House of Glass by Pramoedya Ananta Toer

Author:Pramoedya Ananta Toer [Toer, Pramoedya Ananta]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101615355
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 1997-07-01T04:00:00+00:00

8

Before Wardi and Douwager left for exile in Europe, I submitted a request to escort the two exiles on their journey and then to take my European leave. But my boss did not approve the request. To forbid things is a colonial hobby that gives a pleasure of its own. It makes you feel more important and more powerful.

I could understand that. I too had experienced that feeling and would still seek to experience it again. To oppress is a part of the colonial character. And the pleasure that you obtain from oppression is even deeper than that obtained from simply forbidding. And Europeans, who come from that democratic society of theirs, after just six months of breathing the colonial air, will quickly be addicted to forbidding and oppressing, enjoying the rights once exercised by the same Native kings that they so love to insult and revile. I agree completely with what Kartini, the girl from Jepara, wrote about this.

My failure to get my leave to Europe deepened further my understanding of the colonial order. At the top, colonial power was supported by a small group of white colonial people who in their turn were supported by colonial brown people of which there was a greater range of kinds and groups. From the top going down, there were bans, oppression, orders, insults, and abuse. From the bottom going up, there were arse-licking, submission, and slavelike self-abasement. And I had my place in this order. And so anyone who heard my boss’s reply to my request would just smile. “There is so much work to do these days, Meneer. And you are not allowed to have any helpers or any replacement. You must understand, Meneer, that the work you do is new in the Indies.”

Madness! I swore inside while my lips smiled sweetly and politely. Yes, the smile must be sweet and polite, because that is how a subordinate must behave toward his superior, because that is the colonial custom we must always honor.

He also replied with a smile and I could feel the insult it expressed: Ah, you, all you do is write up excuses for arresting and exiling people, and here you are making all sorts of demands. And my smile also took on other meanings: Ah, you, all you do is use my ideas, and here you are so sparing with your generosity! If I go on holiday, you will have to do my work yourself and use your own brain. Isn’t that the real problem?

And that was the kind of conversation that took place inside me and continued to take place, haunting me still, a week, a month, and a year later. My wife had gone. My children had gone. My pangs of conscience because of the exile of the Indische Partij triumvirate had also disappeared. Strong feelings of nostalgia for the old days often came to disturb me. I wanted to work once again in the midst of fellow human beings, among and with other human

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