National Identity and National Unity in

Contemporary East-Timorese Literature

Anthony Soares

The return of independence to Timor-Leste in 2002 has seen tortuous

and conflicting developments during its short existence. In the 1970s
and 80s, poets such as Francisco Borja da Costa, Fernando Sylvan and
Xanana Gusmão offered a lyric portrayal of the future Timor-Leste,
free from colonial oppression and exploitation, where its people would
enjoy the benefits derived from egalitarian self-determination. It is from
this context that the following questions arise: does Timorese national
identity continue to preoccupy today’s writers? What features are seen as
central to such an identity? And does the Timor-Leste portrayed today
match the aspirations of those Timorese writing in previous decades?
As Artur Marcos has pointed out, literature of Timorese authorship was
significantly conditioned by the material consequences of the foreign
occupation of Timor-Leste, and the pressing need for national self-
determination saw writers during this period recognizing the necessity
to use their work as a tool, to voice this aspiration both internally and to
a wider international audience.1 From this literary output it is not only
possible to determine the opposition to colonial oppression, but also to
build a picture of the imagined future of an independent Timor-Leste; it
is these representations that will be examined in a panoramic way in the
initial section of this essay, both to form a comparative framework for the
contemporary literature analysed later, and to offer a literary historical
context for the work currently being produced.2 We will then turn to
current Timorese literary production in order to identify how Timor-
Leste is portrayed today, and so determine whether current portrayals
echo those from previous decades.3
1
Artur Marcos, ‘Textos e versões leste-timorenses: Traços para um quadro geral’, in Timor
Timorense: Com suas Línguas, Literaturas, Lusofonia... (Lisbon: Edições Colibri, 1995), pp. 157–70
(pp. 159–60).
2
For an initial examination of Timorese ‘liberation poetry’ see Anthony Soares, ‘The Poets
Fight Back: East Timorese Poetry as Counterdiscourse to Colonial and Postcolonial Identities’,
Romance Studies, 24: 2 (2006), 133–47, and ‘Liberating East Timorese Liberation Poetry:
Oppositional Discourses and Postcolonial Theory’, in Postcolonial Theory and Lusophone Literatures,
ed. by Paulo de Medeiros (Utrecht: Centre for Portuguese Studies, 2007), pp. 159–75.
3
The writers I will analyse have been chosen for their thematic correspondence, which is
representative of their respective historical periods. However, whereas the liberation poets of
the 1970s and 80s also share similarities in terms of their lyric styles, the contemporary writers
examined approach common themes in significantly different ways.

Portuguese Studies vol. 25 no. 1 (2009), 80–101

© Modern Humanities Research Association 2009

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 identity and unity in east-timorese literature 81

Writers from Timor-Leste working under Portuguese colonial rule and

Indonesian occupation were seen as an important element in the struggle
for Timorese self-determination, not only as producers of a literature
that could voice that desire, but also as contributors to a process of
valorization of Timorese national culture. The value of Timorese writers
as part of a wider Timorese cultural life is made clear in the political
manifesto published in the mid-1970s by FRETILIN, the group that was
at the forefront of the struggle for Timor-Leste’s independence.4 From
the outset their programme underlines the need for unity in resisting
colonialism, and sees this as an essential element of their own identity,
declaring that ‘FRETILIN é a Frente Revolucionária do Timor-Leste
Independente que reune todas as forças nacionalistas e anti-colonialistas
num objectivo comum: a libertação do povo de Timor do jugo colonialista’
[FRETILIN is the Independent Timor-Leste Revolutionary Front bringing
together all nationalist and anti-colonial forces with a common objective:
the liberation of the people of Timor from the colonialist yoke] (p. 3).5
The need for unity in the struggle against foreign occupation is further
underlined through the organization’s opting to call itself a ‘front’
(Frente), justifying it through a reading of past Timorese failures against
the Portuguese colonial presence:
É uma Frente porque ela é contra o divisionismo. A experiência dos fracassos
dos nossos antepassados na sua luta de libertação (Camenasse, Cová, Cotubaba,
Lacló, Ulmera, Manufahi e Viqueque) ensina-nos que, neste momento, é
necessário a UNIDADE de todos os anti-colonialistas e nacionalistas sem qualquer
distinção étnica, de credo religioso, de tendência política, de sexo e de categoria
social. É necessário desarmar todos aqueles que mais uma vez se servem do lema
‘dividir para reinar’. Qualquer ruptura e divisão no seio dos anti-colonialistas e
nacionalistas só irá reforçar aqueles que querem continuar a explorar o Povo (p. 4).
[It is a Front because it is against sectarianism. The experience of our predecessors’
failures in the liberation struggle (Camenasse, Cová, Cotubaba, Lacló, Ulmera,
Manufahi and Viqueque) teaches us that at the moment we need UNITY of all
anti-colonialists and nationalists, without any distinctions of ethnicity, religious
faith, political leanings, of gender or social status. We must disarm all those who

4
FRETILIN, Manual e Programa Políticos (Lisbon: n.pub., 1975). See Helen Hill’s Stirrings of
Nationalism in East Timor: Fretilin 1974–1978 — The Origins, Ideologies and Strategies of a Nationalist
Movement (Ortford, NSW: Ortford Press, 2002) for a detailed analysis of FRETILIN’s role in
fostering a Timorese national consciousness.
5
It could be argued that this call for unity simultaneously promotes FRETILIN as the primary
organization capable of realizing Timorese ambitions for independence. Recent developments
in Timor-Leste have shown that tensions emerged with the perceived delegitimization of other
political forces, and that FRETILIN has unfairly capitalized on its leading role in the struggle
against the Indonesian occupation by sidelining non-FRETILIN activists since the return to
independence. The formation of a multi-party government in the aftermath of the parliamentary
elections of 30 June 2007 that excluded FRETILIN, despite its having received more votes, could
be seen as a concerted effort to take back control of Timor-Leste’s development from a party that
had previously dominated the political landscape.

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82 anthony soares
are again resorting to the motto ‘divide and rule’. Any split or division within the
anti-colonialists and nationalists will only strengthen those who want to go on
exploiting the People.]
Unity, then, is the primary means through which the Timorese people
will achieve their aims of self-government and the defeat of colonial
oppression, whilst past divisions allowed their enemies to perpetuate
systems of colonial exploitation that kept the Timorese subjugated. It is in
this context, and recognizing a need for basic education, that FRETILIN’s
political programme makes a specific reference to Timorese literature.
In answer to the question, ‘[p]orque é que a Fretilin quer que o Povo
esteja esclarecido e que todos saibam ler e escrever?’ [why does Fretilin
want the People to be educated and have everyone able to read and
write?], the response is unequivocal: ‘Porque a libertação do Povo tem
de ser completa e total’ [Because the liberation of the People has to be
complete and total] (p. 18). For FRETILIN, independence and liberation
from colonial rule cannot be achieved without adequate levels of
education, the lack of which had been an obstacle to attaining those goals
in the past. An educated population will be able to participate critically
in the governance of a future independent Timor-Leste, permitting
‘que todos, todos saibam exactamente o que querem e porque querem’
[everyone to know exactly what they want and why they want it], so that
‘a política não seja um tema estranho e vago só para senhores doutores’
[politics isn’t something strange and distant, just for professional people]
(p. 18).6 Allied to this desire for greater accessibility to the processes of
political decision-making is the aspiration to support a national literature
since, according to FRETILIN, it will transmit a Timorese culture that
otherwise risks being forgotten within an oral tradition:
Como podemos desenvolver a nossa literatura, a nossa poesia se estas são a
expressão do Povo e o Povo não sabe escrever? Quantos valores se perdem
por existir apenas uma tradição oral. Valores que passam de pais para filhos,
mas a memória humana é limitada, e muitas, muitas coisas se perdem. Para
construirmos um Timor verdadeiramente livre e independente, é necessário que
todos, homens, mulheres, velhos, jovens e crianças, todos saibam ler e escrever
(pp. 18–19).7

