“Say something, Mir, don’t just stand there staring.”
“Thank you for all your kindness and help.”
“It’s a pity that we’re in public like this, Mir. You should give him a thank-you kiss.”
His smile was so open and sincere, a smile that should have freed me from my pangs of conscience.
13
In all of the Indies I was one of only a handful of Natives who followed the official reports on the Indies economy. This information helped me greatly in understanding what was happening in my country.
Europeans dominated all major commercial activity. The lesser commerce that flourished in the ports and harbor towns along the Javanese coast was being gradually taken over from Natives by Chinese traders. Even the Arab traders were rapidly being pushed aside by the Chinese. The Chinese merchants were moving inland as well. There seemed to be only a few places left in Java—Solo, Jogja, Kudus, and Tasikmalaya—where the Natives were able to hold out.
It was this information that made me realize why the Native merchants of Solo and Jogja, otherwise known for their penny-pinching, were suddenly willing to make large donations available from their treasuries to Boedi Oetomo. If BO hadn’t come along, then the money would have gone to whatever other organization seemed to suit their needs at the time.
The batik trade was centered in Solo and Jogja and was still in Native hands. The trade in batik amounted to several hundred thousand guilders annually. Then there was also the trade in silver and gold crafts. The Native merchants would fight tooth and nail to defend the batik trade from the Chinese. On the other hand the manufacturers of woven hats in Tangerang had all been successfully taken over by the Chinese, who now exported them to Latin America, as well as to France. Solo and Jogja were ready to fight to ensure that the same fate did not befall them.
What my religious teacher, Syech Ahmad Badjened, said was true: Trade is the soul of a society, Tuan. No matter how arid and empty a land might be—like Arabia, for example—if its trade flourishes, so will its people prosper. Even if your country is blessed with rich and fertile land, if its trade is dead and deflated, so too will everything be and so its people will remain poor. Small countries have become great because of their trade, and great countries have fallen because their trading life has withered.
This Arab, who had no Western education at all, had a wealth of practical knowledge and wisdom that was most definitely worth studying and respecting. He had also sent his sons to the university in Turkey where they had learned to master several of the modern European languages. Thamrin Mohammed Thabrie agreed with Badjened’s views. Indeed, he enthusiastically added his own comments.
“The traders are the most dynamic people among humanity, Tuan. They are the cleverest of all people. People also call them “saudagar,” people with a thousand schemes. Only the stupid wish to become employees of the government, people whose minds have already gone to sleep. Look at me. While I have been an employee, all I have ever had to do was follow orders, just like a slave. It’s no coincidence that the Prophet, may Allah’s blessing be upon him, began his career as a trader. Traders understand the realities of life. In commerce people are not concerned with people’s social status. They don’t care if someone is of high or low rank or even a slave. Traders must think quickly. They bring to life that which has become frozen and bring into action that which has been paralyzed.”
What interested me most at this time were the big batik businesses in Solo and Jogja. It wasn’t only the people of the main islands of the Indies who needed batik but also those in the eastern islands, in the Moluccas, as well as in Singapore, Malaya, and Indochina. Even in Siam there were thirty thousand people who spoke Malay. And there were those in South Africa! And in Ceylon! And Jean Marais, who could create such things of beauty, had to live in straitened circumstances simply because he did not have the talents of a merchant!
This year Europe and the United States were importing a lot from the Indies. Trade flourished and many villages were thus awakened from their slumber. More and more money left the towns for the countryside. In the government there was talk that rodi should be abolished and replaced with a head tax—at least in those villages where money was starting to circulate widely. Things were more prosperous than five years before. The factories in the towns called out for people to leave their paddy fields and gardens to sell their labor in the towns.
Who could escape from the tentacles of trade and commerce? No one! From the time of the womb until old age we are all caught up in the never-stopping traffic of commerce.
I couldn’t get these ideas out of my head. And then I thought: What if we established an organization to unite all those people who were active in commerce, the most progressive and independent people in society? It could be a real power. From the village clerk to the governor-general, everybody’s lives and livelihood were tied up with commerce in one way or another—from every piece of fruit to every granule of sugar. And then there was the boycott!
So I began to visit and talk with Hendrik more often. He was a good and patient teacher. He spent the little free time he had explaining to me what I needed to know about economics and the law, but after a couple of months passed and his time became even more pressed, he suggested I order some books from the Netherlands.
Whether the books arrived or not, I had already made up my mind. Those who were not tied to government jobs, those who were independent, those who traded, who struggled for a livelihood standing on their own two feet, dynamic people with a practical knowledge of the world, these were the people who had to be united.
One afternoon Thamrin Mohammed Thabrie received me in his pendopo.
“So you agree, Tuan Thabrie, that such an organization should be established. One that is multi-ethnic, that has Malay as its official language, that is not based on the priyayi but on the traders, on those who struggle for a livelihood independently—the free people—and that is based on Islam?”
