Rejected By Ibu Pertiwi
Dewi Anggraeni
Ibu Pertiwi are Indonesian words, literally meaning ‘mother of the earth’; their effective meaning is ‘motherland’ or ‘home country’. The words have an emotional charge, which makes them ideal for poetry or patriotic language.
For Damayanti, a self confessed cosmopolitan, ibu pertiwi made only rare appearances in her private vocabulary. Besides, Damayanti identified as a Melburnian. By extension, as an Australian. In her work as the Australian correspondent for a major newspaper in Indonesia, she’d always had to repeat the explanation that she wasn’t posted in Melbourne. She lived in Melbourne. ‘Melbourne is my home,’ she’d emphasise. It was true that she was born and brought up in Jakarta, but how could she call Jakarta home when she didn’t live there, and no longer had a particular place she could go back to? No, home is Melbourne. Full stop. And apart from minor irritations - people who insisted on asking her what she thought of Australia and Australians, for example, - the actual locality of her home was rarely an issue for Damayanti. Until that assignment.
A group, consisting of mainly young people from different countries, was arriving in Darwin to board a pensioned-off merchant ship hired for a voyage to East Timor. Once there, they were going to march to the Santa Cruz cemetary and lay a wreath to commemorate the death of those Timorese (the number still in dispute) shot by Indonesian soldiers almost a year earlier. ‘Cover it,’ said her editor, ‘from the beginning to the end. Get on the ship as well.’
On the phone, the committee told her that the ship was already full, yet letters of invitation were still arriving at the desks of editors of Australian publications. Damayanti understood. She flew to Darwin and went to meet the committee. She was received with a great deal of suspicion and asked why she wanted to get on the ship.
‘I’m a journalist, I want to report the event. Is it so unusual? Isn’t that what you’re after? Publicity?’ she said, wondering if other journalists were subjected to a similar interrogation. The Australian journalists who’d come on the committee’s invitation argued on Damayanti’s behalf. This mission, they said, would not have full credibility if there was no representation from the Indonesian media. The night before the ship sailed, Damayanti was told that she was the only representative of the Indonesian media accepted on the ship. She was jubilant. She knew the committee had sent away for her credentials, been reassured of her reputation for impartial reporting. She’d never suspected, however, that this would be the beginning of an identity crisis for her.
In Indonesia, some of the authorities believed that this group set out to embarrass their government internationally. Others thought they were just a damned nuisance and should be ignored. No one was pleased, at least not openly. When Damayanti phoned her editor for the usual last minute briefing, She discovered that the military commander in East Timor had warned Indonesians against taking part in that mission. ‘Any Indonesians taking part will be regarded as traitors, and will be treated as such,’ to be precise.
‘But I’m not taking part, I’m reporting,’ Damayanti reassured her editor, without further reflection.
Her editor laughed tartly adding, ‘And technically you’re not Indonesian. You’re Australian.’
‘So I am,’ she said softly, with an involuntary frown.
Her Indonesianness and Australianness might have become a critical issue, but it was one she didn’t have time to ponder at length. There was a ship to be boarded, stories to be collated, and more immediate still, essential luggage to be packed.
Then it hit her.
How would they treat a traitor? She shuddered and shook her head. Her purposeful gait, despite her backpack, did not betray her emotions. At the quay she greeted friends and acquaintances. Walking onto the shabby looking ship, Damayanti tried to dispel the bad omen in the comment of a young journalist at the quay. ‘Damayanti,’ the journalist had said, gripping her arm, ‘I just want to tell you this, I think you’re the bravest woman in the world!’ Damayanti had looked at him unblinking, her throat instantly drying, pulling away finally with a ‘Thank you’. It was ridiculous. They read too much into this. Tossing her head up, she noticed the sinister black clouds above. Suddenly she stopped, and the young student behind nearly bumped into her. Damayanti heard her mother’s warning from her teenage days in Jakarta, ‘Don’t go out, Yanti. Wait till the rain has come and gone.’ Her mother’d never explained why and Damayanti’d never asked, because she’d known it was one of her mother’s numerous superstitions. ‘Excuse me!’ The student began to push her along.
The rain started to pour, yet the crowd didn’t desert the quay or the deck. There was an evangelistic fervour in the wet and sweaty faces of these people. Damayanti was awed by their visible determination. She realised that she was driven by determination too. ‘I’m determined to cover the event, but they’re determined to register their protest to the Indonesian government,’ her eyes burnt from an unnamed emotion that overcame her momentarily. She walked on, past the door, to join the queue at the makeshift immigration bench, ready with her passport and her embarkation card.
