My Religion: Tolstoy

It was in 1884 that Count Leo Tolstoy continued his personal confession in “My Religion” – he found in the principle of nonviolent resistance (which he called “non-resistance”) the key to understand the Gospels, a new understanding of his life and of modern society in his age. Nonviolence became the ethical basis for his doctrine of Truth Force which has later been developed by Mahatma Gandhi in his “Satyagraha” philosophy and Dr. Martin Luther King jr. in his concept of Soul-Force.

Leo Tolstoy, 1851.

1. My Religion

“My personal life is interwoven with the social, political life, and the political life demands of me a non-Christian activity, which is directly opposed to Christ’s commandment. Now, with the universal military service and the participation of all in the court in the capacity of jurymen, this dilemma is with striking distinctness placed before all people. Every man has to take up the weapon of murder, the gun, the knife, and, though he does not kill, he must load his gun and whet his knife, that is, be prepared to commit murder. Every citizen must come to court and be a participant in the court and in the punishments, that is, every man has to renounce Christ’s commandment of non-resistance to evil, not only in words, but in action as well.”(1)

And by the examples of the superior court and district court, criminal court and the court of arbitration Tolstoy illustrated the Christian doctrine condemning the State’s principle of violent retaliation:

“Christ says, Do not resist evil. The purpose of the courts is to resist evil. Christ prescribes doing good in return for evil. The courts retaliate evil with evil. Christ says, Make no distinction between the good and the bad. All the courts do is to make this distinction. Christ says, Forgive all men; forgive, not once, not seven times, but without end; love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. The courts do not forgive, but punish; they do not do good, but evil, to those whom they call enemies of society. Thus it turns out, according to the meaning, that Christ must have rejected the courts.”(2)

Whereafter Tolstoy pointed out how often Jesus had come into conflict with the political law, because he returned back to the origin of Divine Law. Jesus broke the law of the privileged castes which tortured and finally killed him. The lasting impression of a public execution in France during his trip through Europe was reflected in Tolstoy’s words of ethical disgust with the human criminal law in “My Religion”:

“No man with a heart has escaped that impression of terror and of doubt in the good, even at the recital, not to speak of the sight, of the executions of men by just such men, by means of rods, the guillotine, the gallows”.(3)

“Christ says, You have been impressed with the idea, and you have become accustomed to it, that it is good and rational by force to repel the evil and to pluck an eye out for an eye, to establish criminal courts, the police, the army, to resist the enemy: but I say, Use no violence, do not take part in violence, do no evil to any one, even to those whom you call your enemies”.(4)

Tolstoy realized that he would face stern resistance from two groups of people belonging to quite different ideological camps:

“These men belong to the two extreme poles: they are the patriotic and conservative Christians, who acknowledge that their church is the true one, and the atheistic Revolutionists. Neither the one nor the other will renounce the right of forcibly resisting what they regard as an evil. Not even the wisest and most learned among them want to see the simple, obvious truth that, if we concede to one man the right forcibly to resist what he considers an evil, a second person may with the same right resist what he regards as an evil”.(5)

Not the annihilation of evil but the increase of injustice has been the result of the law of violence in the social, political and economical field of human life:

“Not only Christ, but all Jewish prophets, John the Baptist, all the true sages of the world, speak of precisely this church, this state, this culture, this civilization, calling them evil and destruction of men”.(6)

Tolstoy condemned the law of violence. He revealed the law of love, benevolence and conscience. And he appealed to the morality of his readers, to realize the ethical commandments: no more and no longer tortures or executions of more and more victims :

“Who will deny that it is repulsive and painful to human nature, not only to torture or kill a man, but even to torture a dog, or to kill a chicken or a calf? (I know men living by agricultural labour, who have stopped eating meat only because they had themselves to kill their animals.)”(7)

“Not one judge would have the courage to strangle the man whom he has sentenced according to his law. Not one chief would have the courage to take a peasant away from a weeping family and lock him up in prison. Not one general or soldier would, without discipline, oath, or war, kill a hundred Turks or Germans, and lay waste their villages; he would not even have the courage to wound a single man. All this is done only thanks to that complicated political and social machine, whose problem it is so to scatter the responsibility of the atrocities which are perpetrated so that no man may feel the unnaturalness of these acts. Some write laws; others apply them; others again muster men, educating in them the habit of discipline, that is, of senseless and irresponsible obedience; others again — these same mustered men — commit every kind of violence, even killing men, without knowing why and for what purpose”.(8)

Leo Tolstoy, 1854

No analysis could be given more precisely of the fatal system of command-and-obey which characterises the military system. Tolstoy objected to the despotisms of the Russian Tzar and the German Kaiser as harshly as to the dilution of the same principle of power by British parliamentarism. In his writings of confession he testified against the pseudo-security of a complacent bourgeoisie and feudal caste:

“ whether to know that my peace and security and that of my family, all my joys and pleasures, are bought by the poverty, debauch, and suffering of millions, — by annual gallows, hundreds of thousands of suffering prisoners and millions of soldiers, policemen, and guards, torn away from their families and dulled by discipline, who with loaded pistols, to be aimed at hungry men, secure the amusements for me; whether to buy every dainty piece which I put into my mouth, or into the mouths of my children, at the cost of all that suffering of humanity, which is inevitable for the acquisition of these pieces; or to know that any piece is only then my piece when nobody needs it, and nobody suffers for it”.(9)

Tolstoy was right to condemn the reproaches of Christ’s doctrine being a chimera by reflecting upon the reality of the real social and political disorder:

“Christ’s teaching about non-resistance to evil is a dream! And this, that the life of men, into whose souls pity and love for one another is put, has passed, for some, in providing stakes, knouts, racks, cat-o’-nine-tails, tearing of nostrils, inquisitions, fetters, hard labour, gallows, executions by shooting, solitary confinements, prisons for women and children, in providing slaughter of tens of thousands in war, in providing revolutions and seditions; and for others, in executing all these horrors; and for others again, in avoiding all these sufferings and retaliating for them, – such a life is not a dream!”.(10)

