827 Comments on “Dutch War Crimes”

1. janma says:

   February 9, 2009 at 8:51 am

   schmerly tapping his foot to Achmads ukulele tune…..

   Sometimes the pressure of being Indonesia’s leading Ukulele player and poet” how’s that for self delusion!! oops! forgot to mention leading UFO chaser LoL!!

   It’s almost too easy isn’t it?

2. ed says:

   July 9, 2009 at 4:40 am

   I am a dutchman and usually I am not much in favor of apologies or rmuneration for crimes committed by previous generations, but rawagedeh is different coz in fact it is rather recent in the grand scheme of things. What happened there is appalling and like usually, our government is quick to point their finger at other nations for making mistakes, but rawagedeh is ignored.

   One of our politicians (Hans van Baalen) even dared to say that ‘Grosso modo, our boys did good work there’. That is like saying that the dutch should not complain about WWII coz at least the nazi’s make the trains run on time.

   We, the dutch demand apologies from teh germans and the Japanese for WWII athrocities, but even more recent crimes we did ourselves, we rather close our eyes to.

   Don’t get me wrong: I do not feel responsible for what happened in rawagedeh. I wasn’t born then, my ancestors have not been in Indonesia and as far as I know never benefitted from it, but we as a nation have a debt to the survivors of rawagedeh and in financial terms we are talking about peanuts. We have politicians that fraud or squander more on themselves than what the survivors of rawagedeh feel they are entitled to. It is a bloody shame.

3. Arie Brand says:

   July 9, 2009 at 8:16 am

   Ed, who is going to compensate the victims or their descendants, if there are any, of this crime agasinst humanity::

   “HILVERSUM, the Netherlands – A new documentary, aired on Dutch television on the 60th anniversary of Japan’s capitulation, recalls the convoy of over 300 Dutch women and children near Surabaya, in October 1945. British troops escorting survivors from Japanese concentration camps to safer ground, were unable to protect them from a frenzied mob which killed over 100 women and children.”

   Since probably the only weapons available to this mob were machetes (parang), ordinary knives and bamboo spears it doesn’t require a very lively imagination to picture the gruesome way in which these women and children were massacred.

   In the so-called “bersiap time ” (in Indonesian history often called a “time of chaos”‘) there were many similar incidents.

   .

   Freedom short-lived

   Whipped up by extremists and other nationalists, many of Indonesia’s youths from October 1945 on tried to ‘reclaim’ their country through attacks on Dutch survivors of the Japanese prison camps. For the victims who had endured humiliation and starvation in the camps, the regained freedom was short-lived. Soon they were hunted, attacked and mortally jeopardized by people they had peacefully co-existed with before 1942.

   During the bersiap time (‘Bersiapi!’, meaning ‘stand firm’ or ‘be on guard’, was the war cry of the crazed youths) which lasted only four months, over 20,000 Dutch citizens lost their lives, about the same number as during the entire Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies. Many more Indonesians were killed however, in gun battles with Allied troops, which by Winter 1945 were reinforced by Dutch soldiers ferried in from the Netherlands. The chaos in post-war Indonesia is best illustrated with the fact that the newly-liberated Dutch and other nationals in some cases were protected by Japanese soldiers, their former tormentors.

   Barricades

   Amidst this chaos, British soldiers at the end of October 1945, set out to take some 300 Dutch women and children to safer grounds in the Javanese port of Surabaya. Far before reaching their destination, the convoy came to a halt when barricades closed off their route. In the ambush, thousands of frenzied youths and extremists fell upon the civilians, vastly outnumbering their British protectors, and killed over 100 Dutch women and children.

   The Network documentary on the ‘Fatal Voyage to Freedom’ used eyewitness accounts from some of the survivors, among whom Henk Itzig Heine.

   On the occasion of the 60th Anniversary of the Japanese capitulation, the Dutch government de-facto acknowledged August 17, 1945 as the official date of Indonesia’s independence. Until now, the Dutch insisted on December 27, 1949 as the date on which sovereignty was transferred officially.

