CHAPTER 3
MARRIANE KATOPPO:
A Poet of God amidst the World of the Others
Does mysticism still have a place in our daily life?
Henrietta M. Katoppo in Raumanen (1975)
At the previous chapter, we drew a new portrait of theologian as the poet of God. This chapter introduces Marianne Katoppo, an Indonesian literary writer and theologian, as a living portrait of a theologian as the poet of God. Katoppo envisions theology as poetry of God. She gives breath to my understanding of narrative theology that is still in embryonic form. Her theological reflection starts from the margin, even outside the societal stage, where the Others live and defend their sacred lives from the danger of premature deaths. She speaks on behalf on rural perempuan, raped laborers, prostitutes, handicapped children, and other oppressed perempuan and fight with them against the historical Anti-God. She chooses to use literary language to speak about the Others who pose existential and theological problems. She contrasts herself with bourgeois theologians who write beautifully worded abstract concepts. She reads the Scripture to re-imagine Indonesian women as liberated human beings, and the feminine face of God.
Raumanen, a controversial, yet multi-awarded novel by Henrietta Marianne Katoppo, is re-launched this year to commemorate its 30th year publication. Indonesian literati recognize her as an influential, though often forgotten literary figure who leads the Indonesian literature into a new direction. This chapter recognizes her important contribution in leading Indonesian theology into a new direction. Her book Compassionate and Free: Toward an Asian Women’s Theology (1979), becomes an opus magnum for doing women’s theology in and beyond Asia. I explore her narrative way of doing theology that has never before been analyzed. I see her as a poet of God who formulates her theology using narrative language.
To help the reader journey with Katoppo’s narrative way of doing theology, I compose this chapter as follows. I begin with Katoppo’s life background, and show how her life experiences as an Indonesian Christian woman shape her literary writings. I focus my attention on some of her literary writings, such as Raumanen (1975), Terbangnya Punai (1978), and Anggrek Tak Pernah Berdusta (1979), which illustrate to me how she wrestles to live in a world that alienates the Other. I also discuss how her experience as the Other shapes her journey as an Indonesian woman theologian. How do Indonesian women as the Others encounter God? Finally, I will underline her theological insights that deserve recognition and further exploration.
Let the Other Speaks
Henrietta Marianne Katoppo was born in June 1943 in Tomohon, North Sulawesi. She grew up in a family that supported gender equality and in a culture that is more westernized. She engaged herself in a literary world and in human issues since her childhood. Her father, Elvianus Katoppo, introduced her to the importance of independent thinking and historical perspective. He proposed a deschooling model for Indonesian education in 1949 when he was a minister of education. The Indonesian government denied his proposal because most people were still in favor of schooling model of education. He emphasized the power of education in uncovering the myth of history and shaping history. Education should encourage the learning subjects to develop historical perspective and independent thought.
Elvianus Katoppo wrote about Nuku Sultan of Tidore as a Nusantara hero who fought for freedom from the colonial Dutch. There were Dutch writings about him at the end of XVIII century and at the beginning of XIX century, yet Nuku did not appear in Indonesian historical books. Nuku was an Indonesian hero, yet his name sank in the realm of forgetfulness. Elvianus Katoppo took Nuku out from the realm of forgetfulness and brought him back into the realm of Indonesian consciousness. He portrayed Nuku in a holistic image from the Indonesian perspective and challenged the myth created by the colonial Dutch about him. He wanted Nuku to form a page in Indonesian history. His project is to widen the geography of Indonesian national history that includes all islands of Nusantara, which spreads from Sabang, which is the western part of Indonesia, to Merauke, which is the eastern part of Indonesia.
Marianne Katoppo encountered new worlds when she moved to the island of Java. The people there began to ask questions like, “Where do you come from?” Katoppo, in her novel Anggrek Tak Pernah Berdusta, shares her struggle to answer this question. She knows that they actually ask her, “What culture do you come from?” She inherits her ethnicities from the Eastern to Western part of Nusantara.
My ancestors journeyed crossing the ethnic boundaries. Once upon a time one of my ancestors sailed from the western coastal of Africa to East Indies – Indonesia – for tobacco. He was a French man named Rene. People in Mollucas called him Pati Rene and soon his name changed into Pattirani. He indigenized himself, married a local perempuan, and lived there until his death.
His grandson continued his journey. A half century ago he sailed from Moluccas and his ship embarked unexpectedly in Amurang, Minahasa. He joined the military forces under the Dutch regime. His superior sent him to Sumatera and he resides in the land of Karo. His son, my grandfather, moved from Karo to Nias.
Cultural encounters with their clash are portrayed vividly in her novel Raumanen. Katoppo portrays Raumanen Rumokoi as a beautiful, diligent, dynamic, and independent woman. The relationship between Raumanen, a North Sulawesi woman, and Hamonangan Pohan, a North Sumatra man, was separated by walls of tradition and culture. Raumanen asks herself whether love can set them free from those barriers. Almost after 20 years of revolution when the Nusantara people lived as Indonesians, it turns out that we do not yet free ourselves easily from prejudice against people from other cultures. “Where do you come from” and “Who is your parent” still becomes first of the questions during acquaintance.
The question of love arises when Monang proposes marriage to her. Raumanen asks whether love motivates him to marry her. She will accept his proposal to marry him, but only if he is not proposing because he feels responsible for her after having slept with her. Responsibility is a necessary condition yet not a sufficient one for proposing marriage. Unlike sex, marriage requires love because it is a whole life commitment. Sharing personhood between husband and wife will possible be only if there is love between them.
I do not know whether I should have been happy because Monang already opens a freeway toward our marriage. I am not happy, but rather guilty with what happened at the villa. Moreover, I am afraid of the future. Should I become the wife of Monang now? Sharing my life with him, making his ideas mine? I do not know yet whether he loves me.”
