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Chapter 8

ARREST AND EXILE

[77] How happy and proud I was to see the second Sekolah Rakyat in Bandung. It was a large, clean house surrounded by spacious grounds, really too good for the children of the proletariat compared with what they had in Semarang.¹ On Sunday, 13 February, a date that has been associated with misfortune not a few times in my life, I was wandering from one room to the next, seeing what was lacking and admiring what was good, while at the same time pitying the Semarang children, who were not so lucky.

I did not know that in one of the rooms there were several members of the Bandung branch of the railway union VSTP, apparently discussing the possibility of a strike. Suddenly I bumped into a Dutch PID agent who asked me to leave, since, he said, there was a VSTP meeting going on.² I was astounded and absolutely refused to be thrown out of our own school building. After we argued for some time I said, “In point of fact I have the right to throw anyone out of here, since we own this building.” Finally peace was restored by my agreeing not to go into the closed meeting being held in one of the rooms. Of course I had absolutely no intention of attending the meeting, which I had not even known about.

At about 12 o’clock, while I was chatting with some friends, a car drew up in front of the school. The same Dutch agent got out of the car. Respectfully and with apparent sadness, he showed me the warrant for my arrest and invited me to get into the car. Inside were two high-ranking officers. One, of colonel rank, suggested I sit in the middle. When I asked why I was being arrested, they both shrugged their shoulders, indicating that they knew nothing about it. I was first taken to the police station, and from there straight to Bandung jail.³

[78] The first news I got from outside was from Nyonya and Tuan Horensma. Only the night before, I had visited my teacher at his house in Bandung, where he had recently been transferred from Jakarta.⁴ I still remember his words: “When you have a go at them, don’t forget me. I can still do something.” But he had apparently been somewhat disoriented on hearing of my sudden arrest, for in his letter he said that I was making things difficult for him.⁵ However, his wife seemed to be of a different opinion. Several times she asked the authorities to be allowed to meet with me inside Bandung jail, but she was always refused. Finally she was able to send me an open postcard, full of allusions, whose contents were different from her husband’s attitude. She did not blame me and even attacked those who had arrested me, saying: “Who knows what a great man lies within you.”

One morning I was taken to Bandung station, to be transferred to Semarang jail.⁶ In the station yard waited the Dutch PID agent who had tried to throw me out and who had presented me with the arrest warrant. He parted from me with the words, “We did have an argument the other day, but I regret your leaving because . . . the pupils need you!”

I think it would be useful to quote here again from the Encyclopaedie, to provide readers with an impression of the context of the arrest and the considerations and official decision of the Dutch East Indies government.⁷ On page 532 we see:

The Christmas 1921 Congress (of the P.K.I.) also was used to organise ties among the branches of the Communist S.I. that, following the decision regarding party discipline (taken by the Central S.I.) expelling them from the central organisation, had for some time been linking themselves on an ad hoc basis to the Semarang district committee. There was definitely a current that wanted to reconcile the two, but it came up against various obstacles just as was the case in the trade unions with the split between the two sides (Communist and Muslim). Finally both sides accepted in principle that they should work together in the future, while retaining their own organisational independence. The Communist S.I. branches were later to affiliate with the Persatuan Serikat Islam—as opposed to the Partai Serikat Islam led by Tjokroaminoto. The Congress also decided to send a cable to the Indian National Congress, which happened to be meeting at the same time. The cable was sent on behalf of the S.I., the C.S.I. and the Vakcentrale.⁸

