Dutch-Indonesian Community

Just to let everyone know< i am working on creating a podcast site for this group. the site is not finished yet but i hope to have it up and running soon . it is just an experiment right at the moment so  depending on the feed back that I get we will see how it goes. I plan on posting links to the pod casts here as well as on facebook.

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.

Hi there, I just would like to inform this site will be down tomorrow, because my host is currently upgrading its server capacity. I’m currently backing up the data in this blog and the forum, so don’t worry, hopefully everything will return to normal in two days. Any update in the next two days would probably be deleted.

Hi everyone, it’s nice we have activity to be shared. I just want to inform everyone that I’m in process of asking Civil Registry Officers of Jakarta and Tegal, the city where my Oma’s father lived and the city where he was born. There is low possibility we could find informations, because Indonesian government is not the best when it’s about managing birth registries data.

Even in modern news, it’s not unusual to find many people was born without identity card, let alone the pre-1949 birth certificates and registrations.

I’m quite lucky that my opa (my oma’s husband) kept some certificates in the family archive, so I got little lead of my ancestors, but it’s most likely not happened to other people. Many losing their ancestors’ certificates and wishing to find lead of their ancestors’ origin.

Incase you haven’t got any certificates in your family archive, try to ask your other relatives, there is chance they might keep the certificates and mixed in their own certificates. We should ask anyone who could help right?

I will keep you informed about this once I got answer from the related department.

For many people in the INDO community it is thought that we have no traditions of our own and that we have no claim, at the very least, to say that we are different than the full blooded Dutch and Indonesians. They also say that we do not have a distinct culture, heritage or history. For me this whole line of thinking creates a bit of a paradox. Let me explain my point further.

During the Bersiap period the Eurasian class of people were seen as a threat by ultra national Indonesians. During the second world war, the Japanese occupation forces saw the Eurasian as a threat and different class of citizen. All though I’m sure that much of the persecution was intended to bolster the anti colonial sentiment that was growing in Indonesia at the time. As the war ended the Bersiap butchery began. The basis for this slaughter was skin colour, historical back ground, and genetic make up, all things that make up a unique group. Had there not been a mass exodus of INDO’s to all parts of the world, I think that more of our fathers and mothers would have been put to death in the name of an independent Indonesia. When they arrived in Holland, again many were put in camps. During there time in those camps many of the INDO’s suffered hardship there as well. During this time the KNIL was also disbanded, so those soldiers that had served the Dutch Crown were now also unemployed. Once again our elders were made into an identifiable group.

I guess my confusion is this, if we are recognized by outside entities as a specific and identifiable group, why then do many INDO’s not recognize it themselves?

Now I am a Canadian Citizen, and I have held that honour since I was eight years old. As a soldier, I have raised arms to defend Canada, and suffered injury in her service. However, I am still required to provide a list of documents that prove my right to live here, just to get a drivers licence.  In this land of ice and snow, I am not white enough to be considered white but still dark enough to be asked where I come from or what my back ground is. I have come to realize that I will never be completely in the “Canadian club”. The reason for that is that I just don’t fit. The only other INDO’s I know, are my two sisters.

I think that part of this INDO identity issue has its roots in learned behaviour. Over the last generation or two, starting with Dutch Colonial rule, Japanese Occupation, The Bersiap Period and assimilation into different cultures, has made the concept of “eyes open and mouth shut” the rules instead of the exception.

The time for silence is over.We must recognize ourselves as a unique group brought into existence by the clash of two cultures. I am not hinting at a return to Colonial rule, or suggesting an INDO homeland or anything as drastic as that. What I would like to see is recognition of the fact that we are an unique culture with our own history.

To me personally  to have less than that would be an injustice to those thousands that were slain, an injustice to parents and an injustice to our children.

The very Silence of the Indonesian government on the issue of the Bersiap Period, gives weight to the fact that we are still in the hearts and minds of those that rule. Even to this day there are many Indonesians that say what was done then was in retaliation for atrocities that were committed over 350 years of Dutch colonial rule.  This idea is ridiculous, its like saying that we hold Adolf Hitler’s descendants responsible for starting World War two.  The reality is that our fathers, mothers, aunts , uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews were murdered  because they dared to love someone not of their race, and because of their mixed blood.

In modern times the Bersiap period would be called something a little different. The term now is, ethnic cleansing or genocide. I am not suggesting that horrible acts were only confined to one side of the conflict. I am simply saying that butchery of that nature never justifies the end result no matter how noble the cause. But there is one thing that I would like to point out. The ultra nationalists that eventually took power saw the INDO as clear and present danger to its fledgling independence movement. In there minds the INDO had a significant part to play in the coming conflict. Again a clear indicator of an identifiable group.

If my statements offend I apologize they are not intended to do so. I am simply on  long overdue road of discovery. I do not wish to point fingers or assign blame I simply wish to understand were I fit,and in order to do that I  need to understand the history of were it is that I came from. If my statements are incorrect, please correct me. I understand that it may be difficult to think about, all those hard times that came before. But it is my right to know the truth.

