On colonies and history

Janie Salazar

This Earth of Mankind by Pramoedya Ananta Toer Novel Report

This report is based on the novel “This Earth of Mankind”, written by Pramoedya Ananta Toer. The book was published by Hasta Mitra in 1980 and was returned to print in Indonesia in 2005 by the publisher Lentera Depantara. With this report, we are going to view the novel in a historical perspective since the novel centers on the events which happened in the colonial Indonesia.

Introduction of the Author

Pramoedya Ananta Toer played an increasingly important role in Indonesian intellectual life. First as a member of Lekra, the Institute of People's Culture, and later as editor of Lentera (Lantern), the cultural section of the leftist paper Bintang Timur (Eastern Star), Pramoedya advocated a new socially conscious Indonesian literature. He was also one of the founders of the Multatuli Literature Academy and a Teacher at the Dr. Abdul Rivai Academy for Journalism in Jakarta. Arrested during the Indonesian government's massive repression of 1965, Pramoedya was held as a political prisoner until 1979, spending the last ten years on the brutal Buru prison island, where he composed the Buru Quartet, of which This Earth of Mankind is the first novel.”
(Penguin.com)

Pramoedya is the author of thirty works of fiction and nonfiction and has been translated into twenty languages. He received the PEN Freedom-to-write Award in 1988 and the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1995. Until 1998 he remained under city arrest in Jakarta where his books are still banned and selling them is a crime punishable by imprisonment.

Summary

“This Earth of Mankind” tells the story of Minke, a Javanese minor royal who studies at Hollands Burgelukse School (HBS) in an era when only the descendants of the European colonizers can expect to attain this level of education. Minke is a talented young writer whose works are published in several Dutch-language journals and are widely admired. But as a "native", Minke is disliked by many of his fellow-students, who all claim some European descent. He is portrayed as being bold in opposing the injustices imposed upon his fellow Javanese as well as challenging aspects of his own culture.

Minke was introduced to an extremely unusual Indonesian woman, Nyai Ontosoroh, who is the concubine of a Dutch man called Herman Mellema. Minke falls in love with their daughter, Annelies, whom he eventually marries in an Islamic wedding in accordance with “native” customs, but which, according to Dutch law, has no legal validity because it was conducted without the consent of the under-aged Annelies’ legal, Dutch, guardians.

In that period, it was common for women to become the concubines of Dutch men living in the East Indies. They were considered to have low morals because of their status as concubines, even if, as in Nyai’s case, they had no choice in the matter. Their children had uncertain legal status – either considered illegitimate “natives” with a corresponding lack of legal rights, unless legally acknowledged by their father, in which case they were considered “Indos”, and their mother lost all rights over them in avour of the father. As a concubine, Nyai suffers because of her low status and lack of rights, but, significantly, is aware of the injustice of her suffering and believes education is the route by which her basic humanity can be acknowledged. She believes that learning is the key to opposing indignity, stupidity, and poverty. However, the decision to have the children of their relationship legally acknowledged as Herman Mellema’s children has catastrophic consequences by the end of the book.

For Pramoedya, education is the key to changing one’s fate. For instance, Nyai, who had no formal schooling and who was educated by her experiences, from books, and from her daily life, was a far more inspiring educator than Minke’s high school teachers. However, This Earth of Mankind also powerfully portrays the reality of Dutch colonial government in Indonesia through the lives of the characters, where Minke’s education and Nyai’s success in business count for little when ranged against the unyielding Dutch colonial law.

Body of the Review

“This Earth of Mankind” is set in 1898, and provides a fascinating look at colonial life in Indonesia at that time. It tells the story of a native named Minke, the only one to attend an elite school. Being a Native he has no formal name, and so throughout he is called several names – Sinyo or Nyo, Gus, and most commonly Minke. Early in the novel, he is introduced to a succesful concubine named Nyai Ontosoroh and her beautiful daughter, Annelies, and is gradually drawn into their lives. The novel follows his – and their – fortunes as the colonial authority dictates that it is best to see that a native does not rise above his station. Life turns out to be a paradoxical one for Minke – on the one hand his education teaches him to think and argue and believe that all things are possible while on the other hand the colonial structure, within which he lives, works to ensure that little is possible.

