Catholic Writers and Political Islam in Postcolonial Indonesia

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The Pain of Being Hybrid: Catholic Writers and Political Islam in Postcolonial Indonesia

Albertus Bagus Laksana Sanata Dharma University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia [email protected]

Abstract

Informed by postcolonial theories and approaches, and based on the works of three Indonesian Catholic writers, this essay looks at the ways in which these writers address the question of identity. They propose the notion of hybrid identity where the identity of the nation is built upon different layers of racial, ethnic, and religious belongings, and loyalties to local tradition and aspirations for modernity. While this notion of identity is inspired by the framework of “catholicity”, it is also “postcolonial” for a number of reasons. First, its formation betrays traces of colonial conditions and negotiations of power. Second, it reflects the subject position of these writers as Indonesian natives who embraced a religion that has complex ties to European colonialism and problematic relations with Islam. Third, it criticizes the post-colonial state and society, which perpetuate many of the ills of the colonial political system, including racism and the abuse of power. Their discourse also reveals the pain of being hybrid, mainly in their inability to appropriately tackle the question of political Islam. The recent political upheaval reveals the need for more creative engagement with political Islam in order for this hybrid identity to work.

Keywords

Hybridity – Postcolonial – Literature – Indonesia – Catholic Identity

Introduction

There are signs of identity crisis in Indonesia, especially among its Christian population, as can be seen in the current political tensions surrounding the

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gubernatorial election of Jakarta that deeply concerns the role and the future of Christian communities in the country vis-à-vis the political Islamic movement. Basuki Tjahaya Purnama, a devout Christian of Chinese descent, has been the front runner in the election. Unlike most politicians in the country, Mr Basuki has been hailed as a professional politician with unblemished records in public service, boosted by personal integrity that is deeply rooted in his Christian faith. A few months prior to the election, however, political machinations of his opponents have succeeded in accusing him of blasphemy against the Quran (based on his impromptu statement against using the Quran to score political point, namely preventing the election of a non-Muslim leader).1 These high level machinations skillfully use radical Islamic mass organization for its purpose, and have succeeded in galvanizing many ordinary Muslims into taking action in defense for their Holy Book as well as against the Christian politician and other nationalist forces behind him, including the President. As a result, Christian-Muslim relations in Indonesia have reached a new level of tension, not seen in the last decade or so since the fall of the Soeharto regime. These political tensions also led to a renewed discourse on identity, which now tends to be defined, at least in some circles, as quite narrow, purist, and exclusive, mostly along religious and racial lines. Religions are pitted against each other. Universal religions and local cultures are understood as diametri- cally opposed within a purificationist agenda. The ghost of racial discrimination and violence has also returned to haunt Chinese Indonesians, including a sizeable number of them who are Christians. In my view, these current political and societal dynamics reveal the precariousness of a hybrid national identity that has been formulated since the birth of the nation, and is rooted in the enduring pluralism of Indonesian reality. It also highlights the persistent postcolonial condition, namely, the struggle to deal with the complex question of national identity, race, and religion, more particularly with Christianity’s past history and current role. In a way, this problem of identity is not totally new. As this essay will make clear later, postcolonial Indonesian Catholic intelligentsia and writers have been dealing with this question and propose a hybrid identity for the whole nation, that is, a national unity built by layers of difference (racial, religious, and ethnic) and marked by aspiration to modernity and rootedness in local traditions. For their own communities, these writers envisage a similar hybrid identity where loyalty to universal Catholic values and networks is combined with commitment to, and rootedness in the local reality, including Indonesian

1 Cf. Andang L. Binawan, “The Case of a Christian Governor in Jakarta as a Sign of the Times for Catholics (and Christians), International Journal of Asian Christianity 1 (2018), 135–42.

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The Pain of Being Hybrid 227 nationhood. In this regard, they also problematize the ambiguities, tensions, and agonies of this hybrid identity. However, the question of political Islam remains largely unresolved, not even addressed directly, revealing one of the most thorny questions faced by post-colonial Indonesian Christians, including Catholics. This essay consists of three main parts. The first part discusses the theoretical and historical background of the topic, namely the specificities of postcolonial literature in Indonesia and the place and contribution of Catholic writers, particularly on the question of identity, including aspects of religion, race and nationalism. The second part continues the discussion by providing a broader theoretical framework in postcolonial studies on literature, religion, and identity. Finally, in the third part, we will discuss the particular insights of the three Catholic writers under consideration on hybrid identity and its com- plexities, including how the question of Islam is tackled.

Catholic Writers and Postcolonial Literature in Indonesia

The topic of literature and national identity features prominently in postcolonial studies. In this regard, what is less prominently explored is perhaps not the theme of “religion” per se, but rather the role of the religious identity of the writers and their religious community. In Indonesia, the situation is perhaps even worse, in that postcolonial discourse on the intersection between literature, identity, and religion is scarce, to say the least. In general, postcolonial discourse in Indonesia has mainly concentrated on the question of politics. In a seminal discussion on Indonesian postcolonial literature, Clearing a Space: Postcolonial Readings of Modern Indonesian Literature, Keith Foulcher and Tony Day offer a useful understanding of postcolonial approaches to the study of literature:2

Postcolonial approaches to the study of literature are concerned with the way in which literary texts, in many different ways, reveal the traces of the colonial encounter, the confrontation of races, nations and cultures under the conditions of unequal power relations that has shaped a significant part of human experience since the beginning of the age of European imperialism.3

2 Keith Foulcher and Tony Day, eds., Clearing a Space: Postcolonial Readings of Modern Indone- sian Literature (Leiden: kitlv Press, 2002). 3 Foulcher and Day, Clearing a Space, p. 2.

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As Foulcher and Day argue further, postcolonial approaches help to identify traces of colonialism in critical as well as literary texts and evaluate the significance of these traces, while also referring to and interrogating the subject position of the postcolonial writer and his/her narrative voices.4 A postcolonial approach is attentive to the interplay of multiple forces, local and global, that give form and meaning to literary texts. I find this understanding of postcolonial approaches to literature useful for the main purpose of my exploration in this essay. Within this understanding, religion and religious communities and their members, their role and agency, can be regarded as forces whose interplay with other elements (culture, politics, economy, nationalism etc.) give meaning and form to literary texts, including the texts written by members of these religious communities. In this connection, it has to be stated that Catholicism has been a part of both colonial and post-colonial Indonesia.5 Catholics have participated in public life and discourse, among others, through the world of literature and serious writing.6 Yet, the question of nationhood and identity in the works of post-colonial Indonesian Catholic writers is underrepresented in scholarly discourse.7 So, informed by postcolonial studies on literature, this essay aims to take up questions of hybrid identity and nationhood among three major In- donesian Catholic writers and attempts to see how these writers problematize the encounters between different races, cultures, and religions in the framework of the nationhood. Furthermore, I will show how they are attentive to their subject position as a Catholic who belongs to a minority community that has complex relationship with the Dutch colonial legacy; how they negotiate their personal identity vis-a-vis religious and national Indonesian identity; and how they see their lives and work in the framework of a nation that includes

