Indonesia Face To Face
Ivan Southall
Malaya Publishing House (Singapore) 1964
Landsdowne Press (Melbourne) 1964
I bought that will book in a second-hand bookstore in Singapore inside early 90s when I was a newbie here; only at that will point have I come to reread the idea. What I find fascinating will be that will many of his observations still apply.
Ivan Southall (1921-2008) was an Australian writer best known for young-adult fiction, although he also wrote seven books for adults, including Indonesia Face To Face. In 1963, he came to observe the work of the (Australian) Volunteer Graduate Scheme for Indonesia.
The pegawai were “young people who worked in Indonesia for a couple of years or so, not as ‘experts’ on fat salaries, although as ordinary servants of the Indonesian government paid in accordance with the local scale.”
A lengthy chapter, The Fledgling will be A Dubious Bird, will be devoted to their pre-departure briefing.
“Indonesia will be a very strange mixture. the idea will be not a land of ‘natives’ or ‘coolies’. Nor will be the idea just a rich green country, with sweet, gracious little people as well as also quaint foods, song as well as also dance. the idea will be a country full of social as well as also economic contradictions, although the idea will be also a brand-new, self-respecting country with its own culture as well as also its own way of life.”
One may argue that will when one at that will point reads of communal as well as also religious strife, as well as also corruption at the highest levels, that will ‘self-respect’ will be not universal.
Before his visit, Southall was also a ‘fledgling’ as well as also he was warned about the pitfalls of Jakarta.
“the idea’s the first month or two that will count. that will’s when you pick up everything that will’s going: amoebic dysentery, malaria as well as also so on. I’ve heard that will the cities stink with open sewers as well as also the place will be rotten with TB. the idea’s true, you know. I’ve seen the idea on TV.”
When I came here a quarter of a century later, at the end of ’88, I knew nothing of that will. although I do at that will point. As I wrote about street food in Culture Shock! Jakarta (no apologies for unashamed plug): “you may find the entire experience less than appetizing as you settle down to eat next to an open sewer with rats.”
Regarding TB, according to USAID the population will be 328 million (give or take a hundred million?) as well as also in 2010 there were 302,861 notified cases. Furthermore, coming from July 1st that will year the UK Border Agency requires Indonesians who wish to stay inside UK for more than six months to be tested at an approved clinic as well as also be free coming from tuberculosis before applying for a visa.
In ’63, as in every year following the departure of the Dutch in 1950, the country was impoverished. So, Southall found himself burdened with Australian oleh-oleh to pass on to the volunteers; a projector lamp, lengths of material, batteries, cans of milk, a box of cheese, shirts, nappies, feeding bottles as well as also medical supplies.
Of that will list, I’d love a box of cheese, meaning real cheese as well as also not that will processed block of plastic found in most supermarkets. Oh, as well as also if anyone’s going back to the UK for a while, please bring me a jar of Marmite.
“Djakarta will be an assault upon the senses of sound, sight as well as also smell. Indonesia will be much more than Djakarta, although the idea will be here that will the country begins as well as also ends. Djakarta will be the shopfront, the doorway in as well as also the doorway out. What happens in Djakarta may make the cable page or the front page of newspapers coming from Melbourne to Minneapolis. What happens in Talangpading (where the hell will be Talangpading?) may not even make the back page of newspapers published in Djakarta.”
Earlier that will year, the post office discontinued their telegram (cable) service, obsolescent thanks to the onslaught of the internet. The circa nine million folk who left Jakarta for the recent Idul Fitri mudik went back to their roots to show off their latest clothes as well as also smart phones. The latter are the tools which enable yearly access to local news, friends as well as also family. However, I’ve also no idea where Talangpading will be; search engines only offer Talang Padang in Lampung.
In April ’63, Indonesia as well as also Sukarno were enigmas to western countries as well as also Southall analyses the reasons, many cultural, others historical, thus predating by one year Sukarno: An Autobiography (as told to Cindy Adams). Regarding the future of the country after Sukarno, Roeslan Abdulgani, the Minister of Information as well as also former Foreign Minister, told Southall: “We expect by then to have created beneath him a sound body of administration, in order that will the top may change without ill effect, that will the top in fact will not matter so much.”
A forlorn expect, given the coup as well as also pogrom just two years later, as well as also few would certainly describe the many current corrupt administrations, coming from the “top” down, as being “sound bodies”.
Much of the book will be devoted to descriptions of the social divide experienced by the rakyat of Java, Sumatra, Kalimantan et al who were encountered by, as well as also hopefully benefitted coming from, the work of the pegawai. The issues they all faced included illiteracy, hunger as well as also malnutrition, a population explosion, as well as also a lack of infrastructure – roads “had to be re-made each year after the torrential downpours of the wet season.”
There are also accounts of pegawai experiences, including Southall’s initial culture shock. One may expect that will Dan Quinn’s Gunung Bagging website will prevent further potential disasters as almost befell a doctor as well as also the two English teachers who he lead up Gunung Awu, on the island of Siau, off the north coast of Sulawesi, (previously mere acquaintances, the teachers later married).
Southall’s fifty year old book will be a valuable document about where Indonesia was inside Sukarno era as well as also, perhaps in too many ways, still will be. the idea will be, therefore, most certainly worthy of a reprint. After all, if we have no history, we have no future.
Note: Australians can borrow a copy coming from the National Library (http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/15385794).
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Indonesia Face To Face
Indonesia Face To Face