The novel has a wide range of characters of various ethnic backgrounds – primarily Dutch, Indo or people with Dutch and Native parentage, and natives and also French and Chinese. This ensures that the strictly enforced layer of colonially-decided rights is set against a wide variety of political and personal opinions and provides the reader with an excellent insight into a complex society. This is perhaps also the cause of its main flaw because it is, at heart, an ideological novel. And, like many ideological novels, characters and plots are simplified and exaggerated to make the point. So, in simple terms the story can be seen as poor clever boy meets rich powerful concubine and falls in love with her beautiful but weak daughter only to be crossed by the wicked brother. The story has a melodramatic edge.

The novel is interesting to read. It is told in the first person-- in Minke’s voice. With that, the novel immediately engages us with him and his situation. He is, in fact, a little more rounded than the others: we get a sense of his uncertainty as he makes his various decisions throughout the book. This is largely because it is also a coming-of-age novel since the character undergoes adventures and inner turmoil in his growth and development as a human being. Paralleling the ideological issues underpinning the novel is the story of Minke’s emotional, social and intellectual development. A major thread is that of education and what can (should) be expected of an educated person.

That brings us to one of the themes of the story which is education. In the novel, Jean Marais, Minke’s friend told him, “You’re educated Minke. An educated person must learn to act justly, beginning first of all with his thoughts, then later in his deeds. That is what it means to be educated.” During those times, as stated before, natives are not allowed to be educated and only those with European blood and natives who belong to the royal families were the ones given education. The passage that I’ve quoted shows that to be educated means to act justly. That can be considered as a sarcastic remark to the “educated” European people. The author, in my point of view, would like to suggest that these Europeans were not “educated” because they do not think and act rightfully. It also underpins Minke’s thoughts and actions because it is shown in the novel that at each test or decision he faces, he tries to apply his education. It also shows irony because Europe, being the source of education is the one who caused the major problems in the novel. Another quotation from the novel that points to education is the words delivered by Minke’s favourite teacher. She says, “...without literature, you’ll remain just a lot of clever animals.” It suggests that the Indo and the natives should read because that’s the way they can acquire knowledge and education since they cannot be admitted in the formal classroom. They have to learn to read and be literate. The novel showed the importance of this by Minke being a writer. It also includes the role played by language in controlling and enforcing power and status. When a native can speak and write Dutch fluently, and when they can also speak Javanese and their native language, they are given credits. Just like Minke, because he speaks and writes Dutch fluently, he was given the chance to publish his stories in the daily papers.

          Another theme of the novel is colonialism. In this novel, the specific effects of colonialism by the Dutch on the Indies island of Java are explored. The novel begins with homage to the newly crowned queen of Holland and depicts island natives celebrating her coronation, leading to an initial impression that all is well in this Dutch colony. However throughout the novel, tensions are displayed between the colonizers and the natives. Ultimately, it shows the lack of basic human rights that were given to the colonized and how little control they have within their own country. Annelies, a native Javanese, is forced by Dutch courts to lose her inheritance and be deported to the Netherlands by her stepbrother. This epitomizes the dark side of colonialism.

          Another very evident theme of the novel is racism. Native Indonesians where seen as inferior to the Dutch colonials and race was thus correlated with class. In the novel, Toer especially emphasizes on the racial discrimination against the novel’s protagonist, Minke. As a native who lives among the Dutch colonists, he experiences discrimination from many individuals because he is just a native, “You think, boy, because you wear European clothes, mix with Europeans, and can speak a little Dutch you then become a European? You’re still a native.” It doesn’t make sense if you are educated and you are the wealthiest person in Indonesia and you are a native. In order to be acknowledge by the government and the people, you have to be of European descent. Towards the end of the novel, racism is clearly visualised when Nyai Ontosoroh and Minke were not aloowed to hire a lawyer to defend their case since they were natives. Natives and Indos were not given equal rights as to what the colonizer Europeans enjoy.

          Another theme presented in the novel is gender inequality. The novel highlights the treatment of women in Indonesian society. It not only illustrates the fact that men considered themselves to be above women in status and worth, but also a duality that existed between treatment of European women and of Native women.

Conclusion

          I find the novel an epitome of the best historical, political, sociological and emotional novel. It presented broad historical and political sweep and yet at the same time a moving and intimate story of one young man's evolving consciousness. It proved that personal and political events can be intertwined in a single novel. I can say that Pramoedya Ananta Toer succeeded in making history come alive in his characters and their predicaments. The novel also heightened my awareness of the nature of colonialism.