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Don't Mention the Corpses the Erasure of Violence in Colonial Writings on Southeast Asia History May Be Written by the Victors, but What They Conveniently

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Don't Mention the Corpses the Erasure of Violence in Colonial Writings on Southeast Asia History May Be Written by the Victors, but What They Conveniently BIBLIOASIA JUL - SEP 2019 VOL. 15 ISSUE 02 FEATURE Don't Mention the Corpses The Erasure of Violence in Colonial Writings on Southeast Asia History may be written by the victors, but what they conveniently leave out can be more telling. Farish Noor reminds us of the (Left) Native Dayaks (or Dyaks) in Sarawak using sumpita, or blowpipes, to defend themselves from a coastal violent side of colonial conquest. attack led by James Brooke, the White Rajah of Sarawak. Image reproduced from Brooke, J., & Mundy, G.R. (1848). Narrative of Events in Borneo and Celebes, Down to the Occupation of Labuan […] (Vol. II; 2nd ed.) (facing p. 227). London: John Murray. (Microfilm no.:NL7435). (Above) The court of the Sultan of Borneo, with the audience chamber filled with natives, all well-dressed and armed. The sultan sits cross-legged on the throne at the upper end of the chamber. Frank Marryat describes him as being bald and dressed in a “loose jacket and trousers or purple satin, richly embroidered with gold, a close-fitting vest of gold cloth, and a light cloth turban on his head”. Image reproduced from Marryat, F.S. (1848). Borneo and the Indian Archipelago: With Drawings of Costume and Scenery (p. 109). London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans. Retrieved from BookSG. Mundy’s account in Narrative of Events in onslaughts will achieve nothing beyond a Borneo and Celebes, Down to the Occu- present and temporary good”.8 pation of Labuan (1848);5 and Marryat’s Violence was thus a constant leitmotif Borneo and the Indian Archipelago (1848)6 in many of the works written by colonial – would become the most widely read authors who arrived in Southeast Asia in accounts of the so-called “war on piracy” in the 19th century. Colonies were rarely maritime Southeast Asia, ultimately adding built by peaceful negotiations, and often the seal of legitimacy for what was really through the unequal contest of arms a sustained campaign to weaken Brunei’s between unequal powers. In the writings standing as an independent Southeast of men like Snodgrass, Keppel, Mundy and Asian polity. Marryat, we see the power differentials Although Keppel, Mundy and Marryat between East and West laid bare as we were directly involved in the naval campaign witness the bloody genesis of new colonies in Borneo, and supportive of the efforts across the region. to expand British colonial power across The fact that these authors did not “All conquest literature seeks to Among the many outcomes of the colonial colonisation in Burma, Anglo-Burmese for the Burmese as a people – his work the region while weakening the power of feel the need to hide the truth that colo- explain to the conquerors ‘why era in Southeast Asia – from the 18th to the relations were largely hostile throughout is full of snide and disparaging remarks local kingdoms such as Brunei, they were nialism was built through violence is also we are here’.”1 19th century – is a body of writing that can most of the 19th century, and culminated about the Burmans and their ruler – he also brutally frank in their accounts of the a reflection of the mores and sensibilities be best described as colonial literature. By in a series of costly wars: the First Anglo- did not hide the fact that the battles conflict and the realities of colonial warfare. during the age of Empire. In the 19th this I am referring not only to the accounts Burmese War (1824–26), the Second Anglo- of the First Anglo-Burmese War were Keppel and Mundy did not hide the century, the technological gap between – Robert Bartlett, a that were written by intrepid European Burmese War (1852–53) and the Third ferocious, and remarked that “our first fact that attacks on native settlements did East and West widened. In tandem with The Making of Europe (1993) travellers who ventured to this region, but Anglo-Burmese War (7–29 November 1885). encounters with the troops of Ava were indeed take place, and Keppel was honest this development arose a body of pseudo- also the writings of colonial bureaucrats, Among those who wrote about these sanguinary and revolting”.3 enough to admit that, in the course of the scientific theories of racial difference and colony-builders and administrators, and wars was Major John J. Snodgrass, whose A similar kind of frankness can be subjugation of the natives of Sarawak, the racial hierarchies in which Asians and the men who took part in the conquest account of the First Anglo-Burmese War found in the works of men like Admiral colonial forces – led by the adventurer Africans