827 Comments on “Dutch War Crimes”

1. ed says:

   July 17, 2009 at 2:52 pm

   Yes and no. Sure all European powers were into the whole ‘take, take, take’ thing, but the Dutch were more rapacious and less inclined to give anything of lasting value back than the French or the English. Just taking a look at how many things of value the British left in Malaysia, or the French in Vietnam, underscores the fact that, of all the whiteys to be colonized by, the Dutch rank just barely ahead of the Belgians at the absolute bottom of the barrel.

   Obviously I would not want to defend any of the colonial undertakings of the Dutch, but looking at most of the ex Spanish Colony, that is where there is poverty all over. That is where the bottom of the barrell is. Not really sure if the French and the Brits were so much ‘better’ than the Dutch. Coz they thought the Indians how to queue??. What the English French and Dutch did in their colonies as opposed to the Spaniards is to allow a rather high form of religious freedom whereas the spaniards where all about converting everybody to Catholicism and forbidding trade with Muslims.

2. Arie Brand says:

   July 17, 2009 at 3:09 pm

   There is a more direct comparison of British and Dutch colonialism in Furnivall’s study Colonial Policy and Practice: A Comparative Study of Burma and Netherlands India. The American scholar Amry Vandenbosch ( who wrote himself before the war a considerable study on the Netherlands Indies) has given, in his review of Furnivall’s work, a succinct summary of the differences as pointed out by Furnivall:

   “Furnivall contrasted the two systems of administration somewhat as follows: the British officers were magistrates, the Dutch were policemen and welfare officers; the British methods were repressive, the Dutch preventive; the British procedure was formal and legal, the Dutch informal and personal; the British civil service was an administrative machine, the Dutch civil service was an instrument of government; the British aim was negative- to suppress disorder, the Dutch aim was positive-to maintain order.”

   See Vandenbosch A. (1957), Review of J.S.Furnivall, Colonial Policy and Practice : A Comparative Study of Burma and Netherlands India , in The Journal of Politics, Vol.19 No.3

3. Oigal says:

   July 17, 2009 at 3:12 pm

   Ari..

   You need your own blog, bit wordy for us comments readers…Seriously, They came, they saw, they plundered. There is no need to feel all defensive about that, that was the way we done things back then and some nations did it better than others. However, you are hiding under the same veil of historical smudge if you try and pretend the dutch presence was some sort of quaint little corner shop trading activity.

   (Whilst offending various people and corner shops…Why did the Romans built such straight roads in their empire?…It stopped the Indians opening corner shops)

   As for best and worst.. Well Ody would seem to have the facts on his side at least post transition phase of the excercise…

   Brits…..Singapore, Malay, India (Ok Islamist idiots are doing their best to role back Malaysia but hey)

   Dutch….Indonesia, Tobago, Mauritius, South Africa

   Portugal…Well they have a very special place on the list

4. Arie Brand says:

   July 17, 2009 at 3:26 pm

   “They came, they saw, they plundered.”

   The trouble with most commenters on that phase of European-Asian history is that they resort to this short hand. Things were actually a bit more complex than that, especially in the later phases of the colonial enterprise.

   As a sociologist I take the view that this enterprise too was subject to rationalisation, in the Weberian sense. But the various aspects of colonial society rationalised along different lines. That was notably the case with the economy and the bureaucracy. The economy was out for a “positive value differentiation” (to put it neutrally) – the bureaucracy did attempt to execute a welfare policy, especially after the introduction of the “Ethical Policy”. Ultimately, the economy prevailed. But it is a bit short sighted to see only that aspect of the colonial enterprise.

5. Odinius says:

   July 17, 2009 at 3:48 pm

   ed said:

   Obviously I would not want to defend any of the colonial undertakings of the Dutch, but looking at most of the ex Spanish Colony, that is where there is poverty all over. That is where the bottom of the barrell is. Not really sure if the French and the Brits were so much ‘better’ than the Dutch. Coz they thought the Indians how to queue??. What the English French and Dutch did in their colonies as opposed to the Spaniards is to allow a rather high form of religious freedom whereas the spaniards where all about converting everybody to Catholicism and forbidding trade with Muslims.

