WHAT book to read in times of political tension? I asked myself, having been overwhelmed by endless tweets and news feeds concerning Malaysia’s General Election 13 (GE13). Never have I been as concerned as I am now about the fate of our country. For this year is the year of living dangerously.

Can you guess what I’m reading? It can be nothing else but Christopher Koch’s masterpiece, The Year Of Living Dangerously, a classic written in 1978 and set in Indonesia.

Using the premise of a love affair between an Australian journalist and a British embassy officer, Koch examines the tension preceding and following the failed Sept 30 Movement military coup in 1965 that heralded the eventual toppling of President Sukarno, Indonesia’s long-time dictator.

Back then, the Internet didn’t exist, of course. The world heard about the tense situation in Jakarta through the efforts of a group of foreign correspondents risking their lives to ferret out scraps of political news. Rumours seemed real and unreal all at once, and in the haze of heat, the city of Jakarta, like a man, seemed to have become insane.

All this is captured brilliantly by Koch, and it all culminates in the moment when Billy Kwan, enraged by Sukarno’s failure to meet the needs of the people, attempts to hang a protest banner from a hotel, only to be thrown out a window by security. Billy, a dwarf, is a passionate activist who dies trying to express his outrage. And in Koch’s book, he seems to presage Sukarno’s fall, as political victims do in any country. So 1965 was indeed what Sukarno had famously announced it to be in his Independence Day speech the previous year: the year of living dangerously, the last year of his brutal regime.

Amazingly for its time, when little was known about Asian culture in the West, Koch uses wayang kulit as a metaphor to mark the sense of disorientation and unreality of this tumultuous period, whereby all the characters are puppets manipulated by a dalang, the puppet-master who plays with his creations. Koch likens Sukarno to the dalang, a national leader who carefully controls the delicate balance between the left wing (Communist Party of Indonesia) and the right (conservative Muslim military). The dimness that characterises wayang kulit performances is present in the masterfully described atmosphere, symbolising the tension and uncertainty of any political upheaval. In darkness, everything is both seen and unseen.

“If you want to understand Java, you have to understand the (sacred shadow play). The puppet master is a priest ... balancing the left with the right. The shadows are souls, and the screen is heaven. You must watch their shadows, not the puppets. The right in constant struggle with the left. The forces of light and darkness in endless balance,” Koch writes brilliantly.

Undoubtedly the pathos in this masterpiece, Billy’s death and Koch’s characterisation would be deeply felt by anyone caught in the turmoil of a disintegrating society. As I read on in the still of the night while my cell phone continued to beep with tweets and updates, my feelings are summed up by a quote from the Bhagavad Gita recalled by the Aussie journalist after Billy dies in his arms, “All is clouded in desire”.

Part of the quote goes like this: “All is clouded by desire: as fire by smoke, as a mirror by dust, as an unborn babe by its covering.

“Wisdom is clouded by desire, the ever present enemy of the wise, desire in its innumerable forms, which like a fire cannot find satisfaction.

“Desire has found a place in man’s senses and mind and reason. Through these it blinds the soul, after having over-clouded wisdom.

“Set thou, therefore, thy senses in harmony, and then slay thou sinful desire, the destroyer of vision and wisdom.”

In reality as in fiction, the tenuous coup of 1965, in which six generals were kidnapped and killed, was supposedly initiated by the left, the Communist Party of Indonesia, to secure its control in fear of Sukarno’s incapacitation. Sukarno, a war hero who had led Indonesia to independence from the Dutch in 1945, tolerated the Communist Party in order to preserve his role as puppet master. He was desirous of retaining glory, but he was caught off guard by a plethora of complexities and the people’s desire for change. And when change took place, the Communist Party was abolished, and Sukarno was placed under house arrest, where he was denied medical assistance and died of kidney failure in 1970.

All this happened accompanied by sacrifices and tragedies. But as that Bhagavad Gita quote about desire ends, “Be a warrior and kill desire, the powerful enemy of the soul”, and that is what the Indonesian people did – they took to the streets, they sacrificed all, to destroy desire.

The moods I was in while reading this book varied. The historic aspect daunted me, though Koch’s quirkiness and prose have been more than pleasurable. But it is the vehemence and tumult before and after the fall of Sukarno that frighten me. No, I am not a prophesying mood. If I were a puppet master, I would likely be caught off guard by either outcome. I just hope for the best, for peace and for harmony as well as justice.

> Abby Wong wishes to live dangerously, but amidst danger, she wishes too for peace. Write to her at star2@thestar.com.my.

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