THE FORGOTTEN WOMEN OF WAR

Celebrating the Combat Cooks     

                                    

Blurred monochrome photos of the Indonesian Revolution generally show training and fighting, meetings, celebrations, speeches, thrusting fists and strident banners. 

Peer closer.  What’s missing?

Women.

Were they all subservient homebodies while the gallant guys were out defending the new nation?  Did females have no role during the four-year fight from the 1945 Proclamation to the 1949 withdrawal of the Dutch after two failed ‘police actions’ to recover their colony?

The truth is women played a major part but historians have overlooked their importance.

“Journalists have not been interested in my story,” said Moeljati, 85, a former member of the Laskar Putri (Women’s Army) in Surakarta, also known as Solo. She is one of five surviving veterans in the Central Java city.

“It seems that everyone has paid attention to the men and ignored us even though hundreds volunteered.  We also served.

“I was still in school when I heard broadcasts by Bung (brother) Tomo that fired my spirit so much that I was determined to help kick out the Dutch.  I didn’t hate them as individuals but I did hate what they were doing to my country.

“My main job was to go around shops, farms and houses collecting rice, sugar and other foods for the jungle kitchens that supplied the fighters.  People gave willingly.”

Bung Tomo (Soetomo) was a revolutionary firebrand known for his emotional oratory on Radio Pembarontakan (Radio Rebellion) though Moeljati recalls it as Radio Tunggal (Radio One and Only).

Veterans’ homes are often shrines to the turbulent years of fighting for independence. But there are no medals on the walls of Moeljati’s house or awards on the cupboard and only a few faded documents and pictures in a file.

One is of her former colleague in the kitchens, Siti Hartinah. In 1947 she married a lieutenant-colonel called Soeharto who later become second president.  Siti, known as Ibu Tien, died in 1996 aged 72. Many Laskar Putri wed soldiers after the war according to Moeljati though she claimed they had little interest in romance while serving.

“I was among the smallest and youngest of the volunteers,” she said.  “There was no conflict among us whatever our age, background or religion. I suppose we were also looking for adventure.

“The men treated us with respect. We worked together like members of one family with a clear goal – to defeat the Dutch.  Nothing else mattered.

“We didn’t get paid or have proper uniforms, just a red and white arm badge which we sewed ourselves along with shirts and trousers often made from sacking.

“We had parades every day and I was shown how to use rifles and revolvers.  I scored top marks for shooting.  I never fired at any Dutch soldiers – most were in tanks (probably armored vehicles) and when they came we hid.  Would I have tried to kill?  Mmm.  Maybe.”

Towards the end of her life Soeharto’s wife was dubbed Ibu Ten Per Cent for allegedly creaming government contracts, but for the Laskar Putri there are no bad words: “She did not forget us and gave us houses and our children scholarships when she became First Lady,” said Moeljati.

Her friend Suwarti, 87, joined up because she wanted to be in the front line.  Instead she was made a reservist and first-aid nurse treating guerrillas returning to hideouts after sorties against Dutch troops.

“We expected our camps to be attacked but that never happened,” she said.  “I also worked filling sandbags for defence.  Some women ran messages tucked in their sarongs because the Dutch did not suspect them.

In 1989 a memorial was built in Solo recognizing 114 women who served, though the number is believed to be much greater.  The monolith needs a makeover; names are dropping off and the surrounds are cracking.

A photo from around 1946 shows women apparently marching with mock weapons, though Moeljati says she remembers an abundance of abandoned Japanese arms available which they called gun-gun.

The two women said they regretted the revolutionary fire had gone out and that the modern generation seemed not to know the sacrifices made to create the Republic.  After the Dutch abandoned their lost cause Moeljati became a maths teacher and Suwarti a doctor’s assistant.

Last year a local hotel invited the veterans to a talk show on Kartini Day. They get involved in arisan (women’s welfare club) and take a lively interest in current affairs.

They were scathing about corruptors – “betrayers of the nation and cowards,” said Suwarti.  Both women stressed that they were just humble individuals who had obeyed a call to service and proud they had done something to help build their country.

“Don’t call us heroes,” said Suwarti, “we’re not dead yet.”

Neglect

While researching for his book Surabaya 1945: Sacred Territory Australian historian Dr Frank Palmos found that British and Dutch commanders could not understand how the revolutionaries got food and water to keep fighting.

“The heroine behind the scenes was a 42-year-old East Javanese woman known throughout Surabaya as Dar Mortir (real name Darijah Soerodikoesoemo),” he said.

“With scores of female helpers she successfully created 51 combat kitchens to support the independence fighters, starting out in a small way by creating her first kitchen during the first major clash against the British-Indian forces between 27 and 30 October. 

“Bu Mortir’s role in the revolution was forgotten for 30 years until a chance finding of a manuscript she dictated to her nephew in 1972 was discovered in the underground archives of the Tugu Heroes’ Museum in Surabaya … but left unread, in the vaults until 2015.”

Palmos has translated the 11,000-word text into English with local writer Johannes Nugroho handling Javanese phrases.  Palmos plans to present a copy of Ibu Dar Mortir: Combat Queen to Surabaya Mayor Tri Rismaharini next month [may].

