Ibu Maluku

Download or read book Ibu Maluku written by Ron Heynneman and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 656 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ibu Maluku is the unique story of a resolute woman, Jeanne van Diejen-Roemen, who survives the hardships of remote jungles, the horrors of two world wars (including a 3 1/2-year internment by the Japanese), and the life-threatening political upheavals that preceded the birth of the Republic of Indonesia. Her story reminds one of the exploits of Florence Nightingale, for Jeanne is also driven by an overriding sense of duty: to relieve the suffering of her less fortunate fellow-men. During her often extremely difficult life, she distinguished herself as a planter, army nurse, midwife, gardener, and social worker. During the Japanese invasion, her stout-heartedness saved Ternate from total annihilation. After the war, she spearheaded the fight against leprosy, and enabled hundreds of Moluccan lepers to again assume a useful role in the society that had once exiled them. She also implemented plans to bring isolated forest people into the 20th century, and founded a hospital, a school, an orphanage, and a home for the elderly. In recognition of her efforts, Indonesia's first president Sukarno started calling her Ibu Maluku -- Mother of the Moluccas -- and the name stuck. Though she had a carte blanche with Sukarno, her outspokenness finally brought her into conflict with him. This forced her in 1957 to leave the Moluccas and the people who had given her their trust, and she settled in Sittard, in the Limburg Province of the Netherlands. In 1978 she returned to the Moluccas to celebrate her 82nd birthday among her Moluccans. Were it not for other commitments, she would have stayed, for it was there that she truly felt at home. Book jacket.