Rediscovering Kwee

Anderson himself appears instrumental in Kwee’s re-emergence, having spurred the new printing and authoring a foreword. Apparently, Tjamboek Berdoeri’s true identity was not widely known until 2001 following some sleuthing by Anderson.

Anderson is most famous for authoring a classic text on nationalism, Imagined Communities (Verso, 1991), which argued against the negative characterisation of nationalism once dominant in Euro-American scholarship.

As opposed to the characterisations of nationalism as entirely artificial or proto-fascist, Anderson instead offered an interpretation of nationalism as a positive project of collectively imagined belonging set against the forces of colonialism. Drawing upon examples from Latin America and Southeast Asia he argued that nationalism was a modular phenomenon, adaptable to context, and one driven by the spread of “print capitalism”; namely, publications and the media.

Journalists were among those who played a key role in shaping a national imaginary. Influential on Anderson’s account was the work of Pramoedya Ananta Toer, in particular the latter’s Buru Quartet, loosely based on real-life proto-nationalist and journalist Tirtoadhisoerjo. Indeed, Pramoedya’s biography and compilation of a selection of Tirtoadhisoerjo’s writings, Sang Pemula [“The Initiator”] (Hasta Mitra, 1985), could be read as a companion volume to Kwee’s Api dan Bara.

The adventures of Tjamboek Berdoeri @ Kwee Thiam Tjing

A friend of Sukarno and an ardent nationalist, Kwee wrote for the Surabaya-based Sin Tit Poh newspaper and was a master, according to Anderson, of the kind of polyglot bahasa melayu that thrived in the colonial Dutch East Indies. Blending Malay, Hokkien, Dutch, Javanese, Arabic, English, and other tongues it formed a lingua franca of sorts for the diverse individuals inhabiting colonial society. With such multiple origins, no matter one’s linguistic background, you stood a chance of being at least partially understood in this language.

By being thoroughly unofficial and plural in composition it favoured no one, carried no hierarchies of address, and offered an egalitarian medium of communication in a society structured on race privilege. Unlike other colonialist nations the Dutch made no great effort to spread their language, due to a lack of confidence in its significance and a stinginess with regards to promoting education among its colonial subjects. Thus, Anderson claimed, the Dutch East Indies was the only major colony of a European power to be administered in an Asian language.

The core of Anderson’s presentation centred around the egalitarian dynamics of this lingua franca, the levelling impulse of Kwee the anti-colonialist, and Kwee’s often humorous (mis)adventures in colonial society.

For Anderson as scholar of nationalism, and one with left-leaning sympathies, this Malay lingua franca enabled incipient Indonesian nationalism to adopt more horizontal social relations. This stood against the Dutch colonial order with its gradated privileges for Europeans and non-Europeans.

As champions of this kind of race structure the Dutch were leery of miscegenation. Eurasian offspring, known derogatively as “Indos”, were either classified as European or Native and accorded respective privileges of their social class.

Kwee recounts his encounter with a Eurasian after the former was thrown in jail for writing an article supporting the Achehnese uprising against the Dutch. Kwee had declared his solidarity with the Achehnese and claimed that if he had been born a Native he would have been born as Achehnese, emerging from the womb brandishing a traditional sword.

In jail, those of European status were entitled blankets, mosquito netting, Dutch food and other sundry comforts. Kwee was not. His neighbour was a Eurasian jailed for thievery. Although he received the comforts due his European status he nonetheless whined miserably, which did not endear him to Kwee. However, Kwee’s dislike evaporated when his neighbour eventually spoke to him in Malay to ask Kwee to exchange food with him. It turns out the Eurasian couldn’t stomach Dutch food and was more accustomed to the rice Kwee was receiving as an Asian. Kwee, on the other hand, was Dutch-educated and hadn’t enjoyed Dutch food in a while. A mutually beneficial exchange followed and the two struck up a sort of friendship.

Kwee was not one of those Chinese who prioritised long-distance Chinese nationalism over local nationalism. He believed that as an inhabitant of the Indies he should fight for its national liberation. His stance earned him enemies amongst others in the Chinese community. Occasionally, Kwee was attacked by businessmen or bullies.

In one instance he had a confrontation in the newsroom with another Chinese. Their argument, however, was conducted in Malay, bar one term.

“You are crazy if you want to be Huan na”, his confronter accused him, employing the derogatory Hokkien term for Natives (which is still in everyday usage in Malaysia), “You are probably even circumcised!”

To which Kwee replied, “I can’t remember if I am. Why don’t you ask your wife?”

Fisticuffs ensued.

A lost language

Anderson’s tales of Kwee and the lingua franca he so adroitly employed ended on a sad note though.

With the achievement of national independence the vitality of Kwee’s Malay lingua franca died. Under Dutch domination the subjugated peoples of the Indies could truck in their egalitarian lingo. However, they were only subjugated equals in this regard.

The Dutch state never cared much for loyalty. The independent republic, however, demanded of its new citizens loyalty and observance of a standardised national language (bahasa baku). The space for a mongrel tongue disappeared.

Kwee found that he couldn’t write anymore in the manner he favoured and subsequently laid down his pen until his death in 1974. The equalising force of nationalism was short-lived and contemporary Indonesia is a complex of new hierarchies.

Perhaps in the fate of Kwee and his bahasa melayu a Malaysian audience might draw instructive comparisons on our own language debates and struggles, as well as models of national belonging. Kwee, for Anderson, was a “rooted cosmopolitan”, someone who absorbed the world not by travelling, but by listening.

How might people listen to each other today and establish community in our fractured linguistic landscape? Is one standardised language enough? Do our linguistic ghettoes allow derogatory ethnic slurs to occupy our everyday consciousness and widen our alienation from each other? How does the language we use limit the horizons of our imagined community?

Readers unable to find Kwee’s book might look online at this site [http://djaminodjoliteng.blogspot.com/] for some examples of his writing.