(First published in The Jakarta Post 2 May 2017)

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STARK REALISM FROM A GENTLE ARTIST

Not a monochrome artist

    

                                       

If your art tastes need spicing with enigmas, curiosities, contradictions, challenges and puzzles – don’t go looking for realism, like that created by Solo painter Herri Soedjarwanto.

His portraits of cherubic people look more like touched-up photographs, which is one of the criticisms flung at the medium by those who prefer their art to be abstract.

Soedjarwanto was a leading student of Dullah, Indonesia’s so-called King of Realism, a palace favorite when Soekarno ruled.  He finished some of Dullah’s works after the old man died of a heart attack in 1996. 

They include a stirring crowd scene featuring the first president meeting the people under a canopy of billowing red and white flags – a nationalist’s fantasy.

However if you think such paintings are too unsubtle, romantic and triumphantly jingoistic and prefer raw commentary, then you need an artist like Herri Soedjarwanto.

“People can have more than one personality,” he said in his crowded Solo studio where he’s been for the past 20 years, surrounded by canvases from floor to ceiling.

 “Some paintings I create for clients are realistic. Like these Balinese couples in traditional dress just after their wedding – but my other work comes from the heart.”

And what a troubled organ – or so it seems.  In one large canvas a phantom image of Soekarno weeps over a tortured landscape of poverty, misery and chaos.  All the Proclamator’s dreams for a prosperous and happy nation destroyed by greed, intolerance and corruption.

Then there’s a pastoral of second president Soeharto, shirt open, sleeves rolled up, holding a sheaf of rice.  He presides at the head of a table laden with plump farm produce held by sturdy farmers.  Even the beasts look fan-struck.

The jolly father figure who held the top job for 32 years sits surrounded by chubby children and  contented citizens in a pastoral landscape of fecund prosperity, though one hardly-noticed figure on the left edge has turned his back and is walking away like an unwelcome guest. Democracy?  No-one is saying.

The work is Pak Harto si Anak Desa [Soeharto the Villager]; it hangs in the East Jakarta Museum Purna Bhakti Pertiwi, which celebrates the life and rule of the second president.

Soedjarwanto said the artwork was bought for Rp 40 million [US$ 3,000] by Soeharto’s late cousin Sudwikatmono and donated to the museum, clearly considering it a tribute to his relative.

But the painting has also been used on the cover of Illiberal Democracy in Indonesia by Australian academic Dr David Bourchier and published this year.

The book is certainly not a eulogy for the late leader now widely regarded as a corrupt despot whose rule crushed dissent, criticism and artistic endeavor.  Swap Soeharto’s face for Jesus Christ and the painting could grace the wall of an evangelical or charismatic church more concerned with praise than purpose.

“It’s up to others to decide what the picture means,” said Soedjarwanto.  “I leave it for you to judge.  You think it a parody? OK.”

But it’s clear the artist, who wears a revolutionary’s beret, is no lover of the general who overthrew his hero.  One of the largest realistic paintings in his studio shows a younger Soekarno with Fatmawati, the second of his nine wives. That’s not for sale.

Other works are either benign portraits of beautiful people and professionally executed with every hair and dimple in place, or ghastly visions of Armageddon. 

Although Soedjarwanto and his Chinese wife Meilina are Muslims, some of his work has a Biblical doomsday feel.  Urban capitalism stands in a cloudscape underpinned by spindly poles held upright by starving masses. When it all totters – cometh the Apocalypse.

The nearest old master would be Hieronymus Bosch, the 15^th century Dutch painter of mass scenes of misery.  However Soedjarwanto insists his hero is really the abstract artist Pablo Picasso [with whom he shares a birthday – 25 October] though the Indonesian hasn’t embraced the Cubism of the Spaniard’s later period.

Soedjarwanto’s formal training in art was with Dullah but his talents were on display while still a teen when he made a living drawing comics.  Although based on Javanese real and mythical heroes they follow the American style of dramatic close-ups, stark sentences and dynamic action.

The lines are clear and proportional, the techniques so polished and professional they look as though they’ve come from a veteran in a commercial art studio.  Clearly the man has an exceptional talent with brush and pen.  

Sometimes he runs classes, but he’s probably a tough teacher.  Any pupil measuring their natural ability against his would be found wanting.

“Like Picasso I try to be multi-purpose,” he said.  “If I’m feeling good I paint realistic portraits, but when I’ve become depressed with the news I have to get rid of my feelings through art.

“I get my ideas through the news and street talk.  I know what concerns the people. They don’t feature in newspapers like politicians but they still have strong opinions which they are not afraid to share.”

No pictures involving the present President?  “Not yet. I’m waiting for his leadership and actions to reach me.”

One particularly savage piece has Justice as a male lawyer with a torn blindfold stabbing a knife through shattered scales – a response to alleged judicial scandals.

Soedjarwanto tried to explain the contradictions: “For me, painting is a communication tool. In the daily round should I limit myself to talk about one thing only - beautiful girls, splendid mountains or concentrate on poverty?

“No! Every day I talk about everything from the trivial to the serious, about feeling happy through to ugliness, suffering and injustice.  That’s what my art reflects – everything.  It’s like a diary that records my emotions

“I know this confuses buyers who like to collect portraits or landscapes and need a consistent supply.  They want me to specialize.  Never mind; I won’t be intimidated to trot after their ideas.  I just want to be honest and follow my conscience, wherever it goes.”

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(First published in The Jakarta Post 9 February 2016)