Beloved Land: stories, struggles, and secrets from Timor-Leste

by Gordon Peake

At the stroke of midnight on 20 May 2002, the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste became the first new nation of the 21st century. From that moment, those who fought for independence have faced a challenge even bigger than shaking off Indonesian occupation: running a country of their own.

Beloved Land picks up the story where world attention left off. Blending narrative history, travelogue, and personal reminiscences, Gordon Peake shows the daunting hurdles that the people of Timor-Leste must overcome to build a nation from scratch, and how much the international community has to learn if it is to help rather than hinder the process. Family politics, squabbles, power struggles, old romances, and even older grudges are woven into life in this land of intrigue and rumours in the most remarkable ways.

Yet above all, Beloved Land is a story about the one million East Timorese who speak nearly 20 different languages, and who are exuberantly building their nation. It is also about the East Timorese diaspora in Northern Ireland. Written with verve and deep affection, the book brings the character of Timor-Leste to life unforgettably.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Asia

256 pages, Paperback

First published August 21, 2013

Reviews

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

By the end of the first couple of chapters of this book, I was pretty sure I was going to hate it. It seemed another example of ever-so-trendy breezy journalism: making a virtue of ignorance, with an omnipresent narrator describing his encounters with subjects he knows little about. I couldn't have been more wrong. Sure, Peake's style is infused with gen-x self-deprecating wit, but his ignorance here is not of the superficial couldn't-be-bothered-googling-that variety, but comes from a deep attempt to engage with Timorese culture, aspects of which are truly impenetrable to him. He wears his knowledge and his bewilderment with respect, and this limited lens is more insightful for it.
Far from bored and irritated in fact, Beloved Land left me somewhat challenged. The case that Peake builds about the situation in Timor is actually built relentlessly, chapter by chapter, as he examines the mess of a boilerplate, bureaucratic and externally controlled 'development' effort meeting the elite of a traumatised, social, familial country divided by language and history, and all funded by oil reserves which thousands of people died in battles to control. I wasn't particularly shocked by the anecdotes of six-figure-salaried advisors running seminars through headphones, unable to so much as order coffee without help: I have been around the public sector long enough to know how that works. But Peake doesn't let the Timorese elite, and the civil service in particular, off the hook either. But then, he never loses hope that this country will find its way to stability.
Throughout the book, I felt the memories of the Timorese I had worked with in the 1990s, some of which appear in the book, looming over the narrative. I worried at times that someone reading this book, without knowing the people - who are, just as wise and stupid; passionate and pragmatic; hard and soft as the rest of us - would come out of this with a kind of patronising sense of the Timorese as lesser, or simpler. I'm not sure I can judge this, but I hope it isn't the case.
I do think this book should be read by all aid operatives, and 'capacity builders'. Peake comes from this mileu, and honestly probably has more time for it than I do. The problems he points too are not just in implementation: they are in expecting to develop a state one training course at a time, with the pre-existing society just seen as raw clay, to be moulded through binders, and manuals, and working groups and templates. I have no idea what the answers are, but the book seems a good way to starting to answer the questions.

[Francesca Forrest]

I had very mixed feelings about this. Having spent a lot of time reading about Timor-Leste and having visited there, and following new news as it comes out, there wasn't a whole lot of new information here. I enjoyed when he mentioned places I'd been or organizations I know about, and his takedown of the development industry was fun to read. But a lot of the book was him meeting various people who'd done horrible things in the war and boggling over the fact that they were reincorporated into society. He does reflect on why this is and what Timorese society is like, but for all that he seems to see himself as better than other aid workers, more "in touch," more integrated in Timorese society, he was spending time in the same bars, chatting in English. I'm sure he did spend lots of time with Timorese friends, but he doesn't write much about it... I guess that's not the type of book this is.