[79] At the beginning of 1922 the Semarang communists stepped up their actions markedly. While at first they had concentrated on strengthening their organisation and tightening their connection with the Comintern’s E.C.C.I., with the outbreak of the pawnshop workers’ strike in January 1922 the leaders Bergsma and Tan Malaka considered that the time had come to realise the principles of communist actions in deeds.⁹ It was they in particular who spread the word that if the government did not rehire the striking pawnshop workers, the other trade unions, like the railway and harbour workers’ unions, would be mobilised. This action was given further weight by the manifesto issued by the leadership of the Vakcentrale on 18 January 1922, in which active support to the pawnshop strike was urged.¹⁰ This proved that the leaders accepted all the consequences of being communists in deed, wanting to carry out point by point the so-called Moscow Program. (See De Tribune for May, June, and July 1921, and Bukharin’s speech on the Program of the Communist International in De Communistische Gids, 1923, p. 480).¹¹ In particular they set themselves the task of drawing the working class into revolutionary action through communist means, in accordance with the principles of the Comintern—to carry out the revolutionary struggle in deeds as well as words until the establishment of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. In a pluralistic society like that of Indonesia, such undermining of authority cannot be tolerated (See statement of 1 January 1922 in Kol. Verslag 1922, Chapter B, headed Pawnshop Workers’ Strike, p. 18). Government Decisions Nos. la and 2a of 2 March 1922 imposed on Bergsma and Tan Malaka the administrative procedures of externeering en interneering [exile and internal exile respectively].¹² Tan Malaka, who for some years had specialised in providing education and instruction to young people on the basis of the principles of the Communist International (in the Malaka schools), had Kupang [Timor] assigned as his place of residence. He requested to leave the Dutch East Indies, and this request was granted in Government Decision No. 2 of 10 March 1922.¹³

As mentioned above, a Dutch Communist, Bergsma, was arrested along with me. I consider it to be a point of national honor to recognize the services of someone from another nation, even if that other nation is seen as the oppressor and exploiter.

[80] The final syllable, “ma,” in Bergsma’s name reminds us of the “ma” in a name I have frequently mentioned here, that of my teacher Horensma. They were both Frisians, well known as an obstinate people, de koppige Fries [the stubborn Frisians]. In the Netherlands, even though they have been united with the Holland, Drente, Brabant and other peoples for hundreds of years, Frisians still use their own language when speaking among themselves. I recall that in Amsterdam they had their own club. But in addition to their characteristic stubbornness, which was apparent indeed in those two individuals, they were also endowed with honesty.

Piet Bergsma was a former sergeant in the Dutch East Indies army, clearly from a proletarian background and a member of the Soldaten Bond at the time of Brandsteder and Sneevliet.¹⁴ He was not like Ir. Baars, whose “great intellect” enabled him to waltz from communism to fascism, as reported in the newspapers.¹⁵ Actually, I do not know what happened to Piet Bergsma after we parted in Moscow in 1922. Indeed, during the German occupation of the Netherlands in the Second World War, many Communists and Socialists became Fascists, either under duress or of their own will. I do know that before the war Piet Bergsma, with his Indonesian wife from Ambon and their four or five children, had many difficulties living in that cold country [the Netherlands]. How it was during the German occupation, I have no idea.

It is actually very difficult to evaluate the character, beliefs, or actions of human beings before their deaths. This is so with Semaun and Darsono, for instance. As to Bergsma, I can only account for the period up to our parting in 1922. I consider that Bergsma, Sneevliet, and other Dutch people left their imprint on the socialist and trade-union movements in Indonesia just as Semaun and Darsono did. And when the Indonesian proletariat has achieved its glorious destiny, however small their services may appear from any one point of view, the role played by these leaders will have to be recorded in our history and handed down to our descendants.

[81] Let us return to the Dutch East Indies government’s action against me, as mentioned in the Encyclopaedie. The administrative measures against me were not legal actions like those of democratic societies. These measures exiling us Indonesians into the jungle, to islands, or even to another country, isolated from our own families, society, and work, were part of the exorbitante rechten held by the governor general of the Dutch East Indies. This administrative measure did not differ markedly from the lettre de cachet whereby the king had the right to “hang high or send far away,” prior to the Rights of Man and the French Revolution of 1789.¹⁶ As with the lettre de cachet, under the exorbitante rechten anyone considered by the Dutch PID to be “dangerous to the public order” (that is, the order of the Dutch imperialists) could be arrested and jailed prior to being exiled either within or outside the Dutch East Indies.

The procedures followed from the time of a person’s arrest to the time of sentencing did not correspond to those known in the democratic world. The only guarantee was that the arrest would be carried out by officials of a body of the Dutch East Indies government, on behalf of that official body, on the basis of the opinion that the person was dangerous to the order of the Dutch East Indies, which opinion was based on evidence gathered by intelligence agents.¹⁷

First, in order to take administrative measures, the Dutch East Indies did not require the laying of a charge based on evidence provided by witnesses under oath in front of the accused, evidence revealing a violation of state law passed by a popular legislature. Second, in order to exercise his exorbitante rechten, the governor general was not even required to order a preliminary investigation in which the accused would be permitted to present his or her own witnesses and lawyers. Finally, the exorbitante rechten held by the governor general did not recognize such niceties as the right of the accused, after a preliminary investigation, to be sent before a judge in an open court; to be placed on the same level as the accuser with regard to facilities for self-defense (use of witnesses and lawyers); and, if found guilty in open court of having violated a certain section of a state law, to be sentenced according to regulations laid down and validated by a popular legislature.

