State of Siege

The noise went on for three or four minutes. During it, I glanced at the sentry on the terrace. The battle song did not seem to have evoked any patriotic emotions in him; he was busy lighting a twig-like cheroot. When the music stopped, however, he looked up expectantly.

The announcer came on and gave the station identification twice. There was another pause, then another man began to speak. He announced himself as Colonel Roda, Secretary of the National Freedom Party and new Minister of Internal Security. Shortly, he said, we would hear the voice of the new Head of the State. General Sanusi, he went on, was a great patriot, a true son of Islam, who had fought against the colonial usurpers in the name of the Republic, believing that by doing so his country would be made free to follow its destiny as a political unit, and at the same time conform to the forty-two precepts of An-Nawawi. So, he had attempted to serve the Republic. But evil men had made it impossible to serve as Allah had commanded that a man should serve, with his whole heart. Questions had arisen in his mind. He had taken to his heart the first precept, which stated that actions are to be judged only in accordance with intentions. The intentions had been plainly bad. Therefore the actions were bad. He had gone further. He had examined the men at the heart of the Republic with eyes unclouded by alcohol. He had turned to An-Nawawi again for guidance and there, in the sixth precept, had been the knowledge he had sought. “Is it not a fact,” the holy man had written, “that there is in the body a clot of blood, and that if it be in good condition, the whole body is also?” Certainly! And was it not also written that if the clot of blood be in a rotten condition, so also was the whole body? Was not that clot of blood the very heart? Indeed, yes. Therefore, the heart must be purified. With other true Believers he had taken to the hills to prepare for the act of purification that had now been accomplished. As a result, a new era of peace, discipline and happiness had come to Sunda. Let all offer prayers for the author of this good fortune, Boeng General Kamarudin ben Sanusi.

There was a brief pause, a moment of rapid whispering, and then Sanusi began to speak.

He had a soft, pleasant voice which he used slowly and deliberately, as if he were none too sure of the intelligence of his audience.

He began by recalling the high hopes with which the Republic had been founded, and went on to describe the way in which the Nasjah Government had falsified those hopes. Power without Godliness had led to corruption. Corruption had led to the breakdown of the democratic machinery set up by the Constitution. Unconstitutional action had become necessary if the country were not to fall into anarchy, and become dominated, either by more powerful neighbors, or by the forces of colonialism which still threatened all the young nations of South-East Asia. And when the safety of the Republic was threatened, there was no time for legal quibbling. If your brother’s house caught fire while he was working in the fields, you did not wait until he returned so that you could ask his permission before you poured water on the flames. If a hungry leopard came looking for food in your village, you did not call a council meeting to discuss what should be done.

And so on. It was, in effect, the speech of every military dictator who seizes political power by force of arms, and seeks to justify himself.

He went on to proclaim the suspension of the authority of parliament (until such time as it was considered advisable to order new elections) and the establishment of a new People’s Army of Security (Tentara Keamanan Ra’jat), recruiting for which would begin immediately. All young men should offer their services. A delegation of the National Freedom Government was already in New York awaiting orders. Today it would be ordered to request recognition of the new Government from the United Nations. Prompt recognition would be sought also from friendly Indonesia, and from the other powers represented at the Afro-Asian Conference at Bandung.