chapter 5:
THE MOLUCCAS, VICTIM OF THE DUTCH POLICY OF DEPORTATION
(a) Monopoly and Hongi.
Usually a nation is free to trade with whatever other nation she chooses, 1Sut the Dutch wanted to dominate the spice trade in order that just they alone could establish the prices and this way force up the profits on the markets in Asia and Europe as high as possible.
The population of the Banda Islands cursed this monopoly system and kept on trading with the English and the Spanish. In February 1621 the Dutch navy (16 Dutch and 36 Javanese ships) transported thousand soldiers from Java. Governor J.P. Coen demanded, that the Dutch were allowed to build stone forts on the Banda Islands, but the Banda people refused. Hereupon the Dutch used means of violence: the population of the Banda Islands was almost rooted out, despite of their bitter resistance. Finally they were crushed on the very soil they loved. That day, the 1th of March, 1621, blood, sweat and tears soaked the Barth of Maluku in the region of the Banda Islands. Just a few souls managed to escape and flew to the Key Islands and to Ceram; those who were captured were killed or deported to Java as slaves. Fortyfour village chiefs were decapitated.
From Siau, Solor and Buton (islands southeast of Celebes) people were violently deported to the Banda Islands, which had in the meantime been depopulated by the iron hand of J.P. Coen. On the ruins of the gala trees these deported people on the 1th of March of each year commemorated the victory of the V.O.C., which actually right back into the seventeenth century knew how to violently deprive their fellow men in Maluku of their right to exist.
Because the Dutch didn't succeed in restraining our forefathers in their trade with other foreign nations they once more resorted to thause of violence: the notorious hongi was introduced. With this policy the Dutch aimed at concentrating the culture of Tjengkeh on Ambon and Lease and of Pala and mace on Banda.
Outside these areas, especially on the extensive fertile soil on Ceram and, Halmaheira, the spice culture had to be exti,rpated all over.
In 1625 the population of Leitimor (Ambon) and the Lease Islands was mobilized for the hongi. Three thousand men were summoned to man forty kora kora's. They were obliged to assist the execution of the extirpation of the Tjengke and Palatrees on Ceram. The first victim of the extirpation was the population of Huamual (West Ceram). A very bloody war was waged between the propriators of these trees and those Moluccans, who were tied to the V.O.C. tractate. Like in the Huamual war our ancestors until the present days have been subjected to the game of adu domba (divide and rule). One half of them kept on struggling for their Right and Independence, whilst the other half was taken advantage of by foreigners (the Dutch) to destroy these aspirations.
The extirpation measures were also executed on Kelang, Manipa, Buru and Ambalu. Every resistance was quelled with death penalty. At first the leaders were condemned to lifelong exile abroad (on Java), later on the people were deported to other islands. This way the potential of the Moluccan nation was weakened. The political existence of our nation had been destroyed and socially and economically we had been paralyzed. In the new concentration areas on Ambon and the Lease Islands problems arose about the Adat grounds. The society structure was disrupted and the former leaders were replaced by new men, who had been appointed by the V.O.C to spy on the people.
In these chaotic conditions it was very difficult to mobilize the powers of the people against the suppression. The deportation was a very effective measure in the divide and rule policy, which brought victory to the Dutch.
The resistance on Ceram continued; in 1657 several progressive princely families from Waisamu, Hatusua, Rumahtita and so on (282 persons in total) were banished to Java. in December 1670 from Java arrived the order to press on Ceram even more forcebly by the means of hongi. In 1681 from Ambon and Lease manpower of fifteen hundred men had been summoned to crush the resistance. A complete army of another fourteen hundred men was ordered to in the meantime cut , down the remaining Sagu , Tjengke and Palatrees.
In the year 1696 the population of Ambon Lease herself had been threatened by hongi. An order was given to destroy all young Tjengke trees, and the remaining too, for which the people already were fighting among themselves. j
Our nation has experienced the struggle against monopoly as a very bloody history that has lasted for more than hundred years. This is the cause, that our nation has grown so much weakened, poor and wretched.
(b) Moluccan National Consciousness.
The religious wars during the Portuguese domination (1513 1605) couldn't destroy the awareness of blood relationship between the Islamite's and the Christians in the Moluccas, because the Adat (customary law) en de Pela league already mentioned, demand a lasting peace (1).
The monopoly and the hongi had since 1605 for more than a century impaired the economic potential of Maluku and smothered the political consciousness of the people, yet our national consciousness succeeded in recovering. The result of this however was, that the revolution in May 1817 on the Lease Islands (known as the Patty Mura revolt) made it clear to the Dutch that the Moluccan Nationalism must be destroyed with more discretion.
(c) The policy of deportation.
We have always lived on the yields of nature only. When the robbing of our natural riches was commenced, it was also attempted in many ways, to induce our ancestors to leave their native land. They would be obliged to go to the industrial centers at the time, which were established or were being established far off the native country.
Our very extensive, rich and fertile grounds such as in Halmaheira, Buru, Aru, Tanimbar, Kay and Ceram were constantly and scrupulously avoided when new industries were to be established. Also, the establishing of higher forms of education was deliberately neglected. Our sea riches were harvested primitively by our people, as is common from prehistoric times, while the Dutch and the other foreign nations could easily rob these richesses by means of modern equipment yielding a profit of more than 60 million guilders a year (2).
In order to lure our "youth" away from the villages in the native country, alluring facilities were created, which had a purpose of inducing them to serve in civil service or army abroad, while in the villages the people were suppressed and forced to work in servitude and were furthermore imposed to pay much too high taxes to the Dutch colonial government.
