Indonesians in Focus : Lena Simanjuntak

Indonesia in Focus

 

Indonesians in Focus: Lena Simanjuntak-Mertes

By Wombat | July 28th, 2006 | No Comments

Several of the women appeared nervous. Others attempted to make conversation with one another to hide their true feelings. They were in a quite challenging situation. The women were on their very first trip to the capital to stage a theater performance.

None of them, members of the Inong Aceh Theater, are professional actors. Most were previously involved heavily in household chores in a remote village devastated by the Dec. 2004 tsunami in Aceh.
Amid their anxiety, a middled-aged woman seemed to be their comforter. She talked to them, asked them what they wanted to do and held their hands, in a gesture aimed at boosting their confidence.
The humble woman is Lena Simanjuntak-Mesner. Resident in Germany, the graduate of the Jakarta Arts Institute (IKJ) has visited this country regularly since she moved there about 20 years ago.

Each year, she comes here up to four times to get involved in theater projects in remote areas of the archipelago. She certainly does not do it for the money, as she does not get paid for what she does.
Lena is an Indonesian who has enjoyed better conditions abroad but still cares about the fate of her unfortunate brothers and sisters back home.
Education and the empowerment of marginalized people became issues she became interested in since her university days. In the 1970s she started teaching children whose homes were destroyed for development in a government project.
Her close friend, activist Doris Panjaitan, and others introduced her to the labor issues in the early 1980s following growing concern about robots, the increasing use of which was predicted to threaten the financial security of conventional workers.
Lena and her friends expected the workers to speak up, as, back then, the only labor organization acted as a puppet of the authorities and the employers.
About four years later, Lena won a scholarship to learn pantomime and theater in Germany. She ended up living there after marrying a German.
In Germany, she was very active in society, joining many organizations, including those for women and foreigners. The friendly woman learned much about European culture, and political and social history as well as civil society and discrimination issues.
She says she owed much to late directors Wahyu Sihombing and Teguh Karya for suggesting she pursue theater and directing at IKJ. She also learned about political demonstrations after she participated in one there.
“I enjoyed it greatly, I enjoyed living in a democracy. Then, I thought, how come workers in my country could not enjoy the same privileges? The government banned them from even holding a meeting back then,” Lena recalled.
The uncompromising education system, combined with uneven distribution of wealth in the country, has resulted in a lack of formal education for some people here.
At that point Lena started to establish her idea of theater as an educational medium. She gave serious consideration to the necessity to set up alternative education for those who could not afford it.
In the 1990s, a long-time friend, writer Julius R. Siyaranamual, asked her to come home and support him in a program for prostitutes in Surabaya, East Java.
“It was a big challenge for me but I responded to his call, even though I still didn’t know what to do,” she recalled.
In Surabaya, she stayed in the office of the Hotline Service Foundation, an non governmental organization (NGO) focusing on HIV/AIDS. It is located inside Bangunsari, a red-light district nearby the city’s Tanjung Perak port.
She faced a real challenge there. Living in such a neighborhood showed her the real world of prostitutes. She mingled and talked with them, visited their rooms at the brothels and observed their daily lives closely.
“I saw great pain in their eyes. They are victims of violence and blackmail by a patriarchal system, and an inequitable economy and culture,” Lena said.
Amid the hustle and bustle of the daily lives of the prostitutes, she introduced them to theater. That was no easy process, either for the prostitutes or Lena.
She had to forget her skills as a director when working with them. A director could not act as such in that kind of performance, Lena said.
“I spoke in the language they know, instead of directing them with technical, theater jargon. I functioned simply as a
facilitator, to give an artistic sense to the story they developed,” she explained.
Therefore, Lena would never withdraw anyone from a performance she was involved with. If an actor had a soft voice — which would obviously be a reason to drop them from a conventional production — other members of the group had to work together to cope with the condition, she said.
The results were remarkable. The prostitutes were successful in portraying their real-life stories, performing in Surabaya and other cities, to warm receptions from observers.
Nine of over a dozen prostitutes who joined the theater have left the business. They became activists against the trafficking of women and children, she said proudly. To date, they are still communicating with each other.
Lena has also become involved in a theatrical production in North Sumatra. She collaborated with the Independent Women’s Theater in North Sumatra, which is supported by Hapsari, an NGO that offers the possibility of using theater as a tool for the education and empowerment of women workers.
The production, titled Suara dan Suara, was based on group members’ real-life stories. The theater consists of members who are workers on plantations or in fishing communities. They have performed in several parts of Sumatra and in the capital.
Their performance attracted a great deal of interest, both because of the high quality of the performance and their sharp, honest stories.
Lena, too, is also proud of the group, referring to one of them who has now become a member of her village council, with another running for the position of village head.
“They were just ordinary ibu-ibu (housewives). Now, they can speak up for what they believe in. I hope to help them make the transition from being victims to survivors, or maybe decision makers,” she said.
A number of other projects, including one in Banyuwangi, East Java, for workers and another in Yogyakarta for housemaids, are also on her list. She does not work solely in Indonesia, for Lena is also involved in supporting a theater in a men’s penitentiary in Germany.
“It’s tough work. But, now, I can understand the common notion that theater is universal. It involves adults, children, — anyone, anywhere from any culture or background,” said Lena, who is very grateful for the support of her husband, two children and two grand-children.
Currently, Lena and her friends are developing guidelines for “theater as an education tool for empowering people, particularly women” in a bid to promote it across the country.
“I have made my decision: to take sides with them — marginalized people,” Lena asserted.
Muninggar Sri Saraswati

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