4. ed says:

   July 9, 2009 at 2:07 pm

   “Ed, who is going to compensate the victims or their descendants, if there are any, of this crime agasinst humanity::

   Interesting question Arie, but I think nobody. And that is for several reasons. This was a mob attack and not an attack by a regular army on citizens that had no part in the warfare.

   So an attack on those dutch women and children – in first instance- should be dealt with by punishing the actual culprits. However……… the indonesians were trying to fight of an occupation and I personally would not dream of saying holding present day North American indians responsible for their grandfathers killing any european settlers. In Indonesia, w, the dutch had no business being there in the first place.

   With the incident in IndonesiaOne could argue that maybe the British government is responsible, akin to the Srebrenica widows trying to hold the dutch government responsible for not having protected their Bosnian husbands during the fall of the enclave, but personally I think that is a load of crap.

   But I think theDutch government is liable for what happened in rawagedeh, actually just as much as the current day Indonesian government should be held liable for the genocide in East Timor, Papua New Guinea and Bali in the 60-ies.

   @Rob
   Regarding Amnesty International, it might be a coincidence, but most people that I met that happened to be Amnesty International members happened to be unpleasant assholes. Having said that, Amnesty International on occasion has mentioned the Dutch Government for not having their affairs in order with regard to Human Rights and what do we do? Yes, the government just whisks that aside saying that Amnesty is wrong. If Amnesty however points to other states, the Dutch Government usually degrees (unless it is ally states of course)

5. ed says:

   July 9, 2009 at 2:22 pm

   May I add that say prior to 1950, the only decent Dutchmen that ever entered Indonesia were Multatuli and Poncke Princen. I know, that is generalizing, there have been a hoist of principally decent boys send there during the ‘politionele acties’ that basically had no choice and ended up killing to survive, but if you look at the main reason why Poncke Princen switched sides, then that gives you an average idea of the attitude many Dutch soldiers had towards Indonesian civilians. For those who do not know the details: Princen , when stationed as a soldier in Indonesia, one evening was making out with a local girl, who could be considered his girlkfriend. When she left from her meeting with Princen, she was stopped by a Dutch sentry who wanted to have sex. She refused, he shot her. The sentry was not punished or disciplined.

   The absurdity of the Dutch governments actions is also illustrated by the fact that when the government had already decided a truce was going to be signed, the day before the signing a search party was sent off to arrest Princen, they did not succeed but out of spite shot his wife.

   And then to think that after WWII the Dutch Government had agreed to give Indonesia its independence. The fighthing was because the Dutch did not agree with the date on which Indonesia declared Independence. Shere madness.

   Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying the Indonesian government has clean hands and it could be argued that present day indonesia is actually a colonial empire ruled by Java, but the dealinsg of the Indonesian Government are not my reponsibility. They might be my concern but not my responsibility

6. Arie Brand says:

   July 9, 2009 at 6:06 pm

   “This was a mob attack and not an attack by a regular army on citizens that had no part in the warfare.”

   Ed if you know anything in detail about the situation then ( which I tend to doubt seeing your extremely self righteous and holier than thou tone) you must be aware that the borderline separating a ‘regular army’ from irregular bands of armed youths or even ‘mobs’ was pretty thin then.

   But even if we assume that no Pembela Tanah Air (Peta)or “Banteng’ groups participated in this attack and that the violence was purely committed by an irregular mob it is a legitimate question to ask who was responsible for arousing this murderlust. Since the number of Dutch people in pre-war Indonesia was relatively small it is unlikely that more than a few of the participants in this frenzy had personal experience with them. The instigation must have come from outside. And here the accusing finger can point at leading figures in the early Republic who encouraged violence against Dutch civilians. Radio Pemberontak, which was in Republican hands, openly called for the murder of as many Dutch and Indo Dutch people as people could lay their hands on.