Tolstoy illustrated the lucidity of the Christian doctrine of Non-Resistance, the key to understand the Gospels, with the ancient prophet Elijah to whom God manifested himself not with thunder and lightning but in a smooth breeze blowing from the refreshed leas after the storm:

“The movement of humanity toward the good takes place, not thanks to the tormentors, but to the tormented. As fire does not put out fire, so evil does not put out evil. Only the good meeting the evil, and not becoming contaminated by it, vanquishes the evil. Every step in advance has been made only in the name of non-resistance to evil. And if this progress is slow, it is so because the clearness, simplicity, rationality, inevitableness, and obligatoriness of Christ’s teaching have been concealed from the majority of men in a most cunning and dangerous manner; they have been concealed under a false teaching which falsely calls itself his teaching”.(11)

Tolstoy learned Hebrew and Greek in order to read and translate the Holy Scripts of Judaism and Christianity in their ancient translations. Before he was excommunicated by the Orthodox Church, he had written “A Criticism of Dogmatic Theology” and “The Gospel in Brief”, and, in addition, Tolstoy later gave an account of Christian doctrines in a version dedicated to children, which actually explained the originary meaning of Christ’s teachings to all people who could read and listen.

Leo Tolstoy, 1909

2. The Kingdom of God is Within You

In his famous work “The Kingdom of God is Within You” (1893), Leo Tolstoy laid down his political philosophy of nonviolent resistance. He ostracized in particular the modern slavery of military conscription or compulsory military service which had been introduced in Russia after the army reform of 1874:

“The establishment of general military service is like the activity of a man who wants to prop up a rotten house. The walls are crumbling – he puts rafters to them; the roof slopes inwards, he build up a framework; boards give way between the rafters, he supports them with other beams. At last it turns out that although the scaffolding keeps the house together, it renders it quite uninhibitable”.

It is the same with universal military service, which destroys all the advantages of that social life which it is supposed to guarantee.

The benefits of social life consist in the security given to property and labour, and in the mutual co-operation towards general welfare. Military service destroys all this.

“The taxes levied on the people for armaments and war absorb the greater part of the products of that labour which the army is called upon to protect. Taking away the whole male population from the ordinary occupations of their life destroys the very possibility of labour. The menace of war, ever ready to break out from one moment to the next, renders vain and profitless all improvements of social life”.(12)

“For Governments, general military service is the utmost limit of violence required for the support of the whole system; for subjects, it is the utmost limit of possible subjection. It is the key-stone in the arch which supports the walls, whose removal would demolish the whole building”.

“The time has come when the ever-increasing abuses of Governments and their mutual feuds require from their subjects such material and moral sacrifices, that every man must necessarily hesitate and ask himself: Can I make these sacrifices? And for what am I to make them? they are required in the name of the State. In the name of the State I am required to give up everything that is dear to man: family, safety, a peaceful life and personal self-respect”.(13)

It was quite significant that in the nineteenth century North American preachers gave up their offices within their denominations to found Socialist communities influenced by the ideas of the French Utopian thinker Charles Fourier in order to restore the pioneering spirit of the Pilgrim Fathers in post-revolutionary USA against the expansionist economism of early capitalism. Among those who wanted to revive the revolutionary spirit of the independence struggle against the British colonial power, we find the first secular theorists of Non-Resistance with arguments even for non-believers, atheists or agnostics. In his book “The Kingdom of God is Within You” Tolstoy quoted the voices of Adin Ballou and the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison who opposed the system of slavery. “The Kingdom of God is Within You” captured young Gandhi’s interest as an Indian lawyer in South Africa and won him over to follow Tolstoy’s influence.

3. William Lloyd Garrison

The participants of the Peace Convention in Boston 1838 drafted a Declaration of Sentiments in order to abolish war. These American precursors of Tolstoy’s teachings of Non-Resistance were quoted by Leo Tolstoy:

“We register our testimony, not only against all wars, whether offensive or defensive, but all preparations for war; against every naval ship, every arsenal, every fortification; against the militia system and a standing army; against all military chieftains and soldiers; against all monuments commemorative of victory over a foreign foe, all trophies won in battle, all celebrations in honor of military or naval exploits; against all appropriations for the defence of a nation by force and arms on the part of any legislative body; against every edict of government, requiring of its subjects military service. Hence we deem it unlawful to bear arms, or to hold a military office”.

“As every human government is upheld by physical strength, and its laws are enforced virtually at the point of the bayonet, we cannot hold any office which imposes upon its incumbent the obligation to compel men to do right, on pain of imprisonment or death. We therefore voluntarily exclude ourselves from every legislative and judicial body, and repudiate all human politics, worldly honors, and stations of authority. If we cannot occupy a seat in the legislature or on the bench, neither can we elect others to act as our substitutes in any such capacity”.(14)

These words indicate the principal refusal to cooperate with a system of injustice. The Roman law ‘ius talionis’, the law of retaliatory violence, had been laid down in the Law of Twelve Tables. The Non-Resisters criticised revenge as an endemical principle of contagious violence. The Non-Resisters were inspired by the ancient prophetic tradition and by their Christian political concept of nonviolent redemption.

“If we abide by our principles, it is impossible for us to be disorderly, or plot treason, or participate in any evil work; we shall submit to every ordinance of man, for the Lord’s sake; obey all the requirements of government, except such as we deem contrary to the commands of the gospel; and in no case resist the operation of law, except by meekly submitting to the penalty of disobedience.

But while we shall adhere to the doctrine of non-resistance and passive submission, we purpose, in a moral and spiritual sense, to speak and act boldly in the cause of God; to assail iniquity in high places and in low places; to apply our principles to all existing civil, political, legal, and ecclesiastical institutions; and to hasten the time when the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever”.(15)

The individual boycott of war and poll taxes, of which Henry David Thoreau had given an example before writing his inspiring essay “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience” against the Government, the massive individual conscientious objection against all military services, against war preparation or participation in war, according to Leo Tolstoy’s recommendation, the historical example of Indian “Satyagraha in South Africa” guided by Mahatma Gandhi, and the boycotts of the Civil Rights Movement claiming equal rights for all citizens guided by Dr. Martin Luther King jr. – all these realised the principle of non-cooperation with any political system which is based on injustice.