were cast as “inferior” races who of the region by force of arms. was from the viewpoint of a British officer Henry Keppel, George Rodney Mundy and James Brooke – had also committed acts were backward, degenerate and unable to serving in the colonial army. Snodgrass’ Frank Marryat. All three were navy men, of plunder and looting.7 Keppel went as far govern themselves. Dr Farish A. Noor is presently Associate Professor The Justification for Violence Narrative of the Burmese War (1827) was and all of them had taken part in the naval as stating that such excessive use of vio- Such notions – though largely dis- at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies It is interesting to see how these authors a work that was bellicose and ultimately campaign off the coast of Sarawak that lence – which included the razing of native credited today – were all the rage then, and the School of History, College of Humanities, dealt with the issue of violence that often triumphalist in tone and tenor, and as led to the eventual attack on the Kingdom villages to the ground – was necessary, for and were often used to justify the use of Arts, and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University. His latest book is Before the Pivot: came with colonisation, and how such he had conceded earlier in his work, the of Brunei. The works of these three men “without a continued and determined series force in the process of empire-building. America’s Encounters with Southeast Asia 1800– violence was sometimes justified or even war was in fact “an unequal contest”.2 – Keppel’s Expedition to Borneo of HMS of operations of this sort, it is my conviction The idea was that “savage” and “primitive” 1900 (Amsterdam University Press, 2018). celebrated. In the long-drawn process of Although Snodgrass had little sympathy Dido for the Suppression of Piracy (1846);4 that even the most sanguinary and fatal Asians and Africans stood to benefit from 06 07 BIBLIOASIA JUL - SEP 2019 VOL. 15 ISSUE 02 FEATURE exposure to Western civilisation, and would ting a one-sided view of the Javanese royal regalia and jewellery, among other was motivated by only the best motives to achieve by doing so in their writings. only submit to their colonial subjugators as a “degenerate” race that was lost in items – was put together by Raffles for his “to do good, to excite interest and to Scholars of colonial history are no doubt if they were forced to do so at gunpoint. the past and unable to progress without own research and his private collection. make friends”.17 appreciative of the fact that some of these Western intervention. To make things Such sanitised colonial propaganda colonial-era writers – such as Snodgrass, The Erasure of Violence worse, contemporary scholars such as The Violence Wrought Upon Java would become the norm in the decades to Keppel, Mundy and Marryat – were hon- And yet there is also another parallel tradi- Peter Carey (1992) have noted several Contemporary historians have pointed come. In 1862, yet another hagiographic est in their accounts of the violence they tion of colonial writing that emerged in the instances of plagiarism and fabrication out that the arrival of the British in Java, account of the Brooke legend appeared in perpetrated. At the very least, this opens 19th century. This took the form of works in Raffles’ work.12 which began with the attack on Batavia the form of Spenser St John’s two-volume the way for a critical discussion of colonial- that seemed to deliberately sideline the Notwithstanding the academic (present-day Jakarta), was anything but work, Life in the Forests of the Far East. In ism and its enduring legacy. topic of violence altogether, attempting to shortcomings of The History of Java, there peaceful: so violent was the assault on the this work, St John repeated the familiar The works of Raffles, Low and St erase all memory of the violent encounters is also a glaring omission in the text – the fortified port-city that bodies were said trope of Brooke as the white saviour whose John, however, pose a far greater chal- between the colonising powers and the elephant in the room as it were – which is to have been piled up one on top of the presence alone would restore order – which lenge. In rereading the works of this other societies they came to dominate. the absence of any mention of the inva- other. Equally shocking are local accounts was in turn framed in bold relief against a group of writers with a critical eye today, Among the books written about sion of Java itself. In Carey’s account of of the British attack on the royal city of backdrop of “savage” Bornean natives and we see the stark and enormous gaps and colonial Southeast Asia where we see the British occupation of Java from 1811 Jogjakarta, which led to the killing of hun- A painting of James Brooke, the “White Rajah” of “treacherous” Bruneians and Chinese.
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