   Your formalistic point of view that since no regular troops were involved in this massacre the early Republican government had no responsibility for this massacre whatsoever doesn’t wash. You might as well argue that the Indonesian government of 1965 had no responsibility whatsoever for the massacres that followed the failed Gestapu-coup. Yes, most of the murders were committed by irregular groups. But these had been whipped up by ceaseless government agitation.

   The early Dutch troops that came post ’45 heard about the horrors of the ‘bersiap’ time and similar ones later (if you want to know the atmosphere in this regard read Albert van der Hoogte’s “Het Laatste Uur”). Most of them genuinely believed, I think, that they came to restore ‘law and order’ – not very surprising in a situation where it was still clearly lacking. You would have risen above these limited understandings of course and followed the career of Poncke with or without a murdered Indonesian girlfriend. Good on you.

   Your assertion that the only decent Dutchmen in Indonesia’s colonial history were Multatuli and Poncke Princen is ridiculous, sorry, and shows a total lack of historical understanding (and knowledge). I have to think here of my first mentor in things Indonesian, the late Professor W.F.Wertheim. I later had my differences with him but I have always regarded him as a basically decent man. Yet he went to the Indies for a career in the legal sphere for the simple reason that when he finished his studies there were very few jobs available in Holland for graduates in law. And so there were many. Colonialism was still a ‘natural’ phenomenon then and had not yet attracted the opprobrium that came to it later (often also on the basis of half-knowledge).

   As far as Multatuli is concerned: I have read most of the major biographies (Du Perron, Hermans, Van ‘Veer, Van der Meulen) and some minor ones (De Gruyter, Meerkerk) plus some trenchant critical studies (Ter Braak, Saks) and I couldn’t escape the conclusion that he was a brilliant egomaniac though I wouldn’t call him a ‘klootzak’ as the late Boudewijn Buch did on one occasion. Moreover, in the ‘perkara’ he had in Lebak he was simply in the wrong, however noble his sentiments about the indigenous population.

   I know about Poncke, inter alia that his Indonesian wife was killed in an action meant to get him but the story you told is new to me. Perhaps you can indicate a source for it.

7. ed says:

   July 9, 2009 at 6:21 pm

   @Arie Brand
   “( which I tend to doubt seeing your extremely self righteous and holier than thou tone)”

   As you seem to know everything and everybody I stopped reading right there and see no point in having any further discussion. Personal attacks on people you do not know, just because they seem to have a different opinion than you is not only childish and immature, but usually is a sign of lack of proper arguments.

8. Arie Brand says:

   July 9, 2009 at 7:24 pm

   I seriously doubt that you stopped reading right there.

   As to “personal attacks” : I characterized the TONE of your discussion. I leave some room (not much though) for the possibility that you are personally a most pleasant man.

   Incidentally, hasn’t it struck you that your whole diatribe is one big personal attack on every Dutch person who dared to enter the Indies before you (or your father) were born?

9. ed says:

   July 9, 2009 at 7:40 pm

   @Arie Brand
   You used characterization of what you think my TONE was to attack my knowledgeability on the matter whereas these two are not related at all.
   Then subsequently you seem to think you know what I did and did not read.

   So as said, I see no point in further discussion. You know everything already and everybody else is wrong.

10. Arie Brand says:

    July 9, 2009 at 8:15 pm

    Oh dear. Temper, temper.

    I do indeed know everything – and my wife knows the rest.

11. ed says:

    July 9, 2009 at 8:40 pm

    @Arie
    No temper, I just don’t see much point

12. Arie Brand says:

    July 9, 2009 at 8:45 pm

    Yes, I gathered that.

    Incidentally you betrayed, for somebody who claimed that he stopped reading at the third line of my post, a remarkably detailed knowledge of the rest of it.

13. ed says:

    July 9, 2009 at 9:13 pm

    Arie
    If you would read your own postings, you’d see that I express no more knowledge than gathered from the personal remarks you make in the first few lines of the two postings involved.
    If it makes you happy to think I read them completely, be my guest, as it is completely irrelevant

14. Arie Brand says:

    July 9, 2009 at 9:27 pm

    Did your mother ever smack you for your fibs?