“It appears to us a self-evident truth, that, whatever the gospel is designed to destroy at any period of the world, being contrary to it, ought now to be abandoned. If, then, the time is predicted when swords shall be beaten into plowshares, and spears into pruning-hooks, and men shall not learn the art of war any more, it follows that all who manufacture, sell, or wield those deadly weapons do thus array themselves against the peaceful dominion of the Son of God on earth.

Hence, we shall employ lecturers, circulate tracts and publications, form societies, and petition our state and national governments, in relation to the subject of Universal Peace. It will be our leading object to devise ways and means for effecting a radical change in the views, feelings, and practices of society, respecting the sinfulness of war and the treatment of enemies.

In entering upon the great work before us, we are not unmindful that, in its prosecution, we may be called to test our sincerity even as in a fiery ordeal. It may subject us to insult, outrage, suffering, yea, even death itself. We anticipate no small amount of misconception, misrepresentation, calumny. Tumults may rise against us. The ungodly and violent, the proud and pharisaical, the ambitious and tyrannical, principalities and powers, and spiritual wickedness in high places, may contrive to crush us. So they treated the Messiah, whose example we are humbly striving to imitate. If we suffer with Him we know that we shall reign with Him. We shall not be afraid of their terror, neither be troubled”.(16)

4. Adin Ballou

Leo Tolstoy corresponded with Adin Ballou, author of a dialogue on the teaching of Non-Resistance, and he discussed with him the ethical problem of self-defence which Tolstoy rejected by principle. In a pamphlet entitled “How many people are necessary to transform evil into justice”, Adin Ballou rejected pseudo-legitimations for murder politically sanctioned. In his “Catechism of Non-Resistance”, Adin Ballou consistently rejected human ways of behaviour such as insults, killing and hurting because of self-defense, the judicial procedures of claiming in order to punish people for an insult, the participation in armies against interior or exterior enemies, the participation in wars or armaments for war, the participation in drafting or equipping soldiers, voting at the poll elections, the participation in the courts or in the administration as participation in the power of governments, the paying of taxes for a government “that is kept up by war power, by capital punishment, generally by violence”, which means that one should not resist taxation by means of violence. Adin Ballou’s comprehensive rejection of any kind of violence also referred to the political monopoly of violence and calls it evil that can only be destroyed by the doctrine of Non-Resistance. Ballou wrote about the principle of voluntary suffering to overcome the régime of violence:

“Good deeds cannot be performed under all circumstances without self-sacrifice, privations, suffering, and, in extreme cases, without the loss of life itself. But he who prizes life more than the fulfilment of God’s will is already dead to the only true life. Such a man, in trying to save his life, will lose it. Furthermore, wherever non-resistance costs the sacrifice of one’s life, or of some essential advantage of life, resistance costs thousands of such sacrifices.

Non-resistance preserves; resistance destroys.

It is much safer to act justly than injustly; to endure an offense rather than resist it by violence; safer even in regard to the present life. If all men refused to resist evil, the world would be a happy one.

Even if but one man were to act thus, and the others should agree to crucify him, would it not be more glorious for him to die in the glory of non-resisting love, praying for his enemies, than live wearing the crown of Caesar, besprinkled with the blood of the murdered? But whether it be one man or thousands of men who are firmly determined not to resist evil by evil, still, whether in the midst of civilized or uncivilized neighbors, men who do not rely on violence are safer than those who do. A robber, a murderer, a villain, will be less likely to harm them if he finds them offering no armed resistance. “All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword,” and he who seeks peace, who acts like a friend, who is inoffensive, who forgives and forgets injuries, generally enjoys peace, or if he dies, he dies a blessed death”.(17)

And Adin Ballou resumed in his “Catechism of Non-Resistance”:

“Hence, if all were to follow the commandment of non-resistance, there would manifestly be neither offense nor evil-doing. If even the majority were composed of such men they would establish the rule of love and good-will even toward the offenders, by not resisting evil by evil nor using violence. Even if such men formed a numerous minority, they would have such an improving moral influence over society that every severe punishment would be revoked, and violence and enmity would be replaced by peace and good-will. If they formed but a small minority, they would rarely experience anything worse than the contempt of the world, while the world, without preserving it or feeling grateful therefor, would become better and wiser from its latent influence. And if, in the most extreme cases, certain members of the minority might be persecuted unto death, these men, thus dying for the truth, would have left their doctrine already sanctified by the blood of martyrdom.

Peace be with all ye who seek peace; and may the all-conquering love be the imperishable inheritance of every soul who submits of its own accord to the law of Christ.

Resist not evil by violence”.(18)

5. Romain Rolland and Stefan Zweig

As a young student, Romain Rolland (1866-1944) surprisingly received a long letter written in French language by Leo Tolstoy. This was in 1887. Romain Rolland wrote altogether seven letters to Tolstoy between 1887 and 1906. Most of these letters were reflections about the role of art and the artist in society. Tolstoy replied only once, to the first letter of Rolland. Rolland was inspired by Tolstoy’s political writings. Tolstoy’s writings about the Doukhobors inspired Rolland to write his drama “Le Temps viendra” (The Time will come) against the Boer War in 1903. In 1911, Rolland published “Vie de Tolstoi” (The Life of Tolstoy). In 1924, Rolland published his famous Gandhi biography. Rolland wanted to create an International of Intellectuals to stop the war machinery.

Romain Rolland was one of the very few European intellectuals who spoke out against the First World War right from the beginning. Actually he followed Tolstoy’s example thinking responsible for his generation when he took a Pacifist stand against the military system. Among his intellectual friends was Stefan Zweig (1881-1942). Inspired by Tolstoy, Stefan Zweig wrote his novel “Der Zwang” (Der Refractair) about a conscientious objector in 1918, translated Rolland’s drama “The time will come” into German language in 1919. He was invited to the official celebrations of Tolstoy’s 100th birthday in 1928. In 1928, he wrote a magnificent portrait of Tolstoy which was later published in “Master Builders: A Typology of the Spirit” (New York 1939).

