The 'conversion' of Sindhunata

On 1 September 2008 I wrote a blog about the change in self-perception of Gabriel Sindhunata. He considered himself as a participant of Javanese culture and we so also seen by many others. In July 2004 my wife an I made a sentimental journey to Indonesia with our two sons, their partners and one mother-in-law. We saw the places where we had lived in the 1980s in Jakarta and Yogyakarta. Without any appointment we also went to the bungalow used by Sindhunata for writing in Kaliurang. He has a garden of meditation in that place, with a combination of statues, a lady 'perhaps Mary', a quite big Semar. But Sindhyunata also ordered a statue of Petruk, 'because all perople here are simple, poor people. They can better identify with Petruk, the servant who is not always perfect and wise, but has a good deal of dedication. People can better identify with Petruk than with Semar. For the inauguration there were all kind of Petruk: the taxi driver, the journalist, the cowboy, plaiyng a new kind of theatre. Our company arrived at this occasion: cultural values shown under guidance of a Catholic priest, a Jesuit.

At a later visit to Yogyakarta, in 2008, I received the newest novel of  2007, Puteri Cina on the century long history of Chinese in Indonesia. The first 'Puteri Cina' was married to the king-priest of Demak who introduced Islam and always felt partly a stranger in her new land. So it was often in later generations of Chinese in Indonesia. They functioend often as a scapegoat, the cause of all kind of problems that were connected without any foundation to them, just because people want to seek excuses for problems and tragedies. At that time Sundhunata  connected his emphasis on his Chinese offspring to the violence experience by the Chinese in Jakarta in 1998, preceding the fall of Soeharto, when military, especially Prabowo had tried to turn the negative feelings towards Soeharto into pogroms of Chinese shops and houses in Jakarta.

Only now I have read sections of an earlier book Kambing Hitam of 2006 by Sindhunata. Most of the book is about the writings of René Girard, reproduced in his pleasant and easy going Indonesian.  There is a chapter about sacrifice in general, a quite long about Old Testament stories like Job (215-298).

There are two Ekskursus  or digressions, one on the Batara Kala story (335-354) and the second one (355-404) with the title Kesedihan Putri Cina. The first section is general about the idea of stereotype. The second section is a very long quote from a Chinese journalist in 1947 who wrote about clashes in East Java between the returning Dutch army and nationalists. The latter took revenge on the Chinese and a mie factory was set in fire, many Chinese in Malang killed. It is a detailed story, reprinted in a book by Liem Koen Hian alias Tjamboek Berdoeri in 2004. There are also references to other pogroms against Chinese, 1740 by the Dutch in Batavia and 1916 in Pekalongan by Sarekat Islam. The third section is about the tragedy of May 1998 where problems of people versus Soeharto were also channelled towards the Chinese (by Prabowo?) The fourth section elaborates on stereotypes ( 385-9) The fifth and last section 389-404 was very interesting for me. It is a personal biography of Sindhunata as someone from a Chinese family in Batu, but more or less denying his Chinese identity until he went for study to Germany. Most Indonesians he met in Germany were Chinese and his identity became a problem for him: why was he hiding his Chinese identity?  In 1989 he was in a retreat in a Benedictine Abbey in Metten and he read several novel about the theme: Auf der Suche einer Heimat (in search for a homeland). It was an important theme in Germany for Jewish-German authors but also for migrant workers to Germany who were wrestling with their double identity. The Jesuit Peter Knauer ordered him to read the texts of Isaiah 49-55 about the suffering servant of God. In talks with the Jesuit father and colleague he concluded selama ini saya tidak bisa menerima kecinaan saya, sebab saya tidak bisa menerima ketiakadilan yang ditimpakan pada saya. Saya harus menerima ketidakadilan itu bukan dengan kekuatan saya, tapi dalam rencana dan rahmant-Nya. [Until then I could not accept my Chinese offspring, because I could not accept the injustice hat was directed against me. I must not accept this injustice with firm action from my side, but according to His justice and mercy].

This is followed by the story of a little girl, a mate during his youth in the 1950s but she left Indonesia in 1959 together with many other people, ‘returning’ to China, and this remained for long a mystery to him. And then there is switch in his thinking: This kind of Chinese identity taught me that there is no homeland in this world. Kecinaan macam itu sebenarnya adalah sebuah kerinduan terdalam hati manusia akan sebuah tanah air abadi, yang damai dan tentram serta tak akan pernah memisahkan manusia lagi. Kerinduan itu sering memaksa saya untuk menahan diri agar saya tidak basah berkaca-kaca. [This Chinese offspring is in fact a deep longing in the heart of manking for an eternal abode in peace and harmony, where people are no longer divided. This longing (mimesis?) urges me to remain inhibited in order not to be astonished, lame, wet by tears].

These last lines of the book return to the universalist atmosphere that is in fact the background of feeling and thinking of Sundhunata.

