Footsteps (52 page)

So the treasurer’s work shifted to Buitenzorg.

The SDI president, Syech Ahmad Badjened, organized the Buitenzorg branch, right down to the setting up of sub-branches throughout the district. He no longer taught only religion. He also emerged as one of the key propagandists in the Buitenzorg area. I also became a propagandist, but outside the Buitenzorg region.

Then came our first test. The problem arose because of our Arab members, who did indeed have the right to join and become members. They were Moslems, residents of the Indies, and more than that, they were indeed free and independent people, traders and merchants. Their deficiency was related more to Douwager’s concept of the Indisch nationality: a resident of the Indies, who, regardless of his race, lived in the Indies, sought his livelihood in the Indies, and was loyal to the people and nation of the Indies. The Arabs met almost all the requirements that Douwager had set out. It was in relation to the last bit that people had their doubts. It wasn’t just a matter of their being Arab; it was more a question of whether they, and the Indos too, even if they agreed to the concept of an Indisch identity, could ever fulfill the requirement of loyalty to the Indisch people as a whole.

So the story unfolded this way.

In the program the SDI Congress had prepared, it stated that
the SDI planned to act to advance Native commerce. The aim was to free the small traders and small producers from the arbitrary actions of the landlords and moneylenders, and to accumulate as much capital as possible so that new businesses could be established, to ensure that Native businessmen would not fall prey to non-Native capital. The money from the SDI’s enterprises would be used to help the development of commerce, handicrafts, and educational activities.

Not long after the congress, a Native leather merchant came to visit the SDI headquarters in Buitenzorg. He brought a complaint that all the leather trade in West Java was being monopolized by members of the Buitenzorg branch of the SDI. He had no business left at all. He could sell in the market only if he was prepared to sell below cost price.

“Excellency,” he asked in Sundanese, “was it to kill me and my family that the SDI was formed? All my friends are suffering the same fate as well.”

“How has this happened?”

“The members of the SDI have boycotted us, Excellency. It is the Arab leather merchants.”

“What do you mean, boycott?”

“They won’t accept leather from us and they won’t sell us any of the materials we need. All of a sudden they started approaching the village people directly and buying leather from them at just a slightly higher price than we could offer. We can’t get leather anymore.”

I went to Syech Ahmad Badjened’s house but couldn’t get in, let alone actually see him. The gate was locked from inside. I couldn’t even see the front yard of his house.

Then there was a visit from a merchant who traded in produce.

“Excellency, I have come here as the representative of many of my friends, all produce merchants like me,” he said, also in Sundanese. “We are unable anymore to hire wagons to transport our produce. We can’t get our produce on the train. All the wagons and space on the trains has been contracted by the SDI members. All of us are willing to become members, Excellency: two of us already are members. But are these others acting on your orders, Excellency? And if so, what about our livelihood?”

I was quite worried by this new development. The whole purpose of the SDI was to encourage trade and commerce, but
the reverse seemed to be happening. I was buffeted by feelings of guilt. And once again all I found was a locked gate at Badjened’s house. I didn’t know where he had gone.

The next day several members of the Leadership Council hired a carriage and traveled down to Betawi to see Thamrin Mohammed Thabrie. No Badjened came along with us. Our discussions that day went on deep into the night. Eventually we had to stop. We all had to work the next day.

The decision—the Buitenzorg problem would be resolved by holding a conference of the Buitenzorg branch after a campaign to increase many times over the number of non-Arab members. If this test could not be passed, then the whole SDI project would fail.

We didn’t have too many propagandists. I too went down among the villages. But we succeeded. People from the branches outside Buitenzorg also helped explain what the Arab merchants were doing. People flocked to join the SDI.

The theory was formulated in some circles that it was the Arab merchants’ long-term plan to use the SDI to fight the Chinese. The Natives were being used as pawns. All this could be traced back to my writings on the boycott. The weapon was being turned against its creator. This had to be stopped. It couldn’t be allowed to continue. The Indies did not belong just to the Arabs. It was by no means certain that the Arabs would remain loyal to the Indies as their motherland. They might very well decide to go back home after they became rich or even half rich. That was what the Europeans and Asians often did.