4 Foulcher and Day, Clearing a Space, p. 2. 5 In this essay, I follow the convention of using the spelling “post-colonial” when referring sim- ply to the historical era that came after the end of colonialism, and “postcolonial” when referring to the whole distinctive situation related to that historical era as seen by postcolonial studies. 6 On the history and role played by the Catholic communities in Indonesia, see Karel Steen- brink, Catholics in Indonesia: A Documented History, 1808–1900. vol. 1 (Leiden: kitlv Press, 2003); Catholics in Indonesia 1903–1942: A Documented History. vol. 2. The Spectacular Growth of a Self-Confident Minority (Leiden: kitlv Press, 2007). Also Jan Sihar Aritonang and Karel Steenbrink, eds., A History of Christianity in Indonesia (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2008). 7 In general, the theme of religion seldom appears in the literary criticism in Indonesia. See Diah Ariani Arimbi, Reading Contemporary Indonesian Muslim Women Writers: Representa- tion, Identity and Religion of Muslim Women in Indonesian Fiction (Amsterdam University Press, 2009).

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The Pain of Being Hybrid 229 the majority Islamic community. I will be looking at the common vision of identity as hybrid among these writers, but also attentive to the nuances and dynamics represented by each of the writers under consideration. In this essay I will focus on the works of Yusuf Bilyarta Mangunwijaya (1929– 1999), Gabriel Possenti Sindhunata (b. 1952) and Justina Ayu Utami (b. 1968), three Catholic writers belonging to three generations. Although they come from a Catholic background, they mostly write for a larger audience. The three of them are nationally known and respected as public intellectuals, publishing their work with the best publishing houses in the country. In addition to their more general works of literature, Mangunwijaya and Sindhunata regularly write on specifically religious and Catholic themes, largely due to their roles in the Catholic Church as priest and public intellectual. Mangunwijaya was a diocesan priest of the Archdiocese of Semarang, Central Java; while Sindhu- nata is a Jesuit priest who has also been in charge of the publication division of the Indonesia Jesuits for many years. Mangunwijaya is really the first Catholic writer who has become one of the most respected writers in the history of modern Indonesian literature. He has written novels and essays. In addition, he was also a respected architect known for his concern to preserve the natural and cultural environment, as well as a noted social activist and visionary educator, who was inspired by his identity as a priest and by theological thinking such as Liberation Theology.8 His major works of fiction always deal with bigger questions pertaining to national life and fundamental issues that concern humanity (epic genre).9 In most of his works, Mangunwijaya masterfully blends his deep rootedness in and familiarity with Javanese culture with his more cosmopolitan knowledge and aspiration to participate more fully in the modern world. In fact, as Michael Bodden has noted, Mangunwijaya’s ideology is “Catholic, socialist, and egalitarian modernity.”10 For him, literature should be concerned with the poor and the victims of social justice.11 Good literature should be soul-elevating and nurturing deeper meanings, and imbued with religiosity. The notion of ambiguity and hybrid cultural formations are embedded in his novels and essays. Mangunwijaya’s attacks on the notion of racial

8 The biographical sketches of Mangunwijaya can be found in Lindsay Rae, “Liberating and Conciliating: The Work of Y.B. Mangunwijaya”, in Angus McIntyre, ed., Indonesian Political Biography: In Search of Cross-Cultural Understanding (Clayton, Victoria: Monash Univer- sity Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, 1993), pp. 239–261. 9 Michel H. Bodden, “Woman as Nation in Mangunwijaya’s Durga Umayi”, Indonesia 62 (1996), 53–82, at 61. 10 Bodden, “Woman as Nation”, 61. 11 Cf. Mangunwijaya, “Sastra Yang Berorientasi Pada Orang Kecil”, Interview in Horizon 31/9 (September 1986); Bodden, “Woman as Nation”, 61.

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230 Laksana and cultural purity were at times ferocious. He was deeply aware of the ambiguity of colonial legacy, and was adamant that narrow nationalism should be rejected. Among the three writers, Mangunwijaya represents a generation that is closest to the experience of colonialism. He was born and grew up during the colonial times, was educated in the colonial system, spoke Dutch, and had first-hand experience of the Japanese Occupation, and participated in the revolutionary wars against the Dutch (1945–1949). As a prolific writer, Sindhunata has been engaged mainly in the interpretation of the many facets of cultural life in Indonesia, by drawing insights from his vast knowledge of Javanese culture and western humanities (philosophy and theology). He writes about almost anything, from soccer, education, arts, religion, and politics. The overarching framework of “spiritual humanism”, founded on Christian theology yet informed by local cultures, seems to be run- ning through all his writings, where he tries to search for deeper meanings and significance behind every phenomenon. Like Mangunwijaya, he is also drawn to the plight of the poor. His dissertation work in Germany was an early effort to find theological meaning and a foundation for the popular messianic move- ments in Java among the poor.12 And his various works on spirituality draw insights from the ordinary world of the poor.13 Although he is not an ethnic Javanese himself, Sindhunata decided from early on to immerse himself in Javanese culture as a place where he finds in- spiration to work as writer. In particular, he is drawn to the world of Javanese mythology and the world of the poor and the ordinary, especially in the figures of Petruk and Semar, two indigenous clown figures in Javanese shadow puppet tradition that represent the wisdom and resilience of the poor (wong cilik). His first novel, Anak Bajang Menggiring Angin (1983), is actually a creative retelling of the Ramayana epic by way of philosophical and spiritual meditation on the meaning of being human, particularly the meaning of suffering and the aware- ness of the ever present seduction of power and self-interest.14 Themes of identity, nationalism, and religion come into play in a significant manner in many of his works. In fact, being a Chinese-Catholic, he has a deeply personal stake in the question of identity and the nation. For a long time, he was silent about his Chinese identity due to social and cultural pressure. Being

12 Sindhunata completed a doctoral work at the Hochschule für Philosophie, Munich, Ger- many with a dissertation entitled Hoffen auf den Ratu-Adil: Das eschatologische Motiv des “Gerechten Königs”, im Bauernprotest auf Java während des 19. Jahrhunderts und zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts (1992). 13 Sindhunata, Mata Air Bulan (Yogyakarta: Kanisius, 1998). 14 Sindhunata, Anak Bajang Menggiring Angin (Yogyakarta: Gramedia, 1983).

