What Type of Religion Does Netherlands Have Art in the Netherlands During Imperialism

During the form of the 18th century the Dutch United Eastward India Visitor (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, abbreviated VOC) had established itself as the dominating economic and political ability on Java after the crumbling and plummet of the Mataram empire. This Dutch trading company had been a major power in Asian merchandise since the early 1600s, but started to develop an interest to interfere in ethnic politics on the island of Coffee in the 18th century equally that would improve their concur on the local economy.

Even so, mismanagement, corruption and fierce competition from the English East Bharat Visitor resulted in the slow demise of the VOC towards the end of the 18th century. In 1796 the VOC went broke and was nationalized by the Dutch state. As a consequence its possessions in the archipelago passed into the easily of the Dutch crown in 1800. However, when the French occupied Holland between 1806 and 1815 these possessions were transferred to the British. Later on Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, however, information technology was decided that about parts of the archipelago would return to the Dutch.

Architects of the Dutch Colonial State in Indonesia

Two names stand out as existence architects of the new Dutch colonial state in Republic of indonesia. Firstly, Herman Willem Daendels, Governor-General from 1808 to 1811 during the French occupation of Holland and, secondly, British Lieutenant Sir Stamford Raffles, Governor-General from 1811 to 1816 during the British occupation of Java. Daendels was the one who reorganized the primal and regional colonial administration by dividing Coffee into districts (too known as residencies), each one headed by an European civil servant - called the resident - who was directly subordinate - and had to report - to the Governor-General in Batavia. These residents were responsible for a broad range of matters in their residencies, varying from legal matters to the system of agriculture.

Raffles connected the reorganizations of his predecessor (Daendels) by reforming the judicial, police force and authoritative arrangement of Coffee. He introduced the land-taxation which meant that Javanese peasants had to pay tax, approximately the value of two-fifths of their annual harvests, to the authorities. Raffles also had a sincere interest in the cultures and languages of Java. In 1817 he published his The History of Java, one of the first academic works on the topic of Java. Even so, his administrative reorganizations meant an increasing intervention in Java's lodge and economy by foreign powers, which is reflected by the growing number of middle ranked European officials working in the residencies. Between 1825 and 1890 this number increased from 73 to 190.

The Dutch organization of rule in colonial Java was both directly and dualistic. Alongside the Dutch bureaucracy, there existed an indigenous one which functioned equally an intermediary between the Javanese peasants and the European civil service. The acme of this ethnic structure consisted of the Javanese aristocracy, previously the officials that ran the Mataram assistants. At present, however, they had to execute the will of the Dutch centre.

The increasing Dutch dominance over Java did not come without resistance. When the Dutch colonial government decided to build a route on the land of prince Diponegoro (who was appointed every bit guardian of the throne of Yogyakarta after the sudden expiry of his half-brother), he rebelled, supported by a majority of the Javanese population in Fundamental Coffee and turned information technology into a jihad war. This war lasted from 1825 to 1830 and resulted in the deaths of approximately 215,000 people, mostly on Javanese side. Yet, when the Coffee State of war was over - and prince Diponegoro captured - the Dutch were more dominant on Coffee than ever before.

The Tillage System on Coffee

Competing British traders, the Napoleonic wars in Europe, and the Coffee State of war implied a big financial burden on the Dutch kingdom'south budget. It was decided that Java should go a major source of revenue for the Dutch and therefore Governor-Full general Van den Bosch ushered in the era of the 'Cultivation System' in 1830. This system meant a Dutch monopoly on the cultivation of export crops on Java.

Moreover, it were the Dutch who decided what blazon of crops (and in what quantity) had to exist delivered by the Javanese peasants. Generally information technology meant that Javanese peasants had to hand over one-5th of their harvests to the Dutch. In return, the peasants received an arbitrarily fixed compensation in cash which basically had no relation to the value of the crop on the world market. The Dutch and Javanese officials received a bonus when their residency delivered more than crops than on previous occasions, therefore stimulating top-downwards intervention and oppression. On top of this compulsory tillage of crops and traditional corvee-labor services, Raffles' land revenue enhancement yet applied equally well! The Cultivation System turned out to exist a financial success. Between 1832 and 1852 around 19 percent of full Dutch state income was generated from the Javanese colony. Between 1860 and 1866 this figure reached around 33 percent.

Initially, the Cultivation System was not dominated by the Dutch authorities but. Javanese power holders and private European as well as Chinese entrepreneurs joined in too. Nonetheless, after 1850 - when the Tillage System was reorganized - the Dutch colonial country became the dominant histrion. But these reorganizations too opened doors for private parties to start exploiting Java. A process of privatization commenced in which the colonial state gradually transferred consign product to Western entrepreneurs.

