MAN BETWEEN TWO CAMPS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 360, 17 May 1946, Page 28

MAN BETWEEN TWO CAMPS

A Profile of Dr.

H. J.

van Mook

from the

London " Observer"

AS it ever happened in history that a statesman, in working at the solution of a great political problem, was dealing with the fundamental problem of his own personal life? If not, the present situation of Dr. Hubertus Johannes van Mook, the Dutch Lieuten-ant-Governor-General of the Netherlands East Indies, will become the classical example of it. The dispute about the future of Indonesia has for a considerable time held the attention of the world. And in the centre, the storm centre, of that dispute itself, stands the solid figure of van Mook. : His is not only the supreme responsibility;, his is the decisive initiative. He fought and won one battle when, as the advocate of Indonesian freedom, he

wrested the 15-point plan, with its wide liberal concessions, from a_ reluctant Dutch Parliament. He then entered a second battle in trying, as the advocate of Imperial unity, to make the Indonesian leaders renounce their more extreme secessionist ambitions. It is he, and almost he alone, on whom at present the peace, continuity, ard coherence of a great Commonwealth depends. He fights his two-front war for it-against diehards in Holland and extremists in Java-with the passion and tenacity of a man fighting for his life. And, as was said in the beginning, in a sense, he is fighting for. his ijife. For he is not just a Dutch politician or official who happens to be concerned with colonial affairs, and is doing his cold duty. He is himself as much an Indonesian as a Dutchman. He is a man of two worlds, and if the two break apart, he will himself be torn asunder to the very roots of his being. For him the new liberties which he is offering the Indonesians are not just "concessions," reluctantly made under the pressure of an emergency. They are aims for which he has fought in word

and deed all his life-often side by s:de with men whom he to-day faces across the table. * # * OME of his political enemies have even spread the tale that he has himself Indonesian blood in his veins. This is a legend-but a legend of some significance. Though he comes from old Dutch peasant and soldier stock (his greatgrandfather was a soldier in Napoleon’s armies), he was born and bred in Java; he loves that country, its people (among whom are many of his closest friends), and its customs. He has never long been out of it; its progress and fuller development has been the one great cause to which his life has been devoted. Naturally, he sees that progress and development inseparably bound up with the Dutch-Indonesian connection-a con-

nection of which he himself, as a type and a personality, is the living embodiment. | ’ 2 It is, perhaps, only slightly exaggerated to say that he has always been a Dutchman to Indonesians, and an Indonesian (of Dutch blood) ,to Dutchmen. At any rate, he has always been the exponent of the progressive commonwealth idea, both against the old colonial diehard school in The Hague and the romantic native nationalism at Batavia. In a sense the two-front battle which he is now waging is the culmination as well as the supreme crisis of his life. * * * HE was born at Semarang, in Java, in 1894. Both his father and his mother were Dutch schoolteachers who had gone to Java as educational pioneers; his wife is also the child of a schoolteacher, and the educational vein is very. strong in van Mook; but he has never been a teacher himself. He received his education, and his first lasting impressions at the secondary school at Surabaya, where he had as schoolmates both the sons of Dutch

officials, officers, or merchants, and the intelligent children of local Indonesians. (There is no colour prejudice in the Dutch East Indies-at any rate, on the Dutch side; white and brown mix freely in the big cities; there is unrestricted social intercourse, and quite frequent inter-marrying.) His student years were the first he ever spent in Holland, Then back to Indonesia as a Civil, Servant. In the early "thirties he joins a group of Radical young politicians and publicists who publish a bi-weekly paper, De Stuw; soon after he is elected as an Independent for the "Volksraad," the Advisory Parliament’ of the Dutch East Indies. His radius of action widens rapidly during the following years; he visits America, Japan, Europe, the Philippines; but Java remains the constant centre of his life; and in 1940 he holds for the first time the fate of that country in his hands; he is appointed chairman of the Netherlands Delegation for economic negotiations with Japan, * * * T is September, 1940. Far away the Battle of Britain is raging. Holland has disappeared behind the horizon; the Indies are left like a body* without its head. Nearer home, Japan is just con- cluding the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy, pocketing French-Indo-China, feeling her way towards Siam and Malaya, Britain has been forced to close the Burma road to supplies for China, The Japanese delegation speaks politely of "The obvious need for closer economic co-operation between Japan and the Dutch East Indies."" Everybody knows that this is an economic prelude to conquest. Van Mook-still a littleknown official-is the man chosen ‘to check the Japanese. It is then that his extraordinary quali-ties-his will-power, his firmness of purpose, the peasant-cunning he can bring into play when necessary; above all, his tremendous tenacity and staying-power in negotiation — reveal themselves for the first time on a big scene, Van Mook holds no bargaining assets at all; he faces an overwhelming claimant almost defenceless, with no hope of outside support. But the negotiations last a year; and in the end leave the Japanese empty-handed. | The sequel for van Mook is eminence. He is made Minister of Colonies; and soon after the outbreak of the Far Eastern war he is, in addition, given his post as Lieutenant-Governor-General of the East Indies. He stands in that post to the very last minute; until finally he escapes from falling Java to Australia. This was in March, 1942, In September, 1945, he returned to Java-to face the supreme crisis of his career and his life. Van Mook is a big, robust man, with a dominating presence-but with a

twinkle in the kindly blue eyes behind his glasses; a heavy worker; a formidable negotiator; a man who never admits defeat; who clings to his points with grim tenacity; but who knows, at the right moment, to relax the tension with an unexpected joke and a deep, rolling laughter. He is a man of many friends (401 many Indonesian friends); and he is adored by his subordinates and collaborators (though they admit that he drives them hard). One of them, asked what he regarded as van Mook’s outstanding characteristics, replied after a moment's thought, in three words, "Sincerity, Simplicity, Humanity," of * * ‘ AN MOOK is not what is called a colourful personality. But he is a big man. He has impressed himself on world consciousness even though he has left the gossips starved of stories. . What stories can be told about a man who works all day, whose career has fever seen a setback, whose name has never been associated with intrigue or scandal, who is a good family man, and who spends his rare holidays in a lonely bungalow in a mountainous forest, without radio, or telephone? Only perhaps, some day, the one big story of a man who, in an hour of supreme danger, saved and remade a great Commonwealth.