Colonial legacy dogs Maluku people

Colonial legacy dogs Maluku people

By Aboeprijadi Santoso

AMSTERDAM (JP): Arriving in cold and grim Holland on March 21,
1951, they never imagined they would have to remain so far from
their homeland. Yet their future was a fait accompli, creating a
minority abroad that is still dealing with the consequences three
generations later.

The story of the South Maluku communities in the Netherlands
is a painful one -- the result of colonial divide and rule
strategies that turned thousands of former loyal soldiers and
their families into a disillusioned and sometimes troublesome
ethnic group. Thousands were left stranded in the land of their
former masters, yearning for their homeland.

On March 21 these dispossessed people commemorated the 50th
anniversary of the arrival in Rotterdam harbor of the first group
aboard the Kota Inten. It was an emotional event, with
festivities and discussions on the future of the new generation
tinged with nostalgic sadness.

Essentially their fate had been decided when the Dutch finally
recognized the Indonesian republic (then RIS, the United States
of Indonesia) at the Round Table Conference on Dec. 27, 1949. As
a result, the Dutch colonial army (KNIL) was dissolved in July
1950.

As the Indonesian troops blockaded Ambon and crushed the
Dutch-supported Republic of South Maluku (RMS), the Dutch decided
in February 1951 to transport their Maluku soldiers left in Java
for a "temporary stay" in the Netherlands. It was clearly assumed
that one day they would return home, to a "free Ambon" under RMS.
Some 12,500 soldiers and their families went with 14 ships from
Surabaya and Semarang.

Tragically, these soldiers and their families only learnt of
the decision to dismiss them from the Dutch army -- made in
February -- when they arrived in Rotterdam in March.

This was "a false start", as the Maluku historian Wim Manuhutu
described it. In a single stroke their military pride was dashed,
their lives changed dramatically and their political ideals
frustrated. "We left Semarang with mixed feelings, and (once) in
Holland I remember my father continued to feel deeply
disappointed for years," said Chris Manuputy, then 17 years old.

It was this shock, disillusionment, humiliation and confusion
that led to tensions in their early years abroad. Clashes in 1952
between Ambonese and groups of Southeast Maluku people from Kei
and Tanimbar, and between Christians and Muslims, led to a few
thousand Muslims being excluded from the majority. Many of those
excluded later chose Indonesian citizenship and returned home.

As post-war Holland was unable to properly accommodate the
former soldiers, they had to live in camps -- including one
former Nazi concentration camp -- only moving to segregated
housing areas a decade later. Even today about half of the Dutch-
Malukus -- now totaling about 45,000 -- are still segregated,
resulting in a strong emphasis on Maluku identity and pride. This
has been the response of what one Ambonese writer aptly calls the
"transplanted community".

As the relationship between the Netherlands and Indonesia
improved steadily after the mid-1960s, the Dutch-Malukus saw
their ideal of RMS slipping even further away. Yet "we should
keep (it) alive for the sake of Maluku and the future
generations", the late RMS President J. Manusama told this writer
in 1989.

Indeed, the 1970s saw a growing radicalization of Maluku
youth. The Dutch authorities were taken by surprise by violent
actions including the occupation of the Indonesian consulate in
Amsterdam, an attack on the residence of the Indonesian
Ambassador in Wassenaar, the hijacking of a train, the occupation
of a school, and a failed attempt to kidnap Queen Juliana.

These actions actually led to some sympathy and a better
understanding of the Dutch-Malukus' plight among sections of
Dutch society. Indonesian authorities also began to be
interested, as the ex military intelligence (Bakin) chief Gen.
Soetopo Juwono became RI Ambassador and reportedly attempted to
infiltrate their communities.

For the Dutch government, too, the violence of 1970s was a
wake-up call. It was not until this time that The Hague started
"a coordinated policy of permanent integration", the Minister for
Urban Affairs and Integration, Rogier van Boxtel, acknowledged
last week. "The Dutch society should become a pluriform society
or else, nothing," he insisted.

The Netherlands has been home for migrants, refugees and
asylum seekers for centuries. Yet 50 years on, the integration of
Dutch-Malukus -- one of the country's smallest but toughest
minorities -- proved to be difficult.

"I'm a military man (Beta orang militer") was the standard
reply of the former soldiers, who refused to be re-educated. The
second generation, by contrast, has been successful in terms of
education and local adaptation, but failed to sustain it to the
next.

Now, as 85 percent of Maluku teenagers have gained access only
at the lowest level of high school, the third generation, despite
its very low unemployment level of 4 percent, does not seem to
offer better prospects.

"The integration process has stagnated," sociologist Justus
Veenman concludes.

In political terms, though, the Dutch-Malukus have become
increasingly pluralistic. It is a myth to view them simply as an
"RMS hotbed". With RMS and its ideal having long died down in the
Malukus, the movement in the Netherlands has become a living
dinosaur and its activities increasingly look like a political
ritual.

Yet RMS has not died. Many still support the idea, but it is
neither universally popular nor actively supported by most Maluku
expatriates. No longer would RMS leaders claim to be the pioneers
for the people in Maluku as they had maintained in the past.
The gravity, some RMS leaders have privately said, has shifted
from the Netherlands to Maluku.

In other words, they have finally come to realize, however
lately, that whatever the future of Maluku, it is a matter for
those Malukus living in Maluku.

The change ironically came as the civil war broke out in 1999
and worsened in Ambon and North Maluku. The priority is peace,
not RMS, is the consensus in the Netherlands. But the anger was
still great and it is widely feared that some Maluku radical
youth would lose patience.

Public meetings, fundraising and an exchange between public
figures and representatives of mosques, churches and NGOs in
Indonesia have been intensified to help promote peace and
reconciliation in the Malukus.

In an unprecedented gesture to show Dutch concern and
sympathy, Queen Beatrice chose a background of Maluku music when
she delivered her Christmas message last year.

Meanwhile, the Maluku communities remain distinct from war-
crime victims. Unlike the Dutch-Jews and the Dutch-Indies
(Indonesians of Dutch-Indonesian mixed blood), who have been
successfully integrated, fully honored and have gained huge
financial compensation for their loss, the Dutch-Malukus were
neither integrated nor materially compensated.

As a token of respect, though, the Dutch government has
promised to start an official historiography of its most loyal
soldiers and their innocent children, whose painful experiences
have not been fully grasped -- let alone appreciated.

The writer is a journalist based in Amsterdam, the
Netherlands.