6
It is somewhat ironic that Xanana Gusmão, during his term as President of Timor-Leste
(2002–06), should repeatedly refer in a sarcastic manner to the leaders of FRETILIN as
‘Senhores Doutores’ (a courtesy title accorded to university graduates) in an article entitled ‘A
Teoria das Conspirações’, published in four weekly instalments throughout November 2006 in
the Dili newspaper, Jornal Nacional Diário. By employing this terminology, the former guerrilla
leader intended to emphasize the fact that many of FRETILIN’s leaders spent the period of the
Indonesian occupation abroad where they were able to receive a formal education, whilst he and
the majority of the Timorese population had to endure Indonesia’s atrocities.
7
In his essay, ‘“Shadow States”?: State building and national invention under external constraint
in Kosovo and East Timor (1974–2002)’, Raphaël Pouyé notes that ‘in East Timor, FRETILIN
had, as early as 1975, initiated very ambitious literacy and political awareness raising campaigns

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 identity and unity in east-timorese literature 83

[How can we develop our literature and our poetry if these are the expression
of the People and the People don’t know how to write? What values are lost
because there exists only an oral tradition? Values that are passed on from parents
to children, but human memory is limited, and very many things are lost. To
construct a truly free and independent Timor it is essential that everyone — men,
women, old people, young people and children — can read and write.]
This view of the value of a national literature is at once liberating and
limiting: it sees the ability to read and write as an essential means to
achieve an independent Timor-Leste, but also makes a direct link
between literary expression and the expression of the Timorese people.
Such a perspective assumes a unitary popular will, where all Timorese
speak with one voice, and Timorese literature is the written record of that
single voice. Artistic production is thus directed towards a single purpose,
potentially devaluing any creative impulse that seeks to explore other
areas suggestive of dissonant voices reading from a different political
manual.8
The need for unity, then, is of paramount concern to FRETILIN in the
struggle against colonialism and, as I have pointed out elsewhere, there
is a role envisioned for Timorese writers in achieving this goal.9 In the
preface to a collection of poems of Timorese authorship published in
Mozambique in 1981, and signed ‘R.P. FRETILIN em Maputo’, the poet’s
mission is made abundantly clear:
A Poesia de Libertação é rica de aspirações humanas justas e profundas. Nela,
o poeta abstrai-se e subtrai-se dos seus próprios interesses para se identificar
com os do seu Povo. Nesta relação abstracção/identificação, o poeta encontra
o seu próprio EU na Luta, através da sua participação directa e quotidiana na
transformação política e sócio-económica do meio humano a que pertence.10
[Liberation Poetry is rich in just and profound human aspirations. In it, the poet
abstracts and subtracts himself from his own interests to identify with those of
his People. In this relationship of abstraction and identification, the poet finds
his own self in the Struggle, through his direct daily participation in the political
and socio-economic transformation of the human environment to which he
belongs.]

in the rural heartland. Called ‘We are Timorese and East Timor is our country’, the alphabetization
handbook was historically the first instance of an ‘awareness-raising campaign’ for national unity:
in an attempt to overcome parochial kinship identities, rural communities were for the first time
exposed to the concept of common nationhood’; in Questions de Recherche/Research in Question, 13
(2005), 1–65 (p. 39).
8
The Programa e Manual Políticos also explains FRETILIN’s decision to adopt Portuguese as
Timor’s official language, and its views on the future development of Tetum. However, for
reasons of space, linguistic concerns are not addressed in this article, but will form part of the
larger project to which this essay also belongs.
9
Anthony Soares, ‘The Poets Fight Back’ [see note 2], and ‘East Timor Revisited Once More
(through the poetry of Francisco Borja da Costa and Celso Oliveira)’, in NUI Maynooth Papers in
Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies, 10 (2004).
10
Timor-Leste (Maputo: Instituto Nacional do Livro e do Disco, 1981), p. 5.

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84 anthony soares
Whilst there is a recognition that poetry represents ‘uma das mais vivas
formas de expressão cultural maubere’ [one of the most vivid forms
of maubere cultural expression] (p. 5), this form of Timorese literary
expression is seen as driven by the political and historical circumstances
of Timor-Leste. Consequently, the indivisible link between the fight
for self-determination and the mission of the Timorese poet is clearly
underlined: the latter must identify himself fully with that struggle and
express it in his work; for a poet to lose sight of this and to abandon
himself to imaginative impulses is a dangerous act, as ‘Narrar num mundo
imaginativo é correr o risco de se deixar arrastar pelos ventos traiçoeiros
do triunfalismo ou do derrotismo’ [to write in a world of imagination is
to run the risk of letting oneself be carried away by the treacherous winds
of triumphalism or defeatism] (p. 5). To write literature, therefore, is a
political act that necessitates a reflective attitude to the creative process,
ensuring that what is produced both portrays and assists the struggle
against Timor-Leste’s oppressors.
The sense of immediacy arising from such an intimate relation between
political activity and literary creation is visible in much of the poetry
written during this period, and Borja da Costa’s work is characteristic
of this, as in his poem ‘O Grito do Soldado Maubere’ [The Cry of the
Maubere Soldier], which recounts the events surrounding the UDT
(União Democrática de Timor) coup of August 1975. Dividing the
poem into stanzas corresponding to a nineteen-day period, from 11 to
20 August, the primary preoccupation is to attribute responsibilities for
the outbreak of bloody violence, and to highlight the heroic resistance of
FRETILIN. Employing a lyric voice that places the urgency of analysing
the events of August 1975 above poetic style (or, perhaps it would be
more correct to say that the sense of urgency is given more emphasis
through the type of language used), the opening stanzas record the first
two days of the coup. The second reads:
TERÇA-FEIRA
O povo maubere é perseguido
Amarrado
Espancado
Por esses vândalos da UDT
Que se baptizam de anti-comunistas
E O GOVERNO CONTINUA A CRUZAR OS BRAÇOS11
[TUESDAY // The maubere people are persecuted / shackled / beaten / by
those vandals of the UDT / who christen themselves anti-communists / AND
THE GOVERNMENT STILL WON’T LIFT A FINGER]

11
Francisco Borja da Costa, Revolutionary Poems in the Struggle Against Colonialism: Timorese
Nationalist Verse (Sydney, NSW: Wild & Woolley, 1976).

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 identity and unity in east-timorese literature 85

The lines of opposition, and the heroes and villains, are marked out
unambiguously, leaving no room for the reader to doubt where her/
his loyalties should lie, as the ‘vândalos da UDT’ leave the innocent
maubere people ‘amarrado’ and ‘espancado’. The poem’s concluding
stanza — which corresponds to the events of Wednesday, 20 May 1975 —
depicts the victorious soldiers of FRETILIN vanquishing those who had
threatened the struggle for Timor-Leste’s independence:
O sangue vertido
Não deixou de ecoar
Nas veias dos soldados mauberes
E o soldado maubere
Ergueu a sua espingarda
E sacudiu das suas costas
O peso da criminosa influência
Dos galões colonialistas
Saiu à rua
Em defesa do Povo Maubere
Enfrentou as balas assassinas
Encurralou os criminosos
E enchendo o coração de estoicidade heróica
Gritou
— NÃO ao assassínio
— NÃO ao colonialismo
— NÃO às garras dos vândalos na carne do Povo
Maubere e no solo de Timor-Leste
SIM com FRETILIN
para a LIBERTAÇÃO TOTAL
[The blood spilt / has not stopped echoing / in the veins of the maubere soldiers
/ and the maubere soldier / has raised his rifle / and shaken from his back / the
weight of the criminal influence / of the colonialist stripes / he has gone into the
streets / in defence of the Maubere People / he has faced the murderous bullets
/ he has rounded up the criminals / and filling his heart with heroic stoicism /
he has cried / — NO to murder / — NO to colonialism / — NO to the vandals’
claws in the flesh of the Maubere People and in the soil of Timor-Leste // YES to
FRETILIN for TOTAL LIBERATION
Thus, with ‘estoicidade heróica’, the ‘criminosos’ are thwarted, and
FRETI­LIN is positioned as the privileged means of achieving the
nation’s freedom, putting an end to murder, colonialism, and those
who exploit the Timorese people. However, it is important to note
that the clearly delin­eated roles that are given to the heroic FRETILIN
fighters and the treach­erous UDT in this poem, written shortly after
the events it portrays, are put somewhat into question in later analyses,
such as in Xanana Gusmão’s 1994 autobiography. Gusmão’s account
records the excesses of FRETILIN, as well as of the UDT, and reflects

