Child of All Nations by Pramoedya Ananta Toer Page B

straits.
    What I had transcribed was nowhere to be found; there wasn’t even the slightest similarity. One thing was clear however: Khouw Ah Soe would be in great difficulty as a result of this article.
    “Why are you gasping like that?” asked Mama.
    I told her what had happened. She also read the report.
    “How could they lie in an article like this? Something that should be respected because it’s going to be read by thousands of people?” I exclaimed.
    Mama looked at me with pity in her eyes.
    “Don’t be sentimental. You’ve been educated to respect and even deify Europe, to trust in it unreservedly. Then, every time you discover reality—that there are Europeans without honor—you become sentimental. Europe is no more honorable than you, Child! Europe is only superior in the fields of science, learning and self-restraint. No more than that. Look at me, an example that is near to you—me, a villager, but I can hire Europeans and their skills. You can too. If they can be hired by anyone who can pay them, why can’t the devil hire them too?”
    Why can’t the devil hire them? I lifted my eyes to look at her. Nyai was standing before me. She looked so tall, like a giant, like a mountain of coral. What kind of person was she? The whole world admired Europe because of its glorious history, because of its extraordinary achievements, its literary works, because of Europeans’abilities, their forever-new creations, and their newest creation of all: the modern age. My thoughts flew quickly to that anonymous tract that Magda Peters had given me. Among other things, it had said: The Natives of the Indies, and especially the Javanese, who have been defeated again and again in battle for hundreds of years now, have not only been forced to acknowledge the superiority of Europe, but have also been forced to feel inferior. And the Europeans, wherever they saw Natives not contracting the disease of inferiority, viewed them as a fortress of resistance that must be subjugated.
    The tract went on to say: Is the European colonial view appropriate? It is not only unjust, it is not right. But colonial Europe doesn’t stop there. After the Natives have fallen into this humiliation and are no longer able to defend themselves, they are ridiculed with the most humiliating abuse. Europeans make fun of the Native rulers of Java who use superstition to control their own people, and who are thereby spared the expense of hiring police forces to defend their interests. The Powerful Goddess of the South Java Seas is a glorious creation of Java whose purpose is to help preserve the authority of the native kings of Java. But Europe too maintains superstitions—the superstition of the magnificence of science and learning. This superstition prevents the conquered peoples from seeing the true face of Europe, the true nature of the Europe that uses that science and learning. The European colonial rulers and the Native rulers are equally corrupt.
    “So why are you still so easily surprised?” asked Nyai, as if she had just finished reading that anonymous tract which, in fact, she had never seen. “Not only newspapers, Child, but also the courts, and the law itself, can be and are used by criminals to carry out their purposes. Minke, Child, don’t be so easily swayed by names. Wasn’t it you yourself who told me that our ancestors used great and splendid names in order to impress the world with their magnificence—an empty magnificence? Europe’s show of magnificence isn’t based on names; Europeans strut around with their science and learning. But the cheat remains a cheat, the liar remains a liar, even with his science and his learning.”
    Her voice was pregnant with anger. I could understand why: Her already destroyed family was soon to lose all its property. It was about to be confiscated by the person the law said was theonly heir, Engineer Maurits Mellema. I mustn’t rub salt into her wounds.
    “If they can, and indeed do, do