Twilight in Djakarta

"Because people don't trust each other they do not believe that human beings are equal and that they can and must be able to live together."

Whether in post-independence Djakarta or the US today, Mochtar Lubis has captured the crux of what ails society in that single sentence. Others thought so, too. I've borrowed a copy of Twilight in Djakarta from the university library, and at least three different readers have seized on this same statement, judging by the underlines, asterisks, and exclamation points that embellish it. (Who else has read this book since it entered circulation in 1964? For what classes or other purposes have they read? Why did they feel justified in marking the text? And why does any of this matter to me?) 

 

In any event, this is clearly not a happy novel, but one dominated by cynicism and fatalism, which is not surprising when one considers the paroxysms of violence, poor governance, and doubt Indonesia faced as Lubis wrote. Lubis, a journalist whose critical editorials led to arrest, and various bouts of imprisonment, was well-acquainted with these challenges. In Lubis's world, only the poorest and lowliest avoid the plague of corruption, and only then for lack of opportunity rather than a moral compass. For this class Lubis observes, "under the Dutch or under our own people, no different."

Twilight in Djakarta was the first Indonesian novel to be translated into English but like his sentiments or trust (or the lack thereof), so many of the universal truths Lubis articulated remain valid today. Lubis philosophizes a bit, expounding on such (arguably universal) notions as "you must seize whatever you desire and whatever makes you happy, quickly and without hesitation," (though one can certainly debate the moral imperative of such a statement), while also providing a masterclass on the perils and pitfalls of democracy. 

 

About this latter he writes "We're not going to force the people to swallow our ideas. We can only inform them of these ideas and hope that people will gradually understand, accept and make the ideas their own. Therein lies the strength of democracy, but its weakness as well." One need look no further than the response to the current pandemic to see this principle in action. Likewise, Lubis notes "one of the basic assumptions in a democracy is that every person living in it must have enough intelligence to make conscious choices." Enough intelligence? I think I actually snorted.

My favorite observation, though, is made by one of Lubis's ubiquitous officials while in flight over his troubled country. "Below him spread tall and steep mountain ranges, valleys in greens and yellows, and from time to time the brilliant light of the sun flashed on the surface of streams which gleamed in their winding course below. A yellowish-white road stretched through the countryside. From above, it looked like a fine, smooth road. But Murhalim knew how it was in reality: murderous for vehicles, full of pot-holes, deteriorating with every passing year..." If that's not an analogy for life, I don't know what is, for how many times does something look bright and shiny and unblemished from a distance but shows itself to be otherwise upon close examination?

Beyond such imperatives, beyond the essence of the burgeoning city itself, Lubis provides valuable insights into the myriad matters large and small Indonesia (and so many other countries) needed to grapple with in transitioning to independence. Again and again Lubis returns to the idea of the impacts of Western thought and technology on Indonesian culture and tradition, and his concern for both the people coming to terms with this new world, as well as Indonesia's image, as when one of the characters expresses concern that "We either have to accept and use it or we'll just have to go on being a backward nation." The outsize importance and influence of China, America, and the the USSR permeate the plot; substitute the EU for the USSR and one could undoubtedly make the same  observation today.

When Lyndon Johnson said, "You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, "you are free to compete with all the others," and still justly believe that you have been completely fair," he was speaking of race in America and the acute need for affirmative action. Yet his words seem most fitting in contextualizing what the ("first") world asks of countries in the developing world on a regular basis. Like much else Lubis illuminates, neither has that fact changed in the nearly 60 years since publication.