Category: Uncategorized

Habislah Gelap Terbitlah Terang

The most famous words of Raden Ajeng Kartini are found in the Indonesian language clause: “Habislah Gelap Terbitlah Terang”. (After the Dark, the Light Rises.)

These words come from her original Dutch language writing: “Door Duisternis tot Licht”.

She wrote those words 123 years ago today, on July 28, 1902, at the age of 23, in this profoundly wise and beautiful letter:

“No cloud lasts for ever; neither is there such a thing as eternal sun-shine.

From the darkest night the most beautiful morning is born and here I console myself.

Human life is a true reflection of the life of nature.

What we must pray for day and night is strength.

But the rain which makes the leaf and bud of one plant burst forth, beats another into the earth, where it rots.”

On this day, in 2025, a very real light in my life, after a horrible period of isolating darkness, is Chris Crewther, a Liberal member of Victoria’s state parliament.

In my dealings with him, Chris has been a perfect embodiment of the Indonesian national ideals, as expressed in the national ideology, Pancasila, of civilised humanity and wise representative government.

There is more than one reason for this astonishing human goodness from Chris, but one key factor IMHO is his healthy rural background:

Geoff Fox, July 28, 2025, Melbourne, Australia

Anna Menolak Dan Anna Nrimo – A Woman Of Faith

Anna R is a deeply patriotic, Kartiniist citizen of the Republic Of Indonesia.

Anna embraces the modern world and international friendship. As a student of tourism, her decade long commitment to international engagement has won deep respect from all who know her.

This commitment from Anna reminds me of the words of R A Kartini written on February 1, 1903, “I am also glad to do what I can for “East and West.” I feel that I am only doing myself a service, for it is for our people, and I and my people are one.”

Anna, like Kartini, sees international engagement as a service to the Indonesian people.

But, like Kartini, whose great achievements were made at home and not abroad, there are certain issues where Anna steadfastly chooses her traditional culture ahead of the sometimes mechanical impersonal ways of the west.

For Anna R, for better or for worse, traditional medicine such as Jentungan Suntung has proved effective. Whereas in Anna’s real life experience modern surgery is terrifying and sometimes dangerous.

Her husband fully supports her in her choice. Today he carried her in his arms out of a modern hospital to seek traditional care.

I admire their courage.

Their bravery is founded in a reality of faith.

Today Anna wrote this prayer:

“Tuhan ini takdirku
Yang telah kau Tetapkan
Aku ikhlas semuanya
Tapi jgn biarkan Aku menyerah
Ajari aku tuntun aku agar bisa Kuat.”

(Lord, this is my fate, which you have ordained. I accept it all. But please do not let me become a quitter. Teach and lead me so I can be strong.)

Anna is suffering badly from a very serious illness. But her faith in God and the old ways of her people is rock solid strong.

Habislah gelap terbitlah Terang. (RA Kartini)

After the dark, let light rise.

Geoff Fox, in awe of Anna from Down Under, 16th February, 2025.

Kartini on Mother Nature, Education and how Women Civilise Men.

On January 21, 1901, 124 years ago today, R.A. Kartini wrote these thoughts:

“We went at midday to the shore with Mevrouw Conggrijp to bathe. It was splendidly calm, and the sea was all one colour. I sat on a rock with my feet in the water, and my eyes on the distant horizon. Oh! the world is so beautiful! Thanksgiving and peace were in my heart. If we go to Mother Nature for consolation she will not allow us to go away uncomforted.

I have thought so long and so much about education, especially of late, and I think it such a high, holy task …………..

Education means the forming of the mind and of the soul.

…………

I subscribe warmly to Mijnheer’s idea, which is set forth so clearly in his paper on the “Education of Native Girls,” “Woman as the Carrier of Civilization!”

…………..

Man receives from woman his very earliest nourishment, at her breast, the child learns to feel, to think and to speak; and I see more and more clearly that the very earliest education has an influence which extends over one’s whole after life.”

Geoff Fox, January 21, 2025, Australia

Meeting SBY – I saw his Kartiniist Soul.

