'Tell me who your friends are...'

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Ir. Harisanto

Ir. Harisanto en zijn vrouw Margaret. Rechts: Luchtmaarschalk Omar Dani

Ir. Harisanto ontmoette ik als student op 31 januari 1959 in New York (zie Memoires 1957-1959). Samen met Loet Kilian (klm) en de Indiër Binu Saha (student design and promotion) was hij ook enige tijd ‘roommate’ in mijn studio te Kew Gardens, Long Island. Hij werkte al als architect op een bureau in Manhattan. Toch moest hij zijn studie nog afmaken. In overleg met mijn vader werd ook naar Delft gekeken. Uiteindelijk ging hij naar Stuttgart en hij huwde met een Duitse. Zij kregen twee zoons en een dochter. Santo richtte een architecten- en ingenieursbureau op in Bandung, wat tot één der grootste (met 150 ingenieurs) in Indonesië uitgroeide. Ook de 28 jaar dat het Suharto regime mij de toegang tot Indone-

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sië ontzegde, ontmoetten we elkaar in het buitenland regelmatig. In 1994 namen premier Lubbers en minister Kooijmans mij mee op een officieel bezoek aan Jakarta en sedertdien zagen we elkaar steeds weer terug. Santo heeft zich ingezet om mijn boek over president Sukarno, dat in 1995 bij Spectrum verscheen, in Indonesië te doen verschijnen (Bung Karno Sahabaktu, Sinar Harapan, 2001). Dit werd in hetzelfde jaar gevolgd door Di Balik Keterlibatan cia, eveneens verschenen bij Pustaka Sinar Harapan. Het is altijd heerlijk om de exprestrein door de bergen naar het hoger gelegen Bandung te nemen en bij Santo en Margaret te logeren. Bij het ter perse gaan van dit boek wipte Santo vanuit Duitsland weer even binnen, nu op het Singel in wat ik noem ‘Huize Kok van Aartsen’, refererend aan de schadeloosstelling van de staat in 2000. ‘Daar heeft Wim Kok eigenlijk niets mee te maken gehad’, merkte oud-minister Van Aartsen van Buitenlandse Zaken langs de neus weg op, toen ik hem op dit eerbetoon attendeerde.

Dear Willem,

This time, like many other times before in my life, the urge to leave Indonesia came abrupt. I am travelling through Europe, via Amsterdam to my eldest son in Corpus Christi, Texas. Margaret's reaction was to act immediately and get a visa and ticket, both since 09-11 in New York a more complicated affair with foreign embassies in Jakarta. When I called Willem from Germany, he talked about this book and that someone was missing.

Thank you for this opportunity to still participate with a contribution to complete the publishing of your book of friends. Just think of the fact, that this is being written by an Indonesian friend in your Amsterdam apartment.

Forty three years ago we met in New York (1959). Being as a student in America at the time, was a turning point in my life, how to cope and be independent, really independent in decision making, to think, to plan, to do, to be responsible and then above all, to be accountable, to be a professional, to work, to contribute, to read and study continuously, to ‘überlegen’, to turn over thoughts, and above all to live, to be alive, to be thankful every day of going

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through challenges, solving problems, be sad, be happy and feeling joy with friends. There are so very few friends throughout life, which is anyway too short. We have indeed only a few true-real-friends. How to identify them?

That happens when we meet, listen to and talk with each other. To feel the same closeness even if you have not seen each other for many, many years, the conversations with true longtime friends continue flawlessly. You realize how much you have gone through these years that were very intense, packed with events, with fast moving experiences to be retold in less time, sometimes even by using only few words. As a testimony of fast moving times there are books, writings, travels, sounds, music, food or preparing food together. There have been silences - days, evenings, long evenings and nights, long nights. Later even fewer words are needed. One has to know each other, to understand. This does not mean necessarily to agree, but comprehend how little we actually can know, but also how litlle we are different from each other.

Most important than what is said here, is the experience of getting to know Willem is to see through and to ‘make’, to establish trust, being trusted and still being able to maintain it the Indonesian way, or the Dutch way, or even Willem's way. To accept, then give, and execute everything one does professionally and on time!

These are just a few thoughts remembered, a sketch may be, which can hardly describe what is and what was fully, or what will be. Best is when things can exist without the time dimension: instant, direct and now.

Thank you Willem, Konco, kontjo (as we say it on Java).

Prosit and a still a longer life to you!

Harisanto, Amsterdam, 26 november 2002.