12 March 2010 | 16.00 | ISCAP
ABSTRACT
Indonesia has been called the “most improbable country in Southeast Asia”, due to its curious insular geography but in particular to the cultural and linguistic diversity of its population. The living together of this huge and heterogeneous population, spread over an enormous area, as citizens of one state is an effect of their common colonial history. The present Indonesia is the area which was, as the Netherlands East Indies, under formal Dutch rule in 1942, the year when the Japanese occupation began, followed in 1945 by Indonesia’s declaration of independence from the Dutch.
The Dutch colonial influence had for the various regions hugely diverging degrees of duration and of intensity. A very small number had known colonial rule for over a century, accompanied by Christian missionary activity and the introduction of a school system.
One of these regions was Minahasa, on the northern tip of the island of Sulawesi, formerly known as Celebes. The Dutch introduced there in the 19th century the forced cultivation of coffee and other commercial products, enforced by a strict and intricate administrative regime, which rested on the collaboration of the indigenous chiefs. The missions met with huge success, so that at the end of the 19th century almost all inhabitants were Protestant or Catholic. School attendance among boys and girls was high, and Minahasa was at the end of the colonial period the region in the Netherlands East Indies with the highest degree of alphabetization. The familiarity of many Minahasans with the Dutch language, the neat lay-out of the villages according to instructions by the Dutch, the use of western garments – it all conveyed the idea of a piece in Holland in a tropical climate and a mountainous landscape. Quite a lot of Minahasans served in the colonial apparatus, as soldiers or low-level functionaries, all over the archipelago.
This region was often presented by the Dutch, in the Indies or in Europe, as a proof of the efficiency and fairness of its so-called civilizing mission and the attachment of the population to the Dutch. Research has demonstrated that also a great deal of pragmatism among the population was involved, and, moreover, that the acceptance of western habits did by no means imply the disappearance of their previous cultural patterns. A proper examination of Dutch colonial policy and practice will show that it was by no means as favourable and well-intended as a quick glance at colonial Minahasa might suggest.