I’ve left my laptop behind at the hotel in Darwin, because if we are allowed to land in East Timor, we are more likely than not, to be arrested. A laptop would be among the things confiscated first. If we are all arrested, I guess I, along with other Australian journalists, will be handed over to the Australian consular officials, who I hope will be there. If the authorities are politically au fait, they will let the group march to the cemetary and lay the wreath they have prepared for the event, then let them march back to the ship. However… Damayanti was jotting down some notes, sitting in the saloon, an area allotted for the media and invited guests, when a fellow journalist came to tell her that an immigration officer wanted to see her.
‘Me? What for?’
The journalist shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Your passport in order?’
‘Yeees,’ she answered, thinking. ‘Where’s he?’
‘She,’ the journalist pointed out to the deck.
Damayanti pulled her passport out of her bag and walked out. At this crucial stage, she didn’t want anything to prevent her from going. The uniformed woman studied her a moment.
‘We received a message from Canberra to warn you not to go on this voyage.’
‘Why?’ asked Damayanti.
‘We’ve been advised that any Indonesians on this voyage will have difficulty going back home.’
Damayanti took a deep breath to quell the choking sensation rising in her chest. She’d never had to deny her Indonesianness. She never wanted to.
‘I think the issue is any Indonesians who take part in the mission,’ she ventured. ‘I am a journalist. I am on this voyage in my professional capacity. I am not taking part in the mission.’
The woman looked her up and down. ‘Miss Damayanti, we are advised that any Indonesian at all on this voyage will be…’
Damayanti stopped her, ‘It’s alright.’ She held out her passport, ‘I’m Australian.’
The woman gaped, then looked pointedly at Damayanti’s passport. Opening it, She looked at the photograph then back at Damayanti. Without further ado, she returned the passport.
‘Obviously there has been a mistake,’ she apologised, and stepped purposefully towards the gang plank.
Damayanti dragged her feet towards the saloon, feeling heavy and deflated.
So it is real. I may be, or already have been, regarded as a traitor by the Indonesian authorities, she added to her notes. When her journalist friend asked her, she told him about the exchange with the immigration officer.
‘Shit,’ he said, studying her face.
She didn’t really want to dwell on it. She had work to do. There was a gathering on the quay and a speaker was addressing them from the deck. Outside listening, she was breathing in strong body odour mingled with the smell of rain. When the speaker had finished, she walked toward him to ask some questions. A woman about sixty, wearing a long white frock and wide-brimmed straw hat, rushed to the speaker and whispered something. The speaker looked up at Damayanti and nodded at the woman. As Damayanti approached, the woman turned and moved away, watching Damayanti out of the corner of her eye. The interview was strangely stilted. The speaker, despite his forthrightness in condemning the Indonesian government in his speech a few minutes earlier, became defensive and circumspect in answering Damayanti’s questions. The woman in white looked on from a distance.
The ship raised anchor. The rain had eased into a gentle, late afternoon shower, and the crowd moved closer to the water, their wet faces puffed with anticipation. After the last waves to the well-wishers on the quay, Damayanti walked around. Each time she approached a group in a lively discussion, the noise subsided to a hush, heavy with suspicion. She listened from a distance and recorded her impressions, writing her reports by hand, while other journalists and reporters were typing away or swearing at their non-functioning laptops.
Apart from media representatives, there were also Australian sympathisers of the East Timorese cause sitting in the saloon. She spotted the woman in white among them.
When dinner was ready, everyone filed into the cafetaria, queued to be served, then found a place to sit and eat. With her full plate in one hand and a drink in the other, Damayanti walked slowly looking for non-verbal invitations from groups to join them. The young participants avoided eye-contact with her, the odd older one looked somewhat preoccupied, and the invited guests sat in an exclusive huddle. Damayanti hesitated for a while before returning to sit with with her Australian journalist friends.
I feel more comfortable with the Australian journalists and the odd English reporter. The Portuguese journalists mainly talked among themselves and with the young participants. They seem to know the participants better than the others. In fact, there is easy camaraderie between these two groups.
Trying to remain impervious to the hostile vibes from the participants, Damayanti approached a young participant from the USA and began to ask him what he thought of the mission, and what it would do for the East Timorese cause. The young man looked tentative at first.
‘Are you going to report me to your government?’ he demanded brusquely.
Damayanti was taken aback. ‘I’m reporting, yes, but not to the Indonesian government, if that’s what you mean.’
‘Who to, then?’
Again, Damayanti had to suppress her annoyance, ‘To my newspaper. Who else? I am their Australian correspondent, so I send my reports to my employers.’
The young man looked suspiciously at her for a while, then his manner softened a little. ‘Are you really a journalist?’
Damayanti didn’t know whether to laugh or to be angry. ‘If I’m not a journalist, what am I?’ she asked.
‘Someone tells me you’re an Indonesian spy.’
Damayanti gasped, chuckled incredulously, then burst out laughing.
