From Jail to Jail. Tan Malaka
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both of which were brought to an end by the rebellions of the oppressed nations within them.
Hannibal was such a statesman as is rarely born in a century, and it can be said that as a commander he has never been bettered and seldom equalled. He was a commander with a will of steel and a brilliant mind; he was always in the vanguard when attacking and in the rear when retreating. He could withstand extreme heat and cold, he lived as a soldier, and he was loved, praised, and idolized by his army as well as being supported by a wealthy state. But despite all this he was defeated by his enemies, the Roman commanders, his inferiors in every way.
[44] Bourgeois historians do not sufficiently analyze the situation in Carthage with regard to production, food, trade, etc., compared with that in the city of Rome which was long besieged by Hannibal. We do know that at the end of the war the Roman ships were stronger than those of Carthage and that Roman society at that time was almost one of equality, while the wealthy state of Carthage had a far less developed society.
All the world, friend or foe, acknowledged the glory of the Islamic empire in Spain in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Granada, Seville, and Cordoba were the center of the Western world’s attention at that time, just as London, Paris, and Berlin are today. The great thinkers—such as Ibn Rasjid, known in Europe by the name Averroes, who was comparable to Aristotle in Greek times—were magnets attracting the attention of philosophers and students of Western Europe. In agriculture, irrigation, and manufacture, this empire had no equal. Historians write of it as an isolated event and do not deal with its entirety, explaining its rise and fall. In describing the wars and the defeat of the Islamic empire by Christianity, historians should compare the two sides with regard to forces of production, society, and politics. They should ask such questions as whether Islamic society was static and frozen (and, if so, why) and whether Islamic society was split in two by a huge gap that gave rise to contradictions and even conflict between two groups, the rich and the poor. These questions are not even asked, let alone answered, by bourgeois historians. They pay too much attention to military policies and to a few individual leaders. Or they treat the culture without an accompanying analysis of its moving force: the system of production and the social and political systems.
What we need is a complete rewriting of the history of Greece, Rome, Arabia, and other great nations. We must have a history of society, of classes and their leaders in politics, military development, and culture, backed up with technological, sociological, and cultural data.
[45] The Sakutra Ocean: even big steam ships are tossed about by its waves!73 Our ancestors, who made the pilgrimage to Mecca to fulfill the obligations of their religion, still remember the dangers of this ocean. Their small sailing boats plunged through waves as high as mountains as they struggled in their need to visit the holy land. Who knows whether it was trade or the desire to travel that attracted our earliest ancestors here in tiny boats thrown about by the waves like grains of rice in boiling water . . . to the south . . . to Madagascar.74
India . . . caste . . . conflict between Hinduism and Islam. Just think of the Hindu temples: they are covered with sculpture inside and out, on the walls and around the roof. Symbols of the variety of human emotions, the sculptures represent courage, satisfaction, truth, sadness, and admiration, and there are even sculptures of people stabbing themselves. In general they are pessimistic, hopeless, and confused, representing the dissension and the divisions between and among more than three thousand castes. Listen to the modern Hindu songs: they seem sweet only to the singers themselves; as for me they have always seemed only to shout of arrogance, saying there is no caste higher than the Waisya caste, which is higher even than the Himalayan mountains. The Waisya was a trading caste, which has now become capitalist-bourgeois. The songs of the Hindu sailors and workers are simpler, more in accord with their oppressed spirit. The scourge of caste in India will not be eradicated by laws alone, but will vanish only when those laws are accompanied by changes in the economic, political, and social systems, and only when the hundred million untouchables and members of the Sudra and Pariah castes arise under the leadership of the workers and peasants and revolutionary intellectuals. And if the bourgeois, priestly, and aristocratic castes of India resist openly or covertly, then the Indian revolution will make the French and Russian revolutions look like child’s play.
Finally, Sabang, Indonesia.75 On the coast, from a mountain top one can admire the sinking sun, its beautiful colors changing every minute. Go and witness it for yourself! The journey now comes to an end. The Indian Ocean has been crossed, from the African-Arabian coast to the coast of Sumatra. This was the ocean that the ancestors of today’s Indonesian nation sang about in the dim past.
[46] A nation of wanderers: this is only half accurate.76 Nature gradually changed the region of the original Indonesian inhabitants into a fallow and desert place, forcing them always to wander. The spirit of endurance became characteristic, displayed from west of the Indian Ocean to Central America on the east of the Pacific Ocean.77
This wandering spirit was also encouraged by the structure of society over two thousand years ago. From the remnants of the social system in the Minangkabau matriarchy and in the Batak patriarchy, which also used to exist in Java, we can still see how the youths of each village were organized into fighting forces. They lived in houses specially set aside for youths, where they were educated in things spiritual (adat and religion) and physical (silat and pencak).78
Guided by the moon and stars, sailing in their tiny boats, they were protected by their wits, and their spirit of community and gotong-royong in both good times (hati gadjah sama dilapah, hati tungau sama ditjatjah) and bad (telantang sama minum air, terlungkup sama makan tanah).79 And even the ocean became only a lake in their eyes.
Chapter 6
DELI
[47] A land of gold, a haven for the capitalist class, but also a land of sweat, tears, and death, a hell for the proletariat. The very memories of Deli at the time I was there (December 1919 to June 1921) even now tear at my heart.1 There the sharp conflict between capital and labor, between colonizer and colonized, was played out. The natural wealth of Deli gave rise to the most wealthy, cruel, arrogant, and conservative colonizing capitalist class as well as that most oppressed, exploited, and humiliated class, the Indonesian contract coolie. What the Dutch had called “the gentlest people on earth” changed its character after suffering so much torment and cruelty, and, to take an analogy from the world around Deli, became “like a buffalo charging and trampling its enemies.” When I was there, between one and two hundred Dutch people were killed or wounded in attacks by coolies every year.2
Was there anything that Deli did not have? On the border between Deli and Aceh, in the region around Pangkalan Brandan, Pangkalan Susu, and Perlak there was oil.3 If I am not mistaken, there was iron on the border between Deli and Jambi.4 Jambi itself had tin, as did Singkep, Bangka, and Belitung. There was bauxite in Riau and alumina in Asahan. If all this wealth were linked with the coal in Sawahlunto or the waterfall on the Asahan River (the second or third largest in the world), then the area around Deli could support any kind of heavy industry, even more so if it had access to the iron, tin, and other metals on the nearby Malay Peninsula, which has long historical ties to Deli.5
[48] But the Dutch did not look in that direction, and indeed it was impossible for them to see the opportunities for heavy industry, which involves many difficulties in its early stages. Usually the Dutch are attracted by enterprises that are easy and involve little risk but that are nevertheless solid and provide a large investment return. They go in for profitable monopolies that can be quickly started up, but which will never, or at least not in the short run, give rise to competition.
All the conditions that meet this kruidenier spirit were to be found in Deli, particularly in the tobacco industry. The tobacco of Deli has a special place in the world market as the wrapping leaf for Manila cigars. Of course in the beginning it was hard to recruit the labor force, but once profits started coming, obtaining even larger numbers of workers was easy. Within three or four months of planting, tobacco leaves are ready to be picked. Around the tobacco plantations, enterprises producing latex,