Notes

See the bibliography Peace in Print for references to Leo Tolstoy and the other gentlemen mentioned here.

1. Leo Tolstoy: My Religion, on life, thoughts on God and on the meaning of life, transl. by Leo Wiener (Complete Works, Vol.16), My Religion (1884), Boston 1904, p. 22, ch. III

2. Leo Tolstoy: My Religion (1884), Boston 1904, p. 25, III

3. Leo Tolstoy: My Religion (1884), Boston 1904, p. 35, III

4. Leo Tolstoy: My Religion (1884), Boston 1904, p. 36, IV

5. Leo Tolstoy: My Religion (1884), Boston 1904, p. 37, IV

6. Leo Tolstoy: My Religion (1884), Boston 1904, p. 40, IV

7. Leo Tolstoy: My Religion (1884), Boston 1904, p. 41, IV

8. Leo Tolstoy: My Religion (1884), Boston 1904, p. 41f., IV

9. Leo Tolstoy: My Religion (1884), Boston 1904, p. 42, IV

10. Leo Tolstoy: My Religion (1884), Boston 1904, p. 43, IV

11. Leo Tolstoy: My Religion (1884), Boston 1904, p. 44, IV

12. Leo Tolstoy: The Kingdom of God is Within You (1893), p. 7, II

13. Leo Tolstoy: The Kingdom of God is Within You (1893), p. 7, III

14. William Lloyd Garrison: Declaration of Sentiments (adopted by the Peace Convention, held in Boston, September 18,19 and 20, 1838) (quoted by Leo Tolstoy: The Kingdom of God is Within You. Christianity Not as a Mystic Religion But as a New Theory of Life (1893), New York 1894, pp. 4f., ch.I) (William Lloyd Garrison: Selections from Writings and Speeches of William Lloyd Garrison, Boston 1852, pp. 72-77) – footnotes 12 to 16: Garrison and Ballou quoted from: Leo Tolstoy, Writings on Civil Disobedience and Nonviolence, Philadelphia 1987, pp. 287-302 -

15. William Lloyd Garrison: Declaration of Sentiments (adopted by the Peace Convention, held in Boston, September 18,19 and 20, 1838) (quoted in Leo Tolstoy: The Kingdom of God is Within You, p. 6, ch.I)

16. William Lloyd Garrison: Declaration of Sentiments (adopted by the Peace Convention, held in Boston, September 18,19 and 20, 1838) (quoted in Leo Tolstoy: The Kingdom of God is Within You, pp. 6f., ch.I)

17. Adin Ballou: The Catechism of Non-Resistance (quoted in Leo Tolstoy: The Kingdom of God is Within You, p. 15, ch.I)

18. Adin Ballou: The Catechism of Non-Resistance (quoted in Leo Tolstoy: The Kingdom of God is Within You, pp. 15f., ch.I)

19. Rolland and Tagore, ed. by Alex Aronson and Krishna Kripalani, Visva-Bharati, Calcutta, September 1945, pp. 20-24

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Alex G Bardsley: Literature, Censorship and the State: To What Extent is a Novel Dangerous?

by Pramoedya Ananta Toer

Translated by Alex G Bardsley

I am an Indonesian citizen of Javanese ethnicity. This “fate” [kodrat] makes it clear that I was brought up with Javanese literature. It is a literary tradition dominated by wayang drama, oral as well as written, that tells of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana–the Javanese versions and their chewed-over wads, that continue to depend on the authority of Hindu culture. This dominant literature, without anyone being aware of it,2 glorifies the satria class or caste, while the classes or castes under it have no role whatsoever. The satria caste’s main job is to kill its opponents. In addition to the somewhat more dominant wayang literary tradition, there is the babad or chronicle literature. This also glorifies the satria caste, and in the hands of the court poets conjures away the crimes and defeats of kings, leaving fantastic myths instead.

One example is how the court poets of Java mythified the defeat of Sultan Agung, a king of the Javanese interior, who in military operations against Dutch Batavia in the second decade of the 17th century experienced total defeat. As a result Mataram suffered the loss of its power3 over the Java Sea as an international [sic] sea route. To cover up the loss the court poets dreamt up the Sea Goddess Nyai Roro Kidul as camouflage, so that Mataram still ruled the sea, that is the Southern Sea (i.e., the Indian Ocean). This myth produced further mythical offspring: it was made taboo to wear green clothing on the shore of the Southern Sea. This was to sever any association with the green clothes of the Dutch [East India] Company. And without the court poets themselves intending it, the Goddess consolidated the power of the kings of Mataram over their people. She even became the thought police [polisi batin] of the Mataram people.

Here we are faced with literature in its relation to the state, and its utilization by the state, functioning for the glorification of [the state's] own works. Passed down from generation to generation the result is to deny the progression of ages, to bestow an unnecessary historical burden, to make people think that the past was better than the present. This conviction made me leave literature of that sort behind altogether. Leaving behind a literature that was born in the lap of power and functions (in my experience) to cradle power, right away I came across escapist literature, that feeds the ancient instinctual dreams of its readers. As Machiavelli put it, this kind of literature becomes an indirect instrument of Power, so that society will pay no attention to the power of the state. In short, so that society will not be political, will not care about politics. Literature of this second category brings its readers to a complete halt.

Because of my experience as the child of a family of freedom fighters, I pardon my own self if I do not like this escapist literature, the second type of literature. Consequent to my personal experience, though at first I was not aware of it, I was drawn directly to a literature that could provide courage, new values, a new world-view, human dignity, and agency [peran] for the individual within society. The aesthetic that emphasizes language and its employment is put to the service of a new orientation of the role [peranan] of the individual in an aspired-to society.4 It was this third type of literature that later became my field of creative activity.