This is my first post to this blog. The first of many I hope. i wish to thank the creators of this space for giving me the opportunity to be a contributor to this forum. My hope is that we can make it productive and useful tool. There are many of us INDO’s out there in this great big world, and maybe this little space on the net will make it a little bit smaller.

Eurasian has been subject of study in many field, including sociology, anthropology and history. I’m amazed how hard these days to find eurasian-related academic literatures. In Indonesia history books, Eurasian is associated solely as Dutch. If you ask average Indonesians about eurasian, they will probably call you “Kompeni”, a allusion to East Indies Company. The myth of eurasian being pure dutch is still going strong in Indonesia. Government doesn’t really bother to teach the 3rd generations Eurasian in Indonesia of their history.

It is sad  because many of my 3rd generations friends actually very interested to know their own history, but they just don’t know where to ask. It’s very lucky for us that we have internet and could meet our own kin and sharing our experience.

Eurasian literature is virtually non-existing in any Indonesia language. People simply forget the eurasian and indische did exist. The 3rd and 4th generations would probably as well to forget their identity in future, calling them “irrelevant” to the social context.

The study of eurasian in Indonesia, fortunately, still conducted by insitutes outside Indonesia. I just found out that Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies has a very neat library containing ton of journals related to Indonesia-related study, and few among them are about eurasians. I also compiled relevant online articles in this page. Some literatures are not easy read because they are based on academical. But they are too good to be missed.

Please visit KITLV homepage for more information:

In the bottom of this post, I attached an article titled “Japanese Minority Policy; The Eurasians on Java and the dilemma of ethnic loyalty” , written by  E. Touwen-Bouwsma.

This is another good resource to learn how our ancestors lived during japanese occupation, which as we know, one of the most terrible period in Dutch East Indies.

Eurasian and Indonesia had their worst time during japanese occupation. Many of our grandparents might have told you about how monstrous japanese was. They were crazed sex animals, enforcing the eurasian/dutch/indonesian women into their sex slaves. Socially, Eurasians and Dutch were in lower position compared to the asian people. People who couldn’t prove their asian heritage were subject of high tax. The identity of asian they rejected during dutch period was gladly accepted by the eurasians, but even so, it didn’t help to make their life better. Japanese still treated the eurasians as inferior class.

Japanese also systematically ensure the eurasians separated themselves from dutch, by keep reminding the eurasians that they were in fact, never treated equally by dutch and always subject of ridicule.  There was different treatment to Prisoner of War (P.O.W) between dutch and eurasian. Japanese gave impression that eurasians would be treated equally due to their asian heritage. The tension between eurasians and dutch grew, but eventually the policy was proven to be false. There was no distinction between eurasian and dutch, many were taken into forced labor in equal, harsh treatment.

Japanese had policy to abolish any western root in Indonesia. The usage of dutch language was forbidden. Japanese and Indonesia were the national language. Japanese placed in the highest hierarchy, the oriental people was the second, eurasian the third, and dutch at the bottom. In many aspect, the eurasians treated as badly as dutch had. They must prove their asian heritage. These who had less 50% of asian heritage were subject of heavy tax, resulting many eurasians and dutch living in worst conditions compared to previous decades.

Later, in 1943 Japanese starting to treat Eurasians equally as Indonesian in their greater East Asia Community, and they had to give up their european ancestry. It was made to abolish arrogance of racial superiority implanted by dutch toward the eurasian community. The eurasians were demanded to become asian instead of eurasian, let alone european. Many eurasians didn’t welcome this idea, for they still considered indonesians were inferior, but there were also eurasians who preferred to give up their eurasian identity to have better living.

As Indonesia gained its independence, the ultra nationalists announced “Bersiap” period in the last quarter in 1945. Commencing to repel any attempt of colonial masters to reclaim Indonesia, and they swore to defend their motherland from Allied. The eurasian civilians were murdered and killed, causing many to fear living in Indonesia due racial tension. Later, many migrated to America and Netherlands, expelled from their motherland.

This post is merely an excrept of fascinating 21-pages article . Download link is below:
Japanese Minority Policy; The Eurasians on Java and the dilemma of ethnic loyalty (E. Touwen-Bouwsma)

Is appearance only the most important matter of being eurasian? Does it necessary to have “exotic” look to call yourself eurasian? Eurasian has stereotype as people who have amazingly beautiful look, until the point one might say “you are ugly, how can you call yourself eurasian?”.

There is one good article here from time, about the eurasian invasion in the entertainment industry. There is never enough market for eurasian models, because they are balance: not too western, not too asian. Mixed look makes them a good eyecandy.

One of my concern is that such mindset actually might objectification of being eurasian. I know some people who are eurasians that are too asian or too western that feel inferior to half mixed eurasian who have these “exotic look”. I found this matter is pretty distrubing. How should the newer generations of eurasians cope with the issue, especially for these who don’t have the vibe being “exotic”?

Does physical appearance necessary to make someone conform their eurasian identity?

full article is below: