The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 16 | Issue 15 | Number 3 | Article ID 5183 | Aug 01, 2018

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“Grandfather Crocodile is my inspiration: Abé Barreto Soares,poetry and nation-building in Timor-Leste

Abe Barreto Soares, David Webster

Poetry can help build nations. It is doing sotoday in Timor-Leste (East Timor), wherethemes of resistance to foreign rule, Indigenousre-assertion, language and the shape of thenew nation intertwine. One of the country’sleading poets, Abé Barreto Soares, embodiesthe way these themes come together.

Abé Barreto Soares. Image via Facebook.

Although it declared its independence fromPortugal in 1975, Timor-Leste (East Timor) onlyregained that independence in 2002, followinga brutal Indonesian invasion, 24 years ofmilitary occupation, a referendum that optedfor self-rule, and a three-year United Nationsinterim administration.

Barreto Soares’ personal history mirrors that ofhis country: a young boy when Indonesiainvaded, his family suffered deaths and otherlosses. He was educated in the Indonesianschool system and at an Indonesian university,writing his first poems in Indonesian before

coming to Canada as an exchange student.There he obtained refugee status and spentmost of the 1990s as a Canada-basedcampaigner for Timorese independence, all thewhile continuing to write poems in Indonesian,Portuguese, English, and increasingly in Timor-Leste’s national language, Tetum. He returnedto Timor-Leste in 2000 and worked as atranslator for the United Nations, interpretingbetween English and other languages forinternationals, then became official interpreterto a president. Through all this, he neverceased writing. He is a leader in Timoresepoetry and music, which are helping to writeand sing a new nation into being.

“My contribution since the resistance era issomething that I look back on that wasworthwhile in the sense of using poetry andm u s i c a s a t o o l f o r t h e f r e e d o m o fTimor–Leste,” Barreto Soares says in aninterview. “That spirit remains alive within meand that spirit is what keeps me going.”1

Barreto Soares exemplifies Edward Said’snotion of reinscription, a post-colonial desireamong writers for “the rediscovery andrepatriation of what has been suppressed … bythe process of imperialism.”2 The Indonesianoccupation of Timor-Leste (1975-1999) saw thedeaths of as many as 200,000 people, over aquarter of the population. It was accompaniedby an attempt to eliminate or “museumize”indigenous Timorese traditions, assimilatingTimor-Leste into Indonesia culturally as well asphysically. Timorese writers such as AbéBarreto Soares strove during the occupation topreserve the idea and the Indigenous traditionsof Timor-Leste in words and song.3 Since the

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restoration of independence, they have tried toconnec t the na t ion be ing bu i l t t o alongstanding Timorese poetic tradition, toreinscribe and revive what colonial occupationtried to destroy.

This essay examines the work of Abé BarretoSoares through the poet’s own words, underthree headings: his years in exile, where hedeveloped a poetic voice evoking love for thefar-off Timorese homeland and a determinationto maintain its identity even under conditions ofnear-genocide; the post-2002 development of aliterary and cultural identity in independentTimor-Leste; and the current role of poetry inlanguage and national identity.

Exile years

Barreto Soares was one of three Timoreseuniversity students who in the early 1990scame to Canada on student exchange programsand then defected. Other young Timorese weresent to other countries. All three Canada-boundstudents had passed through screening andwere considered to be the fulfillment of theIndonesian government’s hopes to win the“hearts and minds” of the younger generationof Timorese. Indonesian authorities did nothave high hopes of winning support from the“1975 generation” of Timorese who had led thecountry’s struggle for freedom from Portugaland subsequently from Indonesia. But they didhope to win support among younger Timorese.4

