‍Tamalia Alisjahbana is the daughter of the architect of the Indonesian language, the renowned poet and journalist Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana, who played a pivotal role in the development of the language that united thousands of scattered islands into one nation. She has a deep understanding of what independence, freedom, and sovereignty mean to a people. That is why, outraged by Russia’s full-scale war, seventy-year-old Tamalia organized a demonstration in front of the Russian embassy, surprising even the police. She met Refat Chubarov during his visit to Indonesia, and when she recounted the hardships Chubarov told her his mother endured during the Soviet deportation, she could hardly hold back her tears. She is also convinced that Indonesia owes Ukraine a debt of honor. The following is a transcript of Tamalia’s own words.

The most important event in Indonesian history is not the Declaration of Independence.

That's the second most important event. The first is actually the Youth Pledge of 1928. When the youth of different islands came together in Jakarta, they had a conference, and they pledged: We are one people, the Indonesian people. We are one nation, the Indonesian nation.

And we're going to have a national language. We chose the Malay language.

Now, you see, you can't declare independence unless you've all agreed you want to do that.

Cause otherwise, you declare independence, and then Bali says, “No, I didn't agree to that,” you know. So this is what was very important. It was the spiritual birth of Indonesia.

And once the spirit is born, it only took 17 years till we declared independence and the physical birth of Indonesia.

Now, my father played an important role in the creation of that national language and the national culture, because [in the beginning], that was just a theory. People spoke their regional languages, and if you were very educated, you spoke Dutch, because we were a Dutch colony. But my father said, “We will be patient, the time will come.” And one couldn't study linguistics, so he just read every book he could get his hands on about linguistics. The time came when the Japanese attacked and occupied Indonesia, and they forbade the use of Dutch. But no one could speak Japanese, so they said, Okay, you can use Malay,” because Malay had been the lingua franca of our islands, you know, as we have over 700 ethnic tribal languages that [form] the language groups, so they said, “Yeah, you can call it Indonesian, we don't care. But the agreement is that when Japan wins the war, we will teach you all Japanese,” so we all said, “yeah, yeah, sure.” My father was in the language office, and he was the expert staff because he's the only one [who had an understanding in all] that and he said, “okay, we say yes to the Japanese, but in reality, we are going to be forming our national language.” So he wrote the first grammar from an Indonesian perspective, and then he made a team to create the dictionary of new terminology, because Malay had the vocabulary of the 17th-century language.

So one week they called the doctors, next week the engineers, next week the lawyers, the journalists, and in three years, when we declared independence, a national language was ready for us to use.

My father's cousin was the first prime minister of Indonesia. He believed very much in negotiations, because we didn't really have the strength to defeat the Dutch. They had bombs and tanks, and we had very sharp bamboo sticks. So he thought we had to negotiate. And he said, after the Second World War, really the only country that won was America. Europe have also won, but it was destroyed. It had to be built. So he said, it's America we have to convince. And America is giving the Philippines independence. That means they don't see the future as countries having colonies. So that's where we had to lobby.

But we first had to speak at the United Nations. I feel that we owe Ukraine a debt, a debt of honor, because in 1946, when we were struggling for independence, we needed very urgently to speak in front of the Security Council, but you needed a country that sponsored that, that pushed for that, and Ukraine immediately stepped in and really fought for that. It was Mr Dmytro Manuilsky who really fought for that, so that we got the chance to do that.

And then later, you see, the American government was not really pro-Indonesian, it was pro-Dutch, because the Dutch had been very good allies during the Second World War. But our prime minister was a socialist (Partai Sosialist Indonesia). So in America, he was on good terms with the trade unions. And then the trade unions, and I don't know why, the Council of Churches, they lobbied Congress. And you see, the Dutch bombed Indonesia. They brought in the tanks, they cut the whole cabinet, and they said, Indonesia doesn't exist. And then the American trade unions and the Council of churches lobbied Congress, they protested. And they said, “The amount of money that the Dutch are spending for the planes and the tanks and the soldiers is equivalent to the amount of money America is going to give Holland under the Marshall Plan to rebuild. And we don't want to pay for a colonial war in the Netherlands,” and so Congress refused to agree to the budget for Dutch Marshall Plan money unless Holland gave us independence. And so then Holland said, “Okay, on condition that Indonesia pays us an equivalent amount of money to the Marshall Plan. So we were starving after the war, but we paid that money, and we finished paying in 1970. It took us that long. We were very poor. After, the Japanese took all our food. You know, at the railway station, when trains leave, beggars run here and there. Our beggars couldn't run. They were so, so emaciated. They were starving. But we paid that money. That's why I understand: when people want to be free, you cannot stop them. We fought for 300 years to be free.

