Chapter 12
As Thambi threw together, on his cottage cook stove, a simple meal consisting of Nasi rice, some boiled paku (jungle fern) with ensabi (mustard greens), a touch of anchovies, with salted fish liberally covered with chilli paste, a bachelor's throw-together meal, yet very Sarawakian. Thambi saw a look of puzzlement on Ernest's face as Ernest examined his meal.
Thambi hastened to explain that the ferns are totally edible, but most, I would caution you, are toxic. As for the ensabi, they must be fermented before using. Bon appetite, or as the Penan say, makai am!”
During their meal, Thambi spoke first, “You know this, Ernest, I can tell you and teach you much about my people and my culture, as you seem lost somehow. You have a noticeable desire to learn. You are much like the orphaned orangutan; you seem needy and receptive to help and information.”
Thambi paused to let his words sink in before continuing. “I can see the yearning in you. You left your own land for a reason, and for whatever reason, you came to this remote part of the world looking for some redemption, some answers. Maybe I’m reading way too much into this situation, but what I’m trying to say is I think I can help you on your quest if that’s how we want to label what you are doing. Let me give you a suggestion, or call it a piece of advice from a new friend. Come upriver with me when I have some time off from the Park. Come with me to my village and see what Penan life is about. Thambi held up his fingers, moving them rapidly up and down, mimicking air quotes, “You mentioned earlier to me about ‘getting off the grid’. I’d say this is your opportunity. My village is really ‘back to the land’. Besides, my family demands my presence, and I need to get back there and shake some of my big-city ways to appear humble before my village. It’s time for both of us. Think about it.”
Ernest didn’t have to think about it, as this was the opportunity and the adventure he had travelled such great distances and waited so Long for, a chance to begin his life over.
He simply replied to Thambi, “Sounds wonderful, let’s do it.”
Lights-out came early that night after a full day of spelunking, tuak and spiritual guidance between new friends.
Chapter 13
The Lumber Family: Tan Dynasty
“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.”
Mahatma Gandhi
Isabelle “Izzy” Tan attended the University of Melbourne, best known for its strong business school and well-established, prestigious MBA program, earning honours marks.
She was smart. She was attractive and, more than anything, in her arsenal for success, she was highly ambitious and ruthless. It was she who insisted to her father that she wanted to study abroad, specifically in Australia, to get away from Indonesia, learn about the broader secular world, and study business. Her father, Lim Tan, now aging, had founded and grown the family business, Tan Forestry Group, into a regional Indonesian entity, and her plan, once she graduated, was to advance the company into a world-class empire. Born into a traditional culture, a daughter of an Indonesian father and an Australian mother, a result of her parents' time spent at the same university, Izzy now attends. Her studies at Melbourne were also part of a family legacy.
Across the room from where Izzy stood, on her expansive wrap-around desk situated with a panoramic view of the Yarro River, in constant motion like her own simmering ambitions, as it wound through the downtown. From the desk while writing, or studying, she could look up at the outline of the Gothic spires of St Paul’s Cathedral at night, backlit with extended views of office buildings and moving trams at street level. The scene was rich with life and vibrancy so often vacant from her own life back home, yet at the elevation of her 12th-floor apartment, she still felt alone and isolated.
On her desk, a unique yet simple wooden carving obtained from a native Dyak tribal elder, a former Indonesian headhunter, was given to her by her father as a going-away gift the day she left for university. The carving was of ironwood, featuring an ancestral figure about 22 cm tall. The figure was in a pensive seated position, with large, staring, haunting eyes. The statue seemed to look directly towards wherever one stood in the room. The eerie gaze followed you around the room. It was piercing and extremely unnerving, but served as a powerful reminder to her of her homeland and, more importantly, was a quiet reminder and representation of the stolen lands upon which the family lumbering empire was built. This, too, was part of her family legacy that she grew up with, lived every day, and would have to deal with after graduation, when she took control of the family business. The statue on her desk served as a bookmark in time, waiting for the day of her return to Indonesia.
Growing up in Indonesia, a traditional Muslim country, with parents of mixed nationalities and religions was a complicated route to traverse. Her mother, a woman of strong character, had been won over by her charismatic husband while they were still students in Australia. At the time, it likely seemed to her a magical meeting with an exotic, rich, and handsome foreigner. Elizabeth Fairfax, of the Fairfax media empire, against her parents’ wishes, had been smitten at an early stage in her relationship with Lim Tan. Their alliance brought together two family fortunes and was to be the foundation of the Tan Empire.
Elizabeth quickly learned the necessity of living a double life. At one time, living a privileged expat life while on the flip side honouring Tan’s family and traditional family values. The family’s success and survival hinged on its chameleon-like ability to blend into the environment, hiding its ruthless side to dominate and control. This was true of Mr. Tan and his relationship with his foreign wife, and equally true of Tan’s role in the community and the reality of his power to expand his business into a national force.
