July 2013 Newsletter Dear All, I recently returned to Jakarta from a three-city tour to Australia where I went to promote Lontar’s Modern Library of Indonesia, a series which aims to bring together many of the most significant Indonesian literary works from the 20th century and beyond. At each stop on the tour—in Hobart, Melbourne, and Perth—I presented a talk on “Why Translation Matters”. I began the talk by asking the question “What is the language of God?” I gave no answer; I had no answer to give. The only reason I asked the question was to point out the fact that without translation, the wisdom and knowledge found in “His” word would be accessible only to the speakers of His language. Without translation, none of the world’s major religions today would have adherents outside the linguistic communities in which they were born. As it with religion, so it is with the dissemination of other forms of knowledge, beliefs, and ideas. Since time immemorial the world has been shaped by the exchange of ideas brought to distant places and foreign shores by travelers who learned to speak (and to write) in the language of their new homes. Whatever the reason behind the migration of peoples—whether commerce, natural catastrophes, or the desire to spread the word of God—there is no arguing against the historical reality that the world’s peoples today are constantly interacting and that there is now no one single culture completely free from the influence of a “foreign” culture. Further, in these contemporary times, as the world continues to shrink through the expansion of trade agreements and the proliferation of social media, translation, especially literary translation, has an ever more important role to play in the maintenance, development, and promotion of a country’s cultural values. In the global scheme of things, however, what is happening? Indonesia is being left behind! This nation, home to sailors who once pioneered routes across the Asian and Pacific oceans, leaving traces of their DNA in peoples from Hawaii to Madagascar, is becoming, not an international campaigner of home-grown ideas and ideologies but a passive receptacle of alien premises and promises which, however beneficial some might be others must and should be countered by alternative Indonesian views. A reversal of the above trend is possible but will not come about without a sea change in the attitude of decision-makers who fail to recognize that literature, in the broadest sense of the world—from research reports, academic treatises, and patent schemes all the way up to film-scripts, comic novels, and poetry—is the key determinant in assessing the value of a nation’s contribution to global culture. The written word and its translation—the means by which knowledge is shared—drive almost all forms of growth and development and at this point in time, where the scales of development and social transformation are heavily weighted in favor of countries where English is the dominant language, countries that do not actively support the translation of their own creative work into English risk being shunt aside by linguistic forces to the backwater of global cultural history. That is why Lontar was founded. That is why, despite all odds, we continue to champion the cause of Indonesian literature in translation. I hope you will help to support our cause. Yours sincerely, John McGlynn, Chairman, Board of Trustees
Posted on: Thu, 25 Jul 2013 09:48:09 +0000
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