This strategy drew on colonial models.Indonesia’s colonial ruler, the Netherlands,attempted an “ethical policy” based oneducating young Indonesians in the hopes thatthey would be absorbed into Dutch culture andbecome loyal Dutch subjects. A new educatedIndonesian elite, colonial planners hoped,would be “associated” with the colonial powerand thus help to maintain colonial rule. Thepolicy did not succeed: Indonesian universitystudents, like their counterparts across Asia

and Africa, became the vanguard of a new waveof anti-colonial nationalism in the earlytwentieth century. Among them were Sukarno,the country’s first president, and MohammadHatta, its first vice-president, who honed hisnationalism while a university student in theNetherlands. Indonesian nationalist exilesfollowed the lead of earlier nationalists likeJosé Rizal of the Philippines in creatingliterature that proclaimed the existence of aPhilippine nation through prose, poetry andmusic long before the formal proclamation ofIndonesian independence in 1945.5

Indonesian strategy in Timor-Leste started offas straightforward military repression but inthe early 1980s began to stress education ofyoung Timorese in the hopes of promotingcultural assimilation with Indonesia. Just as theDutch “ethical policy” ended up creating a newgeneration of Indonesian nationalism, the newIndonesian assimilation effort helped to createwhat Timorese activists would come to call “anew generation of resistance,” a “clandestinefront” of younger Timorese, educated inIndonesian schools in the Indonesian languagebut fighting for Timorese independence. Theydid so even in universities in Java, where thebrightest Timorese youths were sent for highereducation. There, some of them formed Renetil,the National Resistance of Timorese Students.6

Barreto Soares with Renetil founderFernando “Lasama” de Araújo andIndonesian human rights activist RosaYeni Damayanti, at an event in 1998 in

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Toronto. From Canadian Action forIndonesia and East Timor (CAFIET)papers.

Barreto Soares was among this group ofTimorese studying in Indonesia. He was alsoacceptable to the Indonesian authorities assufficiently reliable to be approved for a termof study abroad organized through CanadianCrossroads International. In this, he wassupported by the Indonesian-appointedgovernor of the East Timor “province,” MarioCarrascalão, who played a complex role as loyalbacker of Indonesian rule and advocate forgreater Timorese autonomy within Indonesia,while also fostering education and acting aspatron and sponsor for several young Timorese– regardless of their political stripe.

After the infamous Santa Cruz massacre of 12November 1991, where Indonesian soldiersshot and killed some 250 pro-independenceprotesters, Barreto Soares was able to obtainrefugee status in Canada. In December 1991, atan Indian restaurant in Toronto’s Bloor andBathurst neighbourhood, he met exiledTimorese diplomatic leader José Ramos Horta,who recru i ted h im as the Canad ianrepresentative for the National Council ofMaubere Resistance,7 the pro-independencecoalition formed by guerrilla leader XananaGusmão inside Timor-Leste. He would remainin this role until 1998, when he left Canada forPortugal and Macau. Barreto Soares was one ofthe first to publicly spell out the Timoresestrategy of fighting against Indonesian colonialrule on “three fronts” – guerilla resistanceinside the country, a “diplomatic front” outside,and a clandestine front of young Timoreseworking underground and connecting the othertwo fronts.8 He toured North America andEurope on behalf of CNRM, testifying amongother places at the UN Commission on HumanRights in Geneva.

Exile was not easy. There were no funds forsupporting Timorese refugees, and their

devotion of time to the struggle left them littlechance to earn money. The role of exile was farfrom luxurious. Meals were often few and farbetween. “It was a very hard time that I wentthrough but it was really worthwhile to be inthe struggle,” Barreto Soares recalls. He andfellow refugee Bella Galhos were not able tocontinue as university students in Canada,instead becoming full-time activists.9 WhereGalhos concentrated on public mobilization,Barreto Soares worked more quietly andcontinued to stress cultural themes. Inparticular, he corresponded with other youngTimorese exiles; formed the musical duo Abé hoAloz with a Canadian musician, the late AlozMacDonald; and wrote poetry for English andPortuguese language publications. Hepublished two books of poetry: MenariMenggelilingi Planet Bumi ("Dancing aroundthe Planet Earth") in the Netherlands in 1995and Come With Me Singing in a Choir,published by the Australia-based East TimorRelief Association in 1996.

