A Comparative Study of Pramoedya Ananta Toer's

COLONIAL IDENTITIES DURING COLONIALISM IN INDONESIA: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PRAMOEDYA ANANTA TOER’S CHILD OF ALL NATIONS AND MULTATULI’S MAX HAVELAAR

AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters

LETYZIA TAUFANI

Student Number: 054214109

ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2008

i ii iii

“Nothing is more dangerous than an idea

especially when we have only one.”

Paul Claudel

This Undergraduate Thesis Dedicated to:

My Daughter Malia Larasati Escloupier

and My Husband Cédric

LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS

Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma:

Nama : Letyzia Taufani

Nomor Mahasiswa : 054214109

Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul:

COLONIAL IDENTITIES DURING COLONIALISM IN INDONESIA: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PRAMOEDYA ANANTA TOER’S CHILD OF ALL NATIONS AND MULTATULI’S MAX HAVELAAR

Beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan demikian saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan, mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data, mendistribusikan secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikannya di internet atau media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya maupun memberikan royalty kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis.

Demikian pernyataan ini yang saya buat dengan sebenarnya.

Dibuat di Yogyakarta

Pada tanggal : 1 Desember 2008

Yang menyatakan

(Letyzia Taufani)

vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank and express my greatest gratitude to all of those who gave me guidance, strength and opportunity in completing this thesis. I would like to give my deepest gratitude to my husband Cédric , my daughter Malia Larasati .

Their love and support gave me the courage to finish this work immediately, yes, immediately.

My special thanks to my advisor, Dra. Theresia Enny Anggraini M.A. , for her smile, advice, discussion, patience, and guidance in working in this thesis.

For all the lecturers and all staffs of English Letters Department, especially to my class and academic advisors Adventina Putranti S.S. M. Hum. , Drs. Hirmawan

Wijanarka M.Hum. and Mbak Ninik for her efforts to help me with everything that has to do with administration work, I greatly thank to them.

Thanks to all my friends Oyo, Monic, Lori, Shanti, Aza, Dewi, Kristin, and Icha for the cool time during my studies. Thanks to all my friends in English

Letters especially the class of ’05 C and D sections and to those who I have not mentioned yet. I also give my profound thanks to Mbah Ben for being patient with me and Pakde Iwan for encouraging me to critically think about the world.

My special thanks to Fian, Vallone, and Diah for helping me with my thesis, my parents Prima and Sunaryo for the discussions and corrections, my brother,

Tommy for encouraging me, and the last, I greatly thank Mbah Pram for inspiring me even though we met briefly.

(Letyzia Taufani)

vii TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE ...... i APPROVAL PAGE ...... ii ACCEPTANCE PAGE ...... iii MOTTO PAGE ...... iv DEDICATION PAGE ...... v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... vii TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... viii ABSTRACT ...... x ABSTRAK ...... xi

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ...... 1 A. Background of the Study ...... 1 B. Problem Formulation ...... 6 C. Objectives of the Study ...... 7 D. Definition of Terms ...... 8

CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL REVIEW ...... 10 A. Review of Related Studies...... 10 B. Review of Related Theories...... 14 B.1 Comparative Literature……………………………………. 14 B.2 Theory of Postcolonialism...………………...... 16 B.3 Theory of Characters and Characterization………………… 18 C. Review on the Biographical Background……………………… 21 C.1 Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s Life and Works……………….. 21 C.2 Edward D. Dekker’s/ Multatuli’s Life and Works………... 23 D. Theoretical Framework ………………………………………… 25

CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY ……………………………………. 27 A. Object of the Study...... 27 B. Approach of the Study...... 30 C. Method of the Study ...... 31

CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS ……………………………………………. 33 A. Postcolonial Theory…..…...... 33 A.1 Minke within Postcolonial Theory……………………… 34 A.2 Max within Postcolonial Theory….……………………... 54 B. Author’s Background and Portrayal of Colonial Identity………. 64 B.1 Edward D. Dekker’s/ Multatuli’s Background………….…. 65 B.2 Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s Background …….……………… 69 CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION …...... 72

BIBLIOGRAPHY …...... 74

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ix ABSTRACT

LETYZIA TAUFANI. Colonial Identities During Colonialism in Indonesia: A Comparative Study of Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s Child of All Nations and Multatuli’s Max Havelaar. Yogyakarta: Jurusan Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma, 2008.

The novel by Pramoedya Ananta Toer Child of All Nations tells a story of an emerging nation from colonialism through the eyes of Minke, an eighteen- year-old man who has been primarily educated in the Dutch school. The book depicts life in the colonial world as it is going through tumultuous time. Toer writes the colonial times in Indonesia as it begins to emerge and wakes up from the centuries of colonial oppression. The question of national and individual as well as collective identity is strongly connected throughout the novel. Multatuli’s Max Havelaar depicts the story of a Dutch civil servant living within the colonial world as he examines the colonial conditions. Through Max Havelaar we see the atrocities and misappropriation involving social, cultural and political means. Within the hope of Max there lies a genuine effort to rectify and to bring about the awareness of the colonial system that simply neglects its oppressed. Like that of Toer’s book, Multatuli hopes to raise the voice of those unable to cry for help. There are some objectives that the writer wants to achieve through this thesis. The first is to analyze the main characters within the two books—Minke and Max Havelaar. And the second is to analyze the author’s intention of why they wrote the novel and what message they would like to convey to the reader through their main characters. In order to analyze the problem, the writer employs postcolonial theory as an approach. The postcolonial theory is considered appropriate to be applied to this topic because the discussion in this work involves the colonial identity of each character and postulating them within the postcolonial approach. Later these two characters are compared as they were created by two authors who came from the opposite worlds of the colonialism; one from the world of the colonized and the other from the world of the colonizer. The second question addresses the reason of why these two authors wrote the novel and postulating it to the postcolonial discourse. By proposing this question, the writer tries to answer: how the authors’ reflection of colonial identities can be seen in their main characters and how each are intertwined. The study has found that each character in the novel does not only portray the extreme classical definition of what colonizer and colonized are like, but also they exude within themselves the complex multiplicities as they cross boundaries and continuously shifting themselves within the colonial world. The multiplicities and border thinking constantly occurs within themselves as they try to find the bargaining position and insert their identity as a human being within the colonial spectrum.

x ABSTRAK

Child of All Nations karya Pramoedya Ananta Toer mengisahkan tentang bangkitnya sebuah bangsa dari penjajahan dalam sudut pandang Minke, seorang pemuda 18 tahun berlatar belakang pendidikan Belanda. Buku ini mendokumentasikan hiruk-pikuk kehidupan di jaman penjajahan. Toer menceriterakan era kolonial di Indonesia ketika bangsa ini bangkit dan bangun dari tekanan penjajah selama berabad-abad. Pertanyaan nasional dan individual identitas kolektif terkait sangat kuat dalam novel ini. Max Havelaar karya Multatuli mengisahkan cerita tentang pegawai pemerintah Belanda yang mengamati kondisi keterjajahan dalam dunia kolonial. Melalui Max Havelaar, kita dapat melihat pembunuhan dan kecurangan yang melibatkan kepentingan-kepentingan sosial, budaya dan politik. Dalam harapan Max, ada usaha pribadi untuk memperbaiki dan menyadarkan bahaya dari sistem kolonial yang menindas orang-orang yang terjajah. Sama seperti buku Toer, Multatuli ingin menyampaikan suara dari orang-orang yang tak mampu meminta tolong. Ada beberapa tujuan yang ingin dicapai penulis melalui tulisan ini. Yang pertama adalah menganalisa tokoh utama dalam dua buku ini yaitu, Minke dan Max Havelaar untuk memahami karakteristik mereka. Tujuan kedua adalah menganalisa maksud pengarang dan alasan mereka menulis novel dan pesan apa yang ingin mereka sampaikan kepada pembaca. Untuk menganalisa masalah, penulis menggunakan pendekatan Poskolonial. Studi, alasannya poskolonial dirasa cocok untuk diaplikasikan pada topik ini karena pembahasan dalam tulisan ini melibatkan identitas kolonial dari setiap tokoh dengan melihat mereka dalam pendekatan poskolonial untuk mengetahui apakah mereka berada diantara pemikiran kolonial. Yang kedua tokoh ini akan dibandingkan dengan melihat latar belakang penulis yang berada pada kubu yang bertolak belakang; satu dari pihak penjajah dan lain dari pihak terjajah. Pertanyaan kedua mengetengahkan mengapa kedua pengarang menulis novel-novel tersebut dan melihatnya dalam pemikiran poskolonial dengan cara menjawab pertanyaan koneksi antara mereka sebagai pengarang dan identitas kolonial yang terlihat dari tokoh-tokoh utama mereka. Penelitian ini menunjukan bahwa tiap tokoh dalam novel tidak hanya menjelaskan definisi klasik yang ekstrim tentang seperti apa penjajah dan terjajah, tetapi lebih pada menunjukan di kerumitan dan kekomplekan dalam mereka saat mereka melewati batas dan berangsur-angsur mengubah diri dalam dunia kolonial. Kerumitan dan kenekatan berpikir terus menerus mereka alami ketika mereka mencoba mendapatkan posisi tawar dan memasukkan identitas mereka sebagai manusia dalam sudut pandang kolonial.

