The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0020/00206.txt

Text File | 1992-08-07 | 34KB | 518 lines

$Unique_ID{bob00206}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Indonesia
Chapter 1C.   The Growth of National Consciousness}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Donald M. Seekins}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{java
established
schools
independence
dutch
indonesian
political
government
particularly
japanese}
$Date{1982}
$Log{}
Title:       Indonesia
Book:        Indonesia, A Country Study
Author:      Donald M. Seekins
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1982

Chapter 1C.   The Growth of National Consciousness

     During the twentieth century the ties of Dutch political domination were
broken, and a basis for national unity was created. These were two somewhat
discrete, though naturally not unrelated, processes, however, and their
occurrence was not to be entirely simultaneous. The process of national
unification and political development continued long after the declaration of
independence in 1945 and, in fact, in 1982 was still continuing.

     Anticolonial resistance was, or course, nothing new. In the villages of
Java and the coastal communities of the Outer Islands, it had been based on
militant Islam or on peasant expectations of the coming of a "just king" who
would expel the Dutch and initiate a new age of happiness and prosperity. A
religious element had been part of the appeal of the revolt of Pangeran
Dipanagara in 1825 at the beginning of the Java War. Unrest, particularly
among the poorest of the peasants, was a persistent phenomenon; the followers
of Surantika Samin, a rural messiah who founded his own religion known as the
"Science of the Prophet Adam," resisted the Dutch in a passive way beginning
around 1900, refusing to pay taxes or perform labor service in the teak
forests of central Java until independence. They continued to cause trouble
for the Republic of Indonesia until the 1960s.

     Traditional peasant resistance was to become entwined in the twentieth
century with a more modern nationalism, which first arose among the social
elite. Its development was in part the result of the influence of events
outside the archipelago. These included the rise of Japan as a modern power in
East Asia, particularly after the defeat of Russia in 1905; the Philippine
struggle for independence first against Spain and then against the United
States in 1898; the Chinese revolution of 1911; the rise of a Modernist
Movement in Islam, particularly in Egypt; the growth of the Indian National
Congress, established in 1885; and the success of Kemal Ataturk in creating a
modern, secular state in Turkey on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. A common
theme was shared: the struggle of nonwhite peoples against traditional or
colonialist regimes. The successes, particularly in Japan and Turkey, made a
deep impression on those aware of world events.

The Ethical Policy

     In 1899 the liberal Conrad van Deventer published an article, "A Debt of
Honor," which argued that the Netherlands had a moral responsibility to return
to Indonesia all the profits that had been extracted from the colony from the
sale of cash crops following the Dutch parliament's assumption of fiscal
responsibility for the colony in 1867. This money, which he estimated at being
almost 200 million guilders, would be invested in welfare and educational
facilities. Advocates of what became known as the Ethical Policy had great
faith in the value of progress along Western lines. Snouck Hurgronje, one of
its most prominent proponents, came to believe in his experience with militant
Islam that the adoption of enlightened policies, particularly in the field of
education, would enable Indonesians to shed both Islamic and adat
preoccupations. This would enable them to develop a modern consciousness
necessary for self-government. The advocates of the Ethical Policy were
somewhat vague about their ultimate objectives; some apparently believed that
reforms would draw Indonesians and the mother country into a much closer, and
in fact permanent, collaborative relationship. Others acknowledged that
complete independence was a possibility but only in the distant future. Yet
under a liberal government, which came to power in the Netherlands in 1901,
these ideas became the basis for government policy.

     Education was a central concern of the Ethical Policy. In 1900 there were
only about 1,500 elementary schools in the entire archipelago for a population
of over 36 million. Despite its central position, Java was poorly endowed with
schools: a total of some 562 for a population of over 28 million. The Batak
region of Sumatra and Manado in northern Sulawesi, with 200 schools for a
population of 321,000 and 366 schools for a population of 423,000,
respectively, were fortunate in having a large number of missionary
institutions. In 1906 a system of village schools was established. Although
the government subsidized the construction of school buildings, the
responsibility for maintaining them and paying teacher salaries was left to
the villagers themselves. Although many resented the schools as a new
government-imposed burden, there were some 3,500 village schools by 1913 and
18,000 by 1940. The literacy rate for adults, however, remained low even by
1930, averaging 7.4 percent overall and 6 percent for Javanese. In Sumatra,
where there were a large number of village-level Quranic schools, the rate
averaged 13.1 percent.

     Educational opportunities were limited even for the priyayi at the
beginning of the century. A school for the training of native medical
assistants had been established as early as 1851, and there were three
"chiefs' schools" for the education of the higher priyayi after 1880. A small
number of priyayi attended European primary schools where they had the
opportunity to study Dutch, the key to gaining modern skills and an awareness
of the outside world. There were some 1,545 students in such schools by 1900,
and a tiny handful even managed to study in the Netherlands. Yet colonial
officials were uneasy about the idea of Indonesians entering the same
educational system as Europeans. Seven-year schools for Indonesians were
established in 1914 in order to enable them to qualify for higher education
without having to pass through the European system. The old chiefs' schools
were reorganized as Training Schools for Native Officials, and the old medical
school became the School for Training Native Doctors in 1900, using Dutch as
the language of instruction. Teachers training schools were also established.
On the tertiary level, a technical college was established at Bandung in 1920
and a law facility at Batavia four years later. Enrollments in Western-type
schools increased tremendously in the 1900-30 period, from 265,940 to over 1.7
million. Those receiving a Dutch education, however, remained a small elite,
who came to have a tremendous influence over the course of Indonesian affairs
in the coming decades.

     Raden Adjeng Kartini, daughter of the regent of Jepara, was one of the
very first women to receive a modern Dutch-language education at a European
school. In letters written to Dutch friends (translated into English as
Letters of a Javanese Princess), published after her premature death in 1904,
she called for the modern education of Indonesian women and their emancipation
from the oppressive weight of social custom. These letters became very
influential, stirring a debate on this subject among proponents of the Ethical
Policy. A number of Kartini Schools for girls were established on Java in
1913 from private contributions.

     The greatest challenge faced by Ethical Policy leaders was in the areas
of population and health, particularly on Java. Java's population was
estimated at around 5 million in 1815. The end of an era of devastating wars
and the imposition of a stable, if exploitive, regime after 1830 provided the
environment for radical growth. The population increased from 11 million in
1860 to 28 million in 1930 (including Madura). Food shortages became common in
regions that had previously enjoyed an abundance of rice, a