In her novel Kembalinya Punai Marianne Katoppo rephrases the same question on love. Pingkan realizes that Martin does not yet have the will to marry or is even interested in marrying her. She chooses not to marry Andrzej because there is no mutual love between them. She asks whether it is possible to build a happy marriage without love as its foundation. For Pingkan, happiness is only possible when love becomes the foundation of the man and woman relationship. Pingkan is not skeptical, but critical about the love that both Martin and Andrzej ever professed to her.
And she realizes that Martin, like Miguel, does not yet have will or interest to bind him in marriage with a woman he loves.
Can she become Andzej’s wife although she has no love for him? But… the happiness that they enjoyed together previous night… could it happen without love?
Her experience as the Other continues when she enters theological study and career because of her ‘perempuan’ (‘feminist’) position. She still experiences being the Other even as a student of theology and a theologian. Her personal encounter with God as a woman is often denounced as heretical and hysterical. Her engagement with women in Asia and her encounters with many Third World theologians in Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians (EATWOT) help her to shape her distinctive theology based on her experience as the Other.
In Raumanen Marianne Katoppo poses the question of whether man and woman can resist patriarchal culture and religion that alienate human beings in the same way. She continues searching for the source that will give women power to transform the patriarchal culture and religion. These cultures and religions discriminate, subordinate, oppress, and alienate women. Being the other becomes a starting point for her doing Asian women’s theology. Katoppo begins to empower women by recovering the true meaning of the word perempuan. She reclaims the original meaning of the word perempuan and uses the word wanita no more. The word wanita, which means fragrance, has a negative connotation on women as objects. Katoppo in Terbangnya Punai (1978) declares clearly that calling someone by her right name means respecting the humanity of that person.
Pingkan almost does not recognize Cecile. They meet with each other for a short time only. But Cecile always tries to pronounce her name right because she is a careful journalist, and has a soft heart. She understands that calling name involves the nature of that person.
Katoppo understands freedom in a concrete way. In her novel Terbangnya Punai Katoppo shows that Amanda chooses deliberately to live under the same roof with her alcoholic husband. As a wife she has power to divorce him, but chooses not to do so. Amanda never uses freedom in her own interest, but to liberate others. She continues to live with her husband without losing her personhood in order to save the humanity of her beloved kids and husband.
“There are many forms of love and happiness,” Pinkan thinks…. It is perhaps difficult for an outsider to understand why Amanda perseveres in her marriage. What happiness is left for her living with his drunkard husband? It seems that Amanda experiences sereneness when she is at the side of her husband. Her children become precious gifts for her.
Katoppo understands freedom in its internal relationship with compassion. Pingkan invites us to listen to her deepest longing for freedom. She joins with the slaves in the Nebucadnezzar who sings the hymn “…teure Heimat, wann she’ich Dich wlder, Dir, nach der die Sechnsucht mich verzehrt!” She understands her freedom in relationship to the liberation of other people. She does not reduce freedom to individualism that sacrifices interpersonal or social relationship between human beings. Individualism is the antithesis of freedom. Sweden, which is generally perceived as a modern and liberal country and whose citizens enjoy a high standard of living, is a mirror through which we can see the irony of individualism. Individualism as an ideology fails because it encourages freedom, but discourages intimacy between human beings. Excessive search for individualism degrades humanity at its deepest level.
It’s Sweden… Human relationship and family ties are sacrificed in order to maintain their freedom and independence. Every human being has a chance to develop his or her personality, but that is perhaps why he or she becomes short-sighted. They seek for their egoism and many sides of their personality are left out.’ … ‘Is this what we call development? Rigid and cold skyscrapers while human hearts that long for intimacy and love are left on the roadside.”
Pingkan once desired to become a traditional woman living in harmony with traditional culture and religion. She would bear less responsibility if she chose to be a dependent person in society. She only needs to live according to the rule and law in the society. She would become a part of a structure of the old society and live according to the way of life that is prescribed in many details. Although it restricts their freedom, many women are tempted to be dependent persons because society tells them how to live. Opting for independence and being independent was a real challenge for women because they need to be critical of the old ways of living that discriminates, subordinates, and oppresses humanity.
Pingkan suddenly dreams that all her burdens to be a responsible person to her own life will be lifted up. Ah, how beautiful it is living in a restrictive society. People live following the tradition and law passing through generations without reserve. They do not become an independent person, but only a part in the societal structure. They need only to behave and act according to the assigned pattern. It is bondage, but also a pillar. One becomes only a part in the societal structure.
Liberation and independence are beautiful things, but they are costly. We need to have a strong personality. We can not hide behind customs imposed by other people.
Katoppo also extends the issue of cultural diversity between man and woman from different countries. Swasti Patirrani, the main character in Anggrek Tak Pernah Berdusta (1979), is an Indonesian woman with multiple cultural backgrounds who experienced cultural conflict in her relationship with a Dutch man named Jerome. Cultural diversity does not unite Patirrani and Jerome, but divides them instead.
Red-White is my national flag. When I add with a blue color – the color of his yes - it becomes his. We must break our relationship because we come from different countries.
Swasti Patirrani aims to promote gender equality in his relationship with Jerome. Patirrani believes that gender equality will build mutual partnership between them. In her Marianne Katoppo portrays Patiranni as a woman who has a considerable knowledge of national and even global issues. Patirrani challenges the patriarchal society that portrays perempuan as domestic wanita. She imagines a portrait of perempuan in a post-patriarchal society as a responsible person who exercises her freedom to serve her social world. Jerome fails through his narrow view of freedom that is limited to individual right and restriction. He neglects to understand that a true freedom should move us to love human beings unconditionally. He sees the impossibility to balance private and public lives. Swarna, her younger brother, is a modern man who promotes gender equality. Man is not destined to rule over woman. Swarna rejects the traditional portraits of women as second class persons whose main tasks are macak (treat beauty), masak (prepare meals), and manak (give birth).
