STAMFORD RAFFLES - A NEW APPRAISAL

The man who loved Java                                         

On 2 February 1824, Sir Stamford Raffles, his sick wife Sophia and their son Charles left Bengkulu (then known as Bencoolen) on board the Fame.  They had been waiting months for a passage to Britain and had booked on another ship, the Borneo.

Then the Fame arrived and the impatient family’s goods were transferred. The former Lieutenant Governor of Java thought this was one of the happiest days of his life.  He wrote presciently: ‘We were, perhaps, too happy.’

That evening a steward ignorant of chemistry went into the hold to uncork a brandy cask.  He was carrying a candle. Also on board was a load of saltpetre, an essential ingredient in gunpowder.

The ship was about 50 miles off the coast of Sumatra.  All made the boats before the Fame was ripped apart, but the story doesn’t have a happy ending.

Also in the hold was what Raffles described as  ‘the cream and best of everything I had collected learnt and attained.’ 

According to Victoria Glendinning’s Raffles and the Golden Opportunity the collection included 300 bound volumes and many unbound, shadow puppets and craft, even a gamelan orchestra. 

All Raffles’ notes, maps, drawings, plants and stuffed animals were also lost. Fortunately his History of Java had already been published.

The value (in today’s currency) was US$4 million, but the loss to Indonesian history and appreciation of the archipelago was immense.  Raffles collected ‘for cultural propaganda to prove back in England that Java had been, and could be again, a great and civilised country’.

Lesser men would have dissolved in despair.  The family was already grieving from the earlier death of yet another child, and the Fame fire would have suggested a curse. But Raffles set about drawing the map of Sumatra that had been lost with the ship to the admiration of Sophia.

When he eventually managed to sail Raffles wrote: ‘Perhaps I was too much attached to the things of this world. The lot of man is a mixture of good and evil, and we must be content with it – and at all events we know that all worketh for good in the end.’ 

Are these the words of a devious wrongdoer?  Raffles was admired, but also mauled by critics during his brief lifetime – he died aged 45 of a brain seizure.  Many were driven by jealousy of a former clerk with limited education and contacts who became a star administrator and founder of Singapore.

It didn’t help that he was English, small, had no military experience, was a faithful lover, keenly interested in other cultures and the environment, and ‘physically fragile’ – hardly the sort of man who’d appeal to the Scottish and Irish warriors subservient to his civilian rule. 

The British invaded Java in 1811 during the Napoleonic Wars and held the Dutch colonies till 1816. 

Raffles and his boss Lord Minto understood their interregnum would be brief should peace break out in Europe.  Reforms had to be swift. ‘While we are here let us do as much good as we can,’ he said.

The new Lieutenant Governor agreed. His motives were not religious – he had little time for missionaries and was ‘vituperative’ about the Dutch administration. Raffles set up a committee with the instructions to ‘consider the inhabitants without reference to bare mercantile profits.’ 

Comments Glendinning: ‘But the relationship between the common good and the profit-making purpose of the (East India) Company answerable to shareholders, was uncomfortable.’

Raffles’ committee recommended the abolition of ‘all kinds of servitude’ and a major shake-up of the taxation system. He ‘sought to promote the value and beauty of the indigenous culture and its pre-Islamic Hindu heritage’. 

Once the bloody work had been done and the Dutch suppressed, Raffles set about his benign dictatorship. 

In this biography he comes across as a free trader, a visionary reformer ahead of his time who loved Java and its people, particularly villagers, supporting them against claims of indolence. Inevitably he attracted haters.

But they were up against Raffles’ determined widow Sophia, his second wife.  His first, Olivia, famous for reversing the Dutch policy of excluding Eurasian wives from functions, died in 1814. Sophia bore Raffles five children but only one survived to adulthood and then died unmarried.

Sophia wrote a biography of her husband celebrating his public service.  Yet Raffles died in debt to the East India Company, undermining his detractors’ allegations of corruption.