Newspaper clipping from Oakville North

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News (Ontario, Canada) about a talk byBarreto Soares in a local high school.Image from East Timor Alert Network.

Barreto Soares with José Ramos Horta andsolidarity activists at the 1993 UnitedNations Commission on Human Rightsmeeting, Geneva. Image from publicexhibit at the Archives and Museum of theTimorese Resistance (AMRT), Dili, Timor-Leste.

Barreto Soares in performance inWinnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, 1990s.Image from East Timor Alert Network files.

Like other activists in the diaspora, BarretoSoares worked closely with a growing networkof solidarity groups campaigning in support ofthe Timorese independence movement. Heformed especially close ties with members ofCanada’s East Timor Alert Network, founded in1987 by photojournalist Elaine Briere. Formany Timorese, warm memories of these tiesendure. The words of former president TaurMatan Ruak are one example: “Many friends ofTimor-Leste organized and led networks ofsupport to the Resistance within theircountries’ civil societies. They helped collectfinancial and other types of material support,and mobilized the international public opinionagainst the occupation of Timor.”10 BarretoSoares echoes that sentiment: “From thebottom of my heart I would like to thank allfriends who have shown their great solidarityfrom the early years up to independence,” hesays. “We don’t forget these friends. I wouldlike these Canadian friends to come back toTimor-Leste as tourists. I would do my best tobe a good host for them.”

Writing, he says, was the key to surviving exile:“My poetry saved my life from being lonely.Writing was a therapy for me. And that strugglewas also the source of inspiration.” The poet’syearning for the Timorese homeland and thecontinued survival of its indigenous cultures isevident in one poem he wrote while living inToronto, “I saw my own reflection,” whichevokes the sacred Timorese mountain Ramelau.

I saw my own reflection (1991)11

Ramelau

I came over to your

transparent pond

At its shore

I saw my own reflection

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naked

welcoming me

then told me

the winding story

of the roots

of my seed

Other poems spoke of resistance and ofsuffering. Several of them portrayed Timor as awoman who suffered but remained, in thewords of one poem, “steadfast” in the fight forsurvival. Timorese activists who fought ondespite some of the longest odds imaginablewould eventually win the freedom of that land –of the mountains and valleys that BarretoSoares wrote and sang about.

Timorese culture after the restoration ofindependence

In 1998, Barreto Soares left Canada for otherplaces of exile, Portugal and the formerPortuguese island colony of Macau. The sameyear saw the fall of longtime Indonesiandictator Suharto, toppled by Indonesian studentprotesters and defections from the governingelite of Suharto’s “New Order” government.The new Indonesian president, B.J. Habibie,agreed to allow the United Nations to sponsor areferendum that met the longstandingTimorese demand for a choice betweenIndonesian rule and independence. On amassive turnout of 98% of the population,78.5% opted for independence. The Indonesianarmy created and armed militia groups thattried to derail the vote by intimidating people,killing some, injuring others, and deportingmany to Indonesian West Timor. Militias alsoburned down much o f the country ’ sinfrastructure. But international pressureforced Habibie to invite a UN-authorized

peacekeeping force, and the UN formed aTemporary Executive Authority (UNTAET) thatgoverned Timor-Leste from 1999 to 2002.12

Barreto Soares soon returned to Timor-Lesteand was reunited with his family and hispeople. Working a day job for UNTAET and theUN missions that stayed on in an advisorycapacity until 2012, he was the most sought-after translator in the UN’s “ObrigadoBarracks” compound (a play on languageevoking the Portuguese/Tetum words“Obrigado Barak,” or many thanks). He wenton to become the official interpreter for TaurMatan Ruak, president of Timor-Leste from2012 to 2017, where former colleague BellaGalhos also worked as an advisor. BarretoSoares praised Galhos for her role as founderof the Leublora Green School in Maubisse, atown in the mountainous interior country to thesouth of Dili.13 “I am really keen on seeing herpromote environmental awareness,” he says.

