AFP
Portraits of US President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama (L) are posted next to posters of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his wife Ani in Jakarta on November 9, 2010.
JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - Indonesia is a "sleeping giant" with great potentials to make rapid progress, noted German author Martin Jankowski said. Jankowski said his view about Indonesia’s potentials was based on what he had seen and understood during his many visits in the country.
He was peaking at a gathering to discuss his latest book titled "Rabet" at the Goethe Institute in Jakarta on Wednesday. The Indonesian reading public already know him through the Indonesian version of his book of poems which was published some time ago under the title "Detik Detik Indonesia."
His novel Rabet is about life in the former East Germany under a dictatorial government controlled by the Socialist Party as experienced by the book’s main character named Benjamin Grassman.
The East German state collapsed and Germany’s reunification happened after a revolution in the former. People in East Germany revolted among other things because of the wide disparities in living conditions between the two Germanies.
"Daily life in East Germany had become unbearable. The differences in everything between West and East Germany triggered the revolution," Jankowski said. He said the causes of the fall of East Germany were among others, economic crisis, the gap between the Socialist Party’s theories about democracy and people’s welfare and the realities , and the lack of freedom of speech in addition to a strong political failure and dictatorship of the Socialist Party.
Reunification brought a more solid democratic system and changes for the better for people in the former East Germany. The characters in his book were fictitious but the events described in it had actually happened, he said, adding that his own personal experiences had been the inspiration of his istorical-love novel.
The title Rabet was the name of a street in Leipzig where there was a sanctuary for people needing privacy and a place to pursue their dreams of freedom, he said. The author, who was born in Greifswald on the Baltic Sea was once detained by the East German Police, the Stasi, because of his writings.
His articles were published in magazines and international anthologies, and have been translated into 12 languages and received various awards, among others the German literary prize in 1998 and an Alfred Doblin Scholarship from the German Academy of Arts in 2006. Before coming to Jakarta, Jankowski also held a discussion on his novel at the Goethe Institute in Bandung on November 23.