[82] In essence, these exorbitante rechten meant that the procedures of arrest, investigation, and sentencing of a person considered guilty were all in the hands of one person. A person considered dangerous was arrested in order to be exiled. It was irrelevant whether or not the person had committed a violation of established regulations. The intention to exile and the right to carry it out were in existence prior to a person’s arrest: Barbertje moet hangen (sentenced whether guilty or innocent).¹⁸

The procedures that I experienced from the time I was being tailed everywhere by intelligence agents until I was arrested and exiled were perfunctory considering the gravity of the sentence. I was spied upon in order to be arrested, and arrested in order to be exiled. What was the point of having a proper preliminary investigation, open trial, and defense?

After being held for several days in the Semarang jail, I was taken to the Resident’s office to be questioned.¹⁹ If I recall correctly, there were nearly fifty questions that they wanted to ask me before the Resident of Semarang. These questions related to four issues: first, my actions with relation to education; second, the pamphlet that I wrote in Deli entitled Parlemen atau Soviet? [Parliament or Soviet?];²⁰ third, my attempts to reunite the various SI branches separated by the CSI’s party discipline, to revoke that discipline, and to establish cooperation between the Communists and the Muslims in opposition to Dutch imperialism; fourth, my efforts to support the pawnshop workers’ strike by mobilizing the trade unions affiliated with the Vakcentrale. All these efforts of mine were linked by the Dutch East Indies government to the “Moscow Program,” outlined in the magazine De Communistische Gids of 1923 and the June and July issues of the newspaper De Tribune in the Netherlands.²¹ All my efforts were seen as part of an implementation of the Moscow Program, and this action, within the “pluralistic” Dutch East Indies, was regarded as an attempt to overthrow Dutch authority. I was therefore seen as someone dangerous to the public order who must be exiled either within or outside the Dutch East Indies.

It was like the story in which a young goat, a stupid and helpless animal, was suddenly confronted by the king of the jungle, the tiger, on the bank of a river.

The tiger said: “It’s fortunate that I meet you, and now I shall impose your punishment. Are you not the one who is always muddying the water I wish to drink?”

The young goat replied: “Have mercy, my lord. How could I muddy the water you wish to drink when I am standing downstream from you?”

[83] The tiger then said: “Maybe you’re not muddying my water now, but last year it was definitely you who did so.”

The young goat answered: “Have mercy, my lord, I beg a thousand mercies. How could my lowly self have muddied your drinking water last year when I wasn’t even born then?”

The tiger said: “If it wasn’t you who muddied my drinking water, it must have been your mother. And if it wasn’t your mother, then it most definitely was your grandmother.” And as the tiger said these final words, he sprang onto the innocent and helpless young goat and ate it.²²

What was the point of defending myself, of wasting time and words to answer questions addressed by a power that rested on the force of the police, the judiciary, and the army, and whose intentions toward myself were already crystal clear?

The one or two questions that I did answer before the Resident of Semarang were only those relating to my name, birth, and belief (communism). When the Resident began to ask whether I had ever said this or that in a certain place (and not in an open meeting), I cut off the question and the tens of others like it by saying: “I do not wish to answer such questions, since, whatever my answer may be, it is clear that I am to be exiled.”

My interrogation was completed in less than five minutes.²³ In this way I saved both energy and time for the Kanjeng Dutch East Indies Resident²⁴ in imposing a sentence on me that, along with the death sentence, had in civilized countries long been considered one of the harshest punishments: to leave one’s birthplace, one’s society, one’s work, and one’s friends to wander in uncertainty in a foreign land.

[84] Was not an Indonesian leader’s room to maneuver already more than narrow enough? There were abundant regulations and laws restricting freedom of speech and of the press. They were written plainly in the lawbooks of the Dutch East Indies and could be argued by lawyers who had just graduated from law school. If I had in fact violated any of these regulations, either in my speeches or my writings, would not it have sufficed to take normal measures: to accuse me, to try the case in open court, and impose the sentence prescribed in the regulation? Such an approach would not only have raised the prestige of the Dutch East Indies government in the eyes of the world, it would also have given a feeling of satisfaction, however limited, to the Indonesian people. In particular, it would have given rise to a feeling of certainty among the leaders of the people; however many traps lay in their path, the location of those traps would be known, as would the consequences of falling into them—the laws of the Dutch East Indies government.