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Barreto Soares and Bella Galhos with theOrder of Timor-Leste medal, awarded tothe East Timor Alert Network/Canada,2015. Photo: David Webster.

Timorese independence had been painted as a“lost cause” throughout the Indonesianoccupation. Now, the impossible dream hadcome true. Amidst celebration, Barreto Soaresand others also dreamed of building a newliterary culture that combined Timorese oraltraditions with international written andmusical influences. They had worked tomaintain Timorese cultural identity in exilewhile it was often restricted in Indonesian-ruled Timor. Some, playfully, dubbed this the“frente creativa.”

After independence in 2002, these poets,musicians and storytellers continued to dream.“In the era of independence this spiritcontinues to be alive within me, keeps onburning, and I find that I continue with thatspirit,” Barreto Soares says. He evoked thefeeling and his new poetic project in “TheDreams of Crazy Poets,” a short poem thatnodded to both Indigenous traditions (the biduand tebe dances) and a global spirit of poetsjoining hands around the planet.

The Dreams of Crazy Poets (Feb.2009)14

The dreams of poets are carriedon, and they extend their hands toeach other

The dreams of poets bidu15 andtebe16 circling around Planet Earthwith joy

The dreams of poets wake me up

As well as the crowd who are stillsoundly sleeping

Global influences on Barreto Soares’s poetryabound, from the 1989 film Dead Poets Societyto Lebanese writer Kahlil Gibran to PabloNeruda and Eduardo Galeano.17 Of Dead PoetsSociety, which he saw before coming toCanada, he says “I dreamed of setting up thesame kind of group, so that some time whenTimor was free I would establish a club likethat.”

In 2008, he fulfilled that dream by establishinga cultural study club. The final impetus tocreate the MSB club (from the first letters ofthe words mind, soul, and body) came after hisperformance at Indonesia’s well-known Ubudwriters’ festival in 2007. The club drew onstudents in the English department at theNational University of Timor Lorosa’e (UNTL).A music club followed soon afterwards. Hepublished poems and encouraged youngerwriters, and performed remixed versions ofTetum-language songs first written in Canada.

Barreto Soares and band perform in Dili infront of an image of Timorese poetFernando Sylvan. Image via Facebook.

(https://apjjf.org/#_ftnref4)

“This was a good chance to set up a small clubpromoting Timorese culture using English,Portuguese, Tetum and other Indigenous

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languages to promote the future of Timor-Leste, to promote a new fighting for freedomafter independence,” he says. “So musiccontinues to be with me after my long journeyas a poet, as a musician, and as a translator.”He went on to have a poetry show on radio RTLfor ten years, which he recently resumed onRadio Liberdade Dili, based in the Timoresecapital. The poetry broadcast is in his words“vibrant, alive because it is spoken,” drawingon Timorese oral traditions and able to reach awide audience due to its orality. “Being awareof the oral tradition of Timor-Leste is needed tomake yourself heard. Radio is crucial. Radioplays a very important role…. It gives me hopethat poetry will continue to flourish, that theflame of poetry will continue to burn.”

(https://apjjf.org/#_ftnref4)

Poetry, Barreto Soares believes, needs to betaught in schools. “When you talk about humandevelopment, the early age is the age whenpoetry plays an important role in buildingcharacter,” he says. Still, “poetry will flourishno matter what because of the poets who writeit.”

Barreto Soares in the radio studio. Imagevia Facebook.

(https://apjjf.org/#_ftnref4)

Poetics and language

(https://apjjf.org/#_ftnref4)

Flourish is a word Barreto Soares returns to.When in 2006 there was internal violenceamidst a political crisis in Timor-Leste, hewrote the poem “Flourish Everlasting” aboutthe need for reconciliation between clashinggroups. Peace, in this image, emerges from adevastated and desolate land which growsgreen again – where the land can flourish.