Each work of literature is the autobiography of its author at a certain stage and in a certain context. Hence it is also the product of an individual and is individual in character. Presenting it to society is no different from contributing to the collectivity. Also in regard to the relations of power, and to the prevailing standard of culture, the writer’s attitude as an individual is disseminated, aware of it or not.5 To this point the duty of a writer is to make an evaluation and reevaluation of the establishment in every walk of life. This action is taken because the writer concerned is dissatisfied, and feels cornered, even oppressed by the establishment “in effect.”6 He cries out, resists, even rebels. It is no accident if this writer–naturally type three–has been called an oppositionist, a rebel, even a revolutionary, alone in his muteness.

In states living with democracy for centuries, winning and losing in a clash of ideas is something normal. That does not mean that democracy is without flaws. Europe, while democratic in Europe itself, was on the contrary undemocratic in the countries it colonized. As a result, in the colonized countries that never tasted democracy, winning and losing in the clash of ideas can give birth to long-lasting resentment, arising from traditional concepts of personal prestige and patrimonial authority.

In Indonesia, the censoring of literary works was first known in the second decade of this century. Before that, censorship had been more directed at the mass media. And in accordance with the tradition of law, actions regarding press offenses were decided in court. The prohibition against the circulation of several works by Mas Marco Kartodikromo, untraditionally, was put into effect without legal procedures, and was carried out by native colonial officials locally. Prohibition and confiscation, also by colonial native officials, were once carried out against my father’s work, though that was not a literary work but a text of lessons for elementary schools that did not follow the colonial curriculum.

Prohibition of a literary work is truly something extraordinary. [So it was] for centuries after the maritime kingdoms of Nusantara were shoved aside by the power of the West and became back-country principalities or agrarian villages; the Power of feudalism that was sustained solely by the peasant brought about the birth of a new mentality that deteriorated too. The court poets of Java consolidated the culture of “tepo seliro” (= knowing one’s place), the awareness of one’s social station vis a vis Power according to its hierarchy, from life within the family to the pinnacle of power. The use of euphemism (= High Javanese) up to the 7 levels “in effect” to match the hierarchy of Power, interpreted traditional culture more and more stuntedly. Therefore in Javanese culture the evaluation and reevaluation of culture has never taken place. It can happen only by using the Indonesian language, that if need be denies all euphemism: hence it is also in Indonesian literature that Power’s censoring occurs.

As ideas from all corners of the world are absorbed by modern Indonesian society toward the end of the 20th century, their reflection can no longer possibly be blocked by a Power that is reluctant to grow up.7 In order to allow [those] people with the power of the state to sleep soundly without the need to improve themselves, the institution of censorship does indeed need to be established.

Java was “fated” to possess profitable geographic factors. Of all the islands of Indonesia, it was on Java that the inhabitants multiplied thanks to climatological factors that favored farming. It is no accident that the Dutch colonialists made Java an imperial center of their world outside Europe. On their departure, as Java remained the center of Indonesia, with its inhabitants [comprising] a majority out of all Indonesia, the introduction of a certain amount of Javanese traditional culture into the power of the state was quite unavoidable. One thing from Javanese traditional culture that was felt to oppress was “tepo seliro,” in Power’s present existence called, in English, “self-censorship.” Seemingly Power is ashamed to use its original name. In this way, how people conceal their atavism becomes one of the facets of existence in modern Indonesia.

I am inclined to include the third type of literature with the literature of the avant garde. I deem writers of the third group to have the authenticity [kemurnian] to evaluate and reevaluate culture and the established Power. And as an individual alone [the writer] in return must endure alone the backlash from any other individual who feels his stability [kemapananthreatened.

So to what extent can a work of literature be a danger to the state? According to my personal opinion, no literary work, here [meaning] a story, has ever actually been a danger to the state. [A story] is written with a clear name, where it comes from is known, and also it clearly originates from only one individual who does not possess a troop of police, military, or even a troop of hired killers. He only tells of the possibility of a better life through models for the renovation of an establishment that is rotten, old, and out of luck.

In the meantime, any state can at any moment change its basis and its system, with or without works of avant- garde literature. Such changes have already been experienced by the Indonesian state itself, from liberal democracy to guided democracy and later Pancasila democracy, that is [during] the era of national independence after the collapse of the colonial state called the Netherlands Indies and the changeover to occupation by the Japanese militarists. During the period of liberal democracy in which the state was based on the Pancasila, the Pancasila did not get much attention; during the period of Guided Democracy when, with all the consequences [it implied], President Soekarno wished to be autonomous and to shake off the influence of and involvement with the superpowers’ Cold War, the Pancasila was given more emphasis. Soekarno as the discoverer of the Pancasila never tired of explaining the Pancasila was mined from, among others, Sun Yat Sen’s San Min Zhuyi,8 the Declaration of Independence of the United States, and the Communist Manifesto, in issues of social justice. In the time of Pancasila Democracy, which was signaled by the de- Soekarnoization movement, not only were the Pancasila’s references no longer mentioned, there was even an effort by a New Order historian to fabricate a theory that the Pancasila did not originate with Soekarno.

Through all these changeovers the existence of a work of literature that conferred any influence was never proved. And indeed an avant-garde literature has practically not yet come into being. Indonesian works of literature have practically only just become descriptive in character. If nonetheless an avant garde came into being, it occurred under the oppression of Japanese militarism, in a rebellion as harsh as its suppression. The individual concerned, Chairil Anwar, in his poem “Aku [I],” declared: “I am an untamed beast /From its herd outcast.” He refused to be treated by the Japanese as a farm animal, that must carry out Japanese orders only, and cut itself off from the rest. It was he himself who had to take responsibility for his work. The Kempeitai9 arrested and tortured him, though he was in fact later released. Ironically the society of readers, many of whom read and like that poem, generally do not connect it to the period of Japanese militarist occupation during which he created it.

My apologies if I only discuss Indonesian literature. Still, I believe that to speak about any particular literature is also to speak–although indirectly- -of regional and international literature at the same time, because each work of literature is the autobiography of an individual, one person out of the rest of humankind, who contributes his inner experience to the collectivity of humanity’s experience.

