The Poets Fight Back: East Timorese poetry as counterdiscourse to colonial and postcolonial identities
By Anthony Soares
 |
| Oost-Timor moet vrij! Poster by Basuki Resobowo 1977 |
Abstract:
This article examines whether the experiences of
Portuguese and Indonesian colonial rule in East Timor acted as a unifying
factor, creating a sense of East Timorese national identity, inspiring its
poets to engage in a revolutionary and anti-colonial lyrical discourse that
mirrored the aspirations of those fighting for independence. It also considers
the significance of contemporary East Timorese poetry that has elements of a
counterdiscourse in a postcolonial, independent East Timor, asking whether the
apparent unity of anti-colonial lyric voices has fractured, and whether the
disappearance of the oppressive presence of Indonesia means that there is no
power that can inspire a concerted reaction amongst East Timorese poets. Finally,
although the ‘other(s)’ against which the colonial and postcolonial poetic
counterdiscourses of East Timor are reacting against may be different, the
negative effects they are accused of become themes that are common to the
poetry of both historical periods. Therefore, this article will seek to pose
some questions regarding the validity of the term ‘postcolonial’ when applied
to East Timorese poetry.
East Timor’s
development of a sense of national identity since its formal entry as an
independent state onto the international stage, in May 2002, is the
continuation of a process that began under colonial rule. Constructed in
opposition to an imperialist discourse that sought to silence those who wished
to raise an East Timorese nationalist consciousness, cultural production became
a powerful tool in this struggle. In her foreword to Luís Cardoso’s memoirs of
his childhood, The Crossing: A Story of
East Timor, Jill Jolliffe writes:
During their
24-year struggle for liberation the Timorese always considered their culture as
one of their weapons, and Indonesia’s
failure to subjugate these courageous people was as much due to their profound
sense of their own cultural identity as their unrelenting military resistance.[1]
Native cultural identities survived centuries of Portuguese colonial
rule, as well as the brutal Indonesian illegal occupation that followed. New
forms of expression emerged in that time, including the appearance of literary
texts of East Timorese authorship. However, given the conditions under which this
literature has arisen, it is unsurprising to find that it has been principally
concerned with the promotion of an identity that is seen as distinct from those
imposed by East Timor’s oppressors.
Conscious of these
adverse conditions, Artur Marcos makes the following cautionary remarks in
relation to the cultural landscape of the country at the time of his writing –
1995 – when it was still under Indonesia’s
illegal occupation:
Os leste-timorenses apresentam dotes para artes várias e – estamos
convictos disso – só a incertidão do presente vivido e as imposições de muitas
urgências relativas à sobrevivência física, social e política num contexto de
Diáspora ou de Resistência no Interior, cerceia o amadurecimento artístico de
muitas pessoas ou obriga ao condicionamento de trabalhos para que transmitam
intencional e assumidamente alguma mensagem política de aplicação imediata.[2]
A pressing need for political self-expression conditions much of East Timor’s poetry written during the final years of
Portuguese colonial rule and throughout the Indonesian occupation. One of the
purposes of this essay, therefore, is to demonstrate how this led to the
attempt to create a sense of East Timorese national identity, where poets
engaged in a revolutionary and anti-colonial lyrical discourse that mirrored
the aspirations of those fighting for independence.[3]
It will also consider whether contemporary East Timorese poetry continues to
assist in the construction of a national consciousness since the country no
longer lies under the dominion of Portuguese or Indonesian colonial rule, and
as the people of this young nation are engaged in the process of building a
country in every one of its fundamental aspects: political, social, economic,
judicial, cultural, etc.
Informing this
analysis is an overarching perspective, derived from the important theoretical
work on Portugal and its former colonies by Boaventura de Sousa Santos, who
sees phantom centralising, colonialist or globalising discourses that present
themselves as the only legitimate vehicle to a proper understanding of world
realities, voiding any alternative discourse that may challenge them of value.[4]
A direct consequence of this is the relative ignorance of cultures that
originate in nations or territories that are positioned at the periphery by
those who regard themselves as inhabiting the centre of a world-system that
organises reality according to its own criteria. This leads Artur Marcos to lament that, for
example:
São escassas as referências a Timor Leste entre aqueles que se interessam
por Literatura. E contudo o território existe, os seus naturais têm formas de
expressão próprias – umas antigas e transmitidas oralmente de acordo com a
tradição étnica, outras hodiernas reveladas pela escrita.[5]
I will add here that the area of postcolonial studies itself risks
mirroring the attitude that relegates the cultures of nations such as East
Timor to a periphery created by a false centre, privileging the study of the
effects of British imperialism – and, to a lesser extent, French imperialism –
and ignoring the realities of other colonialisms and their influence on a wider
postcolonial reality.
This could, of
course, come as a result of linguistic factors which determine that non
English-speaking cultures – therefore, cultures that are less likely to have
formed part of the British empire – are
inaccessible to a centre that privileges English. Such is the proposition put
forward by António Sousa Ribeiro in his essay, ‘Translation as a Metaphor for
our Times: Postcolonialism, Borders and Identities’, which discusses the
erroneous notion of the outmoded need for translation:
It could, of
course, be argued that in the era of globalization translation has become more
and more superfluous and the need for translation less and less self-evident.