(https://apjjf.org/#_ftnref4)

Flourish Everlasting18

Everything will be crushed

Everything will be broken

Everything will become dusty

New buds will appear, the flat landflourishing

We will pray

We will sing the songs of ancestors

We will tebe

We will bidu

circling the stones of the sacredhouse

A big mat will be spread out

We all will sit down

Our heads will cool

Our hearts will be soft

telling the truth

recounting the wrongdoings

The happiness of love will appear

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The beauty of peace will be green

Flourish and flourish

(https://apjjf.org/#_ftnref4)

The poetry of Abé Barreto Soares, in otherwords, still speaks to current politics, stillevokes the land and peace and indigenoustraditions – here seen again though dance.

(https://apjjf.org/#_ftnref4)

He points here to a poetic inspiration muchcloser to home: Francisco Borja da Costa, aTimorese poet and composer of the nationalanthem who was ki l led as Indonesianparatroopers landed in Dili on 7 December1975. Borja da Costa’s poem “The Mauberepeople should not be slaves any more” is widelyknown, but most citations of it stress thenationalist cry of the opening stanzas. BarretoSoares, on the other hand, says he was“particularly intrigued by the fifth stanza,”which reads in part: “We must nourish a newlife to forget that our people were slaves / Wemust irrigate the soil…. / We must from thistrampled soil create a new person.” The idea ofcreating a new world and a new person from“this trampled soil,” he says, can be linked toChe Guevera’s ideas of creating a “new man” inCuba and to the revolutionary words of “theMan from Nazareth.” There are links, also, tothe words o f Eduardo Mond lane o fMozambique and Amilcar Cabral of Guinea-B i s sau , who comb ined the ro l e s o frevolutionary and writer. “So poetry in thissense has the sense of revolution. Poetry hasthe power of revolution. Poetry has the powerto rock the boat. Poetry is a revolutionary act.”

The land, its connection to the people, and itssacred character, resound in FlourishEverlastingly. Barreto Soares offers a quickTetum lesson. He speaks the word “sama rai” –step on the soil. Then “ha’u sama rai,” I step onthe soil. “So you consider yourself as a plant

growing from the soil.” Then “ha’u hamrikmetin,” I firmly stand on the soil. And finally,the more poetic “ha’u tuba-rai metin” – I firmlystep on the soil. Humans and the environmentare linked, inseparable. “So the concept ofterra, the concept of land, I try to make acomparison with the indigenous people ofNorth America … for them land is a sacredthing.”

House and flag on the road from Dili toLiquiça, 2015. Photo: David Webster.

(https://apjjf.org/#_ftnref4)

So too, he says, in Timor-Leste. Timoresetraditions often evoke the uma lulik, the sacredhouse – a theme that Timorese scholar JoshTrindade has explored.19 “The uma lulik is thecentre, it is the place where you uphold theessence of the land, the essence of nature,”Barreto Soares explains. “So your connectionwith nature is sacred. You glorify the essenceof the land, your connection with the land.”

While rooting his work firmly in Timorese soil,Barreto Soares also looks outward. He shiftseasily from one language to another, playingwith tongues, writing in Tetum – “the languageof my soul, the centre of my soul” – Indonesian,Portuguese, English. And he also writes insome of Timor-Leste’s other indigenous

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languages. “The mother tongues are stronglyalive,” he says, “because they are the languageof the soul of the nation. I am from four ethnicbackgrounds, I have Makassae blood in myself,Bunak blood in myself, Kemak blood in myself,Galole blood in myself. I am fluent in Bunak, Iam fluent in Galole.” And so he has written inGalole and Bunak, offering short aphorism stylework in both languages, and is learning theothers. “So I see that any Timorese who has thepassion for writing, he or she can be writing inMakassae or Bunak or Mambai, because thoseare the languages that are alive in Timor-Leste.And if he or she chooses to write in Indonesianthat’s fine, or in English that is welcome too….So it doesn’t matter what language a poetchooses to write, it is about the inner voice, thevoice of the crocodile.”

