Dutch-Indonesian Community

Hi, an update from Dutch-Indonesian group regarding The Indo Project:

High-Resolution Photos Wanted for Web Site: The Indo Project web site is being developed. We will have a fading in/out photo slideshow, but the quality of the photos need to be at least 250 dpi high-res. If you’d like to submit a photo please send to biancacc@yahoo.com. The slideshow will feature Indos and Indo-related subjects and can be changed and varied

If you have photos of your families (grandfather, etc) during Dutch East Indies, you could contribute in this project by allowing the team to use your photos.

Hi everyone, just recently Mike was interviewed by Jakarta Post regarding the The Indo Project. This post is an archive of the article as usual, you could read the news here.

Just recently bought this book from Periplus for $6. This is story about a rich dutchman of French heritage, lived in Jatinegara in late 19th century. This is not book about eurasian, but it’s still useful to see the social life among dutch, eurasian, and indonesians in the dutch east indies. The author, Edward du Perron was born in Dutch East Indies. He was probaby best classified as Creoles, the european people who was born in Dutch East Indies.

Charles Edgar du perron was born in Java 1899, his parents, the only son of french-dutch descent. Even though he was Dutch, the author is remoted from friends at his age, so his friends were only the native children.

Part of this book describing his life in Dutch east Indies as boy, and the others living in Europe as man. It’s like visiting the past and its people, looked through glass of dutch, like how the young boy was very close with his guardian angel Alima (an indigenous), and how he was taught by mistress/teachers of eurasian and dutch background.

For these who are looking for dutch east indies literature, I recommend you to pick this one, though I must admit I’m too lazy to read anything not related of his life in dutch east indies. I skipped the first chapters or anything about his life in Europe, because I only see this book as reference about life and social reality in the Dutch East Indies.

There has been a pretty serious discussion over “Bersiap” in the Dutch-Indonesian facebook group. As average Indonesians who were taught in Indonesian schools and reading Indonesian history books, I was very surprised when hearing about “Bersiap”. Many 1st generations of Dutch-Indonesians probably traumatized by this event, but until today, no single book in Indonesian history books mentioned about this tragedy.

This is another fact that is hidden from public’s consciousness. Apparently Dutch Indonesians history has been effectively removed from the timeline of Indonesian history. We are thought of being non-existant.

For these who unaware of Bersiap, this is google translation of dutch Wikipedia which still does not exist in english or Indonesian wikipedia:

The Bersiap period was a violent period in Indonesian history that lasted from about October 1945 until early 1946. After the capitulation of Japan on August 14, 1945 created a power vacuum in the former Dutch East Indies.

Political activists seized the opportunity to colonial ties with the Netherlands on August 17, 1945 and break the independence of Indonesia was proclaimed by Sukarno and Hatta. In fact, Sukarno was kidnapped by activists (most students) and in his home on East Pegangsaan successfully put under pressure to the Republic of Indonesia to declare. Preparations for the proclamation of the R.I. had obviously started much earlier. Almost all political parties in Dutch East Indies (the PNI and the PKI, the Parindra etc.) did not wish the return of Dutch rule.

With political pressure had Sukarno, Hatta and others where the Japanese force that had an Indonesian army was formed (the Peta = Pembela Tanah Air) but that no firearms had been trained by Japanese instructors.

There was also, more or less organized into a model communist cell structure, a nation force launched the so called “groups Banteng (Banteng one is a buffalo). The armament was sober, she was a machete (a daily tool, each ethnic group varied in shape and size, in virtually the entire archipelago) and the bamboo-runcing (runcing = spear) in a one point cut bamboo pole of about 2 meter long. The argument to the Japanese occupation to the creation of these military and paramilitary groups were: the Japanese troops to support a possible Allied invasion. It is obvious that these paramilitary militias very much violent, predatory elements were.

When the Netherlands have tried to restore authority over the archipelago came to a number of places to violence, in particular among Indo-Europeans and Chinese probably thousands of deaths. In large parts of Sumatra, the indigenous people’s heads off in a very violent manner. The latter is the historical significance of the Bersiap period.

Settlers of pure Dutch descent (totok) were still in Japanese internment camps (Japanese camp), the Japanese designated as protected areas, making them among relatively few casualties. In contrast, for many the liberation almost one years later only took place when they were “exchanged” or liberated by British-Indian troops (especially the Ghurka’s). Presumably, most victims (hundreds) of cases in Surabaya, just before the outright war between the British army and the brand new republic broke.

The organization of the “forces” showed little consistency. The communication between all groups / cells was extremely low: the fixed telephone network was neglected and there were no mobile phones. Effective communication in the city were the lampposts. It then hit with a piece of iron on the lampposts in the cries of the “battle cry”. Great Awakening was the battle cry of the very many nationalist Indonesian youth (Pamoeda’s) in the Indonesian revolution. The two meanings are “Be prepared!” and “shun”. Literally it means: “Get ready” (Bersiap). This course was very effective for the muster of large masses, she was also very / too broad and unfocused content.

The killings were facilitated by the fierce propaganda radio broadcasts from the station “Radio Pemberontak” which openly called for “elimination of all programs Belanda (Dutch) and all Anjing’s Belanda (the dogs of the Dutch), that the Eurasians were intended. The Indonesian Minister Shahrir called for an end to the violence.
In 2005 the Dutch government was still the date August 17, 1945 recognized as the official beginning of the independence of Indonesia.