    I won’t wait for your answer though because it is past midnight in our part of the world so I must quit this fascinating exchange.

15. ed says:

    July 9, 2009 at 10:04 pm

    @Arie
    Wow, you are really the friendly considering type. And all I wanted to do this morning is stand up for the people in rawagedeh. Walang hiya!

16. Odinius says:

    July 9, 2009 at 10:06 pm

    Think we have a troll here.

17. ed says:

    July 9, 2009 at 10:16 pm

    @arie
    Apparently we do and it is you.
    I came here with no other goal than to give my opinion on this forum, and in fact stand up for the survivors of rawagede, but almost immediately you started to get personal, make presumptions about me and drag my family in with continuing belittling wisecracks.

    I’d been happy to have a discussion on facts but apparently that is something you are incapable of. So yeah, there is a troll and he is called Arie.

18. Arie Brand says:

    July 10, 2009 at 8:07 am

    Odinius:

    What is a ‘troll’?

    In parliamentary proceedings a ‘troll’ would be called the ‘opposition’ and that word, of course, doesn’t have the pejorative overtone that the term ‘troll’ has acquired among those who prefer a blog to be a cosy echo chamber.

    On other blogs in which I participate, and where I do not belong to the ‘opposition’, I welcome the so-called ‘trolls’ – because they do keep the discussion alive. There is no point in preaching to the converted.

    So I always feed my own ‘trolls’ with great gusto – against the established cowardly advice on that matter (see for instance earlier instalments of http://www.tonykaron.com).

    And Ed, as to you, your self pitying comments now even have reached the level where you deem your family to have been ‘belittled’.

    There was a substantial argument in my letter (the early Republican government has a share in the responsibility for the ‘mob violence’ in that period) that you could have come to grips with. But you preferred to get off that particular hook by taking offence and playing the injured party – a role which, by the way, you have played rather unconvincingly.

19. Odinius says:

    July 10, 2009 at 8:20 am

    A troll would be someone who purposely causes trouble or engages in egregious and repeated ad hominem attacks, with the purpose of causing mayhem rather than arguing a point.

    There’s a good discussion in here, and you have a lot of interesting points to make, but your overly aggressive demeanor makes it difficult to actually have that discussion.

20. Arie Brand says:

    July 10, 2009 at 9:23 am

    “overly aggressive demeanor” my foot. I have looked around on your blog (in fact why “your” blog – it is in the public domain) and I have seen discussions in which the gloves were much more clearly off.

    But then of course people didn’t come up with points that were, qua content, unwelcome to most participants. A complainht about style is, often, a disguised one about content.

21. Odinius says:

    July 10, 2009 at 11:14 am

    It’s an open forum, so people are free to say all kinds of things. But consider this: a few posts back, an actual discussion about a complex and often poorly understood set of historical events appeared to be brewing. What was gained by killing that off? Who was convinced of something they didn’t already believe?

22. Arie Brand says:

    July 10, 2009 at 3:21 pm

    You come up with strange accusations. First you call me a troll, then interprete that word in the for me most insulting fashion possible and, after that bit of uncalled for
    personal aggression, lecture me on my alleged “overly aggressive demeanor”.l

    Now you are telling me that I have killed off some discussion or other. The last posts on this thread, before the one I reacted to, date, as far as I can see, from half a year back. So how could I have killed off that discussion ?

    If you are referring to some other thread your complaint becomes even more incomprehensible.

    As to your point “who was convinced of something they didn’t already believe”: I have learned long ago that blogposts only have some use for more or less neutral bystanders. One does, indeed, rarely convince a direct opponent of something they didn’t already believe in the first place.

23. ET says:

    July 11, 2009 at 2:43 pm

    What could have become an interesting exchange of viewpoints between 2 presumably Dutch citizens about the bersiap times in Indonesia and how it is perceived in their home country has sadly deteriorated into a personal vendetta.

