One hundred years after the first p

One hundred years after the first president of Indonesia was born, his
daughter became its fifth president. One of the greatest political assets of
Megawati Sukarnoputri, elected in July 2001, is her father’s legacy. His record
is ragged but inescapable. Dispute will persist about his contributions
to Indonesia and the distractions he presented to his nation. For a large proportion
of the Indonesian population, however, there is no debate. Their
collective memory, rounded and softened, is of Sukarno as revolutionary
nationalist and man of the people, a lovable source of their national identity.
Megawati, as his eldest daughter, enjoys the momentum of those attributes,
along with projected expectations unique to herself: the patient
mother, succorer to a suffering people, and restorer of unity to a nation
again badly torn, as in her father’s era.
To evoke the great range of character and characteristics of this nation
that lives so markedly in the world of myth, I turn to a symbolic pairing
whose source is Indian mythology, transformed by centuries of Javanese
history. The pairing is of Durga, who stands for power, destruction, rage at
man, and Umayi, who represents all that is gentle, feminine, and beautiful.
Durga appears in old Javanese sculptures as a many-weaponed warrior, female,
adamant, Amazonian in her fearlessness (see Figure 33 in Chapter 6).
Umayi, not captured in stone, represents the soft, submissive, and creative
side of the same mighty character. Both are consort to the great god Siva.
Umayi is his sweet and domestically fulfilled spouse; but by an ancient curse
she is always transformable into her angry and vengeful opposite, Durga,
with her appetite for war.1
All his life Sukarno courted Indonesia as Umayi. He charmed and won
her. She was faithful to him; and he, in his fashion, despite his petty mortal
passions, was faithful to her. But in the end Sukarno had to face the reality
that he was playing games with the gods. Eventually, the curse emerged,
17
and Umayi was transformed into the dreadful Durga. Sukarno’s rule went
down, and with it the lives of half a million Indonesians. The romantic who
had aroused the masses was reduced to an isolated, weeping wreck.
Megawati Sukarnoputri’s womanhood makes her potentially a full expression
of the binary character Durga/Umayi. Which Indonesia she will
invoke is a function of her inner person, her circle of advisors, the vortex of
Indonesian politics, and the typhoons of international affairs. Whether she
will arouse an Indonesia more affirming than destroying, or one more devouring
than nurturing, is history yet to be made.
Of Mandalas and the Perfume of Ten Million Flowers
Significant kingdoms existed in Java a millennium before the Dutch began
to prevail. The great Buddhist monument of Borobudur near Yogyakarta,
erected in the eighth century CE, as well as the Shivaite temple at
Prambanan of the late ninth century, not far away, are remarkable displays
of royal spending for sacred and political purposes. But there were no “empires”
in a boundaried and bureaucratic sense.
The largest radial phenomena of Southeast Asian regional history are
best called mandalas—a Sanskrit word that still suggests sacred geometry
but, in the view of Oliver Wolters, conveys “a particular and often unstable
situation in a vaguely definable geographical area without fixed boundaries,
and where smaller centers tended to look in all directions for security.”
Mandalas could expand and contract like concertinas. Angkor at its grandest
radiated influence from Cambodia through modern Thailand to the
Malay peninsula and parts of southern Vietnam, enlarging and collapsing
accordion-like: a mandala marked by “cliques, factions, personalities, clientage
and patronage.” The great carvings on the forty square miles of its surviving
monuments convey a richly textured social life, military clashes with
neighbors, and above all the sacred nature of its kingship, which presumed
that it expressed the universe in microcosm. But despite court eulogies to
the ruler and claims of unlimited sovereignty, “the Sanskrit tongue was
chilled to silence at 500 metres” from the throne. There was little evidence
of protracted lineage descent in dynasty. Likewise little of extended spatial
control, as distinct from the amassing—in the more effective mandala centers—
of political and commercial intelligence about what went on within
its imagined circumference, which was overlapped by other influences radiating
from other centers.2
Southeast Asia was a polycentric landscape-seascape, dotted with royal
centers and connected trading ports but without a Genoa or Venice or any
city states commercially expansive in the European sense. Far less, after
1500, were there indigenous mercantile empires evolving in the Portuguese-
Dutch-French-British style and sequence.3
What is now called Indonesia had, in Anthony Reid’s description, a “robust
pluralism often coexisting with exalted Indic ideas of kingship.”4 Indeed,
the more autonomous the area—Bugis and Balinese to the east of
Java, Minangkabau to the west—the greater the king’s impulse to assert the
charisma of lineage and the magic of royal language. The Minangkabau
rulers, in their letters and seals, proclaimed world-mightiness on a par with
China and Constantinople, as legatees of Alexander the Great and as khalif,
or deputy of God on earth—strike you dead if you doubt or disagree. Such
cosmic claims puzzled Europeans, who were accustomed at home to bettermonied
monarchs with larger armies to back up their ambitions. But the
Minang sovereigns knew their limits. Aside from the occasional civil war,
they respected the local autonomies of their own subregional organizations
of clans. Their edicts of power were not assertions of real domination but a
language of inclusion for other Sumatrans, and later a language of resistance
against the Dutch.5
A mandala in its full religio-political sense was developed most pronouncedly
in Java, where the king, recognizing all the center-fleeing instincts
of his realm, would seasonally go out to reinforce the center-seeking,
or at least the center-recognizing, forces. His way was to show the flag
and display the splendors of the court, receive homage, collect tribute, examine
ferries, bridges, and roads, check land registers, cultivate elders, and
conduct surveillance. He visited family shrines and local holy places, confirmed
charters of holy foundations, mediated disputes among land users,
distributed favors. So “Javaneseness” grew.
