From Jail to Jail. Tan Malaka
their reminiscences, and they took us around the town pointing out landmarks referred to in the autobiography. It was on this visit to Indonesia that I managed to discover the area of Jakarta where Tan Malaka lived at the beginning of the Japanese occupation and to meet some people who remembered him there.
My principal sources both for the annotation and my introduction were my interviews and Tan Malaka’s own writings, as well as newspaper reports and archival documents. I used secondary sources principally in the documentation of events referred to in the text, but they are not central to an understanding of Tan Malaka himself. Several exceptions to this are the handful of secondary sources used as principal documents for different parts of my study. These sources are Ruth T. McVey, The Rise of Indonesian Communism; Benedict R. O’G. Anderson, Java in a Time of Revolution: Occupation and Resistance, 1944-1946; George McTurnan Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia; and Harry A. Poeze, Tan Malaka, strijder voor Indonesie’s vrijheid: levensloop van 1897 tot 1945. I used other secondary sources principally as points from which to diverge in reaching an analysis of Tan Malaka.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am indebted, above all, to those in Indonesia who had known Tan Malaka and who gave freely of their time to discuss the man, his ideas, and his deeds. Most of these people agreed to my taping interviews: his family in Pandam Gadang (including the present holder of the title “Datuk Tan Malaka”); his publisher in Bukit Tinggi, Anwar Sutan Saidi, and Arief Fadillah, both of whom spent a whole weekend recalling old times; Djamaluddin Tamim, who founded PARI together with Tan Malaka and returned from his exile in Digul to rejoin Tan Malaka; Tje’ Mamat, who relived many battles in the space of a single afternoon in Serang, brandishing his samurai sword and singing the Internationale; Djalil and Mai Muna, two gentle people who had much to recall; Adam Malik, who made countless interruptions to his busy schedule, first as president of the United Nations General Assembly, then as foreign minister, and lastly as vice president of Indonesia. So many others, whom I list in my bibliography, gave both their time and their opinions. The one whom I remember most clearly is Djaos, imprisoned with Tan Malaka in Hong Kong in 1932 and later sent to Digul. One rainy afternoon in December 1972 I received an urgent message: “Come quickly. A visitor is waiting for you at Jalan Diponegoro.” A frail man of seventy, almost blind, had trekked several kilometers along muddy paths and had forded a river to reach the landrover near Tanggerang, so anxious was he to tell his story to someone interested in Tan Malaka.
To the others who have contributed to the scholarship on Tan Malaka—especially Harry Poeze, Yuji Suzuki, Rudolf Mrázek, Giok Po Oey, Ruth McVey, and Ben Anderson—I owe a great deal for information and ideas that I have taken up or taken on. I must thank all the people whom I consulted in their capacity as experts outside my field, whose role I have referred to above, particularly C. P. Fitzgerald, Adrian Chan, Al McCoy, Milagros Guerrero, B. Joseph, Li Chuan Siu, Marcus Susanto, Mitsuo Nakamura, Randolph Albury, George Novack, and Rey Ileto.
The Association for Asian Studies Indonesian Translation Project Group supported me through the actual translation for publication in their series. The Ford Foundation awarded me a travel grant for my 1972 research in Indonesia. The Department of Indonesian and Malayan Studies of the University of Sydney has, since my enrollment as a postgraduate student in 1976, extended all facilities to me, including the possibility (in the course of other business for the department) to visit London, Amsterdam, Washington, and Jakarta collecting data relating to this study.
Within the department, first Peter Worsley and then Michael van Langenberg read the manuscript and made numerous suggestions. From outside, David Reeve applied his scalpel to the first draft of my introduction, while Molly Bondan’s critique reflected her years of involvement with the Indonesian revolution. Lenore Manderson gave me the spirit to carry on to the finish.
As to the manuscript itself, editorial comment was given in considerable detail by Muriel Frederick and Allen Myers, both of whom must have thought I had lost command of the English language at times, while Anneke van Mosseveld bore the greatest typing load.
I would like to thank Christine Freeman and Antoinette Azar Luce for their assiduous copy-editing which penetrated many of the inconsistencies of the typescript. The responsibility for any which remain is mine. Hope Hendricks deserves accolades for her computer skills and for her pains in the enormous project of preparing the final manuscript. Finally, my appreciation goes to James L. Cobban, general editor of the Monographs in International Studies at Ohio University, for his detailed and time-consuming work over several years in bringing the publication of this translation of From Jail to Jail to fruition.
During the long years that this study has taken to complete, every encouragement and support has been given by my family. My mother, Olwen Tudor Jones, and sister, Tory Angelli, typed and proofread various sections. Without my companion, Allen Myers, I know I could not have seen it through. My daughter, Mina, for her first eleven years, has had to live with Tan Malaka as an ever-present fourth member of the household. To all, my deepest thanks.
INTRODUCTION
The Text of From Jail to Jail
From Jail to Jail is a substantial work of over nine hundred manuscript pages divided into three volumes. It begins with an introduction explaining how Tan Malaka came to write it. Although long pressed to write his life story, Tan Malaka had not done so for several reasons. He explains as follows: first, “there was so much other work of greater importance”; second, such a project “was not a part-time job”; and third, his circumstances of being moved frequently from jail to jail, often with no chance of writing, made the idea impossible to implement. Finally, he expresses concern at the use to which such a work could be put by his enemies.
In March 1947, however, Tan Malaka found himself in relatively good circumstances in Magelang prison, Central Java. Housed in a separate cell and provided with pencil, paper, and a table, he decided to devote himself to writing “if only to fill in the time.” He did not have the source materials to work on more serious endeavors, such as his long-postponed treatise on Aslia, and so, as he describes it, he “was forced into writing these reminiscences.”1
Such a preliminary statement expressing reluctance to concentrate on his own story, a desire to leave his “own history to history itself,” but finally capitulating to the demands of others is not an uncommon disclaimer. We see the Javanese nationalist, Soetomo, introducing his memoirs with a similar sentiment: “the purpose of the writer in writing this book of memories is the desire to accede to the requests of various people who would like to understand the story of my life.”2
In September 1947, in Ponorogo prison, Central Java, Tan Malaka penned his introduction, explaining the focus he had given his autobiography, a focus reflected in the title for the work.
What I write here is only a part of my life history. But it is a part I consider not to be less important because of its close connection with my efforts to realize the desire for independence in both the political and economic sense. I focus this story on several prisons, and so I shall describe the events surrounding each of these prison episodes . . . before, during, and after my imprisonment. . . . I have entitled this book From Jail to Jail. I believe that there is a relationship between jail and genuine freedom. Those who really want freedom for all must be ready and willing at every moment to suffer “the loss of their own freedom.” Whoever wishes to be free must be ready to be jailed. (Volume I, p. 4)
The prison image has been chosen by a number of Asian political leaders for the title of their autobiographical writings, for example, Mahatma Gandhi’s Jail Experiences as Told by Himself, M. N. Roy’s Letters from Jail, Ho Chi Minh’s Prison Diary, and Phan Boi Chau’s Prison Notes. It is further reminiscent of Sylvio Pellico’s Le Mie Prigioni (My Prisons), popular reading in Europe after its first publication in 1832.3
The image of suffering, exile, and persecution of those in the right, or holders of truth, is a powerful one with cross-cultural meaning. It takes many shapes: the Hindu ascetic, the Muslim fakir, the Japanesea ronin, the Christian martyr. In the Indonesian context it blends into