The Liberal Period of Colonial Indonesia

More than and more voices were heard in kingdom of the netherlands that rejected the Tillage Arrangement and supported a more liberal approach for foreign enterprises. This rejection of the Cultivation System was both for humane and for economic motives. Around 1870 Dutch liberals had won their boxing in Dutch parliament and successfully eliminated some of the characteristic features of the Tillage System, such as the cultivation percentages and the compulsory use of land and labour for export crops.

These liberals paved the way for the introduction of a new menstruation in Indonesian history, known as the Liberal Period (circa 1870 to 1900). This period is marked by a huge influence of private commercialism on colonial policy in the Dutch Indies. The colonial state now more or less played the role of supervisor in relations between Western enterprises and the rural Javanese population. But - although liberals claimed that the benefits of economic growth would trickle downwardly to the local level - Javanese farmers suffering from hunger, famine and epidemics were merely as common in the Liberal Menstruum as under the Cultivation System.

The 19th century is also known every bit the century in which the Dutch fabricated substantial geographical expansion in the archipelago. Driven by the New Imperialism-mentality, European nations were competing for colonies exterior the European continent for both economical motives and condition. One of import motive for the Dutch to expand its territory in the Archipelago - apart from fiscal benefit - was to forestall other European countries from taking parts of this region. The most famous and prolonged battle during this menses of Dutch expansion was the Aceh State of war that started in 1873 and lasted until 1913, resulting in the deaths of more than than 100,000 people. The Dutch would, still, never accept full control over Aceh. Just the political integration of Coffee and the Outer Islands into one unmarried colonial polity had largely been achieved by the start of the 20th century.

The Upstanding Policy and Indonesian Nationalism

When the borderlines of the Dutch Indies began to take the shape of present-day Indonesia, Dutch Queen Wilhelmina made an announcement in her almanac speech in 1901 informing that a new policy, the Ethical Policy, would be launched. The Upstanding Policy (acknowledging that the Dutch had a debt of honour towards the Indonesians) was aimed at raising the living standards of the native population. The means to accomplish this was directly state intervention in (economical) life, promoted under the slogan 'irrigation, pedagogy and emigration'. This new approach would, yet, non show to be a significant success in raising the living standards of Indonesians.

This Dutch Ethical Policy unsaid ane profound and far-reaching side effect. Its educational component contributed significantly to the awakening of Pan-Indonesian nationalism by providing Indonesians the intellectual tools to organize and articulate their objections to colonial rule. The Upstanding Policy provided a small Indonesian elite with Western political ideas of freedom and democracy. For the outset time the native people of the Archipelago began to develop a national consciousness as 'Indonesians'.

In 1908 students in Batavia founded the association Budi Utomo, the first native political society. This result is often regarded as the nascence of Indonesian nationalism. It established a political tradition in which cooperation between the young Indonesian elite and the Dutch colonial authorities was expected to lead to acquiring some degree of independence.

The next chapter in the development of Indonesian nationalism was the founding of the get-go mass-based political party, the Sarekat Islam (Islamic Union) in 1911. Initially, it was formed to support the ethnic entrepreneurs against the dominating Chinese in the local economy merely information technology expanded its telescopic and adult a pop political consciousness with subversive tendencies.

Other important movements that led to the unfolding of indigenous political thinking in the Dutch-Indies were the Muhammadiyah, an Islamic reformist socio-religious move founded in 1912 and the Indonesian Association of Social Democrats, a communist move founded in 1914 that spread Marxist ideas through the Dutch Indies. Internal disunity in the latter would later atomic number 82 to the formation of the Indonesian Communist Political party (PKI) in 1920.

Initially, the Dutch colonial government permitted the establishment of indigenous political movements just when Indonesian ideologies radicalized in the 1920s (as seen in the communist uprisings in West Java and Westward Sumatra in 1926 and 1927) the Dutch authorities changed grade. A relative tolerant authorities was replaced with a repressive one in which every suspected human activity of subversive behaviour was suppressed. This repressive regime in fact merely worsened the situation by radicalizing the entire Indonesian nationalist movement. Part of these nationalists established the Indonesian Nationalist Political party (Partai Nasional Indonesia, abbreviated PNI) in 1927 as a reaction to the repressive government. Its goal was full independence for Republic of indonesia.

