Historical root of political conflicts

By Onghokham

JAKARTA (JP): Before one gets into some of the political problems of today, one must first look at the administrative and political frame of the Dutch East Indies colonial government.

The colonial system was known as one of indirect rule, meaning that next to the Dutch civil service consisting of the resident (governor) and his Dutch staff there was the local priyayi (Javanese traditional elite) administration headed by the Bupati or regent and his Javanese staff.

Relations between the two branches of government grew and differed at times. At first it was commercial, one of alliance, then one of persuasion through giving large sums of incentives to the local Javanese elite and at the end of subordination.

Dutch colonialism was a natural growth in Java, as was the case with the British in India and the Spanish in the Philippines.

In 1900 the Dutch colonial system was decidedly dominant and supreme. However, its growth met resistance from the elite as well as from the populace. In this special case which we will deal with it was a conflict among the elite.

The lessons of indirect colonial rule might teach us lessons about the dual function of the Indonesian Armed Forces, problems on relations between multinational enterprises and local governments and others. Above all, with today's rife rumors about plots and conspiracies it might be useful to look at the quiet old colonial days of peace and order (rust en orde).

In 1900, curtains and some small items were stolen from the home of Dutch resident in East Java town of Madiun. But it was the curtains which most irritated Resident Dekker, the highest representative of the Dutch crown in the region.

Dekker was irritated because he could not have breakfast in his nightgown because the whole populace of Madiun could peer at him in his most undignified appearance. This was certainly subversive not only toward the Dutch Crown's highest representative but against the whole colonial government.

Dekker immediately summoned local regent Raden Mas Ningrat, a high noble connected with the last remaining royal courts of the Mataram dynasty of Central Java and more or less held him responsible for the subversive theft. This article uses pseudonyms for both the resident and the regent.

From the day Dekker took up his post as resident of Madiun in 1897, his relationship with Javanese counterpart Ningrat had been bad and grew worse with the years.

There were conflicts about the regent's role in the coronation festivities of the then young queen Wilhelmina (1898), on the regent's role as local head of religion (Islam), etc., conflicts which climaxed with the theft of the resident's curtains.

Dekker had strong suspicions that Ningrat was behind the theft. These suspicions were fed by the local prosecutor, a Javanese official on the resident's staff. A few days afterward, the stolen curtains and other items, as well as the thieves, were found by the regent's police but Dekker still thought it was all set up to embarrass him, and hence it was subversive to the colonial system.

A locally employed priyayi told Dekker that everything had been arranged by Ningrat, that he sponsored the theft and kept protecting the real culprits.

The theft of the resident's curtains led to local intrigues among the local priyayi and police officials, and an increasing enmity between the resident and the regent. Nowadays it would be impossible to unravel all of the plotting and accusations.

Did the regent really sponsor the theft? Was he protecting the real thieves? What was his aim?

Instead, this article will focus on the fantasies of Dekker's accusations and fears of a widespread Javanese plot to start a new Java War (1825 to 1830), with the plot being internationally connected with dark forces against the West.

The conflict between Dekker and Ningrat lasted a long time and was spectacular. However, before we get to the main part -- the accusation of the plot's network -- we must get sort out a few details of the case.

The conflict led to the dismantling of the regent's police network which caused a power vacuum and allowed thievery in the region to increase so that people began talking of the unrest of the times.

The conflict also led to intrigues, caused rivalries to flare up among the local priyayi, the weri (spies), jago (thugs) and others.

The situation became chaotic. Finally the resident proposed to the government in Batavia that the regent be temporarily exiled in order to have the investigation completed without his interference. Batavia followed this advice and exiled the regent and his family to Padang, West Sumatra. The resident completed a detailed police report of 100 pages on the theft and the recent unrest in the region, blaming everything on the machinations of the regent.

The governor general and his Council of the Indies were very impressed with it and were ready to punish the regent. However, there was one dissenting voice in the Council of the Indies who cautioned against accepting the report of only the resident. Moreover, the regent had begun to defend himself by sending petitions to the governor general, the minister of colonies in The Hague, the queen and parliament in the Netherlands.

This made Batavia cautious. Batavia sent the famous expert and official advisor on native affairs and Islam, Prof. C. Snouck Hurgronje, to Madiun to investigate the affair and look into the accusations of another conspiracy to start a new Java War, as the resident had reported.