“Of course I agree. It will then have a broader base than the Sarekat Priyayi. The only problem is finding people honest and responsible enough to look after the finances. The finances will be the lifeblood of the organization, just as they are the lifeblood of home and household.”
“Why don’t you take on that task yourself, so we know the finances will be secure and handled effectively?”
“Good, I will look after them myself.”
And so it was that the Sarekat Dagang Ismalijah (Islamic Traders’ Union) or SDI was founded, with a Constitution written in Malay with Dutch and Sundanese translations. It was headquartered in Buitenzorg. My religious teacher, Syech Ahmad Badjened, was made president, mainly to look after commercial and religious affairs. There were several other Badjeneds on the National Council, including his son, who had graduated from the university in Turkey.
The assistant resident of Buitenzorg welcomed this development warmly. We rented a building. We bought the furniture. The SDI now had its own headquarters.
Sandiman received orders to return to Solo and Jogja, where he had recently been active on other matters, to propagandize for the SDI. But he wasn’t enthusiastic about the idea. He had questions about the SDI similar to those he had asked earlier about the Sarekat Priyayi.
“Am I a trader?”
“Ah, trader or not a trader,” I explained, “everyone who does not depend on the government for their livelihood, but upon their own efforts, they are all traders. Maybe they trade in services. They are civilians, independent people, free people. OK?”
“Very well, Tuan. And tell me, Tuan, can I truthfully be called a Moslem?”
“You have never acknowledged any other religion, have you?”
“It is true that Islam has always been the religion of my ancestors, and of my family, including me.”
“So that means so-much-a-percent Islam, definitely Islam.”
“Is that all that is required of me, Tuan?”
“Has anyone said it is not enough?”
&n
bsp; “That’s not the question, Tuan. As a propagandist it is very likely that I will face questions such as these in my work. And I will be working in my home territory where everyone knows me. I am familiar with just about everyone in Solo, even though not always as close friends.”
“Of course there will be many who know more about Islam than you. You are a propagandist for the organization, not for the religion. You can learn from them about religion. You must work out your own method of propagandizing for the organization.”
As soon as the SDI was registered with the government and its notarization published in the State Gazette, Sandiman departed for places unlimited, and for a time unknown. We inserted pamphlets into Medan, which meant that news of SDI traveled to Singapore, Malaya, Indochina, Europe, and Haji Moeloek in Jeddah, even though I still hadn’t published his Tale of Siti Aini. News spread far and wide. And so it had to, because Medan was still the largest circulation paper in the Indies, next to De Locomotief.
Douwager entered my office, all agitated: “Have you given enough thought to this idea of setting up the SDI? Has it properly taken into account the concept of an Indisch people?”
“The term Indisch will frighten many people.”
“Only because it has not been explained enough.”
“People will be reminded of the Eurasians, and then of Christianity.”
“We will call the Eurasians Indo. That which is of the Indies as a whole we will call Indisch.”
“Trade and Islam provide a broader and more compelling basis of unity than Indisch. It’s not that I didn’t give your suggestions consideration. I did. It was just that they don’t seem to have a solid basis, they’re too vague. At least I couldn’t see what they are based on. Your concept seems more of an ideal, not something that is already emerging out of reality. Of course, today’s ideals can become tomorrow’s reality, but today we have to work out what to do on the basis of today’s reality.”
“I’m not saying that I think the foundation of the SDI should not go ahead and I certainly am not going to oppose it. It’s just that I want to know whether or not all our discussions—at least fifteen now—have proved that all the peoples of the Indies have to unite into an Indisch nation, a single people. Isn’t it true that such a thing has to be struggled for, and therefore an organization is needed to struggle for it?”
“I agree—all these things are needed. But not in the way that you have tried to convince me. Whether this new nation will be called Nusantara or Indies or Insulinde, as Multatuli suggested, I don’t know and it isn’t my concern. That all the peoples of the Indies will slowly or quickly become a single people is, for me, not just likely but a definite certainty. But the method, Meneer, that is the point. And it won’t happen just because there is an organization to lead the struggle to attain such unity. The proper preconditions have to exist as well, such as commerce.”
“Commerce!” Douwager pursed his lips, holding back laughter.
“Commerce brings the peoples closer together.”
“The Europeans came here for the purposes of trade, Meneer, but always distanced themselves from the Natives. Indeed they often traded in Natives.”
“The Europeans didn’t come here with the intention of trading with us. They came here with cannon and rifle.”
“Whatever it was they used, they were still here for commerce.”
“If I were to rob you at gunpoint, taking all your clothes and just leaving a handkerchief to cover your embarrassment, and then I left you one and a half cents, would you call that trade or commerce? And that is exactly what the Europeans have done here in the Indies.”
“You forget that these days rifle and cannon are also instruments of trade and commerce,” said Douwager, rejecting my argument. “All around the world the conquered peoples are being turned into the producers of goods for the colonialists. And in some cases the people themselves become objects of trade.”
