behind. “This is the crab silat, Iep,” he said.57 He was not just playing, either. I felt my neck pulled back and it was difficult for me to breathe. Luckily I knew a little about this crab attack, and it was not I who got caught in it! Fortunately there was a glass of water on the table nearby for me to give first aid to the unfortunate fellow, and O. S. came to quickly. After that he was very nice to me. People like him seem to respect only brute strength. Despite his respect for me, his cruelty to others, especially those he considered weak, became even worse.
[35] I also tangled with his brother (H. S.), not because he was aggressive, cruel, or gave me an ultimatum, but because he insulted the landlady. While I was reading I could hear him imposing his ideas on her and insulting her. “You are stupid. You are an idiot.” I warned him twice, and the third time the words he used were different, but even less appropriate in front of a woman who had never used coarse or arrogant language. I am not sure how it happened, but I sprang up and he fell with a thud against the wall. After that, behind my back he called me “the tiger.”
The Chinese student was diligent, quiet, and clever. In the beginning we were quite close, then later on fell out. However, because he had a nervous sickness and for a long time could not sleep or study, I felt very sorry for him, and we became good friends again. The Indonesian was always in the hospital, which of course made us very sad, until finally his illness forced him to return to Indonesia.
That was the situation in my immediate environment. The Russian revolution had been going on for nearly a year. My convictions became even more certain. But I had to wait until the end of the war to return to Indonesia. Desires thwarted in one direction will break out in another: a burgeoning awareness, particularly in the breast of a youth, cannot easily be kept behind a fence of teeth. It soon shows, even in day-to-day conversations. When Nyonya R, the wife of a friend of mine, met me in Den Haag, she greeted me with the words, “Hello, Mr. Bolshevik.” It was then that I became conscious of the change that had taken place within me.
One day, Suwardi Surjaningrat, whom we now know as Ki Hadjar Dewantara, suggested out of the blue that I represent his party [the Indische Partij] in the Netherlands because he was going to leave for Indonesia. It was already clear enough to me where the different parties—nationalist, socialist, and Bolshevik—stood, but to act in and represent a party that had once been very revolutionary was a different matter. The Indische Vereeniging, with its R. M. Noto Soeroto, had not prepared me theoretically, let alone provided real experience.58 I looked into the face of Dewantara, without knowing how I should answer. He smiled. Then I looked into the face of the late Doctor Gunawan Mangunkusumo. He also smiled and said, “It’s fitting, just accept it.” Not long afterwards, I represented the Indische Vereeniging at the congress of Indonesian youth and students of Indology at Deventer. I was chosen to give the report on the nationalist movement in Indonesia.59
[36] It was as though a stone had been thrown into a chicken coop. “We can’t allow this now, can we?” When I came back to Bussum several Dutch colonialists, and particularly Tuan Fabius, engaged me in debate.
I must have been called to Tuan Fabius’ house five or six nights in a row. The discussion, or more precisely the debate, ranged over the problems of every branch of Dutch society, which was in turmoil at that time. Even though it was not actually in the war, the Netherlands did not escape the force of the hurricane in Western Europe. We covered political and social questions, but it was the educational one that we were constantly discussing. This concern touched me both directly and indirectly.
Naturally enough, I agreed with the view that education from primary school to high school should not only be under the guidance and control of the state but also that for capable students it should be paid for by the state. It wasn’t hard to understand Tuan Fabius’ objections, which were, in fact, tied to his bourgeois class interest in general and specifically to the interests of his nation against the Indonesian nation. According to him, such policies would only increase intellectual quantity while reducing quality. Even now, he said, there is considerable unemployment among intellectuals even while university education is limited to children of the well-to-do.
I maintained that in a society where production and education were carried out according to a plan, there would not be unemployment, and if there were, it could not possibly be for long, because education would be synchronized with the production needs of society. It would not be as now, tossed about by supply and demand in the capitalist market, where production is carried out anarchically. Intellect would certainly not decline if continuing an education to the university level no longer depended on the contents of one’s father’s pocket but, instead, solely on one’s ability, as determined by the state education board. Today, many intelligent and worthwhile people are hindered and even overcome by their lack of money. On the other hand, many of those with degrees actually have no right to hold them.
This conversation naturally touched on my expressed desire to study in the officers’ school in Breda.60 Tuan Fabius said that I could not go there because I knew no French, German, and English. I replied that I was willing to go to Kampen, where even primary school graduates were accepted.61 But this too was forbidden.
[37] On the road home at night, I once again began to ponder my situation. The first time I had done this, I had rebelled furiously against everything, including myself; but with increasing knowledge and experience, I was able to wait patiently and view my situation philosophically: I was a student from a colonized country, a member of a family that had known only religion and adat kuno and that, although fairly wealthy, lived in a primitive economy and could not trade its possessions; I had received the rudiments of my native education, but this was not followed up in my homeland; I was not fortunate enough to be in America in the prosperous era when poor students could work their way through night school; and, finally, I was not able to return to Indonesia because the war was still going on.62 All this I saw clearly in my mind. But even more distinctly I saw my debt of Rp 1,500 to the Engkufonds in Indonesia and Rp 4,000 to the fund in the Netherlands supervised by Tuan Fabius.63
Apparently Tuan Fabius felt his responsibility to the Netherlands fund for my debt even more sharply than I did. The next morning he came to my place to continue the discussion. I was in the attic, at the bedside of Nyonya D, who was unwell. A member of the household told me that Tuan Fabius wanted to speak to me. Nyonya D, who apparently understood the situation quite well, advised me to act cautiously. As usual the two brothers, H. S. and O. S., scurried away on hearing Tuan Fabius’ voice, which indeed thundered terrifyingly.
The discussion bored me somewhat, because it only repeated what had been said before. But after we touched on the question of “debts” and “gratitude” and Tuan Fabius suggested that I go back to Indonesia, I objected. “How is it that at the beginning of the war after my exams, when I wanted to go home, I was held back because you said there was no room on the boats, and now, when the submarines are wreaking even more havoc, you can get me a berth?”
[38] I said that I objected to continuing to borrow from the fund that he supervised, since this was not the first time that the question of “gratitude” had been raised, even though indirectly, by Tuan Fabius himself and by other Dutch people. The discussion stopped short. Apparently neither he nor the landlord had imagined that I would answer in such a way.
That night Tuan and Nyonya D called me to their room in the attic. Tuan D said to me, “In the discussion today you were a bit harsh, but we understand. We have decided to let you stay on with us as our own child until you can go back. But we cannot give you pocket money because my business is going very badly.”
I could get more than just pocket money by teaching Indonesian to Dutch people who wanted to go to Indonesia. Tuan and Nyonya D at that time got along well, and the peaceful household was a good and healthy atmosphere for me for the short time before I left for Indonesia. But the world changed a lot in the two years after I left them. The harmony between
