“WHEREOF ONE CANNOT SPEAK…” DECEPTIVE VOICES AND AGENTIVE SILENCES IN THE ARTICULATION OF IDENTITIES OF THE MOLUCCAN POSTCOLONIAL MIGRANT COMMUNITY IN THE NETHERLANDS Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades der Philosophie des Fachbereiches 05 der Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen vorgelegt von Gerrit Nicolaas Thomas Jacov van Engelenhoven aus Gießen 2020 Dekan: Prof. Dr. Thomas Möbius 1. Berichterstatterin: Prof. Dr. Greta Olson 2. Berichterstatter: Prof. Dr. Frans-Willem Korsten Tag der Disputation: ASSURANCE I hereby declare that I completed the submitted doctoral thesis independently and with only the help referred to in the thesis. All texts that have been quoted verbatim or by analogy from published and non-published writings and all details based on verbal information have been identified as such. CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 1 INTRODUCTION Whereof one cannot speak… My grandmother’s silence 4 Does the subaltern want to speak? 10 Rethinking voices 11 Rethinking silences 15 Deceptive voices and agentive silences 18 Overview of the chapters 19 PART ONE Anything you say can be used against you CHAPTER ONE Voices of history – The case of Martha Christina Tiahahu’s revolt and its historical reappropriations Introduction 26 Historical context of the 1817 revolt 29 Tiahahu according to Ver Huell 34 Tiahahu’s function for the justification of Dutch colonial rule 39 Tiahahu’s function for Indonesian nationalism 43 Ver Huell according to Dermoût 47 Conclusions 55 CHAPTER TWO Voices of their community? – The case of the Moluccan train hijackings and their entrance into Dutch collective memory Introduction 58 Historical context of the Moluccan migration 61 Victims and perpetrators as voiceless archetypes 66 Heroes as the voices of their community 70 Who controls the hero’s voice? 77 Conclusions 82 PART TWO When silence speaks louder than words CHAPTER THREE Silencing dissent by granting it voice – The case of Jan Pieterszoon Coen’s statue Introduction 86 Conflicts over Dutch colonial memory in public space 89 The first compromise: the statue’s updated inscription 93 The second compromise: the museum exhibition 98 The third compromise: the glossy magazine 100 When being granted a voice means being silenced 108 Conclusions 111 CHAPTER FOUR Silence as interruption – The case of De Grauwe Eeuw and their refusal to speak about their activism in the mainstream media Introduction 113 Debating Dutch colonial memory 115 The interruptive activism of De Grauwe Eeuw 120 De Grauwe Eeuw’s refusal to speak with the mainstream media 123 The risks of remaining silent 129 Using voice and silence together 137 Conclusions 140 PART THREE …thereof one must be silent CHAPTER FIVE Between speaking out and remaining silent – Adat as a deliberately indefinable element of Moluccan identity Introduction 143 Adat’s origin as that which is not law 146 Cornelis van Vollenhoven’s legal pluralism 149 Adat’s function for Indonesian nationalism 154 Adat’s function during the Era Reformasi 159 Adat’s function within the Moluccan community 166 Conclusions 175 WORKS CITED 177 DEUTSCHE ZUSAMMENFASSUNG 190 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation is based on the acknowledgment that silence has the power to express identities and relationships in ways that one’s voice could not do. As such, I am having trouble appropriately expressing my gratitude to everyone to whom I owe the completion of this particular project, as well as so many other happy circumstances and developments in my life: words are simply not enough. However, this dissertation is also based on the acknowledgment that silence is most effective when combined with a carefully aimed voice. Therefore, I would still like to thank a number of people explicitly, keeping in mind that there is always more to say, and better ways to say it. First of all, there is my mother Henriette, my father Aone, and my siblings, Gideon, Merel, Radboud, Jonathan and Rivkah. There are also my grandmothers and grandfathers, my aunt Nora, my uncle Tjali, my brother-in-law Otis, my mother-in-law Elena, and everyone else, uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews and nieces, whom I am honoring in silence, beyond the words on this page. I love my family. If I do not say this often enough, it is because I trust that they know that my love for them is present in everything that I do. To me, coming from a large family means to understand at all times that I am not alone, but that I am part of something bigger, and that my individual actions, mistakes and achievements only mean something within this larger context. It is this sense of belonging that has helped me to get where I am now: I never had to face anything entirely by myself, and therefore, I never really felt afraid of taking new steps and turning new corners. For this constant