Colonial powers and UN in Indonesia - Part 2 - By Radha Rajan

[Guest guest]

Religious Demography and separatism in Indonesia - The making of East

Timor- PART 2

By Radha Rajan

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\ Dear all, part 1 described breifly how the Hindu/Buddhisst Indonesian

archipalago became Islamic sultanates. Familiar history. But Indo nesia,

closer to home, is a textbook case of the ceaseless war between islam

and the Church for territories not their own. Both religions do not

to the profound concept of 'janmabhumi' or motherland/homeland

although unlike Christianity which is now only the rootless, nationless

New Testament resting on dubious, unverifiaable history, Islam can be

associated with a certain geography. Indonesia is the perfect example

of our world today - Islam and Church destroying pre-islamic and

Pre-Christian cultures, greed for territory and natural resources,

Church and trade always working in tandem for mutually benefecial

objectives, UN as a creature of colonial regimes created ONLY to protect

colonial interests and the fine print thwarting any attempt by victim

nations to reverse or revenge the colonial wrongs. The role of the UN

in Indonesia in the 1940s, in Irian Jaya and how the nationalist

Sukharno and Suharto dealt with colonial powers and the UN, esp how

Suharto dealt with the UN in Irian Jaya are lessons which history can

teach Hindu nationalists. The most important lesson being - the

Chuirch and white christian nations nurture revenge in their hearts and

minds until they have taken revenge for any slight suffered. the Church,

western nations and the UN finally took revenge on Suharto for Irian

Jaya through East Timor. The collapse ofr the stock market, currency

crisis, forest fires, strudent violence - classic church dirty tricks

dept finally broke Suharto. Hindus need to develop long memories too. RR

COLONIALISM IN THE ARCIPELAGO

The Portuguese were the first Europeans to come in significant numbers

to the archipelago. Portuguese exploration and conquest in Asia began

with Vasco da Gama's voyage to India in 1497-99 and continued through

the first half of the sixteenth century. Faith and profit, nicely

harmonized, motivated these adventurists. The papacy, even in 1494 had

charged Portugal and Spain with converting the world to Christianity.

Spain and Portugal, with the blessings of the Vatican, divided up the

world, discovered and undiscovered, between them and undertook

thereafter voyages around the world to fulfil the papal command. In

1529, the Kings of Portugal and Spain agree that Maluku should belong to

Portugal and Philippines to Spain. Christopher Columbus, Vasco Da Gama,

Admiral Albequerque who visited the court of Jehangir, were all servants

of the Pope. The Church and trade worked in tandem to enslave nations

and peoples.

 

Equipped with superior navigational aids and sturdy ships, the

Portuguese attempted to seize rich trade routes in the Indian Ocean from

Muslim merchants. They established a network of forts and trading posts

that at its height extended from Lisbon by way of the African coast to

the Straits of Hormuz, Goa in India, Melaka, Macao on the South China

coast, and Nagasaki in southwestern Japan. The Portuguese came to

Indonesia to monopolize the spice trade of the eastern archipelago.

Nutmeg, mace, and cloves were easily worth more than their weight in

gold in European markets, but the trade had hitherto been dominated by

Muslims and the Mediterranean city-state of Venice. Combining trade with

piracy, the Portuguese, operating from their base at Melaka, established

bases in the Maluku Islands at Ternate and Tidore and on the island of

Ambon.

 

A Portuguese fleet led by Alfonso d'Albequerque sets sail from Goa

to Melaka in 1511. The Sultan of Melaka flees Melaka and takes refuge in

Riau, in Java. Melaka becomes the center of the Portuguese trading

empire in the sixteenth century. Besides Melaka, Ambon and Ternate, the

Portuguese set up trading posts in Madura and Tidore. The first

Portuguese explorers arrive in Timor in 1515, when the territory was

already known as source of fragrant sandalwood. By 1536, the Portuguese

appoint a Governor at Ternate and between 1550 and 1560, they have set

up trading posts in Flores, Timor and in Panuraban in Java. In 1546,

Francis Xavier travels to Ambon and Catholic missionaries begin to

spread the Catholic faith in Indonesia, especially in the east.