Barbara Hatley, who specializes in gender representation in Indonesian literature, also fails to understand Katoppo’s portrait of a fully liberated woman. Hatley misreads Katoppo’s novel Dunia Tak Bermusim (1984) as a novel which contrasts the Indonesian cultural values of restraint and refinement with the Western cultural values of bold behavior. She fails to see a new relationship between man and woman built on love. Hartley describes the protagonist as an Indonesian woman who studies in Korea and builds a sexual relationship with a married Korean businessman. She fails to see that a true love assumes partnership. She portrays the main character as an Indonesian woman who disapproves the promiscuous behavior of an American fellow student.
Swasti is a modern woman who stands at the crossroads between the Great Society and the regional chauvinist society. Blood, kinship, and soil ties characterize regional chauvinist society. She dreams of a new relationship between human beings beyond regional chauvinist culture. Since childhood she has dreamed of writing about her presence in a larger universe.
I write down my name: Swasti Pattirani. Behind my name, I add my address, house number, city, Jakarta, Java, Indonesia, World, and Universe.
Children always want to draw their existence in this universe. They are conscious of their smallness, while adult people are less aware about this. Adult people think that they are big enough, and they narrow their feet in this universe.
Pingkan envisions a new liberated humanity that replaces the eros of ueber alles with the ethos of homo homini socius. Love transforms the other from a threatening into an enriching element. Pingkan describes her father as a model of a liberated person. Her father involves himself in the liberation of the others. He dares to take a risk, challenging all cultures and traditions that discriminate, subordinate, and oppress others.
He is a real father. He is a fully human being who engages himself and takes responsibility toward other human beings for whom he is as their father. A kid actually never asks to be born in this world. Moreover, a kid like Ulrike, whom in another country other people will call illegal, and the members of the community will expel him because they are so sure that they are better that than him.
Marianne Katoppo, in her novel Raumanen, upsets her readers with a sad ending. Raumanen realizes that her first child will be born with disability if she continues her pregnancy. Hamonangan Pohan contaminated her womb with his unclean sexual life. Raumanen Rumokoi rejects to forgive her unfaithful husband. Raumanen admits that she is too weak to manage her existential crisis. Katoppo draw Raumanen’s ultimate existential crisis with the biblical imagery of Jacob who wrestles with the angel of God for all night. Raumanen ends her life by committing suicide. Marianne Katoppo seems to use suicide as a symbol of religious kenosis before God. Yohanes Bilyarta Mangunwijaya considers her suicide as an anti-religious arrogance instead.
God as the Absolute Other
The three novels that I discussed above address the issue of being the Other. Women as the Others long for liberation and envision a new humanity characterized by love. This part focuses on how Katoppo’s experience as being the Other shapes her theological activity. Katoppo defines theology traditionally as “a discipline or a critical reflection primarily about God.” There is always a temptation for her to identify herself as a scientist of God. However, in reading her novels and her theological work Compassionate and Free: Toward An Asian Women’s Theology (1979) she never tries to call herself a scientist of God. She implicitly calls herself a poet of God, who is on a continuous journey to encounter the Absolute.
Choan-Seng Song calls a theologian, in a sense, a biographer of God who ”lets God speaking for God’s own self on the basis of what Christian perceive to be signs of God’s activity in human community.” Katoppo understands the task of a theologian in a similar way; as Song puts it ‘‘a witness to love between God and humanity in action.” The starting point of theology is humanity in God and the end point of theology is God in humanity.
In theology we begin with where we are and what we are – that is, where God and human beings meet in actual situation. We neither begin with God alone or with humanity alone. We begin with God in humanity and humanity in God. In other words, the center of our theological concern is God and human being interacting with each other in love.
Marianne Katoppo’s experiences as being the Other shape her theological question “How do Indonesian women as the Others encounter God” Her theology is born out of a crisis of love, as represented in the characters of Raumanen, Pingkan and Swasti. She formulates her theology to respond to this crisis. She invites theology to return to its original definition as a critical discipline when she poses the question “Does mysticism still have a place in our daily life?” She formulates her theology from her background as an Asian Christian woman with her fellow women who undergo alienation for being the Other, while simultaneously experiencing the Other as a liberating event.
Katoppo is very conscious of the importance of history. History first of all refers to living people, not fossilized data. She pays special attention to those who live at the underside (of the underside) of history who experience alienation. They become the starting point for doing theology. She never puts women as the Other as a footnote, but as primary data. When she uses historical data, she speaks about human beings, not objects. The opposite of history, for Katoppo, is unreality.
Katoppo recovers the original meaning of word perempuan (person) and deflates the myth of woman created by the patriarchal society with the word wanita. The word wanita implies that woman is a non person. To be a perempuan means being a person with equal right to exist. On the contrary to be a wanita that implies non-personhood because, her existence derives from the male. Discrimination, subordination, and oppression against women are forms of treating women as non-persons in history.
From the early age a woman has been conditioned to perform as a subservient, subordinate role. Her status will always be derived, never primary. Instead of being a person in her own right, she will always be “daughter/wife/mother” of a man.
Katoppo sees the danger when theologians prefer becoming scientists of God to poets of God. The task of a scientist of God is to formulate beautiful concepts of God that are unhistorical. On the contrary a poet of God is critical to anti-God in history. De-schooling theology becomes her major project as a response to schooling theology that castrates independent thinking and historical perspective. Her theology advocates for the humanity of non-persons who are close to premature deaths.