We were able to hold the Buitenzorg Branch Conference. The Native delegates were in a majority, but the Arab delegates were such good speakers, it was impossible to refute their logic. The conference began at five in the evening and went all night, stopping only for magreb and the other Moslem prayers. It went on until nine the next morning, and still there was no decision.

What was going on? What was this all about? Could I cope with all this? Did all organizations have to go through experiences like this? I had never heard of anything like this happening in the Boedi Oetomo. In the SDI, the members all shared the same interests. But apart from these general interests that we all shared, it seemed there were other, private and often hidden, interests among us. It seems that among all peoples there are special interests that flow from our specific situations. This is true even when we
come from the same house, let alone when we come from different peoples and nations. And besides this, there are also the private dreams that everyone carries with them.

I had committed myself to the task of building an organization. I was to be a dalang whose story would be written by building a multi-peoples organization as the first step toward the creating of a single people, a nation—I was brahman and sudra at one and the same time. In my imagination I had often worked out and mulled over all the things I would have to do. But it was turning out that there was no work more complex under the sun. My wayang characters were not made of dead leather that could be painted and decorated however I liked. They were alive, indeed a part of life, all reacting and responding to each other. I had merged the work of brahman and sudra, teacher and student, speaker and listener, messenger and propagandist. I was a peddler of dreams for the future, a psychologist and psychiatrist without a diploma, someone who tried to organize things while being out among those being organized. And all this in my own country, among people who ate and drank from the same earth. It felt, even so, that I was about to fail. I bowed my head in respect to those organizers who had succeeded, especially those who had worked successfully away from their homes, in other people’s countries.

The Islamic Traders Union was meant to advance Native commerce as a means of strengthening the position of the Natives. Now there was this power emerging within the SDI itself that wanted to push aside the interests of the Natives. Having Islam as the basis of SDI was turning out to provide opportunities for dispute. Thamrin Mohammed Thabrie’s only advice was that we continue the discussions until we reached consensus. But both sides were there precisely to refuse to unite in purpose and instead to defend their different interests.

Was it going to be necessary to freeze the Buitenzorg branch and set up a new one? Wouldn’t that set a bad precedent for the future?

A member of one of the other branches—from Banten—came to see me after the conference had been going for a full week.

“
Sudara
…” and to be honest I was amazed to be called “brother.” It had never happened before.

“Are you offended to be called sudara? We in Banten always use sudara to speak to each other.”

“It is a good word, sudara,” I said and immediately started using it myself.

He nodded happily.

“My name is Hasan.”

I grew wary as soon as I heard his family name. It must have shown in my face.

“It is true that I am from the family of the bupati who so disappointed you that time. I myself hold different views from his. I myself was also extremely disappointed when I heard of that incident three years ago. It was a pity that I didn’t hear about it sooner. I am here to offer an opinion on the troubles here, if I may.”

“Every suggestion, and especially those from members, is especially welcome. Please.”

“Our organization is a Native organization, Sudara,” he said, as if he were standing before the conference, which it seemed was never going to end. “Indeed, it is based on Islam, where everyone is a brother to the other. Which means that no Moslem should make things difficult for another. I don’t know exactly what the law is if one Moslem causes trouble for another. It is a difficult problem. And it will always be so. Brothers with the same mother and father are often at each other’s throats until their dying day. This has been so since the days of the Prophet Adam, may peace be upon his soul. If one Moslem fights with another, therefore, we cannot claim that they are no longer brothers in Islam. But we have another measure—this is a Native organization.…”

