CRISIS IN INDONESIA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 424, 8 August 1947, Page 6

CRISIS IN INDONESIA

(1) From Feudalism to Fraternisation

N°? many of us were prepared for the sudden outbreak of hostilities in Indonesia, and not many of us understand yet why it happened. But "Listener" readers will see the picture more clearly when they have read a series of articles, of which this is the first, specially written for them by a Dutch journal-

ist,

ERIK

SCHWIMMER

who spent six months in Indonesia in 1 946, and is now living in Wellington.

Mr. Schwimmer, who was born in Amsterdam, speaks enough Malay to be able to communicate with those Indonesians who can’t speak Dutch or English. But all educated Indonesians, he says, speak Dutch, and a large number of them Enfglish as well. It was therefore easy for him to find out what was in their minds last year.

N the first month of 1946 the word that dominated conver- ~~ sation in Batavia was "fraternization." It was not that everybody was in favour of it; the word was often uttered with derision, both by Dutchmen and Indonesians, but there was a strong feeling that if the old exclusiveness was abandoned and Dutch and Indonesians could meet on terms of equality, mutual distrust might vanish. Accordingly, many parties were arranged at which Europeans met Republican civil servants and journalists. At these afternoons’ the Indonesians were the incarnation of charm and friendliness. The Dutch too exerted themselves generously, some speaking Dutch, some excellent Malay. The British, at that time still a prominent feature of life in Batavia, also used to attend in numbers. . We discussed the progress of negotiations, told the Indonesians what we knew about the outside world, and in exchange received news about life in the Republic, whose territory at that time comprised most of Java and Sumatra and began a little south of Batavia. This was before any Europeans were permitted there. ~ It was a peculiar time. Batavia had three Governments, of which the supreme one was that set up. by British East-Asia command. Subordinated to this, and each»acting in their own, although intersecting, spheres, were the Dutch East Indies Government, mainly housed around the Koningsplein, then overgrown waste-land, but before the war a large beautiful lawn of one square kilometre in the centre of the city. And there was the Republican Government, scattered in Batavia and outskirts. How closely linked these Governments were is seen by the fact that the Post Office was a Dutch Department, but the Telephone was Indonesian. — -- Then in April, 1946, Dutch forces landed in Bali and occupied this island of art and beauty without much fighting. The self-government which the Balinese had enjoyed before the war was restored. Soon after, on one of the fraternization functions, a fine group of .Balinese dancers, specially flown to Batavia by Army transport, performed their traditional magical dances before a mixed British, Dutch and Indonesian audience. It was an artistic event for many Europeans who had never seen this very old art before, the passionate artistry of the Balinese contrasting remarkably with the decorous calm and control of dancers in Java. Our Indonesian friends, however, were not as pleased as we were. "This is how you Europeans love us best," said one acquaintance. "You like to see us as . artists, thinking of nothing materialistic, not conscious of politics ,or economics,

still as part of our old, feudal, religious culture. Hence your fondness for Bali. There people still live in a world of artistry, tilling the land without many needs. You send these artists around the world, just to show how conténted and uninterested in modern life we are. But that has ceased to be true of Java; the feudal world has definitely been destroyed there." Not One Race But Many Here my acquaintance mentioned what is really the most important fact about Indonesia to-day. Indonesia’s 70 million inhabitants consist of various races, in the most different stages of development. Some of these races are extremely primitive, others are in a middle stage of cultural development. When the Dutch came to Indonesia there were, however, two islands especially, Java (45 millions) and Sumatra (7 millions), where cultures had developed with advanced agricultural methods, a mode of life somewhat similar to medieval Europe and England and forms of art unequalled in the world in certain respects. The most numergus of these cultured peoples are the Javanese (35 millions), who live in the centre and East of the island Java, and the Sundanese (10 millions) in West Java. Although certain similarities ‘exist and all these peoples stand at the end ofa period we may call feudal’ and at the beginning of one we may call modern, it is yet impossible to describe the development of all Indonesians in general. In this short article I can do no more than select one people, the Javanese,