In doing Asian theology, we cannot limit ourselves to beautifully abstract concepts. Of course well-fed, well-dressed bourgeois theologians have all the time in the world of that. But if one really encounter the powerless Christ in the oppressive structures of Asia (and indeed everywhere), it is clear that time is running out.
Katoppo formulates a theology done with a sense of urgency. She emphasizes the urgency to shift from bourgeois into non-persons theology. Her theology starts with the non-persons and ends with God. It is urgent to liberate the non-persons in Indonesian history now. The non-persons have less time to live and are in continuous danger of premature deaths. Subagio Sastrowardoyo (1924 – 1995) in his poem, The Producer’s Time, speaks about the importance of time:
Time is an important part of the play
Time controls the rhythm of the actions, the meetings and
the conversations
time determines when an actor enters, when he leaves, and how long he is absent from the stage
Time divides the story into equal parts: tells when to open the curtain and when to close them at the end….
Katoppo uses the non-persons’ history to read the story of God in the Bible and other Christian sources. Women are also considered as the Other in Christian sources. Katoppo observes how Christian theologians often underemphasize and even ignore feminine images of God and at the same time overemphasize male images of God. They overemphasize the male images of God, such as Lord, King, and Father. On the contrary they underemphasize or even alienate the feminine images of God, such as Mother, Comforter, and Giver of Life. Katoppo uses Mary as symbol of a fully liberated woman, and the symbol of Mary to restore the true image of woman. She is not being subjected to other human beings. She is free to give her life to God. She leads an autonomous life, not a derived life. Mary of the Magnificat is sensitive to social injustices that take place in her times and is ready to restore human beings as imago Dei. Mary has a social conscience to liberate her fellow human beings who were alienated.
Katoppo’s starting point as a perempuan who brings the story of her fellow women gives her a third eye in reading the Bible and in searching a whole image of God. She discovers feminine images of God and even feminine qualities in male images of God. God as mother is a symbol of life giver, while God as Father is a symbol of divine fecundity and creativity. It is a symbol to express the loving commitment of God who takes care of us.
My life journey begins at her womb. When her life journey reaches a final point and she returns to the womb of the earth, why I can’t come to her funeral? Why? How comforting is the memory of mother’s special love.
A Model for Indonesian Narrative Theology
After analyzing Katoppo’s first theological publication of Compassionate and Free: An Asian Women’s Theology (1979), I see at least three theological contributions that deserve recognition and further exploration. Katoppo starts her theological reflection from the point of view of an Indonesian Christian perempuan. Her encounter with the others helps her to re-imagine perempuan as a liberated human person and God as the absolute Other who brings liberation to the suffering other. She proposes theology as poetry of God and theologian as poet of God.
Firstly, Katoppo starts her theological reflection from what Choan-Seng Song calls as “indigenous resources.” Katoppo begins her theology from her own experience as an Indonesian Christian perempuan. She also discusses some important human life issues that her communities of women face, such as prostitution, polygamy, and rape. Katoppo asks her reader to reflect on other life and death issues that need urgent response now such as racial discrimination, violence, corruption, and ecocide. These issues need urgent responses because of the risk to human lives who are on the underside (of the underside) of history. Indonesian theology needs to be approached with the urgency of Indonesian reality. If we do not respond to those issues soon, there are many lives that will be in danger of premature deaths. We need to formulate theology that does not alienate, but liberates the Other. As Choan-Seng Song rightly states, we need “to reclaim the life and history of our people as our own life and history.” Both Katoppo and Song use indigenous resources that are totally unrelated to Christianity for Christian theology.
Theological interpretation should not limit itself to understanding God and the transcendent sphere only, but extend to addressing the whole reality. Nothing escapes the consideration of the theological activity. It is open to all reality because all reality is its subject matter. It enters implicitly into dialogue with all human experience, with other disciplines of human knowledge and with other religions. The very dialogue with the world forces theology to reflect critically on the meaning of Christian symbols.
Secondly, Katoppo finds that indigenous resources raise theological motifs. In addition to listening to women’s stories, she also listens to the cultural and religious wisdoms, such as Putri Ijo (Princess Green), Beru Ginting Pase (Daughter of Ginting Pase), and Pingkan Mogogunoi that exist in Indonesia. Such indigenous wisdoms are “capable of echoing, together with biblical insights, the mystery of God’s creation from the depth of the human spirit in the quest of the source and meaning of life.” Although unrelated historically to Christianity, indigenous resources pose theological issues that we can no longer ignore.
Indigenous resources challenge Christian theology from being “worded abstract concepts.” They also challenge sexist language and practice of the Christian community. The other religions in Asia lead their followers to personal and social liberation. Dialogical interaction with indigenous resources calls Christian theologians to imagine a new humanity as a compassionate and free person. It also calls Christian theologians to re-emphasize and remember the feminine image of God, such as Mother, Comforter, and Giver of Life. God in Jesus encounters women as a liberated person, not as a non-person.
Thirdly, theology needs to be more narrative in language. Katoppo uses symbols and images to share her encounter with God as the absolute Other. Song also reminds us that we human beings are makers of symbols and images that tell us who we are, who God is, and how we human beings and God encounter each other. Theology tends to reduce God to merely an object of knowledge. Literalization of theological language takes place when theology grasps and possesses God as an object. For Roger Haight, theology is a symbolic discipline because symbolic language is the only kind of language that is appropriate to its subject matter.
Katoppo envisions a theologian as a poet of God who is on a journey to encounter the absolute Other. The poet of God also is responsible to encounter God in the suffering other. Finally, Katoppo as a poet of God shares her vision of a new humanity.
I am – You are
I am free – You are free
But – where I am, what I am, You cannot be
Where you are, what you are, I cannot be
Am I encroaching on your freedom?
Are you intruding on mine?
Have I the right to be what I am?
Can we be fully human: You and I, each in our own way?