This is Glendinning’s eighth biography, written in her early 70s. She writes with clarity, impartiality and controlled enthusiasm.

There have been many biographies of Raffles, some hagiographic. This isn’t, but that doesn’t mean it’s hostile.  ‘Raffles’ story, in a work of fiction, would strain credulity,’ she writes.  ‘His good fortune and his ill fortune were both of an extreme kind.  He became the entrepreneur of his own ideals and an utopian imperialist.’ 

She described writing the biography as ‘an act of concentration in both senses. There are a great many strange characters churning around in this book, and a great many clamouring outside it.’ 

So she’s set up a website www.rafflesbook.co.uk including titbits, links and an events diary celebrating the life of an extraordinary Englishman, famous for founding Singapore, but fascinated by Java, an island he served briefly – but well.

Raffles and the Golden Opportunity

Victoria Glendinning

Profile Books 2012

350 pages

##

SURYO WARDHOYO PRAWIROATMODJO

Farewell Indonesia’s Green Renaissance Man    

                     

Here’s proof that attitudes and values can change faster than we think, and that citizens have the ability to wake interest when governments yawn.

Not too long ago conservationists were considered siblings to communists, dangerous even when just respectfully suggesting that caring for the environment might be smart.

That was the situation when Suryo Wardhoyo Prawiroatmodjo first proposed building a rural centre to promote sustainable organic agriculture and teach the benefits of nurturing nature.

Radical?  Hardly, but this was during Orde Baru (New Order) days when ideas that didn’t flow from Soeharto’s presidential palace were considered subversive.

However the credentials of the young and physically small veterinary surgeon from the Surabaya zoo were above reproach.  The son of a high-standing Javanese family educated at the prestigious Airlangga University, Suryo might have some whacky notions about trees, but there was no hammer and sickle in his kitbag.

His interest in animals and plants came from an aunt who owned a plantation, loved the outdoors and developed her nephew’s understanding of the interconnectedness of nature.

True, he was a member of the Green Indonesia Foundation. He’d been overseas studying wildlife management at the University of Western Virginia and conservation education in Britain, but unlikely to stir the masses.

So in 1988, with no red taint detected in his green credentials Suryo was allowed to set up Indonesia’s first environmental education centre at Trawas, in the hills above the steaming floodplains of north East Java using foreign funds.

Even by the mid 1990s few  tourism officials had heard of Seloliman.  But it was well known among hundreds of international  backpackers who followed instructions in the Lonely Planet travel guide to make their pilgrimage using bemo (minibuses) and ojek  (motorbike taxis) up winding tracks.

Communication was chancy and visitors had to hope accommodation might be available.  This could be a simple cottage with an open-roof bathroom set in rows of vegetables alongside bamboo classrooms.

Europeans loved the experience and ambience, but it took a few years before Indonesians felt comfortable and schools ready to bring students to stay and learn by getting their hands dirty and lose their fears in the forest.

By then Suryo was well known internationally.  In 1990 he had won awards in Geneva, Washington DC and Rio de Janeiro.  It took a further five years before his achievements were recognized in Jakarta with a medal for ‘participation in development’. 

About this time Suryo fell out with the committee running Seloliman over principles of management. He also became seriously ill with the incurable Crohn’s Disease, a rare and debilitating bowel condition, ironically often linked to environmental factors, but in his case more likely genetic. 

Buddhist architect and philanthropist Bagoes Brotodiwirjo paid for Suryo to get surgery in Singapore that included removal of much of his gut.  Back in East Java his movements were restricted by excessive tiredness, dietary needs and toilet proximity.

Despite these handicaps he turned to running seminars and travelling across the archipelago setting up environment education centres in South Sulawesi, Bali, Kalimantan and West Papua backed by the World Wildlife Fund.

Like many pioneers he was better celebrated overseas than in his homeland, lecturing in Thailand, drawing teachers and senior students from across the world to his workshops in the East Java wilderness.

