Flashback

It's 1:30 AM and I really should be in bed at this time of day. I tried to correct that really bad habit of sleeping in the wee hours of the morning (like 3 AM) and waking up at around 9 AM. I acquired that habit during the summer and it did not serve me well, especially since in my hometown, people are up and about at 5 AM.

But thanks to our morning, oh-so-much-fun Christmas party with our PINC buds (this phrase is sort of pun-nish), my sister and I had to attend the vesper church service. Almost instinctively, we decided we should stick around afterwards to see the cantata which featured a singing Christmas tree.

Actually, the tree consisted of members of the church choir standing on tiers shaped like a Christmas tree. The entire idea was rather ingenious and I know I'll never look at Christmas trees the same way again.

They sang familiar Christmas songs and hymns but the piece I like best would have to be Gloria by, I believe, Vivaldi. It was a killer in itself. I tried to imagine the choir singing with a full orchestra and I almost immediately got goosebumps.

Getting home late meant sleeping late too but I did not mind. As of this writing I am uploading digests and reading a week-old, rather urgent email from Jepoy's mom. To keep me awake, I turned on the TV and lo and behold, a program was on ANC, discussing (what else?) the current constitutional mayhem in the Philippines, no thanks to that entity my first semester Crim prof has labelled "the house of De Venecia."

As I waited for all the files to finish uploading, I began to go through the files in my flash disk and I found this essay I wrote back in college when I was nineteen years old. I don't know but reading this essay again, taken in the light of the current crisis which gets my blood pressure rising, made it timely:

Sounds of dripping water seem to be the only constant sound heard amidst the shuffling of feet and the writhing of broken bodies. In a corner, a faint scuttle can be heard due perhaps to the scurrying feet of rats or mice. Buzzing mosquitoes are silenced and their midnight trysts to feed are interrupted by grimy hands slapping a mass of what appears to be legs and arms covered with welts, bumps, bruises and other painful scratches that the dark and damp prison cell has effectively concealed.

Whispers and murmurs reverberate among the shadows, mimicking the hum of a sullen harp in the symphony of death. Probing through layers of human agony, a still voice cuts through the throng of pain and anguish. Like a cool, calm flute granted its solo, it fills the darkness with its sweet melody of hope, endurance and faith in the courage that burns within every man's heart.

In the gloom of his cell in Buru Island, Pramoedya Ananta Toer was the flute that lifted the spirits of his fellow prisoners. He had the power of the pen but in Buru, he was forbidden to write. Unfazed by this and the brutality he received from the guards, he decided to narrate his stories to his fellow inmates every night. From Pramoedya's words, a story of freedom was born within the very walls of repression and confinement. This marked the beginning of This Earth of Mankind.

About forty years later, the tale uttered by Pramoedya in his cell in Buru has not lost its magic. In fact it claimed another victim, ensnaring the heart and the undivided attention of a nineteen-year old college junior. In my numerous trips to the library, I had never even noticed the thick volume nestled among the other books comprising the Buru Quartet. It was only when the book was given to my class as required reading that I realized that it was more than a beautiful piece of literature. Through Minke, his Javanese mother-in-law Nyai Ontosoroh and the other characters I met within the pages of This Earth of Mankind, Pramoedya gave me the answers to questions which had toyed with my mind for so long.