Yet the facility arrangement didn't wholly meet the political ends of the colonial powers (1840). On that account it was decided in 1846 to level the pay and premium of the Moluccan soldiers to teat of the Dutch soldiers. Besides these so called "pass ported", those who received a passport, indicating that they were exempt of labourservice and of paying taxes to the colonial government, obtained civil rights (3).
Due to many factors, particularly in the 19th century, the standard of living in the Moluccas declined. Coffee, sugar and metals from Java and Sumatra sent down the value of spices on the market. Economic activity in the Moluccas declined.
All this finally contributed to the fact that our people got entangled in the political nets, which were set out by the Dutch at the time; their purpose, the exodus, could be started. Every year hundreds of young men left their native land; there were those who continued their study outside the Moluccas, and there were those who enlisted the K.N.I.L. (Royal Netherlands Indies Army) ot rejoined the civil service.
The policy of the Dutch colonizer began to yield fruits.
(d) Divide et Impera.
As part of the colonial policy the Dutch colonizer began to call the Moluccas the "Amboinese people", to be understood in the sense of being a superior people. This policy caused many of us to adopt a conceived attitude, while by the others they were labeled colonial hounds.
In order to blow up the affinity between Christians and Islamite's, more facilities were given to Christians who were in the military and civil service, rather than to the Islamite's, so that the Jatter (who had been friends with the Dutch from the beginning) became estranged. This policy of favoritism and discrimination of the Christians and the Islamite's respectively, resulted in the watering down of the unity and solidarity between us; sharp contrasts arose.
Since 1946 until now this situation was exploited by the neo colonial R.I.-regime in order to aggravate the contrasts so that they might be able to dominate our whole existence.
(e) A too colonial education.
During the whole process of colonization in Southeast Asia and West Melanesia, the Dutch have worked deliberately to achieve three goals, in particular:
- Moluccans who served in the array were trained to act like human robots, only ready to carry out orders. Apart from this nothing was allowed; all initiative was smothered.
- As concerns the category of civil servants, their "education" was focused on bringing up intellectuals who would feel superior to their own country and their people. In this manner only the Dutch civil service and industry could profit from our national power and capacity, while our own people was deprived of the capacities of her sons.
- Concerning religion, the clergy was employed to dominate the people, in order that the expansion of the Dutch Empire might be facilitated; all this being done under the mask of "spreading the Gospel in this World".
(f) Abuse of religion.
We are well aware that it would please God if "oriental idealism" and "occidental realism" would meet; particularly in the area of religion. It is clear, however, that we haven't come to that yet, because these two cultures have not met in an alliance before the altar of Righteousness and Humanity. For the "spirits of freedom" in the Lords Gospel is still abused to increase the power of man.
God's Word was abused to weaken the self respect of our people, so that the injustice and suppression might be continued. The wars and insurrections against the Dutch suppression, which arose in the interior of Ceram, were put to an end this way; particularly the Ahiolo war, the Rumah'Soal war, the Losawar, the Sahulau war and many others. All these wars were put an end to through the intermediary of these Colonial and Clerical officials. It was not until 1930 that the Netherlands raised the State of War and Siege with regard to Ceram.
The using of the clergy, as a means of destroying revolutionary thoughts, still forms a part of the policy of the Netherlands and Indonesian governments to extinguish the fire of our struggles for Liberty, in our country as well as in the Netherlands.
There is evidence for the following data:
- Indonesia did not succeed in breaking the struggle of the moluccan people of Ceram and Haruku by force of arms until 1960; the reason they succeeded later on is that between 1960 and 1967 the leaders of the G.P.M. (Moluccan Protestant Church), amongst others Reverend Th. Pattiasina, the chairman of the Synod, were used. The result was that in 1967 the people of the Moluccas fell into the hands of the Indonesian tyranny (see chapter 9).
- In order to destroy the fighting spirit of the Moluccan people in the Netherlands, Reverend S. Metiary was used as a weapon by both the Netherlands and the R.I. The result of this was, that the "National Flag" of the Moluccas, which already flew on the enemy's, territory (R.I. ambassadorial residence in Wassenaar), had to be hauled down (8/31/1970). The "freedom fighters" were meanwhile transferred to several prisons with the most ease.
(g) Destructive influence.
The policy which is revealed above (point f), caused a feeling of apathy to 90% of the Christian Moluccans. The people didn't know how to regain her patriotic feelings. Everybody began to think that prosperity and personal happiness in this world could only be obtained by recoursing to Dutch public services and industry, which were situated outside the Moluccas.
This mentality found its climax in the colonial phrase "Ambon, Loyal Through. the Ages", the spirit of the people had become identical indeed with the cynical meaning given to the word "Ambon", Malay spelling: A(ku) M(emikul) B(eban) O(rang) N(ederland), meaning: "I bear the burdens of the Dutch".
Only a small percentage of all"t:apable men had been of benefit to our people. Moreover, their colonial education had been such, that they lost any feeling of responsibility with regard to their own country.
Mr. Holleman, an expert at the time of the Moluccan customary law, had sharply critized the Policy of Deportation, because this Policy had a disastrous and ruinous influence in our existence; an influence, which would make itself felt in the generations to come... (4). Not any change was made however, because it had always been the purpose of the Dutch colonizers to totally destroy "the essence of the independence and sovereignty" of our people, the Bangsa Maluku.
In exercising this influence the Dutch colonizers often made use of the services of Moluccan intellectuals (see illustration 7).
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