Date: Sun, 15 Sep 1996 23:51:26 -0800
Subject: Re: postcolonial theorising about Indonesia



I'm not sure if "ALL (emphasis mine) postcolonial theorising about
Indonesia", as Dr Talib has so emphatically supposed (rather proposed),
"SHOULD BEGIN (emphasis mine) with Benedict Anderson" and his
"Indonesianism." My scepticism is not certainly intended to undermine the
prospects of Andersonian perspectives, nor is it meant to preclude the
possibilty of examining the "Indonesianism" of Anderson, who, in Mr Talib's
words, is "an Indonesianist" (and therefore, we should begin with him?).
What, however, really troubles me is the way in which a formula-like
recommendation tends to amount to an unqualified privileging and
monolithicizing of a particular kind of discourse in a field where other
useful discourses are also in a dynamic process of negotiating their
theoretical spaces. I'm also reminded of someone telling me once that all
postcolonial theorising about the "Orient" should begin with Said. Well,
again, I don't mean to pooh-pooh Said's discourse, but what I resist is
that very programmatic mode of freezing-and-fixing discourses--a mode which
sometimes certainly well serves elitist academic politics in the metropolis
and elsewhere.

As for postcolonial theorising about Indonesia, I think one way (among many
others) of doing it is to take into account creative writings and other
discourses emanating from Indonesia itself. I feel tempted to refer to
Chairil Anwar, a poet associated with the famous "Angkatan 45"--a poet,
some of whose prose-works powerfully engage the postcoloniality of
Indonesian experiences (see, for example, _Complete Poetry and Prose of
Chairil Anwar_, ed. and tr. B. Raffel, 1970). Anwar's committed,
anti-romantic engagement with language itself--"bahasa
indonesia"--initiates its own anti-Dutch, anti-imperial, anti-colonial, and
postcolonial moment(s) which can certainly have its/their place(s) in one's
postcolonial theorising about Indonesia (probably the works of Asrul Sani
and Rivai Apin are also somewhat useful). Understandably, these writers are
not "theorists" in the way that Anderson is one; but their (Anwar et al)
writings, I feel, can considerably facilitate one's postcolonial theorising
about Indonesia. Regards.







Azfar

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AZFAR HUSSAIN
Department of English
Washington State University
Pullman, Washington 99164-5020

Phones: 509-332-4405 (home)
        509-335-1803 (work)
E-mail: azfar-AT-wsu.edu
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