The use of English as a lingua franca, as is the case in so many international
meetings around the world, can, it is true, mean no more than the creation of a
‘neutral’ space of communication, serving the instrumental purpose that resonates
in the commonplace of the English language as the Esperanto of our time. But
English is the lingua franca of globalization because it is the language of
empire, of the only empire that subsists on the contemporary world scene. And
the logic of empire, that of an all-encompassing centre governed by the goal of
total assimilation, is essentially monolingual and monologic. Under such a
unifying perspective, for which difference is not to be acknowledged or simply
does not exist, translation is, in fact, irrelevant.[6]
One of the characteristics of contemporary reality, therefore, is
the dominance of the English language, a result of its use as the language of
what Ribeiro calls ‘the only empire that subsists on the contemporary world
scene’. Its global implementation as a communication tool does not, as Ribeiro
rightly points out, create a ‘neutral’ space, but rather one that is marked as
belonging – or aspires to belong to – the centre. Such a space makes it
increasingly difficult for other discourses to be brought into it, since their
difference from the dominant discourse of the self-imposed centre makes them
embarrassing guests – guests who do not know how to behave at the dinner table.
Within the space of
postcolonial studies it is possible that certain postcolonial discourses –
including those of a theoretical nature – may be treated as similarly unwelcome
guests, if the dominance of a neo-imperial or globalizing order translates
itself into a focus on the study of the British empire
as the prism through which the postcolonial world should be observed. This
appears to be Edward Said’s approach, as identified by Ana Paula Ferreira and
Margarida Calafate Ribeiro in the introduction to their volume of essays, Fantasmas e Fantasias Imperiais no Imaginário
Português Contemporâneo:[7]
Seguimos a linha de reflexão essencialmente cultural que o pioneiro
trabalho de Edward Said, Orientalism,
lançou, como uma espécie de garrettiano pronunciamento
no mundo pós-colonial, continuado em Culture
and Imperialism, onde o autor previne que não irá abordar o estudo de
vários impérios, entre os quais o espanhol e o português, justificando a
atitude pela especificidade e distinção destes impérios relativamente aos
impérios britânico e francês.[8]
The fact that Said’s works, which privilege one imperial past above
all others, have been so influential in the area of postcolonial studies,
raises the possibility that one centralising discourse that sees others as “too
distinctive” or “too specific” has infiltrated the discipline. In this light,
the history of the Portuguese colonial presence does not fit into a narrative
that explains the rise and fall of the British empire and, consequently, the
peoples and cultures of Portugal’s former colonies risk being analysed – if
they are analysed at all – using theoretical concepts developed through a
concern to understand the British, or Anglo-Saxon, colonial and postcolonial
realities.
Somewhat
paradoxically, the era of globalization where an Anglo-Saxon discourse appears
to hold sway is, in fact, one where other discourses have – to a certain extent
– flourished, countering the claim to centrality of the former. As António
Sousa Ribeiro points out:
as the theory of
globalization has repeatedly insisted upon, the appearance of homogeneity is,
in many ways, deceptive. The new technologies and the virtually infinite
ability to manipulate information that they offer allow the adjustment of
global cultural products to local logics. And they allow, consequently, the
increasing possibility of an active intervention by the addressees, building up
a sphere where the interpenetration of the global and the local may occur in
multiple, not always foreseeable ways. From this perspective, the processes of
globalization are heterogeneous and fragmented (p.188).
Some contemporary East Timorese poetry could be seen to some extent
as part of a ‘counter-hegemonic globalization’ which, according to Ribeiro,
‘has by definition to be critical of any centralism or universalism and cannot
rely on any transcendental principal’ (p.188). However, contemporary East
Timorese poetry’s critical stance is not, to my view, as inimical to ideas of
universalism as Ribeiro perceives counter-hegemonic globalization to be. Its
enmity is largely reserved for the application of a false centralising
discourse that has been imported from – or implanted by – the centre of the
world-system, which simultaneously positions East Timor
at the periphery of the system, and condemns large sections of its population
to an internal periphery as the country is encouraged to adopt the centre’s
discourse. Yet, whilst such poetry rejects the new value-systems that are
taking hold of East Timor, it does so in the
knowledge that the liberation poetry of previous decades had envisioned a
different nation, employing a counterdiscourse to that of the colonial powers
which called for the East Timorese to unite in resistance to their oppressors.
Contemporary East Timorese poetry rejects what it sees as an East Timor built
in the image of false gods, but does so in the knowledge of the Timor promised by poets that are now celebrated as
national icons.[9]
One of those poets
is in the unusual position of having written about a free East
Timor whilst it was in the hands of the Portuguese and then the
Indonesians, and of now being the president of the nation he fought to
liberate. The figure of Xanana Gusmão is an inescapable presence to those who
interest themselves in East Timor, and a visit to the government’s website will
be rewarded with plenty of information on a remarkable man who for many years
led Fretilin – the East Timorese resistance – against the Indonesian
occupation, even after his capture and imprisonment in 1992.[10]
Following the links to the poetry of East Timor results in a page headed with
the name of Xanana Gusmão, and the added soubriquet of “President Poet”,
followed by excerpts of some of his poetry, translated into English.[11]
One of the poems included is entitled “Maubere”, written in 1975, which
appeared in its original Portuguese version in a volume of East Timorese poetry
published in 1981 under the auspices of Fretilin in Mozambique.[12]
The Timorese people, referred to as the ‘Maubere’, are exhorted to unite and
resist their oppressors, and the concluding stanzas make a passionate call for
action:
Maubere
People,
clench
your fists,
The
hour is yours, Maubere!
