Scratches on a Rock

What is left of The Netherlands in Indonesia?

Linawati Sidarto

Any discussion about Dutch influence on Indonesia is best started by quoting a title of one of Hella Haasse’s books: Scratches on a Rock (Krassen op een Rots), legal scholar and Indonesia specialist Sebastiaan Pompe suggested.

ex Ponto Magazine nr.5

Haasse, often dubbed the ‘Grand Old Lady’ of Dutch literature, was born in 1918 in the former Dutch East Indies (Nederlands-Indië), and spent the first 20 years of her life in what is now called the Republic of Indonesia. “She describes Dutch influence on Indonesia as scratches on a rock, and in a way I agree with her,” Pompe said.
Dutch colonialism figured prominently in history textbooks during my elementary and secondary school years in the 1970s and 1980s. The texts, which have not changed much in the past two decades, had roughly the following message: the year the first Dutch ship anchored on the north-western shores of Java (1596) is dubbed as the beginning of the 350-year Dutch presence, sprinkled with wars and oppression. Indonesian nationalists claimed independence in August 1945, right after the Japanese forces which occupied Indonesia for three years admitted defeat to the Allied forces. Two armed clashes and numerous bilateral and multi-lateral meetings later, The Netherlands finally recognised Indonesia as an independent country in December 1949.
Most Indonesians overlook the fact that their country has influenced The Netherlands just as much, if not more, as the other way around. Indonesia covers an area of over 1.9 million square kilometres, while The Netherlands a mere 41,526 square kilometres. In the mid- 1940s, the Dutch population numbered less than ten million, while the Indonesian archipelago had around 75 million people. Now Indonesia’s population is over 200 million, while The Netherlands has 16 million people.
Dutch historian I.J. Brugmans wrote that “the Dutch have exerted themselves in getting to know the culture of the native inhabitants, but neglected to propagate their own culture.” Taking a look at three major aspects – language, law and architecture—one may get a glimpse of how much, or how little, of Holland’s influence is still left in present-day Indonesia.

Language
Despite Holland’s long presence in Indonesia, “Dutch was never really widespread during the whole colonial period,” said linguist Kees Groeneboer in his book Road to the West (Weg tot het Westen).  Since the middle of the 19th century, the Dutch government’s policies regarding language in its colony had been one “in which the aim was to make Dutch education available to a very limited elite group,” Groeneboer explained. In 1942, only around two percent of the population in the Dutch East Indies spoke Dutch.
Thus, unlike the other colonial powers such as England, France, Spain and Belgium, Holland never made Dutch the official language of the colony. The most widely-used language in the archipelago remained Malay, which had been used as a lingua franca in the region for hundreds of years. 
When the Indonesian nationalist movement started in the early 20th century, activists quickly realised that Malay was the most logical language to be used as a unifying factor among the hundreds of ethnic groups populating the archipelago. In his book Groeneboer described how a 16-year-old Soekarno, who later became Indonesia’s first president, said in a students’ discussion forum in 1917 that “we should learn our own language thoroughly. Let us concentrate on the continuation of Malay.” The language which is now known as Indonesian is derived from Malay, albeit interspersed with influence from major local dialects such as Javanese and Sundanese.
A sprinkling of Dutch words could still be traced in present-day Indonesian. Some technical terms are still commonly used, like bensin (benzine: gasoline), knalpot (muffler), giro (deposit, account), gratis (free of charge), ledeng (leiding: plumbing , rekening (bill), wastafel (washbasin). The presence of the Dutch language in daily Indonesian life today, however, is limited to a small, upper-middle class social group who received their education in Dutch. Very few Indonesians under the age of sixty-something could still communicate in Dutch.
Indonesian linguist Bambang Kaswanti Purwo underlined in an article in the Tempo weekly magazine last month that “while Dutch came into the Indonesian language much earlier than English did, the weight of the former has faded, while the influence of English has become increasingly bigger.” 
Up until the 1970s, many Indonesians who looked into studying abroad still saw The Netherlands as one of their main options. In the following decades, however, the weight has definitively shifted towards English-speaking countries, mainly the U.S. and Australia. Within the last ten years, it has become common in Indonesia for expensive, private elementary schools to teach in both English and Indonesian.
It would be an exaggeration, though, to say that Dutch has completely lost ground in Indonesia. While English-language institutes are by far the most frequented ones in Indonesia, the Dutch cultural centre Erasmus Huis in Jakarta still welcomes around 1,500 people a year who take courses in Dutch. In an article about Erasmus Huis, Indonesia’s largest daily Kompas reported that “for those who would like to further their understanding in law, political history and Indonesian culture, knowledge of Dutch would be very helpful.”