At these he urged young people to hearken to the elders and appreciate ancient wisdom. He created puppets and games based on traditional tales, believing the past had much to teach the present. 

“I want to give confidence to the villagers, tell them that what they’ve been doing is a treasure from our ancestors,” he said.  “We need to love Mother Earth for sustainable humanity.”

He was quietly persuasive, not strident, and this seemed to calm sceptics.  It certainly opened the wallets of foreign aid agencies.

Academically sound he never used his education to stand aloof.  The functions he organised always included farmers and professors, faith leaders and bureaucrats.

Suryo had little time for modern mainstream religious practices and was a student of the 14^th century Majapahit empire that once ruled much of Southeast Asia from its East Java heart. Not because of its military and trade triumphs, but because it worked with – and not against - nature.

Mt Penanggungan from Suryo's house

He loved the 13^th century Panji stories of wandering royals, which originated in East Java, spread up to Burma and are entrenched in wayang (shadow puppets).

Suryo built a modest multi-level cottage with his partner Anton Ayungga in the village of Tamiajeng that matched his outlook, gazing across green paddy to dark Mount Penanggungan.

This is the dormant volcano magically transported from India to Indonesia to become the mother mountain of Java’s Hindu and Buddhist religions. Its slopes are an archaeologists’ heaven with about 100 known sites, including temple remains.

Sadly Suryo was not in his beloved home entertaining friends with food cooked to ancient recipes served in Majapahit-style pottery when he died this week (wed 8 May) in a Jakarta hospital following a relapse. 

He was aged 57 and was Indonesia’s Renaissance Man, drawing knowledge from every culture, every land, and full of wonder at everything.  As a teacher he had the ability to infect others with his enthusiasm and awe.

Suryo’s story is proof that the individual can make a difference, even when confronted by a suspicious state. Publicly he was always optimistic, but privately he regretted that Indonesia was slow to realise that destruction of the environment and waterway pollution was a serious problem impacting on all citizens and their future.

His ashes will be scattered at Candi (temple) Kendalisodo on Mount Penanggungan.

“Suryo was an environmental agitator, a pioneer and a hero,” said Jakarta environment lecturer Stien Matakupan who along with hundreds of teachers here and abroad is helping spread his philosophy of care for the land to future generations.

“His spirit, his inspiration will stay with us.” 

(First published in The Jakarta Post 16 May 2013)

##

THE FINE POLICE OF INDONESIA

In praise of Bali’s corrupt cops

It’s not often you read a story complimenting Bali’s sticky-fingered law enforcers, particularly after their exposure by Dutch entrapment artist Van Der Spek.

He’s the bareheaded bikie who You-Tubed a traffic policeman taking a bribe to waive the ticket. It’s an arresting video.

Anyway, here’s my cautionary tale. 

Some time ago in Kuta we needed rupiah. Then, as now, there was no shortage of moneychangers along Jl Legian offering juicy rates, far sweeter than those posted at banks and hotels.

Keen to ‘maximise returns on investments’ as bankers say (aka ‘greedy’) we chose the top offer in town.  What did it matter that the rate ended in an odd number and the bank was a dirty desk in an unlit corner of an overstocked clothing and artefact store?

Of course I knew of caveat emptor, but I was one big Westerner who’d studied maths at uni and was armed with a real calculator.  No little local with a doctored abacus was going to outsmart me.

The friendly shopkeeper apologised for his lack of large denomination notes, but, he chuckled, five, ten and 20 thousand rupiah notes were legal tender, even though well worn and confusing to outsiders. Of course. Ha, ha.

I laid down $500 in traveler’s cheques to one side of the counter.  A curious assistant sauntered across to watch his colleague and make small talk.  “Where was I from and how much did I pay for the camera?” Nice fellow.

The suckers enjoyed the chat and watched the piles of notes grow, get resorted, moved and double counted.  Handshakes all round.  Receipts?  Not necessary

Back in the hotel we were hit by reality and a Rp 600,000 shortfall.  The righteous receptionist said I should have used their service and ridiculed requests to call the police.