   Not saying the British or French colonial regimes were good, but that they left a lot more things of lasting value than the Dutch (or others). Roads, hospitals, decent education systems that were comparably more inclusive, working judicial systems, networks that remain useful for ex-colonies even today, etc. What did the Dutch leave? The culture system and poffertjes.

   The Spanish might have been more rapacious early on, but they were not really a player uder high colonialism, a testament to their ineptitude. And the portuguese, well they didn’t do much for their colonies in the high colonial period, but they also weren’t nearly as exploitative either. That means, as I see it, that ss far as sh*t colonial systems go, the Dutch one was near the apex of manure.

6. Odinius says:

   July 17, 2009 at 4:00 pm

   Laredion said:

   I would be the first to criticize the Dutch for their poor handling of colonial affairs. But you might want to hold this statement against the indigenous peoples of Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand who are minorities in their own countries serving as tourist attractions.

   Talking high colonialism here, as the comparison is among those lands conquered in which the population was ruled over. That is, if you were Joe Indigene around 1850 and suddenly found yourself suddenly ruled over by Trade Representative X, Directional India Company Y, or Governor-General Z, would you rather have that person be representing A) the French Republic, with its particular colonial philosophy, B) the British crown, with its particular colonial philosophy, or C) the Dutch crown, with its particular colonial philosophy? Think that, in most cases, the answer is A or B, and pretty much never C.

   Settler colonies, established in an earlier time for different purposes, are kind of a different beast.

   arie said:

   British rivalry still finds a faint echo in Odinius’ view that the Dutch were “at the bottom of the barrel” in the colonial enterprise and left fewer things of lasting value in Indonesia than the Brits did in Malaysia or the French in Vietnam.

   How can one establish a thing like that?

   You go to the various countries and see for yourself what they were left to work with, rather than take the word of a colonial official/apologist like Furnivall.

   There are examples where the British left little of value, such as Burma, and others where its quite palpable. I fail to see any serious contribution to contemporary Indonesia from the Dutch period, aside from techniques of repression adapted by the Orde Baru…and poffertjes.

7. Lairedion says:

   July 17, 2009 at 4:08 pm

   Odinius,

   You started this silly contest on who were the better colonizers. I was merely putting your statement in perspective.

   Yes, in some parts they left useful things behind, in other parts they all but vaporized indigenous populations and took their lands….

8. ed says:

   July 17, 2009 at 4:12 pm

   @Odinius
   I am happy you mentioned the ‘poffertjes’ but don’t forget ‘Jalan Pos’ (oops hardly a feature that we can be proud of).

   As it is – the indonesians actually left a big mark on the Dutch kitchen, but knowing the dutch food I guess we were glad to finally eat something decent ;-).

   Seriously though, I find it hard to compare the Dutch, English and French ‘good deeds’. Perhaps al th building of infra structure the Britsih did was at a high human cost (as Jalan Pos was), I just don’t know. It could also be a difference in population, maybe there was an infrastructure and a schooling system that just wasn’t picked up on after the politionele akties, maybe the British had a bit more time in an era where views on colonies were changing. Perhaps Singapore would have looked different if the Britsish had left figthing in 1957 rather than peacefull in the early 60ties.

   Looking at one of the last dutch colonies -Surinam- a decent schooling and infrastructure was left there although I admit that Surinam and Indonesia are very difficult to compare.

   Anyway, it is no justification, just as much as I would not say: “Hey at least Hitler left us with ‘kinderbijslag’ (child support) so WWII was not all bad”

9. Odinius says:

   July 17, 2009 at 4:17 pm

   The point, Laredion, was to be somewhat tongue in cheek, a point that seems a bit lost on the Netherlanders here (though ironically not on Oigal, perhaps because of his British colonial heritage? ;)) But perhaps it cuts a little close to the bone. We all know that people have a proclivity for finding fault in other countries but getting defensive about their own. So to clear things up, this is my ultimate perspective: everywhere is sh*t, and so is everyone.

