Jakarta 2

[asakiyume]

This will be probably the most sobering of my entries on Timor-Leste.



Southeast Asia is rich in islands, settled by waves of different peoples, visited by different trading communities, made parts of different empires over the centuries.

In the 1500s and 1600s, Europeans were eager to get control of these islands. The Dutch ended up with most of what's now Indonesia, but on one island in the archipelago, they got only half. The other half was controlled by the Portuguese. That half became present-day Timor-Leste. Portuguese Timor remained a colony for several decades after Indonesia had become independent: it only became independent in the mid 1970s, when Portugal, preoccupied with its own internal revolution, gave it the choice of becoming independent or joining Indonesia. Seeing Indonesia as just another potential colonizer, it opted for independence. Wrong choice, said Indonesia, and invaded. Indonesia occupied the country until 1999; Timor-Leste didn't become a sovereign state until 2002.

The fighting was intense in Ainaro--Wikipedia notes that 95 percent of the buildings were burned by the departing Indonesian forces. One of the young men whom I talked to remembers his house being burned and fleeing to the mountains when he was ten years old. Another lost a father, an uncle, and seven half-brothers in the conflict. Many of the buildings remain in ruins:



A short walk from where I was staying is a place where the land falls away in sheer cliffs on both sides of the road. This place is known as Jakarta 2. It's where the Indonesian forces conducted executions--pushing people off the cliff. There's a concrete crucifix there now:



another memorial



The guy who took me here told me that when cars drive by here, they will slow down, out of respect, and people on motorbikes or foot will often stop for a moment to say a prayer.

We looked over the edge. I didn't take a picture. Too many ghosts.

All of which makes the children at the school across the street from where I was staying, singing Timor-Leste's national anthem while raising the flag of their eleven-year-old country, extra moving. (Voices you can hear are the voices of my two hosts.)

Watch on YouTube

(If the embedding doesn't work for you, go here.)

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

A very poignant song, and the scene so beautiful--the children, the bright crimson plant.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

That crimson plant is a poinsettia bush! I remember seeing poinsettia growing along a wall in chanphenglew's posts and being amazed how different it was from the potted plant we see at Christmas time. A bird with a curved beak would come along to get the nectar from it.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I have never seen one that huge!

[athenais.livejournal.com]

Is Timor-Leste mostly Catholic still?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Yep. A blend of Catholicism and native traditions. There are some Protestants and some Muslims, but mainly Catholics.

[bogwitch64.livejournal.com]

Sobering, indeed. :(

Thanks for sharing. The song is lovely.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Thanks for reading. And yeah, I thought so too.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

Anthems are so special when they still mean something to those who sing rather than those that are sung by rote, out of imposed duty.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Those kids really have a sense--or likely do--of their country as a precious thing for which many people have sacrificed a whole lot.

It's normal, I think, and desirable even, for that feeling to recede as the decades go by. And even with brand new countries, and even if you've had to sacrifice a whole lot, you still ought to be able to criticize the country--because doing that helps you make it better--but yeah, it was really moving to see.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Too many ghosts indeed. I like how the flag seems to emerge from the flowers in the video.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I love that too.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

War memorials of whatever sort have always fascinated me and their complexities are at times quite disturbing in the sense of who gets memorialised and who doesn't.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I found it interesting that there were no words here. There's a arch in the center of town leading to a cemetery where a lot of war dead are buried, and it has words on it. But not here.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

There don't always need to be words. Sometimes a memorial just is and that suffices.

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

When you start travelling you start realizing how good we have it here in the US.

(FYI: A friend of ours in Australia's father was among the troops hidden (from the Japanese) by the East Timorese during WWII. He spoke very well of the people there.)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they put up a vigorous resistance during World War II.

(And for sure yes, re: your first point. I mean, I always knew it, but it gets brought home in a visceral way.)

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Even here in the UK where invasion never came, but bombs, rockets and bombardments did, every town, village, hamlet and tiny settlement has a war memorial and in some cases, a memorial to those killed in raids during WW1 and WW2.