    Foei.

24. ed says:

    July 11, 2009 at 4:07 pm

    @ET
    Sadly you are correct.
    It was not my choice. I have stated my viewpoints on the Rawagedeh incident, started in an exchange of viewpoints and came under personal attack as you have seen. Purely because my ‘opponent’ did not agree with my views. Sad but that is how it is.

    Let me just state again that although I do not feel personally responsible for what has happened in Indonesia, I am deeply ashamed for what the Dutch did during their occupation. One could argue that perhaps 200 years ago, violence was sort of customary and rule of law, but post WWII?.
    I am actually still surprised that in spite of my Dutch passport, I was always treated warmly and welcome in Indonesia, whereas over here we still criticize the Germans for WWII and disliking Gremans is a national passtime. This shows who the greater persons are between the Dutch and the Indonesians (generally speaking).

    Politician Hans van Baalen, may say that “it is time we close the book on this, as the Dutch don’t ask remuneration from the Italians for what the Roman Emperers did” But that is stupid. The Romans is 2000 years ago and they were the aggressors. Rawagedeh is some 60 years ago and WE were the agressors. Usually it is not up to the guilty party to decide to close the book on it.

    Yes, many ‘innocent’ dutch people, women and children, were killed by Indonesians. Utterly sad, but regardless how much I regret the loss of life of almost anybody, th eindonesians were defending their land and the dutch victims had no cause to be there. I am not condoning those attacks, but I can hardly hold the present day indonesian state responsible for that.

    The attitude the Dutch had towards the Indonesians after the ‘Politionele akties’ could hardly be described as any better. Former members of the KNIL (mainly Moluccans/Ambonese) where reluctantly transported to the Netherlands out of safety reasons. Arriving in Holland (which must have been quite a culture shock) they were told they were actually disbanded months before and therefore received no wages, and other than being put up in barracks (that were virtually prisons) for decades, they were left to their own devices in a cold and unwelcoming Holland. (“Peloppers, peanuts, blue ones” where some of the derogatory names we had in store for them)

    I can only say that this might not have been purely out of racism coz the Dutch soldiers returning from Indonesia were usually not treated any better. It only shows the disdain the Dutch government had for people that had outserved their use.

    In contrast, we still demand apologies from Japan as well as remuneration for the ‘troostmeisjes’ affair (=the forced prostitution of women). Unfortunately something that also happened to Indonesian, Chinese, Malay and Philippine girls.

    Yes, I think that at some moment the book needs to be closed, but not after in case of guilt, responsibility is taken. With regard to Rawagedeh, the financial liability is small and an apology costs nothing.

    We criticize the Turks for not admitting and owning up to the genocide on Armenians, we prosecute the likes of Karadzic and Milosevic for what they supposedly did in the Balkan war. We haul African leaders to The hague to hold them responsible for deeds done there. Expressing doubt regarding the Holocaust is prosecuted here. But when it comes to our own dark and sordid past, the only comment is that: “grosso modo ‘our boys’ did a great job there”, “it is time to close the book on it”.

25. Arie Brand says:

    July 11, 2009 at 7:52 pm

    ” I am actually still surprised that in spite of my Dutch passport, I was always treated warmly and welcome in Indonesia, whereas over here we still criticize the Germans for WWII and disliking Gremans is a national passtime”

    This seems to me rather exaggerated, both as far as the ‘warm welcome’ in Indonesia and the Dutch ‘hatred’ for Germans is concerned.

    Ed, have you read other contributions on this thread, particularly those by Purba Negoro ? They provide somewhat of a background to the ‘warm welcome’. Admittedly, this particularly correspondent seems to be a rather pugnacious character who even managed to get himself banned from a blog on primatology (the peaceful students of apes were unpleasantly surprised about his appearance in their midst) but he is perhaps saying what many are thinking.

    PN’s image of the colonial era and the rather wild assertions he makes about it cannot stand up to historical scrutiny. When I can find some time in the near future I will provide some documentary evidence for that (though I announce in advance that I decline to go down in the mud with him). I see him as characteristic for a wider phenomenon.