And
your defiance will bring down
the
walls of your own enslavement!...
Maubere
People,
Confront
and face yourself in the long
march
of liberation.
Liberate
yourself!
Be
strong!... Be Maubere!...[13]
The term ‘maubere’, equated in Gusmão’s poem with being strong, was
reclaimed by the Timorese resistance to symbolise a collective identity in the
face of the colonial presence. In the mouths of the Portuguese it had quite different connotations, as
Artur Marcos explains: ‘em tempos de governação efectiva portuguesa instalada
no território, seria também usada, na boca de europeus e assimilados,
convencidos de uma superioridade cultural ou de inteligência, como designação
desprezante de elementos da população timor, especialmente do interior, pouco
ou nada habituada na sua vida comunitária e tecnologia rudimentar aos padrões e
instrumental europeus’.[14]
The term ‘maubere’ becomes a tool in the construction of an East Timorese
identity, building the idea of a nation in opposition to a colonial presence
that had begun at a time when the island of Timor was divided into several
native kingdoms. The birth of an East Timorese national
consciousness is, therefore, a relatively recent phenomenon, and occurs at a
most unpropitious time, when others’ imperial ambitions are violently opposed
to such aspirations.[15]
“Maubere”, then,
becomes part of an East Timorese counterdiscourse that is evident in the
country’s liberation poetry, and its significance is justified by one of East Timor’s most celebrated poets, Fernando Sylvan
(1917-1993). In a 1992 essay
entitled, ‘Presente e futuro da palavra maubere’,[16]
Sylvan explains that the term ‘tem crescido, positivamente, de forma
extraordinária e espectacular’,[17]
so that:
Nenhum outro vocábulo Tétum […] teve mais rápido movimento, e isso,
indesmentivelmente, pelo uso que dela fez e faz a Resistência, dentor e fora,
sobretudo fora das fronteiras de Timor Maubere. É esta palavra que viaja,
altaneira, na Comunicação Social de todos os países, nos Organismos de Apoio em
numerosos Estados, nos areópagos internacionais, em todos os sítios, enfim,
inserida na generalidade das línguas cultas.[18]
The propagation of the word “maubere” as a linguistic means of
unifying the various sectors and native groupings of East
Timor into a single population, is in great part due to its
prominence in the discourse of the dominant resistance movement, Fretilin. As Sylvan makes clear, it is a unifying
word that comes into existence because of a struggle against an enemy whose
actions are shown to be affecting all Timorese: ‘É palavra usada no português e
internacionalmente, em conversa de rua, discurso politico, texto poético ou
erudito, porque, na verdade, a invasão indonésia e o genocídio consequente, com
o trazer a questão dos Mauberes ao primeiro plano das preocupações nacionais e
internacionais, fez com que a palavra maubere,
tal e qual, fosse inserida, e vivesse, sem tradução, em todos os idiomas’.[19]
As the role of the poet in the East Timorese struggle against
Portuguese and Indonesian occupation is defined by those who led the resistance
as one of active participation in the people’s fight against their oppressors,
his depiction of the values that are being fought for is highly illustrative.
Thus, Xanana Gusmão’s poem, “Mauberíadas”, obeys Fretilin’s definitions of the
nature of “liberation poetry” and of the poet’s relationship to his society:
In the last years before his death at the hands of the invading
Indonesian troops on the 7th of December 1975, Francisco Borja da
Costa, East Timor’s most celebrated poet, became actively involved in Fretilin
efforts to improve the appalling levels of illiteracy that existed in his
country.[20]
Poetry and song expressing Timorese nationalist sentiments were central to Fretilin’s
literacy drives, helping both to teach the population to read, whilst also
raising a national consciousness that would ensure support for Timor’s claim to
independence.[21]
We can read Borja
da Costa’s poem, “O Povo Maubere não pode ser Escravo de mais ninguém”, as part
of that effort to instil a desire for independence, whilst it also underlines
the oppressive and destructive nature of Portuguese colonialism. It begins by
calling for the birth of a new life that will come from the rejection of a colonial
past:
I
É
preciso
viver
e
sentir
p’ra
esquecer-se
e
o povo
servir
II
É
preciso
lutar
p’ra
vencer
e
acabar
com
o medo
servil[22]
Each stanza begins with ‘É preciso’, emphasising an obligation, and
the poem is formed by a series of actions or attitudes that must be undertaken,
including the need to struggle and, in the fourth stanza, the need to gain an
understanding of present circumstances: ‘É preciso/este povo/ensinar/p’ra
entender/quem o quer/explorar’.[23]
The concluding section makes clear the desire of the Timorese people to
determine their own destinies, which will come as a result of the destruction
of colonial oppression:
VI
É
preciso
destruir
e
acabar
com
o peso
e
opressão
colonial
É
PRECISO GRITAR BEM ALTO
QUE
O POVO DE TIMOR
QUE
O POVO MAUBERE
NÃO
PODE SER ESCRAVO
DE
MAIS NINGUÉM
DE MAIS NINGUÉM
DE
MAIS NINGUÉM
DE
MAIS NINGUÉM[24]
What Borja da Costa’s poetry typifies is the purpose of East
Timorese liberation poets to awaken within Timor’s
population what they regard as their undying desire for independence.