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The Pain of Being Hybrid 231 a Chinese poses a host of discriminatory treatments in Indonesian society. However, at some point during his doctoral studies in Germany, he was made aware of the need to embrace this identity. And later in life he has become deeply concerned with the precariousness of the Chinese ethnic community throughout Indonesian history. And in light of this concern, he questions and reinterprets the nature of Indonesian identity, and argues forcefully for a cul- turally and ethnically hybrid national identity, mainly in his latest novel Putri Cina. Ayu Utami is the youngest of the three, and a lay woman who has under- gone a very unusual and rocky relationship with Catholicism. For many years since her early adulthood, she distanced herself from her Catholic upbring- ing and moral-religious framework, although never parted with the biblical world of stories, metaphors, and figures. But lately, she has decided to embrace her Catholic identity more explicitly without losing her critical mindset. In a way, she attempts to do a reinterpretation of certain aspects of Catholicism based on her own experience.15 She even dedicated her autobiography to Saint Augustine, in reference to his Confessions.16 To date, she has only written one important work that specifically addresses a Catholic theme, which happens to be a question of nationalism as well, namely, her work on the person of Soegijapranata, the first native Javanese Indonesian Catholic bishop.17 But she problematizes identity and nationhood in ways that the other two writers did not or could not. She interrogates and negotiates her own identity as a woman, a lay Catholic, and an Indonesian who lives in an era of political transition and experimentation. As a writer, she came of age during the so-called Refor- mation era following the fall of the New Order Regime in 1998. This explains her relative freedom to explore themes of sexuality, religion, gender, and politics, expressed and explored in graphic and autobiographical (confessional) language unprecedented in Indonesian literature.18 On the personal level, she

15 Cfr. Ayu Utami, “Bisma, Agustinus, Paus, and Mereka: Sikap Gereja terhadap Nafsu dan Bagaimana Saya Melihatnya”, Rohani 58/8 (August 2011), 30–39. In this article, Utami offers her critical and rather personal reinterpretation of the Church’s teachings on sexuality. 16 On this question see her autobiographical works, Si Parasit Lajang: Seks, Sketsa dan Cerita (Gagas Media, 2003); and Pengakuan Bekas Parasit Lajang (Jakarta: kpg, 2013). 17 Ayu Utami, Soegija: 100% Indonesia (Jakarta: kpg and Puskat Pictures, 2012). This work is related to the movie Soegija (Studio Audio Visual Puskat, 2012). 18 In this sense, Ayu Utami belongs to the generation of “sastra Reformasi” (Reformation Era Literature) that was born in the aftermath of the fall of the New Order in 1998. Many of these writers are women and they offer innovative views on sexuality, gender, freedom and so on. On this topic, see Harry Aveling, “Indonesian Literature after Reformasi: The Tongues of Women,” KritikaKultura 8 (2007), 5–34.

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232 Laksana has openly experimented with unconventional life choices: being single (for life), sexual freedom, personal spirituality, and so on.19 However, despite her cosmopolitan outlook on life, she is also drawn to the richness of the Javanese and Indonesian local cultures. In a way she exemplifies the “post-Indonesia” generation that Mangunwijaya envisioned. My thesis is that in the works of these Catholic writers, one can find a distinctive discourse on identity that is marked by complex hybridity and tension. For these writers, Indonesian identity and nationhood is founded on different layers and loyalties that came together, and should be negotiated in the long journey of nationhood. In these discourses, we hear echoes of particular historical events and cultural signposts that have shaped Indonesian society, since the precolonial times, during the colonial era as well as in the postcolonial period. It should be noted that the idea of a hybrid Indonesian identity is not something particularly Catholic, as it can be found in non-Catholic writers as well. So, on the one hand, these writers join one of the common streams in the national discourse on identity, but on the other hand, I argue that the distinctiveness of their identity discourse reflects the general thinking of the Indonesian Catholic intelligentsia and community (Church) on its identity, more particularly, the nature of the Church and its role in the nation-building of the country. Since the period of the late colonial era, the Catholic Church has always negotiated its identity both as authentically Indonesian and deeply connected to the Dutch Church as this community was trying to carve out its place in the nation or emerging national consciousness.20 So, in this sense, these writers can be considered representative of the Catholic voice. In their discourse, we witness a rather interesting case of how a Christian minority community, with complex ties to colonialism, attempts to negotiate its rightful place in the larger context of a country with the largest Muslim population in the world. In this essay, I will show a sense of continuity and unity among these writers, especially, the notion of hybrid identity, social concerns for the poor and marginalized, and a critical voice against the post-colonial state. In a sense, they take up issues raised by the native Catholic intelligentsia during colonial times, and they keep the same perspectives on those issues. There has been

19 See her work, Bilangan Fu (Jakarta: Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia, 2008). 20 On this question, see my dissertation, Journeying to God in Communion with the Other: A Comparative Theological Study of the Muslim and Catholic Pilgrimage Traditions in South Central Java and their contributions to the Catholic Theology of ‘Communio Sanctorum’, Ph.D. Dissertation (Boston College, 2011) especially chapter 4 “Dutch Jesuit Mission, Java- no-Catholic Identity, and Islam: A Brief History of Identity Formation”, 187–250.

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The Pain of Being Hybrid 233 no sign that these Catholic writers were intimidated by the sense of otherness that comes from their Catholic identity and background. This way, the otherness of Christianity has been overcome, to a certain degree in these writers. But in my view, the spectre of Islam as the Other continues as well, and these writers particularly Sindhunata and Ayu Utami have tried different ways to address the issue. Sindhunata offers a discourse about the role of the Chinese in the Islamization of Java, but he refrains from mentioning Islam as a religion. For some time, Ayu Utami joined the “liberal” cause of Islam (the so-called “Jaringan Islam Liberal” Circle), but was made aware later that as a Catholic, this avenue was not the most appropriate place where she would have a significant voice to address larger national issues. Then, she made the decision to get married in the Catholic Church without registering with the state pro- testing discrimination against Christians in the aftermath of the demise of the New Order. In her works, however, Islam is not engaged in any meaningful and sustained way. Mangunwijaya, for his part, did not thematize the presence of Islam either. His last novel, Burung-Burung Rantau (1993), where he describes the cosmopolitan and hybrid identity of the so-called “post-Indonesia generation,” any substantial engagement with the Islamic tradition is surprisingly absent. He talks about the meeting between the East and the West, but Islam is curiously not mentioned as part of the encounter. One can say that for the most part, Islam becomes a silent other in his works. So, to summarize, on the question of Islam, the discourse of these Catholic writers in postcolonial Indonesia has not been able to address the question in a more sustained, substantial and creative way. I contend that this failure to engage Islam, more particularly political Islam, illustrates the postcoloniality of the discourse since it is intimately related to the question of contestation of the relationship of power that involves Chris- tianity, Islam and the state that goes back to the colonial era. In this regard, it should be noted that in postcolonial studies the concept of hybridity does not only refer to the phenomenon of cultural imbrication:

In this context, “hybridity” draws attention not only to the products of cultural blending themselves, but more importantly, to the way in which the nature of these cultural products and their enactment in social and historical space under colonialism is part of the imposition and contestation of colonial relationships of power.21 (emphasis added)

21 Tony Day and Keith Foulcher, “Postcolonial Readings of Modern Indonesian Literature: Introductory Remarks”, in Day and Foulcher, Clearing a Space, 10.

