Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T04:04:31.120Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1913 in Indonesian History: Demanding Equality, Changing Mentality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 June 2020

Bart Luttikhuis*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands
Arnout H. C. van der Meer
Affiliation:
Colby College, Waterville, Maine, USA
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

In 1913, a new generation of Indonesians asserted their agency by publicly demanding equality in colonial society. Through four case studies—the prohibition of traditional forms of deference, the sudden popularity of Western dress, the adoption of new legal assimilation guidelines for Indonesians, and the discussion of employee rights at a railway company—we argue that this new assertiveness reflected a broad change in mentality that we consider a turning point in Indonesian history. By focusing on Indonesian agency, we challenge the Eurocentric periodization of the Indonesian past that emphasized WWI as a trigger of change.

Type
Original Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Institute of East Asian Studies, Sogang University.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adam, Ahmat. 1995. The Vernacular Press and the Emergence of Modern Indonesian Consciousness (1855–1913). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Adas, Michael. 2004. “Contested hegemony: The Great War and the Afro-Asian assault on the civilizing mission ideology.” Journal of World History 15(1): 3163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and the Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Bloembergen, Marieke, and Remco, Raben. 2009. “Wegen naar het nieuwe Indië, 1890–1950.” In Het Koloniale Beschavingsoffensief: Wegen naar het Nieuwe Indië, 1890–1950, edited by Bloembergen, Marieke and Raben, Remco, 724. Leiden: KITLV Press.Google Scholar
Bosma, Ulbe, and Remco, Raben. 2008. Being ‘Dutch’ in the Indies: A History of Creolisation and Empire, 1500–1920. Singapore: NUS Press.Google Scholar
Circulaire. 1914. “Circulaire No. 2014.Doenia Bergerak 1(32): 611.Google Scholar
Cribb, Robert. 1994. “Introduction: the late colonial state in Indonesia.” In The Late Colonial State in Indonesia: Political and Economic Foundations of the Netherlands Indies 1880–1942, edited by Cribb, Robert, 19. Leiden: KITLV Press.Google Scholar
Dijk, Kees van. 2007. The Netherlands Indies and the Great War, 1914–1918. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Doel, H.W. van den. 1987. “Indianisatie en ambtenarensalarissen.” Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 100(4): 558561.Google Scholar
Doel, H.W. van den. 1994. De Stille Macht: Het Europese Binnenlands Bestuur op Java en Madoera, 1808–1942. Amsterdam: Bert Bakker.Google Scholar
Elson, Robert. 2005. “Constructing the nation: ethnicity, race, modernity and citizenship in early Indonesian thought.” Asian Ethnicity 6(3): 145160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Engelbrecht, W.A., ed. 1940. De Nederlandsch-Indische Wetboeken benevens de Grondwet voor het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden en de belangrijkste in Nederlandsch-Indië geldende algemeene verordeningen en besluiten. Leiden: Sijthoff's Uitgeversmaatschappij.Google Scholar
Fakih, Farabi. 2012. “Conservative corporatist: nationalist thoughts of aristocrats. The ideas of Soetatmo Soeriokoesoemo and Noto Soeroto.Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (BKI) 168(4): 420444.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fasseur, Cees. 1992. “Colonial dilemma: Van Vollenhoven and the struggle between Adat law and Western law in Indonesia.” In European Expansion and Law: The Encounter of European and Indigenous Law in 19th - and 20th- Century Africa and Asia, edited by Mommsen, Wolfgang and De Moor, J.A., 237256. Oxford and New York: Berg Publishers.Google Scholar
Fasseur, Cees. 1997. “Cornerstone and stumbling block: racial classification and the late colonial state in Indonesia.” In Racial Classification and History, edited by Nathaniel Gates, E., 83108. New York: Garland Publishers.Google Scholar
Formichi, Chiara. 2015. “Indonesian readings of Turkish history, 1890s to 1940s.” In From Anatolia to Aceh: Ottomans, Turks and Southeast Asia, edited by Peacock, A.C.S. and Gallop, Annabel Teh, 241260. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Füredi, Frank. 1994. The New Ideology of Imperialism: Renewing the Moral Imperative. London and Boulder, CO: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
Groeneboer, Kees. 1998. Gateway to the West: The Dutch Language in Colonial Indonesia, 1600–1950. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.Google Scholar
H., C.C. van. 1922. “Artikel 75 en 109 Regeeringsreglement.Indisch Tijdschrift van het Recht 114: 277308.Google Scholar
Huang, Ray. 1982. 1587: A Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty in Decline. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Koloniaal Tijdschrift (KT).Google Scholar
Korver, A.P.E. 1982. Sarekat Islam, 1912–1916: Opkomst, Bloei en Structuur van Indonesië's Eerste Massabeweging. Amsterdam: Historisch Seminarium.Google Scholar
Laffan, Michael Francis. 2003. Islamic Nationhood and Colonial Indonesia: The Umma Below the Winds. London and New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindblad, J. Thomas. 2004. “Van Javasche Bank naar Bank Indonesia: voorbeeld uit de praktijk van indonesianisasi.Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis 1: 2846.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindblad, J. Thomas. 2008. Bridges to New Business: The Economic Decolonization of Indonesia. Leiden: KITLV Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Locher-Scholten, Elsbeth. 1981. Ethiek in Fragmenten: Vijf Studies over Koloniaal Denken en Doen van Nederlanders in de Indonesische Archipel 1877–1942. Utrecht: HES Publishers.Google Scholar