However, Borja da Costa and other poets of his generation also
underline the need for unity, repeatedly pointing out the heroic sacrifices
that must be made by every Timorese in order to turn that dream of independence
into a reality. Thus, Oky do Amaral writes in “Memórias inesquecíveis” on the
familiar belief in the coming victory of the Maubere people despite the
aggression of the colonial enemy, which will be achieved through their supreme
sacrifices:
Importa pois, certamente,
Fazer
por valer em cada peito
Do
choro ou nos ais de cada
Da
simples dor contida
Do sangue e suor vertidos
Por
todos quantos se valeram
No
teu gérmen bem resguardado
Da
ousada luta triunfante
No
crescer da Poesia
Sob
a decisão inquebrantável
De
lutar, lutar, lutar ainda mais
In order for Timorese freedom to be achieved, the people must act as
one and participate in the heroic struggle against those who are oppressing
them, and the united efforts of the country’s poets will help in securing
victory.
If that unity is
maintained, and the people are prepared to make the sacrifices that will be
asked of them, then a new nation will be born after centuries of colonial
oppression, as Eugénio Salvador Pires predicts in his sonnet, “O rasgo das
trevas”, where Timor
Manteve-se obscure e vexante…
No
colonial jugo e uniforme
De
ex-Portugal fascista e enorme
Quando
dele se fez parte integrante!...
Mas
de chofre a aurora dealbou.
E,
então, das ilhas… e mares no meio,
Leste
cresceu e grande se tornou!
Por
que breve no palco vai-se estar,
Para
mostrar ao Mundo, sem enleio,
O
poder de o seu rumo autotraçar.[26]
The future nation of Timor is
characteristically represented by Salvador Pires as one that will determine its
own identity, free from the limits imposed by a colonial discourse that asserts
the right to shape the territory and its inhabitants to suit its own imperial
interests. Whilst Portugal claimed that it was embarked on a civilizing mission
within its colonial possessions, Borja da Costa reveals in “O rasto da tua
passagem” the truth that lay behind this false rhetoric, directly accusing the
Portuguese that:
Silenciaste minha razão
Na
razão das tuas leis
Sufocaste
minha cultura
Na
cultura da tua cultura
Abafaste
minhas revoltas
Com
a ponta da tua baioneta
Torturaste
meu corpo
Nos
grilhões do teu império
Subjugaste
minha alma
Na
fé da tua religião.[27]
Despite the violence enacted by the Portuguese against those that
refuse to repeat the imperialist mantra of the Timorese destiny being
inextricably entwined with that of Portugal, liberation poets serve to
inspire in their fellow countrymen and women a belief in their future
independence. Even as the violence increased to unimaginable proportions under
the Indonesian occupation, such voices managed to keep alive the dream of an
independent East Timor. They continued to call
for unity in the face of Indonesia’s
colonial oppression, and to ask the people to make further sacrifices in order
to attain their ultimate objectives.
Until the late 1990s, however, those objectives would remain a
remote aspiration, since the Indonesian dictator, General Suharto, was regarded
as an ally to the West in its struggle against Communism during the cold war,
and then as the ruler of a country apparently receptive to a discourse
promoting the globalization of the market economy. Consequently, Fretilin’s
counterdiscourse to imperialism in the 1970s, promoted by the liberation poets,
was regarded as inimical to the discourse promoted by the centre of the
world-system, and Timorese hopes for independence following the end of
Portugal’s dictatorship and the beginning of the process of withdrawal from its
former colonies were dashed following the Indonesian invasion of 1975, which
had the tacit support of the West.[28]
When, in the late 1990s, the Indonesian regime became a source of embarrassment
to the promoters of globalization due to its rampant corruption, and the
country could no longer be held up as an example to other peripheral or
semi-peripheral nations even after the downfall of General Suharto in 1998,
Western governments were obliged to acknowledge the truth that lay behind the
discourses emanating from elements of the Timorese diaspora, or those who
remained in East Timor itself. Public outrage at the atrocities committed by
the Indonesian military and their local militias in East Timor, allied to the
fact that the Indonesian dictatorial regime had become a hindrance to the
centre’s interests, led to the holding of a referendum in the occupied
territory in 1999 which was to allow its people to decide their future once and
for all. However, even at this point, so close to the hour in which the
Timorese people could realise the dream of and independent East
Timor that had been vividly portrayed by its country’s poets,
their unity was being tested.
