Pidato Anton Lucas dalam Acara “Anton Lucas Collection, Digitising Indonesian Archives”

Pengantar
Agrarian Resources Center (ARC) menyambut gembira atas diluncurkannya ratusan koleksi digital Anton Lucas pada acara “Anton Lucas Collection, Digitising Indonesian Archives” di Universitas Flinders, Adelaide, Australia, 8 November 2021. Koleksi digital tersebut umumnya bertema sejarah sosial dan politik Indonesia, terdiri dari surat-surat dan dokumen dari masa pendudukan Jepang dan revolusi Indonesia, kliping koran, memoar pelaku sejarah, rekaman audio dan transkrip wawancara, foto, dan peta. Kontribusi tak ternilai bagi riset di bidang sosial dan sejarah Indonesia itu kini bisa diakses bebas secara daring di situs web Perpustakaan Universitas Flinders.
Anton Lucas merupakan sejarawan juga indonesianis terkemuka dan berdedikasi dari Australia. Ia terkenal berkat studi doktoralnya tentang revolusi sosial di Pantai Utara Jawa akhir 1945, yang kemudian dibukukan menjadi Peristiwa Tiga Daerah, atau One Soul One Struggle dalam versi bahasa Inggris. Di samping itu, ia juga mencermati konflik dan gerakan agraria serta lingkungan di Indonesia periode 1990-an yang, dua di antaranya, mewujud dalam buku Merampas Tanah Rakyat: Kasus Tapos dan Cimacan (bersama Dianto Bachriadi) dan Land for the People: The State and Agrarian Conflict in Indonesia (bersama Carol Warren).
Sebagaimana disampaikan Pak Anton—sapaan kami untuk Anton Lucas—dalam pidato acara tersebut di atas, benar bahwa ada sebagian koleksinya yang disimpan di perpustakaan kami. Dalam dua gelombang, terhitung 25 boks yang masing-masing bervolume 31 liter kami terima dari Pak Anton pada pertengahan 2018 dan 2019. Isinya puluhan buku, ribuan dokumen tentang konflik serta gerakan agraria dan lingkungan era 1990-an (terdiri dari catatan lapangan yang masih ditulis tangan, transkrip wawancara, dokumen pemerintah, dan dokumen terkait lainnya), dokumen riset Pak Anton tentang perubahan-perubahan sosial dan politik di Tegal pasca-Reformasi, serta sejumlah compact disk (CD) dan kaset.
Kami sungguh merasa terhormat diberi kepercayaan oleh Pak Anton untuk menyimpan dokumen-dokumen tersebut. Sebagai informasi, sejak awal November lalu kami mendigitalisasi koleksi dokumen dan arsip Gunawan Wiradi. Rencananya, setelah semua koleksi GWR—sapaan Gunawan Wiradi—selesai didigitalisasi, kami akan lanjut mendigitalisasi koleksi-koleksi Anton Lucas.
Sebagai bentuk sambutan dan ungkapan gembira, kami terbitkan pidato Anton Lucas pada acara peluncuran tersebut di situs web kami. Tentunya atas seizin Pak Anton dan atas bantuan Mas Priyambudi Sulistiyanto.
Salam hangat,
Unit Pelaksana Harian ARC
Launching of the Indonesian Research Materials Digitising Project
Monday, 8th November 2021, at 2pm in the Alere Room, Flinders University
- A warm welcome to colleagues and friends from near and far, those present here and those watching by Zoom in Indonesia.
- This project we are launching today really started in 2013, when catalogue materials about the Indonesian revolution at the local level in Pekalongan Residency in Central Java in1945 began.
- These materials, used in writing a ANU PhD (submitted in 1980) under the supervision of Professor Emeritus Anthony Reid, Australia’s best-known historian of South East Asia.
- An Indonesian translation of the PhD thesis book was published by Pustaka Utama Grafiti (Grafitipers) with the title Peristiwa Tiga Daerah: Revolusi Dalam Revolusi (1989), followed by an English translation, One Soul One Struggle: Region and Revolution in Indonesia (Allen and Unwin, 1991) A second Indonesian edition One Soul One Struggle: Peristiwa Tiga Daerah Dalam Revolusi Indonesia was published by Resist Books (2004); the third Indonesian edition published by Media Pressindo (2018) with the original title Peristiwa Tiga Daerah: Revolusi dalam Revolusi.
- The research materials, transcripts of taped interviews, diaries, memoirs, documents and other materials from the Dutch Public Archives Procureur -Generaal inventory 201 ‘The revolutionary affair in Pekalongan’ (Omwentelingzaak te Pekalongan) were already catalogued in the Library’s Special Collection, first under Jillian Dooley’s watch, and after she retired, under Pixie Stardust’s care. My special thanks to Prashant our University Librarian for his ongoing support.
- In 2018 part of the collection began to be digitised with a University Special Grant.
- It proved difficult to decide what to include and what to leave out. But we hope Indonesian students, scholars and activists in particular could make use of these source materials in their own research and writing.
- In the end the collection includes materials about land disputes, women’s roles in the revolution, democracy in Indonesia, environmental issues and social capital.
- Where to find a home for research materials collected during PhD research and research materials from other projects is a problem that researchers in Australia face now as libraries can no longer store these materials and no longer want books.
- The research materials on agrarian disputes just mentioned, and on the 1989-90 reformasi (reform era) period are now kept in the Agrarian Resource Centre (the ARC) in Bandung for those colleagues in Indonesia who are interested.
- We should remember that long before this project began the library was cataloguing Indonesian language books, obtained through the National Library’s Indonesian Acquisitions Project. In our library these books were catalogued by Robyn Walden, who had the Indonesian language skills to do this work.
- A few days ago, an old colleague emailed to say he had a post graduate student looking for Japanese songs taught in Indonesia during the wartime Occupation. I recalled that we had a complete set of the reprinted monthly Djawa Baroe (New Java) magazines which Peter Saunders, acquired when he was a librarian here. These songs appeared in nearly every issue. So, I was able to refer the student to this source We didn’t have the time or resources to digitise these magazines. I hope they are on line in Japan somewhere.
- Saluting the generals• President Abdurrahman Wahid or Gus Dur as he was fondly called, was a tolerant devout Muslim, much admired by his many supporters, who loved telling jokes. He couldn’t resist telling this joke after 30 years of military rule under General Suharto had ended
‘Said the officer to the soldier: “Private, why did you salute that refrigerator?”
The soldier replied, “Because it was General Electric.”
“And that Jeep?” the officer asked.
Replied the soldier, “Because it was General Motors.”‘
It’s been It’s a privilege for me to work in the Library’s Special collection with such dedicated, professional and enthusiastic people.
“We are all proud that the digitising project has happened,
And today we are really proud that it is done.”
Thank you and enjoy getting together on this occasion.
Anton Lucas