as an example of the type of development we see throughout Java and Sumatra. The Feudal Period The feudal period began in Java when Indians settled along the coast more than 1,000 years ago. The Indians brought Hinduism and Buddhism; they became a leading class, and had the same relations to the native inhabitants as the Normans to the English after the invasion. They introduced also the mythology of the five sons of Pandu and superimposed upon the separate village traditions for the first time a common belief on which art throughout Java is partly founded (in the same way as ours is founded on classical antiquity). In the.16th Century Java and Sumatra became Mohammedan, but this made little change in the structure of the society. The sons of Pandu became the subject of hero-worship, their stories were continually re-enacted in the shadow-puppet shows, the villagers each having their favourite hero, whose characteristics they tried to imitate. The same puppets are caved in wood on household utensils, moulded in metal on the hilts of sword and daggers, in silver on the famous ornaments made in Jogjacarta. The feudal lords continued to receive their tributes. Even when the Dutch occupied Java in the 18th: Century, they left the Sultans of Jogjacarta and Solo in power, and their places are the centre of this medieval culture. Jogjacarta and Solo, the main cities of the present Republic, in spite of their enormous size (both over one million inhabitants) are still prototypes of medieval towns.

The country population consists of very small farmers, each: with his own ricefield and with a very tight village organisation. The peculiar conditions of rice culture on wet fields make it necessary that sore of the fields, those on the higher. terraces, are cultivated before the water is allowed to run to the lower ones. The whole of the village community, therefore, works successively on the individual. fields of the members. In industry such as the village knows it the communal principle also prevails. In recent Indonesian attempts at establishing a greater textile industry the village has again been made the organisational unit. * % * HIS feudal way of life in Java wasy% slowly dee&ying before the late war. , The small craftsman had to compete 4 with the factory; sugar, rubber, and other ~ products were grown in plantations; the arts either decayed or were commercialised, or, like the stage, gradually lost their original character and took on modern forms. Villagers began to find the night-long performances of the shadow theatre tedious; the tempo of life’ ix creased and they could no longer affogd to sit up till dawn watching the puppets. Live actors and ordinary evening performances, typical of a more modern civilisation, have taken their’ place. Education for the Job Dutch education had the limited aim of giving the knowledge necessary for the jobs then open to Indonesians. It did not desire to upset the feudal way of life with its unconcern for economic and political problems, but rather concentrated on perpetuating the old arts and crafts and preserving the old civilisa-tion-an attitude in which the Mohammedan leaders supported them. Thus when the war started the Indonesian people: as a whole did not understand the meaning of that struggle, a difficulty which prevailed throughout the Far East and was to have grave consequences. , Japanese Ended Feudalism The Japanese occupation gave Javanese feudalism a blow from which it will ‘never recover. For the first time political propaganda, although of a_ pernicious kind, penetrated every village. In youth clubs the supremacy of Eastern inspira-. tion or frenzy (semangat) over Western reason was taught. The Nationalist movement, already strong in Java, was given power to spread its ideals. The Japanese themselves promised Indonesia independence. Additionally, to a people that knew their white masters only as legislators, as helpers in medical and in other emergencies, and-not least important-as the unseen, but all-powerful leaders of the security police, the faults of Dutch administration were taught for the first time. Nothing could be more effective at a time when independent political thinking among a people is just starting. At the same time the Japanese struck the feudal order at an even more vital" spot. Millions of Indonesians were en ol from their home villages, their tight cet munities with their sacred soil. These peasants were transferred, some to other islands, some to other districts, many to the cities and used by the Japanese as slave labour. Upon the Japanese collapse millions formed a city proletariat, previously unknown, in Batavia, Surabaya and other towns. A considerable (continued on next page) S

(continued from previous page) number of villages trebled their population, others were devastated. The Jap.nese as labour-bosses did not respect the old tabus, as the Dutch had done, but they rather went out of their way to violate them. Their purpose was the destruction of feudalism not from *.., "any intention to transform Indonesia into a free modern state, but from their wellknown imperialist policy of creating an Asiatic new order, the Co-prosperity Sphere. The Japanese have gone, but their work will not be destroyed. The Dutch will never reinstate the old stability, but will have to deal, whatever mutual relations may eventuate, with an

Indonesian state rapidly developing towards modern liberal democracy. * * "] HESE ideas were in the mind of my Indonesian friend when he watched the old traditional art shown at that fraternization meeting. To him Washington, Marx, and Einstein were more important names than Arjuna. He does not lose his basis in old Javanese philosophy, but is a conscious helper in the building of a new community whose exact shape is not yet known and has not yet been anticipated. One fact about it however is certain: this community will never be in the future without its foundation in Western science and Western. politics. (To be continued)