Call to the People: Pramoedya Anata Toer

I've been thinking about Junot Diaz's call to the people during the opening statements of the Facing Race Conference in Balitmore a few weeks ago. He confronted the audience telling them, “I’m telling you guys, we’re never going to fucking get anywhere—if you want to hear my apocalyptic proclamation which I would never repeat, but which I know you motherfuckers are going to tweet about—we are never going to get anywhere as long as our economies of attraction continue to resemble, more or less, the economy of attraction of white supremacy.” For days now, I've asked myself what other options are there. It seems that all others models have been erased or forced to compromise.

I re-started the Bookcase Project with Awakenings by Pramoedya Anata Toer. It is a 2 novel book about colonial Indonesia at the turn of the 20th Century. There's always a love story in the saddest of times. I think that it's because love tries to mend and fix even if in an imperfect way. Minke, an upper class Native, falls in love with an Indo- a half Native half Dutch girl whose mother was the young concubine sold by her parents to a wealthy Dutchman. In the story Minke struggles with his identity. ALthough he asserts his Native background and any injustice that occurs as a result of his being so, he surrounds his life with Europeans. He cannot write in Malay, the popular language, only in Dutch, the privileged language. I'm at a point in the book where he's been asked to write an article in English, a huge honor. His best friend, a Frenchman, suggests that he begin to write in Malay. Minke violently rejects the idea.

As I read through the pages forming pictures of what Minke looks like, I get a fuzzy reflection in my mind. I'm guessing it's because I have very few hispanic friends (if I have to count, it would be 2). Throughout my life I often felt like the odd: The Dominican kid who liked New Order and the Smiths while everybody else was listening to Dougie Fresh and New Edition. Growing up, I was raised with the belief that I was white (because of my hair), but hispanic. My parents made a clear separation between Hispanic White and European/American White. Children of the 1960's thought revolutions, my parents stressed that the Western Hemisphere/World was raped by Europe. Yet all the while we were still white. Minke mirrors some of my life experience: That limbo between a colonial existence and the existence that may exist beyond it. I am almost convinced that we have to go through it. My parents tried to have us avoid it. I think deep inside they knew we would inevitably have to go through the colonial mash-up existence (it is the world today) and did their best to help us pass.

Toer is an amazing historian. He was imprisoned during the Dutch and then again during the new Indonesian government for his political views. Since no books or paper and pens were allowed, Toer memorized and repeated his novel everyday to himself for two years until he was able to write it down in 1975. He writes about the class system the Dutch developed making me think that there might have been an inter-colonial conference sometime, where all the heads decided on what nomenclature to use in the colonies. For example, Toer writes about those terms used in the Indies: Indos, Natives, specific designations to North East Asians, Europe born Euros and Indies born Euros. They bear a huge resemblance to those used by the Spaniards. Everyone fought to be at the top and pass for White. When Minke loses his wife, I think he loses his hope to accept his being Native. Yet he also loses his hope to be a White. His White supremacist ideas have got a hold on him. Is there some alternative experience than having to go through the White supremacist model? If I look at my work, I think that it has been my way of getting through it.

new book case, new order

There has been a delay with the bookcase. It moved from our bedroom into the living room. All the books have been re-arranged and are on new shelves. I haven't been able to settle down and read as I just finished an artist residency with the Bronx Museum of the Arts. But I did pick up the first book and it's by James Baldwin, "Notes of a Native Son". The book I have was printed in 1968 and it came into my hands when I was 15 years old. My father's bodega is in Washington Heights and he often bought home books from tenants who moved or had passed away. Most were on philosophy, the black power movement, and progressive thought overall. Those books were a social study themselves. Because of the titles I got a sense of the people who lived in the neighborhood at that time. My dad has had that store since 1968 and seen the changes first hand most notably the lose of an active intellectual presence. Through the years, many have not survived the wear and tear of the economic times. Glad to have been able to hold onto this book. Baldwin does not mince words: He makes Beef Wellington with them keeping the meat just cooked enough, but red deep inside.