Arndt Graf

A COLLECTION, A COLLECTOR, A SCHOLAR: E. Ulrich Kratz and his library of Malay and Indonesian literature

When the library of the Royal Institute of the Tropics (Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, KIT) in Amsterdam was dissolved in 2013, one of the decision-makers in the responsible Ministry told the protesters: ‘These days, one can look up everything on the Internet. Traditional libraries with books and other printed materials have lost their importance.’ Large sections of the collection, comprising several hundred thousand books, were in danger of being shredded, until the Library of Alexandria, Egypt, stepped in and offered to take over 400,000 volumes. The so-called Heritage Collection of the KIT library as well as its modern Indonesia collection went to Leiden (SEALG 2014), while some smaller sections were given to other institutions. Among them was the Library of the Department of Southeast Asian Studies at Goethe University Frankfurt, which received several thousand books on mainland Southeast Asia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore. The destruction of books and in fact entire collections of printed materials appears to be a rather widespread tendency in the last few years. The fascination with the Internet, and digitalisation and its possibilities, seems to have had a profound impact on the appreciation of other forms of communication, including manuscripts and printed materials. However, this latest trend of destroying books does have historical precursors, which could be further differentiated. Wilful neglect, targeted destruction and obliteration of certain traditions are among the historical phenomena in the destruction of entire collections and libraries. Historically, among the worst cases is the burning of books in Nazi Germany. Unknown numbers of books were also burned during the

RHETORIC AND POLITICS AT THE INTERNATIONAL SPEECH COMPETITIONS IN MALAY LANGUAGE (PABM)

In Malaysia, the highly prestigious International Speech Competition in Malay Language (PABM) has been an annual event since 2007. Dozens of candidates from more than 30 countries compete for the Trophy of the (Deputy) Prime Minister of Malaysia. This article views the competition in its political context and focuses on the rhetorical strategies of two winning speeches in a case study, comparing one by a male Malay and one by a female Russian participant.* *I would like to thank Volker Grabowsky and Amanda Rath for their comments on earlier versions of this article, as well as Amanda Raths help with the English editing. All remaining errors are of course my sole responsibility.

‘CYBERPRAM’: Perceptions of Pramoedya Ananta Toer on the Internet 1

This article investigates different registers of perception of Pramoedyas various works on the internet, through both a quantitative analysis and a close reading of related web blogs. In general, about 66% of all Google hits for works of Pramoedya are in English and 24.7% in Indonesian. Of the remaining 9% of internet sites in the sample, Dutch- (3.7%) and German-language sites (3%) constitute relatively sizeable groups. On the Indonesian and Dutch internet sites the novel Bumi manusia is more popular than other works, although attention is, in general, rather evenly distributed. In contrast, on the English-language websites, This earth of mankind seems to be of overwhelming importance. Five major factors for the perception of the novel are established, namely: a general historical interest about the colonial era, discourses on eastern/western identity, sympathy for a banned author, the ideological context of the Cold War era, and appreciations of the plot as a love story as well as aspects of gender relations. Within these five categories, the perceptions of Pramoedyas literary works in the Indonesian- and the English-speaking internet differ considerably. 1 1I would like to thank Amanda Rath and the anonymous reviewers of Indonesia and the Malay World for their comments on this article and for helping me with its English. All remaining mistakes and errors are of course entirely my responsibility.

Structural arithmetic metaphors in the editorials of KOMPAS

Introduction A small current within the general study of metaphors concerns ‘structural arithmetic metaphors’. The term initially developed from within the field of European medieval numerology. The notion of structural arithmetic metaphor argues that the number of paragraphs or other structural elements in a text often carries certain metaphorical meanings. A popular example from European medieval studies is the number Three that was once deeply connected to the symbolism of the Holy Trinity. Until today, remnants of this old structural metaphor can be found in the tripartite construction of many European texts, from treatises, to speeches, to jokes. Often, the original symbolic meaning is no longer remembered in contemporary use. However, these old structural arithmetic metaphors still exert an important role in the pre-shaping of argumentational logic. In this paper, I would like to discuss a similar phenomenon in the construction of contemporary Indonesian media texts, especially in editorials. The initial observation is that argumentation here often employs recurring sequences. This appears to be the case with enumerations, series of attributes, and especially the overall number of argumentation steps. Especially the fourand five-part sequences seem to be quite popular in Indonesia. Fortunately, we know from research on historical texts, for instance from Java and Bali, that the numbers four and five (along with others) possess significant meaning in a multitude of traditional classification systems. What is missing, though, are detailed studies about how exactly such traditional numerological systems are employed as structural arithmetic metaphors in contemporary Indonesian texts, especially in the media. For this reason, I am examining as a case study the appearance of structural arithmetic metaphors in the editorials of the daily Kompas of May 1998. I am well aware of the fact that this sample does not necessarily represent Kompas editorials in general. It can even be said that this month was probably one of the most unusual times in the history of Kompas editorials, since it included the dramatic days leading to the stepping down of President Suharto. Public opinion was in turmoil, and it would be quite understandable if in such an environment the editorials had become very irregular in terms of their structure, representing the overall emotional atmosphere of Jakarta. However, if even in that exceptional month structural arithmetic metaphor can be observed, I think we do have a good case for the argument that this kind of metaphors seems to be so widespread in modern Indonesia that a further, much more detailed investigation into the phenomenon is necessary.