“They won’t come,” she said.  But they did in minutes, five young muscle men in casual clothes, pistols in belts, and a jeep.

They drove us back to the shop.  The moneychanger denied knowledge.  One cop walked round the counter and started ransacking the desk. Another barged his way into the back room. 

Their mates started manhandling stock.  Roughly. Very roughly. Soon fragile goods would tumble off shelves, clothes would rip, artwork shatter. Customers fled.  The staff blanched.

It seemed the confrontation would turn violent. Maybe getting our money back wasn’t such a good idea.  The scene was like a movie about the prohibition era with American cops raiding a sly grog shop.

If the police were trying to make an impression on a greenhorn foreigner then they were doing a splendid job.

Our cheques were found. One officer tapped the cheat’s chest and invited a refund.  Rp 200,000 was offered.  Clumsy cops started bumping into the furniture.  A further Rp 200,000 appeared.  Belts were hitched and sidearms adjusted.  The rest of the money jumped onto the desk.

Back in the jeep I congratulated the cops and told them that in my country the police would have just taken statements. They’d need search warrants.  Lawyers would get involved.  Should charges be laid the case would take months to reach court.

The chances of the artless dodger getting more than a warning and me my cash would be slight.  But here in Indonesia a fraud had been fixed in a flash and the criminal given one hell of a fright.  Instant justice – brilliant!

Happy to help, said the sergeant, all part of the service. Just one small issue – there’s another difference between Australian and Indonesian police; we locals are badly paid.

I rapidly reckoned Rp 100,000 split between five men was a fair price, and an appropriate penalty for my own stupidity.

Corruption?  Technically, yes. Effective?  Absolutely.  Qualms? A few and evaporating.

Back in Bali this year I tried a different shop to see if the scam was still alive.  Sorry, Pak, only small notes available. My friend just likes watching and chatting. You’re right, the light needs fixing. Cute camera, what did you pay? Now how much do you want? 

So nothing changes - and thanks to Van Der Spek we know the police are still accommodating.   

(First published in The Sunday Post 28 April 2013)

##

CHRISTCHURCH - THE CITY THAT WON'T LIE DOWN

Look  –  we’re still here       

                   

The colors of Christchurch are luminous orange and shrieking yellow, the hues of wrecking crews’ high-viz vests and helmets. The sounds are power chisels and screaming saws slicing concrete.  The smell is dust, painting the green weeds gray as they push through cracked sidewalks proving that life persists.

On 22 February 2011 the largest city in New Zealand’s South Island and a major tourist attraction as the most English town outside Britain, was hit by a 6.3 magnitude earthquake.

It wasn’t the first.   Five months earlier a 7.1 magnitude shake caused damage but no fatalities.  But the second more shallow shock hit the heart of the city killing 185 and injuring almost 2,000.

More than half the fatalities were in one six-storey building that included a language school.  The victims came from 20 countries (though not Indonesia) and included tourists and students, most from from Japan and China.

In the following months 4,000 lesser shocks kept survivors on edge, delaying repairs. The earth seems to have stopped quivering and the NZ$ 15 billion rebuild is getting underway, cautiously.

“Slowly” is the standard response from locals when asked how they are coping. There is anger and bitterness, but this is largely reserved for cumbersome bureaucracy -  more frustration with human frailty than fury at nature’s brutality.  The Earthquake Commission which compensates homeowners has around 100,000 claimants.

Casual visitors don’t encounter these emotions, but a stoical cheerfulness as survivors work to reassemble their lives and make Christchurch splendid again.

One day it may regain its title as the garden city but the new Christchurch won’t be the showplace of neo-gothic architecture that attracted millions. Nineteenth century stone built churches with towers and spires crumbled and crashed as the restless earth punched hard.  

Catolic Basilica - before and after

The city’s centrepiece, the Anglican Cathedral fronting the town square was so cruelly crippled demolition was ordered.

