Being Young, Then and Now

12 November 1991. Indonesian Occupation. Timorese people, mostly youths, march from the Motael Church to the Cemetery of Santa Cruz in honor of a Timorese shot by Indonesian forces in a confrontation between Pro-Independence supporters and Pro-Indonesian supporters. On the way banners and flags are put out. It is the most outspoken demonstration against Indonesian Occupation since its start in 1975. Once they arrive, Indonesian forces open fire. More than 200 people will never return home from this demonstration. A British journalist captures the massacre on film, manages to smuggle it out of the country and slowly the world begins admitting something is terribly wrong in East Timor. 12 November 2012. Ten years independence. Timorese people, mostly youths, march from the Motael Church to the Cemetery of Santa Cruz in honor of the people who died there twenty one years ago while demonstrating for their right to self-determination, their right to independence. There are banners and flags, people sing, there are speeches and there is music. There is a lot of waiting in the blazing sunshine. There are candles and flowers for the dead. There are foreigners filming and taking pictures, not under cover this time. And there are youths, many, many youths. On their banners they no longer ask for Independence, their forefathers achieved that already. But they are asking for justice. They are asking for the remains of lost freedom fighters that were never looked for. They ask for recognition for their forefathers. Today, I was both: a youth with a banner and a foreigner filming and taking pictures. And the whole day I carried with me the feeling of contrast between this day and the twelfth of November twenty one years ago. While getting ready, both in my house and while waiting for the march with my friends and our banner I though how the people back then had been preparing. They knew it was dangerous but they had no idea that they would never get back home. While we were having fun preparing and taking pictures I wondered how people had felt while getting ready. While we waited in the shade, I wondered if in 1991 there had also been such a contrast between the temperature in the shade and in the sun

While joining in with the multitudes (at some point I did neither see the start nor the end of the marching people) I enjoyed the fact that shouting “Viva Timor Leste” would cause nobody problems today, that the police cars were there for us and not against us, that people were able to sing and laugh

And that waving a flag and being proud of it was allowed

They waiting, in the sun, did actually not really feel as waiting. We were just being. Standing and sitting in front of the Santa Cruz Cemetery was an activity in itself today. We did not have to run for our lives.

But the strongest feeling of the coexistence, in my mind, of these two days, separated by 21 years but unified in sense of place was when I saw the entrance of the Cemetery. From the footage of the massacre I have seen, what had most impact on me were not the images of young people holding bleeding or dead friends, it was the image of the entrance of the cemetery with people jumping or climbing over each other in an effort to get out of there, in an effort to run away from death. I could not find a better picture than this still of the video, but I still want to put it here…

The same gate, separated by 21 years

And somehow I felt thankful. Thankful that today the military were there to guarantee our safety instead of threatening it. Thankful that people holding banners were given priority instead of being killed. Thankful that the flag of an independent Timor Leste was allowed to be carried and joked with today. Thankful that I am in Timor Leste today and not twenty one years ago.

Being young, then and now…that is a central part to my research, and it was a central part today. Talking with youths in Timor Leste about their own generation and the generations before them, I have often noticed that youths feel tiny and insignificant in relationship to those youths who fought (and often died) for achieving the independence of their country. Those were the heroes, those were the people who educated each other in the bush, who survived in dire circumstances, who had nothing but achieved everything, who liberated the country. However, that is not completely the whole story. Because history does not end with the liberation of the country. History goes on. And so the generation that liberated the country is also seen as having settled too fast for the soft chair of power, as having been seduced by power. And so the struggle is not yet finished. There is independence alright, but due the powerful position of Indonesia vis-à-vis tiny Timor Leste , there is not yet justice. People in power have focused on reconciliation and state that the biggest justice of all is to have self-determination and independence. However, although many youths agree and focus on going forward, many also disagree. And that is why the youths of today also had their messages on their banners, this time not addressed to a foreign occupier but addressed to the youths of back then: “Justice is the only alternative to achieve dignity for the dead of 12 November”

I guess it is the very newest generation who caught the essence of what today is about, because the kids in my street apparently got inspired and they keep shouting to each other “Viva Timor Leste!!!”

The Primitive of Timor

Although I made this picture in Bali it struck me as the perfect illustration of the contradictory realities in Timor Leste. It is about these contradictory realities that I want to write this blog. Before I came to Timor Leste I was afraid. Afraid because most I knew about the country came from the news, so my associations were mostly with war, occupation and turbulence. I was also afraid because when I said that I was going to Timor the reaction of most people was a brief silence, followed by an ‘Oh…’ and sometimes they ventured to ask further ‘Why?’ Sharing this with my Timorese friends I noticed that it hurts. It hurts when the only thing people think about when your country is named is people killing each other. It hurts that ten years after independence people are still afraid to come here. It hurts that people ask ‘Why? Why the hell would you want to go to Timor Leste?’ And so in the course of the previous blogs you have been witnesses to me falling in love with this country I had at first feared. In an unconscious attempt to set the image straight I have felt the necessity to share the beauty of this country, the pure happiness I can feel here, the life that flows here as blood through the veins of a vital body, the music, the laughter and the idealism that are as much part of this country as the stories that have made their way to Europe through the mainstream media. Because I wanted some people, the readers of this blog, not to say ‘Oh…’ the next time someone says he or she goes to Timor Leste. I want you to so ‘Oh! Nice!’ And still, finishing to write my previous blog, I realized that it was exactly because nobody had promised me paradise, that I was able not only to find it in the little things, but also to cherish it above anything else. And so I realized that, although I have tried to be fair to my Timorese friends and communicate the beautiful things of Timor Leste to the outside, it would be not fair towards the readers of this blog, to speak only of paradise… And so the image of the dark and ruin-like building with the shiny white SUV in front of it struck me as the perfect introduction for two realities coexisting around me. Yes, Timor Leste has a past of conflict, it is inscribed in the land and in the places, people tell me about it when passing by, making beauty sometimes seem out of place. And yes, Timor Leste is still one of the so-called Least Developed Countries. But Timor Leste is also a country with SUVs, with a fast growing capital, with gas and oil and rich people, with students who dream of a bright future. It is a country with traffic jams but also with goats on the road. And in some aspects I really have some symptoms of being in love, because I can be completely delighted in seeing this part of Dili

And its seems not to have any effect on me that my street looks like this

It is a really interesting phenomenon! Sometimes I find myself smiling because I feel only the warmth of the evening and I ignore the dust that swirls around me, smiling because people around greet me not seeing the piles of waste I walk past, smiling because some of the youths at Ba Futuru are such good actors, forgetting that they play scenes of domestic violence because people actually have to learn that beating their wife up is not the best way to solve a conflict… Most of the times I am struck by the beautiful color and form combinations

Only sometimes I really notice the surroundings

But I do have them, these moments in which I see reality as it is. In those moments I realize that the Ministry of Solidarity looks like this

While across the street university teachers sit in an office like this

Where you are lucky if internet works, where power falls out just on the moment you have forgotten to click on ‘save’, where students have no access to internet, books or computers, no money for lunch, where they sit in hot and noisy classrooms if their teacher comes at all…On those moments I feel like an incredibly spoiled child. And it is in the middle of these contradictory realities, which sometimes can be a bit exasperating, that the people impress me, especially the young people who dare to dream. That doesn’t cover the whole population, but still they are there: youths who invest their time in bringing people together, in learning not only from the books but also from the reality around them, youths who are not only interested in building careers but instead have a commitment to their communities. To be invited into their midst as a sister, to be given the possibility to see a bit of this world through their eyes, to share in their moments of pure life, that is more than anything else, what has made me fall in love with this country…