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Since Plato, it has been accepted that literature is a mediator between the real and the imagination. Literary works can be seen as documents in history, psychology, anthropology, and philosophy; they are often made to be part of music social doctrine, and even propaganda and ritual (Nelson Jr. quoted in

Noakes et al, 1988:37). Literature is infused within a society not only because of its intrinsic value, but also because they are part of other institution such as market or education system.

Though literature is an integral component of a culture, nation, population and a group of people, through institutions mentioned above, literature plays an important role in building or terminating a cultural authority for the dominant power. These literary texts not only reflect various ideologies held by the dominant power but also they encode tensions, complexities and ambiance of the dominant culture. According to Mary Louise Pratt, literature is seen as a zone of contact in which “transculturalization”, the process of intermingling between cultures, happens with all its complexities (Pratt in Loomba, 2000: 32). Literature becomes an important medium in which we take and go against the dominant power as can be seen in such literary work like “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” by Harriet

Beecher Stowe who wrote about slavery in America.

Literature practices and cultural practices also reflect the interaction between cultures. Literature can be seen as critic to the society and the conditions

of the society during a specific historical period; it carries certain message for the reader because the three entities of text, reader and writer are interfacing with each other in their own ways. According to Edward Said in his book Orientalism texts can create not only knowledge but also the very reality they appear to describe. In time such knowledge and reality produce a tradition or what Michel

Foucault calls a “discourse” (Said, 1979:94).

The syncretic nature of literature text or the complexities of ideologies cannot be assumed that they are above the historical and political process; in fact literature is part of them. And the history of colonialization, through literary texts, can be understood either by what is explicitly describe in the text or implicitly, by what is hidden in the process of writing. Moreover, disciplines such as comparative literature acknowledge that there exist deep interactions from various literature and culture which is organized in such a way that the central tenet of it lies that “Europe and The United States both became the center of the world, not only because of their political position but also because of their literature which are useful to be studied” (Said quoted in Loomba, 2000:99). Literary works became essential parts in forming colonial minds because they create imagination and influence people as individuals (Loomba, 2000: 96). Literary works not only portrays the dominant ideology but also other ideologies that oppose it. It is impossible that a literary work does not carry a certain ideologies within its text.

Language and literature at the same time are involved to create a binary; one is

European and the other is non-Europeans and this is part of how colonial authorities are constructed (Loomba, 2000:97). The connection between literature

and colonialism is that literature offers dominant critical view that later on injected into a colonial agenda.

Comparative literature is a relatively new discipline which rose in the nineteenth century in which it deals with literary work of two or more. Though the concrete definition of comparative literature is still being contested Comparative

Literature is needed to understand literary texts in relation to other texts, whether belonging to other languages and cultures, other disciplines, other races, or other sex (Noakes et al, 1988:17). In analyzing how literature influenced or be influenced by a certain ideology, comparative literature can be used as a method to find out how the colonial identity within colonized and the colonizer are shifting or moving within the colonial enterprise. According to Ania Loomba, literary and cultural practices create cultural interactions (Loomba, 2000: 98). It is these precise cultural interactions that comparison can be used to examine the universality or the specificity of literary texts. As Aldo Scaglione posits the view that comparative literature can contribute to the study of cultural history what no other discipline can: the identification of the ideological, social and economic circumstances that make possible the creation of a given literary work (Noakes et al, 1988: 14).

This thesis will dwell within the comparative studies spectrum in which two different literatures from a completely different background and extreme on the colonial spectrum are examined, and in this case Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s

Child of All Nations and Multatuli’s Max Havelaar. In short this thesis will discuss colonial identities that were being contested within Indonesian

colonization analyzing those that were part of the colonial enterprise. This thesis also examines whether the actors within the Indonesian colonial spectrum had active or passive role, conscious or unconscious decision to be part of colonization as the colonized and/or the colonizer. It also examines the influence of the authors’ background regarding the colonial identities portrayed by the main characters.

The book Max Havelaar or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading

Company by Multatuli also known as Edward Douwes Dekker is one of the most remarkable book which speaks about colonial condition and its atrocities of that time. The book was written in 1859, in a short period of time of within two weeks by Dekker who used the pseudonym of “Multatuli” (which means “I have suffered much”) and reflects his disappointments as a Dutch civil servant in the Dutch East

Indies of the colonial oppression done by the Dutch in the East Indies.

Indeed it was true that when the book was published it received mixed reviews and then ultimately sent a shudder through the whole body of the Dutch which ultimately led to some reformation to the Dutch colonial policy in the East

Indies (Toer, 1999: 1). The content criticizes the colonial system that extensively oppressed the colonized in Indonesia, questioning The Ethical Policy and Culture

System. Furthermore, it is a Dutch writer that exposed the colonial atrocities that were practiced during that time done by the Dutch government. Though it had some successes the book suffers from many of the same flaws as Joseph Conrad’s more famous Heart of Darkness (which it predates by almost forty years): a focus on the European colonizers and a lack of attention to indigenous people (Einaudi,

2007:12) According to Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Max Havelaar is seen as the book that brought down colonialism (Toer, 1999: 1). Dekker successfully posits his critical views about the colonial practices in the East Indies. It is an autobiographical novel that was written with a dual purpose in mind, as the writer has said: improvement in the position of the Javanese and his own rehabilitation as a colonial officer in the Netherlands. Nevertheless, it is a successful literary plea against colonial abuses by the Dutch in its huge colony, the East Indies

(Indonesia), in the second half of the nineteenth century. Max Havelaar is also deemed important because it is rare to have a non-colonized author writing about the atrocities that happened in the colonized regions. Thus, it is important to postulate another author like Toer, who was from the colonized country writing about the similar atrocities of the colonized areas.

Pramoedya Ananta Toer, a famous Indonesian writer who wrote Child of

All Nations wrote a stunning four-part of the Buru quartet novel that deals with colonialism in Java. Toer, a well known Indonesian writer successfully created a romance novel that also has a message about the practice of colonization in

Indonesia. The book deals with colonialism as well as the awareness of colonial practice and the realization to awakening of one’s identity within the colonial spectrum. Toer who was born on the island of Java in 1925 was imprisoned first by the Dutch from 1947 to 1949 for his role in the Indonesian revolution, then by the Indonesian government as a political prisoner. This book was written during his confinement on Buru Island from 1969 to 1979 and most of his writings

(including Child of All Nations ) were banned by Soeharto’s New Order because it was deemed to be subversive.

Through the comparison of these two books in defining the colonized and the colonizer we can see that there are a lot of similarities and differences in the way the two authors describe colonialism in Indonesia. In examining these two books by different author of a Dutch background and an Indonesian background writing about similar historical period which is the colonization of the East Indies specifically Java during the ‘cultuurstelsel’ (forced plantation work) by the Dutch the thesis will compare the differences and similarities of what is considered a colonizer and a colonized and whether or not these two categories of actors applies within both novels. Using comparative literature in postcolonial studies we will examine how these stigmas still affect people in the colonial situations in terms of their view and the ‘Others’.

B. Problem Formulation:

In order to have a thorough analysis, this thesis will be focused on the problems stated below:

1. How do the main characters, Minke and Max Havelaar, place

themselves within postcolonial theory?

2. How does the difference in the authors’ background help to portray

colonial identities?

C. Objective of the Study:

The study’s aim is to compare these two books from two different literature background; Dutch and Indonesian writers about colonialism in

Indonesia. In comparing these two different literature background we will examine further of what it means to be within the colonial identity of the colonized and the colonizer, how these two entities are intertwined with each other in an enterprise called colonialization. In terms of colonial identities, there is an idea that without colonialization there will be no colonized and colonizer, the duality of these are part of what Edward Said called ‘Orientalism’ and

‘Occidentalism’ in which are specific expose of the Eurocentric universalism which takes for granted both the superiority of what is European or Western, and the inferiority of what is not. This thesis will ask the question of whether or not the view of a Dutch writer (posit as part of the colonizer) and the view of an

Indonesian writer (posit as part of the colonized) sees the colonial enterprise and its participants in a similar or different ways and it also examines the influence of the authors’ background in relation to the colonial identities portrayed by the main characters. There exist dialectic between the two entities (the colonized and colonizer) how they defined each other within colonialism.