This is what the title of João Aparício’s collection of poems written
in 1999, Uma Casa e Duas Vacas,[29]
attempts to convey, as an explanatory note confirms:
O título Uma Casa e Duas Vacas
foi inspirado no depoimento de um timorense, a propósito da promessa de oferta
de “uma casa e duas vacas”, feita pelos militares indonésios e chefes das
milícias pró-integração à população civil, caso esta rejeitasse a
independência.[30]
It is to that threatened unity that Aparício appeals in the
collection’s opening poem, “Casa sagrada”. Inserting elements of Tetum, one of
the Timorese native languages, in order to more forcefully express the nation’s
unique identity that is being threatened by a false discourse, he declares:
Ao princípio vivias na úma lúlic, [31]
A
morada de Maromak, [32]
Luz
que liga o Povo e a brisa do mar.
E agora,
irmã milícia,
Queres
apagar a luz,
Essa
misteriosa iluminação,
Que
nunca foi apagada.
……………………………….
……………………………….
……………………………….
Somos
os herdeiros da luz,
Porque
nascemos da única úma lúlic;
A
nossa vida foi feita para amar,
Não
para matar um ao outro.[33]
Aparício is appealing to a member of the Indonesian-backed Timorese
militia that supported integration with the occupying country. His rhetoric
highlights a shared native heritage, which should act as a unifying factor
against external influences that incite deadly violence against those who
assert Timor’s independence.
The fractures in the Timorese people’s unity that had not been
visible in the works of Borja da Costa and his generation, begin to widen as
some are attracted by an external discourse that promises material rewards.[34]
Aparício addresses “A casa e as vacas” to one of those that has been lured by
the offers made by the Indonesian regime:
Tu, que eras da casa sagrada,
Vendeste
tua alma ao monstro,
À troca de casa e vacas.
Só
por isso
Voltaste
as costas à nossa casa,
Correndo
atrás de outra
Que
se nutre de mortes humanas e
Despejando
bostas na morada de Deus?[35]
The poem ends by warning those who turn their backs on what had been
seen as a united house of Timor that they are
abandoning a true identity for a false discourse that will only bring them
misery:
Quando a promessa,
Vácua
e fatal, tiver chegado,
Prepara-te para chorar tua desgraça.
…………………………
Como
essa promessa é o ópio!
…………………………
…………………………
Olha!
A casa é morta, roxa e fria;
Lá
vêm as duas vacas,
Estrangeiras
entre os rouxinóis,
Magras
e sem leite.[36]
Things represented by outsiders as enticing are ultimately devoid of
value and actually detrimental to those who desire them. They are identified as
being “alien”, external to Timor, a drug that
will imprison the Timorese just at the point where they may be free. However, despite
the violent intimidation that took place in the months and weeks leading up to
the 1999 referendum, the Timorese people chose to become creators of their own
destinies, suffering the deadly backlash of the Indonesian military and
militias in revenge for their decision. And yet, even after the departure of
the Indonesians, East Timorese poetry reveals that the country’s independence
has not ensured the complete restoration of unity that had been – at least
temporarily – affected by Indonesia.
The free East Timor that earlier poets had portrayed, and for which the
population was encouraged to unite and make sacrifices, is not yet a reality,
as the nation’s independence has not guaranteed that all its citizens are
brought from the periphery into the safety of the centre.
Celso Oliveira, in his 2003 collection, Timor-Leste: Chegou a Liberdade, recalls his own experiences as a
member of the resistance against the Indonesian occupation, and catalogues the
sacrifices he and countless others made in order to see their nation free from
external oppression.[37]
Discontent with the situation of the newly-independent East Timor is evident in
the opening lines of “O tempo de recompensar”, which state, ‘Se eu soubesse que
“era” assim o nosso destino, eu não lutava’.[38]
The poem’s lyric voice goes on to catalogue some of the suffering he and his
family underwent at the hands of the Indonesians: ‘Eu que chorei pelo meu pai
morrendo, pela minha mãe violada, pelo meu filho perseguido, pelo meu irmão
desaparecido, pelo meu íntimo amigo esfaqueado, pelo meu tio que chorou por
causa da minha tia que foi violada e pelos meus bens que foram saqueados’.[39]
Having listed these and other violent acts committed by the Indonesians, as
well as the sacrifices the poetic subject made in order that his country should
gain its independence, their value is put into question faced with a free East
Timor that does not match up to what he had fought for: ‘Se eu soubesse que tu
ias praticar a corrupção e o nepotismo, eu não lutava’.[40]
The present of
Timorese independence is then put clearly into contrast with the past in
Oliveira’s “Era uma coisa/Agora é outra coisa”, where it is important to
remember that that past was one in which the East Timorese were living under
the Indonesian occupation:
Era. Todos nós quisermos ser presos, sofrer e voar
por todo o lado do
[mundo.
Agora quem tem dinheiro é
que manda.
Era. Todos nós quisermos
ser heróis.
Agora quem era herói é traidor, quem era traido é
herói.[41]
According to this view, post-independence East
Timor has not brought the genuine freedoms that had united the
population in its struggle against the Indonesians and, before them, the
Portuguese, and which the liberation poetry of the 1970s and 80s had envisioned.
Instead, the new values that have taken hold of the country risk introducing a
new form of colonialism, keeping all those that are not privileged enough to be
at the centre of the system that has been imported in a state of subservience.
Consequently, in the same poem Oliveira warns, ‘Se continuarmos assim, não
seremos livres e independentes’,[42]
as the loss of unity that had characterised the Timorese in their resistance to
others’ overt colonial ambitions is now allowing them to succumb to an invasion
that creates division.
