366 Appendix a History of Sultan Syarif Abdurrahman the Founder Of
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366 Appendix A History of Sultan Syarif Abdurrahman the Founder of the Alkadri Dynasty Syarif Abdurrahman Alkadri bin Sayid Alhabib Husein Alkadri Jamalulail was born in Matan sultanate (Ketapang to date) in 15 Rabiul Awal 1151 H (Islamic Calendar) or 1739 AD. His father, Sayid Alhabib Husein Alkadri Jamalulail (from Hadramaut or a city in Arab peninsula) arrived in Matan Sultanate in 1735 AD and married Nyai Tua, a pretty maid of Matan Sultanate (dayang-dayang or palace maids) (from Islamized Dayak ancestors). Sayid Alhabib Husein worked as a judge in the Islamic Court of Matan Sultanate as well as teacher of Islamic tenets. In the environment of the busy port of Matan, Syarif Abdurrahman Alkadri learnt about the sailing and trading. When Sayid Alhabib Husein moved to Mempawah Sultanate in 1755 AD, he brought along his family to teach Islam in a Sultanate led by Opu Daeng Menambun (a Bugis) who set his sultanate’s capital at Sebukit in Mempawah Hulu subdistrict to date. His well-done jobs as a judge in the Matan Sultanate’s Islamic Court had been heard by Opu Daeng Menambun who thus asked him to move to his Mempawah Sultanate since 1740 AD (Rahman, Ja’ Achmad, and Muhadi 2000: 43- 46). A son-in-law of the Sultan of Matan himself, Daeng Opu Menambun (who married Putri Kesumba, the daughter of the Sultan of Matan) was offered by Sayid Alhabib Husein a marriage between her daughter Putri Utin Candramidi with Sayid Alhabib Husein’s son Syarif Abdurrahman Alkadri. The Sultan of Mempawah (350 northern of Pontianak) agreed with a very heavy condition of a dowry as high as 1,000 ringgit (old Malay monetary unit). With the blessing of Allah (after a serious prayer), the dowry requirement was cancelled by Opu Daeng Menambun. Sayid Alhabib Husein was freed to decide the amount of dowry. After the marriage, Syarif Abdurrahman Alkadri, now a Prince of Mempawah Sultanate, sailed to Palembang, South Sumatera, as a trader in 1765. (Opu Daeng Menambun passed away in 1761 after he abdicated his throne to Sayid Alhabib Husein, who acted as ad interim Tuan Besar Mempawah or Lord of Mempawah until Opu Daeng Menambun’s son—Adi Jaya Kesuma Negara, the Crown Prince—was fit to rule.) When he returned to 367 Mempawah from Palembang after a two-month trading, the Islamic teachers and Muslim traders he met in Palembang granted him a fortune of 2,000 ringgit (Rahman, Ja’ Achmad, and Muhadi 2000: 51). (No reasons stated. But granting such a fortune for a Prince of Mempawah Sultanate was a great investment for future business.) In 1767, Syarif Abdurrahman sailed from Mempawah to Banjarmasin (South Kalimantan), collected 258 piculs of spice, and brought them to Pasir (East Kalimantan). To a British ship captain he exchanged the spice with 14 chests of opium which he sold later to the Chinese traders with good price. Banjarmasin-Pasir route was traversed for trading of spice and opium (Rahman, Ja’ Achmad, and Muhadi 2000: 52-53). The good fortune enabled Syarif Abdurrahman to buy a big sailing ship he called “Tiang Sambung,” a trading ship with cannons. This achievement quickly made him noticeable by the Sultan of Banjarmasin (Sultan Saad) who offered him a wife from the Sultan’s own daughters. After three years of trading in Banjarmasin vicinity, Syarif Abdurrahman returned to Mempawah in 1771, docking in Bangka (Banca) Island and the other [spice] islands on his way. (In Pasir, just before his return to Mempawah, he hijacked a French ship bulked with silks, fine clothes and opium, killed its French captain, and recruited its Bengali crew to be his own ship’s crew. The Dutch and the Sultan of Banjar forbid him to visit Banjarmasin for this “crime.”) Having no where else to go as a “criminal,” Syarif Abdurrahman brought his family—in 14 ships armed with cannons— from Mempawah on 17 October 1771 to open a new settlement in a place called Pontianak to date. For five days and nights his ships were harassed by ghosts called “Puntianak” where they reached a small island known as Batu Layang (few kilometers from Pontianak to date) that he must shoot the ghosts (to scare it off) with the cannons’ salvos. (Most likely these “ghosts” were pirates hiding in the place where Landak and Kapuas rivers diverged.) After the ghosts’ harassment was overcome, on 23 October 1771 the crew landed in a forested site near the meeting point between Landak river and Kapuas river. On 21 October 1968, the Mayor of Pontianak decided to take 23 October 1771 AD as the official birth date of Pontianak. 368 For seven years from 1771 to 1778 he slowly increased the power of his chiefdom among the other sultanates. He granted farm lands to the migrants who pledged allegiance to his chiefdom. Syarif Abdurrahman built alliances by marrying 25 women in surrounding places near Pontianak (from these marriages he begot 60 children) (Rahman, Ja’ Achmad, Muhadi 2000: 78). He visited many other Islamic sultanates in Tayan, Simpang, Sukadana, Matan, Landak, Mempawah, and Sambas. 