It was a dangerous dichotomy, which, over time and over the course of life, back in the reality of everyday Indonesian life, away from her emotional foundations and culture of Australia, gradually eroded her soul. She found herself making more and more compromises to please her husband, to accept and eventually convert to the Muslim faith and lifestyle. One compromise led to another and another, and before she realized it, her gentle side was acting as dictator to the domestic staff. She was eyeing the availability of single men as potential candidates for an arranged marriage for her daughter. Over time, she came to the realization that as a person, she was the shell of herself; her former self had been buried in her husband’s will, his culture, family and religion had smothered the life out of her body and soul. She no longer existed as she remembered. It was at that point that she, at some subconscious level, probably contemplated radical change. Optimistic change eventually led to inevitable despair, and eventually led to her mother’s suicide, which the family, given its wealth and status, was able to spin and convincingly present as a tragic family accident.
Izzy had made a personal vow not to be her mother, to be her own person, not to be a subject of religion in a male-dominated society. This was the driving force behind much of her ambition and her powerful will to leave home and get away from her toxic father, with whom she had a confusing love/hate relationship. She knew she had to be strong, ruthless, and relentless to rise to the top and stay there. Her mother had been weak and compromising, and instead of making a life, the situation had cost her her life.
While in school Izzy managed to play a duplicitous life style, on the one hand she had to stay loyal to her family, especially her father who firmly controlled the family lumber industry and its multiple subsidiaries and also her uncle Tait who held a series of high ranking government posts, including serving a the governor of the state of Kalimantan and as a result had his finger on the pulse of lumber leases and concessions. Uncle Tait and Izzy’s father, who controlled a large sector of the lumber industry, worked in tandem. In short, her father and uncle controlled the mechanisms and much of the capital that, in turn, determined which areas of Indonesia would be logged and where the palm plantations could grow in their place. The bottom line is who would get rich and who would maintain power. Some family members had their finger in the core of Indonesian politics since the country’s inception in 1949, or as some mark it at 1945 when Indonesian national forces declared independence from the Dutch colonial masters after 350 years of their heavy-handed rule. The Tan family filled the power vacuum.
Izzy knew her time in Melbourne would position her to take over from her father despite the traditional roles played by women in muslim society. Women’s roles in society outside the family, and especially in the business world, were somewhat muted, world. Izzy saw herself as a strong, independent woman who had her father’s love, blessing and support. Beyond those parameters, she felt she needed nothing more. Her current studies would simply make her leadership that much more feasible and seamless during the transition when her father finally stepped down. She knew that it would be soon. It was inevitable that Izzy would be there, so her success in misrepresenting herself to her professors and classmates was of paramount importance to the success of her plan.
Although her Master’s degree was in business management, Izzy was shrewd enough to minor in Anthropology and take several extra subjects in Environmental Law to raise her comfort level when operating in these strategic areas. It certainly rounded out her degree to support her plan.
On campus and while in class, or out, she was able to speak with passion both to her professors and her classmates about a range of topics from forest sustainability, the fragility of rainforest ecosystems and the plight of the Indigenous populations, such as the Dayak and Penan of Borneo, displaced by logging operations either legal or not, on both the Malaysian and Indonesian side of the island. As part of her guise, Izzy was active in several environmental groups and wrote op-eds for the university paper condemning illegal logging in her own country, all the while aware that her own father and uncle were behind many of these operations. At one point, she even participated in a campus protest, which brought to light the new awareness of logging sustainability in a modern economy.
She stayed focused on her deceptions to learn the inside story of what would await her later as the company's CEO. Through her studies, she hoped to gain what she would term insider information for her own benefit. Her courses gave her ideas and prospects for how to mine data that would eventually help her maximize profit margins, map untouched forest regions, identify endangered species, and navigate environmental and other civic laws with the abundance of data now available through her coursework. She wanted to know what the NGO’s watched for most closely; she had no intent or remote desire to learn how to preserve ecosystems and native cultures. She had come to weaponize this data set so that she could systematically dismantle such systems with precision and deniability. To round out her act, in a very literal sense, her anthropology courses and current local and regional knowledge would give her the edge on native rights, their current status, so all the time she would be able to position herself as to how to best negotiate, outmaneuver and eventually displace native communities when the time came to take over their land. To Izzy, knowledge was power, and she had every intention of using it to the maximum outcome.
Izzy, on the outside, was a model student; on the inside, she was a cold and calculating machine geared to monetary success, but even in her own mind, she knew her quest was about more. Growing up as a Muslim woman in such a traditional religious tradition that had little regard for feminine rights, equality or even personal dignity. She felt herself blessed for being the only child, a girl, raised muslim but with no male competitors. Even with her parents, she managed her duplicity at a different level. To them, she was ever obedient, subservient, pliable to their wishes and demands; in short, the perfect daughter.