I took him into the conference and introduced him as a delegate from the Banten branch who wanted to make a suggestion as to how we might proceed. In a clear and challenging voice, and in beautiful Malay, he challenged the conference like a lion in the desert: “This organization arose upon the earth of the Indies as a Native organization, not as an organization of all those peoples who wanted to do their worst for the Natives. There is no one, no matter of what race, whether a member of the SDI or not, who has the right to exploit or do harm to the Native people, be they trader, farmer, or craftsman. If any branch sets off in its own way and deliberately starts taking action causing harm to the Natives, it is not a branch of the SDI because it is violating the Constitution of the organization which we all have agreed to. The central leadership has the right to withdraw all recognition from such a branch. Indeed, all the
SDI branches around the country would have the right to take common action against such a wayward branch. I am sure, my brothers, that the central leadership will not hesitate to take whatever action is necessary.”

The Arab rebellion from within weakened and finally died out. This incident taught me a very simple but fundamental lesson. Finding a compromise and achieving consensus were not the only things that might be necessary—sometimes it was necessary to fight for the implementation of basic principles without being afraid that you might lose a member, a brother, or even a branch or two!

We had passed our first test successfully. And all the Badjeneds left the organization. Just in the way that I, Wardi, and Tjipto had left the BO.

Medan’s
circulation continued to grow. Our imports of paper and writing utensils increased as well. The incident over the Arab members of SDI monopolizing the hiring of freight space on the trains accelerated the implementation of our plans to publish a magazine for the rail workers. And it turned out that its readers were very loyal, clever, and critical, rich in experience and full of interesting suggestions.

Our magazine for teachers was also warmly welcomed. They used much of their spare time to read and to write for the magazine. This meant that whether we liked it or not the magazine used school Malay. The material we published about the experiences and theories of educationists from around the world gave our teachers an idea of how the advanced peoples had been molded and how they molded themselves, how the younger generation was made aware of the nation’s concerns and of the problems and challenges of the future, how the sciences were taught and practiced in and out of school, how the forms and content of social intercourse changed as science and industry developed.…

The women’s magazine had begun publishing even earlier. This was something we were especially proud of. It was the first of its kind. When Queen Mother Emma awarded it a medal, how the stupid ones who had missed the train growled! They united to oppose us, to try to sabotage us at every turn. This was no surprise. Success always caused the backward types to unite against those who were succeeding. Princess, along with three other women, helped with its publication. She often headed off to Bandung
to oversee things at the print shop herself. So we more often than not stayed at the Frischbotens’ house in Bandung. Princess and Mir were soon the closest of friends, although she never knew about the problem that the Frischbotens were facing. She never knew what had occurred between Mir and me. Mir on several occasions wrote short articles for Princess.

In the midst of this activity and expansion, Mir Frischboten and I were constantly worried by a gnawing question: Whose child was it growing now in Mir’s womb? How would the baby turn out? Who would it look like? Me, Mir, or Hendrik? Would it be Native, Eurasian, or White?

I sometimes caught Hendrik stealing glances at his wife and sometimes at me. Why? Were these suspicions of mine just that, unjustified suspicions? I could tell from the look in Mir’s eyes that she was worried and I often found her too gazing at Hendrik and me in turn. As for my own anxiety, my heart could vouch for that.

And Princess? There were still no signs that she bore within her any seed from the love between us. Every day she drowned herself in her work. And she enjoyed it. In facing all the paperwork around her, it was as though she disappeared into some other dimension, becoming blissfully ignorant of the world around her. Sometimes she even forgot that she was my wife and that as my wife she occupied a specific place in society. When she was concentrating all her thoughts on some problem or other and all her ideas and hopes on succeeding with it, her forehead would cloud over, and her eyes, though wide open, would see nothing that was before them. It was just her inner eye that was trying to capture the essence of something that was there in that other dimension. And if you heard a deep sigh and saw her breast heave, you knew that she had been unable to penetrate that high wall that stood arrogantly before her mind’s eye. Then she would look around with her big eyes for her husband. And if she found him, I would hear her quick but gentle voice: “Mas, I can’t seem to solve this problem.”