Legal Incompetence

2020 ◽  
pp. 100-121
Author(s):  
Nurfadzilah Yahaya

This chapter explores the jurisdictional problems that Arab populations experienced under Dutch colonial rule. The one thing that the Dutch feared above all else was not the slippage of Arab identity into the category of “Natives” but rather the possible equation of Arabs with themselves, Europeans. The possibility of fluid jurisdictions horrified Dutch authorities. The chapter examines the attempt by the Arab elite in the Netherlands Indies to appeal to Ottoman protection as subjects potentially led to a paradigm of diplomacy in the colony that inadvertently allowed some colonial subjects more latitude than the Dutch colonialists intended for them since they certainly did not possess equal status. The chapter also discusses how the Arab affairs — and one might even argue Muslim affairs in general — remained to some extent in Arab hands in the Netherlands Indies through the symbiotic relationships between colonial officials and the Arab elite.

Itinerario ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Boomgaard

It was a reluctant Dutch government, representing an equally reluctant Dutch population, that had to recognize the independent Republic of Indonesia in 1949. The so-called decolonization process had been a traumatic experience for all parties concerned. The academic community in the Netherlands was no exception to this rule, and Dutch ‘Indonesian studies’ went into a long hibernation. This applies particularly to the study of the welfare services, an aspect of Dutch colonial rule that had been the pride and glory of civil servants and scholars alike (many of them former civil servants).


Itinerario ◽  
1987 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. J. H. Houben

Beneath the surface of apparent unity of the colonial empires of Britain and Holland in India and Indonesia, there existed a wide variety of relations between the Western power on the one hand and indigenous political structures on the other. A colonial power could control its territorial possessions in several ways, usually classified in terms of either direct or indirect rule. Furnivall, in his famous comparative study of British Burma and the Netherlands East Indies, saw Burma as a ‘typical example’ of direct rule and Java as exemplary of fhe system of indirect rule. In the same work the author, however, acknowledged that in general there was no clear distinction between the two systems of government and that colonial practice was determined more by, what he calls, ‘economic environment’ rather than philosophies of empire. Indeed, the terms direct and indirect rule can be seen as extreme opposites. in the realm of ideas, while in reality colonial rule was always something in between. This explains partly the confusion about the form of government in nineteenth century Java, which, in view of its dualistic features, was classified by some authors under the system of indirect rule while others (with an eye upon less solidly controlled areas within Indonesia) thought it more in tune with theories of direct rule.


2007 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ineke van Kessel

AbstractMost of the successive groups of African immigrants to the Indonesian archipelago have disappeared without trace, or at least without leaving recognisable descendants. The Belanda Hitam or Black Dutchmen are the one exception. Belanda Hitam was the Malay name given to some 3,000 soldiers from West Africa who were recruited for the Dutch colonial army between 1831 and 1872, and to the Indo-African descendants of these African soldiers and their Indonesian wives. From the 1830s until Indonesian independence, the African soldiers, their Indonesian wives and their Indo-African off spring formed small but vibrant communities in the garrison towns of Java, mainly in Batavia, Semarang, Salatiga, Solo and Purworejo. This article, largely based on interviews with descendants now living in the Netherlands, explores life in these Indo-African communities, with a particular focus on Purworejo.1


2021 ◽  
pp. 002200942199789
Author(s):  
Margot Tudor

This article examines the policies employed by United Nations (UN) peacekeeping leadership and mid-level staff to silence West Papuan anti-Indonesian activists and dismiss the population’s political opinions as immaterial to their territory’s sovereign future. The UN brokered the New York Agreement, legitimising Indonesia’s claims to the region following a decade of international discussions and military skirmishes between Indonesia and the Netherlands over the territory of West Papua. The Agreement vested the UN with sovereign control of West Papua for seven months to facilitate the transition in authority from Dutch colonial rule. Drawing on a multi-archival study of the mission, this article offers depth and balance to previous high-policy-focused scholarship on the dispute, rendering mid-level peacekeepers visible and bringing their role in shaping peacekeeping practices to light. It illuminates how the mission staff dismissed the views of West Papuan representatives in 1962–3 and contributed to the project of disenfranchisement carried out by the Indonesian government. In doing so, the mission leadership decisively participated in the re-colonisation of the population and disregarded rights violations on the ground.


Author(s):  
Lisa Sousa

The Woman Who Turned Into a Jaguar examines gender relations in indigenous societies of central Mexico and Oaxaca from the 1520s to the 1750s, focusing mainly on the Nahua, Ñudzahui (Mixtec), Bènizàa (Zapotec), and Ayuk (Mixe) people. This study draws on an unusually rich and diverse corpus of original sources, including Ñudzahui- (Mixtec-), Tíchazàa- (Zapotec-), and mainly Nahuatl-language and Spanish civil and criminal records, published texts, and pictorial manuscripts. The sources come from more than 100 indigenous communities of highland Mexico. The book considers women’s lives in the broadest context possible by addressing a number of interrelated topics, including: the construction of gender; concepts of the body; women’s labor; marriage rituals and marital relations; sexual attitudes; family structure; the relationship between household and community; and women’s participation in riots and other acts of civil disobedience. The study highlights subtle transformations and overwhelming continuities in indigenous social attitudes and relationships. The book argues that profound changes following the Spanish conquest, such as catastrophic depopulation, economic pressures, and the imposition of Christian marriage, slowly eroded indigenous women’s status. Nevertheless, gender relations remained inherently complementary. The study shows how native women and men under colonial rule, on the one hand, pragmatically accepted, adopted, and adapted certain Spanish institutions, concepts, and practices, and, on the other, forcefully rejected other aspects of colonial impositions. Women asserted their influence and, in doing so, they managed to retain an important position within their households and communities across the first two centuries of colonial rule.


1957 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 591-594 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert van Niel

This year academic circles in the Netherlands are celebrating the centennial of the birth of C. Snouck Hurgronje; Arabist, scholar of Indonesian affairs, and formateur of Dutch colonial policy. Most Dutch scholars and many students of Indonesian affairs would readily agree that few men have had as intimate acquaintance with the Indonesian archipelago and its people and have had as wide a reputation as an expert on this part of the world as the late Snouck Hurgronje. Unfortunately his writings and policies are known to English-reading scholars only at second hand. Except for a few brief articles, only his books, Mekka and The Achehnese, and his lectures in Mohammedanism have appeared in English. Other important writings have appeared in German and French, but the great bulk are in Dutch. There are presently plans to translate some parts of Snouck Hurgronje's collected works and also to make available certain writings which were done after the collected works were published, but the publication plans for these translations and reprints are still indefinite.


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