The first Dutch naval trip to Indonesia, 1595-1597 and KIT, Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen

For CMR, the project to publish Christian Muslim Relations, a Bibliographic History, a have accepted to write in Frederick de Houtman. He was the younger brother of Cornelis. Together they went as spies to Lissabon, from late 1592 until early 1594. Cornelis was the absolute leader of the first trip of four Dutch boats to Bantam and East Java before they returned in 1597. Three big voluems are publishes about this first trip. Very little about Frederick and also very little about Muslims. But there will be more during the secon trip of Frederick.
The story of the first trip is made in a great work of art for KIT, the Royal Dutch Tropical Institute, established by private parties, in cooperation with the government. It was opened in 1926 in Amsterdam as a palace to show the Dutch colonial history as a glorious undertaking. It looks really a palace.

After the end of colonialism, in the 1950s KIT was transformed in a research centre for developing countries, concentrating on agriculture, health care and more practical issues. With the curbing of development aid KIT has to close mdown. The building will furthermore be used for a Dutch Centre for the Study of Humanities, although the ethnological museum will continue as such. The library with precious collections about pre-independence Indonesia has moved to Leiden University, together with the KITLV library.
While searching for material for Frederick de Houtman I came across the entrance hall of this colonial palace. The first naval trip of the Dutch has been carved in marble reliefs by  Louis Vreugde after drawings made by Gijsbert Brand Hooijer. I looked for Islamic images. There are no mosques or minarets, even less praying people in this military work (in total some 20 pillars, each with four sites of colonial illustrations. At some trade sessions there were twice people with a turban and these must have been the Muslims. In a special book the abridges text about this trip is illustrated by numerous photographs of the sculptures. Two are below from the book (I must go and see and take new pictures myself in the near future).

There are only two pages about Islam in the account by Willem Lodewyckz, pages 114-6.  They only have four prophets: Moses, David, Jesus and Muhammad. They have mosques, waer in zy al haren Godtsdienst doen, met groote stillichyt, ootmoedelijck, haer metten aensicht naer de Sonne keerende, op haer aensicht ter aerden vallende, tot diversche reysen, lesende eenighe ghetyden als de Munnicken, die zy niet achter laten en mogen ...  They observe their religion in a quiet and devout atmosphere, and turn to the sun (probably to the sunset in the evening), like the monks also say their prayers several times per day. They have beautiful and nice women, but do not show them. They observe the Qur'an with good discipline (diligenter). In the coastal regions it is mostly Muslim, while inland territories are mostly pagan. There is no religious judgment about paganism and Islam, just short description, of what could be seen and heard. Longest section is about marriage festivities.

KITLV: mutilated or saved?

KITLV stands for Koninklijk Instituut for Taal-, Land-, en Volkenkunde, or Royal Institute for languistic, geographic and anthropological research.  In fact it has been the leading institute on Indonesian studies since it was established about 170 ago (founded in 1851). It was first settled in The Hague and government, colonial officials were very important during its first 100 years. At some time it moved to Leiden, separate from the University, but in fact very close to it, in space and personnel. It has the largest library in Indonesia, many photographs, manuscripts: a wonderful collection. It has published a journal, BKI or Bijdragen van het Koninklijk Instituut... and many books. It has also a large group of researchers. It was the more linguistic and humanities' partner of KIT, the institute that was founded by the planters and concentrated since the 1950s on international aid, agricultural and medical support for developing countries. KIT had to close in 2013. KITLV was also threatened, but rescued, although with some mutilations. Its publications are now with Brill Publishers, the library and collection of manuscripts, photographs and similar things are now part of Leiden University Library. The research department is now formally under KNAW, the Dutch Royal Academy of Sciences, although it will still be situated in Leiden.
All this was signed and became effective as of 1 July 2014.
Since then I have to go the the building of Leiden University Library, just the other side of the city canal in Leiden.
This week we used this opportunity to see the grand mansion of Philip Franz von Siebold on Rapenburg 19 in Leiden. Besides 17th century Rumphius and fellow 19th century Junghuhn, Von Siebold is another scholar from Germany who made a career in the Dutch colonial system. As a medical doctor he served the small Dutch group on the island Desima in Cape Nagasaki. His former mansion in Leiden is now a great tribute to the work he did on builogy, cultural expression and geography of Japan.
I will go to Japan in October this year to give talks about religion in Independent Indonesia, with special interest for Catholics. Therefore we saw the house with good attention and had a picture made, dressed as 'Japanese'.