In the mid-fourteenth century an extended Javanese expansion effort succeeded,
with an affluence and impact that most nearly resemble ancient
Angkor for regional power. This new, most mighty of early Javanese mandalas
was called Majapahit. It came to an end in the early fifteenth century
after a five-year war between the ruler and his brother-in-law, ripped apart
for lack of an orderly succession.6
Majapahit reached well into the areas that the Dutch would later labor
for centuries to conquer. For modern Indonesian nationalists of several
kinds, it became a symbol of past greatness.7 Sukarno evoked it in nationbuilding,
and Suharto, his army, and his court ideologues employed it to expand
and consolidate his state. One moment, one monument, will suggest
Majapahit at its influential zenith as a “trading power with military clout”
and with the imperial pretensions that inspired Sukarno.8 It also symbolizes
the moral nadir of Suharto’s Indonesia, when its exercise of state power
suggested mafia and mob murder far more than mandala.
Indonesia: The Devouring Nurturer 19
The moment occurs a century and a half before Europeans penetrated
the Pacific. The monument, inscribed in 1370 and erected in West Sumatra,
speaks of the nature of Majapahit. Seven tons of sculpted stone, fifteen feet
high, manifest Adityavarman as god-king. The historical person Adityavarman,
as an adventurous young man, was either delegated by his Javanese
king, or went prospecting as a prince, to bring west and central Sumatra under
the sway of Majapahit, almost a thousand miles eastward. To the great
tribe called Minangkabau he brought troops enough to conquer them and
panache enough to erect a statue to his glory, to the eminence of his court
of origin, and to the god of that court. That god was—in the language of
Schnitger, the Dutch archaeologist who used three hundred coolies to
transport the statue out of the jungle for public display—worshipped by the
Bhairavas, or Terrible Ones, “a mystic sect of demonic Buddhism,” one
with Shivaite elements, which had originated in eastern Bengal perhaps
eight centuries before.
The statue itself was “a terrifying figure” representing Adityavarman
“with a knife and skull in his hands, serpents twined about his ankles,
wrists, upper arms, and in his ears, standing on a recumbent human body,
which in turn rests upon a pedestal of eight huge grinning skulls.” In his
hairdress sits the Buddha of the East. A flaming halo encircles his head. The
Bhairavas “sought their highest bliss in mystic union with their supreme
god” and attained it by drinking blood as heavenly wine, which inspired
the faithful to ecstatic dances. They invoked the appearance, in pillars of
smoke, of the flame-haired Mahakala, lord of cemeteries, destroying all
earthy ties.
According to the inscription, Adityavarman “was initiated as a god . . .