“This is the beauty of mastering languages,” headds, “that you can switch your thoughts fromone language to another. In the concept ofTimor-Leste, you become the lia-na’in. Lia-na’inin the sacred house concept means you are theowner of the words. I am the modern lia-na’in.The lia-na’in is the traditional poet. The modernpoet is the modern lia-na’in, the keeper of thewords…. The role is as a spiritual man, as avisionary man in the society, so that is lia-na’in.” Barreto Soares is consciously trying tolead this role, to mentor other poets. “This isthe legacy that I would like to leave behind.”

His work also helps shape the future of theTetum language, which lacks a strongly-developed written or scientific literature butwhich is developing fast. In the years afterindependence was restored in 2002, Timoreseactivists could be seen translating from Tetuminto Indonesian on a regular basis, because thelatter had more technical terms. That haschanged as Tetum takes a firm hold. Tetum-language poetry, meanwhile, is affecting thedevelopment of the language in a processreminiscent of the role of early 20th century

poets writing in Indonesian, which was thenbeing codified as a “modern” written language.“When you write poetry you create newexpressions,” Barreto Soares says, noting thatthere are parallels with the influence of “BalaiPustaka, Chairil Anwar, W.S. Rendra andothers” on the Indonesian language.20 “Thesemen and women of letters played an importantrole in shaping Bahasa Indonesia and exactlythe same thing is happening in Timor-Lestetoday, and they have a strong role in theevolution of Tetum.”

In an essay written in 2009, Barreto Soarescalled for remembrance of Timorese literaryhistory and its role in the nationalist struggleand the building of a Timorese nation. Hesought a dialogue between past and future: “Asa people and a nation anywhere in the world,for the sake of survival in all aspects of life,Timorese people should, along with their poets,constantly engage in acts of reflection: lookingtowards the past as big lessons to learn, livingin today’s reality in an intensive manner, andhoping to embrace the future with a greatjoy.”21

This theme stays with him today. “In order tohave a brighter future,” he says, “you have totake one step backward and two steps forward.Without linking yourself to the past, you willnot get anywhere. So you have to play thisthree-dimensional role at all times, you are aman of the past, of the future, of the present….A visionary is a man of three-dimensional time.I t ’ s ro l l ing cons tant ly , i t ’ s ro l l ingsimultaneously. So the poet feeds the soul ofthe nation. The poet is the soul-keeper of thenation. The poet’s role is to continuously feed.If a nation loses its soul, that is the suicide ofthat nation.”

(https://apjjf.org/#_ftnref4)

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David Webster is an associate professor of history at Bishop’s University in Sherbrooke,Québec, Canada. He is author of Fire and the Full Moon: Canada and Indonesia in aDecolonizing World (University of British Columbia Press, 2009) and editor of Flowers in theWall: Truth and Reconciliation in Timor-Leste, Indonesia and Melanesia (University of CalgaryPress, 2018).