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In light of the quotation above, it can be said that the hybrid collective identity of the Catholics in Indonesia is not just a product of cultural blending and encounters, but it came into being through the complex colonial contestation of power. These Catholic writers did not for the most part interrogate the legacy of power relations of colonialism, but they are related rather intimately to the Catholic community, and their voice reflects the history and experience of the Catholic Church in Indonesia that possessed a very particular history due to its connection to the Dutch (European) Church and colonial power as well as its status as a “privileged” minority in the eyes of the Muslim majority, or at least, political Islam. In Indonesia, Christianity has always had to deal with the image of being a foreign and colonial religion. Its particular ways of dealing (or non-dealing) with Islam are also affected by this complex contestation of power.

Hybridity, Identity, and the Nation in Postcolonial Literature

As mentioned, this essay takes up the discourse on hybrid identity and the nation in the postcolonial literature of Indonesia as expressed in the writings of Catholic authors. So, the first conceptual question to deal with is what “postcolonial literature in the Indonesian context” means. Is there any “postcolonial literature” in Indonesia? On this question, Keith Foulcher has noted:

The construction of a postcolonialist identity upon and through the dislocations wrought by colonialism has never been a central motif in Indonesian creative expression, not has it been a major concern of literary critical debate. Conflicting visions of modernity, the rival claims of nation and region and the social responsibility of the writer have all been continuing and vigorously contested themes in the struggles that mark the parameters of creative practice and critical debate. Yet the question of national identity has not been seen centrally to involve questions of colonial legacies, their subversion, and their transformation.22

In other parts of the world, the process of post-colonial nation building would start from the experience of the inauthenticity of the colonial condition, then the call to nation-building (with its homogezining claims) and the search for

22 Keith Foulcher, “In Search of the Postcolonial in Indonesian Literature”, Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, 10: 2 (1995), 147–171, at 149.

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The Pain of Being Hybrid 235 indigenous roots, and finally going beyond nationalism into the full dimensions of the postcolonial condition.23 Thus, in Africa and elsewhere, the era of decolonization and national independence was accompanied by the realist and anti-colonial novels written by post-colonial writers.24 But in Indonesia, the situation was different in that a certain level of hybridity is conceived as belonging to the heart of nationhood since its very beginning. Thus, to a larger extent, the nation does not posses a totally homogenizing claim. There has never been an overwhelming sense of “inauthenticity” in post-colonial Indo- nesia either. People did not feel they still lived under or being haunted by a colonial legacy. Furthermore, Indonesian literature, from the very beginning, has not been written in the colonial language (Dutch). “Bahasa Indonesia” as the language of literature has been seen as embodying an identity that is quite independent of the colonial past. So, in the context of Indonesian national literature, the so-called “full dimensions of the postcolonial condition” are more ambiguous. Yet, what is understood as the postcolonial condition would normally include other aspects that might be more present in the Indonesian case, such as the collapse of Self-Other binarism, the repudiation of the modernist certain- ties, and the abrogation of the nationalist stance over against globalization, and the allure of pre-national cultural allegiances. In general, the post-colonial condition is also marked by hybridity, marginality, and migrancy.25 Among Catholic writers, this general mode can also be noted, in the sense that there was no strong motive for discarding or problematizing the colonial past, more particularly the rather intimate relationship with the Dutch Catho- lic Church. In the works of these writers, there is a desire to embrace modernity and a penchant for criticizing the aberrations of the post-colonial state (especially its embrace of capitalism). A narrow nationalist stance is criticized, while cosmopolitanism and hybridity are embraced. On the part of these writers, there is also a very passionate commitment for the revivication of local cultures. In this sense, postcolonial Catholic writers continue the reasoning of their earlier generation of intelligentsia during the high colonial time in the

23 Foulcher, “In Search of the Postcolonial in Indonesian Literature”, 157. 24 The defining characteristics of this literature include an agenda of nativism, a call to return to indigenous cultural roots and identity that involves repudiation of the notion universalism that was understood as a synonym for the parochialism of Europe, such as in the work of Chinua Achebe. See Foulcher, “In Search of the Postcolonial in Indonesian Literature”, 154. On the question of the creation of “new national culture” (against the idea of negritude of Achebe), see also Imre Szeman, Zones of Stability: Literature, Postcolonial- ism, and the Nation (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), 31ff. 25 Foulcher, “In Search of the Postcolonial in Indonesian Literature”, 157.

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1920s and 1930s. As I have written elsewhere, with the help of their religion, these first generation Catholic intellectuals have already envisioned and embraced a “hybrid” identity, putting to an end the binary opposition between the East and the West, between local culture and universal Catholicism, and so forth. It was chiefly through their connection with the Dutch Church and their mission enterprise that the (Javanese) Catholic intelligentsia were made deeply aware of their own dignity as a particular people and the limitations of European colonialism. In this case, Catholic Christianity as a world religion with supranational connection and identity has been able to help creating an intense nationalism that was prevented from being too narrow, chauvin- istic, or “racialist,” precisely because it is connected with larger ecumenism or networks. More specifically, this ecumenism is also founded on the theological idea of “catholicity,” that is, universalism, that lies at the heart of Catholic Christianity.26 In my view these postcolonial Catholic writers actually continue, rather than question, this earlier vision of “hybrid identity.” Never did they promote the ideology of nativism based on binary opposition contrasting the indigenous and the European, for example.27 As we will see, they help revive local cultures and spiritualities, but, rather than reifying them, they put them in a dynamic relationship with the framework of Christian universalism. Con- versely, their familiarity and even certain degree of fascination with modern European culture never made them completely westernized. They continue and expand this vision by dealing with different and new challenges faced by post-colonial Indonesia, namely racial and interreligious tensions, social problems and injustice under the watch of the state, cultural change brought about by globalization, the question of individual agency and freedom, and so forth. Thus, in general, post-colonial Catholic writers in Indonesia continue to carry this universalistic tone but with new emphases and a heightened sense of urgency. Their writings betray a new sense of an expanded and deepened nationalism. They engage the nation, nationalism, and national identity with critical voice in order to transform it or to guard it against its own historical amnesia. Once again, the topic of “colonialism” in and of itself does not feature prominently in the works of these writers, although it informs the complexity of their background thinking. Day and Foulcher comment on Mangunwijaya’s stance on colonialism thus:

26 See my essay, “Love of Religion, Love of Nation: Catholic Mission and the Idea of Indone- sian Nationalism”, KritikaKultura 25 (2015), 91–112. 27 Cfr. Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture (New York: Routledge Classics, 2004), p. 248.