But the exorbitante rechten of the governor general were like a machete held in the dark to be used to strike anyone considered an enemy. From the legal point of view, these special powers were arbitrary and despotic, while from the point of view of morality they were un-ksatria-like and even cowardly. Philosophically, they can perhaps be understood, but they cannot be regarded as noble or even fair.

Such exorbitante rechten cannot be viewed solely as an outgrowth of legal relations between people, and between the Netherlands and Indonesia in particular. The governor general’s exorbitante rechten were intricately tied to the economic, social, and political relationships between the Dutch imperialist-capitalists and the colonized workers of Indonesia.

A small gang of Dutch people, with their capital, police, army, and prosecutors, cannot establish laws in a democratic way in cooperation with seventy million oppressed Indonesian workers. This small gang must wield special powers that can be based neither on complete agreement of all interested parties nor on agreement from genuine representatives of the people. These special powers arise from the desire of this small group to defend its own interests, and they therefore rest on arbitrariness rather than justice.

The few living off the sweat of the many cannot listen to the representatives of the seventy million workers in an open manner, engaging in discussion to obtain the truth. They are forced onto the path of the back-stabber, arresting, jailing, and exiling without regard to the niceties of trial, justice, and truth. This is the way of cowardice.

[85] As an afterthought, let me relate some facts pertaining to my exile. I was in Semarang for only six months.²⁵ Ninety-nine percent of that time was devoted to work related to teaching. At the most I spoke in public for six hours: three hours at the PKI congress, one hour to the members of the VSTP, one hour before the oil workers in Cepu, and the remaining hour split up among various places.²⁶ And this six hours is the highest possible estimate. Clearly, restrictions on press and speech would not have ensnared me; if they could have, Dutch imperialism obviously would have reveled in proving the existence of the rule of law. The police would have been thrown into action with all available witnesses and evidence, and I, the accused, would have been convicted on charges made by the Dutch East Indies lawyers and sentenced according to clear, written laws. But because the Dutch East Indies government did not have sufficient legal cause to bring me before a legally constituted court, it resorted to foul play. Statements of the intelligence agents who had tailed me everywhere were used as evidence to justify exiling me from Indonesian society. Like a player who, unable to win by playing the game, kicks and elbows the opponent, they threw the law aside and resorted to force.

Now for a brief description of my departure. We Indonesians recall and long for our country and its climate only when we are in a place where we shake from the cold and face freezing winds whipping up the snow from the bare ground, rocky hills, and leafless trees. Only then do we realize the meaning of the sun that is always with us and of the green vegetation that refreshes our gaze. We recall and long for Indonesian society only when we are in the midst of another people whose language, joys, and sorrows are foreign to us; only then can we compare it with our situation when we were still surrounded by our family and our comrades in the struggle.

We appreciate a vocation that has a clear direction and motivation only when we are in a foreign land, in a society with a different language and desires, when we feel like a grain of sand tossed about by the waves, wrenched from the ties of the society we know and from our life’s desires and our daily work.

[86] It takes a long time to adjust ourselves to the climate of a new country and, at the present level of international development, to a new society and new vocation: all the more so if we are living in poverty in the midst of this strange climate and society. Under such conditions many a faith is broken; exiles return in secrecy and silence, kill themselves, or live demoralized as animals. Seldom are we able to hold firm to our original beliefs, desires, and faith.

This was not the first time that I had parted from Indonesia’s climate and society, and from my family. But it was the first time that I was to be separated from my comrades in struggle and my life’s work. My farewell to my comrades took place hurriedly in Semarang, two or three days before my departure at the end of March 1922. I was permitted to leave the jail for one day to wrap up my affairs.²⁷ Although I had not been in Semarang long, the spiritual bonds between us in the struggle were strong indeed.