To conclude, I hope
to have signalled how East Timorese liberation poetry of the 1970s and 80s
presented a generally common front to Portuguese and Indonesian colonial
rhetoric, appealing for a united Timorese population to resist those who held
power over them. However, their counterdiscourse, whilst serving to inspire the
people of East Timor and energising an
emerging national consciousness, did not chime with the prevalent doctrines of
the West, so that their concerns were ignored by those who preferred to align
themselves with a brutal dictatorship that better suited their interests. At
this point East Timor was positioned at the periphery of the world-system by
those who saw themselves as occupying the centre, a situation that would only
change once the Indonesian regime could no longer resist the extravagances of
its leadership at a time of largely self-inflicted economic turmoil, giving the
East Timorese a window of opportunity to advance their cause. However, as the
poetry of João Aparício served to show, the unity that had prevailed began to
show signs of fracture, provoked by an Indonesian strategy that aimed to deny
the former Portuguese colony’s assertion of its independence. Nevertheless, the
Timorese people’s aspirations would overcome Indonesian intimidation, and come
closer to becoming a reality after the 1999 referendum, especially since the
leaders of the East Timorese cause, particularly Xanana Gusmão, the future
president, made clear that an independent East Timor would be an East Timor welcoming the global market economy. It now
remains to be seen if the divergences that Celso Oliveira points to in his
poetry will prevent the consolidation of an East Timorese national identity if
there is growing disillusion amongst a population that remains at the periphery
of a system that benefits only a select few, or whether Oliveira’s call in “O
tempo de recompensar” will be heeded:
Agora, é tempo de repensar…
BASTA!!!:
De
guerra civil entre nós.
De
confrontações entre nós.
De
manipulações e explorações entre nós.[43]
Source:
https://www.academia.edu/3740376/The_Poets_Fight_Back_East_Timorese_Poetry_as_Counterdiscourse_to_Colonial_and_Postcolonial_Identities
[1] Luís Cardoso, The Crossing: A
Story of East Timor, translated by Margaret Jull Costa (London, New York:
Granta Books, 2000), p.xvii
[2] Artur Marcos,
‘Textos e versões leste-timorenses: Traços para um quadro geral’, in Timor Timorense: Com suas Línguas,
Literaturas, Lusofonia... (Lisbon: Edições Colibri,
1995), pp.157-170 (pp.159-160). Unless otherwise indicated, all translations of
Portuguese texts are mine. [The East Timorese show an aptitude for several
artistic forms of expression and – I am convinced of this – only their present
uncertainty and the imposition of many urgent needs relative to their physical,
social and political survival within a context of Diaspora or Internal
Resistance, limits many people’s artistic development, or obliges them to
restrict their work to intentionally and self-consciously transmitting
political messages in response to an immediate situation].
[3] In this respect it is important to note Fretilin’s definitions of
the nature of liberation poetry and of the poet’s relationship to his society:
‘Liberation Poetry is rich with profound and just human aspirations. In it, the
poet abstract and subtracts himself with those of his People. In this relation
of abstraction/identification, the poet finds his own self in the Struggle,
through his daily and active participation in the political and socio-economic
transformation of the society to which he belongs’. [A Poesia de Libertação é rica de aspirações
humanas justas e profundas. Nela, o poeta abstrai-se e substrai-se dos seus
próprios interesses para se identificar com os do seu Povo. Nesta relação
abstracção/identificação, o poeta encontra o seu próprio EU na Luta, através da
sua participação directa e quotidiana na transformação política e
sócio-económica do meio humano a que pertence], R.P. Fretilin, in Timor Leste (Maputo: Insituto Nacional
do Livro e do Disco, 1981), p.5.
[4] . See his essay,
‘Entre Prospero e Caliban: Colonialismo, pós-colonialismo e inter-identidade’,
in Entre ser e estar: Raízes, percursos e
discursos da identidade, ed. by Maria Irene Ramalho and António Sousa
Ribeiro (Porto: Edições Afrontamento, 2001), 23-85.
[5]Artur Marcos, ‘Acerca de uma Literatura de
Timor Leste’, in Timor Timorense,
pp.91-103 (p.91). [Those who are interested in
literature make scarcely any references to East Timor.
And yet, the territory exists, its inhabitants have their own forms of expression
– some of them ancient and transmitted orally in accordance with native
tradition, others contemporary, revealed through the written word].
[6] António Sousa
Ribeiro, ‘Translation as a Metaphor for our Times: Postcolonialism, Borders and
Identities’, Portuguese Studies, 20
(2004), 186-194 (pp.187-8).
[7] Fantasmas e Fantasias Imperiais no Imaginário
Português Contemporâneo,
ed. by Margarida Calafate Ribeiro and Ana Paula Ferreira (Porto: Campo das
Letras, 2003).
[8] . [We are following the essentially cultural line of thought which
the pioneering work of Edward Said, Orientalism,
launched [...] into the postcolonial world, continued in Culture and Imperialism, where the author warns us that he will not
undertake the study of several empires, the Spanish and Portuguese amongst
them, justifying this attitude by the specificity and distinctiveness of these
empires in relation to the British and French empires] (p.13).