   Now that that is out of the way, might I point out just how much stuff Sir Stamford Raffles built while he was here? Makes me think, were I to be colonized, think I’d take the British and their law/cricket, or the French and their Francophonia/cooking, over the Dutch and their culture system/poffertjes…though I do like poffertjes…

10. ed says:

    July 17, 2009 at 4:17 pm

    Again, not wanting to defend colonialism in any way, when I think president Roosevelt criticized queen Wilhelmina for still having colonies, supposedly she remarked: Mr president, when the Dutch arrived in Indonesia, there were 20 million Indonesians, now there are 150 million. How many Indians are left in Amerika?

    (numbers by approach)

11. ed says:

    July 17, 2009 at 4:25 pm

    @Odinius

    might I point out just how much stuff Sir Stamford Raffles built while he was here? Makes me think, were I to be colonized, think I’d take the British and their law/cricket,

    might be so but maybe people were not happy with him building all that stuff. He hardly built it by the sweat of his own brow and who knows how many people he drove off.

    Obviously. Some decisions/actions taken in the past may benefit the present population of a country, but was it for the benefit of the original people then?

    No one will deny the USA is a country of tremendeous power, but you think that helped any of the original inhabitants? Same for Australia, new zealand.

    Fact is, that in various British colonies, the original population was so marginalized or nearly wiped out that by now it is difficult to see the once were colonies.

    think I’d take the British and their law/cricket, or the French and their Francophonia/cooking

    I think there are not many native Americans and aboriginals around to play cricket or eat French cuisine.

12. Arie Brand says:

    July 17, 2009 at 4:54 pm

    Odinius, why would Furnivall indulge in apologetics re Dutch colonialism at the expense of his own country, for chrissake?

    Also, the idea that you just have to travel around in these various countries to see what the various colonialists left behind is endearingly simplistic. I bet you perform well in the pubtalk circuit. Even if we assume that you could make a correct comparative inventory (instead of the usual tourist snapshot judgements) – haven’t sixty years gone by? Have these countries not had their own role in preserving respectively destroying what was left behind and building on it?

    And now we come to it: what exactly did Raffles build? He of course had the usual disdain of and arrogance about anything Dutch but what did he leave behind except for a “History of Java” that is only of antiquarian interest and an unworkable “landrent system”?

13. timdog says:

    July 17, 2009 at 6:09 pm

    Funnily enough, I’ve always had a suspicion that at least on element of the “British legacy” is a major element of the problem in the independent countries that now make up what was the main part of its Asian dominions…
    The monumental layer cake of civil beurocracy in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh was created by the British (they had produced a mass of reasonably well-educated, English-literate, very cheap potential clerks, and had to do something with them). It is now a machine that produces little but petty corruption, and a gaping abyss into which best-laid plans and good intentions vanish in a whorl of carbon paper, chai, forms-in-triplicate, more chai, officer-responsible-is-on-tour-until-friday-sir, permit-required, permit-not-possible, more chai, and – ahem – baksheesh…
    And that’s before you even consider the monumental f*&^-up that is the Partition of India, a catastrophe the long-reaching and terrible consequences of which – I believe – extend far beyond the Subcontinent… But hey! They have very good newspapers…

    However, purely in terms of how they managed their specifically Asian possessions, it may be possible to say slightly more good about the British than the other colonial players. (I think I’ve made it abundantly clear on this site in the past that patriotism is a disease to which I (British) am immune, and that I am generally much more comfortable bashing Britain than defending it – and yes, Lairedion, I am with you all the way on the outrages comitted in the “settled” parts of the “British Empire”, but I’m talking specifically about Asia here)…

    It is not entirely uncommon – and not entirely comfortable for an earnest liberal bed-wetter like my good self – in Indonesia to hear the “We wish we were colonised by the British instead – look at Singapore and Malaysia” line, in response to which I make non-comittal noises and mutter under my breath “are you sure by that you don’t really mean – without realising it – that you wish you had a lot more Chinese people, and perhaps a little less democracy?” I don’t say that aloud, obviously, but the idea of “better to be colonised by the British” – from Indonesians, no less – does stem from the fact that the arguably benign legacies of colonialism (Law, language, education etc) are more instantly palpable in some of Britains former Asian colonies than in other post-colonial states…