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The Pain of Being Hybrid 237

Colonialism itself remains the enemy, and in Mangunwijaya’s view, it stands alongside the Javanese past and the Japanese occupation as historical legacies, which contemporary Indonesia still struggles to overcome. Indeed, the ‘political and social engineering, the economic system and management of culture’ under the New Order raise the question in his mind of whether ‘post-colonial’ is even an appropriate term for independent Indonesia. While it is colonial power relations that he sees as continuing to enslave the ordinary people of Indonesia fifty years after they won political independence, it is the ‘modern way of thinking’ bequeathed through colonialism and its education system that para- doxically offered the promise of liberation seized by the ‘Sukarno-Hatta generation’ and was so conspicuously lacking in the intellectual and cultural life of New Order Indonesia.28

Hybridity and the Nation in Mangunwijaya, Sindhunata and Ayu Utami

Mangunwijaya: Nationalism as a Detour of Universalism I begin with Mangunwijaya, the most senior of these writers. Mangunwijaya’s early novel, Burung-Burung Manyar (Weaverbirds, 1981) explores the ambiguities and tensions in the earliest period of Indonesian nationhood. These ambiguities play themselves out in the different loyalties of its characters. Teto, the protagonist of the novel, for example, is an “Indo”, a mixed blood, a racial hybrid, having a Dutch-Javanese mother and a Javanese father. As Thomas Hunter has remarked, the presence of the racial hybrid in Mangunwijaya’s work can be read as an “reinscription”, motivated partly to restore the presence of the other (outsider).29 For the young Teto, the whole idea of Indonesian nationalism was abhor- rent, and his political loyalties were with the Dutch colonial power. For a long time he disdained the revolutionary nationalists. Only through his romantic relationship with Larasati (aka Atik, a nationalist Javanese woman who worked for the Republic), Teto finally came to embrace Indonesian nationhood. As Pa- mela Allen has observed, in the character of Teto, an organic hybridization (to borrow Bakhtin’s term) has become a site of resistance, and this struggle is overcome with an intentional hybridization to resist Dutch colonialism as well

28 Foulcher and Day, “Postcolonial Readings of Modern Indonesian Literature”, 15. 29 Thomas Hunter, “Indo as Other: Identity, anxiety and ambiguity in ‘Salah Asoehan’”, in Foulcher and Day, Clearing a Space, 110.

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238 Laksana as Javanese feudalism. Thus, binary opposition (the colonizer and the colonized, the West and the East) is also overcome.30 There is a stream in the novel that advocates a deeper meeting between cultures beyond the narrow politics of identity. In the context when Indone- sia was occupied by Japanese forces, that is, when anti-Japanese sentiment was at its peak, the novel states that Japanese culture is much more like Java- nese: being refined, aristocratic, and feudal, but all these positive features are married to a cruel and inhuman dimension.31 Thus, Mangunwijaya debunks the notion of “the sweet Oriental,” since Oriental culture is a combination of beauty and ugliness.32 To a certain extent, this ambiguous fact has become a recurring lamentation in the novel: why the beautiful has to be paired with the ugly.33 Mangunwijaya insists that fluidity, hybridity, and ambiguity are embedded in every culture. In the novel, Atik’s mother is trying to distance herself from certain problematic features of her own Javanese culture, yet deep down she feels at home in that culture. There is also a sense that an authentic encounter with the West is needed for the fuller development of Indonesian culture. In order to work, the fiery nationalism of Soekarno should be coupled with the universalism and rationality (with a healthy dose of individualism) of Sjahrir.34

30 See Pamela Allen, Membaca, and Membaca Lagi: Reinterpretasi Fiksi Indonesia 1980–1995 (Magelang: IndonesiaTera, 2004). This book originates as a Ph.D. dissertation, Reading Matters: An Examination of Plurality of Meaning in Selected Indonesian Fiction, 1980–1995 (University of Sydney, 2000). 31 Mangunwijaya, Burung-Burung Manyar (Jakarta: Djambatan, 1981), p. 37. 32 Mangunwijaya, Burung-Burung Manyar, p. 39. 33 Mangunwijaya, Burung-Burung Manyar, p. 50. 34 Sutan Sjahrir (1909–1966) is one of the most important members of the founding generation of Indonesia’s independence movement. His real political activism began while being educated in the Netherlands and continued in earnest when he returned to the Netherlands East Indies in the 1930s. After Indonesia’s declaration of independence in 1945, Sjahrir served thrice as prime minister but was politically exiled when he fell out of favour with President Soekarno in the 1950s and 1960s. In the Indonesian historiography, Sjahrir has been described as a rational and Western-minded person who was happy to be freed from his traditional bonds. His nationalism was also rational and humanistic, opposing the demagoguery of some of his fellow nationalist activists. Fighting against the Japanese fascism and feodalistic tendency in the politics of Soekarno, Sjahrir was a practical politician with a socialist bent. Due to his own vision of cosmopolitanism and post-nationalism, Mangunwijaya was deeply sympathetic to Sjahrir’s universal and humanistic vision, rather than the narrow and fiery nationalism of Soekarno that had

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The Pain of Being Hybrid 239

On the idea of hybridity as the identity of Indonesian people, Mangunwi- jaya remarks:

[…] I myself, along with the [first] generation of educated Indonesians – not to mention today’s generation – are in fact ‘Indos’ [hybrid, mixed blood]. In the literal sense we are ‘Indos’ by descent – who can really claim to be authentic Javanese, authentic Flores, authentic Chinese and so forth? But more than that we are ‘Indos’ particularly in terms of our thinking and our tastes. … the Indonesian people are at the most basic level ‘Indonesian’ – but with the major stress on the ‘Indo’ part.35