    Here is a man with a tertiary education (he holds a Ph.D.from Monash he says) who seems to be singularly badly informed about the colonial past of his own country. It is very unlikely that he is the only one.

    I believe that there has been a systematic endeavour in Indonesia to portray the colonial past in colours of the deepest dye. The reason for this is not hard to find. “Kemerdekaan” was in the obvious interest of the new elite but did not provide a particularly good deal to ordinary Indonesians, to put it mildly. It was therefore in the interest of this elite to compare the situation it had created with a colonial past that seemed to have been dreamt up in hell. Compared with that everything else was acceptable.

    The historian Harry Benda has emphasized that this new elite in Indonesia was indeed ‘new’ because the revolutionary era had, unlike for instance what happened in Malaysia, undermined the position of the old aristocratic elite. Compare Soekarno as nationalist leader to Malaysia’s Tunku Abdul Rahman and you will have an idea regarding what I am talking about. For this new Indonesian elite, that had not been involved in the old system – in fact its revolutionary fervour had a lot to do with the fact that the old system did not offer enough scope for them -, there were therefore no obstacles to come up with a wholehearted denunciation of the past.

    I think it has been remarkably successful in that even among a younger Dutch generation. It has not managed to fool professional Indonesianists of course, especially those with the linguistic ability to go directly to the historical sources, but these are mainly read by their colleagues (one book I am thinking of here was my favourite among those I reviewed for the Review of Indonesian and Malaysian Affairs (RIMA): Ruth McVey & Daniel Lev (eds), Making Indonesia, South East Asia Program, Cornell University 1996)

    I have earlier on this blog, in a discussion with Ross I think, defended the thesis that gaining independence meant that a foreign exploitative elite was replaced by an indigenous exploitative elite that is, exactly because it is indigenous, less constrained by law and ethical considerations.

    I do not feel in the least inclined to elaborate again on the topic of Dutch warcrimes. Plenty of my former countrymen are doing that already (the topic is not new – it got of the ground after that notorious television broadcast with Professor Hueting in 1969 and in the same year we got the ‘excessennota’). They are a thing of the past (as indeed is the bersiap time, I grant you that). But Indonesian misdeeds are very much a thing of the present and receive far too little publicity. The Indonesian contributors to this blog shy away from this topic. Look at the contributions to this blog’s thread on international reports regarding Kopassus etc. The Indonesian input there is virtually non-existent.

    You have made a distinction between ‘responsibility’ and ‘concern’. What the Dutch did was your ‘responsibility’ (though you also declared that as member of a younger and uninvolved generation it wasn’t) whereas Indonesian misdeeds could only be of concern to you. That distinction has no validity for me. My concern is with things that haven’t received or do not receive now enough publicity. And I attempt to do something about that where I can.

    And finally: I still think that it was rather childish of you to take offence so quickly. Look at some of the rough sport that is going on all over this blog. If everyone would take offence with the same speed there wouldn’t be many correspondents left.

26. Arie Brand says:

    July 11, 2009 at 8:16 pm

    Correction to third paragraph: “particularly correspondent” should of course be “particular correspondent”.

27. Odinius says:

    July 12, 2009 at 6:06 am

    ed said:

    We criticize the Turks for not admitting and owning up to the genocide on Armenians, we prosecute the likes of Karadzic and Milosevic for what they supposedly did in the Balkan war. We haul African leaders to The hague to hold them responsible for deeds done there. Expressing doubt regarding the Holocaust is prosecuted here. But when it comes to our own dark and sordid past, the only comment is that: “grosso modo ‘our boys’ did a great job there”, “it is time to close the book on it”.

    This type of logic is an unfortunate part of human nature. ” When they do it, it’s unconscionable. When we do it, well, we never actually did it, but if we had, it would have been totally justified, and of course never comparable to what they did.”