The surprising thing was that Hurgronje did not simply dismiss the fears of a Java War in the making but confessed that his stay in Central Java and the region was too short to discover the mood of the priyayi, the nobles and court circles. He advised the government to dismiss the regent and to buy him off with a generous pension and promises that in the future his children would be considered for the post of regent when there was a vacancy.

It was necessary, according to Hurgronje, to remove the regent from his post, regardless of his being guilty or not, for the conflict between the resident and himself was too sensational.

The removal of the regent was necessary to uphold the colonial authority. Batavia followed this advice and warned the pensioned regent not to settle in Madiun.

Regent Ningrat settled himself in neighboring Yogyakarta near the court of his close relative, prince Paku Alam. In Yogyakarta the former regent still received many of his former Madiun henchmen and followers.

Resident Dekker remained restless and began a second series of accusations against the dismissed regent and harassed his remaining relatives in Madiun. Again Batavia sent Hurgronje to Central Java to look into the problems. This time the advisor told Batavia that Dekker was near a nervous breakdown and needed either a rest or a new posting. Meanwhile, the former regent through Dutch lawyers challenged Dekker for libel in a civil suit which was later dropped by government pressure. Again Batavia followed the advice of Hurgronje and gave the resident an Order of Orange Nassau before sending him into retirement.

If the affair ended not too badly for the main protagonists, the regent's low-ranking followers, the villagers, did not fare so well. The village guru's, weri, jago and others in the service of the regent as a sort of informal police network were detained and exiled to outside Java. They numbered about 22 people. These villagers were known as kebal (invulnerable).

If the government did not take measures against them, advised Hurgronje, then the people would see them as really invulnerable and as persons who could get away with anything, and hence could constitute a strong political opposition force against the local government. Hence, regardless of whether they were guilty or not, they need to be suppressed.

The affair of the conflict between the former resident and the former regent did not end there. For the next 10 years Dekker kept sending the government in Batavia and in The Hague voluminous reports on the plots of Ningrat.

Former resident Dekker saw every event of native assertiveness a sign of a growing antigovernment party. Thus he was alarmed with Susuhunan Paku Buwono X's visit to Semarang where the population gave him a great welcome. Some military training organized by the nobility in Sumenep (West Madura) he reported as Madurese nobles arming the bangsat (bad people) of that island for purposes of starting a revolt.

The former resident considered an explosion in the ammunition storehouse of the military barracks in East Java town of Ngawi a result of the former regent's visit to the site. There were many more similar reports where he tried to put all the events together as proof of there being an antigovernment party.

Soon Dekker felt these events, in connection with religious events (non-Christian) such as the reiteration of a big mosque or a Hindu-Javanese temple or a specially enthusiastic celebration of a religious holiday, etc., were equally growing signs of an antigovernment party in Java.

After Japan's victory over Russia in 1905, Dekker saw his conflict with Ningrat in an international context of conspirators against the Netherlands Indies if not against the whole Western world of Christendom.

In 1907 Dekker published a pamphlet in which he detailed Ningrat's role in an antigovernment party which had widespread support throughout Java and international connections consisting of the Black Dragon Society in Japan, Chinese triads, the Ottoman Empire, the Grand Mufti of Mecca, the Dalai Lama of Tibet and others. In short he called all the dark forces of Pan-Islam, Pan- Hindu and Pan Buddhism.

Today the accusations of Dekker seem outrageous and it appears that the former resident was ready for a psychiatric ward.

However, one must take into account the background of these accusations. The Java War (Diponegoro) was a trauma for the Netherlands Indies government and fear of a recurrence was real throughout the 19th century. Relatives and descendants of Diponegoro and his main commanders were always supervised and watched, often falling under suspicion if there was unrest.

The Great Mutiny in British India in the mid-19th century was another specter haunting officialdom in the Indies.

In 1900 emperor Wilhelm of Germany gave his notorious offensive speech on the "Yellow-Danger" in blessing the German expeditionary troops to Peking liberating the besieged diplomatic quarters by the Chinese boxers.

It seems the clash of civilizations was already haunting the world. Seen in this context, Dekker's fantasies might not have been thought of as that mad.

The writer is a historian based in Jakarta.