In his later works, Mangunwijaya continues to explore this theme of hybrid identity further. In one of his essays, for instance, he asks whether all Indo- nesians are not really “hybrid” by blood (“Indo).36 He questions the nativis- tic notion of “blood purity.” “Pure nativism” is not the reason of Indonesian nationhood, but rather the desire to come together as a nation. In his various works, Mangunwijaya proposes the term “post-Indonesia.” What he means is not in the sense of “after” (discontinuity), but an enhancement, enrichment and enlargement of the nationalist vision, that is, to be more universal and civilized, to transcend the narrow framework of nationalism towards a vision of searching for what is good, true and beautiful and dignifying. In his novel, Burung-Burung Rantau (Migrating Birds, 1993), the question of hybridity is put forward as a grand vision that has begun to become a reality for the new generation of post-colonial Indonesia. As narrated in this novel, the nation is not only facing modernity, but rather globalization that is considered both as opportunity and a site for cultural conflict. The characters of this novel have crossed national boundaries in their cultural and spiritual sensibility. Indonesian nationhood is placed in a web of relationships and encounters with other nations and cultures. Mangunwijaya portrays the West as a world of science. One of the characters works as a scientist in Switzerland, who then married a Greek girl. Indonesia is connected to India (the East), but the East is in the process of questioning itself.37 Thus, there is a sense of reconnecting

become irrelevant. See Mangunwijaya, “Dilema Sutan Sjahrir: Antara Pemikir dan Politikus”, Prisma 8/6 (1977), 24–42; also Rudolf Mrázek, Sjahrir: Politics and Exile in Indonesia (Ithaca: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 1994). 35 Hunter, “Indo as Other”, 110. 36 Y.B. Mangunwijaya, Pasca-Indonesia Pasca-Einstein: Esei-esei tentang Kebudayaan Indone- sia Abad ke-21 (Yogyakarta: Kanisius, 1999), p. 33. 37 Mangunwijaya, Burung-Burung Rantau (Jakarta: Gramedia, 1993), 202 ff.

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Indonesia with India, one of its mother cultures, as well as with Greece as the cradle of European civilization.38 In this novel, the meaning of citizenship and nationalism is transformed. Wibowo Laksono, one of the main characters, understands his place in the wider world, world citizen, post-nationalist generation:

As the generation of my parents have emancipated themselves from ethnic bonds to become Indonesian, so do I. I go beyond the boundaries of nationality to move with my generation, who are aware of the signs of the time, to the era of post-Indonesia. Being post-national and post- Indonesia does not mean that we are no longer Indonesian, or have no identities or national consciousness […] but like the generations before us who retained their ethnic identities to become Indonesian, we too re- tain our Indonesian identity.39 (translation mine)

Along this line, this novel stresses the fluidity of life and identity. In a sense, everyone is a “migrating bird” (burung rantau), a pilgrim who moves out, but returns to his roots and home. Neti, the protagonist in the novel, is an enlight- ened (western style) woman, a liberal social activist who enjoys being single, although at some point she fell in love with an educated Indian man. She pos- sesses some cosmopolitan traits, but also loves being in Indonesia and deeply rooted in local realities. There is a strong message of universal humanism in Mangunwijaya’s Burung-Burung Rantau. The strand of humanist cultural ideology in the history of Indonesian literature was quite significant (almost having a hegemonic status) in the post-Independence period, coupled with the absence of any strong nativist agenda.40 For Mangunwijaya, Indonesia’s hybrid identity is deeply related to the archipelagic nature of the country. As an archipelago, In- donesia is open and adaptive to foreign cultural influences, although at times without any deeper selection and cohesion.41 In the present age, technology is the place of cultural interaction with the globalized world. Thus, to a large degree, Mangunwijaya’s discourse touches on the dynamic and complex understanding nationalism. He acknowledges its achievement as moving beyond the narrowness of primordial identities, namely, ethnic

38 Cf. Allen, Membaca dan Membaca Lagi, p. 96. As I noted, this dynamic does not include encounters with Islamic cultures. 39 Mangunwijaya, Burung-Burung Rantau, p. 346. 40 Foulcher, “In Search of the Postcolonial in Indonesian Literature”, 159. 41 Mangunwijaya, Pasca-Indonesia Pasca-Einstein, p. 295.

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The Pain of Being Hybrid 241 and racial and traditional polities. Indonesian nationalism was brought about, among other causes, by colonial conditions that worked as a catalyst to bring rationality and universalism. But he clearly wants to move beyond a nationalist framework by embracing globalization at a deeper level. For him, nationalism is a transitory phase, and he lodges fierce criticism of narrow nationalism and the repressive post-colonial state of Indonesia that embraced rampant capitalism and industrial developmentalism.42 Mangunwijaya died in 1999, a few months after the fall of the New Order Regime. His final work of fiction, Durga Umayi, has actually described the evolution of the Indonesian state into a horrible monster.43 Within the context of my argument here, Mangunwijaya sets the tone by forcefully proposing a hybrid identity for the nation that is based on humanity and moves toward universalism. To a large degree, his view reflects the legacy of the discourse of the early Catholic intelligentsia during colonial times, but goes further in his fierce criticism of the post-colonial state.

Sindhunata: The Pain of Being Hybrid Like Mangunwijaya, Sindhunata is interested in the bigger question relating to the nation. The themes of hybridity and ambiguities feature prominently in his work. For him, hybridity is a cause for celebration, but being of Chinese descent himself, he also problematizes the painful aspect of being hybrid from a very personal standpoint. In his view, the post-colonial nation has failed to nurture this hybridity on a deeper level. For one thing, the Chinese are still considered a menacing other. So, as it moves forward, the nation is challenged toward a deeper and more spiritual understanding of its identity. As mentioned, Sindhunata is a prolific writer, in both fiction and non-fiction. His latest novel, Putri Cina (Chinese Princess), in particular takes up the question in relation to the many problems that arose in the wake of the breakdown of the New Order Regime (1998). In a passionate way, he exposes the discrimi- nated minority of the nation, that is, Chinese Indonesians who become the victims of the political chaos of 1998 (the fall of the New Order Regime) and practically throughout much of Indonesian history. In a sense, he interrogates the colonial legacy, that is, the colonial ordering of racial status and interracial interactions, something that the post-colonial state of Indonesia perpetuates.

42 Mangunwijaya also mentioned the “colonialist” abberation of Indonesian state, for example in the case of the annexation of East Timor. See Mangunwijaya, Pasca-Indonesia Pasca-Einstein, p. 94. 43 Cfr. Michael H. Bodden, “Woman as Nation in Mangunwijaya’s Durga Umayi”, Indonesia 62 (1996), 53–82.