I think this book is probably great if what you're looking for is something that's like sitting down with an old China hand (only in this case, a Timor-Leste hand), over drinks, and hearing all the inside scoops--for limited values of "inside" (i.e., inside if what you are is a foreign aid worker). And I guess that's just not what I want? I think I want something slower, more rooted in one place, more focused on daily patterns and really getting to know someone or a few someones, or a place.

So far, the best book I've read dealing with Timor-Leste was The Crossing, by Luis Cardoso, who is Timorese. That was an **excellent** book.

[Paulina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Informative + personal = my favorite way to learn about a new place! And one of the only books I could find about Timor Leste. I think Peake did a good job sharing his personal perspective but also remaining humble as a non-Timorese who is new to the country. Also, this was on the president of Timor Leste’s bookshelf when I went to visit, so clearly he did something right.

Things I learned:
- The US was complicit/even supportive of Indonesia’s brutal invasion and occupation of Timor Leste in 1975, fearing communist support in the Pacific.
- People in Timor Leste speak over 20 different languages, and only 15% speak Portuguese, one of the official languages of the country.
- The most effective aid workers were there to say, and I saw this in the people I met there as well.
- Timor Leste tows a line receiving support from both China and Australia, and fun fact the Australian prime minister was there when I visited to negotiate a new oil and gas deal after Timor considered partnering with China.
- Research estimates show as many as 5% of the population suffering from PTSD and up to 12% exhibiting psychosis symptoms (109).
- The large Catholic population may stem historically from Catholicism being a symbol of opposition during the Indonesian occupation (144).
- The Timorese economy is currently largely reliant on offshore oil and gas reserves (165).
- Tourism offers an area for economy growth; the industry is currently basically non-existent.
- It is estimated than 90% of development assistance never actually reaches the country (201).

Quotes:
- “Visitors from Lisbon and many other places see Timor-Leste as a nation state with institutions, agencies, committees, policies, and procedures. They do not see it as a tangle of family relationships, friendships, romances, and antagonisms that collectively render ideas and concepts such as “accountability” and “separation of powers” almost completely impractical.” (42)
- “The attempts of international capacity-builders and their Timorese counterparts to interact with each other reminded me of awkward wallflower moments I had had at teenage discos.” (156)
- “No one would expect a Timorese police officer or public servant who spoke no English to be successful in effecting change in Canberra, Dublin, or other capitals, and yet this idea seems perfectly acceptable in reverse.” (157)
- “If we [the UN] can’t be successful here, in this tiny place with not much crime and a relatively decent political leadership, where can we be successful?” (194)
- “If Australia was serious about being effective, they wouldn’t hire people like me- English speaking civil servants, here for short stints, who cannot interact with their Timorese counterparts They’d hire people on long-term contracts, and compel them to learn the language. I’m fed up and not coming back. I’m useless here.” (210)
- “Fighting a war is easy.. to give food to people, to give work to people, to provide homes for people, to give clean water to people, to make a good life for people, that is the difficult part.” (236)

[Vannessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well-researched, well-written, empathetic book that appropriately pays tribute to the tenacity and courage of the Timorese people in overthrowing Indonesian rule, but does not shy away from criticising the corrupt and self-serving politicians and bureaucrats in independent Timor Leste. A great book as an introduction to Timor Leste, in which Peake shows the importance of family and kinship networks in the country in terms of its history and how society runs today.

Peake also explores this 'land of advisers' and the little-motivated civil service in a way that seeks to unpack how things became the way they are, from UN administration until today. While there are some committed foreigners working in Timor Leste, there has been plenty of money squandered in ill-considered international projects and programs of bilateral aid, with few tangible results. Those on short term contracts getting paid squillions of money don't even speak any of the local languages their Timorese counterparts speak, if they bother to spend any working time with their local colleagues at all, is one of the lessons in the chapter titled "The Tropical Bakery School of International Development." The Tropical Bakery is one of those expat hangouts, a place to moan and complain about the Timorese and about one's colleagues. Those foreigners who have worked and lived in Timor Leste before might well see themselves in some of the scenarios and characters Peake depicts here!