This is now on hold as traditionalists claiming a rebuild is possible take legal action.  In the meantime a new cathedral made of cardboard and designed by a Japanese architect Shigeru Ban is rising in Latimer Square opposite a fence festooned with fading photographs and wilting flowers.

This was the site of the Canterbury TV building which pancaked and then caught fire, killing 115.  An inquiry has heard allegations of poor engineering causing great angst in a country that long claimed to be quake-ready, lying on the same Ring of Fire that embraces Indonesia.

But Christchurch, squatting on a flat sandy plain was always regarded as the city least likely to be thumped.  Scientists believed the prime target was the hilly capital Wellington built on three known faults.

When the quakes struck a new word entered the public lexicon – liquefaction, where the vibrating soil turns into quicksand sucking down vehicles and undermining buildings.

So is the city ready for tourism, once its mainstay?  The answer is a cautious ‘yes’, though not for the reasons that originally drew crowds.

Christchurch is the place to witness a city in transition, celebrating creativity, initiative and resilience. It’s not a bounce back but a clamber out of the rubble, proof that the human spirit triumphs.

A sign widely seen reads: ‘Our building has gone, but we’re still here’.

Rising up - the cardboard cathedral

In the weeks after the quake raw-nerve residents were angered by ‘disaster tourists’ drawn to gape, or ‘rubberneck’ as they say locally.  That emotion has passed and sightseers are now welcome. 

Hotel ‘No Vacancy’ neons flash that the economy is recovering; many rooms are occupied by contractors and tradespeople drawn by work, but tourists are returning. Seven international airlines still fly into Christchurch.

There’s no risk in strolling the streets with a camera snapping the misfortune of others who now find it cathartic to answer visitors’ questions about the tragedy and chat about their hopes.  There are even scheduled bus tours of the Red Zone, the cordoned-off epicenter of the quake.

Disputes about insurance payouts and whether repairs are possible means many dramatically damaged buildings still stand.  The renaissance-style Catholic Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament known as the basilica is a striking example.  In the foreground a billboard reminds of the before, the reality behind is of the after.

The Quake City exhibition, billed as ‘a unique multi-sensory attraction aimed at informing, engaging and educating New Zealanders and international tourists about the Canterbury earthquakes’ draws crowds. 

Among the souvenir pictures of the quake on sale at the exhibition are copies of a book critical of insurance responses.  It’s as though everyone is determined not to hide the hurt while praising the heroism and remembering the miracle escapes.

Thousands have fled to other parts of NZ or Australia and the knock-on impact has been severe.  Low enrolment schools have shut or merged, factories relocated, businesses closed as patronage shrinks.   Before the shocks 377,000 lived in Christchurch – a post quake census has yet to be released.

The stayers determined to succeed.  Their attitudes aren’t forced or false, just statements of clear intent.  Shake us, bash us, but our roots are here. We’ll not be cowed.  Come and see what we’re doing.  

Quake City is alongside the Container Mall, shops, banks and offices cleverly constructed out of shipping containers, while others have been stacked to prop up buildings.  Nearby teenage girls dance on a low stage inviting passers-by to join them and express their joy of being alive.

Yet it’s easy to cry in Christchurch. It was such a quaint and placid city, its vast, almost medieval square drawing performers, exhibits, citizens and visitors to wander, chat and share.  Those days have gone. 

In their place big street displays show plans for the future and invite public comment. Opportunities to make the city special and different, rather than just restore, are constantly stressed. Architects and planners are letting their imaginations loose.

The quake savaged randomly, clawing beachside suburbs, only stroking those in the west.  Drive down an avenue of apparently intact homes smiling in normality, turn the corner and hit a roadblock, gaps in the dentures, portable toilets kerbside while sewers are fixed by hard hats wielding jackhammers.