    There is, however, one monumental, enormous, spectacular, incredible legacy of the Dutch. Whether it is a positive or negative one is an interesting question. It is, of course, the fact that Indonesia exists at all…

    P.S. If you want to find everyone, British, French, Portuguese, Belgian (oh god! the Belgians!) at the very bottom of the barrel with no chance whatsoever of even partial redemption, look at Africa…

14. ed says:

    July 17, 2009 at 6:26 pm

    @Timdog. you put forward ery interesting points and as with regard to Singapore’s prosperity, indeed I think that was not as much the British Colonial rule as well as the ‘Let’s run it like a company’ attitude of LKY, helped by the economical insights of…. dutchman Winsemius.

    your suggestion of ‘a little bit more chinese and a bit less democracy’ touches upon something I tried to put forward already al be it less eloquently: the current state of ex colonies could have something to do with th epeople that live there more than with who actually did the occupation:

    Jamaica, The cayman islands, Malaysia and Singapore are all ex-british colonies. Go ask yourself who does best now. So, next time someone says: “I wish we had been colonized by the british”, the result could be:

    You’d be wiped out (if you were an aboriginal or a native american)
    You’d be poor (if you were Jamaican)
    You’d be doing ok (if you were Malaysian)
    You’d be doing fairly well in offshore banking ( Cayman islands)
    You’d be having one of the highest BNP’s per capita in the world but you’d be living in a highrise, could not afford a car and needed the government to help you get a date (if you were singaporean)

15. ed says:

    July 17, 2009 at 6:33 pm

    Also I’d like to add that maybe Indonesia’s current economical state is in fact a result of colonialism, but not as much or only Dutch colonialism but the fact that Indonisa could well be considered as mainly Javanese colonies rather than one homogeneous nation. (oops, touching upon a dangerous subject here). Just ask the Timorese and the Papoea’s, the Balinese and the Ibans

16. Arie Brand says:

    July 17, 2009 at 7:35 pm

    Timdog you scored pretty heavily.

    One thing though:

    “If you want to find everyone, British, French, Portuguese, Belgian (oh god! the Belgians!) at the very bottom of the barrel with no chance whatsoever of even partial redemption, look at Africa…”

    South Africa compares, today, pretty favorably with, eh, Zimbabwe. Let’s say that it is a joint British-Dutch achievement

17. Arie Brand says:

    July 17, 2009 at 8:30 pm

    One final word before midnight.

    The present shape of the former colonies might have a lot to do with the decolonisation process.

    Britain was pretty lucky that Labor was in charge after the war. If Churchill had come back the story might have been quite different.

    Britain also had and has an electoral system that allowed one party to be in charge and to make the crucial decisions. Holland has a proportional electoral system and the political process has always got to move forward there through coalitions. If the socialists had had an exclusive say post war it might have been possible to get out of Indonesia without too much conflict. Pre-war institutions might have been rebuilt in mutual cooperation (incidentally, Israel also suffers from this kind of electoral system which gives minor extremist parties an undue weight in the system – this blocks a solution there).

    But rebuilding institutions and continuing pre-war lines of research were not on the agenda. This also had to do with the disposition of Indonesia’s first President. In Herbert Feith’ well known distinction between administrators and solidarity makers he was definitely the latter. And his preferred way of creating solidarity was through conflict with the Dutch.

    Ed is right in pointing out that the Dutch left a more satisfactory legacy in Surinam even though it was the stepchild compared to the Netherlands Indies – but the Dutch got out of there without conflict.

18. Lairedion says:

    July 17, 2009 at 9:55 pm

    Pak timdog, I’m not too happy with this

    There is, however, one monumental, enormous, spectacular, incredible legacy of the Dutch. Whether it is a positive or negative one is an interesting question. It is, of course, the fact that Indonesia exists at all…

    Is this another foreign attempt to rewrite our history? You are categorically denying Indonesia had been existing in the great Mojopahit empire well before the Dutch set foot on our shores.

    Merdeka!