There is a fascinating section on the Timorese migrant workers in Northern Ireland, the land of Peake's birth - a topic little discussed in books on Timor Leste. An enjoyable, bitter-sweet read. Full of wry, self-deprecating humour. The struggle continues to ensure the fruits of independence and Timor's few resources can provide a good life for its growing population.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beloved Land is a deftly painted portrait of contemporary Timor-Leste, as it is, rather than the way outsiders would like it to be. It is part travelogue, oral history, and political analysis, but most of all it tells some great stories from Indonesia and Australia’s small neighbour.

Since the 2002 restoration of independence, the international presence ebbed and flowed but under its own leadership and with its own oil and gas money, in the last decade this young nation has increasingly been able to determine its own destiny. As its leaders have grown in confidence, they have asserted the country’s own character after occupations by Portugal, Japan, and Indonesia as well as a United Nations transitional administration. The end result is a picture that is a meld of many colours. In Timor-Leste, east meets west and the past haunts the present. It is place tied to its own history even as it tries to ambitiously engineer a future far removed from what it is today.

Timor-Leste is expressing its unique personality just at the time in its short history when the world is paying the least attention. The global spotlight that shone so bright on then Indonesian province in 1999 has moved elsewhere. The subtle struggles for identity and power in Dili no longer fascinate the journalists from CNN or the BBC. Characters like Eurico Gutteres, who once revelled in the limelight, are now slightly pathetic has beens of the global news cycle. It seems only the book’s Irish author Gordon Peake is paying attention to them as well as the supporting cast, like Eurico’s one-time translator, many who wallow just above the poverty line in former refugee camps in Nusa Tenggara Timor (East Nusa Tenggara or NTT).

The stories told by Peake in ten chapters are complicated ones, but each is self-contained and together they form the most readable book in English on Timor since the fictional account of the resistance struggle in Timothy Mo’s Redundancy of Courage more than twenty years ago. Peake has an obvious fondness for the place and in his four years there advising on security issues took the time to master Tetun to the extent that he still aspires to publish a dual language dictionary of idiomatic expressions. It is an effort that not enough foreign advisors make and one chapter of the book is dedicated to pillorying those who take short contracts with no local knowledge and then try to tell the Timorese how to build a nation and a state.

While Peake’s gentle pokes at the hubris of the international community are fun, but this is not the sweet spot of Beloved Land. As an academic trained at Cambridge, who has taught at Princeton, and is a visiting fellow at Australian National University, Peake has the skills and experience to have written a worthy text that would be released by an academic publisher in hardcover at an exorbitant price that nobody would have ever read. Instead, we are fortunate he set out to write a book for readers as he has crafted a 238-page paperback that is a joy to devour.

Beloved Land is at its best when it focuses on the colourful cast that is the political drama of Timor-Leste. The portraits of key figures such as disgraced former minister Rogerio Lobato, former militia leader Eurico Gutteres, and alleged war criminal Maternus Bere are informative and historical correct but they are gripping reportage as Peake walks a literary tightrope balancing respect for his subjects with honesty about their alleged crimes as well as being candid about their often disturbing views. Drawing heavily on his experience growing up with similar madness in Northern Ireland, Peake gets the balance right between using just enough wry humour to keep us amused without being too cynical or sceptical. His encounter with the Timorese community in Dungannon, Northern Ireland show how these expatriate workers are as clueless about his country as many who go to Timor-Leste for the money.

The afternoon he spent with 2012 presidential candidate Lobato captures the tragedy of life of this member of the blue-blood revolutionary family without letting him off the hook for being shamelessly ambitious and a deeply compromised figure of contemporary Timorese history (he was briefly jailed for his role in the country’s 2006 crisis). Gutteres, indicted for crimes against humanity committed in 1999 and unable to return to Timor without facing arrest, is still as crazily incoherent as many would remember him from 1999. He may live in one of Kupang’s grandest houses, but he also comes across as a man with deep psychological problems who craves attention of the celebrity status he had in days gone by.

