Soe Hok Gie, One More Time...

These all started when I remembered how my friend, Nafis, is crazy about Soe Hok Gie. I had no idea at all who he is. Well,  from the way how she always mentions the name of Gie, seems like even she is fallling in love with this guy. Once I was walking trough some books in a bookstore at Points Lebak Bulus, I saw a book written on its cover 'Soe Hok Gie' then I decided to buy this book. I hoped I would get the gist who this guy is. However, I couldn't read this book right away since I still had another book 'Gus Dur' to be finished. For me, reading a new book before finishing the previously bought book feels like leaving someone whom we love early to the new one without any reason. It must be hurt, right?

It was such a pity to know that Gie died at a very young age, 27, on 16th of December 1969, a day before his birthday which is December 17th on the peak of Mount Semeru. The book starts Gie's story with the most touching moment when his life was end a few years back then. This sad story has successfully attracted my interest to keep on moving to the next pages finding who this guy is. What I got from some chapters of the beginning of this book is that Gie was a great writer speaking up his mind with a lot of critics towards the government of Indonesia. Gie was an inspiration for all of his friends to be proactive and responsive to how the leaders govern Indonesia.

The more I read, the more I got the ideas how different it is between the government in Gie's era and now. To get information was not as easy as now. Nowadays, the information is coming from anywhere, anyone and anytime. It is flowing so fast that possibly makes us busy by following the most updated news which its validity and credibility are still questionable. Me myself confused how to respond to the current issues which is spreading all around Indonesia, even the world. Personally, I am afraid that I might give the wrong respond to the wrong information. However at that time, Gie's time, what I see was that maybe  only certain people were able to access the information but the sources of information were trustworthy. I am amazed by how he and his friends at that time responded to the situations happened with full of spirit and belief that what they did was right and they fought for their thoughts. To be honest, I can't be as critical and brave as him at the moment.

And, it was wonderful to find out that he consistently wrote his thought on his notebook since a very young age, 15 years old. What he did to his writing was keeping them for himself, sending some of them to friends and sometimes sending them to the newspaper to be published. From some of his writings that I have read, he is such a romantic man with lots of beautiful word choices in his writing, especially in some poets that he made. Besides being romantic, it seems like he is a kind of reflective person in his writing. I find him mostly reflecting anything happened around him to his feeling, his experiences, and the people. His writings have captured well how Indonesia was at his time. No wonder, his writing amazingly have been passing through generations to generations as a source of lessons to be learned.

The freedom of press mattered at that time. I don't have enough knowledge about how the freedom of press is developing and changing in Indonesia. But, what I know so far is that it wasn't easy for Gie to share his words to public. The ideas which were considered to be not in line with the government's ideology could most likely threaten himself. Besides, a number of media was controlled by the government to broadcast only the news which support their needs, interests and purposes. I think some media nowadays are the same. We all have to be grateful for what we have right now when everyone is free to share their opinions and thoughts to any social media which can be accessed by any one. Yet, I am feeling sad to see people quarrel one to another here and there with full of swearing and bad words within.

Anyhow, in particular part of this book, it mentions about the case of G30SPKI (Gerakan 30 September Partai Komunis Indonesia). Gie's research on the people of PKI was considered to be dangerous for certain parties so that it was banned to be published and even destroyed. What he wrote in his paper was about hoe the people of PKI say about the action taken by the government towards them as followers. Inhumanity was happening all around Indonesia at that time and created the people of PKI as enemies to be defeated and destroyed. Honestly I don't know much about the story behind G30SPKI. The first time I heard about it was when I was in junior high school. I am lack of the knowledge of the history of Indonesia.

This moment made me curious about how G30SPKI happened at that time. Then, I remembered that I have a movie file in my laptop ''Pengkhianatan G30SPKI" that I have never watched before. Without thinking much, I spent my three hours for watching the movie myself in my room. Anyway, I have ever heard that a few years ago, this movie was  such a must to be watched by all of the people in Indonesia. Well, "yes", I asked one of my friends at office "But I don't want to watch this because I'm afraid that it might happen to my dad", she added. Her dad is a police. No wonder my friend didn't want to watch this because it is so frightening to see when some Generals were kidnapped and killed in 1965. You know what? The story of G30SPKI is confusing for me to define which one is right or wrong. God knows better for sure.

From a lot of stories told by Gie's friends, I am interested in the part when Gie and friends went hiking Mount Slamet where no public transportation for taking them there. So, they asked a ride from a truck passing by. It was not only them anyway, many other people needed a ride as well. The truck was full of people after all and dangerous for their safety, but who cares as long as those people can reach the place where they were heading. Even a soldier in charge as the security in that area just let them go this way since the people had no other choice. I like the way how Gie reflected this situation to what happened in Jakarta, the big city, where people go here and there with a fancy car with only one or two passengers. What a waste. Indeed, we can take lessons from anything around us.

I was laughing a lot once I was reading the parts of some letters by Ker, a girl who was close enough to Gie. From those letters I could see that Gie is such a romantic but mysterious lover. He was not a kind of man who easily say "I love you" to the girl he liked but he did little sweet things to the girl. He was also nice to all of his girl friends and treated them very well (according to one of his friends' stories). Even, before he died at Mount Semeru, he told his friends to give something taken from there (I forgot either flower or stone) for all girls at campus as a present. What a funny guy. In writing about love, he would put a lot of imageries into his words. It is funny for me to know that Gie, someone who is brave to speak up his mind criticizing the government out loud in public can be so quite loving a girl.

I am impressed with how Gie really loves his home and never stay at night at other place other than his home except when he went hiking. He had his room as his basecamp to let all of his ideas flow onto the paper, late at night. By the way, surprisingly he had a fight with his big brother. I'm not sure if the "fight" quite represents what happened to Gie and Pak Arief Boediman. They didn't talk for years with no big reason. Accidently, this really happened to me and my little sister as well. But thanks Lord it is over now and we are okay.

The last part of this book tells Gie's friend's opinion about his writing. He was not perfect with imperfect writing. There are some weak points in Gie's writing here and there. His friend mentioned that "Gie might be a good writer but not a good historian". This section also discusses how Gie's writing is not too good as a historian but it is excellent in terms of writing. Here I learn that there is nothing perfect, though. The most important thing is that is Gie's writings have given lots of meaning, spirit, and lessons after all. Nothing is perfect.

The last, Gie is a Chinese but how he cared about and loved Indonesia had broken the border of his race to this country.

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I couldn't put things in more details since I have brought the book to my hometown to look back.