me.19 I answered that I wished to continue the endeavor that he knew about and that he had never opposed and had even encouraged. His reply was brief: “Go right ahead with it.”
In Yogyakarta I stayed with a new friend, Sutopo, a former editor of the Budi Utomo newspaper.20 I had a letter of introduction to him from a friend of mine in Medan, the chairman of Budi Utomo there.21 Sutopo immediately pressed me into leaving the hotel and coming to stay in his house, where I was treated like a brother who had just returned from a long journey. He introduced me around and tried to set up a school for me to run. However, by chance Sarekat Islam was meeting to discuss the conflict inside the organization resulting from the “Darsono criticism,” and Sutopo introduced me to Tjokroaminoto, Darsono, and Semaun.22
[69] Tjokroaminoto also treated me like an old friend. He acted as though he were unaware of his great influence throughout Indonesia and of the fact that Westerners called him “the uncrowned king of Indonesia.”23 He was friendly to everyone who approached him. “Once you are Tjokroaminoto’s friend it’s hard to part from him, let alone become his enemy,” a member of the PKI and a former follower of Tjokroaminoto said to me. “Tjokroaminoto’s voice holds the heart of the Indonesian people,” said another friend. And Tjokroaminoto left me saying, “The doors of Sarekat Islam are open to you.”
Before the meeting everyone was exceedingly busy. I was taken to see Darsono. He said: “Our people still take political differences too personally. They are not yet able to separate people’s political positions or words from the individuals themselves, especially with people they love dearly.”
Darsono was visibly affected by the personal attack that had been launched against him. Indeed, he had even been threatened when trying to defend his position at meetings. It must be stated that Tjokroaminoto’s popularity was still extremely high at that stage. But the committee that examined the “Darsono criticism” affirmed his right to criticize and found fault only with the manner in which he had done so.
Semaun, who dressed simply but attractively, in harmony with his expression and his smile, asked no questions. He just said, “Get ready to come to Semarang with us tomorrow. We shall try to put you in charge of education. It certainly is time for such a step.” Unfortunately, I had to part from Sutopo, who urged me to remain in his house in Yogyakarta, because he really had been trying hard to get a school established for me.24
It often happens that when we are spurred on by strong desires we forget that our physical beings are subject to the laws of nature. When my body was adjusting to the European environment, its climate, and my shortage of necessities, my health was severely threatened. It was restored only when I adjusted myself to the lifestyle there, one which I continued in Deli, in fact to an even greater degree.
[70] At first I was not aware that I was now in Java, in a physical situation as different from Deli as the earth from the sky. I did not notice that houses in Java were not like those in Deli or Bussum, and neither was the food. Nor was I aware that the climate in Semarang was different from that of the other places. I forgot all this because I was in a new context, one in which I could speak freely to my comrades in the struggle. On the first day there, I fell ill and was stretched out on a bed in Semaun’s house in Suburan kampung. I had a bad fever and finally had to be taken to the hospital. I was suffering a lung inflammation and had to be nursed for a month.25
Our bodily organs are not able to endure sudden major changes. Just as glass plunged into boiling water will certainly break, so even a strong body will fall ill if suddenly put into a very different situation. But as glass will not break if it is slowly lowered into the boiling water, so this mortal human body must be gradually acclimatized to new and different surroundings. We often forget this, particularly if our spirits are in a secure and pleasing environment.
When I felt somewhat stronger again, Semaun organized a special meeting of the members of Sarekat Islam Semarang to discuss the question of establishing a school. This proposal was well received, and that very day we began registering pupils. A school building was no problem since Sarekat Islam Semarang had its own building for meetings, which we could use temporarily. We quickly obtained benches, blackboards, and other equipment, and in one or two days I was able to commence with around fifty pupils.26
In my small pamphlet S.I. Semarang dan Onderwijs [Sarekat Islam Semarang and Education] I outlined the principles and aims of our school, as well as the means by which we might achieve those aims.27 We did not try to educate our pupils to become clerks, as did the government schools. On the contrary, apart from teaching them to earn a living for themselves and their families, we taught them to help the masses through the movement. Obviously, then, the basis we used was the democratic principle appropriate under colonialism: to live together with the masses in order to raise their level, and not to become a member of a class apart to be used as an instrument of oppression against one’s own people. With such principles and aims, the methods by which the intelligence, emotions, and desires of the pupils were advanced were harmonized with the interests, the daily work, and the ideals of the masses and with the people’s movement and organizations.
[71] Since nearly all the pupils were children of peasants, laborers, or small traders and low-level employees with direct or indirect ties to Sarekat Islam, relating their education to the daily work of the people and to the ideals of the movement was not difficult. It was not surprising that after a short time the pupils’ parents began to see their children as the inheritors of their work and their ideals.28
I still remember the children’s first performance, held for an audience of Sarekat Islam members. One or two of the fourteen-year-old pupils had enlisted the aid of some parents and pushed their friends into a project organized by the pupils. They staged a performance: wearing red trousers, the pupils marched out and lined up in front of the audience and sang the Internationale . . . for the first time among the Indonesian people.29 They carried it all off without a hitch and I awaited the crowd’s response. But there was no sound. I saw that several of the spectators had tears of admiration trickling down their faces. Were they sad or happy?
They felt both of these emotions: sadness because they were conscious of their own and their children’s fate, as well as the shortcomings of the school and its equipment; happiness because their children were being educated not to become lackeys of colonialism but to raise their own class, the oppressed, exploited, and humiliated masses. They felt that they saw before them the heroes of the future. Only after several minutes did we hear faint clapping, immediately followed by wild applause and cheering.
Pupils continued to stream into our school until we had over two hundred. Letters from people wanting to become teachers in our school arrived from everywhere; there were those who wanted to give up well-paid jobs to work in our school for nothing. In the afternoons I held my own classes to instruct pupils of the fifth grade who wanted to become teachers, and to help existing teachers orient to the people.30
[72] Misfortune and good luck came from all directions, for the requests to set up schools all over the country had both fortunate and unfortunate aspects: unfortunate because our personnel was still limited and even the center in Semarang was not yet strong, and fortunate because such national interest would ensure that the program would later extend throughout Indonesia and that we could count on support from the whole population. With the interest and assistance of at least a large part of the poorest people, we could hope for a good climate and fertile soil for the introduction of middle schools. After graduating from agricultural schools, pupils could head up people’s cooperatives in the villages; those from the trade schools could direct cooperatives for various trades, while those from commercial schools could set up different types of trade cooperatives. In this way, if the schools could work together with the trade unions and the political organizations, the nationalist movement would gain people having all sorts of skills—strongly forged cadres.
We