 

Given Portugal's small size, limited resources, and small labor pool,

and its routinely brutal treatment of indigenous populations, Portugal's

trading empire was short-lived, although remnants of it, like Portuguese

Timor, survived into the late twentieth century. (As they did to the

Native Americans in North America, the Portuguese, Spanish and even

English Christian missions which came along with the

traders/colonialists, inflicted killer-diseases as punishment and

pacifying measures on the native peoples. There was a pandemic of

small-pox in Ternate in 1558 and in Ambon in 1564)

 

THE DUTCH EAST INDIA COMPANY

In the 1500s, the Netherlands was an important business center for

Europe, where products from Russia, Scandinavia, Africa, Asia and

America were bought and sold. The Netherlands during that time was ruled

by Spain. By 1581, the Netherlands had rebelled against the King of

Spain and had begun to govern itself. But since Spain now had control of

the Portuguese colonies, the Spanish could prevent Dutch businessmen

from easy access to spices from the Indies. This was one reason that

Dutch ships began to make their own voyages direct to the Indies in the

1590s. The first `wild expedition' of the Dutch to the Indies

was in 1595. The expedition was led by De Houtman who visited Sumatra,

Banten, Java and Bali. In 1598 22 Dutch ships in five expeditions set

out for the Indies again, reaches Maluku and begins successful trading

on Banda, Ambon and Ternate. By around this time Dutch churches have

already begun to call upon their missionaries for spreading the faith in

Indonesia.

 

Faced with competition from the well-entrenched Portuguese, the Dutch

companies organize themselves into the United Dutch East India Company

(VOC) in 1602. In 1605, the VOC sends an expedition to Banda, Irian Jaya

and North Australia. In 1610 the post of governor general of the VOC was

established. Jan Pieterszoon Coen, governor general from 1619 to 1623

and again from 1627 to 1629, was the most dynamic VOC chief executive.

He seized the port of Jayakarta (modern Jakarta, also known as Batavia

during the colonial period) from the sultan of Banten in western Java

and established the trading post at Sunda Kelapa. Since then, it has

served as the capital of the VOC, of the Netherlands Indies after 1816,

and of the independent Indonesian State after World War II.

 

Coen was determined to go to almost any lengths to establish and reserve

a VOC monopoly of the spice trade. He accomplished his goal by both

controlling output and keeping non-VOC traders out of the islands. Ambon

had been seized from the Portuguese in 1605, and anti-Iberian alliances

were made with several local rulers. However, the English East India

Company, established in 1600, proved to be a tenacious competitor. When

the people of the small Banda archipelago south of the Malukus continued

to sell nutmeg and mace to English merchants, the Dutch killed or

deported virtually the entire population and repopulated the islands

with VOC indentured servants and slaves who worked in the nutmeg groves.

Similar policies were used by Coen's successors against the inhabitants

of the clove-rich Hoamoal Peninsula on the island of Ceram in 1656. The

Spanish were forced out of Tidore and Ternate in 1663. The Makassarese

sultan of Gowa in southern Sulawesi, a troublesome practitioner of free

trade, was overthrown with the aid of a neighboring ruler in 1669. The

Dutch built fortresses on the site of the Gowa capital of Makassar

(modern Ujungpandang) and at Manado in northern Sulawesi and expelled

all foreign merchants. In 1659 the Dutch burned the port city of

Palembang on Sumatra, ancient site of the Srivijaya empire, in order to

secure control of the pepper trade.

 

The VOC was given most of the powers of a sovereign state by the

Netherlands government because it was difficult to direct and control

colonial activities in the Indies from Amsterdam. The VOC establishes

trading posts in competition with the Portuguese in all cities and

provinces where the Portuguese already had a presence. The wars between

the Dutch VOC and the Portuguese drive the Portuguese away from the

archipelago by the middle of the seventeenth century and except for east

Timor, the Portuguese had surrendered all territory to the VOC by 1651.

 

(To be continued)