19. timdog says:

    July 18, 2009 at 5:45 am

    Merdeka indeed…
    And no, I would never, ever suggest such an outrageous thing. It’s just that… er… perhaps Indonesia is a slightly… er… different… shape? because of the Dutch… 😉

    Arie – when I talk about “Africa” (and aren’t we all guilty of using it as a blunt synonym for just about every negative word that can be attached to a place, and equally of ignoring the fact that it does have varied constituent parts!) like most people I mentally chop off the top bit and the bottom bit as if they belong somewhere else. That said, I’m not sure South Africa is all love and roses…

    I agree that the nature of the decolonisation process often has a lot to do with the future fate of the new nation in question. The shambles of the French decolonisation of, for example, Vietnam just rolled straight on seamlessly into the American war there… Mind you, Vietnam’s not doing at all badly these days…

    The British, all stiff upper lips, quivering salutes and hearty handshakes with the Oxford-educated native elites (most of the Indian and Pakistani lot, by the way, could hardly speak a local language) managed to get out of Asia with an impression (illusion? dellusion?) of dignity intact and job well-done, which perhaps has been a contributing factor in the idea of a benign British colonialism held by some jealous Indonesians – and not a few citizens of former British possessions…
    I however, (being a liberal bed-wetter) would suggest that if you look closely you’ll find that as the Union Jack came fluttering down the flagpole and all the good chaps – sahibs and pukka Indian lawyers all on equal footing now – retreated to the Club for brandy and cucumber sandwiches and misty-eyed reminiscences about their years at Eton or Harrow, they actually left a chaos and a tragedy as bad – if not worse – than anywhere. They just managed very successfully to get much less blood directly on their own hands than the French or the Dutch, the crafty buggers…

    ed:

    You’d be wiped out (if you were an aboriginal or a native american)
    You’d be poor (if you were Jamaican)
    You’d be doing ok (if you were Malaysian)
    You’d be doing fairly well in offshore banking ( Cayman islands)
    You’d be having one of the highest BNP’s per capita in the world but you’d be living in a highrise, could not afford a car and needed the government to help you get a date (if you were singaporean)

    Spot on! And kind of makes it clear that all this discussion of “who were the worst/bestt colonialists?” is rather silly…

20. Arie Brand says:

    July 18, 2009 at 6:19 am

    If there had been a strong idea of national unity, sustained by the lingering remembrance of the Majapahit Empire (whatever that may have been), it is unlikely that the VOC would have acquired a territorial foothold.

    I have the impression that this whole idea did not play a very important role in the coming about of an Indonesian national consciousness. Post independence it mainly found expression in the writings of intellectuals like Muhammad Yamin when it became important to provide an ideological underpinning to claims to British Borneo, Portuguese Timor and Papua.

    Benedict Anderson has carefully traced the lines along which the Indonesian national consciousness did develop. It was a matter of railways, newspapers, the role of Malay as a national language, schoolmaps that visualised the whole of the realm etc. Most of these things were artefacts of the colonial state. As far as language was concerned: the activities of the Balai Perpustakaan, which distributed easily readable booklets, helped to spread it.

    In fact Lev and McVey remark in their introduction to the volume that contains Anderson’s essay: “The idea of “Indonesia” as a particular place was first broached not by indigenes but by Europeans and then taken up by the colony’s Eurasians.” (p.12)

    Anderson also made a remark which puts the present bombings into context:” … little attention has been paid to the historical fact that in Java, as elsewhere in the colonial world, the first fantasies of liberation were not at all local, or national in scope – rather they were planetary. In Java,World Revolution (the Communist Party) and Pan-Islam (parts of the Sarekat Islam) preceded nationalism, which represented a sharply scaled-down vision.”

    (Benedict Anderson, “Language, Fantasy, Revolution: Java 1900 – 1950” in Lev, D.S. & McVey, R. (1996), Making Indonesia – Essays on Modern Indonesia in honor of George McT.Kahin. p.34 n.)