Even if the Russians win now, even though I don't think they will. If you truly want to be free, you will be free. We rebelled, and we rebelled, and we rebelled, and one day we became free.

I just watched the television and I saw how Russia was bombing and attacking, and I saw the Ukrainian people, their unbelievable courage. Little old ladies are going to Russian soldiers and giving them sunflower seeds. And the men that got so angry that they were joining the army. And I saw you have such courage. You want to be free. You should be free. The united nations charter promises that to us it says that every nation has the right of self-determination. I read more and I read how, you know, you had all those demonstrations at the Maidan you wanted democracy and you wanted freedom and that's your right. I looked at Russia and I thought this is a predatory country, you know. And all this talk, like Professor John Bershara’s one about the zones of influence of Russia and so on… What right do they have to say what the people of Ukraine and Crimea want? No, that's the right of the people of Crimea and Ukraine that's what the United Nations Charter says. And Russia says it's afraid of NATO. Excuse me, Russia owns one-tenth of the surface of the Earth. How much more land do they need in order to feel safe? What difference does it make if a missile is pointed at them from Germany or from Ukraine? It made one minute difference maybe. It's not a rational argument. Rus​​sia is a very rich country. If they focused on their people, on their economy, they could be the most powerful nation in the world. They don't need Ukraine or Crimea in order to do that. And so I thought, no, this argument isn't right. And you look at Mr. Putin. He's former KGB. He's a continuation of the Soviet Union. And his policies, both his domestic and foreign policies, cannot succeed in the end. Because what they are basically doing is terrorizing and scaring everyone to death. Now look at the foreign policy - they scare everyone to death, they attack Ukraine and what happens? All the ex neutral countries all come to pact on this - they want to join NATO, even Sweden and Finland want to join NATO. And his own people - how can you treat your own people people so badly? I just watched this bombing, it was going on and on, so, one day I woke up and I thought, enough. 

And I called up a friend of mine, she's a professor in Islamic law. She's very liberal, she's a very warm person, she's very kind and generous. And she actually wrote the Compendium of Islamic Law, which is now used by Harvard University Islamic Department. I called her up and I said, “Come on, I can't stand watching the Russians bombing the Ukrainians like this. Let's do a demo at the Russian embassy.” And she said, “yeah, me too I don't like the way Russians behave towards Ukraine.” Okay. So then I thought, “Okay, we'll just do a small demo.” But you still have to go to the police and report. The police can't say you cannot, but you have to tell them you're going to have a demo in case it turns into a riot. So I went to a very big police station, ​​the central one. The police can't stop you, but they don't really like demos because there’s a nuisance for them. So they send you here and there. And finally, I thought, that's it. I just went to narcotics department and I said, “I'm reporting a demo.” They said, we're at narcotics department.” I said, “Yeah. So where's the place to report demos?” They said, “well, that's intelligence that's next door.” So I went to intelligence and the intelligence officer came out and said, “Okay so where do you want to do your demo?” I said “We want to do it on Saturday and I'm going to the ukrainian embassy. We're going to give the ambassador flowers and sing our national anthem. Hopefully they'll sing their national anthem back. Then we'll have a big banner and a microphone, we're going to march down the road to the Russian embassy. Then I'm going to put sunflowers, because I'm sure the Russians won't come out, on the gate. And then I'll shout some stuff at them. And when we're going down the street, we'll shout, “Ukraina Merdeka!” Merdeka means freedom, independence.

So he said, “Okay, who's sponsoring this?” I said, “Nobody. It's just concerned citizens.” He said, “Usually someone's sponsoring.” I said, “Come on. It's only about 30 people, maybe. Who wants to sponsor 30 people? It doesn't make sense.” And he said, “Okay. Now, do you promise you will not cause a riot, you will not destroy Russian embassy’s property, and you will not try to sleep in front of the Russian embassy?” I said yes and then he said, “Okay, I see that you have written two articles supporting Ukraine. Now you're organizing a demo. So what are you going to do after the demo?”