Ironic, isn’t it? There is yet study to measure and estimate the victims that died during atrocity. Inez Hollander’s book, Silenced Voice is probably a good reference if you are looking for victim’s testimony. Many members of Dutch-Indonesian Community also voiced similar opinion, it was the worst time of Dutch-Indonesian, yet almost no people bothered to investigate this.

It’s like a Jewish who forgot their ancestors were victim of Holocaust or Chinese Indonesians who forgot the decades of discrimination from Soeharto.

If you opinion to be shared, join the discussion here.

Hi everyone, just a small update. I just recently met members of The Indo Project Team in Jakarta about two weeks ago, Mike Hillis and Marlin Darrah. We discussed a lot of things regarding the Indo Project. The project is still ongoing, the film project will be started approximately at April 2010 and the project is still looking for investor.

The site is unfortunately has not been finished. There are several problems but hopefully could be launched at January 2010.

Anyway, MetroTV interviewed Mike Hillis at 15 December 2009. You could see the video here. Please wait about 9-10 minutes after the video running.

Hi there. Just received message from Dutch-Indonesian community at facebook. We were just informed the Indo Project has started. This project is led by Bianca, an Indo from Seattle. University of Boston also supports the project.

The original news could be read here. This is post is an archive from the original news.

Rick van den Broeke just posted this at facebook community. A very interesting link of dutch family pedigree. You might find your family ancestor there.

My family, de wilde appeared in the page, but none of the names I could identify. I’m still looking if anyone have connection to Christiaan Laurens Willem de Wilde, he is my dutch great-great grandfather, and probably lived in Tegal in the late 1890s.

De Wilde itself is not dutch origin. It’s probably polish, as cited from this site:

Locality Wildau, called by the Germans Die Wilde, is a town of Poland, situated near the confluence of the rivers Wilia and Wiln, from whence its name is derived. Wild, a wilderness.

Though, strangely, Wildau is a name of federal state in Germany, as cited from Wikipedia:

Wildau, in the federal state of Brandenburg, is close to Germany’s capital city of Berlin and is easily reached by the Berlin S-Bahn. 9.500 Inhabitants (30 June 2005)

I found out that “de Wilde” is a typical name in Belgium, but rare in Netherlands. Maybe I should start seeking my Belgian root instead of Netherlands?

Social World of Batavia is a book written by Jean Taylor Gilman. This is probably one of the most complete literature of Dutch-Indonesian you could find. Written in readable language, this book contained valuable informations for any Dutch-Indonesians who are curious of their history.

Bianca just posted information about this event at Dutch-Indonesian Community, anyone interested to come?:

2–4 p.m.
Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Auditorium, 3rd Floor
This panel calls on the experience of South Africans, a Dutch family in Indonesia, an immigrant from St. Maarten, and a Dutch playwright to consider the effects of Dutch colonialism. New School Professor Sean Jacobs moderates a lively discussion with author and Berkeley professor Inez Hollander, artist and poet Deborah Jack, poet and scholar Marlon Burgess, and playwright and actress Adelheid Roosen.

Location: Brookylb Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, New York 11238-6052
Telephone: (718) 638-5000; TTY: (718) 399-8440

My oma used to call me “schatje”, I don’t know what the meaning till someone said it’s like calling you “honey”. My oma was fluent in dutch, her father was head typist of Domestic Affairs in Batavia. Because her fluency in Dutch, her family probably what you call “average” middle-economy eurasians.

Language is really important in shaping identity, and also to the Indo people. Have you been wondering why Dutch never a popular language in Dutch East Indies?

It’s because Dutch serves like latin in the mediaval europe, it’s language of highly educated people. Only these who entered dutch school could speak dutch, most of the speakers are dutch, indo, dutch-educated chinese, and Indonesian elites. This answers why only few cities are named in dutch-sounding names, and why Malay was chosen as Indonesian national language. It’s because dutch keep the language exclusively among the elites and middle class. It is not “Bahasa Pasar”.

Not all Indo people could speak dutch fluently. This happened because Indo was in fact, became target of ridicule by the Dutch colonial government. They were laughed by pure dutch because of their broken dutch, yet, nothing was done to help them fix this situation.

This made these kind of indo people alianated from their dutch heritage, and some found themselves more comfortable living with natives in the Kampoeng and eventually called “Bule Item” because they live indifferently with local natives. But even so, the inability to speak dutch made them unable to achieve higher economy living, and causing them to have resentment toward the dutch.

Dutch language in Indonesia is still spoken by very few speakers. Mostly are the elders of dutch-educated people, the indo people, and dutch-educated chinese elders. How about the later generations? Unfortunately, many do not speak dutch anymore. Language loss is common. This is consequence of anti-dutch and anti-japanese campaign after the independence.

Indonesia would have been trilingual country had the government not abolished the language curriculum in the schools (Dutch and Japanese were still taught during early period of Soeharto’s era). But again, we can’t blame them since it was period full of nationalistic sentiments. Anything related to colonial masters must be abolished. They didn’t view multilingualism as asset.

I once asked my oma why she didn’t inherit dutch language to her children, and as well as to her grandchildren. She said she wasn’t thinking that dutch language is important, after all, we all could communicate with Indonesian language, so what’s the matters? Well in my honest opinion, I think it matters because inability to speak dutch alienated me for long time, accepting that I’m an Indo. I still feel I couldn’t call myself eurasian if I don’t speak dutch. But I think it’s over now.

I accept that I don’t speak dutch, but I’m still indo. I still want to learn dutch language someday, because it’s language of my identity.

There is never too late to learn. Accepting heritage is more than language than look. There is always time to learn our ancestor’s language, and it’s not the reason an Indo rejecting their eurasian identity simply because they can’t speak dutch.