Soetan Sjahrir

Perpustakaan Soediman Kartohadiprodjo FHUI Buku ini harus dikembalikan pada tgl tersebut dibawah ini (keterlambatan pengembalian pada tanggal dibawah ini dikenakan denda Rp. 1000 (per hari/buku) no'fí r- V M& O * V i f ^ X N* <L OUT OF EXILE SOETAN SJAHRIR Omf of Exile The greater part of this book is based upon letters by Soetan Sjahrir rewrittefinnd edited in Dutch by . MARIA DUCHÂÎT/EAU-SJAHRIR , / . V . Translated, twiih an introduction, by CHARLES WOLF, JR. An Asia Book THE JOHN DAY COMPANY o N E W Y O R K » * ■ ••‘ . r «- FAiv RUK. o COPYRIGHT, 1949, BY THE JOI-IN DAY COMPANY All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any for?n without pemtission. Published on the same day in the Dominion of Canada by Longmans, Green and Company, Toronto. « MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FAK. HUK0M dan PENG. MASJ. \ CONTENTS INTRODUCTION BY CHARLES WOLF, JR. vii GLOSSARY OF UNFAMILIAR NAMES Xxi B O O K I: THOUGHT 1 r 1. Tjipinang 2. Intermezzo 3. Boven Digoel 4. Banda Neira BOOK II: ACTION 217 cd „ ? „ Jj ? INTRODUCTION I. THE AUTHOR: n the summer of 1934, Soetan Sjahrir languished in a Java prison; a politiCal “criminal” at twenty-five years of age. His “crime” had been the leadership of an or ganizationI that advoCated widespread education for Indo nesians. Thirteen years later Sjahrir took a seat at the Se Curity Council of the United Nations at Lake Success to present the Case of the embattled Indonesian RepubliC against DutCh military action in Java and Sumatra. He Came as the first representative of a “nonsovereign” colonial peo ple to proclaim his people s right to independence before the Council, and to ask that body s proteCtion from Colo nial domination so that his Country might be free to work out its own destiny. Sjahrir’s presentation before the CounCil was eloquent and effective. It began with the story of a people and an area with a recorded history of more than one thousand years—a history that was singularly unfamiliar to the ears of his listeners. The islands of the Indies had their golden periods under the Shrivijaya and Shailendra empires before the tenth century, and finally under the empire of Madja- pahit in the fourteenth Century stretching from Papua in the east through the Indonesian archipelago to Madagascar in the west. In the undefined rhythm of history, the politi Cal and economic expansion of the West Came at a period of deCline in the formerly riCh and powerful empire of the Indies. Portugal first extended its dominion over part of v i i I the arChipelago, and in the seventeenth century the hardy DutCh seafarers came to oust their southern European pred eCessors, and to begin the proCess of systematically bring ing the islands under Netherlands rule. In Sjahrir’s words at Lake SuCCess: In this proCess, my country lost its free dom . and fell from its anCient proud plaCe to that of a weak dejeCted Colony.” Sjahrir’s life and Career have been devoted to regaining that freedom and to establishing Conditions in Indonesia in whiCh his Country Could revitalize its national pride and build a plaCe for itself in the modem world. To seCure these objeCtives, Sjahrir has long been an aCtive figure in the In donesian nationalist movement. The nationalist movement had its informal beginning at the end of the nineteenth century under the intelleCtual leadership of the moderate Dr. Tjipto Mangoenkoesoemo (the “Dr. Soeribno” of Out of Exile) . Its organizational beginnings Came in the first deCade of this century with the formation of the Boedi Oetomo or High Endeavor” so Ciety by the soCial reformer Soetomo. Throughout most of its history prior to World War II, Indonesian national ism was more or less unified in its longer-run objeCtives, but its leaders were widely divided as to the methods that they deemed advisable for attaining these objectives. There were the Cooperators, like Thamrin and Tjipto, who believed in working with and often in the Netherlands In dies regime. There were also the non-Cooperators who felt that Collaboration with the Colonial regime was impossible, and that nationalist poliCy must be direCted against the Colonial administration. Among the non-Cooperative group, there were further divisions: the faCtion led by Soekamo favoring mass publiC opposition to Dutch rule; while the group organized by Harta and Sjahrir believed in education and thorough org?nization, gradually developing into mass expression. It was not until 1939 that this division within the nation- Vlll aliSt movement was partly resolved by a unification of the nationalist parties. With the proclamation of Indonesian independence by Soekarno and Hatta on August 17, 1945, the differing nationalist faCtions finally achieved a working unity