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Sindhunata’s major contention is that Indonesian identity has always been more complex and hybrid, and Chineseness has always been part of it. His discourse touches on the question of finding a true “homeland”, both meta- phorical and real, using the plight of the Chinese diasporic community as a springboard. He is critical of the nature and significance of blood relationship and ethnicity, and tends to think that these primordial identities are a hindrance to universal brotherhood. This novel opens with a beautiful poem about universal brotherhood (by T’ao Ch’ien) that is in tension with blood relationships and ethnicity. In this poem, Chinese diasporic communities are likened to dust. They should feel they belong to nowhere as a homeland. After all, they belong to humanity, and thus their true homeland should be found in the realm of universal values, such as simplicity. But the novel also insists on the need for a physical homeland, a sense of being rooted in a particular place of life and origin. To make the point, Sindhunata weaves different strands of history and mythology, both Javanese and Chinese, more particularly a series of figures who are hybrid or of mixed blood. He explores the legend of Prince Jaka Prabang- kara, one of the sons of the last monarch of the Javanese Majapahit Hindu Kingdom, King Brawijaya V. Prabangkara is a born painter, but was banished to a flying house tied to a kite. His father accused him of having an affair with his wife, the Queen of Champa, as Prabangkara was able to make a detailed portrait painting of the naked Queen, complete with a mole in her genitalia. He landed in China, and succeeded in his service as painter in the Emperor’s court. He then married two women, one of whom was the granddaughter of the Emperor. Prabangkara’s mixed-blood offspring then migrated to Java.44 In short, it turns out that the Javanese and the Chinese have inter-married for centuries. This implies that the Indonesian Chinese have indigenous Indone- sian (Javanese) blood. For his purpose, Sindhunata also rereads the legend of the Chinese Princess, one of the wives of King Brawijaya of Majapahit Kingdom, a Javanese Hindu polity (13–16th centuries) that official historiography identifies as the precur- sor of Indonesian unity and nationhood. According to this legend, the King divorced his Chinese Princess and banished her to Palembang when she was pregnant, due to the jealousy of the Queen (of Champa). She was given to one of the King’s sons; then she gave birth to Prince Patah, who was converted to Islam and eventually started the Muslim polity of Demak (1475) that eventually

44 Sindhunata, Putri Cina (Jakarta: Gramedia, 2007), p. 21. On the story of Prabangkara, see also Nancy K. Florida, Writing the Past Inscribing the Future: History as Prophecy in Colo- nial Java (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995).

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The Pain of Being Hybrid 243 brought down his father’s Majapahit Kingdom. In this way, Sindhunata attempts to highlight the point that Raden Patah, the first Muslim monarch in Java, has a Chinese ancestry and that the Chinese had a significant role in the Islamization of Java. In a sense, Islamic Java has a hybrid past. Interestingly, Sindhunata never mentions Islam by name in this novel, preferring to call it “the new religion.”45 This might be part of his literary strategy, but in my view, it is also related to the uneasiness that stems from his background, as well as the sensitivity of the issue. The role of the Chinese in the Islamization of Java has been a politically contentious topic, especially during the New Order.46 In this regard, I would argue that this shows the “postcoloniality” of the whole question. We deal with a Chinese-Catholic writer writing about Islam: he has a double alterity, by virtue of being a Christian that has an ambiguous relationship with the colonial power and with the Islamic community, and by virtue of being a Chinese, an ethnic identity that has been considered an alterity, most of the time menacing.47 In the same novel Sindhunata tells the stories of some well-known figures of hybridity, people of mixed blood, biracial marriages and so forth. In these instances, hybridity is not always celebratory, since it has some tragic element to it. In many instances, Chinese women are admired for their beauty, but they have to suffer; they are never completely secure even as the wife of a powerful Javanese personage. It seems that for Sindhunata, the predominance of male power is the metaphor of what has gone wrong with the nation. Furthermore, the issue of ambivalence is stressed on different levels and in a variety of ways. On the question of homeland, the Chinese hail from China (the land of their ancestors), but most of Chinese Indonesians had no practical knowledge about, much less heartfelt affection for, this land of their ancestors. The presence of the Chinese goes back to ancient Java. So, Java is their real homeland. The Chinese have been instrumental in bringing Islam (the new era) to Java, but the Chinese Princess is also banished by her Javanese husband, as well as disowned and completely abandoned by her own son who eventually became the first Muslim ruler of Java. Then, on the socio-economic plane,

45 Sindhunata, Putri Cina, pp. 30–31. 46 The issue had a political sensitivity during the New Order Regime. Slamet Mulyana’s work on the subject, Runtuhnya Kerajaan Hindu-Jawa dan Timbulnya Negara-Negara Islam (1968), was banned by the Atorney General Office. Only after the fall of the New Order, the space of freedom opened up and the issue was taken up by younger scholars, such as Sumanto al-Qurtubi, Arus Cina-Islam-Jawa: Bongkar Sejarah atas Peranan Tionghoa dalam Penyebaran Agama Islam di Nusantara Abad xv dan xvi (inspeal, 2003). 47 On the question of the alterity of the Chinese community in Indonesia, see Leo Suryadi- nata, Dilema Minoritas Tionghoa (Jakarta: Grafiti Press, 1984).

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244 Laksana the Chinese communities of Indonesia are always given economic privilege since colonial times, as they have been groomed to serve as the financial back- ing for those in power, but only to be “sacrificed” as a scapegoat during political crises.48 For Sindhunata, the roots of the mechanism of scapegoating, goes deeper than the merely historical. He goes into the realm of the major Javanese myths and legends to draw an ontological account of violence. According to these myths, violence and scapegoating belong to the cosmogonic moment of creation of the universe by gods, namely the fight between the sons of the god Sang Hyang Tunggal for power that results in the banishment of the two sons to the earth. In Sindhunata’s reading, Javanese people inherit this foundational violence. Internal divisions and conflicts have always been part of Javanese dy- nasties and kingdoms.49 The Chinese communities, however, are to be partly blamed for their plight as well, by being greedy and forgetful of the values of the ancestors, namely, universal and humanistic values. As has been noted, for Sindhunata, hybridity is a fact of life that can be painful. He advocates a spirituality of living in tension as an antidote, as a recipe for happiness. The Chinese have known this wisdom of living in tension, combin- ing sensuality and spirituality, loving the world but not being carried away by worldly desire, and loving the spiritual world but keeping the desire not to be too spiritual.50 In Sindhunata’s interpretation, there is a particular reason as to why the Chinese serve as a scapegoat: although they are not Javanese, they have close affinities with them, even a blood relationship according to his reading of the myths. Again, hybridity has its tragic element here. He went at length explain- ing this theory of scapegoat in his novel, taking the insights from Girardian theory and the Christian theology of satisfaction (namely, the salvific death of Christ as victim and ransom for humanity).51 He offers a way of changing a “tragic fate” into a “lofty spiritual task” through obedience and self-sacrifice.52

48 Sindhunata, Putri Cina, pp. 104–108. 49 Sindhunata, Putri Cina, pp. 59–74. 50 Sindhunata, Putri Cina, p. 77. 51 Sindhunata also wrote a book on Girard’s scapegoat theory, Kambing Hitam: Teori Rene Girard (Jakarta: Gramedia Pustaka Utama, 2007). In a sense, the book is the academic non-fiction counterpart of the novel Putri Cina, for it was also driven by the plight of the Chinese in Indonesia. 52 This is something personal for Sindhunata. In his book on Girard’s theory, Sindhunata tells his personal story of how he came to embrace his Chinese identity after so many years of uneasiness. During a retreat in Germany, he realized that his uneasiness and even rejection of this identity stems from his inability to accept the suffering (victimization) of

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The Pain of Being Hybrid 245