Pramoedya Ananta Toer is one of Indonesia's best and most popular writers. He regards himself as a freedom fighter and as what his life shows, he has never allowed any form of chains to keep him shackled. He was imprisoned by the Dutch when Indonesia was struggling to be free of foreign control. After Indonesia was granted independence, Pramoedya began writing about the social ills that were taking control of his country, such as poverty and corruption in government. During the latter part of Sukarno's tenure as president, tensions began to grow between the Indonesian army and the legal Communist party of Indonesia. Pramoedya became associated with Partai Komunis Indonesia's cultural institute and he even wrote for the literary section of the communist paper. When the coup of 1965 led to Suharto's rise in power, numerous left-wing supporters were killed. Pramoedya was instead arrested by the army and detained. Eventually he was transferred to Buru Island, a penitentiary for political prisoners. The detainees in Buru were made to engage in heavy labor and Pramoedya was not allowed to write. The attempts to silence him were futile since he would recite to his fellow prisoners what would eventually become This Earth of Mankind, a tale about Minke, a young Javanese who struggles to be recognized in a colonial society where social class defines a person's identity.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau once presented this dilemma in The Social Contract. He said that "Man was born free and everywhere he is in chains." Indeed man is held down by a lot of factors, some of which are stronger than links of metal and bars of steel. As I inch my way through life, I believe I may have discovered one which hangs like a pall over every person – fear. Fear immobilizes man. It freezes his muscles, knocks his brain unconscious and paralyzes his will. Of all the types of fear that man could undergo, I believe the most common of all is fear of failure.

Man has always been afraid of failure. In the first place, no one would want to end up flat on the ground with a tear-streaked face and a broken spirit. Everybody dreams of soaking up the klieg lights instead of getting trampled upon like overgrown weeds. Like everybody else, I would not want that. But then I look around me and I see a lot of things that need to be changed. I see a country in a state of disrepair, trying its best to scale the walls of globalization but plummets downward with every step. I see a government who functions through huge billboards broadcasting some new road being built rather than through passing and effecting legislations. Finally I see a people who are getting poorer by the hour, hungrier by the minute and more hopeless by the second. Though I realize that what I see is anything but eye candy, I stand here doing nothing, caged by bars of fear and apathy. I am moved by the urge to do something, to at least make an effort to effect change in society. But I am paralyzed by the thought of failing in my attempt, that instead of lifting up the spirits of others I might end up losing my own.
Society's ills all seem to be interconnected, each one sprouting after another like a never-ending chemical reaction. The task seems too overwhelming that any effort I might exert would not even make a dent on the problem, like a puny Swiss knife hacking at the bark of a huge sequoia. I find myself saying, "This could never be enough. Nothing could."

Through Minke, Pramoedya spoke to me and poked at the muddle in my head. Always the freedom-fighter, he slowly removed the iron clasps which had bound my hands and legs for so long. Pramoedya knew what it was like to fail and his novel was practically swimming in it. His early attempts to awaken Indonesian national identity were not successful. He was placed under town arrest after his 14-year imprisonment and his novels were banned from bookshelves all over the country. Yet he was never disheartened. In fact the flames were fanned even more.

Pramoedya is a testament to the true nature of failure. It is not something to be shunned. On the other hand, failure is a mark of courage and persistence. Failure always comes with trying and only those who try are those who are brave enough to face everyday of their lives with their noses thrust upon the ground. For almost his entire life, this was what Pramoedya encountered yet he never flinched.

Pramoedya regards writing as both a "personal and national task." Writing became his avenue in expressing his disgust with corruption and injustice in society. He used his pen to point out the freedom that every man possesses and the dignity that is innately his. He never fretted about not being able to do enough. He simply did what he could for his fellow prisoners in Buru. Later on these actions worked to inspire every person all over the entire Indonesian archipelago. Pramoedya's life serves as proof to everyone that no action would go about unnoticed. As the laws of physics dictate, any action, no matter how small it would seem, would always yield a reaction. Pramoedya's works started as small sparks which eventually ignited Indonesian national awareness.

This Earth of Mankind ends with Minke losing his young wife Annelies to her Dutch relatives according to the dictates of the Dutch law. As he watches Annelies disappear into the distance, he tearfully tells Nyai that they have lost the fight. Pramoedya could have chosen to close with Minke's words yet he did not. The novel concludes with Nyai who answers that they fought back "as well and honorably as possible." The battle was far from over both for Minke and for Pramoedya as he told this story to his fellow prisoners in Buru. In fact, it had just begun. And I believe, so has mine.