enthroned alone on a heap of corpses, laughing diabolically and drinking
blood, while his great human sacrifice was consumed in flames, spreading
an unbearable stench, which, however, affected the initiated as the perfume
of ten million flowers.”9
To the question, why did the modern Indonesian nation state tolerate
just two men at its apex across fifty years, historic examples of god-kings
may be a partial answer. But not one that absolves modern leaders of modern
responsibilities. Sukarno as poetic romanticist, a mixture of South
Pacific D’

Hasil (Bahasa Indonesia) 1:

Seratus tahun setelah Presiden pertama Indonesia lahir, nyaputri menjadi Presiden kelima. Salah satu aset politik terbesarMegawati Sukarnoputri, Terpilih pada Juli 2001, adalah warisan ayahnya. Catatancompang-camping tapi tak terelakkan. Sengketa akan bertahan tentang kontribusi nyaIndonesia dan gangguan ia menyerahkan kepada bangsa. Untuk sebagian besarpopulasi Indonesia, namun, ada ada perdebatan. Merekamemori kolektif, bulat dan melunak, adalah Sukarno sebagai revolusionernasionalis dan manusia rakyat, sumber dicintai identitas nasional mereka.Megawati, sebagai putri sulungnya, menikmati momentum atribut tersebut,dengan proyeksi harapan unik untuk dirinya sendiri: pasienIbu, succorer ke penderitaan orang, dan Pemulih kesatuan bangsalagi buruk robek, seperti di era ayahnya.Untuk membangkitkan kisaran besar karakter dan karakteristik bangsa inikehidupan yang begitu nyata di dunia mitos, aku berbalik kepada pasangan simbolissumber yang adalah mitologi India, berubah oleh berabad-abad Jawasejarah. Pemasangan adalah Dewi Durga, yang berdiri untuk kekuatan, kehancuran, kemarahan dipria, dan Umayi, yang mewakili semua yang lembut, feminin dan cantik.Durga muncul di old Jawa patung sebagai weaponed banyak prajurit, perempuan,bersikeras, Amazon di keberaniannya nya (Lihat gambar 33 dalam Bab 6).Umayi, tidak ditangkap di batu, mewakili lembut, tunduk dan kreatifsisi Perkasa karakter yang sama. Keduanya selir untuk besar Dewa Siwa.Umayi adalah pasangan nya manis dan dalam negeri terpenuhi; tetapi dengan kutukan kunoDia selalu transformable ke dia marah dan pendendam sebaliknya, Durgadengan nafsu nya untuk war.1Sepanjang hidupnya Sukarno dirayu Indonesia sebagai Umayi. Ia terpesona dan memenangkannya. Ia adalah setia kepadanya; dan dia, dalam mode nya, meskipun fana nya kecilhawa nafsu, setia kepadanya. Tetapi pada akhirnya Sukarno harus menghadapi kenyataanbahwa ia sedang bermain permainan dengan para dewa. Akhirnya, kutukan muncul,17dan Umayi berubah menjadi Durga mengerikan. Pemerintahan Sukarno pergiturun, dan dengan itu hidup setengah juta warga negara Indonesia. Romantis yangtelah membangkitkan massa dikurangi untuk terisolasi, menangis kecelakaan.Megawati Sukarnoputri kewanitaan membuatnya berpotensi ekspresi penuhkarakter biner Durga/Umayi. Indonesia yang ia akanmemanggil fungsi nya dalam diri seseorang, lingkaran nya penasihat, pusaranPolitik Indonesia, dan topan urusan internasional. Apakah diaakan membangkitkan Indonesia lebih menegaskan daripada menghancurkan, atau orang lain melahapdaripada pemeliharaan, adalah sejarah belum untuk dilakukan.Mandala dan parfum bunga sepuluh jutaSignifikan kerajaan yang ada di Jawa satu Milenium sebelum Belanda mulaiuntuk menang. Budha monumen Borobudur dekat Yogyakarta,didirikan di abad delapan Masehi, serta Shivaite Kaabah diPrambanan akhir abad kesembilan, tidak jauh, yang menampilkan luar biasaroyal belanja keperluan Suci dan politik. Tapi ada tidak ada "kerajaan"dalam arti boundaried dan birokrasi.Fenomena radial terbesar sejarah daerah Asia Tenggara yangterbaik disebut Mandala — sebuah kata dalam bahasa Sanskerta yang masih menunjukkan geometri SuciTapi, dalam pandangan Oliver Wolters, menyampaikan "tertentu dan sering tidak stabilsituasi di wilayah geografis yang samar-samar didefinisikan tanpa batas-batas tetap,dan dimana pusat-pusat kecil cenderung melihat segala arah untuk keamanan.Mandala dapat memperluas dan kontrak seperti concertinas. Angkor di yang megahterpancar pengaruh dari Kamboja melalui modern ThailandSemenanjung Melayu dan bagian dari Vietnam Selatan, memperbesar dan runtuhakordeon-seperti: mandala ditandai dengan "geng faksi, kepribadian, para pembelidan perlindungan. Ukiran besar pada empat puluh mil persegi yang bertahanMonumen menyampaikan kehidupan sosial yang bertekstur kaya, pertikaian militer dengantetangga, dan di atas semua sifat Suci yang diraja yang didugaitu menyatakan semesta dalam mikrokosmos. Tapi meskipun pengadilan eulogies untukpenguasa dan klaim kedaulatan tak terbatas, "dalam bahasa Sanskerta lidah adalahdingin untuk membungkam 500 meter"dari tahta. Ada sedikit buktiketurunan salasila yang berlarut-larut dalam Dinasti. Demikian juga sedikit diperpanjang spasialkontrol, yang berbeda dengan mengumpulkan — mandala lebih efektif Pusat —of political and commercial intelligence about what went on withinits imagined circumference, which was overlapped by other influences radiatingfrom other centers.2Southeast Asia was a polycentric landscape-seascape, dotted with royalcenters and connected trading ports but without a Genoa or Venice or anycity states commercially