Law
One milestone for both the legal and linguistic realm in the Dutch East Indies was the translation of the civil and commercial law codes into Malay in 1918.  “Since the knowledge of the Dutch language was so limited, the authorities thought it necessary to translate the codes into Malay, so that it could be understood by a wider section of the population,” Pompe said.
The Dutch government adapted the Dutch codes of law in its colony. It was, however, two-tiered: one set of regulations for Europeans and another for non-Europeans, which included native Indonesians and other Asians, such as Chinese, Indians and Arabs living in Indonesia.
When Indonesia became an independent nation, it first adopted the legal system left by the Dutch colonial government. Gradually, “the Indonesian authorities began creating a national legal system based on Indonesian precepts of law and justice,” wrote Indonesian business law professor Benny S. Tabalujan on the legal website LLRX.com. Currently, Tabalujan said, “adat law (customary law applied by indigenous kingdoms in the region prior to the arrival of the Dutch), Dutch colonial law and national law co-exist in modern Indonesia.”
Pompe believes that currently Dutch law in Indonesia, particularly civil law, exists more in form rather than in content. “For example, if you hear Indonesian lawyers start their pleadings in court, they often would use words that seem to be direct translations from Dutch. In form, however, both legal systems are very different now. They are two different countries with entirely different needs.”
Asked whether Indonesian law students still need to have a passive knowledge of Dutch, Pompe retorted: “The Dutch language class at the University of Indonesia’s law faculty is known as the ‘sleeping class’, if that tells you something.”
“Among the younger generation of Indonesian legal practitioners, almost nobody reads Dutch anymore,” he said. This reality, he says, is not always advantageous for Indonesians. “I have seen people fall into unnecessary legal wrangling in cases which clearly have precedent in Indonesia’s colonial times. If only one would read into the Dutch-language archives, it could have saved them a lot of trouble.”
Echoing the sentiments of linguist Kaswanti Purwo, Pompe pointed out that Indonesia’s legal sector is internationally focused almost exclusively on the English-speaking countries.

Architecture
While the Dutch already started erecting buildings shortly after they arrived on the shores of Batavia, which is now the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, most Dutch-built constructions still standing today in Indonesia stem from the 19th and 20th centuries. Some forts from the colonial era, used for defense purposes, still line a number of major coastal cities across the archipelago.
The largest number of Dutch buildings is found on Java, particularly in the big cities such as Jakarta, Bandung, Semarang, Yogyakarta, Surabaya and Malang.  “In the beginning (of the Dutch presence), Dutch construction on Java was based on colonial architecture which was modified according to the tropical and local cultural conditions,” Indonesian art and design professor Pamudji Suptandar wrote in the Kompas daily. This was dubbed arsitekur Indis (Indies architecture), which combines the existing traditional Hindu-Javanese style with European forms.
Suptandar further said that “from a political point of view, arsitektur Indis can also be seen as the distinction between traditional buildings that existed prior (to the arrival of the Dutch). The Dutch government used the Indies style as one that had to be used as a symbol of their power, social status and grandness.”
Many public buildings still standing and in use in Jakarta, such as the presidential palace, the finance ministry and the performing arts theatre, were built in the 19th century in the classicist style. As the 20th century approached, the number of Dutch people in Indonesia increase, and smaller residential dwellings were built, many in the more modern art-deco style.
The most ‘Dutch’ city in Indonesia, architecturally speaking, is Bandung, some 180 kilometres east of Jakarta. This city, situated on the higher plains of West Java, was largely rural grounds until the Dutch decided to develop it into a city in the late 19th century. This area was chosen for its cooler temperatures compared to hot, coastal Batavia.
Since Indonesia’s independence, the governments that have been in power have shown little interest in the conservation of historical buildings. A number of old, architecturally grand buildings have been torn down in the past decades to erect aesthatically-monstrous shopping centres or office buildings.
Presently, however, more Indonesians have become aware of the value of preserving their old buildings, Indonesian architect and conservationist Budi Lim said. “A decade ago, most people thought I was crazy when they learned of my efforts to save the old part of Jakarta. A few years later, the negative voices started to disappear, and now many people are starting to think with me: how are we going to save our city,” he said.
In the past, Lim explained, using the negative sentiment towards the colonial era was often used as an excuse to disregard protests against the demolition of historical buildings. “Now, however, this colonial sentiment is hardly present. An increasing number of people now see the old colonial buildings as part of their city’s overall heritage rather than focusing on its colonial aspect.”
While the physical presence of Dutch buildings is still visible in Indonesian cities today, the influence of Dutch architecture in Indonesia’s design and architecture sectors is “nil,” Lim said.  The current generation of Indonesian architects follows modern, international design trends, “and seldom looks back in time,” Lim laments. “I am one of the very few Indonesians who sometimes integrate art deco style in my designs, simply because I think it’s beautiful. I love history, and I always feel like I can learn a lot from old structures. I am, however, a loner in that sense.”