MARRIANE KATOPPO:
A Poet of God amidst the World of the Others
Does mysticism still have a place in our daily life?
Henrietta M. Katoppo in Raumanen (1975)
At the previous chapter, we drew a new portrait of theologian as the poet of God. This chapter introduces Marianne Katoppo, an Indonesian literary writer and theologian, as a living portrait of a theologian as the poet of God. Katoppo envisions theology as poetry of God. She gives breath to my understanding of narrative theology that is still in embryonic form. Her theological reflection starts from the margin, even outside the societal stage, where the Others live and defend their sacred lives from the danger of premature deaths. She speaks on behalf on rural perempuan, raped laborers, prostitutes, handicapped children, and other oppressed perempuan and fight with them against the historical Anti-God. She chooses to use literary language to speak about the Others who pose existential and theological problems. She contrasts herself with bourgeois theologians who write beautifully worded abstract concepts. She reads the Scripture to re-imagine Indonesian women as liberated human beings, and the feminine face of God.
Raumanen, a controversial, yet multi-awarded novel by Henrietta Marianne Katoppo, is re-launched this year to commemorate its 30th year publication. Indonesian literati recognize her as an influential, though often forgotten literary figure who leads the Indonesian literature into a new direction. This chapter recognizes her important contribution in leading Indonesian theology into a new direction. Her book Compassionate and Free: Toward an Asian Women’s Theology (1979), becomes an opus magnum for doing women’s theology in and beyond Asia. I explore her narrative way of doing theology that has never before been analyzed. I see her as a poet of God who formulates her theology using narrative language.
To help the reader journey with Katoppo’s narrative way of doing theology, I compose this chapter as follows. I begin with Katoppo’s life background, and show how her life experiences as an Indonesian Christian woman shape her literary writings. I focus my attention on some of her literary writings, such as Raumanen (1975), Terbangnya Punai (1978), and Anggrek Tak Pernah Berdusta (1979), which illustrate to me how she wrestles to live in a world that alienates the Other. I also discuss how her experience as the Other shapes her journey as an Indonesian woman theologian. How do Indonesian women as the Others encounter God? Finally, I will underline her theological insights that deserve recognition and further exploration.
Let the Other Speaks
Henrietta Marianne Katoppo was born in June 1943 in Tomohon, North Sulawesi. She grew up in a family that supported gender equality and in a culture that is more westernized. She engaged herself in a literary world and in human issues since her childhood. Her father, Elvianus Katoppo, introduced her to the importance of independent thinking and historical perspective. He proposed a deschooling model for Indonesian education in 1949 when he was a minister of education. The Indonesian government denied his proposal because most people were still in favor of schooling model of education. He emphasized the power of education in uncovering the myth of history and shaping history. Education should encourage the learning subjects to develop historical perspective and independent thought.
Elvianus Katoppo wrote about Nuku Sultan of Tidore as a Nusantara hero who fought for freedom from the colonial Dutch. There were Dutch writings about him at the end of XVIII century and at the beginning of XIX century, yet Nuku did not appear in Indonesian historical books. Nuku was an Indonesian hero, yet his name sank in the realm of forgetfulness. Elvianus Katoppo took Nuku out from the realm of forgetfulness and brought him back into the realm of Indonesian consciousness. He portrayed Nuku in a holistic image from the Indonesian perspective and challenged the myth created by the colonial Dutch about him. He wanted Nuku to form a page in Indonesian history. His project is to widen the geography of Indonesian national history that includes all islands of Nusantara, which spreads from Sabang, which is the western part of Indonesia, to Merauke, which is the eastern part of Indonesia.
Marianne Katoppo encountered new worlds when she moved to the island of Java. The people there began to ask questions like, “Where do you come from?” Katoppo, in her novel Anggrek Tak Pernah Berdusta, shares her struggle to answer this question. She knows that they actually ask her, “What culture do you come from?” She inherits her ethnicities from the Eastern to Western part of Nusantara.
My ancestors journeyed crossing the ethnic boundaries. Once upon a time one of my ancestors sailed from the western coastal of Africa to East Indies – Indonesia – for tobacco. He was a French man named Rene. People in Mollucas called him Pati Rene and soon his name changed into Pattirani. He indigenized himself, married a local perempuan, and lived there until his death.
His grandson continued his journey. A half century ago he sailed from Moluccas and his ship embarked unexpectedly in Amurang, Minahasa. He joined the military forces under the Dutch regime. His superior sent him to Sumatera and he resides in the land of Karo. His son, my grandfather, moved from Karo to Nias.
Cultural encounters with their clash are portrayed vividly in her novel Raumanen. Katoppo portrays Raumanen Rumokoi as a beautiful, diligent, dynamic, and independent woman. The relationship between Raumanen, a North Sulawesi woman, and Hamonangan Pohan, a North Sumatra man, was separated by walls of tradition and culture. Raumanen asks herself whether love can set them free from those barriers. Almost after 20 years of revolution when the Nusantara people lived as Indonesians, it turns out that we do not yet free ourselves easily from prejudice against people from other cultures. “Where do you come from” and “Who is your parent” still becomes first of the questions during acquaintance.
The question of love arises when Monang proposes marriage to her. Raumanen asks whether love motivates him to marry her. She will accept his proposal to marry him, but only if he is not proposing because he feels responsible for her after having slept with her. Responsibility is a necessary condition yet not a sufficient one for proposing marriage. Unlike sex, marriage requires love because it is a whole life commitment. Sharing personhood between husband and wife will possible be only if there is love between them.
I do not know whether I should have been happy because Monang already opens a freeway toward our marriage. I am not happy, but rather guilty with what happened at the villa. Moreover, I am afraid of the future. Should I become the wife of Monang now? Sharing my life with him, making his ideas mine? I do not know yet whether he loves me.”