On some cleared sites remnants of a tiled floor, painted car park space, doorsteps leading nowhere remind that people lived, loved and worked here.  Nowhere is this more poignant than in local artist Pete Majendie’s installation facing the Cardboard Cathederal.

This is how he describes it:  “It’s 185 square meters of grass depicting new growth; 185 white chairs, all painted twice by hand as an act of remembrance.  This installation is temporary – as is life.”

(First published in The Sunday Post 14 April 2013)

##

SLAVES ON THE HIGH SEAS

Winning workers' rights

South Korean trawler Sureste 707

                                       

Two years ago 32 Indonesian crewmen deserted the South Korean deep-sea trawler Oyang 75 in a New Zealand port.  Ship jumping is a serious issue, but these men are now being hailed as heroes.  Duncan Graham reports from Christchurch.

Streets are unlikely to be renamed in their honor and there’ll be no national grieving when they pass away, but the Javanese crew who decided to be slaves no longer have revolutionized a brutal and poorly regulated industry.

“Their actions have cleared the path for other crews to follow and exposed the wrongs so many have suffered,” said the Rev Jolyon White, social justice enabler for the Anglican Church.

His assessment was echoed by Christchurch Indonesian Society president ‘Nonie’ Elyana Thenu and her predecessor Dr Ani Kartikasari. (right)  “They are brave men, heroes,” they said.  “What they’ve done has made a difference.”

The words have substance.  Publicity about the plight of foreign fishing crews working on Korean boats fishing icy sub-Antarctic waters have forced the NZ government to radically change the way these craft operate and crews are recruited.

New immigration rules have been introduced impacting on Indonesian agents who hire crews.  The agents must be approved, not charge workers for their services or hold collateral against the men completing their contracts.

Withholding passports, payouts, land certificates and other valuables are said to be widespread, holding the fishermen and their families to ransom.

From May 2016 foreign fishing fleets operating out of NZ ports will have to follow local legislation. By sailing under other flags they’ve avoided NZ labor laws restricting work hours, health and safety rules and minimum pay rates, currently NZ$13.75 (RP 110,000) an hour.

Academics and lawyers have been helping to expose cheating, brutality and abuse allegedly suffered by Indonesians on Korean fishing boats, but Nonie and Ani have been at the sharp end of the campaign.

There are around 150 Indonesians living in the Christchurch region.  Ani, 50, arrived to study for a PhD in environmental management and stayed to work at Lincoln University.

Nonie, 51, (left)  followed her Kiwi husband to NZ 17 years ago.

Ani’s involvement started on a June afternoon in 2011 when she was called to Lyttelton, the port servicing Christchurch, a city smashed by an earthquake only four months earlier with the loss of 185 lives.

She found the 32 men shivering in a church. “They were very cold, most wearing cotton jackets,” she recalled.  “The heaters on the walls were on but their faces could not hide the exhaustion and fatigue from the previous sleepless night when they discussed their plight together.

“At 4 am that day, they had walked off the Korean factory trawler they’d worked on for months. In the dark they found the only church building that was still standing. They waited outside until the vicar turned up, letting them in and organizing breakfast.

“When asked later how they had found the church to shelter them they said they had no idea where to find a mosque where they would expect to find refuge.”  There is no mosque in Lyttelton, also badly damaged by the earthquake.

For the next fortnight government agencies and Indonesian Embassy staff interviewed the crew.  Their employer tried to keep the issue quiet, but the men said they’d had enough of being underpaid, and suffering physical and verbal abuse.  They also alleged illegal fishing practices.

This charge attracted the attention of NZ authorities. This year the Oyang 75 was fined NZ $10,500 (Rp 85 million) for secretly discharging waste at sea.  Last year it was fined NZ $420,000 (Rp 3.4 billion) for dumping low-grade fish.

“While all this was going on, the fishing company threatened to send them home for breach of contract,” said Ani. “Fortunately, a network of local people had started to form, offering support and this threat eventually stopped.