It is impossible to talk about the colonized without talking about the colonizer, both are the thesis and antithesis of each other and these definitions are not static, yet they are dynamic as they may overlap one another. Looking at some

stigma and stereotypes attached and even going to the psychological aspect in terms of colonial identity of how the colonized is viewed is an important inference to how internalized the colonial system was. How these definition differ and similar, whether or not the definition of the colonized and the colonizer and its stigma is part of the contested space in colonization.

D. Definition of Terms:

Cultuurstelsel/Culture System :

It is the practice of forced cultivation done in plantation imposed by the

Dutch in Indonesia predominantly on the island of Java in the nineteenth century.

It is the practice of forced labor by planting specific crop in various regions in the

East Indies in order to satisfy the European markets of profitable products such as sugar, pepper, coffee, tea, indigo, cardamom, etc.

Colonialism :

Referring to Loomba’s definition of modern colonialism which is a state of domination in which it involves oppression and subjugation over people and their land, wealth and others. Colonialism not only seizes wealth, the people and resources but they also change the structure of the economic system of the colonized and forced them into a complex relationship with the mother country.

Thus there exist an unequal flow of natural resources and people (indentured servants, slaves, etc.) from the colonized regions to the mother country (Loomba,

2000:4).

Ethical Policy :

It is a policy conducted by the Dutch in the East Indies in order to respond to some criticism about their colonial oppression towards the indigenous people during the 1870s-1900s. Ethical Policy aimed to give some natives educations

(only privileged natives of high ranks or royalty) in order to qualify them for certain jobs, but sadly it accomplished only part of its goals.

CHAPTER II

THEORETICAL REVIEW

This chapter provides theories, criticism and data used to support the analysis. It is divided into four parts. The first part is review on related study, which provides some criticism of studies done dealing with post colonialism. The second part is theoretical review, in which consists of the theories used to support the analysis. The third part is the review on the biographical background to explain the background of both authors used to support the analysis. The last part is the theoretical framework, which tells the readers how the theories will be used in the analysis

A. Review of Related Studies

There are some related studies done by other researcher using postcolonial approach. One of those studies is done by Judit Gera in her thesis of “A Post-

Colonial and Feminist Approach to Multatuli's Max Havelaar ”. Using postcolonial as well as feminist approach she posits the view that “although the novel negotiates the abuses of colonialism in the East Indies, the text very often contradicts itself. This self-contradiction makes the text - paradoxically enough - a colonial project.” (Gera, 2006: 1). She posits the arguments following the thought of Ania Loomba, in which she stated that categories such as class, race and gender

are interwoven and permeate each other. There is a parallelization between colonial imagination and the asymmetry between man and woman (Gera, 2006:

3). Gera sees that there is a form of commutable terrain between the land and the woman where colonial power can be practiced.

Thus in her approach of postcolonial and feminist literary theories she argues that it give guidelines to confront the mental frameworks with that of literary works of the past. Using the logic given by Raymond Williams of the process of unlearning and challenging the accepted truths about a canonized text she challenges the re-reading of a classical literary work. She examines Max

Havelaar in a new way which is seen through the perspective of postcolonial and gender perspective.

In her thesis, she suggested three new interpretation of the novel. The first is that the character of Droogstopple and Max Havelaar is seen as two non- oppositional main characters in the novel. She argues that there is always synonymic relation between the frame and the main narratives within the novel.

The simple minded cruelty and pragmatism of the frame accounts for and confronts the misery depicted in the main narrative. The oppositional divide is however not between Amsterdam and the East-Indies, or between the two main characters, Droogstoppel and Max Havelaar, but between colonizer and colonized in all kinds of relationships, whether in Europe or elsewhere. In my view Droogstoppel is not an oppositional but a synonymic character to Max Havelaar. They are both white European men who exploit Europeans and non-Europeans—both men and women. Imperialist exploitation is therefore not only characteristic for the frame but also for the main narrative and the several embedded sub-narratives (Gera, 2006: 3)

The second argument she posits is that the novel is working with binary oppositions spread throughout the whole text. Using Edward Said’s argument in his book The Orient Gera states that the Orient has been created by the West as the ‘Other’ whereby the Orient helped the West in its self-definition in sharp oppositions (Gera, 2006:1). She postulates upon

Gayatri Spivaks definition of ‘Othering’ in which Spivaks stated that the process of 'Othering' is when the dominating discourse creates its ‘Others’

(Spivak quoted in Gera, 2006:4).

This 'Othering process' is working in the whole text, because representation in the referentiality of colonialism is basically built on difference. On the one hand we find white European men—Droogstoppel, Sjaalman, Stern, Max Havelaar as opposed to coloured non-European men—the regent, Saidjah, and the several nameless native slaves. On the other hand we have white European women—the wife and daughter of Droogstoppel and their lady friends, the wife of Sjaalman and the white European servants. As opposed to these we find the non-European women such as Mrs. Slotering, the baboe, Si Oepi Keteh (Gera, 2006:4)

There is also another kind of binary opposition that operates within the novel, which is the gender discrimination that also works within the colonial spectrum, in which she posits the view that this oppression must be maintained as part of the connection to postcolonialism and gender perspective.

But all women are oppositional to men in the sense that they are subordinated to men. Urban, capitalist, civilized, modern Amsterdam forms also a contrast to the romanticized, exotic East Indies. Difference must be maintained otherwise borders become blurred. Blurred borders and contact zones mean danger to colonizers (Gera, 2006:4).

The third argument that Gera posits is that all metaphors have a textual counterpart in the novel. She is proving the statement posited by Loomba that colonialism should be analyzed as text because it can only be recuperated through its representations, via a range of discourses and in the novel Max Havelaar there are several metaphors that are consisting of double composition: oppositional and textual at the same time (Gera, 2006:4). According to Gera that all the metaphors within the novel have this double character: they are binary oppositions between colonizer and colonized and have a textual aspect at the same time, thus 'colonizer' and the 'colonized' can be also seen in the relationship between man and woman.

She then continued:

Women in the frame of nineteenth century Holland and in the main narrative of the East Indies are all subordinated to men. Woman is an icon of the colonial system: she— white or colored—is colonized by man, white or colored (Gera, 2006: 7)

It is precisely because of the binary opposition that exists creating hierarchy and domination of one group towards another and in this case within the frame of colonialism gender discrimination is an integral part of to subdue and subordinate women, effectively silencing them.

If colony is text, woman is text as well. The text 'woman' is written, constructed, dominated and manipulated by man. Women characters only seldom get the chance to speak. The amount of direct and indirect speech of female characters is practically zero compared to that of men. The story is about men written for men. Women are embedded in a male story (Gera, 2006:11)

The above study is important to provide insights on what kinds of studies has been done. Gera in her analysis is similar in that within the colonial discourse she intertwines the postcolonial theory with the gender theory. Thus she sees that the contested space within colonialism is not static but yet dynamic and it overlaps with many other theories including the gender theory.

This study took the comparison of two novels Max Havelaar and Child of

All Nations to examine the different view of what colonizer and the colonized are and how these definitions are not static but rather overlapping and shifting within other colonial identities. The posited view is that since the writers of these two different books has different motives in their literary works it is the center of this thesis to dwell and compare the similarities and differences that exist between the two books within postcolonial spectrum.

B. Review of Related Theories

In this part, the writer presents several theories that are useful in doing the

analysis later on in Chapter Four.

B. 1 Comparative Literature

Though the definition of comparative literature is still a problematic like that of any new approach that rose in the nineteenth century, the discourse is starting to have taken its place in the literary theory as many feels the need to create alternative from that of the other literary theories. In the world of literary criticism, comparative studies serve to reestablish the necessary foundation for a holistic consideration of the real historical circumstances and conditions of artistic

creation (Scaglione quoted in Noakes et. al., 1988:148). Comparative theory becomes an active intersubjective experience as works of art, in this case the texts itself serves as an intermediary between the existential experience of the author and the reader’s reaction. Thus when comparative literature is seen from that vantage point of view then we are to discover many things such as “mentality” behind the literary work, the author’s cultural formation or bildung ; a broader dimension to understanding the work. According to Scaglione, it gives a truly meaningful understanding of the author’s mental predicament in understanding literary works; it offers an insight to the social dimension of the author’s cultural background not, centrally, in an economic and political sense but at least in the sense of reconstructing his or her “education” (Scaglione quoted in Noakes et. al.,

1988: 148). In defending comparative literature, Wellek and Austin Warren stated:

“Whether “extrinsic” rather than “intrinsic” approaches can be legitimate and fruitful in literature. It is a question that has lost much of its dramatic impact in academia, since we have become accustomed to a host of pluralistic approaches envisaging a great deal of latitude for the nonliterary ingredients of literary evaluation, ranging from psychology/psychoanalysis to more or less Marxist economism and sociologism or, on a different level, the many, still proliferating denominations of linguistic sciences (Scaglione quoted in Noakes et. al., 1988: 147)

Harry Levin and René Wellek saw comparative literature as a way to reject the model which imposes the view that Europe is the customhouse for approving various literatures. Like that of Levin and Wellek, Mathew Arnold had envisioned comparative literature as a criticism which regards Europe as being,

for intellectual purposes, one great confederation, bound to a joint action and working to a common result; and whose members has, for their proper outfit, a knowledge of Greek, Roman, and Eastern antiquity, and of another (Arnold quoted by Noakes et al, 1988:8). According to Clayton Koelb and Susan Noakes in the essay Introduction: Comparative Perspectives that the central task of comparative literature has been historical, in the broadest sense of that term

(Noakes et al, 1988:7). Therefore, comparative studies examines the concern for values and qualities, for an understanding of literary works which incorporates their historicity and thus requires the history of criticism for such an understanding, and finally, it means an international perspective which envisages a distant ideal of universal literary history and scholarship (De Man quoted in

Samuel Weber’s “Foundering of Aesthetics” in Noakes et. al., 1988: 59).

