[Kabar-indonesia] Obituary: Daniel Lev: Scholar, Friend of Indonesia [from The Seattle Times]

[JoyoNews at aol.com]

The Seattle Times 
August 1, 2006

Obituary

Daniel Lev: Scholar, Friend of Indonesia

By Nick Perry
Seattle Times staff reporter

photo: Daniel S. Lev taught political science at UW.

Seattleites knew him as a leading Indonesia scholar, a teacher and
mentor, a father of two and onetime boxer.

But to Indonesians, he will always be Bapak Dan. Translation: Father
Dan. A man held in such regard that, for months, a stream of visitors
has been traveling here from the Southeast Asian nation to say their
final goodbyes. A man whose obituary already has run prominently in
several Indonesian newspapers.

Daniel S. Lev, who taught political science at the University of
Washington for 29 years, died Saturday (July 29) from lung cancer. 
He was 72.

Professor Lev wrote several seminal books and articles on Indonesian
courts and politics. But it was his willingness to go "down in the
trenches" that endeared him to Indonesians, said close friend Ben
Anderson, a retired Cornell University professor.

Professor Lev worked alongside lawyers, scholars and dissidents to
improve a dysfunctional legal system in which police brutality and
corrupt judges ran rampant during the long-running Suharto regime.

A natural raconteur in both Indonesian and English, Professor Lev
would spend hours smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee - sometimes
Scotch - with Indonesians, said friend David Thornton. He would talk
politics and economics and connect on a deep level.

Once he even had the courage to confront heavily armed generals at an
Indonesian political retreat, imploring them to reform the judiciary,
said Judith Henchy, head of the Southeast Asian section at the main UW
library.

Professor Lev grew up among the steel mills of Youngstown, Ohio, and
was a Golden Gloves boxer as a teen. He graduated from Ohio's Miami
University in 1955, married and began his doctoral studies at Cornell
University. He became fascinated by politics in Indonesia and made his
first trip there in 1959.

His wife, Arlene Lev, said that trip took them 28 days on a Danish
freighter. They were surrounded by priests, missionaries, even a
traveling courtesan. The couple, who were in their early 20s, stayed
three years in the unfamiliar country.

"We kind of grew up there," she said. "One of the remarkable things
from the get-go was that he had this fluency in Indonesian that was
kind of unusual for foreigners. He was very young, and people became
interested in this kid. They affectionately absorbed us into their
families."

After moving back to the United States, Professor Lev taught at the
University of California, Berkeley for five years until 1970. But his
strident opposition to the Vietnam War may have cost him a chance for
a tenured position, so he moved to Seattle, where at the time
university administrators were more politically liberal.

Professor Lev continued to make frequent trips to Indonesia before
retiring in 1999. One of his last acts was to give 17 boxes of his
research material to young scholars in Indonesia. He was also working
on a book about an Indonesian hero of his, Yap Thiam Hien, a leading
lawyer who proved a moral example by not bowing to corruption.
Anderson said he hopes to help complete the book and get it published.

In addition to his wife, Professor Lev is survived by his son, Louis
Lev, of Pittsburgh; his daughter, Claire Murata, of Seattle; and three
grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held from 4 to 6 p.m. Friday in the
Walker-Ames Room in Kane Hall at the UW.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Dan Lev Library Fund
at The Commerce Bank in Seattle.

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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