Ayu Utami: The Nation and Individual Agency Ayu Utami pushes the complex question of hybridity, elaborated by Mangun- wijaya and Sindhunata, to the question of individual agency. Her works deal with how individuals, including women, perform their agency and negotiate hybridity. In a sense this point had been raised by Mangunwijaya’s character of Neti in Burung-Burung Rantau. But Ayu Utami does this not only in the imaginal world of her works, but also in her very own life. On the one hand, she redefines what it means to be a “Catholic” in the contemporary context of Indonesia, moving toward more expansive rather than traditional spirituality by taking into account local religiosity as well as personal and existential space of freedom to search for meaning. On the other hand, she confirms the framework of Soegijapranata (one of the most outstanding thinkers and leaders of the early generation of Catholics in Java) on the hybrid identity of the Catho- lics in the context of post-colonial Indonesia. In my view, Ayu Utami embodies the precariousness of a Catholic religious identity in post-colonial Indonesia. As already mentioned, for quite some time during her adult years, she was a “nominal,” even rebellious Catholic, negoti- ating her own religious identity with a sense of freedom for experimentation and personal exploration. Her first novel, Saman (1998), has been considered a breakthrough in the ways in which diverse kinds of resistance are dealt with, such as sexual (against cultural and religious taboos), political (against the regime), and cultural (against patriarchy). In this novel religion (including Catholicism) and political power are described as putting a heavy burden on women.53 This novel also addresses a set of problems faced by the post-colonial state.54 Although written in the period when she was distancing herself from institutional Catholicism, Utami’s Saman exhibits both familiarity and fond- ness with the Catholic and Biblical world (including Indonesian Catholicism), as in many of her other works. Ayu Utami was a journalist during the final years of the New Order Regime. In the wake of the government’s suppression of the press, she joined a group of journalists to found an alliance of critical and independent journalists.55 This tumultuous period and her activism serve as a crucial background for her first two novels, Saman and Larung, which narrate the life story and struggle of two

his people (Indonesian Chinese). He was made aware that he should accept this suffering, not as a historical facticity, but rather in the framework of the grace of God. 53 Laurie J. Sears, “Reading Ayu Utami: Notes toward a Study of Trauma and the Archive in Indonesia”, Indonesia 83 (2007), 17–39, at 37. 54 Sears, “Reading Ayu Utami”, 21. 55 Cf. Harry Aveling, “Indonesian Literature after Reformasi”, 11.

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246 Laksana young activists by the same name, embedded in the socio-political dynamics of the period. In these novels, she exposes the tension between rampant capitalism (supported by the state) and civil society, as well as problematizing the official historical memory of the anti-communist massacre (1965). This is one of the most contentious parts of the history of post-colonial Indonesia, where the state was implicated. For her, beyond this bloody massacre, the New Order Regime has succeeded in turning “communism” into a spectre, which has its own life, separated from the contentious historical events of the 1965 failed coup d’etat.56 Like Mangunwijaya and Sindhunata before her, Ayu understands her work partly as a revision of Indonesian historical narratives. This makes her works characteristically “postcolonial,” as part of the agenda of postcolonial writing is to revise the historical narrative.57 Part of Ayu Utami’s engagement with the contemporary Indonesian nation- state is her involvement with a group of young Muslim intellectuals who founded the Liberal Islam Network (Jaringan Islam Liberal). In her view, this group fights to debunk the negative things connected with the word “liberal.” This group attempts to nurture the richness and plurality of Islam (Islam War- na-Warni), a form of Islam that embraces the tensions of modern life. However, she later confessed it was more fruitful for her to return to her Catholic identity and to attempt to address nationhood from this perspective. Perhaps her fascination with Soegijapranata, the first native Catholic bishop of Indonesia (consecrated in 1940) who was later declared a national hero by the government, reflects her search for a sense of rootedness in a religious community. For her, the hybrid identity of the Catholic Church in Indonesia that Soegijapranata formulated and fought for – namely, being genuinely nationalist and indigenous, yet truly Catholic reflected the general inner disposition of the whole Catholic community at the beginning of the twentieth century, a disposition that put this community closer to the larger nationalist movement.58 Her book on Soegijapranata’s life and works celebrates the hybridity of the Indonesian Catholic Church to which she belongs. In her own words and for a larger audience than Catholic readers, she narrates the distinctive historical achievements of the Catholic Church in Java during the period. The Church succeeded in overcoming racial tensions that were rampant under colonial rule. Soegijapranata was accepted and respected by the highest strata of the Dutch Catholic community.59 Pivotal in the formation of the young Soegija

56 Ayu Utami, Si Parasit Lajang, pp. 119–23. 57 Cf. Randal Styers, “Postcolonial Theory and the Study of Christian History”, Church History 78:4 (2009), 849–54. 58 Ayu Utami, Soegija, p. 73. 59 Ayu Utami, Soegija, p. 17.

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The Pain of Being Hybrid 247 was his experience that within the context of the mission Church in Java, rootedness in the local Javanese culture was nurtured along with openness to universal values and connections. This combination made a deep impression on Soegija, then a Muslim lad who expressed no desire to become a Catholic and viewed Christianity largely as the religion of the Europeans. In the person of the baptized Soegijapranata, the spiritual aspiration of the Javanese meets with a Catholic faith that does not annihilate it. In short, in this book, Ayu Utami immerses herself in the long tradition of the Catholic Church’s religious, political and cultural sensibility in the Indonesian context. Its hybrid identity in its commitment to local culture and nationalism, and openness to universalism, is at the heart of her presentation of the significance of the Catholic Church in Indonesia. Like Mangunwijaya’s Burung-Burung Manyar, she points out the complexity, ambiguity, and ambivalence that stood at the origin of In- donesian nationhood.60

Concluding Remarks

In this essay, I have attempted to show the distinctiveness of Catholic writers and intellectuals in postcolonial Indonesian society, particularly in their discourse on nationhood and national identity. In their notion of hybrid identity, they go beyond the binary opposition between the East and the West, the local and the universal, and the colonized and the colonial power. The postcoloniality of their discourse is also apparent in their vehement, yet nuanced, criticisms of the post-colonial state, which actually perpetuates the ills of the colonial political system, especially in terms of its racism and abuse of power. There is, however, one lingering question that this discourse fails to address and that continues to mark the current dynamic of the Catholic community in the post-colonial state of Indonesia, namely, the question of Islam, particularly political Islam. In many ways, this reveals a truly postcolonial condition. For, since colonial times, the question of Islam has been central to Dutch politics and scholarship, with political Islam as a spectre haunting the stability of the colonial rule. Recent political upheavals show the fragile and delicate relationship between this vision of hybrid identity and the rise of political Islam. It further reminds the Catholic community of the unfinished agenda of engaging (political) Islam more creatively and seriously in their very identity and role in the postcolonial society of Indonesia.

60 Ayu Utami, Soegija, p. 136.

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