Based on its history, Indonesia needs a large troop of writers from the avant garde. For centuries the common people paid on behalf10 of feudalism. With the victory of colonialism, the people then had to fund the running of colonialism as well. Although feudalism as a system was eliminated by the proclamation of independence, the character of its culture still lives on, and the power elite even tries to preserve it. It is avant-garde literature that offers evaluation, reevaluation, renovation, and naturally the courage to bear the risk alone.

Here it becomes clear that a story, a work of literature, is in no way dangerous to a state that at any time can change its basis and system. The literary works of avant-garde writers merely disturb the slumber of persons in power-elite circles, who fear that some time their hold over the common people may loosen. I myself, though coming from a family of freedom fighters and being myself a struggler for freedom as well, have over the 50 years of national independence actually suffered the loss of my personal freedom for as long as 33 1/2. 2 1/2 were stolen by the Dutch, nearly a year was stolen during the Old Order by the Power of the military, [which took another] 30 years during the New Order, among them 10 years of forced labor on Buru Island and 16 as livestock, being a citizen with the code “ET,”11 meaning a detainee outside of prison. As a writer, certainly I rebel against these circumstances. So in my works, I try to tell about particular stages in this nation’s journey, and try to answer: why did this nation get to be this way?

That the works are forbidden to circulate in my own homeland at the request of several persons among the power elite, for me is no problem. The prohibitions in fact give surplus value to my works without Power being aware of it.

Perhaps there are some who are surprised, [wondering] why for me literature is so closely tied to politics. I will not reject that fact. In my view each person living in society, let alone in a nation, is always tied to politics. That a person accepts, rejects or affirms a particular citizenship is a political stance. That a person waves the flag of her nationality, is a political act. That a person pays taxes, is an acknowledgment of power, so it also means political obedience. Literature too can not be free of politics, since literature itself is brought into being by humanity. As long as there are human societies and Power that regulates or ruins them, each individual in them is tied to politics.

There once arose the belief that politics is dirty, hence literature must be kept separate from politics. Really, it is easy for politics to become dirty in the hands of and from the business of politicians who are dirty. If there are some that are dirty, surely there are also some that are not dirty. And that literature properly must be kept separate from politics actually emerges from the thoughts of the directors, whose politics is to be apolitical. Politics itself can not be limited in its meaning to a party system. It is every aspect of that which involves Power, and as long as society exists Power also exists, no matter the manner of its existence, dirty or clean. And it can be said that literature that “rejects” politics in reality is brought into being by those writers who are already established in the lap of the Power “in effect.”

Jakarta, August 24, 1995.

---

1. “An essay written to be delivered on September 4, 1995, in Manila, as part of a series in the program for the presentation of the 1995 Magsaysay Awards…. The title of the essay was at the request of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation to the writer” (Hasta Mitra, ed.); later published in Suara Independen, no.04/I, September 1995. [back]

2. In this essay, Pramoedya plays with statements about awareness in which the subject (society, the writer, “Power”) is indeterminate. [back]

3. Kekuasaan stretches to cover power, authority, domination and so forth. Pramoedya is playing with this broad meaning, and with Benedict Anderson’s “Idea of Power in Javanese Culture,” (in Language and Power, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990). Following Anderson’s usage, I have capitalized “power” where it seemed appropriate. [back]

4. Masyarakat yang dicitakan. Compare to “imagined community.” [back]

5. See note 2 above. [back]

6. Yang berlaku is a bit of officialese also meaning “prevailing,” “applicable,” “that applies” and so forth. On the one hand it is as unarguable as a parent answering “because” to a child’s “why,” yet the words presuppose an ending to the situation they describe. [back]

7. This nicely echoes the 1950 literary manifesto “Surat Kepertjajaan Gelanggang”:

…Kebudajaan Indonesia ditetapkan oleh kesatuan ber-bagai2 rangsang suara jang disebabkan suara2 jang dilontarkan dari segala sudut dunia dan jang kemudian dilontarkan kembali dalam bentuk suara sendiri. Kami akan menentang segala usaha2 jang mempersempit dan menghalangi tidak betulnja pemeriksaan ukuran-nilai….” (Cited in Teeuw,

Pokok dan Tokoh dalam Kesusastraan Indonesia Baru

, Djakarta: P.T. Pembangunan, 1955, v.2, pp.15-6).

[Indonesian culture is determined by the unity of various vocal stimuli, that is evoked by voices thrown from all corners of the world and that later are thrown back in the form of a voice of its own. We will defy all efforts that constrain or obstruct falsely [?] the testing of standards.] [back]

8. The Three People’s Principles: nationalism, democracy, and the people’s livelihood. [back]

9. The Japanese military police. [back]

10. Membiayakan, in contrast to membiayai in the next sentence. [back]

11. Ex-tahanan politik: former political prisoner. [back]

Buenas Noches Buenos Aires: Gilbert Adair

Buenas Noches Buenos Aires

That Gilbert Adair’s Buenas Noches Buenos Aires opens with an emphasis on how true the ensuing story is, the reader has every right to be suspicious. But, other than a noticeable handul of clues, I’m at a loss as to why such dubiety need be cast upon the text. Adair has a reputation for novels with more tricks up their sleeve than most, but it feels like a straight story all the way. Despite the subject matter, of course.

Gideon A. - same initials as the author - is a young homosexual, nescient to the world he craves but with a handful of embarrassing sexual failures behind him. He leaves his Oxfordshire home and moves to Paris, taking a job as an English teacher at Berlitz. There he’s happy to discover that the majority of the all male common room is gay. Here he listens to the stories of their varied conquests and, in order to fit in, imagines and tells his own sex-laden anecdotes.

It’s okay for a while but, this being the early eighties, there comes the arrival of a “gay cancer”, initially dismissed by one character as no more probable than gay gallstones. It’s not a big issue at first, given that the disease is prevalent in America. But when symptoms start showing closer to home, the reality of it becomes apparent. Gideon, however, sees it as his chance to become more sexually active. If more gay men abstain from sex then, in all probability, that would make him a highly sought after partner. It’s a twisted logic, but it seems to work for him.