In her novel Kembalinya Punai Marianne Katoppo rephrases the same question on love. Pingkan realizes that Martin does not yet have the will to marry or is even interested in marrying her. She chooses not to marry Andrzej because there is no mutual love between them. She asks whether it is possible to build a happy marriage without love as its foundation. For Pingkan, happiness is only possible when love becomes the foundation of the man and woman relationship. Pingkan is not skeptical, but critical about the love that both Martin and Andrzej ever professed to her.
And she realizes that Martin, like Miguel, does not yet have will or interest to bind him in marriage with a woman he loves.
Can she become Andzej’s wife although she has no love for him? But… the happiness that they enjoyed together previous night… could it happen without love?
Her experience as the Other continues when she enters theological study and career because of her ‘perempuan’ (‘feminist’) position. She still experiences being the Other even as a student of theology and a theologian. Her personal encounter with God as a woman is often denounced as heretical and hysterical. Her engagement with women in Asia and her encounters with many Third World theologians in Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians (EATWOT) help her to shape her distinctive theology based on her experience as the Other.
In Raumanen Marianne Katoppo poses the question of whether man and woman can resist patriarchal culture and religion that alienate human beings in the same way. She continues searching for the source that will give women power to transform the patriarchal culture and religion. These cultures and religions discriminate, subordinate, oppress, and alienate women. Being the other becomes a starting point for her doing Asian women’s theology. Katoppo begins to empower women by recovering the true meaning of the word perempuan. She reclaims the original meaning of the word perempuan and uses the word wanita no more. The word wanita, which means fragrance, has a negative connotation on women as objects. Katoppo in Terbangnya Punai (1978) declares clearly that calling someone by her right name means respecting the humanity of that person.
Pingkan almost does not recognize Cecile. They meet with each other for a short time only. But Cecile always tries to pronounce her name right because she is a careful journalist, and has a soft heart. She understands that calling name involves the nature of that person.
Katoppo understands freedom in a concrete way. In her novel Terbangnya Punai Katoppo shows that Amanda chooses deliberately to live under the same roof with her alcoholic husband. As a wife she has power to divorce him, but chooses not to do so. Amanda never uses freedom in her own interest, but to liberate others. She continues to live with her husband without losing her personhood in order to save the humanity of her beloved kids and husband.
“There are many forms of love and happiness,” Pinkan thinks…. It is perhaps difficult for an outsider to understand why Amanda perseveres in her marriage. What happiness is left for her living with his drunkard husband? It seems that Amanda experiences sereneness when she is at the side of her husband. Her children become precious gifts for her.
Katoppo understands freedom in its internal relationship with compassion. Pingkan invites us to listen to her deepest longing for freedom. She joins with the slaves in the Nebucadnezzar who sings the hymn “…teure Heimat, wann she’ich Dich wlder, Dir, nach der die Sechnsucht mich verzehrt!” She understands her freedom in relationship to the liberation of other people. She does not reduce freedom to individualism that sacrifices interpersonal or social relationship between human beings. Individualism is the antithesis of freedom. Sweden, which is generally perceived as a modern and liberal country and whose citizens enjoy a high standard of living, is a mirror through which we can see the irony of individualism. Individualism as an ideology fails because it encourages freedom, but discourages intimacy between human beings. Excessive search for individualism degrades humanity at its deepest level.
It’s Sweden… Human relationship and family ties are sacrificed in order to maintain their freedom and independence. Every human being has a chance to develop his or her personality, but that is perhaps why he or she becomes short-sighted. They seek for their egoism and many sides of their personality are left out.’ … ‘Is this what we call development? Rigid and cold skyscrapers while human hearts that long for intimacy and love are left on the roadside.”
Pingkan once desired to become a traditional woman living in harmony with traditional culture and religion. She would bear less responsibility if she chose to be a dependent person in society. She only needs to live according to the rule and law in the society. She would become a part of a structure of the old society and live according to the way of life that is prescribed in many details. Although it restricts their freedom, many women are tempted to be dependent persons because society tells them how to live. Opting for independence and being independent was a real challenge for women because they need to be critical of the old ways of living that discriminates, subordinates, and oppresses humanity.
Pingkan suddenly dreams that all her burdens to be a responsible person to her own life will be lifted up. Ah, how beautiful it is living in a restrictive society. People live following the tradition and law passing through generations without reserve. They do not become an independent person, but only a part in the societal structure. They need only to behave and act according to the assigned pattern. It is bondage, but also a pillar. One becomes only a part in the societal structure.
Liberation and independence are beautiful things, but they are costly. We need to have a strong personality. We can not hide behind customs imposed by other people.
Katoppo also extends the issue of cultural diversity between man and woman from different countries. Swasti Patirrani, the main character in Anggrek Tak Pernah Berdusta (1979), is an Indonesian woman with multiple cultural backgrounds who experienced cultural conflict in her relationship with a Dutch man named Jerome. Cultural diversity does not unite Patirrani and Jerome, but divides them instead.
Red-White is my national flag. When I add with a blue color – the color of his yes - it becomes his. We must break our relationship because we come from different countries.
Swasti Patirrani aims to promote gender equality in his relationship with Jerome. Patirrani believes that gender equality will build mutual partnership between them. In her Marianne Katoppo portrays Patiranni as a woman who has a considerable knowledge of national and even global issues. Patirrani challenges the patriarchal society that portrays perempuan as domestic wanita. She imagines a portrait of perempuan in a post-patriarchal society as a responsible person who exercises her freedom to serve her social world. Jerome fails through his narrow view of freedom that is limited to individual right and restriction. He neglects to understand that a true freedom should move us to love human beings unconditionally. He sees the impossibility to balance private and public lives. Swarna, her younger brother, is a modern man who promotes gender equality. Man is not destined to rule over woman. Swarna rejects the traditional portraits of women as second class persons whose main tasks are macak (treat beauty), masak (prepare meals), and manak (give birth).