behind the new republican government. It is, how ever, worth noting that while there has been unity during the past two and a half years, in support of the Indonesian RepubliCan government and the maintenance of its au thority, there has been wide and voCal divergence on many of the policies of that government, partiCularly those that involved Compromise and negotiation with the Netherlands. The strong Masjoe?jii (Islamic) and the Nationalist parties have particularly opposed many of the compromise policies for which Sjahrir has stood. As a guiding figure behind the Indonesian Revolution, Sjahrir has been one of the most moderate and undoCtri naire revolutionists of modern times. President Achmed Soekarno has been the dominant rallying figure in the re publican revolution, but Sjahrir has been the arChiteCt of the new and struggling government’s policies, not only for the twenty months during which he was the RepubliC’s Prime Minister, but thereafter as its “ambassador at large” and its representative at Lake Success. It has been the alli ance between Soekarno and Sjahrir—the former Contribut ing personal Color and his command over public opinion, the latter contributing intelleCt and realistic shrewdness— that, to a large extent, has given the infant republiC stability m the faCe of strong pressures, both internal and external. Sjahrir has a boyish and deceivingly ingenuous face, which makes him look younger than his thirty-nine years. With a full shock of Coal-blaCk hair and a friendly smile, the diminutive statesman has a tendenCy toward plumpness, which he tries to defeat by dancing, at which he is exCel lent, and tennis, at which he is not so excellent. Reserved and quiet in manner, he is a man who is nearly always under estimated when met casually; and yet to know him well is / to know a keen, versatile, and sensitive mind. So sensitive is he, in faCt, that when a Dutch Foreign Office representative reCently asked him for a Calendar decorated with the R e publiC’s motto, Merdeka (freedom), and jokingly stated, “If I hang this over my desk perhaps none of the Indonesian sweepers will take my penCils away,” Sjahrir avoided the diplomat for more than a month. Born in the Minangkabau region of Sumatra’s west Coast on MarCh 5, 1909, Sjahrir received his elementary and seC ondary eduCation in Medan, Sumatra, and Bandoeng, Java, and thereafter went to Holland to study law at the Univer sity of Leyden. His stay in Holland affeCted him deeply, and he married a Dutch girl whom he was not to see for fourteen years following his internment in Indonesia. His study in Holland left him with a profound respeCt for Western eduCation and culture, which is strongly presented in Out of Exile, and a devotion to the idea that he must use his life to help bring freedom to the people from whom his westernization had partially alienated him. This idea lived and grew, as he tells us in Out of Exile, throughout the whole time that he was imprisoned and exiled after return ing to Indonesia. After some soCialistiC and nationalistic activities in Hol land with the Perhimpoenan Indonesia or Indonesian AssoCiation, he returned to Indonesia in 1932 and joined the Pendidikan Nasional Indonesia (the “P.N.I.” referred to in Out of Exile) or SoCiety for National Indonesian EduCa tion. His original intention had been to return to Indonesia briefly to get readjusted to life there, and to work out his orientation toward the nationalist movement in the light of his Western eduCation and affinities. He then intended to go baCk to Holland to Complete his law degree at the Univer sity of Leyden and finally to bring his wife baCk to Indo nesia with him. Sjahrir had first intended returning to the land of his birth alone in order to organize and redireCt his mixed feelings toward his people on the one hand, and to ward his wife and friends in Holland on the other. During x the two years away from Holland, he was continually trou bled by doubts ConCerning the Course that his Conscience had led him to take. In the meantime he had furthered the Cause of the P.N.I. by advoCating expanded eduCational faCilities along Western lines for Indonesia. In February 1934, as he was on the point of returning to his wife in Holland, he was arrested and imprisoned in Tjipinang, Java. So inflexible was prewar Dutch Colonial policy that after a year in prison a man of Sjahrir’s basiCally moderate and thoughtful nature—without even being speCifically Charged —was sent to internment in Boven Digoel, New Guinea, a Camp that had been intended for hardened Criminals and violent revolutionists. Sjahrir was sent to Boven Digoel in January 1935, along with Hatta and the other members of the P.N.I.

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