“It makes no difference. Commerce takes place only voluntarily between two willing parties. If an exchange takes place that is not voluntary, then it is criminal theft and not a commercial transaction that has occurred.”
“But in this modern era there are many ways to force people to sell or buy something. Even in the most advanced country of America, huge advertisements surround everyone, like great waves in the ocean, creating new desires and wants so that people are blackmailed, and threatened—if you don’t buy and use this or that product you’ll suffer this or that, or you will lose out in some way or another. Sooner or later people start to believe it all, and are forced or tricked into buying something as a result of being confused and impotent. And it’s the same with clothes. People are forced to buy and wear new clothes. If they don’t, everyone will say they are behind the times.”
Seeing that I was silenced and caught up in his comments, he continued with his harangue: “We need to arouse an Indies nationalism. We need a political party, not just a social or commercial organization. The Indies has never had a political party. That’s what I have been talking about all this time.” He stopped, giving me a chance to think about things for myself.
I thought of Ter Haar, who had first introduced to me the concept of nationalism. But then I didn’t understand. Now Douwager was confronting me once again, but more directly, with this problem.
“I can’t answer you at the moment,” I said. “The questions of trade and Indies nationalism are questions I will, of course, respond to later.”
Then I went on to tell him of the commercial situation in Solo and Jogja and Tasikmalaya, as well as the collapse of the Native bamboo firms of Tangerang, about matters relating to sugar and land, about everything that can be brought alive if touched by trade, even the peaks of mountains, and about how money was now circulating more and more in the villages. I told him how there was talk of the abolition of rodi and how this would provide more room to move for the Natives. And how all of these things had to be pushed in the right direction, so that it was the Natives who would emerge triumphant, to be carried in the direction of progress, science, knowledge, and self-discovery.
And it was Islam, I went on to explain, that had always fought and opposed the occupiers ever since the Europeans first came to the Indies, and that would continue fighting as long as the colonialists held power. The softest form this opposition ever took was the refusal to work for the Dutch, and so the Moslems became traders. This tradition had to be marshaled, brought alive; it mustn’t be allowed to run amok without direction. This tremendous and powerful tradition could be turned into a force that could bring many good things for all the peoples of the Indies.
We could probably have continued and finished this discussion that week if it hadn’t been for the controversy that exploded in Bandung. The source of the explosion was Medan itself. Marko, without my knowledge, had quietly been writing and putting in various news reports, most of them innocuous. Then suddenly there was that earthshaking article.
Over the last few months Marko had shown extraordinary abilities. From being a cleaner and bodyguard, he had taught himself to set type. He started with the headlines but was soon a competent setter of text as well. Then he started to teach himself how to write reports. And he started to put his reports into the paper without telling me and without Wardi and Sandiman realizing what was happening.
One day he handed over several articles to me. They seemed to have been written in a hurry. They were quite good, but it would have been dangerous to publish them, so I put them away in a file. He never asked about them. I thought then that he realized they could not be published. He handed in seven or eight more articles of the same dangerous kind over the next few weeks.
After the seventh time, he came and asked me straight out why his articles hadn’t been published.
“I respect very much your spirit, attitude, mentality, and knowledge, Marko. But you must realize that if we published these, the whole enterprise would be closed down without achieving what we all hope for. There will be a ti
me when your writings can be read by the public, but not now.”
“Then can I have them back, Tuan?”
“No, Marko, they’re too dangerous for you to keep.”
“Then allow me to burn them in front of Tuan?”
“No. These articles speak of values that everyone should know of.”
“Then what, Tuan?”
“I will keep them myself. Listen to me, Marko. Governor-General van Heutsz has gone. If he were still here we could perhaps rely on him to intervene on our behalf if we got into trouble. None of us know what the new governor-general, this Idenburg, wants. Everyone is saying that his main task is to increase government revenue. He has never summoned me. You know that yourself. Neither did he invite me to the ceremony for his installation. You know what that all means?”
“No, Tuan.”
“So I will tell you. If the rumor about raising state revenue is true, then it is likely he will take strong action against anything that gets in his way. People are saying now that van Heutsz wasted too much money on wars. His debts must be repaid with these increased revenues. And the army, with all its unproductive soldiers, must be reduced in size. Do you understand?”
“Of course, Tuan. But none of my articles was about government revenue. I swear it, Tuan.”
I couldn’t keep myself from bursting into laughter on hearing how simply he looked at things. He didn’t appear insulted. And indeed, it wasn’t my intention to insult him.
“But your writings inflame hatred of the government and its officials.”
“But that’s the feeling everywhere, Tuan. And it can be proved.”
“Of course that’s the general feeling. But you would never be able to prove it in one of their courts of law. I am not saying that you are wrong, Marko. But the government will always side with its own people who have helped it rule all this while. So you have to choose how you want to deal with the government—as part of a great wave or as a turtle that can be the plaything of the rulers.”