The Holy Books: Sidney Griffith and Lejla Demiri

Sidney H. Griffith, The Bible in Arabic. The scriptures of the 'people of the book' in the language of Islam, (Princeton University Press, 2013) is book with many themes. It gives many observations of a ripe and wise scholar of Arab Christians, living in 'the shadow of the mosque'. The first chapters deeply mirror the conviction that Arab Christian at the time of Muhammad had no books, probably did not use Arabic in their liturgy. They may have had some liturgical books, but in Syriac/Aramaic. In fact they were bi-lingual: in daily conversations they used Arabic and must have used Arabic with people of the new religious communities that grew in their region. Only after the rise of Islam a more or less full translation of Christian and Jewish Scripture was made (in the framework of other translations from Hebrew, Greek, Syriac). For the Jewish community this was not done for liturgical or religious goals, but we may accept that Muslim were in some sense interested in the content of the Jewish (and Christian) scripture. Also the Christian did not use initially (and for many churches until today) Arabic in their liturgy. The Qur'an is the oldest larger text in Arabic. The translation of the Bible was not previous to the Qur'an but came later.

Griffith is quite outspoken in his criticism of scholars like Hendrik Kraemer who suggest that Islam only is a vague and bleak excerpt of Christian ideas. We should not consider Muslims as the successors to the Ebionites or other Jewish-Christians of the first and second century AD. The Qur'an knows about the subtle differences between the Christian (and Jewish) traditions and has an agenda of its own.
In broad lines a history of polemic and serious study follows. Among other sources al-Biqa'i (15th century, Egypt) is mentioned as someone with an 'eccentric insistence on consulting the Bible as the Jews and Christians have it, an undertaking that earned him onloquy in the Muslim community' (96).

Another book is edited by the German-Syriac Timo Güzelmansur, Das koranische Motiv der Schriftfälschung (tahrif) durch Juden und Christen, Regensburg: Pustet, 2014. Two Muslims and three Christians discuss the difficult subject of the good/right/proper  text and interpretation of Jewish and Christian scriptures: falsified? Corrupted? The two Muslims take older examples: Mohammed Abdul Rahem presents the ideas of Muslim scholar Mahmud Al-Alusi (1802-1854, Baghdad). Abdul Rahem defended in 2012 his doctoral dissertation on Freedomof Religious in Münster and teaches in German at Al-Azhar.

 Lejla Demiri  was born in Macedonia, studied in Istanbul, in Rome (Gregoriana) and defended in 2008 her dissertation in Cambridge (published in 2013) on biblical studies of Najmuddin al-Tafi (died 1316), a student of Ibn Taimiyya. Tufi makes a distinction between textual corruption of the biblical text and deviant or wrong interpretations. In most cases he accepts the text of the Bible, but gives different interpretations than the Christian tradition. Like in the case of al-Qisa'i, with Tufi the text of the Bible is open and discussion starts with ananalysis of the text.
The recent German publication has not sought easy solutions. It would have been more convenient or easy to take Faxzlur Rahman ('Qur'an 100% divine inspiration; 100% words and thinking of Muhammad') or Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd ('all readers create their own meaning of the Qur'an') as counterparts for the Christian theologians. In this case more interest is asked for the continuity and the traditional approaches to the existing texts.
At this moment I received also a message from Yogyakarta, that my book The Jesus Verses of the Qur'an is translated in Indonesian by Sahroni Syamsuddin and colleges. Next week I will read the Indonesian text and give comments, hoping that by the end of this year the UIN Sunan Kalijaga Press will have printed the new translation.

Ayu Utami, Sagitarius

I follow the writings of Ayu Utami since more than ten years. It started with the novels on the priest Saman who worked for the villagers in their fight against the big plantations. At the conference of scholars with interest in Indonesia, Lissabon July 2013, I gave a paper on the idea of religion in her novels, with the basic book Bilangan Fu as the most important contribution.
Ayu has several ambitious projects: the series on Saman and Larung, the series Bilangan Fu, and also the course of writings short stories for some 60 participants at Salihara, cultural centre in Jakarta.In this volume Ayu writes seven stories, while four participants have given each one story.

I read it as a series of impressions about growing up in Bogor of a girl Indira. There is a zoological museum, a legend of the minotaurus, half-human and half-animal lika sagittarius. This is the mysterious atmosphere, like in many novels of the Bilangan Fu series. There are stories of corruption (the head of a library is transferred to a small town, because she suggested that her soperiors were corrupt).
In a circus Indira falls 'in love' with the acrobat, but her father is fond of the female attendant and they visit the performances in one months ten times. The movies of Steven Spielberg also have a mysterious character and they are much loved by Indira and friend. The main character marries and wants children. The husband is an atheist and Indira finds it abnormal, even a sin to be so close to an atheist. Their relation is not really flourishing. - I found it pleasant reading, but did not find deeper descriptions of issues like sex and religion, but they are mentioned in passing. I read already Capricornus and saw also a cover of Scorpio. Sometimes Ayu is like Arnon Grunberg: writings so many short pieces that it is difficult to follow it all. Probably that is not necessary to have an idea of her work.