support I am grateful not only to my direct family, but also to my two best friends, who are so close to me, that I consider them as brothers. Berrie and Looi. Throughout much of my life, these two have functioned as both the angels and the devils on my shoulders. They have led me at times into, and at times out of temptation, depending on what was needed the most. I could not have asked for two better companions. Apart from Berrie and Looi, there are so many more friends who have been essential for my wellbeing, and with whom I cannot wait to reconnect as I return to the Netherland. Not all of them could possibly be mentioned here, but some must be: Minja, Jens, Kevin, Judith, Jesper, Brian, Simon, Jacco, Miriam, Julian, Tessa, Thomas, Sandra, Dirk. 1 My two supervisors, Greta and Frans-Willem, are also two companions whose friendship I treasure. Although they were my direct superiors throughout my project, I feel lucky to be able to say that they have been much more than that. I feel that my relationship with Greta has been effortless from the very beginning. We met at a conference which Frans- Willem had organized in Leiden, two years before the start of my PhD, in 2014. The continued conversation that we started then developed over the years and is now reaching fulfillment, with the end of my dissertation project. Greta has supported me not only as a promoter, but also as a friend, during vulnerable moments in my personal life along the way. I am grateful that life has put us on each other’s paths, and I am certain that the conclusion of my dissertation is not an end at all, but a beginning. My relationship with Frans-Willem goes back so many years that, again, I am at a loss for words to describe it appropriately. Nevertheless, I must try. He was the very first teacher I encountered at the beginning of my Bachelor in Literary Studies, in 2005. By the time this book gets published, we will have already known each other for more than half of my life. Our first project together was my Master’s Thesis, which he supervised. Since then, we have worked and traveled together frequently, which has always been a great learning experience for me, as well as a great pleasure. I look forward to future projects and collaborations, and, most importantly, the continuation of our friendship. At this point, I also want to mention Jeannette, who has invited me to her and Frans-Willem’s home on many occasions, and with whom I have had many inspiring conversations over the years, a tradition which I am looking forward to resume when I return to the Netherlands. Not only Frans-Willem, but all the teachers and colleagues I encountered during my studies at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society have been inspirations to me. Isabel, Vincent, Maria, Yasco, Liesbeth, Madeleine, Peter, Ernst, Nanne, Thony, Sara. I also thank the department of the Bachelor International Studies in Leiden, for which I worked as a teacher in the two years leading up to my PhD. I developed the PhD proposal which eventually got me accepted in Gießen to great extent in dialogue with my students of International Studies, and I am grateful for their enthusiasm and input. I fondly remember all my great colleagues at this program, and in particular Bram, in collaboration with whom I incorporated my research topic into the syllabus of our shared course of Cultural Studies. The worst part about projects such as this dissertation, is the sense of temporariness that it brings, and the necessity of farewell that it inevitably leads to. However, I am certain 2 that my leaving Gießen will not mean the end of my friendships that began here, in and around the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture: Hannes, Leonie, Stefan, Marie, Teresa, Philipp, Nikola, Andrea, Will, Ewelina, Dominique, Çiçek, Mina, Oliver, Andrea, Paul, Robert, Max, Eva, Timo, Amanda, Victoria, Bob, Chelsea. I am grateful for the unending support by everyone at the centre, in particular Ann and Jens. I also treasure all the friends and colleagues I met and worked together with closely during Greta’s bimonthly colloquium: Sonja, Wibke, Birte, Laura, Raul, Leonie, Sessa, Maren, Juliane, Julia, Teona, Maaike, Lisa, Burcu, Cord. Both of the Jonasses in my life deserve a special mention, because they were part of one of my most important non-academic activities throughout my time here: our band will go into hibernation as I move away, waiting for an appropriate time to pick up where we left off, writing and performing music together. There are many things to be grateful for, but nothing beats the fact that I met the woman of my dreams here. Genia, we were part of the same PhD community, experimented for a while with being sparring partners during theoretical discussions; then we moved on to the status of “buddies”, until we just dropped the act and chose for each other.