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86 anthony soares
his own misgivings on the direction of the liberation struggle under the
leadership of his own party.12
Given the impending threat posed by Indonesia, it is perhaps
understandable that those Timorese who sought self-determination
needed to unite against both the Indonesians and any who might have
put Timor-Leste’s future independence at risk. Accordingly, and writing
in Tetum Terik — the classical form of Tetum — in ‘Kdadalak’ Borja
da Costa calls for unity amongst the Timorese, comparing the different
peoples of the territory to streams and rivers that must converge to create
their nation. The poem opens by stating, ‘Kdadalak suli mutuk fila ué inan
/ Ué inan tan malu sá ben ta’han // Nanu’u timur oan sei hamutuk /
Hamutuk atu tahan anin sut taci’ [Converging streams turn into rivers /
Rivers joining together what force can oppose them // Like this the
Timorese must join together / They must unite to oppose the wind that
blows from the sea], and ends by declaring, ‘KDADALAK SULI MUTUK
FILA UÉ INAN / TIMUR OAN HAMUTUK TANE ITA RAIN’ [Converging
streams turn into rivers / Timorese united let us raise up our land].13 The
image of the many streams representative of individual difference, turning
into rivers that represent communal or regional difference, that in turn
become a joint force powerful enough to resist an external enemy (the
wind blowing in from the sea), highlights both diversity and the capacity
for it to unite for the national good. ‘Kdadalak’ becomes a poetic antidote
to the ills that had befallen the Timorese in their past attempts to resist
the Portuguese colonizers which, as FRETILIN had pointed out, failed
because of the colonial authorities’ ability to exploit internal divisions,
assisting the FRETILIN-led process of instilling a national identity or
consciousness that will rest above regional or communal loyalties.14 To

12
Xanana Gusmão, Timor Leste: Um Povo, Uma Pátria (Lisbon: Edições Colibri, 1994), pp. 1–50.
For a more critical view of these events from a conservative Timorese author who was opposed
to independence, see Jorge Barros Duarte, Timor: Um Grito (Lisbon: Pentaedro, 1988) or, more
recently, Mário Carrascalão’s Timor: Antes do Futuro (Dili: Livraria Mau Huran, 2006).
13
In Borja da Costa’s own translation, these verses read thus in Portuguese: ‘Regatos
convergindo transformam-se em rios / Os rios juntando-se qual a força que se lhes opõe //
Assim os timores devem juntar-se / Devem unir-se para se oporem ao vento que sopra do mar’,
and ‘Regatos convergindo transformam-se em rios / TIMORES UNIDOS ERGAMOS A NOSSA
TERRA’.
14
It is interesting to note, however, that the Timorese ethno-linguistic groups who were at
times employed by the Portuguese to quash uprisings by other groups would, according to Jorge
Barros Duarte, incorporate their alliance into their ritual chants, whose parallelistic structures
are echoed in later Timorese poetry: ‘As campanhas de Celestino da Silva e Filomeno da Câmara
reuniram debaixo da bandeira portuguesa muitos arraiais fiéis, provenientes de vários povos
de Timor, para sujeitar os rebeldes, sobretudo os de Manufáhi. Este facto deu lugar a que esses
arraiais fiéis se sentissem aliados entre si, adoptando todos o mesmo canto de vitória, em língua
mambae ou tétum, para celebrar não só os seus êxitos, mas também a união que os empenhava
na empresa comum’ [The campaigns of Celestino da Silva and Filomeno da Câmara united many
loyal factions, coming from different Timorese peoples, under the Portuguese banner to subdue
the rebels, particularly those from Manufáhi. This led to these loyal tribes feeling allied with each

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 identity and unity in east-timorese literature 87

succeed where their ancestors had failed, the Timorese must unite to
achieve independence: ‘TIMUR OAN HAMUTUK TANE ITA RAIN’.
Beyond the central themes of unity and sacrifice that will bring about
the independence of Timor-Leste, the Timorese poetry of the 1970s
and 80s also speaks of what the new nation will be like. As well as the
consequent freedom from colonialism, a new age of equality will change
the existing social order, and it is how this will affect the lives of women
that energizes the addressee of Fernando Sylvan’s 73rd poem from the
1982 cycle ‘Mulher — ou o livro do teu nome’:
— Lembras-te do teu encontro
com os revolucionários de Timor-Leste? —
e ficaste transfigurada
transfigurada
e de punho erguido
[...]
E protestaste outra vez e mais alto
e escreveste para o mundo inteiro
e recitaste para o mundo inteiro
o estatuto da mulher livre,
da mulher num futuro sem degraus,
sem racismos,
sem dogmas
e sem medos,
o estatuto da mulher com voz para ser ouvida
de sol a sol,
da mulher que há-de dormir e parir
sempre com amor.15
[ — Do you remember your meeting / with the revolutionaries from Timor-Leste?
— / and you became transfigured / transfigured / and with your fist raised [...]
And you protested again and more loudly / and you wrote to the whole world /
and you recited to the whole world / the status of the free woman / of the woman
in a future without hierarchies / without racism / without dogma / and without
fear / the status of a woman with a voice to be heard / from sun to sun, / of the
woman who will always sleep and give birth / with love.]
As the poem makes clear by its references to places such as Entroncamento
and Alfama, this revolutionary fervour is inspired by Timorese freedom-
fighters who have brought the struggle for independence to Portugal.
The message that is conveyed in a Portuguese setting spells out a cause
that does not limit itself to achieving independence, but foresees a
future egalitarian society in which there is no racism, dogma or gender
inequality. Above all, this future society will be a Timorese product, and

other, all adopting the same victory chant, in Mambai or Tetum, to celebrate not only their successes
but also the alliance which engaged them in a common undertaking]; ‘Timor: formas de fraterni­
zação’, in separata of Arquivos do Centro Cultural Português, xvii (1982), pp. 539–85 (p. 580).
15
Fernando Sylvan, A Voz Fagueira de Oan Timor (Lisbon: Edições Colibri, 1993), p. 111.