Back at the saloon, the woman in white came to sit near her. Damayanti received the woman’s cloyingly sweet smile with a straight face.
‘Hi, you’re Damayanti, aren’t you?’
Damayanti nodded and smiled back.
‘What are you writing?’
Damayanti looked at the woman. Another woman, wearing a thin cotton dress with Indian motifs, came and stood behind the woman in white, as if ready to back her up in any argument. Damayanti put her pen down and faced them. ‘Reports. I send reports. Every day. Many times a day.’
The women looked at each other meaningfully. ‘How d’you send these reports?’ the woman in white asked.
‘Fax. There’s one fax machine inside there. The journalists queue to use it. Some use the telephone.’
When the two women had moved away, an Australian journalist whispered to Damayanti, ‘That woman, the one in white, tells everyone you’re an Indonesian spy.’
Damayanti continued writing. ‘I know,’ she said, with a wry smile.
At night, walking past sleeping bodies lying higgledy piggledy on the floor, in the chairs and on the benches, Damayanti stepped out onto the deck and gazed into the darkness that enveloped the ship. Where was she? She was sure they’d left Australian waters. She was approaching Indonesia, her ibu pertiwi. Would this group be allowed into East Timor? Would they all be arrested? Would the authorities pick her, Damayanti out, because she was a traitor? How would they treat a traitor? Send her back immediately?
‘Damayanti,’ one of the committee members called, ‘you’re wanted on the phone. Captain’s cabin.’
‘Damayanti,’ the voice of a BBC broadcaster crackled into her ear, ‘you’re the only Indonesian on the ship, and we understand you’re regarded as a traitor by your government. How d’you feel?’
‘Is this an interview?’ asked Damayanti.
‘Yes, it’s being broadcast.’
‘I’m the only representative of the Indonesian media. And I’m here in my professional capacity. I believe the Indonesian government is sophisticated enough to tell the difference between a participant and a journalist covering the event…’
‘What will happen to you when you reach East Timor?’
‘Whatever happens to all the journalists will happen to me.’
She returned to the deck at the end of her brief interview, knowing her voice, with the authority of the ‘on the spot reporter’, would be carried throughout the world, Damayanti sat in the dark. So she was regarded as a traitor by the Indonesian authorities. Yet these people thought she was an Indonesian spy. Why did they have to single her out, for goodness’s sake? There were at least fifteen Australian journalists. Were they Australian spies? And the thirty odd Portuguese Journalists. Were they Portuguese spies? Were Indonesians unable to be professional and impartial?
On the third night the ship reached the Indonesian waters. The captain received a message from patrolling navy ship that he should stop and turn back the ship. The captain met the committee and passed on the message. An emergency meeting was called. Everyone gathered in the saloon. ‘We will not turn back,’ the meeting decided. No one went to sleep. Some fell from exhaustion, nonetheless. Those who were still awake went on deck. The captain’s cabin was full of journalists wanting to know what other messages he received. A senior journalist handed his binoculars to Damayanti. ‘Look there, and tell me what you see,’ he said. In the penumbra, several dots of lights appeared. When Damayanti looked harder, a frigate took shape. Her heart missed a beat. The senior journalist beckoned her to follow him to the other side of the ship. ‘Now look there,’ he said. Damayanti raised the binoculars to her eyes again. ‘Good grief, another frigate!’
Several of the Australian journalists began to joke about who they wanted to have on their lifeboats. ‘I’ll tie Damayanti to my wrist,’ said one. ‘No fear. They’ll shoot her first. She’s a traitor, remember?’ said another.
Damayanti smiled tartly and moved away. She had work to do. Ignoring the voices around her, she began to write on her notepad, 18.00. The ship is entering Indonesian waters. In the distance we can already see two frigates approaching. The word ‘traitor’ is increasingly used. My friends joke about it. I’m exhausted. I haven’t slept for two nights. It never occurred to me that Ibu Pertiwi would reject one of her children. Was I being naive or too idealistic?
Damayanti woke up choking and spluttering. She’d fallen asleep on the bench with her head hanging slightly backward. There were activities on the deck and in the media room, which was the corridor connecting the saloon and the toilet block. Then she looked out on to the sea. Darkness was broken by the sinister shape of a frigate, sailing alongside their own dwarfed ship. ‘Oh my God,’ Damayanti whispered, awed by the closeness of the warship. She was even able to make out the people on the deck, seemingly looking at her. Were they all in uniform? Too dark to see. Damayanti staggered to the other side of the ship and saw what she’d expected to see. The other frigate.
‘Let me use the phone,’ Damayanti pushed in, ‘I’ll ask my colleagues in Jakarta what’s happening.’
‘The captain’s received two more warnings,’ a journalist told her.
‘I bet he has,’ Damayanti picked up the phone, ignoring the queue. A Portuguese radio journalist was yelling into his handphone, giving a progress report.
