This Earth of Mankind

Idealism is a luxury owned by the youth – Tan Malaka

As idealism rises among the youth, either the buru tetralogy does. The phenomenal books written by leftish Indonesian novelist is a legend which inspiring and encouraging the youth’s spirit of revolutionary in all over the world. The series of book which had been translated into 45 languages makes it as one of the most influential story. Minke, who is described as a native man of Java island was son of regent and had a privileged attending Dutch school named HBS. He possessed a curiosity which leads to rebellion acts of manner such as rejecting to kneel down beneath his dad’s throne.

Minke, being young and educated in order to break off the slavery of feodalism was brutally dashing. Enhancing modern knowledge and European minds learned from Jean Marrais used to upper-cut the Dutch colonialization. His first critical writing style of journalism had begun to convince his nation-men and bring up the rights of humanity issues such as forced-work, underpaid labour, and unjustice court. Apart from his school, Minke met and learned from Sanikem (Nyai Ontosoroh), a concubine of Dutch who overcomed various obstacles to be recognized by society. An amazing struggle life told by Sanikem lured him to write more and more. About how to turn around the circumstance, to learn from the Dutch, as well as turn to be the leader of sugar company, all those stuff were explained well by Nyai.

Max Lane, in his 2017 book Indonesia Tidak Hadir di Bumi Manusia claims that the tetralogy forms a revolutionary epic that made an intellectual and political contribution to Indonesia that has never been truly exposed (Bambang Muryanto, May 2018). Indeed, the storyline and gains arranged by Pram was to doctrine as well as inspire the youth to reject all oppressing policies and culture of feodalism. Started by words on his pen to his speech acrossing the people of Rembang as the representative of his dad.

Kau terpelajar, cobalah bersetia pada kata hati.

Never had Minke surrender to a complicated stuff after slapped a word by Jean Marais. Holding on to emphaty which bandaged by critical-objective thinking was his truly belief. The ability of listening to his opressed voice of his people as well as the love of Nyai Ontosoroh and Annelis also had considerably encouraged Minke not to stop criticizing the public policies. So many inspirations and supporters Minke had to keep on his track and fight the Dutch colonialization and feodalism.

Duniaku bukan pangkat, gaji, jabatan, dan kecurangan. Duniaku bumi manusia beserta isinya.

What a wicked spirit!

The movie

Pram is considered to be the greatest revolutionary burner for the youth. His beginning of successful came after realizing that the majority of the young Indonesian who were living under the dictatorship of new era lacked of both freedom of mind and speech. To be easily and imaginable understood by all, Pram brought up his journalism inspiration Tirto Adhi Soerjo as Minke. He believed that the background life of Tirto has always considerably depicted the spirit of Jong Java. Moreover, the act of praising the lord of feodalism by Javanese would perfectly fit and lie in the story of Minke described as a son of a regent.

The story has largely put a faith inside the reader’s idealism to fight the dictartorship policies of new era. According to the book of Ideologi saya adalah Pramis! by Muhammad M. Dahlan, there had been a pride among the readers, medias, and revolutionary groups in 1990s. Even though the government largely banned this tetralogy, reading Pram’s book was a must in order to join one of the revolutionary groups. Furthermore, even the values doctrined by the book managed to fire up the spirit of the nation’s offsprings to bring social equality and be nationalism.

Nearly after 2 decades after the passing away of Pram, Bumi Manusia or This Earth of Mankind is released as a movie directed by Hanung Bramantyo. The main actor is Iqbal Ramadhan, the well-known new comer actor from the movie of Dilan and Milea. He is considered by the public of his handsome and smart because of his study abroad. Also, Annelis is represented by Mawar de Jong, a young Dutch-Indonesian actress. The incredible and an anti mainstream movie is almost 4 hours length and take shooting place in Sleman and Semarang.

To begin with, the movie has successfully fulfill the curiosity of the youth about the storyline of the story. The masterwork of Hanung perfectly displays the physical conditions of Indonesia in the life period of Minke (1890s) such as the stone road, bamboo houses, and horse-drawn buggies. These things has broadly brought the audiences to feel the past.

In spite of the increase of the novel readers because of the movie, I believe that the movie is to profit-oriented. Started by the choosing of marketable actor such as Iqbal who was considered to be famous because of his acting on love-story movie, it is likely that public will interpret and visualize him as a woman-lover, handsome, and perfectly ideal for a thousand series of love cinema displayed by SCTV or RCTI which lack of moral values. It is probably difficult for the fans of Dilan and Milea to feel the aims of Pram just because of the prior act of Iqbal.

Secondly, I see no different between the advertisement of clothing products and the movie of Bumi Manusia. A product ads as always get used to showing an ideal physical form such as white in skin color, ideal height, ideal bodyweight, and pretty face. This capitalism way has surely boar a dream to get an ideal physical form in the mind of the infants, either the movie has. These beauty of actors brings such a backlash for the very first aims sparked by Pram. The nationalism and spirit in easing the oppressed power are narrowing in the focused love story between Minke and Annelis. Moreover, there are more love dramatic scenes displayed than the struggled ones.

Based on the aforementioned arguments, I strongly believe that the actor movie for Bumi Manusia shall be among the ordinary Javanese people. This is due to the majority of the Javanese young have no privileged in pretty face and studying abroad, so Minke did. Surely the audiences will get what Pram tried to convey through his book because of Minke depicted the low class struggled against slavery and oppressing power.