    P.S. There is as far as I know no evidence whatsoever that Papua once belonged to the realm of Majapahit. The Dutch Scholar Rouffaer identified before the war in Prapanca’s Nagara Kertagama a few places (Onin, Seran and Wandan) that might possibly vaguely refer to the place, but that is it. It is well to keep in mind that in that age “overlordship” often merely referred to a tributary relationship, not to active rule.

21. Odinius says:

    July 18, 2009 at 10:08 am

    hi ed:

    Enjoy your responses, and will address two.

    You said:

    No one will deny the USA is a country of tremendeous power, but you think that helped any of the original inhabitants? Same for Australia, new zealand.

    Fact is, that in various British colonies, the original population was so marginalized or nearly wiped out that by now it is difficult to see the once were colonies.

    Already mentioned that the comparison was of high colonialisms. That is, where populations were given overlords, rather than land taken to be settled. Colonial US history also includes some ignoble settler activity on the part of the Netherlands, who were equally ready to displace the native population, but were then displaced by the British.

    …and if you want the absolute worst example of early settler colonialism, google what happened to the native Tazmanians.

    But regardless, not what I was talking about. Was talking about situations where the Europeans came in, conquered, and lorded over the native populations, rather than pushed them out to build small farms.

    You also said:

    Again, not wanting to defend colonialism in any way, when I think president Roosevelt criticized queen Wilhelmina for still having colonies, supposedly she remarked: Mr president, when the Dutch arrived in Indonesia, there were 20 million Indonesians, now there are 150 million. How many Indians are left in Amerika?

    Curious which Roosevelt that was. Teddy was a colonialist, in the high colonialism sense, in the Philippines and Cuba. He was a firm believer in the ‘white man’s burden’ and evolutionary superiority of Western culture, politics and Protestant Christianity, just like his counterparts in Britain and the Netherlands. US colonial policy in the Philippines was very similar to the British one, and included a bloody pacification campaign against Philippine nationalists. So can’t imagine that’s who you are referring to.

    As for Franklin, it also seems like a dubious quote because not only did he continue to preside over the colonial Philippines, but actually thought all the French colonies should return to France after the war. So I’m inclined to think this anecdote is apocryphal, but not because the US was anticolonial under either, but because both Roosevelts were deeply implicated in high colonialism.

22. Odinius says:

    July 18, 2009 at 10:09 am

    Perhaps it was Woodrow Wilson, ed?

23. Arie Brand says:

    July 18, 2009 at 11:50 am

    “As for Franklin, it also seems like a dubious quote because not only did he continue to preside over the colonial Philippines, but actually thought all the French colonies should return to France after the war. So I’m inclined to think this anecdote is apocryphal, but not because the US was anticolonial under either, but because both Roosevelts were deeply implicated in high colonialism.”

    During F.D.Roosevelt’s first administration the Tydings-McDuffie Act was enacted which provided for a probationary period of ten years for a Filipino Commonwealth with a Filipino Chief Executive. So in November 1935 a Filipino Commonwealth Government was inaugurated with Manuel Quezon as its first President ( the Filipino position is , of course, that the real first President was Emilio Aquinaldo who headed the short lived Filipino Republic at the end of the nineteenth century). Full independence came on 4th July 1946.

    It is remarkable that though the Philippines was the first South East Asian country to fight for its independence, first against Spain, and then in a very bloody war against the Americans, once this war was lost the country ‘accomodated’ itself to the American presence. The local elite was not only kept in its position but profited from the American sale of erstwhile church lands. Also, it soon acquired positions of responsibility and a prospect of independence in not too remote a future. Even Aquinaldo “sold out”.

    Though my wife, who is from there, dutifully attends here in Australia the independence day celebrations she is totally devoid of nationalistic feelings. In fact her preference would have been for the Americans to stay on because they did, in her view, a much better job than the local guys. And there has been at one stage a limited movement in the country, though not at the very top, to attain for the Philippines the same status as Hawaii.

    The Philippines has also been quite careless in obtaining the symbols of independence. Firstly, the name of the country has not been changed. It is still named after the Spanish king, Philips II, whom the Dutch started their own eighty year war for independence against in 1568. I believe that Marcos at one stage proposed “Maharlika” but this suggestion was speedily dropped when it was found that its literal meaning is “Big Male Organ”. I have sometimes been tempted to write to a paper and to propose the sweet sounding name that Multatuli gave to the Indonesian archipelago: Insulinde.

