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Asmuni

Asmuni is the nameof a well-knowncomeilianinJavaneseSri Mulat theatre.This

pieceis addressed
to him, as thepusonificationof comedy-Translator.
/lsr"runr, have you heard the story about Gareng the clown at the
theatre in Solo? There is a story from
Sriwedari wayang-orang
A
'Old
Order'. It happened that in one of
the
of
Sukarno's
I
time
L
the comic scenes,Gareng got muddled up, and instead of saying the
word 'GT4NEFO', what came out of his mouth was the word'ganewul'.
So he was called in to the authorities and they took appropriate
action. He had played around with things that were sacred: the word
'CANEFO' was an acronym of 'Games of the New Emerging
Forces'-President Sukarno's own brainwave for an alternative
Olympics in the 1960s.'Caneutul' was a word made up by Gareng the
clown from the Javanese'seganethiwul'or 'cassavafor rice ', an allusion
to the rice shortage of the time.
But clowns are always a little endangered, Asmuni. Humour and
joking are basically a form of distancing. They also disturb us because
all that is nicely ordered and neat, all that is normal and predictable,
suddenly falls apart-if only for a moment. So when a government does
not want anyone to distance himself from the world around him-even
if only for a minute-then the life of a clown is threatened.
to
When we hear of caseslike Gareng's, it is sometimes difficult
understand why humour is said to be healthy. But why not? Why should
people have to be consciously completely involved with their surroundings? Why can't people turn their surroundings into something that
suddenly amusesthem?
Why can't we, every now and then, with no destructive intent, play
with order and neatness,with the normal and predictable?Humans are
creatures that can laugh. Humour is a specialgift. It is upsetting, when
Gareng the clown from Sriwedari-whose very life was humour-has
to muzzle humour itself.
And then there is the humorist from Czechoslovakia called Milan
Kundera. He is the famous author of The Book of Laughterand Forgetting
which was so well received in Europe, after Kundera had left his own
country and moved to Paris. Kundera said that he learnt the value of
humour during the Stalinist terror.

99

At this time he was about twenty. As a communist-ruled country,

Czechoslovakia was also under hard-line Stalinists. During Stalin's time
hundreds of thousands of people were imprisoned and dozens were
executed. The entire population had to conform to one straight lineno one was allowed to diverge one inch. Everyone had to be committed
to the processof the development of socialism. The billboards were full
of muscular labourers and the music was all marches.
People were afraid to laugh. Joking was seen to be just playing the
fool, perhaps a luxury or perhaps a symptom of laziness which could
spread like a disease.It was sabotage. At times like this, human relations
become slowly envelopedin tension and fear. When joking is a form of
subversion,then people must be spied upon to make sure that they do
not indulge in humour and joking whenever they like.
It was not surprising then that in this stifling atmosphere Milan
Kundera became aware of the value of a laugh: it is a sign of freedom, a
signal of the return of the human spirit. 'I"could al*a"ys tell someone
who was not a Stalinist, someonewhom I need not fear, by the way he
smiled . . . Since that time, I have always been afraid of a world that
losesits sense of humour. '
Asmuni, a clown must indeed be treasured-not becausehe nas a
moral or ideological role or becausehe can ignite the fighting spirit.
No, a clown must be treasuredbecausehe nurtures a world that has not
lost its freedom to make jokes. And this is already a good deed.
There are always people who want more than this. For them it is not
enough that Gareng at Sriwedari is Gareng the comic. In a time of
'socialistrealism' he must also speakof 'revolutionary' things. The same
"oruingersgoes for Gatotkaca, Hamlet, kitoprokactors, poets,
"rtists
it's not enough for the funny to be funny or the
beautiful to be
beautiful, everything must have an added function.
It is as though a clown cannot be a revolutionary unlesshe actually
usesrevolutionary talk in his jokes, even though he is able to make the
members of the audience split their sideslaughing one night so that they
forget the burden oftheir daily lives, and then the next day can be the
same clown-as-citizen working to build the road in the village-and
this without talking at all.
Asmuni, surely you understand, there is a time to joke and a time not
to joke. Tbe two should not be confused. Each has its place.

16Apnl 1983

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