B. 2 Theory of Postcolonialism

Postcolonial theory is the collective term for a set of theoretical implications that attempt to describe postcolonialism (or neocolonialism to some the term is still problematic) in all its various forms. The term ‘post-colonial’, however, covers all the culture affected by the imperial process from the moment of colonization to the present day (Tiffin et. al., 1989:2). Thus, the theory emerged in their present form out of the experience of colonization. Postcolonial theory is a critique of representation that is used to expose and dissect hegemonic power structures that have their roots in colonial discourse (Nierkerk, 2003:58). The postcolonial field of study started out in the 1980s as a set of critical narratives

brought forward by a handful of literary theorists who begin to question the authority of European models. The idea of ‘post-colonial literary theory’ emerges from the inability of European theory to deal adequately with the complexities and varied cultural provenance of post-colonial writings (Tiffin et. al., 1989:11). In recent years the field has become increasingly institutionalized and popularized within the international academy. Postcolonial theory though drawing from the

European theoretical system it has done so but ever so carefully and eclectically, but yet no European theoretical system can be appropriated to be used to examine postcolonial studies except the system undergoes a radical thinking—an

‘appropriation’ by a different discourse (Tiffin et. al., 1989:11).

According to Peter Barry in his book Beginning Theory: An Introduction

to Literary and Cultural Theory Postcolonial critics consist of the following

tenets:

1. The rejection of claims to universalism made by the Western literature and

seeks to show the limitation to emphasize across boundaries of cultural

and ethnic differences.

2. The examination of the representation of other cultures in literature to

further understand the text and meaning.

3. The portrayal of literature as often deceptively and crucially silent on

matters concerning colonialization and imperialism.

4. Centering the issues of cultural differences and diversity and examine their

treatment in relevant literary works.

5. The celebration of hybridity and ‘cultural polyvalency’, that is, the

situation whereby individuals and groups belong simultaneously to more

than one culture (for instance, that of the colonizer, through a colonial

school system, and that of the colonized, through the local and oral

traditions).

6. The development of perspective, not just applicable to postcolonial

literatures, where it depicts the condition of marginality, plurality and

perceived ‘Otherness’ are seen as sources of energy and potential change.

B. 3 Character and Characterization

Using a theory of Characters and Characterization we can examine some

perspective within the book itself. According to E. M. Forster in his book

Aspects of the Novel and Related Writings since the novelist himself is a

human being, there is an affinity between him/her and his/hers subject-matter

which absent in many other forms of art (Forster, 1974:30). Thus, the relations

of characters to the other aspect of the novel form a subject of future enquiry.

According to the theory of Character and Characterization by M. J.

Murphy in his book Understanding Unseen: An Introduction to English

Poetry and the English Novel for Overseas Student (Murphy, 1972:161-173)

there are several ways in which the author attempts to make his or her

character come alive and easily understood by the reader. These are the

following principle contains within the theory:

a. Speech

Speech here is used in a way so that the author can give the reader

clue of in regards to the character of the person in the literature.

Whenever the character speaks about something or about anything

at all, the speech is a clue to his or her character. b. Character as Seen by Author The author forms the character through the opinions or the views

of other character in the novel. c. Personal Description Personal description is the physical description of the character

itself by the author. d. Conversation of Other Using other characters to talk about the character (conversation) in

many ways it gives a clue to what the character is like. e. Past Life The author lets the reader know about a character and his or her

personality by looking at his or her past life. f. Direct Comment The author uses direct comment to let the reader know about the

character. g. Reaction By using the technique of seeing how the character react to various

situations in his or her life, the author make the reader know about

the character’s behavior. People talk about other people and the

thing that they say gives the reader clue to the character that they

talk about.

h. Thoughts

Another way of how the author make the reader know the character

of a person through what is the character thinking about. The

author give omniscient way of looking at things, a direct

knowledge of what the character is thinking about.

i. Mannerism Through the observation and description of manners and habit, the

author lets the reader know what the character is like.

There are three ways of looking at characterization one is that it must be consistent, meaning the character’s behavior must be consistent unless there is a reason for the character to change. Another is that the character should have motivation to do what they are doing, such as change in their behavior the reason must be understood and clear. And the last is that the character must be plausible, believable and realistic. Meaning that they must be relevant to the reader and the character have some humanly traits. There are two devices that can be used to dispel ambiguity within characterization in a novel one is that using different kinds of characters and the second is connected with the point of view.

All history, all our experience, teaches us that no human relationship is constant, it is as unstable as the living beings who compose it, and they must balance like jugglers if it is to remain; if it is constant it is no longer a human relationship but a social habit (Forster, 1974: 38). There are two things in regards to characterization that is important one is static and the other is dynamic. Like the word itself static characters are those characters that do not change in the story. The dynamic characters are those characters that undergo change at some

point within the story. As Forster defined that there are two characters, which are flat and round.

Flat characters in their purest form are constructed from a single idea or quality, while round characters are constructed from more than one factor in them.

One great advantage of flat characters is that they are easily recognized whenever they come in—recognized by the reader’s emotional eye, not by the visual eye which merely notes the recurrence of a proper name (Forster, 1974:47). While the second advantage according to Forster is that these characters are easily remembered by the reader because they remain in the reader’s mind as unalterable for the reason that they were not changed by circumstances instead, they move through circumstances which give them comforting quality and preserve them.

According to Forster unlike the flat characters, found characters are proper, they have been defined by implication and no more need be said (Foster, 1974:

53). These characters function all round, and even if the plot made greater demands on them that it does they would still be adequate (Forster, 1974:52).

C. Review on the Biographical Background

In the attempt to analyze and compare of the two literary works, which are

Max Havelaar by Multatuli and The Child of All Nations by Pramoedya Ananta

Toer, it is pertinent to look at the autobiographical background of both writer. The historical background is another way of looking at the extrinsic elements in literary work in order to have a more complete overview of both authors’ philosophy in life and how they view colonialism as these influence both novels.

C. 1 Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s Life and Works

Pramoedya Ananta Toer is modern Indonesia's preeminent writer of fiction. Born in Blora, Java in the year of 1925 to a middle class family (his father was a nationalist headmaster). He became a journalist and was a prolific writer during his time. He was involved left-wing politics such as Lekra, the left-winged writer association from the 1940s in until his death.

During the tumultuous time of 1965 in which the Indonesian communist regime was cruelly annihilated as well as mass genocide that commenced with it,

Pramoedya Ananta Toer was beaten and arrested. His short stories and articles were burned and destroyed by the New Regime, he was cruelly beaten until he lost some ability to hear. He was then exiled to Buru Island, a penal colony of mostly political prisoners, in which he did not get a chance to any fair trial. For fourteen years he was in Buru Island not knowing his offense that led him to imprisonment.

As a prolific writer, the impulse for him to write was strong but during the early years in Buru Island, he was not allowed to write, instead he told stories to his fellow prisoners as a way to pass the time in the penal colony. Later during his time of exile he then was finally allowed to write. It was during this time that he wrote his fictional masterpiece, The Buru Quartet. The quartet is a chronicle of a

Javanese journalist coming of age in the later years of Dutch colonialism.

“Recalcitrant to the end, Pramoedya was quoted as telling reporters on his release that he intended to continue to write, and was unconcerned about his prospects for publication” (Nierkerk, 2003:58). He published his first of the four quartet ( Bumi

Manusia [Man τs World], Anak Semua Bangsa [Child of All Nations], Jejak

Langkah [Steps Forward], and Rumah Kaca [Glasshouse]) in 1980. And all of these novels had originally been composed as oral literature, stories related to fellow prisoners in the early years of his imprisonment when Pramoedya was unable to write.