In class, seminars, or discussion groups, Izzy led a duplicitous life to enhance her persona as a “tree hugger” and nature lover. In the seminar room on the fourth floor of the Baldwin Building, smelling faintly of eucalyptus and printer toner, where a lazy ceiling fan stirs the humid air, a dozen students in Izzy’s seminar group lean over a large oval table listening to their favourite and revered Dr. Lang speak. Lang adjusted his glasses as he announced the seminar topic: Is the tension between conservation and economic development in Southeast Asia warranted? “Izzy, I know your background. Care to get us started on this topic?”
All eyes turned to Izzy. She smiled, measured, practiced, confident, the kind that suggested a hint of humility but allowed no one to doubt she belonged in the centre of attention.
“Yes,” she began softly, “I grew up in Indonesia, and my father, as you know, has interests in Kalimantan. There, the forest is both our pride and our tragedy.” Her accent, gently international, smoothed by British boarding schools, gave her words an air of authority. “The logging industry is not the villain most people automatically presume. They have brought in infrastructure to remote areas; they have built roads; soon we will be building dams and providing electricity; there have been schools; hospitals and entire villages have been relocated for an upgraded quality of life for Indigenous people. But I admit they have also stripped our lands, but only out of necessity. I have seen entire valleys stripped and clear-cut in a single season, but it created jobs, brought wealth and improved local health and education.”
A murmur of quiet approval and sympathy circled the table.
She tucked a strand of glossy black hair behind her ear and continued. “The real challenge,” she said the lumbering industry is transformative by nature and can easily be converted with the proper business model and leadership style to a sustainable industrial model. We can’t just ban logging and cut off cash flow, tax income, and people’s income. But we can make it responsible and accountable. My personal dream is to help transition those companies, including my own family interests, is to transition these companies to ethical forestry.”
Professor Lang nodded approvingly. “That’s a compelling goal. So, you are interested in environmental policy reform?”
Izzy’s smile did not waver. “Exactly, Professor Lang. I’m studying how corporate governance can align with conservation. Sometimes the greatest change must come from within. The industry can be the agent for change.”
Across the table, a student in a faded Greenpeace T-shirt frowned. “But isn’t that just an example of greenwashing? Big timber companies always say they’ll self-regulate. It never works. Any conservative government always pleads the case for fewer regulations, and companies can do a better job. I don’t buy it.”
Izzy met his gaze and held it. Her eyes remained calm, unblinking. “That’s exactly why we need people within those systems who actually care,” she said gently. If we abandon the industry entirely, the worst actors will take control. That is precisely what I am fighting and the basis of my thesis, I might add.”
A few students nodded. The professor jotted a few notes. The discussion moved on.
But inside, Izzy felt the small pulse of satisfaction she always did when “they” believed her. The truth, her truth, was that she had no intention of dismantling her father’s empire. Days like this, in seminars like this, she felt her strength. She felt invincible. She knew her future would be an easy one; liberals were so stupid and naive, so easily misled. They could be convinced of anything. As the class debated a new idea, that of climate policy, Izzy leaned back, her pen gliding soundlessly across the page. She wrote down a single word in her tight, neat script: leverage.
The life of a muslim daughter born into a wealthy and privileged family is richly complex and highly nuanced, especially when adding Izzy’s culpability in weaponizing her lifestyle. Izzy juggled deftly the religious values and constraints that surrounded her in her upbringing, family expectations, which were many, class privilege, and the biggest challenge before her, likely being gender norms and expectations and what a good, respectable Muslim daughter should do and achieve. She was often torn between devotion to family and religion and rebellion between traditions and modernity. Keeping her master plan in mind helped her navigate the turbulent waters of her grand scheme each day. Her contentment was in her quiet inner secrets.
Izzy always expected to excel, being fluent in English from her private schooling, Arabic, and Bahasa Indonesia. She adapted well to the position of carrying herself as a refined, modest woman of an elite Muslim family. Outside of private schools, prior to Australia, her life was steeped in absolute privilege with luxury cars, international travel, designer clothes, including designer hijabs, for life within and outside gated compounds.
She coped with the restrictions her religion placed on her concerning a more secular lifestyle. Dating was out as she had to adjust to a much more cloistered lifestyle. She was also sadly aware of the possibility of an arranged marriage that could change the trajectory of her career plans. As long as she remained compliant and obedient on the surface, her parents tended to indulge her slightly more. Therefore, she snagged the opportunity to study in Australia. She got her wish and transitioned from one clandestine lifestyle to another, always with her power play in mind, inevitably and relentlessly moving forward, closer to the power position she knew was within her grasp. She was well able to reconcile and rationalize the incongruity of her lifestyle, both at home and at school, with the eventual coup she hoped and knew she would ultimately achieve. It was all worth it, well planned and even on schedule.