I said that I haven’t thought about it. Maybe collect some money. Well, I can't join the Ukrainian army. I don't know how to shoot and I could lose my citizenship. “That is right, Ibu,” he said, “If you try to join the Ukrainian army, you will lose your citizenship.” And I said, “I promise I won't try to join the Ukrainian army.” And then he said, “You know, Ibu, you're an old lady. Why don't you just relax at home and let some young people do this?” And I said, “I may be old, but I've still got a brain. I've still got a heart. And you know, there are even Russians who don't agree with this, but they don't have democracy. If they try to demonstrate and speak up, they can go to prison for 15 years. I'm in Indonesian. I have the right to speak. I have democracy. Imagine having that right and never using it. It's like having a handphone and you never use the handphone.” And then he smiled. And he said, “You know, Ibu, you have broken a record. You are the oldest person who has ever come here to report that they want to do a demo. You inspire me.” So we smiled. High five. But you know, he was an intelligence officer. So after that he said, “And now Ibu, tell me the real reason why you're doing this demo.” I said, “okay, I'll tell you the real reason I'm doing this demo. I'm Catholic, and my patron saint is St. Michael. And for the Catholic, St. Michael is the patron saint of Kiev.” And he looked at me and he said, “Ibu, I'm Catholic too, and my patron saint is St. Michael. High five. Okay, Ibu, here's my number. Contact me if anything.” So then we did this demo and it was small but we had 20 press there. So it doesn't really matter how big your demo is, it matters how much press is there. So we got into the press and so that's how we started.

We heard about Crimea, the embassy explained a little bit. They had some event and thing about Crimea. That was when I realized that they were Muslims. And to see for Indonesia, that's very important because, of course, we are the largest… or maybe India has beaten us now, yeah? But we were the most populous country with Muslims. We're not an Islamic state. Yeah, we do not have Sharia law. We recognize Protestant, Catholic, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist. And I think the old religion where you worship, you know, animism and things like that. Yeah. So that's when I started to hear about it and I thought, I want to know more about this. And then the head of the Mejlis of Crimea, Mr. Refat Chubarov, who came over. And a friend of mine, she's an influencer, she has a podcast with two million viewers, interviewed him. She's from Batak land in the north, and she brought this, a textile, a traditional Batak textile, an ulos. And she wrapped it around him and then we all, there were a few people, had to come and we put our hands on the ulos. And that's the Batak way that we give our love, we give our prayers, our energy, so that you're protected [from] the negativity. You understand what I'm saying, yeah? And I think he was very touched, he sort of cried and he told us that his mother had been deported when she was eight years old… in cattle trains. And then they were dumped in fields with no shelter, no clothing, no food. They dug holes to stay warm. She survived and could only return after Perestroika. And then they had peace for just 24 years or something. And then the Russians were back again.

And again, they were trying to kill off their identity, their religion, their culture. And Mr. Chubarov had to flee, just as Mr. Jemilev had to flee into Ukraine. And the fact that when Russia attacked Ukraine, the Mufti of Ukraine, who is from Crimea I think, condemned that attack and totally supported the Ukrainians. This is very important for Indonesia to know. And so it's not without reason that a lot of Crimeans joined the Ukrainian army, and that your Minister of Defense is a Muslim. And now I understand why Mr. Zelensky says, “No, we cannot do it without Crimea, because we all want our people [back]. No, Crimea is a part of Ukraine.” You want to be together. It's like Bali and what do you call it, the Malacca, we want to be together.

You want to be together. No one has the right to say no. 

No one has the right to say this is our political sphere of influence.

I think it's very important for Indonesians to learn about your Muslim population, because then they can identify with something that's the same as you. So I think the story about Crimea, about Mr. Jemilev, about Mr. Chubarov, about what Crimea is, really needs to be more brought out, and that your defense minister is Muslim, too. That's a way to appeal to Indonesians, that they understand. And also, the atrocities that Ukraine suffered and that Crimea suffered, you know. On the 17th of August, we will be 80 years independent, and I'm going to write about that. I think I would like to do some more research about Mr. Dmytro Manuelski. So maybe I'll write a bit about that.