In the early hours of the morning, about 4:00, before I was to leave, supposedly forever, I was awakened by the late Partondo, former editor of Soeara Ra’jat. (I was in jail, where I had been returned prior to my departure.) I had heard beforehand that he had been fasting for two or three days. His face was calm, but more serious than usual, and his voice was sterner. He said to me: “Tomorrow after you have left, Marco and I and another comrade are going to visit Mt. Lawu. We have made a pact together.”

I was surprised and was about to ask their aim, but apparently he understood and gave me no time to ask. “Of course,” he said, “this is not something we would always suggest, and it is only we ourselves who have thought of it. It’s Kejawen.²⁸ We feel we need to cleanse ourselves and seek inner strength. It was Marco’s idea! Farewell!” I never saw his face again. When I was in China I heard that Partondo had died in Semarang. Marco, known as a taciturn man with an honest heart and strong as steel, died in Digul.

[87] I could cite many other events to show the strength of the bonds between us. But suffice it to say here that I have longed to meet again these comrades in struggle wherever they are. That this desire has not been fulfilled is a tragedy of my life in this transitory world.

I was taken from Semarang jail to the ship in a car that took a circuitous route to evade the crowds wishing to bid me farewell. I did not get to meet even one of the people who had come to see me.²⁹ It was only when I was in jail in Jakarta that I was able to hear a little of what had happened when I left Semarang.³⁰

The reports about those who came to see me off were distorted by the Dutch press in Jakarta. While I was playing checkers with my jailer in one of the cells, he showed me one of the Dutch papers. It said something like: “Tan Malaka was accompanied by cooks and servants (koki-babu) and pupils of the Sekolah Rakyat, who fought with the police because of their disappointment at not being able to see him.”

We have heard enough of the calumny that Indonesians consist only of cooks and servants. This is what stimulated us to educate and change these people from being servants of foreigners to being servants of the Republic of Indonesia.

As to the report on the attitude of my pupils, I began to be concerned that the Sekolah Rakyat might not be able to resist provocation. I was afraid that the basis of their education might be shifted to propaganda and political agitation alone. According to my plan, instruction in skills that are useful for earning a living, such as technical, agricultural, and administrative skills, was not just an incidental objective. I hoped to awaken Indonesian youths of a new type, with a pure ideology and faith of steel, and to give them what they needed for their own and their families’ livelihood. The question of diplomas was not regarded as important, and later experience strengthened this belief of mine. Not a few times have I found that an official diploma is no guarantee of efficiency, but only an indication of potential.

[88] I once began a job as the person in charge of organizing tools for mining, construction, and vehicles of all kinds (drills, chisels, hammers, saws, and hundreds of auto parts), taking them in, registering them, sorting them, and carrying them myself like a forced laborer, romusha, in the warehouse.³¹ Then I was promoted to manager of the Usaha Prajurit Pekerja office, taking in hundreds of romusha every day and dividing them among the branches of the Bayah-Kozan coal mine, arranging the return of hundreds of romusha to their homes, organizing food, kerosene, and other daily needs for the thousands of romusha in the city of Bayah and the kampung dwellers in the vicinity, taking care of the sick or the dead, and attending to various other problems. I was in sole charge of the office and surrounded by Japanese. Finally, I became head of statistics in the main office. What diploma did I have? As Iljas Hussein, I was only a graduate of the first class in the MULO school in Medan.³² Another example, from abroad, of the value of potential is the fact that I began as a teacher with a salary of f. 8 per month and after two years was a teacher of high-school pupils: all under a different name and with no diploma.³³

I was of the opinion that to work at propaganda alone in an illegal situation would quickly give rise to suspicion. The PID or the Kenpeitai would ask, how does that person live? But a diligent worker would not so easily become suspect. And if the worker were eificient [sic], then the director or employer would be bound by appreciation. Shielded in this way from inquisitive eyes, the worker also would easily win the trust, faith, and support of his or her fellow workers and be able to come close to them physically and spiritually. While working, he or she would be able to speak in a heart-to-heart fashion, to propagandize, and to plan things. As the proverb goes, they would be drinking while diving under water.³⁴

Finally, and of no less importance, is it not only through our own labor that we can obtain good food and clothing? In short, although the education at the Sekolah Rakyat was not directed towards diplomas, I did not forget the importance of instruction in real mental ability and the skills required to earn a living. But the seeds of hatred evident in the school children at my departure from Semarang would apparently influence the education and instruction given in the Sekolah Rakyat in the future, making it lean in the direction of propaganda.