The storyline of Buenas Noches Buenos Aires sometimes feels secondary to Adair’s - or should that be Gideon’s? - erudition and verbal games. There’s all manner of references to literature, artists, and architecture - mostly French- and sometimes famous novels, with utmost subtlety, get namechecked (e.g. Flaubert’s Sentimental Education, Caldwell’s God’s Little Acre). The wordplay is a virtuoso performance, puns and poetry coming together to form descriptions, jokes, and more. Then there’s the sex. Plenty of it, all told in a no holds barred stream of graphic prose, illuminating all manner of sexual quirks.

So how much of Buenas Noches Buenos Aires are we meant to take as canon in Gideon’s life? Admittedly, it’s unknown. There are perhaps a few clues within his narrative:

A timid soul, was my report card’s conclusion., an appraisal that had me spluttering with rage. Something of a poseur, was the overall view. Which I suppose I was, except that, if you imitate something for long enough, you eventually turn into it.

And:

It was a good story, well told, and I seriously doubt that any of my listeners were capable of spotting the joins - which is to say, working out where reality ended and fantasy began.

But who really cares what’s fact and fiction when it’s this good? Buenas Noches Buenos Aires is a tricksy little novel that turns its attention to the advent of the AIDS epidemic amongst libertarian circles. It’s witty, stylish, immensely readable, somewhat reminiscent of Muriel Spark’s The Driver’s Seat but with much more substance. And despite the saddening subject matter it’s a novel that certainly has a good air about it.

The Act Of Roger Murgatroyd: Gilbert Adair

The Act Of Roger Murgatroyd

Having fallen into a reading slump recently, which is somewhat criminal of me, I decided to look for something light, fun, and potentially enjoyable. So, who better an author to sit back with than Gilbert Adair, a man whose novels come laden with lingusitic tricks and twists? And what better a book than The Act Of Roger Murgatroyd (2006), if only because its subtitle is An Entertainment. Oh, I needed entertaining.

This book, then, is a pastiche of the murder mystery genre, the style fitting that of the Agatha Christie mould. In fact, its title is a play on Christie’s The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd, which I’ve never read, so I’m sure there are plenty of in-jokes that went over my head, although ignorance of them is not needed in order to enjoy this novel. But, that one novel aside, there are many nods and winks to Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot that I was able to pick up on, if only through television adaptions.

Set on Boxing Day, in 1935, Raymond Gentry (”a professional snitch”) is murdered in the attic of ffolkes manor in Dartmoor. What makes it all the more intriguing is that the attic is locked from the inside. Snowed in with everyone suspicious of the other, step forward Evadne Mount, writer of the Alexis Baddeley series of whodunits, and Chief-Inspector Trubshawe, retired of Scotland Yard, to solve the case. And solve it they do, albeit with little sleuthing and much dialogue, making this somewhat reminiscent of Adair’s A Closed Book, while being nothing like it at the same time.

As you would expect, especially after he has unearthed much of their dirt, everyone in the manor has their own motives for killing Gentry, which Mount relates to Trubshawe:

You’ll excuse me, I trust, if I decline to go into greater detail about the painful things we all had to hear about each other. All I’m prepared to say is that, when we turned in that night, there wasn’t one of us who wouldn’t have rejoiced if Raymond Gentry had been struck down by a thunderbolt.

Or, for that matter (she concluded), by a bullet.

As you can tell from that passage, Adair enjoys playing within the conventions of the classic murder mystery, knowingly using stereotypes and clichés that would otherwise damn a novel, which Trubshawe lists in one of his fiction versus reality rants that I can only assume references actual Christie novels:

“…apart from locked rooms, you’ll find the whole trumpery bag of tricks. You know, a secret passage that only the murderer has a key to. A clock and mirror facing each other at the scene of the crime, meaning the dial was read in reverse. Some black sheep of a family shipped off to South Africa and supposed to have died there, except that nobody’s certain he really did. All the usual whodunit hoohah. Load of codswallop, if you ask me. “

So how does The Act Of Roger Murgatroyd differ from more cosy murder mysteries? Well, one way is to add a postmodern slant to the text, so that not only do we have a narrative but a conscious playing with the structure. Another is to include references to the author, the publisher (faber & faber) and observations of how it’s just like being in a book. And finally, there’s the ballsy unveiling, without being in any way a spoiler, of the murderer in the title. But while I never solved the crime myself, despite a few moments where I circled around the rather ingenious solution, I’m proud I wasn’t led along by the many red herrings scattered throughout.

In comparison to other Adair novels, The Act Of Roger Murgatroyd is lighter in tone, the verbal trickery not as intense as something like Buenas Noches Buenos Aires, but it’s still, just as it promises, entertaining. And being the first in the Evadne Mount trilogy, there’s thankfully two more acts to look forward to.

A Mysterious Affair Of Style: Gilbert Adair

A Mysterious Affair Of Style

It’s not often that I read books by the same author one after the other but I enjoyed Gilbert Adair’s The Act Of Roger Murgatroyd so much that the only logical thing to do was dive straight into its sequel - and second book in the Evadne Mount trilogy - A Mysterious Affair Of Style (2007). I was hoping for more of the same, a murder mystery with a postmodern twist, and, in this, it delivered, although I was left feeling that I’d read it too soon after The Act Of Roger Murgatroyd, and this put it firmly in the shadow of its predecessor.

Where the action of the first novel took place within the claustrophobic environs of ffolkes Manor, A Mysterious Affair Of Style shifts to London, notably a film studio, in the 1940s. As expected, references to the golden age of crime fiction are there and, given Adair’s passion for cinema, are coupled with plenty of jokes (and in-jokes) pertinent to the film industry that generally work, although a few soon become tiring such as the ongoing confusion over the roles of director and producer.

It’s ten years since Evadne Mount solved the case at ffolkes Manor and, as Chief Inspector Trubshawe, formerly of Scotland Yard, notes when they bump into each other at the Ritz, recognising each other instantly as, in a nod to Agatha Christie, who never let Poirot grow old, “It’s almost as though time stood still”. From here these two old partners in (solving) crime renew their friendship and it’s only a matter of time before Mount’s actress friend, Cora Rutherford, is inviting them to watch her on the set of Alastair Farjeon’s (a thinly disguised Hitchcock) new film, If Ever They Find Me Dead.

