Child of All Nations (Buru Quartet Book 2)

by Pramoedya Ananta Toer

The old people teach us through their legends that there is a mighty god called Batara Kala. They say it is he who makes all things move further and further from their starting point, inexorably, towards some unknown final destination. A human blind to the future, I could do no more than hope to know. We never even really understand what we have already lived through.

Finally I marshaled the courage to answer her. I repeated Panji Darman’s words. “All we can do is pray, Ma, pray.” “No, Child, these are the deeds of human beings. Planned by the brains of humans, and by the warped hearts of humans. It is to people we must speak our words. God has never sided with the defeated.”

How proud must the Japanese be. How proud must Maiko be. And why not? They were the only people in all of Asia that had the same status as the white-skinned peoples! I could only sit, mouth agape, in wonderment. What had transformed these people? As a single grain of sand of the great sand-mountains of Asian peoples, I secretly felt some pride too, even though, yes, even though as a Javenese youth I felt far below them. I was a child of a conquered race. The European teaching that I had received had not equipped me to understand Japan, let alone the greatness of Europe.

“We are not Japan. Japan is experiencing her awakening. China is in the process of collapse. We want to speed up that collapse so as to rise again, free of oppression.” “But the Chinese Older Generation is famed for its wisdom, the great heritage it has left China, books and cultural artifacts, a high civilization.…” “True, but that was the Older Generation when it was the Young Generation. This is the modern age. Any nation and people that cannot absorb the power of Europe, and then arise and utilize it, will be swallowed up by Europe. We have to make our China equal with Europe without becoming Europe, as Japan is doing.”

“Don’t be sentimental. You’ve been educated to respect and even deify Europe, to trust in it unreservedly. Then, every time you discover reality—that there are Europeans without honor—you become sentimental. Europe is no more honorable than you, Child! Europe is only superior in the fields of science, learning and self-restraint. No more than that. Look at me, an example that is near to you—me, a villager, but I can hire Europeans and their skills. You can too. If they can be hired by anyone who can pay them, why can’t the devil hire them too?”

Science and modern learning will pursue everyone everywhere. Human beings, both as individuals and social beings, can no longer feel secure. Mankind is forever being pursued because modern science and learning constantly provide the inspiration and desire to control Nature and man together. There is no power that can bring to a halt this passion to control, except greater science and learning, in the hands of more virtuous people.”

Jean hobbled back and straight away butted in: “Mr. Kommer, Minke was once very angry with me for doing no more than suggesting he write in Malay. You try to talk to him.” Now I was being incited to explode again, after my disappointment with Nijman. I attacked: “What can you say in Malay? An impoverished language like that? Riddled with borrowed words from every country in the world? And even to say ‘I am not an animal,’ you need all these borrowed words.”

You don’t know your own people! You don’t know your own country! I felt shame and knew that it was deserved. I would redeem myself from these accusations which I could not deny.

It was clear that the peasants themselves did not understand their own condition. But in that other corner of the world, in the Netherlands, people did know; they knew exactly what the situation was. They even understood the psychology of the peasantry as a class.

In humility, I realized I am a child of all nations, of all ages, past and present. Place and time of birth, parents, all are coincidence: such things are not sacred.

Everybody was mobilized to eat together off banana leaves. More food was brought out from the kitchen. I did not regret doing this, even though I knew it was torture for them to eat with me. They were so afraid of taking any of the chicken, especially the fried chicken. It turned out to be as hard as wood. So then I knew: This family had never cooked chicken before, not even the ones they owned themselves.

Don’t you feel ashamed that you dare call yourself an admirer of the French Revolution? I shriveled up in shame. Yes, I had to admit it: I was still unable to give up the benefits of my heritage. When someone spoke to me in low Javanese, I felt my rights had been stolen away. On the other hand, if people spoke to me in high Javanese, I felt I was among those chosen few, placed on some higher plane, a god in a human’s body, and these pleasures from my heritage caressed me.

And here, on my own earth to think of such a thing! To make any sense of it at all was impossible. Without the power of the whites the kings of Java would soon be mobilizing every single inhabitant in the effort to annihilate each other, each trying to emerge the sole triumphant ruler. Wasn’t that our history for centuries?

So, as things developed, capitalist interests in the Indies found they needed educated Natives for their own enterprises. And so on and so on. More advanced schooling, at high-school level, in special subjects, was instituted for Natives: agriculture, administration, medicine, law. It could not be avoided. It was necessary because of the growth and development of capitalism itself—including the medical school I myself was about to enter. And I will be given good money to stay with the government, to make government service attractive.

I once saw a small poster with a lithograph picture of a fleet of Japanese ships, all in tatters as they were battered by a storm. Their cannons shivered in the cold. A Japanese flag flew on every ship, almost as big as the ships themselves. And the picture’s caption read: “In the name of the geisha’s kimono, forever forward!”

People should remember that all Japanese who have left their country—whether to become coolies in Hawaii’s pineapple plantations, or cooks on the ships of other races, or chefs in San Francisco mansions, or prostitutes in the big cities of the world—nevertheless they remain like the heart and lungs of the Japanese race, inseparable from their country, their ancestors, and their people. And more than that, even though they earn their living from us, they still look upon us as a race of barbarians, and come that day, they will try to prove that they are right about us.

“If one’s feelings of humanity are offended,” Kommer went on, “everyone with feeling will also be offended, except for people who are mad and those with truly criminal mentalities, even though they may be university graduates.”