expansive in the European sense. Far less, after1500, were there indigenous mercantile empires evolving in the Portuguese-Dutch-French-British style and sequence.3What is now called Indonesia had, in Anthony Reid’s description, a “robustpluralism often coexisting with exalted Indic ideas of kingship.”4 Indeed,the more autonomous the area—Bugis and Balinese to the east ofJava, Minangkabau to the west—the greater the king’s impulse to assert thecharisma of lineage and the magic of royal language. The Minangkabaurulers, in their letters and seals, proclaimed world-mightiness on a par withChina and Constantinople, as legatees of Alexander the Great and as khalif,or deputy of God on earth—strike you dead if you doubt or disagree. Suchcosmic claims puzzled Europeans, who were accustomed at home to bettermoniedmonarchs with larger armies to back up their ambitions. But theMinang sovereigns knew their limits. Aside from the occasional civil war,they respected the local autonomies of their own subregional organizationsof clans. Their edicts of power were not assertions of real domination but alanguage of inclusion for other Sumatrans, and later a language of resistanceagainst the Dutch.5A mandala in its full religio-political sense was developed most pronouncedlyin Java, where the king, recognizing all the center-fleeing instinctsof his realm, would seasonally go out to reinforce the center-seeking,or at least the center-recognizing, forces. His way was to show the flagand display the splendors of the court, receive homage, collect tribute, examineferries, bridges, and roads, check land registers, cultivate elders, andconduct surveillance. He visited family shrines and local holy places, confirmedcharters of holy foundations, mediated disputes among land users,distributed favors. So “Javaneseness” grew.In the mid-fourteenth century an extended Javanese expansion effort succeeded,with an affluence and impact that most nearly resemble ancientAngkor for regional power. This new, most mighty of early Javanese mandalaswas called Majapahit. It came to an end in the early fifteenth centuryafter a five-year war between the ruler and his brother-in-law, ripped apartfor lack of an orderly succession.6Majapahit reached well into the areas that the Dutch would later laborfor centuries to conquer. For modern Indonesian nationalists of severalkinds, it became a symbol of past greatness.7 Sukarno evoked it in nationbuilding,and Suharto, his army, and his court ideologues employed it to expandand consolidate his state. One moment, one monument, will suggestMajapahit at its influential zenith as a “trading power with military clout”and with the imperial pretensions that inspired Sukarno.8 It also symbolizesthe moral nadir of Suharto’s Indonesia, when its exercise of state powersuggested mafia and mob murder far more than mandala.Indonesia: The Devouring Nurturer 19The moment occurs a century and a half before Europeans penetratedthe Pacific. The monument, inscribed in 1370 and erected in West Sumatra,speaks of the nature of Majapahit. Seven tons of sculpted stone, fifteen feethigh, manifest Adityavarman as god-king. The historical person Adityavarman,as an adventurous young man, was either delegated by his Javaneseking, or went prospecting as a prince, to bring west and central Sumatra underthe sway of Majapahit, almost a thousand miles eastward. To the greattribe called Minangkabau he brought troops enough to conquer them andpanache enough to erect a statue to his glory, to the eminence of his courtof origin, and to the god of that court. That god was—in the language ofSchnitger, the Dutch archaeologist who used three hundred coolies totransport the statue out of the jungle for public display—worshipped by theBhairavas, or Terrible Ones, “a mystic sect of demonic Buddhism,” onewith Shivaite elements, which had originated in eastern Bengal perhapseight centuries before.The statue itself was “a terrifying figure” representing Adityavarman“with a knife and skull in his hands, serpents twined about his ankles,wrists, upper arms, and in his ears, standing on a recumbent human body,which in turn rests upon a pedestal of eight huge grinning skulls.” In hishairdress sits the Buddha of the East. A flaming halo encircles his head. TheBhairavas “sought their highest bliss in mystic union with their supremegod” and attained it by drinking blood as heavenly wine, which inspiredthe faithful to ecstatic dances. They invoked the appearance, in pillars ofsmoke, of the flame-haired Mahakala, lord of cemeteries, destroying allearthy ties.According to the inscription, Adityavarman “was initiated as a god . . .enthroned alone on a heap of corpses, laughing diabolically and drinkingblood, while his great human sacrifice was consumed in flames, spreadingan unbearable stench, which, however, affected the initiated as the perfumeof ten million flowers.”9To the question, why did the modern Indonesian nation state toleratejust two men at its apex across fifty years, historic examples of god-kingsmay be a partial answer. But not one that absolves modern leaders of modernresponsibilities. Sukarno as poetic romanticist, a mixture of SouthPacific D’