[9] Benita Parry, in her essay ‘Problems in current theories of
colonial discourse’ (pp.27-32), undertakes a valuable re-examination of Fanon’s
theoretical propositions as part of a counter-hegemony; in Postcolonial Studies: A Materialist Critique (London and NewYork: Routledge, 2004),
pp.13-36.
[11] . www.gov.east-timor.org/AboutTimorleste/poetry.htm. To date, the
webiste’s content is only available in English, having yet to be translated
into Tetum or Portuguese.
[13] These stanzas read as follows in the Portuguese version published
in Timor Leste:
Povo MAUBERE
cerra
os punhos
Grita
bem alto
–
A hora é TUA, MAUBERE!
E
o teu desafio fará ruir
as
barreiras da tua própria escravidão!...
Povo
MAUBERE
Enfrenta-te
na longa marcha libertadora,
Liberta-te!...
SÊ
HOMEM!... SÊ MAUBERE!...
[14] . Artur Marcos,
‘Tópicos para Um Quadro Linguístico Dialectal de Timor Leste’, in Timor Timorense, 117-125 (p.120). [since the time of the establishment of effective Portuguese rule in
the territory, it was also used, in the mouths of Europeans and assimilated
natives, convinced of their own superior culture or intelligence, as a
demeaning label for elements of the Timorese population, especially those from
the interior, used to their communal life and rudimentary tools, and with
little or no familiarity of European values or technology].
[15] . Benita Parry’s essay, ‘Resistance theory / theorizing resistance
or two cheers for nativism’, in her collection, Postcolonial Studies: A Materialist Critique (London & New
York: Routledge, 2004), pp. 37-54, presents a convincing argument on the need
to recognise the oppositional nature of colonial resistance movements, and not
to dismiss it as a project doomed to repeat the oppressive behaviours of the
colonizing powers. In her introductory remarks to the essay, Parry states:
‘proposals on how resistance is to be theorized display faultlines within the
discussion that rehearse questions about subjectivity, identity, agency and the
status of the reverse-discourse as an oppositional practice, posing problems
about the appropriate models for contemporary counter-hegemonic work. An agenda
which disdains the objective of restoring the colonized as subject of its own
history does so on the grounds that a simple inversion perpetuates the
colonizer/ colonized opposition within the terms defined by colonial discourse,
remaining complicit with its assumptions by retaining undifferentiated identity
categories, and failing to contest the conventions of that system of knowledge
it supposedly challenges’ (p.37).
[16] Fernando Sylvan,
‘Presente e futuro da palavra maubere’, in Timor
Timorense, 181-184. Sylvan begins by alerting us to the fact that not all
East Timorese are supportive of the use of this word to describe their people:
‘Alguns timores protestam contra o uso da palavra Maubere no significado que, felizmente, hoje tem: nome de um povo e
de tudo o que lhe é relativo’, (p.181). [Some Timorese
protest against the use of the word Maubere
with the meaning that, fortunately, it has today: the name of a people and of
all that pertains to them].
[17] [has grown, positively, in an extraordinary and spectacular
manner], p.181.
[18] . [No other Tetum word […] has spread more rapidly, undeniably due
to its past and current employment by the Resistance, both internally and
externally, above all beyond the borders of Maubere Timor. This is the word
that travels, proudly, in the Media of every country, in the Aid Organisations
of various States, in international courts, ultimately everywhere, inserted
into the majority of cultured languages], p.181.
[19] [It is a word used in Portugal and internationally, in day-to-day
conversation, political speeches, poetic or scholarly texts, because, in
reality, the Maubere question became a central concern at a national and
international level after the Indonesian invasion and the consequent genocide,
so that the word maubere became a
part of and lived, just as it is, without translation, in every language],
pp.181-2.
[20] . By 1974, 93% of the population of East Timor
was illiterate. In his direct involvement with such initiatives, Borja da Costa
exemplifies Fretilin’s definitions of the nature of liberation poetry and the
poet’s relationship to his society: ‘A Poesia de Libertação é rica de
aspirações humanas justas e profundas. Nela, o poeta abstrai-se e substrai-se dos seus próprios interesses para se
identificar com os do seu Povo. Nesta relação abstracção/identificação, o poeta
encontra o seu próprio EU na Luta, através da sua participação directa e
quotidiana na transformação política e sócio-económica do meio humano a que
pertence’; R.P. Fretilin, in preface to Timor-Leste,
p.5.
[21] . During this period Fretilin was competing with UDT (União
Democrática Timorense) and Apodeti, parties that generally opposed Timorese
independence, favouring forms of political integration with Portugal and Indonesia repectively
[22] . Unless otherwise stated, all Borja da Costa poems quoted are
taken from: Francisco Borja da Costa, Revolutionary
Poems in the Struggle Against Colonialism: Timorese Nationalist Verse,
edited by Jill Jolliffe, translated by Mary Ireland (Sydney: Wild &
Woolley, 1976). [We must/nourish/a new life/to forget/that our people/were
slaves//We must/struggle/in conquest/of fear/that comes/from slavery] (pp.
24-27).
[23] [We must/teach/our people/what is/the cause/of exploitation].