“However, the company refused to pay for the accommodation and food for the reason that the crewmen no longer worked for them. Their manning agents in Indonesia also started to pressure the crew to go back to work and even threatening their families back home, misinforming them that their sons and husbands were in trouble with the authorities in NZ.”

The men were sustained by Indonesian and Kiwi supporters including one anonymous donor who gave NZ$10,000 (Rp 80 million) for food and lodgings. 

This wasn’t the first time Indonesian crews had made the news. A year earlier the Oyang 70 capsized 740 kilometers off the NZ east coast when it tried to haul in an extra large catch, drowning six men including three Indonesians. Their bodies were recovered and repatriated.

The coronial inquest using evidence from Indonesian survivors translated by Ani and Nonie found “mismanagement by the master” sank the ship. 

The Maritime Union said the inquest revealed "a stain on NZ’s conscience that these ships of shame were allowed to operate."

Nonie has been back to Java twice to help the men’s families and make a film.  She has also been invited to Korea by a human rights organization to explain how Indonesian crew are treated when working on that nation’s ships.

The two women also praised Auckland University researchers and lawyers with the international Slave Free Seas group for supporting the Indonesian fishermen.

“Whatever it takes”

Anto Fantanto (left, orange top), Suprianto (behind) and Entis Sutisna

The blue-hulled stern trawler Sureste 707 lies idle in a NZ harbor while in Rev Jolyon White’s suburban Christchurch home three of its Indonesian crew wait for justice.

They were among a group of 21 men who followed the example of their mates from the Oyang 75 and deserted their ship in February this year alleging non-payment of wages and abuse.  Six other Indonesians decided to stay on board fearing repercussions against their families, while 18 accepted some payments and flew home.

But Anto Fantanto,40, of Boyolali in Central Java, and Suprianto, 29, and Entis Sutisna, 32, both of Tegal, about 300 kilometers east of Jakarta. are staying in Christchurch to take legal action against their former employer.

Without work visas, and living in a non-smoking house full of English books and no TV, time drags.  However Entis was the ship’s cook so keeps his mates fed with Indonesian food.

“We were hit by the ship’s officers, though not in NZ waters, and called a pig and a dog,” said Anto.    Entis claimed he had to pay Indonesian agents Rp 4.5 million to get the job and was owed about NZ $2,400 (Rp 19 million) in unpaid wages.

“It’s very important that Indonesians read and understand the contracts we are offered,” said Entis.  New NZ rules prohibit coercion and debt bondage but it is difficult to see how these can be enforced in Indonesia. 

The men said that through a network of Indonesian crewmen on foreign vessels they’d got the names and numbers of people in NZ who would help them if they had legitimate complaints.

Rev White said he and other activists would “do whatever it takes” to keep the men in Christchurch and help them with their case. This included running a Facebook site Not in Our Waters to expose the Indonesians’ allegations.

(First published in The Jakarta Post 8 April 2013)

SIR LLOYD GEERING

The last Western heretic     

                               

Can a Christian remain true to her or his faith while rejecting the resurrection of Jesus?

This Easter Christians around the world, including millions in Indonesia, recognised their calendar’s high point.  For many, worship at Easter identifies commitment to their faith.

Professor Sir Lloyd Geering was among them for he’s a regular churchgoer.  But the New Zealand theologian doesn’t accept any of the great tenets of the faith he follows, virgin birth, the Holy Trinity and the Resurrection.

“My own theological journey through life has been one of continual change and development,” he told a congregation celebrating his 70 years as an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church.

“I have slowly come to realise that there is no such thing as unchangeable Christian truths.” 

Such comments would result in banishment from many pulpits, even charges of heresy.  This is what happened to Sir Lloyd in 1967 when he was accused of ‘doctrinal error.. and disturbing the peace and unity of the church.’

Earlier he had written that the church had long misinterpreted the resurrection story as resuscitation, and that the bones of Jesus still lie in Palestine.  Not surprisingly the reaction was white hot.

