Abstract
For two weeks now (October 18, 1981) Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Indonesia's leading novelist, his publishers, and four students have been under de facto arrest, receiving daily interrogation at the hands of KOPKAMTIB, the Suharto regime's "security" police force. Their crime? On September 24, Pram defied an official ban and delivered a lecture at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta on "The Attitude and Role of Intellectuals in Indonesia." Pram is not merely Indonesia's leading novelist (his nomination for a Nobel Prize for Literature is regarded by an increasing number of "experts" as a good bet in the not too distant future). Arrested by the Suharto regime soon after its October 1965 coup, Pram spent the next 14 years in prison without trial, until his release in 1979, along with tens of thousands of others imprisoned without trial. Pram's crime, then and now, has been his passionate commitment to freedom and justice for all Indonesians, a subject he no doubt addressed at his packed lecture.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.
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