    Important thoroughfares in Filipino cities are still called after American administrators (Taft Avenue in Manila, Jones Avenue in Cebu). A whole Filipino city (Legaspi) is still called after a Spanish worthy. Can one imagine Jalan Tuku Umar still being called Van Heutsz Boulevard or Bandung Kota Coen? In Cebu, where I lived for a number of years, there is some local pride about chief Lapu Lapu who killed Magellan in hand to hand combat. But at one place his statue stands brotherly beside that of the Spanish explorer and the chronicler of his expedition, Pigafetta.

    After the constrained nationalism of Indonesia the Fillipino attitude in this regard is a bit of a relief, at any case to the white nose living there.

24. David says:

    July 18, 2009 at 11:57 am

    Going back a bit as I’ve been busy with brother-in-law’s wedding, PN used his real name email address sometimes here for commenting, so no great detective work involved, I found some blog pages which were unmistakeably written by him (containing bizarre references to BIN), which had his name, office/phone in Jakarta, parents’ name, where he was from (Scotland I think, can’t remember, or at least Britain), that he did his Master’s at Monash, other things. Trying to tie it into the topic here….he was I think a Britisher utterly crestfallen that the Empire was gone and UK was now a non-entity country full of Pakis and he somehow managed to transfer his loyalties to the Javanese Empire otherwise known as Indonesia. But politically he was a Laroucheite Jew baiter and hence thoroughly uninteresting really, but he could write well.

25. Oigal says:

    July 18, 2009 at 12:37 pm

    (though ironically not on Oigal, perhaps because of his British colonial heritage?

    Ouch,…. At the risk of giving the game away (I was once accused of being a Malaysian here amongst other things). Colonial Heritage indeed, I am the mongel offspring of a convict therefore no great love of Brits as such (genetically bred to dislike??). I spend my entire childhood getting a flogging from the pommy immigrants who flooded our little piece of paradise (ok it was mostly my fault, even then I count not keep my mouth shut).

    Actually Ody, I did get it just having some fun as well (Ari is so serious about this) and well despite everything the ablity to enjoy a five day test cricket match is the apex of civilisation and culture, I would think everyone would agree on that.

    As for comparing Aborginal Australia and American Indians (at the risk the stupids wading in) to other cultures and the effect of europeans, I think you need to consider the relative status, development of the traditional culture upon arrival (same time, same people Maori vs Aborginal resistance)

    Its interesting in Adelaide at the moment there is a major issue as Somalian Immigrants are clashing with traditional aboriginal groups in a bizarre sort of culture black culture war, with the Somalis calling themselves the true blacks of Australia and it appears winning the battle.

    I still think we should do a league table it would be fun..even better if we could have two one voted on by the expats and one by nationals..interesting to see the perspectives.

26. timdog says:

    July 18, 2009 at 2:33 pm

    Patung – on PN, how very, very bizarre. So you think he really meant it all? All that stuff he wrote, I mean? Nutter…
    He could write well, sometimes, but he used wikipedia far too much, and I still have half a suspicion that he was a team effort.

27. ed says:

    July 18, 2009 at 4:19 pm

    @Odinius
    Good point. But The Roosevelts as well as America itself (in its role of new nation, not in its role of a ‘colony’) do not practice what they preach.

    America therefore is against colonial powers and does not have any colonies itself. They have ‘protectorates’ and whatever name they care to give them.

    Hawaii for instance ‘voted’ to be part of the USA (unfortunately the poll was only open to same american rogue business men residing in Hawaii). Texas was ‘liberated’ from Mexico and the Philippines were ‘liberated’ from and afterwards bought from Spain. The Philippines was never a colony, the Americans bought it fair and square and it was therefore ‘American territory’, not a colony, oh no!.
    Porto Rico is an ‘associated freestate’
    The American Virgin Islands were bought from Denmark but ‘only to prevent the Germans building a U boat base there’

    No america would not dream of owning colonies, that is something for those perfide old monarchies.