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88 anthony soares
not one manufactured by external colonizers, as Sylvan underlines in his
poem ‘Timor-Leste’ where, after asserting that ‘tu resistirás à Indonésia /
e lutarás / e resfraldarás a tua bandeira / e recantarás o teu hino / e
reproclamarás a tua independência’ [you will resist Indonesia / and you
will struggle / and you will unfurl your banner again / and you will sing
your anthem again / and you will proclaim again your independence],
the lyric voice proclaims:
E na liberdade das tuas liberdades
terás a justiça da tua justiça
e no amor do teu amor
terás a paz da tua paz.16
[And in the liberty of your liberties / you shall have the justice of your justice /
and in the love of your love / you shall have the peace of your peace.]
The poem’s repetition of the possessive pronoun ‘your’ (‘tuas liberdades’,
‘tua justiça’, ‘teu amor’, ‘tua paz’) serves to reclaim vital elements that,
if they were experienced by the Timorese at all under colonialism, were
done so in a second-hand fashion, proffered to them by the colonizers
as things that were not to be seen as inherent rights, but as gifts from
their betters that could be taken away at any time.17 With independence,
however, Fernando Sylvan’s poem foresees the Timorese as the creators
of their own destiny and therefore as capable of bringing into being the
freedom, peace and love that had not been theirs under colonialism.
It is very often, however, through the negative portrayal of colonial
oppression that the vague image of the future of an independent Timor-
Leste is to be understood; independence will mean the end of the
colonizers’ repressive practices and their exploitation of the Timorese
people. Thus, in Xanana Gusmão’s ‘Ao Maubere Operário’, it is implicit
that the plight of Timorese workers that the poem describes will cease
with the defeat of colonial rule, and that in future the labourer’s toil will
be for his own family’s benefit, as in this central stanza:
Por ti, irmão,
artífice de mobílias
que enfeitam o fausto
de outro que não és tu
e que te contentas
com a tua enxerga de bambu
húmida e fria...18
[For you, brother, / maker of furniture that ornaments the splendour / of someone
other than you / contenting yourself / with your damp, cold pallet of bamboo...]
16
Fernando Sylvan, Cantogrito Maubere: 7 Novos Poemas de Timor-Leste (Lisbon: Ler, 1981).
17
The use of possessive pronouns within a parallel structure was also employed to similar ends
in Francisco Borja da Costa’s poem ‘O Rasto da tua Passagem’, as in ‘Sufocaste minha cultura /
Na cultura da tua cultura’.
18
In Timor Leste [see note 10], pp. 17–18.

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 identity and unity in east-timorese literature 89

As well as the inequalities existent under colonialism that are made

apparent in the central stanzas, where the Timorese worker is busy
producing goods that his family will not be able to enjoy since he receives
‘salários de fome’ [starvation wages], Gusmão’s poem also emphasizes the
lack of control the worker has over his own destiny, leading to feelings of
impotence. Through the unity that is seen as essential by other poets of
the time, Gusmão’s ‘Caleidoscópio’ [Kaleidoscope] predicts a national
realization that the productivity given to the ‘mão estranha’ [alien hand]
of the colonizer in exchange for ‘esmolas irrisórias ’ [derisory handouts]
will be put to the good of Timor-Leste:
... luta aberta
de almas jovens ...
que tua decisão — mutação — responsabilidades
não decline a arroubo estéril
mas orgulho tenaz e fecundo —
complemento da intrepidez e labor do povo
e confiança no potencial
em potencial,
inexplorado [...].19
[... open struggle / of young souls ... / that your decision — alteration —
responsibilities / should not sink into sterile rapture / but firm and fruitful pride
— / complement of the fearlessness and work of the people / and confidence in
the potential in potential, / unexplored ...]
But it is in the sonnet ‘Pátria’ that a clearer image can be gleaned of
Gusmão’s vision of an independent Timor-Leste, even if the violent
struggle for that future makes its presence felt in the second and final
stanzas of the poem here reproduced in its entirety:
Pátria é, pois, o sol que deu o ser
Drama, poema, tempo e o espaço,
Das gerações, que passam, forte laço
E as verdades que estamos a viver.
Pátria ... é sepultura ... é sofrer 5
De quem marca, co’a vida, um novo passo.
Ao povo — uma Pátria — é, num traço
Simples ... Independência até morrer!
Do trabalho o berço, paz, tormento,
Pátria é a vida, orgulho, a aliança 10
Da alegria, do amor, do sentimento.
Pátria ... é tradições, passado e herança!
O som da bala é ... Pátria, de momento!
Pátria ... é do futuro a esperança!20
19
Ibid.,
pp. 31–32.
20
In Enterrem Meu Coração no Ramelau (Luanda: União dos Escritores Angolanos, 1982), p. 39.

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90 anthony soares
[Fatherland, then, is the sun that gave being to / drama, poetry, time and space
/ the strong link between passing generations / and the realities that we live
through. // Fatherland ... is a tomb ... it is suffering / by those who mark out
a new step, by the their lives. / To the people — a Fatherland — is / in a word
... Independence or death! // Cradle of work, peace, suffering / Fatherland is
life, pride, union / of joy, of love, of feeling. // Fatherland ... is traditions, the
past and heritage! / The sound of a bullet is ... the Fatherland of the moment! /
Fatherland ... is hope for the future.]
Although the period of struggle for independence means that the ‘som
da bala é ... Pátria, de momento’, the future Timor-Leste is depicted not
only as a place where such things as love and happiness will be enjoyed
by its people, but also as a nation where the past, present and future will
be reclaimed as uniquely Timorese, and not as colonial branches of an
imperial power’s history (ll. 3 and 12); with the creation of the Timorese
nation will come the creation of a Timorese national history, rescuing
the past from the meshes of Portuguese and Indonesian historical narra­
tives, and reconnecting the younger generations to their ancestors and
their legacy.21
Within the contemporary Timorese literary landscape the novelist Luís
Cardoso, in his revisitations of Timor-Leste’s past, shows a continuing
preoccupation with intergenerational relations and how traditional
lore is transmitted within the Timorese context. Moreover, by at times
employing the paratextual strategy of referring to his own novels and the
works of other Timorese writers, Cardoso also shows a concern to embed
within his fictional worlds a home-grown literary tradition, as when the
figure of Lucas in A Última Morte do Coronel Santiago (2003) is accused of
plagiarism by the ‘voz de um outro escritor, autor de um romance com
o título “Crónica de uma Travessia” ’ [voice of another writer, author
of a novel entitled ‘Chronicle of a Crossing’], which is the title of Luís
Cardoso’s own 1997 debut novel.22 However, the ancestry of many of his
central characters, in my opinion, questions essentialist views of Timorese
identity and traditions, since what is highlighted are the multiple cultural
heritages of these characters who nevertheless see themselves as Timorese
or as sharing in Timorese concerns. Beatriz, the narrator in Cardoso’s

21
Luna de Oliveira’s three-volume Timor na História de Portugal (Lisbon: Agência Geral das
Colónias, 1949–52) is an illustrative example of Portuguese historiography’s tendencies to view
the past of individual colonies through the prism of the metropolis’s own national narrative. For
a critical insight into the current difficulties in the development of a Timorese historiography,
see Michael Leach’s essay ‘History Teaching: Challenges and Alternatives’, in East Timor: Beyond
Independence, ed. by Damien Kingsbury and Michael Leach (Clayton, VIC: Monash University
Press, 2007), pp. 193–207.
22
Luís Cardoso, A Última Morte do Coronel Santiago (Lisbon: Dom Quixote, 2003), p. 41; Crónica
de uma Travessia: A Época do Ai-Dik-Funam (Lisbon: Dom Quixote, 1997). In A Última Morte, there
is also the appearance during a picnic of the anthology of Timorese poems, Enterrem Meu Coração
no Ramelau (p. 120).

