Dutch Perspective on Indonesian Independence (PPI interview): 350 tahun?
History is an immensely important discipline as it touches upon the very basics of human existence, where reasoning and emotion are intertwined to determine an outcome in a spectrum between pride and shame, honor and disgrace, admission and denial! Unfavorable outcomes between these extremes could manifest themselves in annoyance, resentment, tension and even conflict between members of communities whose ancestors happened to be on the opposite sides of the history.
Within the academic sphere, certain subtleness may give rise to questions. In search of the answers, an academic research with clear-cut terminologies is deployed. From questions to answers, it entails a process through elaborately defined stages in order to arrive at sensible conclusions, i.e. altogether the results of the research.
When disseminating the results to the general public, practical situations may pose to be challenging to convey the message coherently. As a result, instead of enlightening, the message may be misunderstood, and unknowingly transformed into misinformation. The society will be totally at a loss if bad agendas kick in, transforming misinformation further into disinformation.
When watching a youtube video on a topic of the history of Indonesia-Netherlands, sometimes certain segments of the video woke me up on how the contents may cause divisive narratives in the society. I am just a layman in history, but being a person who has lived in both countries I feel privileged and have a sense of duty to spread my perspectives to enrich the society based on my personal experience and studies.
For example, the following segments of this interview drew my attention, and therefore I found it necessary to express my opinion. There are five segments of the video that I would like to comment on, but I would do it on a piecemeal basis.
04.51 - 07.34: penjajahan Belanda bukan 350 tahun?
Concerning the Dutch presence in Indonesia in the past, there is a phenomenological distinction between the (areal) colonization and the (behavioral) colonialism. Colonization was the act of settling. Colonialism was the behavior of the settlers. Colonization was a process of controlling the land. Colonialism was an undertaking to exploit the natives for economic benefits. Both Colonization and Colonialism (C&C) were characterized by racial domination. C&C can be elaborated in temporal and spatial dimensions.
Temporally, two major phases of C&C can be distinguished, initially one that was governed by VOC (1602-1800) and later by the Dutch monarch (1815-1942), with the Governor-Generals appointed initially by VOC and later by the Dutch monarch. VOC was a Dutch commercial entity that was entitled to have its own army and to wage wars against the natives and other colonial powers on behalf of its shareholders. VOC policy was determined by a board of directors from the cities of Amsterdam, Middelburg, Rotterdam, Delft, Hoorn and Enkhuizen. The shareholders consisted of all layers of the Dutch society, from labors to doctors, merchants and even religious preachers. VOC was instrumental for the Dutch Republic to reach the Dutch Golden Age. After VOC was dissolved in 1800, all its assets including the conquered territories in Indonesia were transferred to the Dutch Republic and ultimately to the newly founded Dutch Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1815. Spatially, many episodes of military expeditions, divide-and-conquer practices, human exploitations and, in reaction thereof, resistances from the natives took place in many parts of the archipelago.
The racial domination did not occur contiguously in time and space, but it was distributed within the temporal span of about 350 years and within the spatial boundaries of the land that is known today as Indonesia. Since 1602 VOC had been establishing C&C, and from 1815 onwards this was taken over and continued by the Dutch Kingdom. Irrespective of how the governor generals were appointed by whom, regardless of which part of the population was divided, conquered and exploited, and had delivered resistance, the aggregate C&C presence at any time within the period of 350 years and anywhere in Indonesia, forms the foundation of historical relationship between the Dutch and Indonesian people.
To the question, "Apakah penjajahan Belanda di Indonesia berlangsung selama 350 tahun?" where the terminology penjajahan refers to C&C, Indonesia refers to the territory of the Republic of Indonesia, and 350 tahun refers to the period between the foundation of VOC and the Dutch surrender to the Japanese, the answer is Yes. This should be the principle (het beginsel) of any discourse in the shared history of Indonesia and the Netherlands. Of course, from this point onwards, any interest may zoom in a temporal or spatial window to gain an in-depth insight and understanding of the historical events.
To suggest otherwise, e.g. saying that the Dutch colony began to exist in 1815 and was fully established just in the 20th century, is as blurring as saying that the WWII did not start in 1939 (as it was only about the German invading Poland) and it was not a World War at all (as it was only a conflict between those peoples of the Global North). If one were consistent with the above view of Dutch colony/colonization, a curve could be drawn to represent the expansion of the conquered area versus time, and it could then be said that the Dutch never colonized at all because the curve must have been asymptotic.
Professor Steijlen has correctly warned against the danger of prematurely zooming in to a specific period and location, by saying, "... which doesn't legitimize it; it doesn't mean that we are less wrong". However, this is a perspective of a Dutch historian, not necessarily the perspective of the general Dutch. In present days, it is still common to encounter a Dutch perspective where the areal colonization is perceived as a legitimate ownership of the land of Indonesia, while behavioral colonialism as an enlightenment to the savage natives. Apparently, there is still a fundamental difference between Nederlands-Indie (from the common Dutch perspective) and Hindia Belanda (from the common Indonesian perspective).