Another important occasion for Indonesian nationalism was the declaration of the Youth Pledge in 1928. At this congress of youth organizations iii ideals were proclaimed, to wit: one motherland, 1 nation, and one language. The main aim of this congress was to stimulate a feeling of unity between the immature Indonesians. On this congress the future national anthem (Indonesia Raya) was played and the future national flag (merah-putih) was shown for the first time. The colonial regime reacted with another human action of suppression. Young national leaders, such as Soekarno (who would become Indonesia'due south first president in 1945) and Mohammad Hatta (Indonesia's get-go vice president) were arrested and exiled.

Japanese Invasion of the Dutch Indies

The Dutch were powerful plenty to curb Indonesian nationalism by arresting its leaders and suppressing the nationalist organizations. Simply never were they able to eliminate nationalist sentiment among the Indonesian people. The Indonesians, on the other hand, did non have the ability to gainsay the colonial rulers and therefore needed outside assist to eliminate the colonial system.

In March 1942 the Japanese, fueled by their want for oil, provided such assist past occupying the Dutch Indies. Although initially welcomed as liberators by the Indonesian population, Indonesians would shortly experience the hardship of the Japanese rule: scarcity of food, vesture and medicines too equally forced labour under harsh conditions. The scarcity of food was mainly caused past administrative incompetence, turning Java into an island of hunger. Indonesians working as forced labourers (chosen romusha) were stationed to work on labour-intensive construction projects on Coffee.

When the Japanese took over, Dutch officials were thrown in internment camps and were replaced by Indonesians to administer government tasks. The Japanese educated, trained and armed many young Indonesians and gave their nationalist leaders a political vocalisation. This enabled the nationalists to prepare for a future independent Indonesian nation. In the concluding months earlier Japan'south surrender, effectively ending World War II, the Japanese gave full back up to the Indonesian nationalist movement. Political, economic and social dismantling of the Dutch colonial state meant that a new era was about to emerge. On 17 August 1945 Soekarno and Hatta proclaimed the independence of Indonesia, eight days afterwards the Nagasaki atomic bombing and two days after Japan lost the war.

Click hither to read an overview of Soekarno'southward Sometime Society

Different Perceptions of Indonesia's Colonial Catamenia

There basically exist three "histories", or more accurately, iii versions of Indonesia'south colonial menses:

1) Indonesian version
2) Dutch version
3) Bookish version

It should be emphasized, however, that inside each of these three groups - Indonesians, the Dutch, and academics (in this example mainly historians), - there exists plenty of diverseness. But we can discern three wide versions.

What separates the Indonesian and Dutch versions from the academic version is clear: the Indonesian and Dutch versions are colored past specific sentiments and/or political interests, while the bookish version aims to deliver an objective and authentic version, non based on sentiments but on evidence (sources). The reader may now wonder which version he/she read just now? Well, the overview of Republic of indonesia's colonial menstruum that is presented above is a synopsis of the bookish version. Nonetheless, it is interesting to provide some information well-nigh the Indonesian and Dutch versions. With these versions we hateful the general consensus and views that are shared past the people (this includes the ordinary people just also government officials, and those who wrote the history books for the younger generations, etc.) in each nation.

Evidently, the Indonesian and Dutch versions accept a lot in common. However, due to both sides' involvement in this colonial history in that location exist some differences that can be attributed to sentiments and political interests.

Indonesian Perceptions

For example, when you talk to an Indonesian individual about the colonial period (whether the individual is highly educated or uneducated) he/she will say that Indonesia was colonized past the Dutch for three and a half centuries. What is wrong with this statement? First of all, it supposes that Indonesia already was a unified nation in the tardily 1500s or early 1600s. Nonetheless, in reality the country we at present know as Indonesia was a patchwork of contained indigenous kingdoms that lacked a feeling of brotherhood or nationalist sentiment or any other sense of unity. In fact, wars between these kingdoms - either inter or intra island - were the dominion rather than the exception.

Secondly, the whole area we now know equally Indonesia was non conquered by the Dutch effectually the same fourth dimension and and so possessed for iii.five centuries. On the opposite, it took centuries of gradual political expansion before the region was under Dutch control (and in several parts Dutch control was very superficial, such as Aceh). In fact, merely around the 1930s the Dutch more-or-less possessed the whole area that we now know equally Indonesia. Some parts indeed were colonized for 3.5 centuries (for case Batavia/Djakarta and parts of the Moluccas), other parts were dominated past the Dutch for some two centuries (such as most of Java) but most other parts of this huge archipelago were gradually conquered over the course of the 19th and early 20th century, and in many regions natives never saw a Dutch person.