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second novel, Olhos de Coruja, Olhos de Gato Bravo (2001), in describing her
father’s rather complex religious beliefs, refers to his mixed parentage:
Meu pai temia as represálias. Cada Deus punia o seu devoto. Mas como era mestiço
chinês, protegido por outros deuses da fortuna e do incenso a probabilidade de
lhe ser movida uma perseguição era compensada pela protecção que tinha do
seu Deus de origem.23
[My father was afraid of reprisals. Every God punished his worshippers. But since
he was a mixed-race Chinese, protected by other gods of destiny and incense, the
likelihood of vengeance being instigated against him was offset by the protection
he had from his God of origin.]
Beatriz, whose name denotes continuity, since it is the name shared by
both her mother (who is ‘mestiça de europeu’ [mixed-race European],
p. 61) and her grandmother, sees in her father a figure who fully repre­sents
the multiplicity of identities that can come together to form the Timorese
individual.24 As well as his ability to inhabit and adhere to the Portuguese
colonial regime and its values in his role as a catechist (his ‘chapéu
colonial branco’ [white colonial hat] is ‘O mais genuíno representante da
sua figura’ [the most authentic indicator of his character], p. 43) whilst
simultaneously recognizing traditional Timorese and Chinese beliefs,
Beatriz’s father also personifies the attempt to reconcile two communities
with past enmities.25
As her father was from Manumasin, whose inhabitants had fought on
the side of the Portuguese against the rebellious inhabitants of Manumera
23
Luís Cardoso, Olhos de Coruja, Olhos de Gato Bravo (Lisbon: Dom Quixote, 2001), p. 32.
24
The heroine and narrator of Cardoso’s fourth novel, Requiem para o Navegador Solitário (Lisbon:
D. Quixote, 2007), leaves for East Timor from her Chinese father’s house in Batavia, the capital
of the Dutch East Indies, to be with the man she believes she will marry, a Portuguese naval
officer. She summarizes her upbringing with these words: ‘No fim seria a perfeita união entre
duas culturas. A asiática representada pela minha pele de seda, os olhos rasgados, os cabelos
pretos e a minha postura como uma deusa ou a de uma gata, e a europeia entendida na forma
sedutora como poetas, pintores e músicos a representam, uma bailarina dançando ao sabor da
cadência das palavras sussurradas’ [It would be just the perfect union between two cultures. The
Asiatic represented by my silky skin, narrow eyes, black hair and poise like a goddess or a cat,
and the European, taken in the seductive way that poets, painters and musicians represent it, a
ballerina dancing along to the rhythm of murmured words] (p. 12).
25
Similarly, in A Última Morte do Coronel Santiago, Pedro Santiago is described by others in the
following terms: ‘Na calada tratavam-no por o ultramandarino por causa da sua postura física que
se assemelhava ao de um mandarim, do seu gosto requintado pelo tabaco de rapé, da sua voz
autoritária, do seu bigode retorcido, da sua pêra alva e comprida, do seu fato de linho branco
com cheiro a cânfora, da sua bengala de sândalo, do seu cavalo branco, do seu chapéu colonial,
do seu batalhão de segunda linha e também por causa da sua afeição pela política ultramarina
de Salazar que nunca viu, assim como Deus, ambos invisíveis e distantes, castos e solitários’ [On
the sly they called him the ultramandarino on account of his physical bearing which was like a
Mandarin’s, of his refined taste for snuff, his commanding voice, his twisted moustache, his long
white beard, his white linen suit that smelt of camphor, his sandalwood cane, his white horse,
his colonial hat, his reserve battalion and also because of his fondness for the overseas policy of
Salazar, whom, like God, he never saw — both being invisible and distant, chaste and solitary]
(p. 12).

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92 anthony soares
— her mother’s birthplace — the marriage of Beatriz’s parents was meant
to heal the wounds left by this past conflict:
Por ele a discórdia estava definitivamente acabada e sanada. O seu casamento
com a minha mãe era isso mesmo. Um pacto de famílias para esquecer o sangue
derramado por ambas as fileiras. Sem vencidos nem vencedores por conta do
malae-mutin. Todos galos de luta. Cada um comia fatias da sua própria crista e
devorava nacos da sua carne (p. 14).
[For him the conflict was finally over and healed. His marriage with my mother
was just that. A family pact to forget the blood shed on both sides. Without
winners or losers on account of the malae-mutin [white European]. All of them
like fighting cocks. Each would eat pieces of his own crest and devour lumps of
his flesh.]
Whilst Portuguese colonialism brought with it external values and
customs that altered the Timorese social make-up and exploited latent
communal divisions, Olhos de Coruja, Olhos de Gato Bravo, like Cardoso’s
other novels, suggests that such divisions form a constant undercurrent
that may have pre-existed the arrival of the Portuguese, and that they can
erupt at any moment, despite attempts to ‘esquecer o sangue derramado’.
The references to the consumption of flesh in describing the alliance
represented by the marriage of Beatriz’s parents echo traditional Timorese
rituals performed to mark the end of hostilities between warring tribes
predating the effective implementation of Portuguese colonial authority
in the first quarter of the twentieth century.26 The need for such rituals
points to the existence of recurring conflict, which in turn represents
the existence of divisions which, when they occur in the pre-colonial
context where the island of Timor contained separate kingdoms, cannot
be seen as contradictory to a Timorese national consciousness that had
not yet come into being; when they appear under Portuguese colonialism,
however, they become representative of the difficult task faced by those
who would call for unity in the quest for independence.
The complexity of that task is made clear at the novel’s close, as dormant
divisions come violently to life following the overthrow of the dictatorship
in Portugal and the beginning of the decolonization process, which in
Timor-Leste meant the formation of political parties with very divergent
visions for the future of the territory. Beatriz’s father, who was thought to
have died, reappears cutting a very different figure from that of the loyal
subject of the Portuguese colonial authorities, and his encounter with his
godson, Pantaleão (the son of a landim), suggests that not all the violence
26
Among the examples of traditional Timorese rituals recorded by Jorge Barros Duarte, the
author describes how, ‘Nalguns povos de Timor, como os Galoles, usava-se, noutros tempos,
misturar com o sangue bocados minúsculos de carne dos pactuantes, passando todos a
‘comungar’ uma coisa e outra’ [Amongst some Timorese peoples, such as the Galoles, it was the
custom in former times for those making a pact to mix with their blood tiny bits of flesh, with
everyone then ‘partaking’ of both elements]; ‘Timor: Formas de Fraternização’, p. 544.

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sweeping through Timor is rooted in ideological convictions:

o velho catequista também tinha regressado de Koepang para fundar o seu
Partido Unionista, proclamava que o território era muito pequeno para ficar
separado, não teria condições de sobrevivência, todas as ilhas eram uma terra
única desfeita em várias por via de um terramoto. O objectivo do seu partido
seria voltar a reunir os cacos e colá-los. Formar novamente uma grande nação.
Não teve tempo para isso porque entretanto fora feito prisioneiro pelo próprio
afilhado Pantaleão, que nunca se esqueceu que fora abandonado por ele quando
procuravam pelos seus parentes. Era a sua vez de fazer uma pequena vingança
tanto mais que o velho deixara de ser catequista e se tornara num comerciante
próspero prometendo distribuir frigoríficos, caixas de cervejas e cigarros de
mentol por cada um dos seus militantes e restantes familiares (p. 157).
[the old catechist had also returned from Koepang to set up his Unionist Party,
declaring that the territory was too small to remain separate, it would be in no
state to survive, that all the islands were one country split apart by an earthquake.
The aim of his party would be to reunite the fragments and glue them together. To
form a great nation again. He didn’t have time to do it because in the meantime
he was taken prisoner by his own godson, Pantaleão, who never forgot that he had
been abandoned by him when they were looking for their family. It was his turn
to get his own back, especially as the old man was no longer a catechist and had
become a prosperous businessman, promising to hand out fridges, cases of beer
and menthol cigarettes to each of his party workers and their families.]
Pantaleão — now a Timorese nationalist in favour of independence —
has his godfather killed, not because the former catechist’s new party
claims that Timor’s destiny lies in integration with Indonesia, but to have
his revenge on the old man for having apparently abandoned him in his
search for his missing family. In this manner, resentments harboured
from past slights find their opportunity to be vented, and payback can be
disguised under the cover of a more noble cause, such as the struggle for
Timorese independence. Ideological divisions serve to hide communal or
individual enmities, which may not, in the case of nationalist objectives,
provide a hindrance to achieving Timorese independence, especially
when an individual’s enemy is also the enemy of independence.27 But
what happens to these divisions once independence has been achieved?