C. 2 Edward D. Dekker’s Life and Works

Edward Douwes Dekker also known as Multatuli wrote Max Havelaar in protest against Dutch colonial policies in the East Indies. Despite its terse writing style, it raised the awareness of Europeans living in Europe at the time that the wealth that they enjoyed was the result of suffering in other parts of the world; the colonized. Multatuli, meaning "I have suffered much", was the pseudonym of

Edward Douwes Dekker (1820-1887), who was born in Amsterdam the son of a sea captain. In 1838, at the age of eighteen he accompanied his father to Java, where he entered the Netherlands East Indian Civil Service. Dekker, as a young official, was endowed with an independent but recalcitrant nature was frequently involved in disputes with his superiors. Despite the fact of being known as rebellious, his career steadily advanced and he held posts in various places.

Although he had received no higher education or specific training, he, as a self- taught man, seemed to earn recognition for his outstanding competence of being an official.

In 1856 after several posts in other parts of the Netherlands Indies, he was appointed Assistant-Resident of Lebak-Banten in West Java, and it was here he felt ready to carry out his mission: namely, to put things right, to remove the

oppression from which the population of Lebak-Banten suffered. However, within three months he had resigned from the service and left Lebak-Banten due to stress and disappointment of the colonial oppression that he witnessed. Back in Europe, there were years of wandering and poverty (he was an avid gambler), during which he struggled in vain to obtain rehabilitation for himself and justice for the

Javanese. During that period of time, Dekker attempted to write and created some plays which he attempted to publish. In 1860, the book Max Havelaar , in which were recorded and narrated the series of events around the Lebak-Banten during his appointment as Assistant-Resident, was published. The book created a storm in the Netherlands in regards to the colonial rule in the East Indies. Despite the brusque and irregular style of writing, it raised the awareness of the Dutch people living in Europe at the time when Europe was experiencing rise in wealth due to profits gained from colonizing other parts of the world. This new found awareness brought increased pressure to the Dutch government for a colonial reform. Thus they eventually formed the motivation for the new ethical policy by which the

Dutch colonial government attempted to "repay" their debt to their colonial subjects by providing education (such as HBS the prestigious Dutch-language senior high school, SIBA high school to train native boys for the civil service) that are generally for the members of the elite society who are loyal to the colonial government.

Alas, the success of the book did not make Dekker become someone important nor did it help him to reinstate him back to his job of being a Dutch official. “Contemptuously…for the success of Max Havelaar did nothing to

improve the lot of ex-Assistant Resident Edward Douwes Dekker. He was not reinstated; nor did the Javanese receive immediate justice” (R.P Meijer in

Multatuli, 1987:vii). Dekker spent the rest of his life trying to make ends meet by becoming writer as well as politicians but was not successful. In Germany,

Dekker died embittered in 1887 (R. P. Meijer in Multatuli, 1987:viii).

D. Theoretical Framework

In this study, the writer compares colonialism toward Indonesian as depicted in two different novels. The novels Max Havelaar and Child of All

Nations written by two different author from different point of view regarding to

Dutch colonialist rule in Indonesia. Since this is about comparison of two literary works then comparative literature will help us to understand the colonial phenomenon. We will be able to see the differences and the similarities between the two authors and their view of the colonized and colonizer’s perspectives, and how those elements help them to depict colonialism in their novels.

In the process of writing these novels, both authors are trying to communicate to the readers the concept of colonial oppression and colonial identities. The theories of characterization will reveal the character’s behavior in regards to the environment or the condition that they are in, how the intrinsic elements such as setting, plot, and conflicts brought about such changes. Theories of characterization will also help to reveal whether or not a certain character posses the colonized or the colonizer role which will be compared against the several other writer’s concept of what these two terms mean to them. Here the text will also deal with the numerous problems that postcolonial studies entail, such as

differences in terminologies and definitions used by various writers in describing what colonialism, colonizer and colonized are.

Another critical approach used in comparing the two literary works of

Multatuli’s Max Havelaar and Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s Child of All Nations is the postcolonial approach. The study’s aim is to compare these two books from two different literature background; Dutch and Indonesian writers. Under the postcolonial theory, we will examine both intrinsic element (the characters using theories of characters and characterization) and the extrinsic element (biographical approach). In attempting to answer the problem formulation of how does the colonized and the colonize are being defined in the main characters in Multatuli’s

Max Havelaar and in Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s Child of All Nations, there needs to be a careful examination using intrinsic elements, and in this case characterization. The investigation attempts to reveal and find out through the main characters, Max Havelaar in Max Havelaar , and Minke in The Child of All

Nations. Comparing and contrasting, within each literature itself to find out the whether or not these two authors has similar concept of the colonized and the colonizer. The study will postulate postcolonial thinkers such as, Frantz Fanon,

Albert Memmi, Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, Walter Mignolo and many more on the definition of the above terms.

These theories are used in order to examine the content of the novels in order to understand critically see the problems presented in the novels. The interrelations of these theories are meant to achieve the understanding of the study.

CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

A. Object of the Study

The books examined in this comparative study are Max Havelaar by

Multatuli or Edward Douwes Dekker and Child of All Nations by Pramoedya

Ananta Toer.

Edward Douwes Dekker (1820-1887) under the pseudonym Multatuli meaning “I have suffered much” wrote Max Havelaar: Or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (Dutch: Max Havelaar, of de Koffij-veilingen der

Nederlansche Handel-Maatschappij) in 1859 within the time span of only two weeks. Originally written in Dutch, the annotated English translation was first published in 1967 by the London House and Maxwell publishing house. When it was first published in the Netherlands, the book caused a great stir throughout the

Dutch nation because it exposed the Dutch colonial system practiced in the Dutch

East Indies (now called Indonesia). It is socially and culturally significant during the time of its publication because the book played an important role in shaping and modifying Dutch colonial policy in the Dutch East Indies in the nineteenth and the early twentieth century. Dekker was forty years old when the book was first published, the book presented a case of the injustice of the colonial practice and also it is an attempt by the author to explain and justify his actions when he was an Assistant Resident of Lebak (Nierkerk, 2003:58). Thus, in many ways the novel is an autobiographical novel.

After his disappointment with the system, he returned to the Netherlands with fierce indignation of wanting to expose in detail the scandal that he had witnessed. He began to write articles in the newspaper in regards to the injustice and abuses done in the Dutch East Indies, but it created little attention until in

1860 when he published Max Havelaar . The exposure of the abuse of free labor in the Dutch East Indies brought a shudder throughout the Dutch nation, creating sensation.

It is a novel about a Dutch civil servant named Max Havelaar as he attempts to explain and justify his actions when he was the Assistant Resident of

Lebak. Havelaar took his job seriously, “Multatuli swore an official oath to protect the Javanese, and took it literally, with the effect recorded in Max

Havelaar ” (Roy Edwards in Multatuli, 1987:viii). It was during this time also that he became quite vocal to the Dutch colonial practice, and in consequence he was threatened with dismissal from his work several times until he finally quit. The novel and its characters are given pseudonym to protect them but nevertheless the story tells the tale of colonial abuses and practices that were rampant during that time in the Netherlands East Indies.

The novel Child of All Nations by Pramoedya Ananta Toer, is part of the celebrated Buru Quartet which includes This Earth of Mankind, Child of All

Nations, Footsteps, and House of Glass was written by Pramoedya Ananta Toer in

1979. Sadly, less than a year after its publication the book was banned. “The government accused the book of surreptitiously spreading “Marxism-Leninism”—

surreptitious because, they claimed, the author’s great literary dexterity made it impossible to identify actual examples of this “Marxism-Leninism”” (Toer,1981:

8). When the tumultuous time of 1965, where mass murders happened to those thought communist, Toer was captured in 1965, two weeks after the coup d’etat, due to his activities in LEKRA. Though he never received any kinds of trial, he was imprisoned and exiled to Buru Island along with many political prisoners.

During the time of his imprisonment, he was denied any means of writing, thus he began to tell stories to his fellow prisoner as a way to keep his creativity alive. It was not until later that he got the means to write his stories and he began to type the novels that will become the Buru Quartet. He was released in 1979, after more than a decade of being imprisoned. A year later he published Child of All Nations along with other novels that are part of the Buru Quartet. In 1981 less than a year after the Buru Quartet’s publication the books were banned by the Indonesian government. In the year 1994, the English versions were introduced to the world and were released elsewhere other than Indonesia.

The main character in the novel of Child of All Nation, Minke is an

Indonesian native whose sense of Indonesian identity develops in a similar way to the sense of nationalism burgeoning in his nation before Indonesia’s independence from the Dutch. The novel follows Minke’s life as he struggle with the realization of what colonialism is and how it created who he is as a person.

B. Approach of the Study

In examining the novels postcolonial approach is applied. In applying postcolonial approach one must be reminded that this approach encompasses social and historical conditions as well as many other things, in essence, it has to bring the reader to a better understanding of the colonial institutions. As suggested by Loomba that in every colonial contexts there exist economical exploitations, production of knowledge, and those various strategies are dependent upon one another (Loomba, 2002:127). According to Abdul JanMohamed as quoted by

Loomba, that defining a large group of people into one definition (Othering) and creating constructed view of these people as backward and low depends on an

“Manichean aestethics” in which it produced a binary and discursive in terms of resistant between the races (JanMohamed quoted by Loomba, 2002:138).