Notes1 Interview with Abé Barreto Soares, April 2018. All quotes from the poet come from thisinterview.2 Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism (New York: Vintage Books, 1993), 210.3 On the colonial museum, see Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, second edition(London: Verso, 1991). On song and national identity in another Indonesian colonial context,see Julian Smythe, “The Living Symbol of Song in West Papua: A Soul Force to be ReckonedWith,” Indonesia 95 (April 2013): 73-91, reprinted in David Webster, ed., Flowers in the Wall:Truth and Reconciliation in Timor-Leste, Indonesia, and Melanesia(https://dspace.ucalgary.ca/bitstream/handle/1880/106249/9781552389553_chapter16.pdf?sequence=21&isAllowed=y.) (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2016), 233-259.4 On Timorese history, see among other sources Chega! The final report of the Timor-LesteCommission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (Jakarta: Gramedia, 2015); AntonioBarbedo de Magalhaes, Timor Leste : ocupacaoIndonesia e genocidio (Porto : Universidade doPorto, 1992); Carmel Budiardjo and Liem Soei Liong, The War Against East Timor (London:Zed Books, 1984); James Dunn, East Timor: A Rough Passage to Independence (Australia:Longueville, 2004); Clinton Fernandes, The Independence of East Timor: MultidimensionalPerspectives—Occupation, Resistance and International Political Activism (Eastbourne, EastSussex: Sussex Academic Press, 2011); Jill Jolliffe, East Timor: Nationalism and Colonialism(St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1978); Jose Ramos-Horta, Funu: The UnfinishedSaga of East Timor (Boston: Red Sea Press, 1987); Geoffrey Robinson, If You Leave Us Here,We Will Die: How Genocide Was Stopped in East Timor (Princeton and Oxford: PrincetonUniversity Press, 2010); and Awet Tewelde Weldemichael, Third World Colonialism andStrategies of Liberation: Eritrea and East Timor Compared (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2013).5 Benedict Anderson, The Spectre of Comparisons (London: Verso, 1998). 6 Constancio Pinto and Matthew Jardine, East Timor's Unfinished Struggle: Inside theTimorese Resistance (Boston: South End Press, 1997).7 “Maubere” was a common name among the Mambai people of Timor-Leste, originally usedunder Portuguese colonialism to contemptuously describe hill peoples, then reclaimed as anationalist badge of pride. See Ramos-Horta, Funu. The National Council of MaubereResistance (CNRM) became the National Council of Timorese Resistance (CNRT) in 1998. SeeSara Niner, Xanana: Leader of the Struggle for Independent Timor-Leste (AustralianScholarly Pub., 2009). 8 Abé Barreto Soares, "East Timor: Towards the Year 2000," paper presented at Ontarioconference on East Timer (1993).

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9 Hannah Loney, “Speaking Out for Justice: Bella Galhos and the International Campaign forthe Independence of East Timor,” in S. Berger and S. Scalmer (eds.), The TransnationalActivist (London: Palgrave, 2018).10 “Speech by H.E. President Taur Matan Ruak on the occasion of the 13th Anniversary of theRestoration of Independence,” Maliana, Timor-Leste, 20 May 2015.11 Text of poem from East Timor Alert Network papers, McMaster University Archives,Hamilton, Ont., Canada.12 Chega!; Robinson, If You Leave Us Here.13 Leublora Green Village web site (https://greenvillage-timor.org/leublora-green-school/).14 Text of poem courtesy ABS.15 A dance performed by men.16 A dance performed by men and women holding hands in a circle.17 Among other inspirations, he lists Canadian poets Leonard Cohen, Earl Birney, LouisDudek, and Margaret Avison. “These four poets really had an influence on my writing. TheAmerican poets that inspired me are Walt Whitman, Stanley Kunitz, Langston Hughes, MayaAngelou, novelists Henry James, Herman Melville, Stephen Crane, American presidentsAbraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy, and also Martin Luther King. That is from the north,but from the south there is Pablo Neruda of course, José Luis Borges from Argentina, EduardoGaleano from Uruguay, also from Brazil Paulo Coelho, from Nicaragua Ernesto Cardenal,from Guatemala Otto Rene Castillo, and from Mexico Octavio Paz and Carlos Fuentes plusRosario Castellano. These are the writers from North and South America who really inspiredme in my literary career.”18 Text courtesy ABS.19 See for instance Josh Trindade, “Lulik: The Core of Timorese Values(http://karaudikur.blogspot.ca/2012/04/lulik-core-of-timorese-values.html),” Paper presentedat: Communicating New Research on Timor-Leste 3rd Timor-Leste Study Association (TLSA)Conference on 30th June 2011.20 Balai Pustaka was a popular library and literacy program; Anwar and Rendra werenationalist poets writing in Indonesian and influencing the development of the language.21 ABS, “Nationalism of Timor-Leste seen from the eyes of its poets(http://dadolin.blogspot.ca/2010/08/essay-nationalism-of-timor-leste-seen.html),” posted onthe author’s blog “Dadolin--poetry from the land of ‘lafaek’ – crocodile,” 2 August 2010.