27
In A Última Morte do Coronel Santiago, the apparent political death of Pedro Santiago at the
hands of his adoptive brother is actually less ideological: ‘foi-lhe exigido que os acompanhasse à
Pousada onde o esperava o seu irmão adoptivo, Pedro Raimundo, para lhe fazer um inquérito
sobre a sua participação nos últimos acontecimentos que terminaram com a morte trágica
de alguns militantes das hostes nacionalistas. Rixas entre familiares que se acantonaram em
facções opostas para ajustarem contas antigas que tinham mais a ver com as posses das terras
e as desavenças familiares do que com as perturbações de ordem política ou partidárias’ [he
was required to accompany them to the Inn, where his adoptive brother, Pedro Raimundo, was
waiting for him, for them to question him about his participation in the recent events which had
ended with the tragic death of some militants of the nationalist forces. Feuds between family
members who had sided with opposing factions to settle old scores that had more to do with the
ownership of land and family disputes than with troubles of a political or party nature] (p. 37).

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94 anthony soares
Abé Barreto’s poem, ‘Manu Dame Nian’ [Bird of Peace], written in
Tetum-Dili over a two-year period (2003–05), suggests that they are
still alive and well since the lyric voice is awaiting the return of the
dove of peace: ‘Ha’u la tahan ona hein ó / Atu semo mai’ [I cannot
bear to wait much longer / For you to fly back].28 Unlike much of the
poetry written in the 1970s and 80s, Abé Barreto makes no reference
in ‘Manu Dame Nian’ to specific Timorese locations, figures or dates of
national importance, and the poetic voice speaks instead of the dove’s
‘rona ó-nia knananuk Jerusalem’ [your song of Jerusalem]. The poem
presents a depopulated landscape where the only thing that could be
found in it characteristic of Timor is the ‘hali boot’ [banyan tree], and it
concentrates instead on a profoundly lyrical depiction of the strengths of
the bird of peace, which has ‘Maka iha kbiit semo aas tebes’ [such intense
and lofty force]. These strengths, however, are only a memory, as peace
itself is all the more longed for due to its absence, although Barreto’s
poem makes no suggestion as to the reasons why the dove took flight or
how this has affected those it has abandoned. With the apparent absence
of any unique Timorese markers, it could be argued that ‘Manu Dame
Nian’ represents a call for an end to universal strife, and that it does not
speak of the specific realities of post-independence, postcolonial Timor-
Leste. In my view, however, the language in which it is written, as well as
the presence of the banyan tree, serve to anchor Barreto’s poem within
a Timorese context where the benefits of independence foretold by the
liberation poets of earlier decades have not yet emerged.
Written in 2006, Barreto’s ‘Lian Povu Nian Lian’ [The People’s Voice,
His Voice] provides further evidence of post-independence division. In
this poem that uses the parallelistic structure characteristic of Timorese
oral tradition, and which is reproduced here in its entirety, the divine is
represented as an authoritarian force, oppressing the people who are
initially portrayed as seemingly powerless:
Lian Maromak, lian lulik na’in, hori uluk hori otas kedas
Keta koko, keta tahan, keta halimar
Lian povu nian, lian halerik, lian hamulak
Lian kro’at, halo mundu hakfodak

28
The translation into English is mine. Abé Barreto’s poetry and other writing can be found
on his blogs: http://lianainlorosae.blogspot.com (in Tetum), http://dadolin.blogspot.com (in
English), and http://dadolinlorosae.blogspot.com (in Bahasa Indonesia). As he lives and works
in Dili, the publication of his poetry on his blogs can be seen not only as the result of the lack
of other opportunities in Timor-Leste to reach a wider audience, especially in print, but also
as a result of his belief, reported to me during a personal interview in the Timorese capital in
September 2007, that his poetry is the immediate lyric response to the Timorese realities he
encounters daily which those living outside of Timor-Leste need to be made aware of. He writes
not only in Tetum-Dili (also known as Tetum-Praça), but also in Tetum-Terik, the classical form
of Tetum which Francisco Borja da Costa also employed.

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Lian povu nian, lian lulik na’in, lian kbiit tomak, sobu laran metan,
harahun laran fo’er.
[Maromak’s voice, His sacred voice, since the beginning until ages hence / Do
not taste, do not endure, do not play / The people’s voice, lamenting, beseeching
/ Sharp, that shakes the world / The people’s voice, Its sacred voice, filled with
strength, destroyer of black hearts, crusher of hearts that are besmirched].
Although Maromak — the Tetum signifier for the monotheistic repre­
sentation of the divine — can be read in the first instance in a religious
sense, or as representative of institutionalized religion, I propose that it
can also denote Timorese postcolonial authority in a wider sense. The
poem’s first three verses present a hierarchical structure where power
lies entirely with Maromak, denying all agency to the people, whose voice
can merely lament their situation, but immediately rejecting that passivity
in the fourth line by claiming the ability to affect reality on a global
scale. In the concluding stanza, divine power is wrested in favour of the
people, who take on the role of the punishers of those who are seen as
transgressors and, presumably, have acted against the people’s interests.
Given the dating of this poem (2006), I consider that its depiction of an
authoritarian power that does not heed the laments of its people can be
seen as echoing the perceived divide that has opened up between the
Timorese and their government, where the latter is seen as doing little to
improve the lot of the former, leaving them to survive as best they can in
the ruins of postcolonial Timor-Leste, while a political elite expends most
of its energies in profiting from its privileged position. Again, it could be
claimed that Barreto’s ‘Lian Povu Nian Lian’ has a more universal meaning,
criticizing all forms of authoritarianism, or that its focus is on the period
of Portuguese or Indonesian colonial rule rather than on postcolonial
Timor-Leste. I would not rule out either interpretation, and Barreto’s
subtle lyrics in comparison to Timorese poets of previous decades leaves
sufficient room for readings that go beyond the contemporary or the
specific Timorese context; the use of the Tetum term Maromak, however,
leads me to believe that the source of oppressive authority that is being
contemplated here is not external, but specifically Timorese, which more
readily points to post-independence Timor-Leste, and thereby identifies
a pernicious social division that has replaced, or developed from, the
divides created by colonialism. The black hearts that are to be destroyed
by the people’s voice belong not to foreign invaders, but rather those
fellow Timorese who are now in charge of the nation’s destiny and use
that role to enrich themselves at the expense of the general population.
Celso Oliveira, another contemporary Timorese poet, also uses his
work to depict how many of the hopes of his countrymen and women
have not been fulfilled since Timor-Leste achieved its independence.