Consequently, postcolonial critics are busy dealing how to articulate these resistances within the colonial gamut. In comparing differences and similarities in colonial identity as part of the colonial enterprise within both books it is necessary to apply this postcolonial approach. Considering that each novel is written by different author one from the colonizing country and one from the colonized country, we are to compare different colonial identities that exist within those books. As we know that according to Plato that life imitates literature and literature imitates life; literature is mimetics.

C. Method of the Study.

There are some steps and sources that were taken in conducting and completing this thesis. The steps were divided into two steps research and analysis while the sources were divided into three classes. They were primary sources, secondary sources and non-print sources. The explanations are given as following:

First the novels to be compared were determined, the choice were Max

Havelaar by Multatuli and Child of All Nations by Pramoedya Ananta Toer.

These two novels were the primary source. They were not the only main sources of this study, but also the basis of the analysis. The interest was determined which was to conduct comparative study in regards to the colonial aspect of these two books using postcolonial approach. Postcolonial theory will help to answer the comparison between two authors in terms of both intrinsic and extrinsic elements.

Second is to determine the focus of the study and to determine the problem formulation which was to compare the definition of what these two authors meant with colonized and colonizer role and how does colonial identities important in both novels in terms of colonialization in Indonesia. Along with it there are two posited questions that relates to the focus of the study. These questions help to guide the focus of the study as they support one another. In comparing these two definitions there were some sources that were used such sources from books written by Edward Said, Frantz Fanon, Albert Memmi, Ania Loomba, Homi

Bhabha and many more.

Third the gathering of supporting data was conducted from various sources. They were books dealing with colonialism and postcolonial approaches.

The gathering of the data was important because it gave more supporting facts to the thesis. Data such as historical background, and social condition during the time when the author wrote the book is important.

Fourth critical analysis was done to answer the questions stated in the problem formulation by using postcolonial approach, theory of characters and characterization, historical and biographical approach. This will help to examine further of the differences and similarities of the authors’ view about colonialism using postcolonial approach and comparative study. In determining the focus of study the writer used postcolonial approach as well as the theory of characters and characterization to understand the role of the main characters within both novels.

Lastly the conclusion was drawn based on the result of the analysis.

Showing that the summary of the previous chapters showing that the main point of this study has reached its goal.

CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS

A. Postcolonial Theory

Borrowing Harry Handoff’s term, colonialism itself is ancient in historical context, the colonialism of the last five centuries is closely associated with the birth and maturation of the capitalist socioeconomic system (Magdoff, 1978:117).

The dangers of colonialism as one group conquest another is clear, as many postcolonial theorist postulate upon are the actors within it and the effect of colonialism upon them. In the attempt to explain colonialism using Edward Said’s term, the colonial world is a place where contestations occurs between Occident and the Orient, between the West and the East; the created duality of these worlds.

The Orient is everything that the West is not; the Orient is created for the purpose of identifying what is unidentifiable.

The mission of colonialism is not only physically injecting itself to a certain group of people but also psychologically interjects itself of its ideology.

Jean Paul-Sartre in the preface of Frantz Fanon’s book The Wretched of the Earth accused Europe’s mission of hellenizing the Asians: “You are making us into monstrosities; your humanism claims we are at one with the rest of humanity but your racist methods set us apart” (Sartre in Fanon, 1963: 8). This double standard exist throughout the colonial world, in which hierarchal positioning of Europe and that of which it colonized along with race and gender are one of the most important tool used in the subjugation of the non-Europeans.

Within the books Child of All Nations and Max Havelaar , there are many contested space that dwells with colonialism especially that of within the main characters in the two books.

A. 1 Minke within Postcolonial Theory

Through Minke, Toer perfectly portrays a character that is caught within the colonial spectrum. Colonialism is clearly seen through the way his interaction with other characters within the book. The reiteration of Minke as a person caught within colonialism can be found as the character undergoes fundamental changes on his own identity. Minke, an eighteen-year-old Javanese who has been educated in an exclusive Dutch school called H.B.S. Hogere Burger School in Surabaya, a son of a Bupati is trying to construct his reality as a person who is able to create his own destiny.

An examination of Minke and his development throughout the book creates an understanding of what kind of identity he possesses within the discourse of postcolonialism. As stated by Memmi in his book The Colonized and the Colonizer that people who are within the colonial spectrum consciously or unconsciously act according to the role that the society has given them. The colonial situation is what helps to define people that dwell within it and it is the choice of the person to act according to it or not. Often people who are in colonial situation are not conscious of their condition. As stated by Said, that there is a binary opposition that exist within colonial discourse; the Europeans and the

Others in who represent everything that the West are not. According to Antonio

Gramsci as quoted by Said, that “in any society not totalitarian, then, certain

cultural forms predominate over Others, just as certain ideas are more influential than others; the form of this cultural leadership is what is called hegemony ” (Said,

1979: 7). Thus, in terms of dominant ideology, colonialism postulates itself within the Western hegemony.

The colonial hegemonic idea reiterates the European superiority over

Oriental’s so-called backwardness. As stated by Said, “the Orient is above all, a discourse that is by no means in direct, corresponding relationship with political power in the raw, but rather is produced and exists in an uneven exchange with various kinds of power, shaped to a degree by the exchange with power political, power intellectual, power cultural, power moral” (Said, 1978: 12). Thus within it, involves actors that are willingly and unwillingly becomes part of colonialism generating complex psychological disturbances that expressed itself in what is called an inferiority complexes of the colonized.

According to Homi Bhabha in his essay Of Mimicry and Man: The

Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse one of the known display of act done by those who are subjects to colonialism is mimicry. Homi Bhabha postulated his idea of mimicry from Jacques Lacan in his essay “The Line and Light” from his book Of the Gaze , in which stated:

“Mimicry reveals something in so far as it is distinct from what might be called an itself that is behind. The effect of mimicry is camouflage… It is not a question of harmonizing with the background, but against a mottled background, of becoming mottled” (Lacan quoted by Bhabha, 1984: 125)

As stated by Marie-Paule Ha in her essay “The Cultural Other in

Malraux’s Asian Novels” “it is often the case that people who have been touched

by Western ideas and values curiously became social misfits totally alienated from their own people” (Ha, 1997:38). Minke who received a full European education, courtesy of his privilege family status of priyayi (indication of high class status in Javanese society) as well as being the son of a Bupati differs from those who are living as peasants and who are denied of choice or negotiating space and even pushed out of any knowledge. Minke has some choices and bargaining position within the contested space of colonialism. Minke has more choice, unlike these people such the peasants of Java who are what Gayatri

Chakravorty Spivak call as the subaltern—people who have limited or no access to the cultural imperialism (Loomba, 2003:302). Minke has been educated in the

European ways of thinking and he is firmly rooted in appreciating their sciences and learning; this can be reflected in the statement in which he admired Europe as a place where all his mentors are from:

“France is indeed greatly admired, by my teachers at school too. I am only their student and haven’t ever been to France.” (Toer, 1979:108)

Minke portrays a person who strive to rid of his cultural background and identity that attaches himself to the oppressed people of Java and look at Europe as the great metropole. Kommer, a fellow journalist of a Eurasian descent criticize

Minke not knowing his own culture and people. He urges Minke to write in his own language of Malay instead of Dutch:

“Without studying the languages of other peoples, especially European languages, we wouldn’t understand foreign people. And, equally, if you don’t study your own language you can never understand your own people” (Toer 1979: 113)

Minke has more advantage than the rest of the people who haven’t been educated he has access to knowledge more than others, and knowledge is one of the important key to disassemble colonialism that runs rampart in the East Indies.

Sadly, Minke adamantly chooses to ignore this fact and thus deny some part of him in the process. This psychic alienation is succinctly stated by Memmi, “the colonized mother tongue, that which is sustained by his feelings, emotions, and dreams, that in which his tenderness and wonder are expressed, thus that which holds the greatest emotional impact, is precisely the one which is the least valued”

(Memmi, 1965:107). Minke bears a linguistic conflict, and in the end his mother tongue is crushed in order to ‘exist’ and be recognized in the colonial world,

Minke bows to the language of his masters; the Dutch. “What we have learned from history is then, that language is the companion of the empire and a unifying factor of the nation” (Mignolo in Delgado, fall 2000: 6). Thus by utilizing the

Dutch language Minke acknowledges the supremacy of the oppressor. According to Walter Mignolo the danger of this lies when the objectification of language as it establishes rules such as grammar and vocabulary, becomes an instrument to control the population. As further explained by Mignolo that language belongs to individuals in their interactive life and to life itself, which always survives the individual (Mignolo in Delgado, fall 2000: 13). As Minke denies the usage of his own language, he thus also denies part of himself.