‘Sorry to wake you up, Bambang, but I need to know. We’re flanked by two frigates. The captain’s been warned three times. What’re they going to do if we go on?’
‘They’ll shoot a blank, twice. Then if you go on…’ Bambang’s voice was drowned by the Portuguese journalist’s behind her.
‘Tell him to shut up! Sorry Bambang, if we go on, what?’
‘They’ll shoot the ship’s stern…’ Bambang’s voice was drowned again.
‘For goodness’ sake! Shut up! Bambang, please repeat it, they’ll shoot the ship’s…. Bambang! Bambang! Shit, it’s cut off!’ Damayanti threw the receiver down and walked out in a rage. At the foot of the stairs she bumped into one of the committee members.
‘Tell the others, if we go on, they’ll shoot us,’ she yelled to him.
‘Impossible. This voyage is watched by the whole world. We’ve sent a fax to a UN representative…’
‘Have you received an answer?’ asked Damayanti.
‘No,’ he replied, glumly.
‘Well…’ Damayanti walked off.
An emergency meeting was called. Most of the journalists openly declared they were not into cheap heroism. One of the participants lashed out, ‘You’re a bunch of cowards! Where’s your commitment to the cause?’ ‘You can’t do anything if you’re dead!’ a journalist replied.
The widening gap between the Portuguese and non-Portuguese journalists became final at this point, with the Portuguese clearly supporting the cause.
Unexpectedly, a Portuguese journalist stood up, ‘I’m here as a professional journalist. I believe as a journalist reporting I shouldn’t be committed to the cause, if I want my report to be credible. You’re probably too emotional to see that you’re unnecessarily endangering other people’s lives…’
‘We’re all risking our lives!’ cried a participant.
An Australian journalist spoke up, ‘If you want to throw your life away, it’s your prerogative. But before we sailed, the committee had given their word that if there was any perceived danger in entering Indonesian waters, we would turn back.’ Turning to the committee, he went on, ‘What d’you say?’
At this point, the captain stood up. ‘I’m the skipper of a merchant ship, not the captain of a warship. I also demand the committee to stand by their word,’ he said.
A solemn ceremony was conducted on the ship’s stern, watched by the two frigates and a helicopter, then the ship turned and headed back towards Darwin.
As the two frigates moved further away, a young participant, barely seventeen, was crying in bitter disappointment. Damayanti put her arm round her shoulders, comforting her. ‘You’ve done what you can,’ Damayanti whispered. The young participant looked at her defiantly. ‘Why wouldn’t they let us go there? Why?’ Damayanti blinked. She would explain, but would this young girl understand? Besides, wasn’t Damayanti a spy for the government she was angry with? When the glares of the other participants became too hot for her, she slowly walked back to the saloon.
Damayanti arrived back safely on Australian soil and for days on end her ‘wet’ reports had been cover story of her newspaper, and quoted by several others. Independently of her professional achievement, Damayanti underwent a subtle change. She became a lot more sensitive towards comments from her fellow Australians. Comments that implied that she was not Australian. ‘Your government denies the allegations,’ ‘You lot should learn to respect human rights,’ ‘The labour situation in your country leaves a lot to be desired,’ increasingly sounded patronising and self-righteous. And she kept looking for excuses to go to Jakarta, all the time denying that there was a growing urge inside her to know that she was still accepted in Indonesia.
Damayanti wasn’t looking as the plane began to descend, ignoring the contours of the north coast of Java was visible below. She felt nauseous. Her travelling companions looked out the window in anticipation, but she stared straight ahead, suppressing a nameless fear. When all the passengers had left, she rose slowly, picking up her cabin bag. Her footsteps sounded lonely, swallowed immediately by the general noise around her. The friendly faces of the ground crew failed to reassure her. She walked on, to the immigration checkpoint.
The immigration officer took her passport and disembarkation card. He looked at the photograph, looked up, then at the screen in front of him. Damayanti’s heart stopped beating.
‘You are the Australian correspondent of Masa?’
Her travel documents did not have that information. Damayanti nodded, nonetheless.
‘You are not allowed to enter the country, Ibu Damayanti,’ the officer said.
‘How d’you know?’ asked Damayanti recklessly.
‘It says here. Instructions from Security.’
‘But why?’
‘We only follow orders at this level. Don’t you know?’
‘No. But I have a question for you,’ Damayanti asked, ‘Can Ibu Pertiwi reject her children?’
The official looked up with an embarrased smile. He made a move to answer, but Damayanti had turned away.
Dewi Anggraeni is a Melbourne-based novelist and journalist. Her most recent book is Who Did This To Our Bali? (2003)
Website: http://www.spinifexpress.com.au
From: Motherlode
Eds. Stephanie Holt and Maryanne Lynch
pp 165-172