A Recorder of Secret Worlds

Don Hasman has tried his hand at many fields, fueled by  wanderlust to know more about the world. He took time out from his travels to tell Andrew Greene about his eventful life, the daunting problems facing Indonesia today and his special interest in the so-called “Amish of Java”. 

Don Hasman is an enthusiastic man.  When he speaks, his entire body pops and bubbles with excitement. 

The 66-year-old Jakarta native is a journalist, anthropology writer, explorer, mountain climber, bicycler, lecturer and author.  As he talks, his compact frame leans forward over his cup of hot chocolate, his widening eyes draw wrinkles across his forehead.  His hands remain clasped under the table but his shoulders jump as if they, the hidden hands, want to fly free.  He is bursting.

He says when he was a young man he studied law but decided to become a journalist for the chance to see the world.  “A journalist doesn’t need to pay to travel,” he explains.  “The company pays.” 

Following his interests he has mainly written about exploration, the environment and culture. 

But being a journalist in Indonesia has not always been easy.  Hasman was working for the daily newspaper Sinar Harapan in October 1986 when it was closed down by the Soeharto regime. “The reporters waited a year before the company shifted us to the weekly tabloid Mutiara and the newspaper Suara Pembaruan,” he says of publications owned by the same company.

“During the Soeharto era, one had to be an acrobat to write,” he remembers.  “The Army, the Special Forces [Kopassus], thought that no one else was clever, but we were clever too.”   

Although there is greater freedom today and technology has made the reporter’s life easier, low salaries are another problem for many Indonesian journalists, he said.. 

“The publishing business here is worse, more evil than in capitalistic countries.  The top get more money, they are sharks, while those who face the sticks and rocks, the reporters earn less and less.  That is why reporters ask for money from sources although it is illegal to do so,” Hasman said.

“Except for those from Tempo Magazine and Kompas [daily newspaper], many journalists do this. According to [the Indonesian Journalists Association] PWI regulations they face two years in prison for this, though I do not think anyone has ever been charged.  It is like the 1974 polygamy ban, never enforced.”

Hasman acknowledges there have been some positive players in Indonesian journalism over the decades, such as Tempo founder and journalist Goenawan Mohamad

“Without him and others, most of Indonesia would not have had good information. He is very good and honest …”

Hasman is pleased with the country’s present direction but says there remain many hurdles to overcome, especially graft.  “The more you know about Indonesia, the more you want to vomit. Corruption is massive here.  It is as Amien Rais calls it, ‘corruption together.’”

“People start being corrupt at school, when they begin looking at their schoolmates’ tests.  Parents and teachers do not teach them.  This situation will not improve until the rule of law is implemented.”

Journalism has enabled Hasman to travel as he has wished.  He has been part of expeditions to Irian Jaya, Kalimantan, Wakatobi and Indonesia’s northernmost islands, Manore and Miangas.  In 1964, he traced 19^th-century explorer Alfred Russel Wallace’s path through Indonesia. 

The people of Papua are among Hasman’s favorite to visit.  “They’re very fragile.  They change their minds quickly because they’re not yet stable.  The jump from the stone age to the modern age is too high for them.”

One of his greatest adventures was in 1993 when he was part of a group of international journalists who bicycled across Tibet. In addition to the bicycling and expeditions, Hasman says he has climbed peaks around the world including Kilimanjaro, Blanc and Etna, in addition to 40 volcanoes in Indonesia.

Much of his anthropological writing and work has been about the Badui of West Java.  He says this is because of their proximity to Jakarta, living in about 40 villages about 120 kilometers from Jakarta, and his fondness for the people.  He considers them to be reflections of past Indonesians and says that they are “straight, honest and have their own identity”.

Hasman says that he has visited the Badui more than 500 times over the last 31 years. This makes him one of the world’s foremost experts on the tribe that has lived largely unchanged in the highlands of West Java since the time of the Prophet Muhammad.

Budi Hartono a lecturer in anthropology and tourism from the University of Indonesia, said: “Hasman is a journalist whose work on the Badui brings out what’s good and interesting about the people.”

There are about 1,080 Inner Badui in three inner villages and 9,100 Outer Badui in 37 outer villages, Hasman said.  The Inner Badui are only permitted to wear home-spun and woven white cloth.  They are forbidden from growing cash crops, eating four-legged animals, taking modern medicine, using electricity or any form of transportation.

The Outer Badui, says Hasman, follow the same traditions and norms as the inner but are less strict in their adherence. 

Hasman says it is difficult to get information on the Badui and that anthropologists have published papers containing numerous mistakes.

“The more you want to squeeze them, the more they try to mislead you.  That’s the way their brains are,” Hasman says.  “They [the observers] do not spend long enough, nor come often enough.  Five to ten years is nothing.  That is just enough to study the cover.  You must get their confidence, but even then they’ll still try to hide things.”

Hasman has no plans of slowing down.  He is half finished writing a book about the Badui for the Indonesian Heritage Society.   

Next year he is planning a journey to the world’s seven most deadly volcanoes, traveling to two sites in Indonesia, plus one each in Japan, Iceland, Italy, Columbia, and Martinique in the Caribbean. In October he will join the 800-kilometer Catholic pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.  He will write books about each adventure.

Powered by his unending enthusiasm, Hasman will undoubtedly continue to bring the stories of hidden worlds to his readers for years to come.

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