369 Appendix B The Short History of Malaysia Confrontation On 23 February 1963, or two years after Malaysian PM Tengku Abdul Rahman announced a plan of Greater Malaysia (with Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah in North Kalimantan), President Sukarno declared that Malaysia was a neo-colonialist design for the protection of imperialist economic privileges (Crozier 1966: 152-53). In a campaign to frustrate the creation of Greater Malaysia, Sukarno found A.M. Azahari (Azhari) came in handy. A Brunei politician of Arab-Malay descent, Azahari was a frustrated leader of Brunei’s People Party who had won all the elective seats in Brunei’s elections n August 1962 but was outnumbered and hijacked by the Legislative Assembly composed by the officially-nominated members. When he was twelve the Japanese occupation authorities sent him to Indonesia to study; he also fought along with Indonesian guerrilla against the Dutch in Java and Sumatra (Crozier 1966: 155). The frustrated Azahari led—although he was allegedly somewhere else at the time of assault—an enthusiastic but under-trained forces called TNKU (National Army of North Kalimantan) to capture Brunei on 8 December 1962 but the quick responding British forces secured the situation by the end of December 1962 when the TNKU rebels fled to the jungle. (President Sukarno himself “announced” his war when 30 Indonesian raiders penetrated three miles into the [British] First Division, and attacked a police post at Tebedu, killing a corporal and wounding two policemen [James and Sheil-Small 1971: 59-60].) At a negotiation in the end of July 1963 in Manila, Malaysian PM agreed to postpone the proclamation of Greater Malaysia before a United Nations team found the views of Sarawak and Sabah population. Two days after the proclamation of Greater Malaysia on 16 September 1963, a mob burned the British Embassy in Jakarta to the ground. By the end of 1963, around 12,000 guerillas—mostly members of Tentara Nasional Kalimantan Utara or TNKU—were being trained by “volunteers” from Indonesian Army. On 6 August 1963 Gen. Nasution, the Indonesian Defense Minister said: “It is no longer a secret that we give them military training and war equipment to drive the colonialists out of North Kalimantan” (Crozier 1966: 157). In January 1964, Robert Kennedy, the American 370 Attorney-General, visited Indonesia and Malaysia on President Johnson’s behalf to bring a cease-fire in Kalimantan. Previously, on 24 December 1963 President Sukarno told a delegation from the South Vietnam Liberation Front that he hoped the Front would soon be victorious so that he could visit a free Saigon. A few weeks later, in a public speech, President Sukarno turned toward the American Ambassador Howard Jones and said in English, “Go to hell with your aid.” Between 1956 and 1965 Sukarno visited Moscow four times and prominent Soviet figures like Nikita Kruschev and K. Voroshilov went to Jakarta to demonstrate their government’s approbation of Indonesian policies. Soviet economic assistance (USD365 million) and military aid valued at USD 1.25 billion—missiles, destroyers, submarines and MiG- 21s—had got under way (van der Kroef 1980: 245). The Russians might have regretted this support when Sukarno turned toward closer relationship with Beijing in 1963 as well as toward risky foreign gambits like the ‘Confrontation’ against the Malaysian Federation (van der Kroef 1980: 245). In June 1964 in a “Summit” talks in Tokyo, President Sukarno refused to withdraw his guerillas from Malaysian Borneo. (The Sukarno guerilla forces, however, having to infiltrate deep inside enemy territories with scanty local supports, were vulnerable to the most effective tactics built by the British Army: “striking them on the way in and on their homeward journey” (James and Sheil-Small 1971: 131). After an intelligence report at the end of 1964 that Sukarno increased the build-up of forces along the Borneo border, and forward island bases flanking Singapore and the south-west of Malaysia Peninsula, Gen. Walker increased his forces into about 18 battalions of British forces (Royal Marine Commandos, 8 Gurkha battalions, and British), 8 battalions of Malaysian Army, 2 battalions of Singapore Regiment, and 8 thousands Australians and New Zealanders, not to mention 80 navy vessels including aircraft carriers Victorious and Centaur, RAF bomber squadron with extra Javelin all- weather fighters and the Bloodhound defense missiles (James and Sheil-Small 1971: 152-53). By the time Gen. Walker was replaced by Maj. Gen. George Lea in March 1965, most of the guerillas had been smashed. After Gen. Suharto took over and stripped Sukarno off real power in 1965, the final of the Confrontation came to an end as the Peace Agreement was signed on 11 August 1966.