Fittingly Farjeon has been found dead and his assistant is in control of the new film. As it is, the production is skating on thin ice and all it doesn’t need is more tragedy striking, which is exactly what happens when the aforementioned actress drops dead during filming. Now, while there are plenty of suspects for Mount and Trubshawe to bring to task for the murder, none of them have a motive. And the stakes get higher when the elderly couple challenge each other in the solving of the case with some drastic forfeits should either lose.

A Mysterious Affair Of Style hobbles along on its own momentum, pausing for long dialogues and passages on the nature of whodunits, throwing in all manner of jokes literary and cinematic, obvious and obscure. For examples. Mount’s favourite exclamation - “Great Scott-Moncrieff!” - is a reference to the translation award Adair won for bringing Perec’s La Disparition to English as A Void. Whereas a film titled An American In Plaster-of-Paris is bordering on groanworthy. Regardless, it’s all playful, even if it doesn’t alway pay off.

For a murder mystery there’s not much sleuthing either, Mount eschewing logical methods and instead trusting the intuition of her itchy bottom. But, as murder mysteries go, A Mysterious Affair Of Style doesn’t quite deliver and this may be because, as in Mount’s words, referring to one of her less successful novels, “it’s too clever for its own good. It’s what you might call clever-clever, which sounds twice as clever as clever itself but is actually only half.” This is certainly true of the conclusion which don’t really hit as hard as Mount’s formula for crime writing:

“When the revelations come tumbling out one after the other, the impact on the reader has got to be instantaneous. They’ve got to hit you - practically smack you - in the face.”

While it’s a readable, playful book - trademark Adair, then - it is capable of instigating the occasional smirk at its knowing humour and references, but as a whole it doesn’t really deliver. There may be more to it, as deliberate spelling errors - missing letters, additional letters - can be found at many points. To my mind the mysterious affair of style, aside from that within the novel, is the notion that Adair is emulating Mount’s style and the errors may hint that something is not quite right, and if so, then, through his main character, the author throws one last knowing wink to the reader:

“My publishers, my readers, my critics - well, most of them,” she qualified, not quite suppressing an embryonic snarl - “they all tell me that my latest book, whichever it happens to be, is wonderful, is terrific, is the finest so far, though we all know it’s a dud.”

Dancers: Gilbert Adair

The Dreamers

I’ve been making it a rule of late that before I see a film I should have read the book, provided it’s available in English and that I know the film is based on a book in the first place. So it has been with The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford and I Am Legend. It produces mixed results: the first one, good; the latter, bad. I’ve now had Bertolucci’s The Dreamers on DVD for some time and have been holding off watching it until I had read the book. And it being by Gilbert Adair, I’m surprised it’s taken me so long to get around to it.

The Dreamers (2003), as Adair notes in the afterword, is a rewrite of his 1986 debut, The Holy Innocents, a novel he was never happy with and constantly knocked back offers of adaptation, only to rescind when Bertolucci came calling. Not just rescind, but seize the opportunity to put past wrongs right, and come up with a new treatment, for both book and film, which he claims “may be twins but…they’re not identical.”

It seems in literature that when young Americans come to Paris they end up caught in the moment and find themselves moving into an apartment indefinitely and enjoying lots of sex. The Dreamers, in this respect, is no different to James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room, as its main character, the eighteen year old Matthew, has come to Paris, and in a friendshap “matured in the white shadow of the Cinématèque screen”, has come to know Théo and his twin sister, Isabelle, although his insecurity casts doubts on his worthiness of their acquaintance:

A lonely man thinks of nothing but friendship, just as a repressed man thinks of nothing but flesh. If Matthew had been granted a wish by a guardian angel, he would have requested a machine, one yet to be invented, permitting its owner to ascertain where each of his friends was at any given moment, what he was doing and with whom. He belonged to the race which loiters underneath a loved one’s window late at night and endeavours to decipher shadows flitting across the Venetian blind.

The comparison of Matthew’s loneliness to one of repression is apt in the context of the novel as Matthew, after an embarrassing misunderstanding with a friend back in America, found “the door of the closet out of which he had momentarily stepped proved to be a revolving one” and has buried what desires he has.

Echoing Matthew’s psyche, on a larger scale but in the background of the novel, the French government, under de Gaulle has designs on repressing the liberal movement, one incediary act being the closure of the Cinématèque, a beacon on the French cultural landscape standing outside of beaurocratic borders. And, with no films to see, the trio of Matthew, Isabelle, and Théo embody the ethos of the popular saying that the show must go on, adapting films into a parlour game called Home Movies that starts with petty gambling, only for the stakes to dangerously progress into a heady steam of sexual forfeit:

The Cinématèque had been forgotten. The had a Cinématèque of their own, a Cinématèque in flesh and blood. Which meant that the game was no longer played merely whenever the inclination siezed them. While they read during the day, or played cards, or fumbled one another, the curtain would rise on Home Movies night after night, at six-thirty, eight-thirty and ten-thirty, with matinees on Sunday.

But like a screening at the Cinématèque, things must come to and end and in The Dreamers Adair brings the final curtain down on a tragic note as the events of May 1968, spurned on by the Cinématèque’s closure, slip from protest to riot. Our dreamers, long lost in their liberal world, are woken by the heavy hand of conservatism.

When I pick up an Adair novel, this being my fifth, I’ve come to expect a level of trickery but such expectations were not met here, although, in hindsight, I suppose I should anticipate the unexpected from Adair. What The Dreamers is, then, is a stylistically tame novel that, in protest at its timidity, delivers a steamy soup of friendship, desire and sin that still needs a pinch of salt. The story is assuredly told, each observation a sparkling pearl, but somewhat lacks the wit displayed, such as showcased in Buenos Noches Buenas Aires, that, for me, typefies an Adair novel and makes it something that The Dreamers can only, well, dream of.