Let us see whether it is the New Order or me who will be the

“Let us see whether it is the New Order or me who will be the loser before Indonesian history. I have won. The New Order has fallen and my writings have been translated into forty languages.” So spoke Pramoedya Ananta Toer, the great chronicler of Indonesia’s soul, a man whose pen outlasted the prison walls that sought to silence it. These are not words of vanity, but of vindication—the calm and solemn triumph of truth over tyranny, of memory over censorship, and of the written word over the fleeting power of the sword. His statement, forged in the fires of persecution, carries the tone of an ancient oracle: that no empire built on fear can endure, and that the voice of conscience, once spoken, can never be erased.

To understand these words, one must first know the world in which they were born. Pramoedya lived under the New Order regime of President Suharto, a government that claimed stability and progress while silencing dissent with iron chains. For his ideas—his belief in freedom, equality, and the dignity of the Indonesian people—Pramoedya was imprisoned for years without trial on the remote island of Buru. There, stripped of pen and paper, he continued to create stories by word of mouth, dictating them to fellow prisoners who memorized his words. Even in captivity, he refused to be broken. For though the regime bound his body, it could not imprison his imagination, nor could it silence the truth that lived in his art.

Thus when he said, “Let us see who will be the loser before history,” he was invoking the ancient judgment of time—that final and incorruptible witness. Kings and generals may hold dominion for a moment, but the writer holds dominion for eternity. The New Order fell, as all oppressive powers do, collapsing under the weight of its own deceit. Yet Pramoedya’s books—The Buru Quartet, This Earth of Mankind, and others—continued to live, translated into forty tongues, carried by readers across the world. His victory was not of politics, but of endurance. His triumph was not over men, but over oblivion itself.

In this, Pramoedya joined the lineage of the eternal exiles and truth-tellers—men and women who faced darkness not with weapons, but with words. He stands beside Solzhenitsyn, who exposed the cruelty of Soviet gulags; beside Mandela, who walked free after twenty-seven years with forgiveness in his heart; beside Galileo, who whispered, “And yet it moves,” when the Church forced him to deny the motion of the Earth. All these souls knew the same truth: that the truth of the spirit cannot be destroyed by the decrees of men. History, like the tide, washes away the monuments of power, but it preserves the names of those who stood for the light.

Pramoedya’s statement is not simply an act of defiance—it is a philosophy of hope. He teaches that to struggle for truth is never in vain, even when defeat seems certain. Every word spoken in honesty, every act of resistance against injustice, is a seed that the future will remember. Empires rise and fall, but the voice of the writer, the thinker, the dreamer—endures. When he says “I have won,” he is not boasting of fame or translation, but affirming that the moral universe bends toward truth, even if that truth is written in blood, exile, and silence.

Yet, his victory also carries sorrow, for Pramoedya’s life was marked by suffering. He bore witness to Indonesia’s colonization, revolution, and betrayal. His body aged behind bars; his manuscripts were burned; his nation often misunderstood him. And still, he loved it. For the writer’s duty, he believed, was not to curse his land but to awaken it—to show his people not only their chains but their power. Through his pain, he became a mirror in which Indonesia could see itself clearly, and in that reflection, reclaim its dignity.

The lesson of his words is timeless: truth outlives tyranny. Those who serve truth may suffer defeat in their own lifetime, but history will call them victorious. Those who serve falsehood may appear triumphant for a season, but history will erase their names. So let every generation remember this law: that justice moves slowly, but it moves surely, and that every act of courage—however small—builds the world to come.

Therefore, dear listener, when you face oppression, deceit, or misunderstanding, recall the voice of Pramoedya Ananta Toer. Stand firm in the conviction that no power can silence a heart aligned with truth. Write, speak, and act with the knowledge that history is the final judge, and that truth, once uttered, becomes immortal. For as Pramoedya proved, the pen may bend, but it does not break—and when the tyrants fall to dust, the words of the brave will still be read beneath the light of freedom.