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In the collection, Timor-Leste: Lun Turu,29 published in the summer of
2002, there are already indications that what so many had sacrificed
their lives for, and which the liberation poets of previous decades had
exhorted people to fight for, has not been realized in Timor-Leste.30 Just
as Abé Barreto’s ‘Lian Povu Nian Lian’ speaks of an authoritarian power
that does not satisfy the people’s needs, so too Oliveira’s mono-stanzaic
‘Geração Frustrada’ [Frustrated Generation] depicts a society where the
egalitarianism that poets such as Borja da Costa had envisioned has not
come about:
Corrupção, manipulação, nepotismo,
Familiarismo, clientelismo,
Ódio, rancor, cobardia,
Oportunismo, traição, ameaça,
Terror, perseguição.
Assim,
Os grandes pressionam os pequenos.
[Corruption, manipulation, nepotism, / favouritism, clientelism, / hatred, ran­
cour, cowardice, / opportunism, betrayal, threats, / terror, persecution. / Thus /
the big coerce the small.]
With this long list of negative signifiers, Celso Oliveira’s poem seems to
provide an explanation for the flight of the dove of peace in Abé Barreto’s
‘Manu Dame Nian’, since the society it portrays is far from welcoming and
one in which those with any moral compass will be unable to prosper;
instead, those who are willing to adopt the practices employed by their
ousted external oppressors can make their fortunes, even though this
means the unjust subjugation of the less unscrupulous masses. The black
portrait painted of contemporary Timorese society suggests that the unity
that had figured so prominently in the lyric tradition of the 1970s, 80s
and early 90s has been forgotten, and national identity in the postcolonial
period is no longer constructed around a generalized struggle that
demands patriotic self-sacrifice, having been replaced with the personal
race for material wealth and power.
In a more personalized account of postcolonial Timor-Leste in an
untitled poem from the same collection, reproduced here in its entirety,
29
Celso Oliveira, Timor-Leste: Lun Turu (Dili: Hércio International, 2002). It must be noted that
this collection does not only portray Timor-Leste subsequent to Indonesia’s withdrawal, as the
poet himself explains in an introductory note: ‘Está dividido em três partes: a primeira apresenta
a situação pós-anexação, a segunda o processo da luta pela libertação e a terceira, o momento
actual’ [It is divided into three parts: the first presents the situation after annexation, the second
the course of the liberation struggle, and the third the present day] (p. 14).
30
Although Timor-Leste achieved formal independence on 20 May 2002, the Timorese
had already had some experience of voting for their own politicians, with elections for the
Assembleia Constituinte being held on 30 August 2000. This body was responsible for drawing up
the Constitution of Timor-Leste, and became the National Parliament on the day the nation’s
independence was formally recognized.

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the lyric voice attests to the unchanging situation in his country which,
despite its attainment of self-determination, does not appear to have
improved the prospects of its long-suffering people.
Estou contente mas triste:
Contente porque sou novo,
Triste porque tudo na mesma.
Timor Leste é país novo,
Mas tudo na mesma:
Gente antiga, coisa antiga.
A vida é um ritmo
— SOBE e DESCE
Governo meu, vou subir.
Governo teu, sobes tu.
[I am happy but sad: / happy because I am young / sad because everything’s
still the same. // Timor-Leste is a young country / but still just the same: / same
old people, same old things. // Life is a swing / — it goes UP and DOWN / my
government, and I go up / your government, and you go up.]
The poetic subject makes explicit that he and his nation are both young,
but it is the ‘gente antiga’ who have become obstacles to the country’s
development, bringing to light an intergenerational division that had
already been hinted at through the title of the previous poem analysed,
‘Geração Frustrada’. Ownership of postcolonial Timor-Leste is, therefore,
the privileged domain of the older generation, allowing them to shape the
new nation according to their own expectations and experiences, which
risks marginalizing the younger generation that shared in the sacrifices
that have allowed their elders to take on the reins of government.31 In this
new/old Timor-Leste, electoral politics is limited to a competitive exercise
in promoting rival political elites in the hope that they will repay their
respective constituencies with material benefits at the expense of the losing
side. Parallelism here brings to the fore postcolonial divisions: whereas in
Timorese liberation poetry the ‘meu/teu’ dichotomy expressed unity
(meu) against the colonizer (teu), in Oliveira’s poem both terms apply to
internal groups in opposition to one another. The concluding poem in
Timor-Leste: Lun Turu, nevertheless celebrates the birth of the new nation,
taking as its title the date of official independence — ‘20 de Maio de
2002’ — and its final stanza offers a positive assessment of what has been
achieved: ‘Valeu a pena lutar, / Valeu a pena sofrer, / Porque, hoje é o dia

31
For an understanding of the intergenerational divides in contemporary Timor-Leste, see for
example, Michael Leach, ‘History Teaching: Challenges and Alternatives’, pp. 193–207; Ann
Wigglesworth, ‘Young People in Rural Development’; in East Timor: Beyond Independence, pp.
51–64; Fiona Crockford, ‘Reconciling Worlds: The Cultural Repositioning of East Timorese
Youth in the Diaspora’, in Out of the Ashes: Destruction and Reconstruction of East Timor, ed. by James
J. Fox and Dionísio Babo Soares (Adelaide, SA: Crawford House, 2002), pp. 223–32.

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98 anthony soares
da LIBERDADE / 20 de Maio de 2002’ [It was worthwhile struggling / it
was worthwhile suffering / because today is LIBERTY day / 20 May 2002].
But although the divisiveness featured in earlier poems in the collection
seems to have been set aside in favour of a general mood of celebration
(and the collective is present in the third stanza’s ‘nossos sofrimentos’
[our suffering] and ‘nosso povo’ [our people]), in a collection published
a year later (2003), the honeymoon appears to be over.
In ‘O tempo de recompensar’ [Time for pay-back] from the collection
Timor-Leste: Chegou a Liberdade, the lyric voice contradicts the evaluation
offered in ‘20 de Maio de 2002’.32 It opens with the acknowledgement
‘Se eu soubesse que “era” assim o nosso destino, eu não lutava’ [if I
had known that our fate ‘was to be’ this, I would not have fought], with
the second verse providing a specific context for this pessimistic note:
‘após 4/12/2002, novo confronto na cidade de Díli’ [from 4/12/2002,
fresh confrontation in the city of Dili]. The event that has made the
poetic subject reach the conclusion that his sacrifices in the struggle
for Timorese independence were to no avail was the widespread rioting
involving students in the capital in which two people were killed and
several buildings destroyed, including the home of Mari Alkatiri, Prime
Minister of the country at the time. By referring to a specific date and
place, Celso Oliveira is echoing the strategy employed by earlier poets,
but whereas in the 1970s and 80s this was done within a portrayal of a
united struggle against those that opposed independence, in this case the
enemy is harder to identify. Two stanzas address an ‘other’ accused of not
having taken an active part in the fight for an independent Timor-Leste,
and yet seeming to be in a position of power:
Se eu soubesse que tu ias chamar-me mestiço, árabe, indiano, ‘sarjana super mi’,
comunista, cobarde, oportunista e traidor, eu não lutava.
Se eu soubesse que tu ias praticar a corrupção e o nepotismo, eu não lutava.
Se eu soubesse que ‘era’ assim o nosso destino, eu não lutava.
Se tu estivesses no meu lugar, já tinhas morrido.
Se tu estivesses no meu lugar, já tinhas rendido.
Se tu estivesses no meu lugar, preferias viver sossegado em vez de seres vítima,
em nome da liberade e da independência.
[If I had known that you would call me a mestiço, Arab, Indian, ‘pot-noodle
graduate’, communist, coward, opportunist and traitor, I would not have fought. /
If I had known that you would practise corruption and nepotism, I would not have
fought. / If I had known that our fate ‘was to be’ this, I would not have fought. //
If you had been in my place, you would have died. / If you had been in my place,
you would have given up. / If you had been in my place, you would have preferred
to live quietly rather than be a victim, in the name of liberty and independence.]

32
Celso Oliveira, Timor-Leste: Chegou a Liberdade (39 poesias para Timor Lorosa’e) (Lisbon: Sor­
optimist International: Clube Lisboa–Sete Colinas, 2003).

