Indonesia, the Minangkabau Republic

It cannot be deemed an overstatement to say that Indonesia is the  Minangkabau Republic. Tan Malaka, a international communist leader  of Minangkabau descent and the founder of the Republic Indonesia, was the first independence activist of the Netherlands Indies who wrote Naar de Republiek Indonesia (en. towards the Republic of Indonesia) in 1923. It was only 22 years afterward that other independence activists such as Sukarno, who is much more famous in the Western world than he, and Muhamad Hatta, another activist  of Minang descent, proclaimed the independence of Indonesia,  allegedly “without the presence of Tan Malaka” because he spent the most part of his time in jail and in exile.

Tan Malaka himself spent almost two decades in exile trying to avoid the arrest not only by the Dutch authorities but also by their allies. It was during his exile that he wrote the most part of his work. He played a significant and dominant role in linking the communist movement of Europe to the Asian anti-colonial movement. His writings and his life have been inspiring the Indonesian youth since the time of the struggle for the independence up to the present time. Reading or even keeping his books could cause an Indonesian student to go to jail during Suharto’s rule. His name was vilified during the Suharto’s era, and yet, the Indonesian students still tried to keep their spirit alive by reading and discussing his books (most of the time only copies of them) clandestinely.

The majority of the early political parties in Indonesia were founded by the Minangs. It includes among others PSI (Indonesian Socialist Party) founded by Sutan Syahrir, PARI (the Party of the Republic of Indonesia) and Murba (Proletarian Party) founded by Tan Malaka and Masyumi (a Islamic party) founded by Muhamad Natsir. Tan Malaka, Sutan Syahrir and Muhamad Natsir represented what the Western scholars  term “left”, “center” and “right”. However, they still fought for the same cause, that is, the independence of Indonesia. This kind of constellation may seem strange for some people or even scholars coming from patriarchal culture but for the Minangs names or labels are just names, not something to cling to.

In general, the Minangs do not  really care about names or labels. What counts for them is  the purposes or obejectives of their activities and how they can achieve it.  During the era of the communist movement in Indonesia, it was not uncommon in a family to have brothers or sisters, mothers and mothers’ brothers who held different beliefs ranging from Islam, communist (in most cases atheist), a little of everything or even nothing. Nonetheless, they still supported each other. A moslem member of the family who was more well-off than his/her relatives who were, say communist, would help these relatives for their relatives’ cause, namely “communism” without getting involved in it or even believing in it.

For the Republic of Indonesia, of which he was the founder, architect and defender, Tan Malaka had to meet his end by the bullets acquired for  the Republic Indonesia.  He was shot to death by the military officers of the Sukarno administration.

Many other Minangkabau personalities have played a significant and hence dominant role in the sociopolitical and cultural arena since the time of the development of the Indonesian national identity . Their role range from languange to literature, from film to journalism and press, from gastronomy to economy, and from politics to the shaping of the character of Indonesians. Alas, they had to succumb to power hungry, Japanese-backed Sukarno who ruled Indonesia for almost 20 years. Sukarno emerged as the sole “power” in the post-independence Indonesia by eliminating many influential Minang personalities from the political arena one by one, and therefore paved the way to one of the most brutal dictator of the 20th century, the West-backed General Suharto.