Bere, also indicted for 1999 crimes, briefly came to attention when this minor kecamatan official was arrested inside Timor-Leste in 2009 for his alleged crimes a decade earlier, is also deeply disturbed. His detention, on the eve of celebrations of the ten-year anniversary of Timor’s referendum, caused a major diplomatic incident between the UN, Dili, and Jakarta until he was handed back to the Indonesian ambassador and escorted back across the border. Dr. Peake, a political scientist by training, tracks him down in a remote hamlet in Belu kabupaten only to encounter a man living in such a delusional state that would confuse even a seasoned anthropologist or an experienced psychiatrist. In this pen portrait and others he does of a brilliant job of capturing the magical realism of Timorese politics where ancestors advise politicians and the dead speak through goats scrabbling on a mountainside.

Beloved Land, a translation of the Tetun phrase Rai Doben, is at its best on Timorese soil. Peake admits he feels less sure footed when he steps into Indonesia. But there are compelling reasons for those on this side of the border to read this book. First, it shows how Timor has survived and moved on from the 24 years of occupation. While they cannot escape their history, Timorese are not held hostage to it. Secondly, those who live in Indonesia will find themselves looking in a mirror. Timor-Leste is a supercharged kabupaten with a budget of $1.8 billion and $13.6 billion in its Petroleum Fund for a population of about 1.1 million or about the size of Sleman in Yogyakarta. The problems it faces are not uncommon to decentralised Indonesia. The importance of family connections, dominance of political dynasties, poorly implement construction contracts, and ever-present corruption will all be familiar. Peake tells some great yarns and along the way unknowingly maps much more, including real data on where most who run Timor-Leste today were educated in Indonesia and the posts they served in as former civil servants.

This book is a gift to our understanding of how Timor-Leste actually works and how those who lead it understand their country and place in it. Anyone travelling to Timor-Leste would benefit from reading it before they go as it would help explain many things about the country that confuse the first time visitor or are not readily apparent to those who spend only a brief time there without the benefit of a local language. It should have a long shelf life in the airports of Asia and it is most lucid “must read” book on Timor-Leste. It will be a long time before someone again puts in print such great stories about this beloved half-island.


Jim Della-Giacoma (@jimdella) is a visiting fellow in the Department of Social and Political Change in the School of International, Political and Strategic Studies at the Australian National University’s College of Asia and the Pacific. He has been writing stories about Timor-Leste since 1991 as journalist, UN official, and researcher.

[Valerie Barchefska · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The men came there because they heard the stories of spontaneous seepages from the ground, hot sands, and places where flames flickered up from the ground--all potential evidence of greater reserves onshore and just offshore. When the crew arrived they heard stories that, during the Second World War, the Japanese had fuelled their trucks and cars simply by digging pits into the ground and scooping out the oil in buckets. The annual shareholder report of the Timor Oil Company in 1960 said that the oil-bearing potential of the area was apparent 'even to the layman' and many Australians invested large sums in successive share issues of the company, gambling that the excited words of its directors would come true. Shares rocketed with news of every supposedly lucrative breakthrough, and each oilman who came back through Darwin gushed to the local newspaper, raising hopes still further. Some of their appraisals, however, seemed better informed than others. Kevin Sherlock had meticulously clipped each article. One of the boosters, the skipper of the barge that transported the drilling equipment from northern Australia to southern Timor, based his confidence of a big find solely on his unbreakable belief that there was a connection between monkeys living nearby and the presence of oil."

Peake has an absolutely colossal axe to grind here, and this book feels like it's mostly about the naivete of NGOs and development-focused non-profits attempting to improve the lot of post-colonial countries, with Timor-Leste serving frequently as just an illustrative example. Respectable perspective, given his experiences, but maybe not the best way to jump into learning about the country for the first time. While repetitive, it is at least a pretty breezy read, and full of punchy (if biased) anecdotes and details, including a lot of personal interactions with influential people in the country.