On board the ship in Jakarta harbor, as I was leaving for the Netherlands, I parted from my teacher Horensma, who had come hurriedly from Bandung. When I began to speak of my debts, he cut me off immediately. From Semarang I had sent the balance of my debt to the Engkufonds in Suliki, with a little bit extra. I still owed some money to Horensma, but this could be met, with interest, from my savings in the Java Bank and the Twentsche Bank in the Netherlands.³⁵

[89] When we were finally about to part, I warned Horensma, who was now an inspector, that there were a couple of Dutch people observing our conversation and that these were the PID agents watching me while on board ship. But Horensma answered this warning only by saying, “Let them do what they like to me. I’m fed up with the whole thing.”

All readers will understand that no honest teacher will want to seem inferior to a pupil, even on the question of opposition to tyranny and even if what the pupil sees as tyrannical is the teacher’s own nation. In ancient China, India, and Indonesia the teacher had a place next to the parents in a pupil’s heart. In general the parents were seen as the source of things physical and to a certain extent of things spiritual. But it was the teacher, in the philosophy of the ancient East, who was the main source of things spiritual-knowledge, emotions, and, frequently, desires. Is this kind of Asian old-fashionedness a bad thing? Who is to say? But it was Gerardus Hendrikus Horensma who gave me a part of what I learned on the school bench as a child and as a youth and who later opened my eyes and gave me the opportunity to quench my thirst for knowledge in Europe. He was a white person and believed in the capitalist-imperialist system that I have fought against for over a quarter of a century and against which I am still fighting as I write this in a republican jail in Magelang in May 1947.

A pupil who truly wants to learn, who wants to know, will pay no attention to the skin color or facial structure of the teacher who provides what is desired, namely knowledge. And a real teacher will disregard the skin color of a sincere and capable pupil, placing the pupil on a level with the teacher’s own child. A real teacher wants to impart knowledge, and a real pupil has a thirst to receive such knowledge.

Education is one field that can really dispel prejudice based on skin color, language, or customs and can give rise to a genuine feeling of equality (duduk sama rendah, berdiri sama tinggi).³⁶ I believe that international exchange between teachers and students and the establishment of schools for students of all nationalities are among the best ways to implant a lasting spirit of democratic internationalism.

[90] And now a little about my family. As the ship drew near to Padang, I became uneasy lest my parents come to bid me farewell. I had, though, sent my younger brother home from Semarang to the village before I left. I asked him not to let my mother and father come to Padang harbor.³⁷ It is true that they were both deeply religious people with a strong faith with which to face adversity. But could my mother, in particular, stand to see the ship taking her child away into an unknown place of exile for an unknown length of time?

Minangkabau mothers usually feel struck by misfortune if they have no daughter. In Minangkabau culture, tradition passes on the house, wet-rice fields, dry fields, stock, and other forms of wealth to the daughter. A Minangkabau house is sad indeed if it has no girl to become future queen of the family estate.

My mother’s sadness, buried deep in her innermost heart, was that she had no daughter. We two boys did not meet the requirements of the “matriarchy,” centered as it was on women. My mother always felt sadder than the other Minangkabau women because she had no daughter to be a close female friend beside her when her sons went away, perhaps forever, a normal event for Minangkabau men, who are known as orang perantauan [wanderers].

In 1925 in Canton, prompted by an inner drive, I asked a messenger from my party how my parents were. Naturally I was not able to have direct contact with them. I was told that my father had recently died. And in Hong Kong, after my arrest, I found out by chance that my mother had died in February 1933.

[91] It was some consolation that after I had arrived in Deli from Europe in 1919, I had gone immediately to my kampung to see my parents.³⁸ It was heartening to have heard that they both understood, accepted, and agreed with my activities and that they were even proud of being able to join in making sacrifices for the Indonesian state and people. For parents who were in no sense modern this was indeed progress. But the final obligation of Indonesian children to their parents, to visit their graves and to honor their spirits by carrying out their desires throughout a lifetime, I have been unable to carry out up to now (May 1947). I must confess that this long-postponed obligation frequently feels like a thorn in my flesh, particularly since I know and regret that my activities from the time I was small until they died caused them many difficulties.

But let us return to the harbor of Teluk Bayur, Padang. Fortunately my parents did not come, and even if they had we would not have been allowed to meet. Only a few people clever at “breaking through” were able to wish me farewell.³⁹