Tag: Wiji Thukul

Communication Tujuhbelasan #1

A crucial thought of my friend, the great and probably late people’s poet of Central Java, Wiji Thukul, was “Sesungguhnya suara itu tak bisa diredam.” (The voice truly cannot be suppressed.)

Communicating is built in to who we are both as individual human beings and as social entities.

Father Grant Edgecombe is both a master communicator in his services and pastoral work but also the possessor of a very important awareness of what we are as communicators: we are limited beings.

Here you can see the calm still energy of a mind both proclaining ancient teachings and busy looking for and open to new words connected to that truth. I see Father Grant as fully aware that only God is omnisicient:

Jesus acted in this world in more ways than one.

Geoff Fox, 7th February, 2023, Down Under

(Wikipedia suggests it is likely that Jesus as a native of the Levant had an olive skin. I think the right to freedom of speech and freedom of thought make it acceptable to speculate about Jesus having a non-white skin. For some people that may be an unacceptable speculation. I hope the above image does not offend them.

If we are in God’s image, then our diversity probably leads to the possibility that what God looks like is diverse too.)

Great Indonesians #1 Wiji Thukul – Indonesia’s Whitman Of The Kampung

Wiji Thukul was a Javanese freedom fighter poet, who reminds me of Walt Whitman because he sought to liberate people through poetry. Wiji’s left wing politics learnt from foreign cultural influences did not resonate broadly with his people but he was enormously influential in certain circles.

He wrote words like “Hanya Ada Satu Kata – Lawan” (There is only one word – Fight!) which are almost Shakespearean in the way they have traveled beyond their original use to enter into many people’s consciousness in Indonesia.

Like Whitman, Wiji wrote with and for freedom.

As I recall, esteemed writer Goenawan Mohamad praised Thukul in conversation with me for liberating the simple straight forward use of the Indonesian language like no other writer. Wiji achieved this because he insisted on using language which the people in his neighbourhood or kampung could understand.

“Api Hak Pemberontakan” (the fire of the right of rebellion) are words that Wiji and I crafted as an Indonesian transcreation of Walt Whitman’s words: “O latent right of insurrection! O quenchless, indispensable fire!”

Today I turn it into Word Art:

Thukul was a leftist but enthralled by Mel Gibson’s heroic shout of “Freedom” in Brave Heart.

God Bless Wiji Thukul wherever he may be.

God Bless Freedom.

Geoff Fox, 17th June, 2022, dreaming of being back home in Indonesia