READ AROUND THE WORLD 24/195: TIMOR-LESTE 🇹🇱

[Reza Amiri Praramadhan · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a country which history is so closely intertwined with my country, I must admit that my knowledge of Timor-Leste before was no more than a stereotype that is also widely shared among many Indonesians, that is, an ungrateful people who dared to bite the hands that feed them, a view, that curiously, is also shared among some Timorese, especially the collaborators and Indonesian sympathizer.

In this book, part history, part travelogue, we followed the author’s adventures into this former Portuguese colonial outpost, whose first declaration of independence was followed by a long period of Indonesian occupation, with tacit agreement of other regional power such as Australia. After Indonesia withdrew, the former independence rebels found themselves atop a supposedly rich oil and gas sources, probably squandering most of the incomes along the way. Timorese politics are also quite confusing, with familial ties trump above others, causing a confusing way of politicking, with former enemies joining hands during elections, its bureaucracy was in shambles, staffed with mostly incompetents with grandiose-sounding titles, eager to milk more money from foreign donors, who apparently, would rather go back home than staying in that place any longer.

However, the author also brought us to meet with people, both native and amazingly, foreign, the author himself included, who are genuinely concerned with the welfare of this tiny nation. A must read, especially for fellow Indonesians like me.

[Holstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beloved Land ("rai doben" in Tetun) is the Timorese name for their tiny country of which, prior to reading this book, I knew nothing about, except that they are a close neighbour of Australia where malaria is still endemic.

Timor-Leste, as described by Dr Peake's collection of recounts, interviews and observations from the point of view of a "malae"(foreigner) is a complex outcome of post-colonial struggle, geographical determinism, and the well-intentioned but often impractical strategic plans of public policy think tanks. Mountains and valleys isolate communities from each other, traces of Portugal and Indonesia complicate bureaucracy, and the wealth from the resources boom has not spread evenly across the island to rural areas in need of basic healthcare, road access and universal education. UN personnel and aid workers vary in their ability (or desire) to understand and adapt to the local culture.

This is an eye-opening read for all Australians who may think that we are simply a benevolent neighbour to this small island state, especially people (like myself) who work with NGO's with the best intentions, but struggle to understand why so many years of foreign aid doesn't seem to have made a concomitant impact on the lives of the Timorese still living in poverty.

[Hunter Marston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic overview of contemporary Timor Leste. Peake’s personal and professional account provides a great intro to the country and presents one of the best critiques I’ve encountered of international development as practiced by the United Nations and its highly paid globe-trotting development practitioners.

[Trish Quirk · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't finish the book but found the chapters I read an interesting insight into East Timor's recent history and the dangers of thinking a country like this follows the same values and traditions as any other country.

[M B Gordon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this a really enjoyable and informative book.

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gordon Peake gets the balance right, as many Australian commentators are either Indonesia-centric and disparage the very existence of Timor-Leste as an independent state, or people who have been involved with the independence struggle for so long that they cannot bear criticism of the country's leaders post-independence.

The country is certainly dysfunctional, and many overpaid foreigners should take the blame for that as well as corrupt local leaders, but it is not a failed state. Peake's effort to learn Tetum has meant that he has not confined himself to an English-speaking ghetto, but has been able to talk to people who tell him what they want to tell him, rather than speak to those who only tell him what he wants to hear.

Like him, I have met some of the Timorese working in Northern Ireland, and had the surreal experience of speaking Tetum in Dungannon, County Tyrone, a place that people have been more keen to move from than move to!

[Calzean · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are few readable books around on the state of Timor-Leste, this is one of them. A Northern Islander who spent four years working in Timor-Leste, Peake covers some of the characters who lead the fight for independence from Indonesia, fight for better pay for the Army, fight for rights to the oil and gas fields and those who just fight amongst themselves for a juicy government contract. There is some real insights - the UN guy who said if they couldn't get Timor right (with a reasonable government, good revenue and low crime rate) than how could the UN help any other country, and the lack of success of aid projects due to lack of continuity in the adviser, their lack of ability to speak the local language, and a lack of willingness to learn the values and cultures of the country. And then there is the couple of thousand Timor Leste men working in Northern Island- a strange case of workers mobility.