Luttikhuis, Bart. 2013. “Beyond race: constructions of “Europeanness” in late-colonial legal practice in the Dutch East Indies.” European Review of History 20(4): 539558.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luttikhuis, Bart. 2014. “Negotiating Modernity: Europeanness in Late Colonial Indonesia, 1910–1942.” PhD diss., European University Institute. Available at: https://cadmus.eui.eu/handle/1814/33074.Google Scholar
Manela, Erez. 2007. The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial Nationalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mangoenkoesoemo, Tjipto. 1913. “‘Het ‘prestige’ in gevaar.De Indiër 1(7): 82.Google Scholar
Marle, A. van. 1951–1952. “De groep der Europeanen in Nederlands-Indië, iets over ontstaan en groei.Indonesië 5: 97121, 314–341, 481–507.Google Scholar
Meer, Arnout H.C. van der. 2014. “Ambivalent Hegemony: Culture and Power in Late Colonial Java, 1808–1927.” PhD diss., Rutgers University. Available at: https://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/rutgers-lib/45553/PDF/1/play/.Google Scholar
Meer, Arnout H.C. van der. 2017. “Performing colonial modernity: fairs, consumerism, and the emergence of the Indonesian middle classes.” BKI 173(3): 503538.Google Scholar
Meer, Arnout H.C. van der. 2019. “Igniting change in colonial Indonesia: Somerson's contestation of colonial hegemony in a global context.” Journal of World History 30(4): 501532.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miert, Hans van. 1995. Een Koel Hoofd en een Warm Hart: Nationalisme, Javanisme en Jeugdbeweging in Nederlands-Indie, 1918–1930. Amsterdam: De Bataafsche Leeuw.Google Scholar
Mrázek, Rudolf. 2002. Engineers of Happy Land: Technology and Nationalism in a Colony. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nagazumi, Akira. 1972. The Dawn of Indonesian Nationalism: The Early Years of the Budi Utomo, 1908–1918. Tokyo: Institute for Developing Studies.Google Scholar
Niel, Robert van. 1960. The Emergence of the Modern Indonesian Elite. The Hague: W. van Hoeve.Google Scholar
Ravensbergen, Sanne. 2018. “Courtrooms of Conflict: Criminal Law, Local Elites and Legal Pluralities in Colonial Java.” PhD diss., Leiden University.Google Scholar
Regent. 1914. “Als ik eens Regent was ….Doenia Bergerak 1(5): 26.Google Scholar
Schulte Nordholt, Henk. 2011. “Modernity and cultural citizenship in the Netherlands Indies: an illustrated hypothesis.Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 42(3): 435457.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shipway, Martin. 2008. Decolonization and Its Impact: A Comparative Approach to the End of the Colonial Empires. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Shiraishi, Takashi. 1981. “The disputes between Tjipto Mangoenkoesoemo and Soetatmo Soeriokoesoemo: Satria vs Pandita.Indonesia 32: 93108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shiraishi, Takashi. 1990. An Age in Motion: Popular Radicalism in Java, 1912–1926. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soeriokoesoemo, Soetatmo. 1914. “Taal en kleeding.” De Indiër 2 (3–4): 911.Google Scholar
Soerjaningrat, Raden Mas Soewardi. 1913a. “Als ik eens Nederlander was,…” In Uitgave van het Indische Comite tot Herdenking van Neerlands Honderdjarige Vrijheid, gevestigd te Bandoeng. (A complete English translation of this text: Savitri Prastiti Scherer. “Harmony and Dissonance: Early Nationalist Thought in Java.” MA diss., Cornell University, 1975.)Google Scholar
Soerjaningrat, Raden Mas Soewardi. 1913b. “Staat de regeering werkelijk sympathiek tegenover de S.I.?De Indiër 1(4): 48.Google Scholar
Soerjaningrat, Raden Mas Soewardi. 1914a. “Onze nationale kleeding.” De Indiër 1(37): 134138.Google Scholar
Soerjaningrat, Raden Mas Soewardi. 1914b. “Europeesche kleeding.De Indiër 1 (15): 180.Google Scholar
Soerjaningrat, Raden Mas Soewardi. 1914c. “Javanen in Europeesche kleeding.” De Indiër 1 (16): 191192.Google Scholar
Streets-Salter, Heather. 2017. World War One in Southeast Asia: Colonialism and Anticolonialism in an Era of Global Conflict. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sutherland, Heather. 1979. The Making of a Bureaucratic Elite: The Colonial Transformation of the Javanese Priyayi. Singapore: Heinemann Educational Books.Google Scholar
Sutherland, Heather. 1980. “Mestizos as middlemen? Ethnicity and access in colonial Makassar.” In Historiography of Indonesia and the Middleman, paper presented at the Third Dutch-Indonesian Historical Congress, Lage Vuursche, the Netherlands, 23–27 June.Google Scholar
Tagliacozzo, Eric. 2010. “The Indies and the world.” BKI 166(2–3): 270292.Google Scholar
Tagliacozzo, Eric, Siu, Helen F., and Perdue, Peter C.. 2015. Asia Inside Out: Changing Times. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Jean Gelman. 2012. Global Indonesia. Abingdon: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Teekenen. 1914. “Teekenen.De Indiër, 1(29): 46.Google Scholar
Vann, Richard T. 2002. “Postscript.” In Turning Points in Historiography: A Cross Cultural Perspective, edited by Wang, O. Edward and Iggers, Georg G., 325337. Rochester: The University of Rochester Press.Google Scholar
Verslag commissie Visman. 1942. Verslag van de commissie tot bestudeering van staatsrechtelijke hervormingen ingesteld bij gouvernementsbesluit van 14 September 1940, No. 1x/KAB, Vol. 2: Indië's wenschen. Batavia: Landsdrukkerij.Google Scholar
Wal, S.L. van der. 1967. De Opkomst van de Nationalistische Beweging in Nederlands-Indië: Een Bronnenpublicatie. Groningen: J.B. Wolters.Google Scholar