Therefore the dialectic conversation between Kommer and Minke continues as Kommer deliver the final blow towards Minke’s denial:

“The truth is often painful. But that is it, more or less. From your articles, it seems that you know more about Dutchmen and Indos” (Toer, 1979: 113)

The same accusation flew towards Minke by Jean Marais in which he also felt that Minke is trying to ignore his native origin, encouraging him to change his

European saturated ways of thinking:

“You must speak to your own people. You are needed by your own people much more than you are needed by any other people anywhere. Europe and Holland will not miss your absence.” (Toer, 1979:112)

When these truth about Minke came hurtling at him, Minke felt defensive, after all Minke never really thought about his own people because he is thoroughly immersed in the European mindset. “He turns away from his music, the plastic arts and, in effect, his entire traditional culture” (Memmi, 1965:108).

Minke rationalize the only civilized people and culture is only European. In the process Minke internalize his contempt for himself, and express his disdain towards everything associated to his Native culture, part of his identity. To know his own people it is enough to know their behavior, much like noting the behavior of an animal. In the process of dehumanizing his own people, he dehumanizes himself and accepts the European hegemony. “His linguistic ambiguity is the symbol and one of the major causes of his cultural ambiguity.” (Memmi,

1965:108). The accusation came as a slap in the face for Minke:

“Do not know their own people! The accusation went too far; it was like a blow from a blunt adze. And it hurt even more that it came from people who weren’t Natives: from an Indo and a Frenchman. In their eyes I didn’t know my own people. Me!” (Toer, 1979:113)

These dialectics show the hesitation in Minke role to take his destiny in his own hand as a person who is able to travel in both worlds; the world of the colonized and the world of the colonizers. He is standing between his own native culture and the European culture. He is struggling to find his identity within the ambiguities that colonial world entails. “The institutionalized oppression placate the Natives and makes them docile and enduring, making them ashamed of their

Native heritage” (Anzaldua, 1987: 31). Kommer and Jean Marais expressed their views that Minke can understand both worlds—a big advantage compared to other colonized people. Minke must not abandon his people, the Natives that lay docile and silent among the years of repression. Not only is the brain split in two functions but so is their reality. ”Thus people who inhabit both realities are forced to live in the interface between the two, forced to become adept at switching modes” (Anzaldua, 1987: 37). Minke replies the accusations brought by Kommer and Jean Marais (a French painter living in Java) by stating the fact that he speaks excellent Javanese:

“That doesn’t mean you know the Javanese people. Have you ever known the villages and hamlets of Java, where most of our people live? You’ve only passed through them. Do you know what the farmers of Java eat, your own country’s farmer? Most Javanese are farmers. The Javanese peasant farmers are your people.” (Toer, 1979:114)

Minke as a colonized person rationalize that if he behaves more like that of the dominant power, he will be recognized as an equal in the eyes of the dominant power which will bring him closer to what the metropole is like. Minke displays the qualities of what colonized are like and this inferiority complex becomes ingrained and apparent. Such dangers powered by what Frantz Fanon

calls as inferiority complex in which the people subjugated by the colonial situation bury and kill their own local culture’s originality. Succinctly stated by

Gloria Anzaldua in her book Borderlands: La Frontera that the minds of the oppressed internalize the oppression ” As a person, I, as a people, we, blame ourselves, hate ourselves, terrorize ourselves. Most of this goes unconsciously; we only know that we are hurting, we suspect that there is something “wrong” with us, something fundamentally “wrong”” (Anzaldua, 1987:45).

Minke acts in many ways like Europeans, emulating everything that the

Dutch are doing and postulating his adoration towards them. The European standard became Minke’s standard; he neglect the natives’ way of doing which lead him to think like a colonizer. We can see the same phenomena within

Anzaldua’s book in regards to Mexicans who were colonized by the Spanish people, “All her life she’s been told that Mexicans are lazy. She has had to work twice as hard as others to meet the standards of the dominant culture which have, in part, become her standard” (Anzaldua, 1987: 49). This can be seen by the criticism done by Mama, his mother-in- law:

“Don’t be sentimental. You’ve been educated to respect and even deify Europe, to trust it unreservedly. Then, every time you discover reality—that there are Europeans without honor—you become sentimental.” (Toer, 1979:75)

Mimicry, according to Bhabha is “the desire for a reformed, recognizable castration, then colonial mimicry is the desire for a reformed, recognizable Other, as a subject of a difference that is almost the same, but not quite” (Bhabha, 1984:

126). Minke though he displays the perfect mimicry by rejecting his own culture practicing European ways (preferring to write in Dutch rather than Malay

language, mingling with Europeans rather than Natives) and continuing to have

European education as he got accepted to a prestigious school with European framework (STOVIA) in the Dutch East Indies, still, he is not European and will never be a European due to the inherent fact of his race.

All that the colonized has done to emulate the colonizers has met with disdain from the colonial masters. They explain to the colonized that those efforts are in vain, that he only acquires thereby an additional trait, that of being ridiculous. He can never succeed in becoming identified with the colonizer, nor even in copying his role correctly (Memmi, 1965:124)

Minke mimics the European ways in such a way that even his everyday clothes is very much influenced by European style. Minke described himself:

“A farmer with a hoe at his waist passed me. He raises his bamboo hat, bowed without looking at me—only because I was wearing European clothes, Christian clothes.” (Toer, 1979: 160)

By wearing European clothes and emulating the European lifestyle Minke is close to Europe rather than his native culture. But all of the effort done by

Minke in order to be like the Europeans were all in vain, “In order to be assimilated, it is not enough to leave one’s group, but one must enter another; now he meets with the colonizer’s rejection“ (Memmi, 1965:124).

When Minke discover that he cannot be regarded as how Dutch regards other Europeans, he then began to question his identity in which he rejects his privileged social status as an upper class person (priyayi) as well as he tries to reorient himself from the Western hegemony. By choosing to abandon his own culture and embrace the European ways Minke creates conflict within himself:

“Now, if a Native starts to talk to you in high Javanese will you advise him to switch to low Javanese?...You are not able to give up the comforts and pleasures that are yours as an inheritance from your ancestors—ruler over your own Native fellow countrymen” (Toer, 1979:186)

There is a sense of struggle within a contested space in which he acts more like a colonizer in front of a weaker Native. He emulates his behavior like the dominant power by exercising his control over weaker person and in front of a

Dutch person he acts the opposite. “This voluntary (yet forced) alienation makes for psychological conflict, a kind of dual identity” (Anzaldua, 1987: 63).

“I shriveled up in shame. Yes, I had to admit it: I was still unable to give up the benefits of my heritage. When someone spoke to me in low Javanese, I felt my rights had been stolen away. On the other hand, if people spoke to me in high Javanese, I felt I was among those chosen few, placed on some higher plane, a god in a human’s body, and these pleasures from my heritage caressed me.” (Toer, 1979: 187)

Minke ignored his own culture and tries to get away from it by fully embracing Europeans ways, but not completely because he enjoys privileges of his high class status. Thus, Minke secretly took these guilty pleasures, but then again he is not honest to himself. Here exists ambivalence within himself, because

Minke cannot truly reject his culture and replace it with another.

“You are still not able to give up the comforts and pleasures that are yours as an inheritance from your ancestors—rulers over your own Native fellow countrymen. You’re a cheat! The ideals of Liberty Equality, and Fraternity of the French Revolution?—you have betrayed them for the benefits of that inheritance. It is only the ideals of Liberty that lives within you, and then it is only freedom for yourself an admirer of the French Revolution? (Toer, 1979: 187)

Minke feels the ambivalence within himself, when he fully embrace the

European ways, he cannot completely reject his own culture as he benefits from it

as well. Within Memmi’s book echoes the idea of the colonized and the colonizer in which Minke is part of this colonial relationship. As posited by Memmi, “the relationship that chained the colonizer and the colonized into an implacable dependence molded their respective characters and dictated their conduct”

(Memmi, 1965: ix). Later on Minke, a firm believer of the French Revolution realize that he did not apply the principles that were carried by the French

Revolution of classless society, equality and freedom. He also notices that

Europeans themselves outside of Europe did not apply these basic values and are behaving like conquerors towards the Natives. He then understands that by adoring blindly the European model he is actually behaving like them towards his own people.

Minke was made aware of the colonial situation by Mama an uneducated

Javanese Nyai (title given for a Native concubine of a Dutch man in the Indies) the mother of Minke’s wife and the head of the Buitenzorg company in

Wonokromo.