So, why does at that place be the view that (the whole of) Republic of indonesia was colonized past the Dutch for three and half centuries? The answer is politics. Every bit becomes clear from the synopsis to a higher place, Indonesian nationalism was driven by the realization among the young and diverse people of the archipelago (whatsoever their indigenous, cultural or religious background was) that they had one common enemy: the Dutch colonial ability. Having this enemy is basically what unified the native people of Indonesia. This also explains why - after the enemy was completely gone in 1949 - there emerged a prolonged and chaotic period in Indonesian politics and club between 1949 and 1967. With the enemy gone, all the underlying differences betwixt the people of Indonesia came to the surface resulting in rebellions, calls for separatism, and impossible conclusion-making on the political level. Only when a new disciplinarian regime, Suharto'southward New Order, took command, chaos disappeared (and, once again, at the expense of man rights).

After Independence from the Dutch, the Indonesian government needed to keep the Indonesian nation unified. Ane smart strategy was by creating this common 3.5 century colonial history that was shared by all people in the Indonesian nation. If the Indonesian people would realize that they did not have the same history it would jeopardize the unity of Indonesia, particularly in the fragile 1940s and 1950s.

In recent years, at that place get-go to become more and more Indonesians who are enlightened of this effect and argue that without the colonial catamenia there would - most likely - not have developed a unmarried Indonesian nation but more probable there would take been various separate nation states in line with the distribution of the old native kingdoms and empires in the Archipelago.

Dutch Perceptions

The Dutch besides have plenty of reason to portray a colonial history that is dissimilar from reality. Kingdom of the netherlands of the concluding couple of decades is a land that emphasizes the importance of human rights and this does non exactly match its 'rich' colonial history. Therefore, the violent nature of its colonial history is often non mentioned. Instead, the VOC period forms a source of national pride to the Dutch knowing that - despite being this tiny European country - it became the earth'southward richest state in the 17th century (Dutch Golden Age), not only in terms of merchandise and military machine but also in terms of art and science.

An interesting example is when former Dutch Prime Government minister Jan Peter Balkenende became bellyaching during a discussion with the Dutch House of Representatives in 2006. Responding to the House's pessimistic views of the Dutch economic futurity, Balkenende said "let usa be optimistic, permit united states be positive again, that VOC mentality, looking beyond borders." It is an example of selective memory that signals the sense of pride that stems from the VOC period. Information technology is fair to mention that this statement of Balkenende met criticism in the Netherlands.

On the other mitt, there are plenty of examples that illustrate that the Dutch are in fact aware of the tearing history (including slavery) that were fundamental to turn the Netherlands into one of the world'south nearly advanced nations. For example, statues in holland that glorify people from the VOC period and the government-led colonial period - such every bit Jan Pieterszoon Coen and J.B. van Heutsz - have either been removed or are criticized past the local Dutch population.

Another interesting case is the apology that was made by Dutch ambassador to Indonesia Tjeerd de Zwaan in 2013. He apologized for the "excesses committed by Dutch forces" between 1945 and 1949, the first e'er general apology. Notwithstanding, the Dutch government has never apologized for all vehement events that occurred before 1945! When Dutch Rex and Queen Willem-Alexander and Maxima visited Indonesia in early 2020, Willem-Alexander stutteringly apologized for the violence in the 1945-1949 period.

It took many decades before such excuses were made (and they only cover the period after 1945). Information technology is causeless that Dutch officials did not want to make apologies because it could offend the Dutch veterans (who risked their lives in Indonesia in proper name of their land) and the relatives of the soldiers who died in the period '45 -'49, while probably fear of the financial consequences of an excuse too played a role.

In conclusion, it seems that both Indonesian and Dutch perceptions are slowly moving toward the academic version because high emotions (whether resentment or pride) gradually wane as fourth dimension goes by, while Indonesia'south domestic political situation is stable and therefore in that location is less need to create one mutual history throughout the archipelago.

Sources:

• G.C. Ricklefs: A History of Mod Indonesia since c.1200
• H. Dick, e.a.: The Emergence of a National Economy. An Economic History of Indonesia, 1800-2000
• E. Locher-Scholten & P. Rietbergen, e.a.: Hof en handel: Aziatische vorsten en de VOC 1620-1720
• D. Henley e.a.: Surroundings, Merchandise and Gild in Southeast Asia
• J. Touwen: Extremes in the Archipelago: Merchandise and Economic Development in the Outer Islands of Indonesia, 1900-1942
• H. Jonge & N. Kaptein east.a.: Transcending Borders: Arabs, Politics, Trade and Islam in Southeast Asia

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