On the 8th of August, 1903, Javanese princess and common people’s advocate Raden Ajeng Kartini wrote of a deeply meaningful meeting she had with a village midwife:

“Just now we have company; at the table where I sit there are five of us working. Justinah the wise woman came this morning and will stay until next week. We think her a treasure. She spends her time here usefully, teaches embroidery and is so severe when we are careless. When we make a mistake, she immediately pulls everything out. How rich I felt this morning when she laid her hand trustingly on my shoulder, while I explained something or other to her. Now she feels at home with us; I look with so much pleasure into her fine intelligent eyes; they say so much.

She is a dessa-child. Oh, how full of love is her calling! You would enjoy meeting her. She listens with attention when one speaks, and then asks such intelligent questions. If you ever come to our neighbourhood again, I hope to be able to take her to you. This clever little woman has already attended forty-eight women in child-birth, and she is such a young thing still, with all a child’s eagerness.”

Exactly one hundred and ten years years later on the 8th of August, 2013, I was blessed to meet an astonishimg Indonesian man, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, (SBY), who rose from birth into a lower middle class family in the very small village of Tremas (about 8 kilometre north northeast of the alun-alun in Pacitan on the glorious south coast of East Java) to become the first two-term democratically elected president of his homeland, Indonesia, the fourth largest nation on earth.

I told SBY in that very brief meeting a little bit both about the results of my cross cultural engagement with a wonderful grassroots man, Mr Syukur Kuseke, the traditional owner of Air Kaca, a national heritage (cagar budaya) site in Morotai and about my dad’s time in Morotai in World War Two. SBY said that he would like to visit Air Kaca. The president met very many people that day so my time with him was limited, but, as I left the room in the presidential palace, SBY’s eyes followed me with a child like eagerness to know more that I will never forget.

Alhamdullialh.

I praise the Lord for allowing me that treasured memory of meeting SBY.

The villages of the world are frequently where the greatest joys and purity are found, created and nurtured for us all.

Mbah Jeff (sudah tua), December 2nd, 2024, Melbourne, Australia

The Children Are The Future

To the people of the Republic Of Indonesia, I report a statement on the 8th of August 1903 by my personal heroine Raden Ajeng Kartini as she awaited her approaching marriage:

“The children are to be my future, and I shall live and work for them, strive, and suffer, if need be, for them.”

More recently, a significant event which also happened on the date of August 8, was in 1984: the birth of Sherly Tjoanda who is now set to become the governor-elect of North Maluku.

Congratulations, Sherly.

InsyaAllah nanti Kartiniisme mendunia.

Geoff Fox, budayawan, Melbourne, Australia, December 2nd, 2024.

Lest We Forget: R A Kartini Loved Her Dad And Loved Her Mum

In November 1899, Raden Ajeng Kartini wrote this in one of her letters to Holland about her father:

“Father knows everything that goes on in our hearts. Father does not tell us so, yet I am certain of it. Now and then Papa tells one or the other of us precisely what we have been thinking; something that we had kept to ourselves and never told to any one. It is without doubt, because Father loves us so much, and we so love him. Every now and then he discovers something, and lays it bare, that had been in the bottom of my heart, and of which I had thought no one except myself had the slightest idea. Does not that show true kinship of soul?”

In the same letter Kartini wrote this about her mother:

“O little Mother, dearest Mevrouwtje, I wish that you were back with us. Your daughters miss you so much. We long for the pleasant days that we spent with you to come again: the splendid times that we used to have in your dear little sitting-room, where you would read to us from great books, and where we spoke of so much, the memory of which shall always remain with us. I miss the intimate talks with you, when I used to tell my dear little mother all the rebellious thoughts that came into my head, and laid bare the feelings of my restless heart. When I was in a rebellious mood, I had but to see the love light in your face, and I was again the happy, careless child, that, in overflowing good spirits, could sing: “Whatever Heaven to me shall send, I’ll set my shoulders bravely under.” “

One of the foundations of Kartini’s greatness was her love for her parents.

Lest we forget: without family life, we are nothing.

Geoff Fox, 11th November, (Remembrance Day), 2024

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