Barbara Hatley, who specializes in gender representation in Indonesian literature, also fails to understand Katoppo’s portrait of a fully liberated woman. Hatley misreads Katoppo’s novel Dunia Tak Bermusim (1984) as a novel which contrasts the Indonesian cultural values of restraint and refinement with the Western cultural values of bold behavior. She fails to see a new relationship between man and woman built on love. Hartley describes the protagonist as an Indonesian woman who studies in Korea and builds a sexual relationship with a married Korean businessman. She fails to see that a true love assumes partnership. She portrays the main character as an Indonesian woman who disapproves the promiscuous behavior of an American fellow student.
Swasti is a modern woman who stands at the crossroads between the Great Society and the regional chauvinist society. Blood, kinship, and soil ties characterize regional chauvinist society. She dreams of a new relationship between human beings beyond regional chauvinist culture. Since childhood she has dreamed of writing about her presence in a larger universe.
I write down my name: Swasti Pattirani. Behind my name, I add my address, house number, city, Jakarta, Java, Indonesia, World, and Universe.
Children always want to draw their existence in this universe. They are conscious of their smallness, while adult people are less aware about this. Adult people think that they are big enough, and they narrow their feet in this universe.
Pingkan envisions a new liberated humanity that replaces the eros of ueber alles with the ethos of homo homini socius. Love transforms the other from a threatening into an enriching element. Pingkan describes her father as a model of a liberated person. Her father involves himself in the liberation of the others. He dares to take a risk, challenging all cultures and traditions that discriminate, subordinate, and oppress others.
He is a real father. He is a fully human being who engages himself and takes responsibility toward other human beings for whom he is as their father. A kid actually never asks to be born in this world. Moreover, a kid like Ulrike, whom in another country other people will call illegal, and the members of the community will expel him because they are so sure that they are better that than him.
Marianne Katoppo, in her novel Raumanen, upsets her readers with a sad ending. Raumanen realizes that her first child will be born with disability if she continues her pregnancy. Hamonangan Pohan contaminated her womb with his unclean sexual life. Raumanen Rumokoi rejects to forgive her unfaithful husband. Raumanen admits that she is too weak to manage her existential crisis. Katoppo draw Raumanen’s ultimate existential crisis with the biblical imagery of Jacob who wrestles with the angel of God for all night. Raumanen ends her life by committing suicide. Marianne Katoppo seems to use suicide as a symbol of religious kenosis before God. Yohanes Bilyarta Mangunwijaya considers her suicide as an anti-religious arrogance instead.
God as the Absolute Other
The three novels that I discussed above address the issue of being the Other. Women as the Others long for liberation and envision a new humanity characterized by love. This part focuses on how Katoppo’s experience as being the Other shapes her theological activity. Katoppo defines theology traditionally as “a discipline or a critical reflection primarily about God.” There is always a temptation for her to identify herself as a scientist of God. However, in reading her novels and her theological work Compassionate and Free: Toward An Asian Women’s Theology (1979) she never tries to call herself a scientist of God. She implicitly calls herself a poet of God, who is on a continuous journey to encounter the Absolute.
Choan-Seng Song calls a theologian, in a sense, a biographer of God who ”lets God speaking for God’s own self on the basis of what Christian perceive to be signs of God’s activity in human community.” Katoppo understands the task of a theologian in a similar way; as Song puts it ‘‘a witness to love between God and humanity in action.” The starting point of theology is humanity in God and the end point of theology is God in humanity.
In theology we begin with where we are and what we are – that is, where God and human beings meet in actual situation. We neither begin with God alone or with humanity alone. We begin with God in humanity and humanity in God. In other words, the center of our theological concern is God and human being interacting with each other in love.
Marianne Katoppo’s experiences as being the Other shape her theological question “How do Indonesian women as the Others encounter God” Her theology is born out of a crisis of love, as represented in the characters of Raumanen, Pingkan and Swasti. She formulates her theology to respond to this crisis. She invites theology to return to its original definition as a critical discipline when she poses the question “Does mysticism still have a place in our daily life?” She formulates her theology from her background as an Asian Christian woman with her fellow women who undergo alienation for being the Other, while simultaneously experiencing the Other as a liberating event.
Katoppo is very conscious of the importance of history. History first of all refers to living people, not fossilized data. She pays special attention to those who live at the underside (of the underside) of history who experience alienation. They become the starting point for doing theology. She never puts women as the Other as a footnote, but as primary data. When she uses historical data, she speaks about human beings, not objects. The opposite of history, for Katoppo, is unreality.
Katoppo recovers the original meaning of word perempuan (person) and deflates the myth of woman created by the patriarchal society with the word wanita. The word wanita implies that woman is a non person. To be a perempuan means being a person with equal right to exist. On the contrary to be a wanita that implies non-personhood because, her existence derives from the male. Discrimination, subordination, and oppression against women are forms of treating women as non-persons in history.
From the early age a woman has been conditioned to perform as a subservient, subordinate role. Her status will always be derived, never primary. Instead of being a person in her own right, she will always be “daughter/wife/mother” of a man.
Katoppo sees the danger when theologians prefer becoming scientists of God to poets of God. The task of a scientist of God is to formulate beautiful concepts of God that are unhistorical. On the contrary a poet of God is critical to anti-God in history. De-schooling theology becomes her major project as a response to schooling theology that castrates independent thinking and historical perspective. Her theology advocates for the humanity of non-persons who are close to premature deaths.
