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| JJ Rizal (Foto: Julia Suryakusuma) |
The first is that we were both inspired by the late historian Ong Hok Ham, who was always able to make history meaningful to the present (see my column “Madmen and Memories”, The Jakarta Post, Oct. 13, 2010); second, our conviction that the New Order was founded on historical manipulation and distortion, so digging up and presenting the (historical) truth is a priority of the Reform movement; and third, our love of books.
These three factors are what compelled JJ Rizal to set up Kobam (Komunitas Bambu, Bamboo Community) in 1998, immediately after Soeharto stepped down. Rizal received many tempting offers of work and study (including a scholarship to study in France) but put his energy into Kobam instead.
Idealism is a rare thing these days, but if anyone has it, Rizal does. Setting up Kobam, a publishing house and cultural community, was an expression of his mission to help people understand history better.
“History is our insight into life, providing points of reflection and evaluation, which allows us to understand ourselves better as a people and as a nation,” he says.
Why Bamboo Community?
For Rizal, bamboo symbolizes collectivism and communalism because it grows in clusters; it also represents flexibility as bamboo grows tall, but can bend and sway even in a storm. Last but not least, bamboo grows fast and almost every part of the plant is useful for humans.
Raising historical consciousness should be the government’s responsibility, but according to Rizal, the government does the exact opposite, misleading people by distorting history. In 1964 the military got historian Nugroho Notosusanto to write their version of historical events that became the basis of 32 years of New Order repression (read Katharine McGregor’s excellent book History in Uniform on this subject).
For that reason, and the fact that existing history books tend to be too Java centric, Kobam focuses on books that other publishers don’t think of or don’t dare to touch. I must say, I can’t think of too many publishers who would publish a book on "The Nazi party and its supporters in Indonesia".
Kobam has obviously published many books on events surrounding G30S (the events of Sept. 30, 1965, identified as the communist coup), many narrated by “historical actors” (i.e. victims) who would otherwise remain unheard.
Kobam also publishes books on the Chinese in Indonesia, works of literature and biographies of or analyses of literary figures, historical figures, as well as the maritime history of the archipelago, Islam, film history, women’s history, sexuality, regional histories (of Aceh, Bandung, Banten, Batak, Sulawesi and Papua), and translations of the works of foreign authors like Ruth McVey and David Jenkins, previously unavailable to Indonesian readers.
Kobam has further published a translation of Alfred Russell Wallace’s The Malay Archipelago, considered to be one of the most influential books written about the Indonesian islands.
What a spread of treats, huh?
Due to his personal interest in Jakarta and what he felt to be a paucity of material on the subject, Rizal
set up a sister publishing house, Masup Jakarta (Enter Jakarta).
Jakarta has a unique and complex history, culture and traditions, he says, and built up a nostalgia and romanticism for the old Batavia through the books he published.
As it turned out, this nostalgia was embraced by others, and Masup Jakarta books sell even better than the Kobam ones.
To make things come even more alive, the publishing house also organizes historical Betawi “package tours”, where Rizal often acts as the tour guide himself.
So who’s this remarkable young man of vision, integrity, creativity, knowledge and talent (he’s also a writer, poet and skilled cartoonist) who produces these amazing, quality books from a cramped 180 square meters ramshackle rented house in Depok, south of Jakarta? Born in 1975, he was the eldest of seven kids of a mother who supported his history studies by selling ice lollies, and a father – an electrical engineering student dropout – who had a workshop to fix household electrical appliances.
Because his mum got pregnant again immediately after he was born, Rizal was sent to live with his grandfather. It was indirectly through him that he developed his reading skills.
When his granddad sold his fish, he usually used teak leaves to wrap his ware. But by the time Rizal reached the age of 10, teak leaves were hard to come by, so old newspapers and magazines were used instead. Rizal taught himself to read from these old papers, and that is how his love of reading and of history initially developed.
Well, Rizal has certainly come a long way from those days. I’d say that he and his colleagues of equally dedicated editors and staff at Kobam are making history themselves by producing these never-before published books of Indonesia’s otherwise uncovered past.
Pearl S. Buck once said, “If you want to understand today, you have to study yesterday.” Rizal knows that only too well. And if we know what’s good for us, we should too.
Sumber: Julia Suryakusuma, The Jakarta Post, Friday, 11/5/2010
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