The trial made media headlines around the world with Sir Lloyd labelled as ‘the last Western heretic’.  The charges collapsed after the accused mounted a vigorous defence based on his scholarship and reasoning.

Although Sir Lloyd has visited and lectured in several countries it’s unlikely any church in Indonesia would welcome his presence, even though the Archipelago is on the speaking circuit for overseas preachers, often from the US.

These evangelicals draw thousands to big rallies.  They don’t inspire Sir Lloyd who has been outspoken in his hostility towards zealots of any faith.

“Fundamentalists are people who see traditional religions being challenged and fear the change,” he said. “They feel their own ways are under threat and react because they are too lazy to think.”

Sir Lloyd said he’d learned more from Buddhism than any other faith outside Christianity. Buddhism had survived for 2,500 years without belief in God, and could point the way to Christianity without God

He also paid respect to Islam, saying that the faith in its early days, particularly in Andalusia (a region in Southern Spain once controlled by Muslim Moors), had contributed much to the world’s learning. This included mathematics, the West’s numbering system, science and “a new burst of theology.”

“If it hadn’t been for the contribution of Islam, Christianity might have died a natural death,” he said. “Religions provide the time-tested frameworks of values. They help us learn how to be human beings and live with one another.

“Diversity of religions is a very good thing. What we’ve learned through ecology is that life evolved because of diversity. As humans we are an unified organism, not separate bodies.

“Religion must be relevant to the times in which we live. Christianity in its classical form had already died when I was a student – it was preached as a way of life. Unfortunately ‘religion’ is a blocking word. It’s associated with the supernatural.”

Attempts to find a bookstore in Indonesia’s major cities stocking any of Sir Lloyd’s 16 books, including titles like Christianity without God and In Praise of the Secular, was a doomed exercise.

Sir Lloyd, who has just turned 95, has been a widower twice. He was knighted in 2009, remains physically spry and drives to St Andrews’s on The Terrace, a Wellington Presbyterian church where he is the theologian in residence and a regular speaker and debater.

The church supports same-sex marriage and gay and lesbian clergy.  It’s part of the Progressive Christianity movement popular in the US and Australasia, though unlikely to take root in Indonesia until criticism of religion is accepted and divorced from atheism.

Although Christianity in Indonesia is reported to be expanding it tends to be charismatic and conservative, with Protestant congregations sometimes splitting and forming new denominations.

In Australasia congregations are shrinking and churches closing, helping energize ecumenism.  Doctrinal differences matter less when the prayerful depart the pews.

Preachers from other faiths, including Islam, Judaism and Buddhism have spoken at St Andrew’s and read their holy books at the lectern. An Indonesian gamelan orchestra has played in the church.

Lloyd Geering was born in New Zealand’s South Island where Presbyterians from Scotland first settled in the 19^th century.  His family was only mildly religious.

A brilliant mathematician he later turned to theology and became a university lecturer in his homeland and Australia.  He remains Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies at the Victoria University of Wellington and is a drawcard for theologians of all faiths from across the world.

Attitudes towards him have mellowed over the decades from vilification as the most divisive man in the country to praise as the nation’s leading public intellectual.

He is a member of the Jesus Seminar, a select group of largely Western Biblical scholars that’s been re-examining and re-translating the scriptures.  They’ve been seeking what they call the ‘historical Jesus’ as opposed to the figure constructed by later contributors to the Bible.

Sir Lloyd’s lectures and preaching are intellectual exercises, not happy clapping and calls to prayer, which he doesn’t support. He has made a series of TV programs about his philosophy set in the Holy Land.  He says he has no expectation of an afterlife.

“The Biblical witness to the path of faith starts with the story of Abraham, a figure who is equally honored in what later became three great faith traditions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam,” he said.

“Like Abraham of old I am not at all clear about the way ahead, either for the church or for the human race as a whole.

“But I continue to go into the unknown, walking the path of faith that started in his time and drawing my values and inspiration from all who have followed in his steps.”

##