From Jail to Jail. Tan Malaka
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and what was in the cage escaped,” says the proverb.
I was unable to do anything because of the difficulties with language and getting the printing completed, and because my health, which had improved slightly while I was in the tropic air, was now just as bad as before.17 There was really no point either for myself or for the organization in my remaining in China. After settling my responsibilities with the Canton Bureau, I tried to make my way to the Philippines to convalesce.18
To travel south without the necessary documents was hard enough because of restrictions on the entry of Chinese to the area. But to enter the Philippines, with its American Emigration Law, was even harder.19 I had to investigate all aspects of the effort very carefully beforehand, and I had to get so many extra injections before embarking on the journey that I felt like a deflated rubber ball being pumped up.
I got these injections and the opportunity to investigate ways to get into the Philippines in a Filipino hostel in Hong Kong. Miss Carmen, the daughter of a former rebel in the Philippines, who ran the hostel with her mother, was prepared to give me invaluable tips regarding traffic to the Philippines and the way of life there.20 She also helped by giving me lessons in Tagalog. If I could learn German and English in a few months, then I had no cause to balk at learning Tagalog, one of the languages of the Indonesian group.
[123] My understanding of how I could enter the Philippines and blend into the society there was perfected with the help of my acquaintances at the hostel, particularly a certain educated traveler. Confident in my ability to judge a person’s character from appearance, I decided to disclose to this traveler as much as was necessary about my situation in order to ask for frank information. This proved not to be in vain, and in fact rewarded me with more than I had hoped for. He turned out to be a supporter of unity among the Indonesian peoples and had once spoken to Indonesian students in the Netherlands and had been quietly pushed out of the Netherlands by the government. He showed me the signatures in his memory book of his acquaintances among the Indonesians in the Netherlands. The first name on the list was Semaun, followed by Meester Subardjo, Meester Moh. Nazir, and others.21 He became my first close Filipino friend and proved to be faithful and honest with regard to my secret wherever I was up to the outbreak of World War II. He was Dr. Mariano Santos, a graduate of a Filipino university who had traveled widely in America and Europe and who was only now returning. Later he became vice president of Manila University.22
To cut the story short, I finally left Hong Kong at the beginning of June 1925 on board a President Line ship, together with passengers from all over the world but mainly from America and the Philippines.23 My experiences of the European way of life, my knowledge of two or three European languages, particularly English, my smattering of Tagalog, and last but not least my appearance, which was 100 percent Filipino and in fact more authentic than 20 to 30 percent of the Filipino racial mixtures, armed me fully for conversation, telling a joke á la America, joining in the dancing, and so on. No one would doubt that I was indeed what I seemed, a Filipino returning home.
I had no documents at all. I was able to get through the smallpox certificate, passport, and customs inspections, which are generally carried out thoroughly by the Filipino officials, by playing out the humbug role of a Filipino student returning from the United States and by acting smoothly or bluffing in Tagalog like a Filipino boxer, as the situation demanded. The key to my success was not to be afraid of anything and not to overact.
Finally, having steered myself through all kinds of situations that are particularly hard to navigate without any papers, I arrived at Miss Carmen’s parents’ home in Santa Mesa, on the outskirts of Manila.24 There a Filipino who had just returned to his long-lost homeland from abroad came to rest. His name was Elias Fuentes, and he was none other than this writer himself. So much for the American Emigration Law.25
Chapter 12
THE PHILIPPINES
[124] What were the Philippines like after 450 years of separation from South Indonesia? This is the obvious question to arise in the heart of a lover of history who confronts the history of the whole of Indonesia.1 In one Philippine school book I saw a picture of “the first Indonesian,” paddling a perahu.2 Certainly the political relationship with Majapahit has left its imprint on the history of the Philippines.3
This chapter is not intended to answer completely the question posed above with regard to politics, economics, or culture. All I shall do is give a lightning sketch of that country, which now is said to be independent, has a population of some ten million, struggled to the death for some four hundred years against Spanish imperialism, and during the revolution of 1898-1901 became the first nation in the whole of Asia to establish a modern republic.4
As to the geography of the Philippines, if there were any changes at all over those 450 years they were not particularly striking, apart from the conversion of the jungle to cultivated land. Great transformations did take place in instruments of production, the economy, and culture. As a result of these alterations in their environment, the Filipinos themselves also evidently changed significantly.
There is absolutely no difference in appearance between the Filipino peasant and the Menadonese, Bugis, Malay, Batak, Padang, Sundanese, or Javanese peasant. What I mean by appearance here is racial characteristics-build, face shape, the color of skin, eyes, and hair. In this respect the Filipino peasant, from Bigan on the island of Luzon to Bato in Mindanao, is the same as the indigene of Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Sulawesi, or Malaya.
[125] But differences become evident in the cities like Manila, Ho-Ho, and Cebu.5 There we find Filipinos with Spanish and Chinese blood running in their veins, who look like mixtures of Indonesians and Dutch or Chinese, but we find these racial mixtures only in the upper levels of the bourgeoisie. Juan and Pedro who work in the docks, rail yards, and machine shops of Manila are no different from Ali and Darmo in Medan or Surabaya.
We can say that the higher we go on the political, social, economic, and cultural ladder, the more we see of yellow and even white skin. And the lower we go on those ladders, the more the color brown predominates, the color of most of Indonesia’s original inhabitants. The higher we go on the political ladder—from members of the municipal councils to the higher and lower houses of the legislature, and from local mayors to the president-the more we see mestizos, descendants of the three mixed races. The same is true in business, such as plantation agriculture, manufacturing, and shipping. The exception is in the field of culture, where, if I am not mistaken, we see brown skin just as often as white or yellow. The high position held by the mestizos was a result of the political revolution in the Philippines, which, viewed even from the political angle, let alone the economic one, was a failure.
Almost 100 percent of the Veterano, the former revolutionary fighters of 1898-1901 who struggled first against the Spanish and then against the Americans, consisted of indigenous Indonesians. A revolutionary veteran who knew him told me that the father of the revolution, Andres Bonifacio, was an indigenous Indonesian from Tondo on the outskirts of Manila. The revolutionary president, Aguinaldo, the famous minister of foreign affairs, Mabini, and, finally, the “father of the Philippines,” Jose Rizal, were all indigenous Indonesians who had little if any mixed blood.6 The Philippine revolution was a revolution of the workers and peasants under the leadership of a truly revolutionary section of the intelligentsia.
[125] But with the capture of President Aguinaldo by the Americans, the leadership of the revolution fell apart and the guerrilla war could not be maintained. Aguinaldo took an oath before the Americans, swearing to withdraw from politics as long as the Philippines were under American rule (1901-1946).7 Mabini, paralyzed but still unwilling to collaborate with the Americans, was exiled to Guam and died there, together with many of his comrades who would not make peace with America.8 Some guerrilla generals, such as Ricarte, were able to escape to Japan and to stay there until the Philippines surrendered to Japan.9 Andres Bonifacio, the first to unfurl the flag of freedom and to attack the Spanish troops, was murdered, supposedly by Aguinaldo’s soldiers, during the revolution.
So