    Dutch decry the Nazis but excuse and apologize for the excesses of the colonial period. Indonesians have no problem decrying Dutch crimes, but ignore those perpetrated by Indonesians in East Timor, Papua, Aceh, etc. Palestinians scream about Israeli barbarism in Palestine but justify suicide attacks against Israeli civilians; Israelis scream about Palestinian attacks but justify aerial bombardment of Palestinian civilians. You give me a political conflict, and I’ll show you the hypocritical stances of its primarily political actors.

    Of course, the solution is to stop looking at events in terms of ‘us’ and ‘them,’ but in terms of good behavior and bad behavior. Of course, context is important, but justice, as they say, should be blind.

28. Arie Brand says:

    July 12, 2009 at 10:50 am

    “Dutch decry the Nazis but excuse and apologize for the excesses of the colonial period.”

    This is perhaps as good a place as any to come up with some historical details. During the last century of the colonial enterprise it was never without its critics. The most influential 19th Century one was of course Multatuli (Eduard Douwes Dekker) with his 1860- novel “Max Havelaar or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch trading Company”. This novel has often been characterised as being ‘anti-colonial’ or ‘anti imperialistic’. But , yes, it was mainly so in its main thesis that the maintenance of Dutch power in the Indies had made it necessary to gain the cooperation of an indigenous aristocracy that was therefore allowed to extort possessions from the local population (buffaloes !) and generally mistreat it with impunity. I will refrain from historical comment here (the best English language source is Heather Sutherland, The Making of a Bureaucratic Elite) but I cannot resist a paragraph from D.H.Lawrence’s introduction to an English language translation of Havelaar. Lawrence saw in it mainly a satire disguised as a tract. As a tract it was now a “back number” but as satire it was still very much alive. “He was” says Lawrence “by nature a satirical humourist, and it was far more exciting for him to be attacking the Dutch officials than sympathizing with the Javanese. This is … obvious in his partiality for the old Native Prince, the Regent. It is obvious that all the actual oppression of the poor Javanese came from the Javanese themselves, the native princes … The oppression has been going on, Havelaar himself says it, since the beginning of time. Not since the coming of the Dutch. Indeed, it is the oriental idea that the prince shall oppress his humble subjects. So why blame the Dutch officials so a

29. Arie Brand says:

    July 12, 2009 at 2:37 pm

    Sorry for the incomplete letter:

    Here it is again:

    Odinius wrote:

    . “Dutch decry the Nazis but excuse and apologize for the excesses of the colonial period.”

    This is perhaps as good an opportunity as any to come up with some historical details.

    During the last century of the colonial enterprise it was never without its critics. The most influential 19th Century one was of course the former “assistant Resident” and “Kepala Pemerintah Setempat” in Lebak: Multatuli (Eduard Douwes Dekker) with his 1860- novel “Max Havelaar or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company”.

    This novel has often been characterised as being ‘anti-colonial’ or ‘anti imperialistic’.Yes, it was so in its main thesis that the maintenance of Dutch power in the Indies had made it necessary to gain the cooperation of an indigenous aristocracy that was therefore allowed to extort labour and possessions from the local population (buffaloes !) and generally mistreat it with impunity. I will refrain from historical comment here (the best English language source is Heather Sutherland, “The Making of a Bureaucratic Elite”) but I cannot resist quoting a paragraph from D.H.Lawrence’s introduction to an English language translation of Havelaar.

    Lawrence saw in it mainly a satire disguised as a tract. As a tract it was now a “back number” but as satire it was still very much alive. “He was” says Lawrence “by nature a satirical humourist, and it was far more exciting for him to be attacking the Dutch officials than sympathizing with the Javanese. This is … obvious in his partiality for the old Native Prince, the Regent. It is obvious that all the actual oppression of the poor Javanese came from the Javanese themselves, the native princes … The oppression has been going on, Havelaar himself says it, since the beginning of time. Not since the coming of the Dutch. Indeed, it is the oriental idea that the prince shall oppress his humble subjects. So why blame the Dutch officials so absolutely? Why not take the old native regent by the beard? But no! Multatuli, Max Havelaar, swims with pity for the poor and oppressed, but only because he hates the powers-that-be so intensely. He doesn’t hate the powers because he loves the oppressed. The boot is on the other leg. The chick of pity comes out of the egg of hate.”