[Ann Turner · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a longtime resident of Timor-Leste, it is refreshing to read a book that portrays the country, warts and all, in a realistic but affectionate light. What also appealed to me was the fact that, unlike some books that endlessly re-tread the events of the past, Beloved Land offers a realistic assessment of where the country is going in the future, without sounding "worthy but dull". Whilst Peake sounds a necessary note of caution about prospective pitfalls in the country's development, the sense of optimism shines through, too. It's also an entertaining read... Peake's portrayal of some of the more colourful characters and "Graham Greenesque" moments actually made me laugh out loud a couple of times. A must for anyone with an interest in Timor-Leste and post-colonial nationbuilding. I encourage him to write a sequel in a saga that I hope will have a happy ending.

[Diana Greenwald · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very honest and insightful collection of stories from the author's time in Timor-Leste. I read the book before beginning three months of dissertation fieldwork in Timor, and found the observations about the role of the international development community in post-independence Timor to be particularly sobering and important. His stories highlight that, while many international consultants and practitioners have good intentions, communication and cultural gaps between foreigners and Timorese citizens remain large, and the short-term objectives of many international donors do not match the long-term needs of the country. Yet Peake manages not to be a nay-sayer -- he is observant, non-judgmental, and even cautiously optimistic about the ability of this newly independent state to achieve prosperity for its people.

[Rob Manwaring · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a cracker, and for me, a great introduction to the politics, society and history of Timor Leste. Am slightly biassed as i know the author, but what was fascinating to me, was to learn more about Gordon's obvious attachment to the country. I loved reading some of the excursions made and some of the key people who have shaped the country. Perhaps a little sadly, the 'aid' community comes in for a bit of a hammering, and the passion for strategic plans is both hilarious and tragic. Perhaps even more worrying is the country seems to have already mortgaged its future, which given the tough levels of poverty does not bode well. Perhaps more powerful than anything, Gordon's book wants me to make a visit his beloved country...

[Francesco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Part travelogue, memoir and political analysis, Beloved Land chronicles the hurdles that face Timorese as they struggle to build the new millennium’s first new country. Shortly after its 2002 independence from Indonesia, Gordon Peake spent four years in Timor-Leste — a nation of one million who speak over 20 languages — just as the international community moved its attention elsewhere. The book is an important asset for understanding the challenges in modern statebuilding, and what the international community can do (and not do) to help.

[Hamish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gordon Peake's extremely enjoyable distillation of essential history, travelogue, anecdote, and empathetic but clear-eyed reading of Timorese politics and its encounter with the world of nation-builders, do-gooders, bandwagoners, and generally curious characters.

A great introduction to the post-independence landscape of East Timor, as well as a meditation on the odd business of international post-conflict state-building. Includes a useful guide to further reading.

[Trev · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book about the crazy relationships and forgiveness of the Timorese people who have done terrible things to each other. Also highlights the massive failure of UN programs by people trying to push a western agenda without truly engaging the local population - like even just learning the language.

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This should be required plane reading for anyone moving to or working on/in Timor-Leste. Also wouldn't hurt international development folks, no matter where they're working. Compulsively readable, but also well-researched and incredibly valuable to understanding more about the personal, political, and historical factors at play.

[Henning Hj · Rating 3 out of 5]

Highly recommended for anyone who plan to live in or work on Timor-Leste. Good stories, sobering descriptions. Not necessarily an outstanding literary work, but spot on when it comes to the subject it deals with

[Ashley Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good overview on Timor Leste since independence.

[Torrey Peace · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book helped give me a lot of insight to the complexities of Timorese politics. I am grateful to have a better understanding of this country where I work and the people in it.

[Lori Coyle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Timor Leste!