28. ed says:

    July 18, 2009 at 4:29 pm

    @odinius
    It was actually Franklin D Roosevelt.
    He had pressured the Dutch that Indonesia, or at least Java needed to be made independent after the war and put words to this effect in the ‘Atlantic Charter’

    Queen Wilhelmina was not opposed to this, but supposedly rebuttled some of his arguments.

    Roosevelts wish to make Indonesia independent did not have that much to do with caring for the right of self determination (although he said it had), but much more coz he was afraid that a struggle for independence would drive them inthe arms of the communists.

29. Arie Brand says:

    July 18, 2009 at 5:46 pm

    “the americans bought it fair and square”

    Well yes, but I wonder how far that claim went-even then.

    I am intrigued by the seemingly fortuitous historical events that led to the occupation.

    The US was at war with Spain about Cuba. Admiral Dewey got the order to look out for Spanish shipping just at the same time that the Filipinos had started an insurrection against Spanish rule. Dewey happened to be near the Philippines then and saw a chance to destroy some old Spanish tubs in Manila Bay (for which he was greeted as a hero at home). The Americans then gave the Filipinos some support on land against the Spaniards but when that matter was fixed decided to outstay their welcome. President McKinley consulted his God about it in a night of prayer and was given the go ahead from on high. Those “little brown brothers” had to be christianized. The fact that the Spaniards had performed that feat a few centuries before was conveniently ignored. The American public didn’t have a clue about the Philippines. Some people thought that they were the same folk as the Philippians, the correspondence partners of the Apostle Paul. Politically aware figures, such as Mark Twain, protested vigorously against this land grab but to no avail.

    The Filipinos felt rightly betrayed and now started war with the Americans – a nasty and bloody affair which lasted almost three years and only ended after Aquinaldo had been captured through a ruse (a group of traitors was induced to pretend that it had a large number of American prisoners that were then taken to Aquinaldo’s mountain hide out where, lo and behold, they suddenly grabbed weapons from under their prisoners’ garb).

    This war, though extremely bloody and nasty, especially for the Filipinos, is sometimes called “the forgotten war” and, yes, one doesn’t find much Filipino talk about it . The trouble, so it seems to me, is that they have no person connected to that war they can concentrate on in commemorative adulation. Aquinaldo belonged to the half-Chinese elite and had a rival, a genuine representative of the people, Andres Bonifacio, killed through a quasi-judicial process. Moreover Aquinaldo later ‘sold out’ to the Americans.

    The way out has been to focus on Jose Rizal as national hero even though he had nothing to do with the insurrection. As it happened he had asked to be transferred from internal exile to the then still Spanish possession of Cuba to practice as a doctor (he had been trained in Manila, Madrid, Paris and Heidelberg). He got that permission and seemed to be on his way but was taken from board and after some “judicial process” executed.

    With that deed the Spaniards bestowed national sainthood on Rizal. And I cannot think of a country with a more appealing national hero. He was a novelist, a poet and a polymath. My wife and I visited the place where he was exiled, in Dapitan, and we fancied that we could still feel the serenity that seemed to have surrounded him in spite of his rather chequered life.

    There have been accusations that the Americans promoted the Rizal-cult (because that is what it is now) because they would rather have a national hero who had nothing to do with the war with them. This has been as fervently denied by others.

    When I first came to Manila I was puzzled by the destination of some jeepneys called Blumentritt. I later found out that this was the name of the Austrian anthropologist who had been in correspondence with Rizal (in German). Though Blumentritt never came to the Philippines the fact that he had corresponded with Rizal gave him a claim to a streetname in Manila. And so it is with everything that has to do with Rizal. No city so small there or one finds, somewhere , a statue of him.

30. Arie Brand says:

    July 18, 2009 at 5:53 pm

    Timdog said about PN:

    “but he used wikipedia far too much,”

    Well, he must have forgotten to do that when he said something about the colonial past of Indonesia because ALL his claims on that were false – without exception. Neither did I think that he wrote very well. It looked more like a form of half-literate abuse to me.