Sugan aya nu hoyong terang...angot wae debat masalah Komunis, Sosialis sareng Kapitalis..nepi kana urusan sastra.....
Retrospect on a Red Let's have a look at an unrepentant Red, namely Pramoedya Ananta Toer. His writing style leaves me cold, as it is dour, depressing, and obsessive, but that's a matter of personal taste. To be fair, it may have lost a lot in the translation, for I gather the books were turned into English by another notorious marxist, Max Lane<http://blogs.indonesiamatters.com/widget_link.php?url_id=436>, erstwhile Aussie diplomat turned agitator. [image: Pramoedya Ananta Toer] Pramoedya Ananta Toer But Pramoedya's record of political nastiness is beyond dispute. For those who won't take the word of a mere bule, let's go back to Tempo, issue May 16-22, 2006, which I'm sure you can find for yourselves. Just a few excerpts to show that plenty of distinguished Indonesians have long since seen through the smoke-screen. No less than 25 "prominent literary figures and cultural observers" signed a protest to the Magsaysay Award Committee in July 1995, objecting to Pramoedya getting the Committee's Award. They deplored his unethical role during one of the darkest periods for creativity during the Guided Democracy era, when he led the persecution of artists and literary figures who disagreed with him. The article quotes him from the April 1964 *Bintang Timur* – if literary scholars do not want to be left behind by political developments, then they should be active in the people's struggle and revolution. People's struggle – a phrase that might have referred to the East German Uprising of 1953, or the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, but no, Pramoedya was head of *Lekra* (Lembaga Kebudayaan Rakyat/Institute of People's Culture), a Communist puppet league of self-styled intellectuals, and he was talking about the PKI's push to stifle what was left of Indonesian freedom as Sukarno's Nasakom fascist regime collaborated with the Reds. In those pre-Suharto days, the PKI was using its power to crush dissent. Imagine how much worse it would have been if they had succeeded in seizing full control. Nyoto, a notably vicious Politburo hack, said that it is about time to end the debate on whether or not culture is politics, because whoever claims that culture is apolitical is truly a reactionary. Typical Communist! This rationale for totalitarian terror saw the burning of 2 million books of a "counter-revolutionary" nature. Tempo informs us that Lekra was also influential in campaigning to destroy independent publishers, such as the one that dared to deliver "Dr Zhivago", plus Islamic publishers too. In 1962, the respected Muslim writer Hamka was insulted, demonized and jailed for 3 years in Sukabumi. Mochtar Lubis, one of the 1995 protest signatories, had his *Indonesia Raya* newspaper closed down and spent some 9 years behind bars for his opposition to the Reds. Pramoedya wrote that supporters of the Cultural Manifesto, of October 1963, (unlike him, they were honest writers who did "not consider one sector of culture to be more important than others,") were so bad that their annihilation, like it or not, must be organized. This was evidently a follow-up on his hysterical tirade in Jogja, where he ranted that the annihilation of the enemies of the Revolution must be carried out because the masses must be taught to differentiate who are friends and who are enemies of the Revolution. Masses- oh, yeah, the poor folk. Was Pramoedya one of those? Since when did Communists care about poor people, with their luxury dachas outside Moscow and Mao's orgies while his people starved. Rancid hypocrites. As Taufiq Ismail said, not only did he never apologise for all the violations of human rights that he was responsible for, he was not even willing to admit his actions." And W.S. Rendra is surely correct in saying that I am not slandering when I say that Pramoedya as the head of the LEKRA never protested nor opposed the burning of these books. The late and unlamented Red has his champions, of course, including Max Lane (Lane ran as Socialist Alliance Party's candidate for Lowe in Sydney's west - results were the second lowest of any Socialist Alliance Party. These results are off SAP's website: Seat of Lowe, LANE, Max - 233 votes, 0.35%) who declared that Pramoedra's writings persuaded him into such tripe as for the first time I understood that revolution is a creative process. (Burning books, for example?) [image: Max Lane] Max Lane Lane got himself fired from a diplomatic post in the Australian Embassy and now is a leading figure in the Marxist movement back in Aussie. He thinks Indonesian school-kids, from elementary to university levels, should be force-fed Pramoedya, "compulsory reading", so he told Tempo, as unrepentant of his intolerant creed as his mentor. Presumably Lane hopes such indoctrination would have the same effect on Indonesian youngsters as reading Pram's guff had on him, but as I've said before, Indonesians are not fools – I reckon they'd soon suss out what kind of character they were dealing with. Certainly Pramoedya did time during the New Order but boasted of a six-story house in the middle of a plantation in Bojong Gede, Bogor. Like many spokesmen of the down-trodden, he seems to have had a taste for the good life. Or was that wealth as fictional as his commitment to intellectual freedom? Answers please in non-A.R.S.E. coherent English. Tags: 1965 <http://www.indonesiamatters.com/t/1965/>, Art<http://www.indonesiamatters.com/t/art/>, Books <http://www.indonesiamatters.com/t/books/>, Bule<http://www.indonesiamatters.com/t/bule/>, Communist <http://www.indonesiamatters.com/t/communist/>, Communists<http://www.indonesiamatters.com/t/communists/>, Democracy <http://www.indonesiamatters.com/t/democracy/>, Freedom<http://www.indonesiamatters.com/t/freedom/>, Intellectuals <http://www.indonesiamatters.com/t/intellectuals/>, Labor<http://www.indonesiamatters.com/t/labor/>, Lekra <http://www.indonesiamatters.com/t/lekra/>, Marxist<http://www.indonesiamatters.com/t/marxist/>, Max Lane <http://www.indonesiamatters.com/t/max-lane/>, New Order<http://www.indonesiamatters.com/t/new-order/>, Persecution <http://www.indonesiamatters.com/t/persecution/>, PKI<http://www.indonesiamatters.com/t/pki/>, Political <http://www.indonesiamatters.com/t/political/>, Politics<http://www.indonesiamatters.com/t/politics/>, Pramoedya Ananta Toer<http://www.indonesiamatters.com/t/pramoedya-ananta-toer/>, Socialist <http://www.indonesiamatters.com/t/socialist/>, Suharto<http://www.indonesiamatters.com/t/suharto/>, Sukarno <http://www.indonesiamatters.com/t/sukarno/>, Tempo<http://www.indonesiamatters.com/t/tempo/> <http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=12&winname=addthis&pub=patung&s=&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.indonesiamatters.com%2F1627%2Fcommissar%2F&title=Literature%20Commissar%20-%20Indonesia%20Matters>