    Pretty astute. Too astute for the young civil servants who mainly saw the tract (the Dutch have a weakness for tracts) and tried to take it to heart. In that sense Multatuli’s influence has been intense. “Multatuli succeeded”, says the historian of SE Asia, Cees Fasseur, “in bringing the nameless Javanese to life for a wide public. Max Havelaar continued to influence colonial policy until well into the present century … the future civil servants, who were trained for service in the Indies at the East Indian Institute in Delft were very strongly under the influence of Multatuli. For a long time to come the spirit of Multatuli was to be perceptible in the Indies government offices.”

    Multatuli was the most influential but certainly not the only nineteenth century publicist criticizing the colonial enterprise. There is a host of names here: Sicco Roorda van Eysinga (a government engineer), W.R. Baron van Hoevell (a missionary), Pieter Brooshooft (a newspaper editor), Henri van Kol (a parliamentarian), C.Th.. van Deventer (a private solicitor in Semarang) etc. The latter person, himself deeply influenced by Multatuli, published in 1899 a seminal article in Holland’s main intellectual monthly then “De Gids.” . Its title was “Een Eereschuld” (A Debt of Honour). Van Deventer calculated what the Dutch had got out of the Indies and argued that this should be brought back to it in the form of development funds.

    Het “Batig Slot”, the “Indies Surplus”, that used to go into the Dutch treasury, had already gone since 1877 (Fasseur). The surplus was invested in the development of the railways and the Aceh War, but the accumulated criticism did lead to a radical reformulation of colonial policy which is known to historians as: “The Ethical Policy”. I will not argue here about the question to what extent this policy was a success or a failure. There is a heap of literature on that, accessible to any one who has entrance to a major academic database. And before I am jumped on by critics: I am not suggesting here that the Dutch stopped making money in and from the Indies though this was to a far lesser extent the case than some of the figures bandied about on this thread suggest ( the appropriate source is: Angus Maddison (1989), “Dutch income in and from Indonesia 1700 – 1938” , Modern Asian Studies 23 n.4).

    I now have to take a big leap here because I want to also provide some details of post war criticism of what happened in the period 1945 – 1949.

    It was perhaps not Ed’s intention to do so but his letters could erroneously create the impression that “ the Dutch” warded off any form of critique of what has happened there. This is simply not so but my account of these matters will be reserved for the next letter.

    —————–

30. ed says:

    July 12, 2009 at 5:09 pm

    @Odinius

    This type of logic is an unfortunate part of human nature. ” When they do it, it’s unconscionable. When we do it, well, we never actually did it, but if we had, it would have been totally justified, and of course never comparable to what they did.”

    That is unfortunately so. People always seem to be able to justify their own deeds but be very aware of other peoples deeds.
    There is another mechanism that is closely related: “Warcrimes are only committed by the defeated party”. and “Warcrimes are never committed by your allies”.

    Some years back when in the balkan war the US blew a train filled with civilians from a bridge, parents of a girl that was on the train wanted to file a war crimes suit. In an interview the commander who ordered the attack, denied any warcrimes. Yes it was an unfortunate incident: “but look at what Milosevic is doing” he added. As if what he did could be just wiped away because the other party was (supposedly) doing worse.

    You are correct to say that each and everything should be judged upon in its own right rather than on an “us and they” basis.

    However I do not see that happen. Just as an example: The Americans have the “The Hague Intervention Act” that gives teh americans legalization (in their own view) to attack the Netherlands the moment an american is brought for the international warcrimes court. The reason for this is simply that when an american soldier is accused of warcrimes, then it must be false with the sole intention to discredit america, but ofcourse if anybosy else is accused of warcrimes then there is basis for it.