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Shadow Boxing 161
Seno's novel is as much an interrogation of the kawula-gustί ethos as the seditious
satire mentioned above.
For these writers, the most obvious method of questioning the feudal Javanese
ideology underpinning the New Order's cultural hegemony was to modernize and
humanize the wayang characters. For example, the wayang characters translated into
Indonesian literary form were often depicted as "ordinary" Indonesians who
performed their tasks in a routine manner. Admittedly, their tasks may have appeared
glamorous to the average Indonesian. However, the manner in which these tasks were
performed was often strikingly contemporary and quite mundane. For example, rather
than Gatotkaca flying off completely unaided as he does in the wayang, in one short
story by Sapto Aji, Gatotkaca casually dons a jet-fighter helmet and climbs into an F-
16. 11 Elsewhere, on the front cover of Wayang Semau Cue, an airborne Gatotkaca is
pictured tangled in a kite. The front cover of Soebadio Sastrosatomo's Polίtίk
Dosomuko Rezim Orde Baru (The Politics of Dosomuko's New Order Regime) 12 (1998) is
distinguished by the striking image of the evil Dasamuka clutching an American dollar
and a fifty-thousand rupiah note (characterized by the image of a smiling Suharto),
whilst standing in a sea of five-hundred rupiah notes. 13 In a story by Pipit Rochijat,
Kama takes to the Kurusetra battlefield in a Toyota jeep, and he is only hit by
Aήuna's arrow when his driver Salya bogs the jeep down in some mud. 14 In contrast to
this, Agusta Wibisono's duel between Arjuna and Kama in Balada Narasoma is
highlighted by the two ksatria embracing each other, sharing a cigarette, and entering
into a discussion of Kama's soon-to-be-completed novel. 15 It is precisely because these
usually glamorous characters are rendered so "ordinary" and "contemporary" that
their message is doubly potent.
This article will argue that literary reworkings of the wayang—and, for the
purposes of this article, the Ramayana epic in particular—can be read as a means of
"shadow-boxing" in the face of the New Order powers-that-be. "Shadow-boxing" can
be defined as boxing against an imaginary opponent. Extending this metaphor, the
writers of wayang-based texts can be regarded as shadow-boxers, their texts the
shadows, and their "imaginary" opponent Suharto and his New Order regime. Just as
a boxer only shadow-boxes whilst warming-up or practicing before a fight, Indonesian
writers critical of the New Order state were in a sense imagining, foreshadowing, and
enacting in their mind's eye the "real" fight to come in 1997 and 1998, the fight to
overthrow Suharto. Besides emphasizing the ways in which various Indonesian writers
modernized and humanized the characters of the Ramayana, I will also try to reveal
the various strategies of mediation that allowed the writers to "shadow-box" in the
midst of the New Order, sometimes indirectly provoking or confronting the powers-
11
Sapto Aji, "Gatotkaca Gugur," Suαrα Merdekα, May 25,1997.
12
Soebadio Sastrosatomo, Politik Dosomuko Rezim Orde Bαru: Rαpuh dan Sengsarakan Rakyat (Jakarta:
Pusat Dokumentasi Politik "GUNTUR 49," 1998).
13
Five-hundred rupiah notes are characterized by the image of an orangutan. In the context of the front
cover of Soebadio's text, the publisher claims that these notes represent "ketek-ketek yang mengabdi kepada
tokoh Rama" (the monkeys who serve the hero Rama). See Soebadio, Politik Dosomuko, inside cover.
14
Pipit Rochijat, Baratayuάa di Negeri Antah Berantah, pp. 38-44.
15
Agusta Wibisono, Balada Narasoma, pp. 107-111.