[24] . [We must/throw off/the fear,/the weight/of
colonial/oppression//WE MUST SHOUT ALOUD/THAT THE PEOPLE OF TIMOR/THAT THE
MAUBERE PEOPLE/WILL NEVER BE SLAVES AGAIN//NO ONE/NOT ANYONE/NEVERANYONE
AGAIN].
[25]In Enterrem
meu coração no Ramelau (Luanda: União dos Escritores Angolanos, 1982), pp.
47-48. [We surely need, then/To make count in every
heart/That weeps or in each one who cries/Simply from the pain caused/From the
blood and sweat spent/By all who took part/In the closely-guarded seed of your/Daring
triumphal struggle/In the growth of Poetry/Under the unbreakable decision/To
fight, fight, fight yet again/AND FIGHT UNTIL VICTORY].
[26] In Enterrem meu coração no Ramelau, p.35. [Kept itself obscure and vexing.../Under the uniform yoke
of/Ex-Portugal, fascist and immense,/Of which it was an integral part!...//But
in a flash dawn broke./And, so, from islands... and seas in their midst,/The
East grew and became great!//For soon it will take the stage,/To show the
World, without fear,/The power to trace its own destiny].
[27] . In Timor Leste, p.25.
[You silenced my reasoning/In the reasoning of your laws/You suffocated my
culture/In the culture of your culture/You put down my revolts/At the point of
your bayonet/You tortured my body/In the shackles of your empire/You subjugated
my soul/In the faith of your religion].
[28] John G. Taylor’s Indonesia’s
Forgotten War: The Hidden History of East Timor (London: Zed, 1991) gives a
useful insight into the events leading up to the Indonesian invasion, and the
role played by Western governments
[30] . [The title A House and Two
Cows was inspired by the account of a Timorese man, concerning the promise
of a gift of “a house and two cows”, made by the Indonesian military and heads
of the pro-integration militias to the civil population, in return for the
latter’s rejection of independence], p.7.
[31] Úma lúlic: in Tetum means
‘sacred house’.
[32] Maromak: in Tetum menas
light, splendour, day. It is the concept of God. It is the revelation of
monotheism, of the God that created Humanity and the universe.
[33] . [You used to live in the úma
lúlic,/The abode of Maromak,/The
Light that links the People to the sea-breeze.//And now, sister militia,/You
want to put out the light,/That mysterious source,/Which has never been
dimmed.//…//We are the inheritors of the light,/As we were born of the only úma lúlic;/Our lives were made to
love,/Not to kill one another] (p.11).
[34] . A discordant poetic voice that railed against Fretilin and its
supporters, belongs to the largely ignored poet, Jorge Barros Duarte who, in
his collection, Timor-Jeremíada
(Odivelas: Pentaedro, 1988), repeatedly warns the Timorese against the
communist and anti-Catholic propaganda of Fretilin, and evokes a divine destiny
that lies in returning to Portuguese rule. Thus, in “Nada dos homens”, he
writes of ‘A Fretilin, co’o seu
“Maubere”/E a “Comissão” da mesma marca,/ “Paz E Justiça P’ra Timor”,/A
bucinar, tudo interfere/No teu viver, com ar de hierarca’; [Fretilin, with it’s
“Maubere”/And the “Commission” of the same vein,/”Peace And Justice For
Timor”,/Harping on, they interfere/With your way of life, with a hierarchical
air]. According to Barros Duarte, the Timorese way of life with which Fretilin
is interfering is one where ‘“Explicações”, na tua aldeia,/Te dava o padre
missionário/Da Lei de Deus que tudo vence’; [“Lessons”, in your village,/Were
given to you by the missionary father/Of the Law of God that overcomes all],
p.17.
[35] [You, who were of the sacred house,/Sold you soul to the
monster,/In exchange for a house and cows.//Just for that/You turned your back
on our house,/Running toward another/That feeds on human deaths and/Empties
dung into the house of God?], p.12
[36] . [When the promise,/Empty and fatal, arrives,/Prepare to cry over
your misfortune.//…//…/That promise is like opium!/…//…/Look! The house is
dead, purple and cold;/Here come the two cows,/Aliens amongst the
swallows,/Thin and milkless], p.13.
[37] . Celso Oliveira,
Timor-Leste: Chegou a Liberdade (39
poesias para Timor Lorosa’e) Edição bilingue – português/ingles, translated
by Maria Teresa Carrilho (Lisbon: Soroptomist International: Clube Lisboa –
Sete Colinas, 2003).
[38] [If I had known that this was to be our destiny, I would not have
fought].
[39] . [I, who cried for my dying father, for my raped mother, for my
persecuted son, for my disappeared brother, for my close friend stabbed to
death, for my uncle who wept because of my aunt who had been raped, and for my
goods that were ransacked].
[40] [If I had known that you were going to practice corruption and
nepotism, I would not have fought].
[41] [It used to be. All of us wanting to be imprisoned, to suffer and
fly all over the world./Now those who have money are in charge./It used to be.
All of us wanting to be heroes./Now those who were heroes are traitors, those
who were traitors are heroes].
[42] . [If we continue like this, we will not be free and independent].
[43][Now, it’s time to think again.../ENOUGH!!!:/Of civil war between
us./Of confrontation between us./Of manipulation and exploitation between us].
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