Pramoedya Ananta Toer:
(EYD: Pramudya Ananta Tur; 6 February 1925 – 30 April 2006), also known as Pram, was an Indonesian novelist and writer. His works cover the colonial period under Dutch rule, Indonesia’s struggle for independence, its occupation by Japan during the Second World War, as well as the post-colonial authoritarian regimes of Sukarno and Suharto, and are imbued with personal and national history.
As far as I know, there are no free people. You throw off one yoke, only to have another imposed upon you. Freedom is merely an absence of obligations and lasts only a moment.
> “As far as I know, there are no free people. You cast off one yoke only to have another imposed upon you. Freedom is merely a lack of obligations and lasts only a moment—just a very moment.”
This expresses a ‘rather somber, realistic view of freedom’:
– ‘Absolute freedom does not exist’
People always live within a network of:
– duties
– dependencies
– power systems
– social expectations
– ‘Every liberation brings new bonds’
If you break free from one form of oppression or obligation, you often get another back:
– political
– economic
– relational
– moral
– ‘Freedom is temporary’
In this line of thought, freedom is not a permanent state, but merely:
– a brief moment without direct coercion
– an intermediate phase
– a breathing space between two obligations
👉 In short: the quote states that ‘freedom is relative, fragile, and short-lived’. 👤 Author: Pramoedya Ananta Toer (1925–2006)
– Indonesian writer
– One of the most important authors of Southeast Asia
– Known for his novels about:
– colonialism
– power
– human dignity
– societal unfreedom
His work aligns well with the thrust of this quote, as he often shows that people do indeed strive for freedom, but constantly encounter new forms of authority and dependency in the process.
📚 Origin / source:
The statement is ‘usually associated with Pramoedya’s fictional world’, and ‘probably with “Earth of Men”.
Important nuance:
– it is ‘not a proverb from popular parlance’
– it is ‘a quote from literature’
– the ‘precise wording here seems to originate from a ‘Dutch translation’, not necessarily literally from Indonesian. So the safest phrasing is:
> Attributed to Pramoedya Ananta Toer, probably from “Earth of Men” (Bumi Manusia).
