Trying to live with history of Dutch colonial rule

Trying to live with history of Dutch colonial rule

Jim Schuurmans, The Netherlands

The VOC Dutch trade firm, is "a sore memory 400 years after"
-- The Jakarta Post reported in March, nearly 200 years after the
VOC was declared bankrupt according to Dutch law.

Four hundred years ago the Netherlands was fighting for its
own independence against Spain, a war that lasted 80 years and
that could only free half of the country, the other half nowadays
being Belgium.

The reason for this war was freedom of religion. An agreement
with the Pope had divided the world in two halves: One half would
be Spanish if any new country was discovered, and the other half
of the world would become Portuguese.

According to this agreement, Indonesia and Malaysia would be
Portuguese and the Philippines would be Spanish. The Minahasa, in
northern Sulawesi, was on the border and the population was so
horrified by the atrocities of those Portuguese and Spanish, that
they made an agreement with the VOC as an ally, not as a subdued
area.

The independence war the Netherlands fought for its freedom of
religion had a major consequence for Indonesia and Malaysia;
because Islam could spread without any restrictions by the VOC or
the Dutch government thereafter.

Meanwhile there are plenty of examples where the Dutch acted
violently to establish or defend their trade contracts. Large
numbers of victims were a result of this aggression in Maluku and
still every Dutch student learns of murders, such as on the Banda
Islands.

Still, how was it possible that a company of such a small
country could conquer Indonesia? A return trip to and from both
countries took one or two years, while technology in Indonesia
and in the Netherlands were not too far away from each other. The
building of homes, repair of sailing ships and manufacturing of
guns, were all available technology in Indonesia.

But the VOC did not conquer Indonesians; they attacked right
away any Portuguese or Spanish settlement of importance -- often
with the support of Indonesian kings who wanted to get rid of
them. Shortly thereafter, the Portuguese fortifications in
particular were taken over together with trade. We should not
blame those Indonesian kings that allowed such settlements to be
built. In that period Java had hardly 2.5 million inhabitants and
was as sparsely populated as Irian Jaya is now.

In Batavia, the Dutch were allowed to settle in an unhealthy
swamp with the approval of the Sultan of Banten. The area was
supervised by a Regent disliked by the Sultan. And then when the
Dutch built their Batavia in the 17th century, they were attacked
by Sultan Agung. This should be seen as an attack by a Javanese
king on an area belonging to a Sundanese King. How did the Dutch
win?

Historical records say the total number of inhabitants was
only around 4,000 people, of which less than 600 were Dutch and
the rest were Indonesians and Chinese. The army from Java was
enormous but logistics were neglected. There were guns, but no
food. A Javanese army just took the little food they could find.

But there was always another reason for fighting between the
VOC and Indonesians. The major causes were the politics of
expansion between the hundreds of local states. Always, the VOC
was asked to participate in exchange for trade licenses. Such a
war was only started when it promised to be profitable. Because a
war is expensive, a Dutch governor that caused a financial loss,
because of war, was always dismissed without pardon, sometimes
even without notice.

At the end of the 18th century, Europe was in chaos, with the
French Revolution, followed by the Napoleonic wars, going on all
over the continent. The British occupied all Dutch settlements in
India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and of course Indonesia. The Republic
of the Seven United Netherlands itself was occupied by Napoleon.
The VOC was declared bankrupt in 1815. The Dutch government took
over the depths and trading contracts, and colonialism begun.

In the same year the British left all the trade settlements,
but not after smuggling clove and nutmeg seeds to their colonies,
Zanzibar and Trinidad. After thousands of years, a monopoly was
finished, and step by step Maluku became poor.

Since then the Dutch acted differently in Indonesia. After the
chaos in Europe, Great Britain was the new colonial super power.
Their takeover of Dutch settlements in Sri Lanka, India and
Malaysia was quickly expanded to a Southeast Asian empire. The
Netherlands also expanded and created the Netherlands East
Indies. They did not want to give the British a second chance.
Especially in Java and Sumatra, times were hard. Nobody would
deny the suffering of the Indonesians and the exploitation,
particularly of the farmers in Java and Sumatra.

By the end of the 19th century, the Dutch government started
to realize this cruelty and ordered the colonial government to
change their policy, and give the Indonesians more benefits from
the money that was locally earned.

But Aceh, the powerful nation in North Sumatra that contested
the Portuguese in Malacca, already had gained a guarantee of
independence in the 17th century from the Dutch and the British
in an "undercover" treaty. In the 19th century the U.S. developed
a pepper trade with Aceh. This pepper was bought in Aceh and was
sold in Europe.

In the second half of the 19th century, history reveals that
at one point an American merchant ship was captured by Acehnese
pirates. The American navy sent a navy ship to Aceh, and various
coastal villages were destroyed by American firepower. At the end
of that century the Americans bought the whole country of the
Philippines from Spain. Now the Dutch and the British realized
they had a rival in this part of the world.

The old independence agreement was deleted and the Aceh war
was started by the Dutch and approved by the British Empire. At
the end of the 19th century the Dutch occupied the Batak Lands.
Such agreements between the Dutch and the British were also made
for Bengkulu. The British handed over Bengkulu to the Dutch under
the condition that they could remain in Singapore and that the
Dutch would never hand over Bengkulu to a third party.

When Indonesia became internationally recognized in 1949 some
British papers suggested that Great Britain could exercise a
claim on Bengkulu.

So in the 18th and 19th century, colonialism was not easy to
escape in certain parts of the world. If one power lost, another
would come instead. For Indonesia it changed the map and created
the fourth largest country in the world.

Maybe Indonesia can lose its "sore memory" of the VOC by
identifying their potential and by remembering that the VOC
officials only started a war when a trade contract was violated.

However, we can only live with history. The history of the VOC
is entangled with Indonesian heritage. It is better to exploit it
than to deny it. Take the Japanese who built a "VOC village"
complete with a ship, or Australia, who built a "VOC ship"
sailing to Europe via Indonesia. It would be a tourist attraction
to transform Sunda Kelapa and its environment into a true VOC
headquarters with duplicates of the original buildings.

Indonesians could also organize three phinisi (sailing ships)
to travel to Amsterdam, just the other way around, to convince
the world that Indonesia could have done the same in the 17th
century.

The writer is a consultant who deals with Indonesian history
as a personal interest. The National Committee to Defend
Indonesia's Dignity (KNPMBI) comprising 10 non government
organizations recently demanded that the Netherlands apologize
for its rule and its "gross violation of human rights" towards
Indonesians, particularly those after the proclamation of
independence on Aug. 17, 1945.