not have such artificial props like Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (Malay Language Agency) or Sasterawan Negara (National Literary) Award.