"Ilmu pengetahuan semakin banyak melahirkan keajaiban. Dongengan leluhur sampai malu tersipu. Tak perlu lagi orang bertapa bertahun untuk dapat bicara dengan seseorang di seberang lautan. Orang Jerman telah memasang kawat laut dari Inggris sampai India! Dan kawat semacam itu membiak berjuluran ke seluruh permukaan bumi. Seluruh dunia kini dapat mengawasi tingkah-laku seseorang. Dan orang dapat mengawasi tingkah-laku seluruh dunia" (Bumi Manusia, p.316).
[Scientific knowledge brought into being ever more wonders. The legends of my ancestors were shamed into silence. No longer did one have to meditate for years to be able to speak with someone across the sea. Some Germans had stretched a sea-cable from England to India! And wires of this sort were proliferating from here to there all across the face of the earth. Now the whole world could observe the actions of a single person. And one could watch the activity of the whole world.]
« Aimer, ce n'est point nous regarder l'un l'autre mais regarder ensemble dans la même direction. » Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Terre des hommes, 1939.
Pramoedya's 100th Anniversary celebration
Don't miss: The killings of 1965-66, Inside Indonesia, Issue 99: Jan-Mar 2010
And this: ‘Beauty Is a Wound’ and ‘Man Tiger’ by Eka Kurniawan, New York Times, 9 Sept 15
Something new: Pramoedya Ananta Toer: The banned author of Indonesia, Witness History (BBC), 15 Aug 2025
Can't stop the signal...
© 1996–2025 Alex G Bardsley