In doing Asian theology, we cannot limit ourselves to beautifully abstract concepts. Of course well-fed, well-dressed bourgeois theologians have all the time in the world of that. But if one really encounter the powerless Christ in the oppressive structures of Asia (and indeed everywhere), it is clear that time is running out.
Katoppo formulates a theology done with a sense of urgency. She emphasizes the urgency to shift from bourgeois into non-persons theology. Her theology starts with the non-persons and ends with God. It is urgent to liberate the non-persons in Indonesian history now. The non-persons have less time to live and are in continuous danger of premature deaths. Subagio Sastrowardoyo (1924 – 1995) in his poem, The Producer’s Time, speaks about the importance of time:
Time is an important part of the play
Time controls the rhythm of the actions, the meetings and
the conversations
time determines when an actor enters, when he leaves, and how long he is absent from the stage
Time divides the story into equal parts: tells when to open the curtain and when to close them at the end….
Katoppo uses the non-persons’ history to read the story of God in the Bible and other Christian sources. Women are also considered as the Other in Christian sources. Katoppo observes how Christian theologians often underemphasize and even ignore feminine images of God and at the same time overemphasize male images of God. They overemphasize the male images of God, such as Lord, King, and Father. On the contrary they underemphasize or even alienate the feminine images of God, such as Mother, Comforter, and Giver of Life. Katoppo uses Mary as symbol of a fully liberated woman, and the symbol of Mary to restore the true image of woman. She is not being subjected to other human beings. She is free to give her life to God. She leads an autonomous life, not a derived life. Mary of the Magnificat is sensitive to social injustices that take place in her times and is ready to restore human beings as imago Dei. Mary has a social conscience to liberate her fellow human beings who were alienated.
Katoppo’s starting point as a perempuan who brings the story of her fellow women gives her a third eye in reading the Bible and in searching a whole image of God. She discovers feminine images of God and even feminine qualities in male images of God. God as mother is a symbol of life giver, while God as Father is a symbol of divine fecundity and creativity. It is a symbol to express the loving commitment of God who takes care of us.
My life journey begins at her womb. When her life journey reaches a final point and she returns to the womb of the earth, why I can’t come to her funeral? Why? How comforting is the memory of mother’s special love.
A Model for Indonesian Narrative Theology
After analyzing Katoppo’s first theological publication of Compassionate and Free: An Asian Women’s Theology (1979), I see at least three theological contributions that deserve recognition and further exploration. Katoppo starts her theological reflection from the point of view of an Indonesian Christian perempuan. Her encounter with the others helps her to re-imagine perempuan as a liberated human person and God as the absolute Other who brings liberation to the suffering other. She proposes theology as poetry of God and theologian as poet of God.
Firstly, Katoppo starts her theological reflection from what Choan-Seng Song calls as “indigenous resources.” Katoppo begins her theology from her own experience as an Indonesian Christian perempuan. She also discusses some important human life issues that her communities of women face, such as prostitution, polygamy, and rape. Katoppo asks her reader to reflect on other life and death issues that need urgent response now such as racial discrimination, violence, corruption, and ecocide. These issues need urgent responses because of the risk to human lives who are on the underside (of the underside) of history. Indonesian theology needs to be approached with the urgency of Indonesian reality. If we do not respond to those issues soon, there are many lives that will be in danger of premature deaths. We need to formulate theology that does not alienate, but liberates the Other. As Choan-Seng Song rightly states, we need “to reclaim the life and history of our people as our own life and history.” Both Katoppo and Song use indigenous resources that are totally unrelated to Christianity for Christian theology.
Theological interpretation should not limit itself to understanding God and the transcendent sphere only, but extend to addressing the whole reality. Nothing escapes the consideration of the theological activity. It is open to all reality because all reality is its subject matter. It enters implicitly into dialogue with all human experience, with other disciplines of human knowledge and with other religions. The very dialogue with the world forces theology to reflect critically on the meaning of Christian symbols.
Secondly, Katoppo finds that indigenous resources raise theological motifs. In addition to listening to women’s stories, she also listens to the cultural and religious wisdoms, such as Putri Ijo (Princess Green), Beru Ginting Pase (Daughter of Ginting Pase), and Pingkan Mogogunoi that exist in Indonesia. Such indigenous wisdoms are “capable of echoing, together with biblical insights, the mystery of God’s creation from the depth of the human spirit in the quest of the source and meaning of life.” Although unrelated historically to Christianity, indigenous resources pose theological issues that we can no longer ignore.
Indigenous resources challenge Christian theology from being “worded abstract concepts.” They also challenge sexist language and practice of the Christian community. The other religions in Asia lead their followers to personal and social liberation. Dialogical interaction with indigenous resources calls Christian theologians to imagine a new humanity as a compassionate and free person. It also calls Christian theologians to re-emphasize and remember the feminine image of God, such as Mother, Comforter, and Giver of Life. God in Jesus encounters women as a liberated person, not as a non-person.
Thirdly, theology needs to be more narrative in language. Katoppo uses symbols and images to share her encounter with God as the absolute Other. Song also reminds us that we human beings are makers of symbols and images that tell us who we are, who God is, and how we human beings and God encounter each other. Theology tends to reduce God to merely an object of knowledge. Literalization of theological language takes place when theology grasps and possesses God as an object. For Roger Haight, theology is a symbolic discipline because symbolic language is the only kind of language that is appropriate to its subject matter.
Katoppo envisions a theologian as a poet of God who is on a journey to encounter the absolute Other. The poet of God also is responsible to encounter God in the suffering other. Finally, Katoppo as a poet of God shares her vision of a new humanity.
I am – You are
I am free – You are free
But – where I am, what I am, You cannot be
Where you are, what you are, I cannot be
Am I encroaching on your freedom?
Are you intruding on mine?
Have I the right to be what I am?
Can we be fully human: You and I, each in our own way?
No comments:
Post a Comment