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 identity and unity in east-timorese literature 99

What this poem makes clear is the sense of injustice felt by the poetic subject
who is being denied an equal place in post-independence Timor-Leste by
an individual representative of those who were not full participants in
the struggle against the occupiers, but who have now claimed privileged
positions through dubious means. Among the derogatory epithets used
to disqualify the poetic subject from sharing in the power enjoyed by
those who now control the nation is the term ‘sarjana super mi’, which
loosely translates as ‘pot-noodle graduate’, and is employed to refer to
young Timorese with an Indonesian education. ‘Super mi’ was a foodstuff
popularized in Timor during Indonesia’s occupation, and the implication
of using it in describing young Timorese is that their qualifications are of
little value since they could be bought from corrupt officials. However, in
attempting to disqualify younger Timorese from positions of influence
in postcolonial Timor-Leste due to the regime under which they were
educated, the older generation is also marginalizing their significant
contri­bution to the resistance and alienating them from what the new
nation represents.
This sense of discrimination that sets the egalitarian Timor-Leste dreamt
of by the liberation poets of earlier decades further into an uncertain future
is again apparent in the poem ‘Era uma coisa / Agora é outra coisa’ [It
used to be one thing / now it’s another], where educational background is
once more a major concern: ‘Era. Se alguém me chamou anti-Indonésio,
/ Senti muito orgulho. // Agora afinal sou um analfabeto’ [It used to be.
If anyone called me anti-Indonesian, / I felt very proud. // Now I’m just
an illiterate]. In a country where ‘quem tem dinheiro é que manda’ [it’s
those who have money that rule], the fear voiced in the penultimate stanza
is that the majority of Timorese will be prevented from benefiting from
the hard-fought struggle for independence: ‘Se esta independência não é
para o povo, / Então lágrimas cairão para sempre’ [If this independence
isn’t for the people, / then tears will be shed for ever]. Whereas a sense
of common identity had been achieved in the resistance against external
oppression, the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a
small minority (catalogued as ‘Os empresários, deputados, ministros,
políticos, administradores, directores, embaixadores, etc.’ [businessmen,
parliamentary deputies, ministers, politicians, administrators, directors,
ambassadors etc.]) is sowing the seeds of future internal divisions that
are capable of erupting into the violence portrayed in ‘O tempo de
recompensar’. National unity in postcolonial Timor-Leste is being
threatened by the (re)creation of divisions that set apart the few who have
ensured they control the distribution of the material benefits resulting
from independence — the majority of which reverts to them — from the
many whose lives have seen little improvement since the 20 May 2002 and
whose patience is growing thin.

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100 anthony soares
In conclusion, there is a sharp contrast between the Timor-Leste
portrayed by contemporary Timorese writers and the future nation
envisioned by the liberation poets of the 1970s and 80s. Whereas the
latter were involved in the raising of a national consciousness that would
support the rejection of colonial rule, and used their creative powers to
assist in the pursuit of a united front against external oppression, the
former highlight the lack of peace and unity in postcolonial Timor-Leste.
Celso Oliveira does this in an explicit manner, setting his poems in the
specific context of postcolonial Timor-Leste, with direct references to
particular places and dates, in a manner that recalls earlier Timorese
poets. Abé Barreto’s poetry, whilst also referring to specifically Timorese
realities, and employing Tetum, may have the potential to offer more
universal meanings, but, as I asserted earlier, the portrayal of a nation still
awaiting peace and a people still hoping that the promised improvements
to their lives will be delivered has more resonance within the situation
of post-independence Timor-Leste. In the case of the novelist Luís
Cardoso, however, it is the Timorese past that forms the central thread
to his narratives, although the present is never ignored, whether through
explicit temporal shifts, or implicitly in characters or events that bear
strong similarities to contemporary ones.
Cardoso’s fourth novel, Requiem para o navegador solitário, contains
the mysterious figure of the ‘foragido de Manumera’ [fugitive from
Manumera], a man who leads raids on the colonial authorities from his
forest hideouts for reasons that cannot be determined with certainty.33
He is at once reminiscent of D. Boaventura, the Timorese liurai who led
a revolt against the Portuguese in 1912, and of Major Alfredo Reinado, a
Timorese army officer involved in the security crisis of 2006 in which over
thirty people were killed and thousands displaced. Reinado escaped from
prison, and issued statements from his hideout threatening to further
destabilize the political situation in Timor-Leste. He was eventually killed
during an apparent attempt to assassinate the Timorese president, José

33
The forest is a constant presence in Cardoso’s writing, as a place of mystery where secret
Timorese traditions are guarded. In Fernando Sylvan’s retelling of ‘A Voz do Liurai de Ossu’,
we are told that, ‘Desde sempre, as florestas mauberes têm sido templos sagrados e lugares
de segredos. E, pelo menos há quinhentos anos, pessoas estranhas de várias nações entram e
atravessam esses sítios sem serem capazes de entendê-los. Quer espreitando, quer escutando,
o que fica por ver e por ouvir é sempre mais do que o necessário para já não se compreender
a vida interior e os propósitos dos mauberes’ [The maubere forests have always been sacred
temples and secret places. And for at least 500 years outsiders from different countries have
been entering and crossing these places, without being able to understand them. Whether
observing or listening, what remains unseen and unheard is always more than enough for them
to fail to understand the interior life and motivations of the mauberes]; Cantolenda Maubere.
Hananuknanoik Maubere. The Legends of the Mauberes (Lisbon: Fundação Austronésia Borja da
Costa, 1988), p. 95.

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 identity and unity in east-timorese literature 101

Ramos Horta, in February 2008.34 This contemporary agent of rebellion

attracted a following among some urban youth, and claimed to represent
the spirit of D. Boaventura, employing a strategy favoured by other
anti-state actors who seek to give a veneer of legitimacy to their often
criminal activities by claiming to represent the true traditions of Timor.
Luís Cardoso’s work presents Timorese history as an endless repetition,
although with subtle variations, whether due to colonialism or to internal
political developments, allowing the present to be read into the past.
Although his fiction may appear to condemn the Timorese to forever
repeat past tragedies, the hope underlying his writing is that those living
in the present will conserve the rich cultural traditions of Timor-Leste
that are an integral part of his work, whilst also being able to see when
history is being used in a divisive and duplicitous manner by individuals
engaged in promoting their own interests, such as Alfredo Reinado. The
poetry of Celso Oliveira and Abé Barreto, on the other hand, paints a
more explicit picture of postcolonial Timor-Leste as a nation where for
the majority of its people the present appears no different to the past.
Independence has not released them from their impoverishment, nor has
it brought peace; instead, it seems to have exacerbated divisions which a
political elite has done little to resolve whilst it enjoys material gains that
the Timorese people are yet to share in. Contemporary Timor-Leste, as
it is portrayed by these three writers, is still a long way from being the
egalitarian nation imagined by Timorese poets of earlier decades, and
the national consciousness that the latter did so much to instil during
the long years of resistance appears now to have lost much of its strength.
We must hope that the Timorese will once again be ‘KDADALAK SULI
MUTUK FILA UÉ INAN’ [streams that become rivers], as the challenges
that Timor-Leste has to face are still innumerable and require unity in
order to be overcome.

This article was made possible by the British Academy, whose Small Research Grant
award allowed me to undertake two research trips to Timor-Leste in 2007, as well as
Lisbon and Darwin. It forms part of a larger project, which will result in a monograph
that is currently being finalized.

Queen’s University, Belfast

34
For analyses of the 1912 rebellion and its importance for constructions of Timorese nation­al­
ism, see Abílio Araújo, Timor Leste: Os loricos voltaram a cantar (Lisbon: n.pub., 1977); Jorge Barros
Duarte, Timor: Um Grito (Lisbon: 1988), pp. 36–37; Geoffrey Hull, ‘East Timor and Indonesia:
The Cultural Factors of Incompatibility’, Studies in Languages and Cultures of East Timor, 2 (1999),
55–67 (p. 64), and Michael Leach, ‘History Teaching: Challenges and Alternatives’, pp. 194–95
[see note 21].

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