“You live in a colonial world, you can’t get away from that. But it doesn’t matter, as long as you understand: He is a devil until the end of the world. He is Satan.” (Toer, 1979:82)

Minke realize that he is living in a colonial world and knowing that he cannot get away from colonialism is a rude awakening. “The colonized peoples are not the only victims of history, but the historical misfortune peculiar to the colonized was colonization” (Memmi, 1965:112). A colonized person becomes a person who is alien within his own land; he is alienated and separated from his culture. Fanon stated in his book A Dying Colonialism that “a colonized person,

who in this respect is like the (wo)men in underdeveloped countries or the disinherited in all parts of the world, perceives life not as a flowering or a development of an essential productiveness, but as a permanent struggle against an omnipresent death” (Fanon,1965:18). The rude awakening by Mama of what colonialism is like made Minke realize how grave the colonial situation is:

“With my inner eye I scattered my vision over my own surroundings. There are no movements at all. All Java was fast asleep, dreaming. And I was confused, angry, aware but impotent” (Toer, 1979:93)

Minke realized that the Natives are unaware of their colonial situation, much like he was. Further echoed by Jean Marais, as he spoke to Minke who is like a serpent, shedding his old ideologies:

“I think, Minke that your country is too isolated—it can’t bear the life-beat of other countries. They can come out here into warm and gentle lands, relax, live like kings. Even a small nation like the Dutch. And your people can do nothing about it. Three hundred years, Minke. Not an insignificant time.” (Toer, 1979:55)

This realization brought shame to Minke who never fathom thinking about his position and his identity:

“…Shameful. And there was more. I felt furious in my impotence…This tumult of ideas and opinions from so many people made me more and more confused.” (Toer, 1979: 55)

The subjugation of people were deeply entrenched that it becomes unconscious. The psychological and the physical disturbances created by the colonial situation along with the Occidentalist way of thinking have a detrimental effect on those being subjugated. According to Said, “the distillation of essential ideas about the Orient—its sensuality, its tendency to despotism, its aberrant

mentality, and its habits, of inaccuracy, its backwardness— into a separate and unchallenged coherence…creating a stigma” (Said, 1979: 205). With the new found awareness Minke became dumbfounded at the idea that his ‘ivory tower’ is the devil that made him who he is; a colonized person. Minke then His old teacher that got him a place in the Civil Service Academy of STOVIA (tot Opleiding von

Inlandsche Artsen) Herbert de la Croix who now lives in Netherlands revealed some truth about colonialism:

“…it is from the north that the marching feet of conquering peoples have come, ensuring your backwardness, then deserting you, and leaving you only the waste of their civilization, their disease, and just a little of their learning.” (Toer, 1979:55)

The maladies spread by the colonizer are such that the colonized are deceived to some extent, endorse the myth, adapt to it, and then act upon it. “That myth furthermore supported by a very solid organization; a government and a judicial system fed and renewed by the colonizer’s historic, economic, and cultural needs” (Memmi, 1965:91). In many ways Minke mythicalize the mother country, and postulate upon Europe (his ivory tower) as an ideal source of intellectuals just as the Natives mythicalize their rulers to help preserve the authority of those in power.

“Is the European colonial view appropriate? It is not only unjust, it is not right. But colonial Europe doesn’t stop there. After the Natives have fallen into this humiliation and are no longer able to defend themselves, they are ridiculed with the most humiliating abuse. Europeans make fun of the Native rulers of Java who use superstition to control their own people, and who are thereby spared the expense of hiring police forces to defend their interests. The Powerful Goddess of the South Java Seas is a glorious creation of Java whose purpose is to

help preserve the authority of the native kings of Java. But Europe too maintains superstitions—the superstition of the magnificence of science and learning. This superstition prevents the conquered peoples from seeing the true face of Europe, the true nature of the Europe that uses that science and learning. The European colonial rulers and the Native rulers are equally corrupt.” (Toer, 1979: 76)

The colonized: their labor, their land, their passivity, and their loss of identity become the essence of how colonialism can endure for a long time. One must wake up and realize the grave situation that colonialism can bring to the colonized. “The most serious blow suffered by the colonized is being removed from history and from the community” (Memmi, 1965: 91). As stated by Mignolo that people like Minke having access to knowledge and bargaining position with the dominant power, must be able to utilize the idea of ‘location’ in such a way that movement is not seen as location but precisely as the contrary, as “dis- location”…and location is taken to mean ‘in-land’ a transient place (Mignolo in

Delgado, fall 2000: 9). Minke as an educated native has the ability access to knowledge in which can help him to understand situations of the colonized as he spoke to people such as Khouw Ah Soe, an educated Chinese from the Chinese

Young Generation who arrived in Soerabaya to spread nationalistic ideas to the

Dutch East Indies.

“The colonizing nation will only suck up the honey of your land and the labor of your people. In the end it is the educated among the conquered people who need to recognize their responsibilities.” (Toer, 1979: 88)

Khouw Ah Soe has explicitly pointed out to Minke how an important person like Minke is to a group of people who are unaware of their colonial subjectivity. Minke realized the gripping situation of the people who are being

subjected to colonialism—whether they like it or not—most were unconscious of their colonial situation as they were mythically being portrayed as people who are lazy, not intelligent, useless, savage, inferior, having no moral nor ethic they were objectified. Kept out of knowledge, living in obvious ignorance of their own history and trapped what is supposed to by a mythical portrayal of the colonized, these people made the portrayal real by fitting themselves to the mold of what colonized people are like. The oppressed people within the colonial system internalize the negative portrayal of them and further traps themselves psychological dementia—forgetting who they are. Had they known the truth, they would not easily perpetuate and reproduce the images of who they are or what they are according to the definition given by the dominant power. Minke realized how important knowledge and power are in regards to knowing his identity as a subjugated person, how these two entities are intertwined with one another when

Khouw Ah Soe explained the connection:

“(Hu)Mankind is forever being pursued because modern science and learning constantly provide the inspiration and desire to control Nature and man together. There is no power that can bring to halt this passion to control Nature and man together. There is no power that can bring to a halt this passion to control, except greater science and learning, in the hands of more virtuous people.” (Toer, 1979:90)

As an educated person, he starts in trying to understand himself and relate himself to the colonial situation that he and other people are living in. The news of

Native people uprising against the colonial Dutch was rarely heard due to the swift suppression of such news. The Dutch were afraid that such news creates inspiration Minke forget that the Natives were never completely passive in

regards to their subjugation; they fought their own way against the colonial monster. He realized that people who have been subjugated from colonial oppression can wake up and rise:

“I heard for the first time about the awakening of a whole people, rising up, advancing and respected, building a modern culture and civilization” (Toer, 1979:90)

Minke interaction with others especially his meeting with a fellow subjugated people from another country gave him different perspective of people that are undergoing similar situations like him. “The calcified colonized society is therefore the consequence of two processes having opposite symptoms: encasement originating internally and a corset imposed from outside” (Memmi,

1965:102). It is this form of calcification that further traps the colonized society into perpetuating the colonized state within themselves. Thus, exchange of knowledge from others will help them to see their world in different perspective and decrease the chances of colonial subjugation to be repeated to the next generation.

As people who are colonized like Minke began to take other perspective in being aware of their colonial situation people like him create urgency to discover the truth about themselves and their condition as colonized people.

Often, people who recently learn knowledge of their situation, they are met with fierce oppositions. Minke realized how the Dutch who have been enjoying their privileges are never going to give it up as he learns this situation from Jean

Marais:

“…those accustomed to enjoying the suffering of the Asian peoples will, of course, never be ready to lose even a small part

of the respect that they consider their right as well as a gift to them from God.” (Toer, 1979:50)

Minke becomes more enlightened and ideologically he undergoes transformation, from a passive state to an active state of being:

“If I forced myself to understand what was going on—even with my current limited capabilities—I came to the conclusion that the colonials were frightened of their own imaginings, imaginings of things far away on the distant horizon.”(Toer, 1979:53)

Minke’s awakening and awareness of the colonial situation helps him to shape and postulate the idea of what freedom means. Minke understood a nation of people who have been oppressed for so long must start to rise and take their destiny into their own hand.

The denouement of Minke’s life came when Minke tried to write something about the Natives, thinking that his editor would appreciate his investigative writing about the malpractice of the Dutch government against the

Javanese peasants of extortion and forced labor:

“Yes, he would be impressed by this—my best writing, perfect—a protest about the injustices suffered by who knows how many thousands of Trunodongsos. I would reveal to the world the conspiracy of blood-sucking vampires who were cheating those illiterate farmers of their rents.” (Toer, 1979:192)

Instead he was accused of libel and deception by Nijman, his editor in chief:

“In my opinion, this story is totally untrue, it’s just libel. This character of yours, if he does in fact exist, is a liar. You have been taken by his lies. He’s nothing but a liar” (Toer, 1979:193)

Along with these words that falls from the mouth of his editor, also falls

Minke’s last drop of faith in Europe and their humanity. Affirmed by Anzaldua, that “in the course of colonialism, laws are made to protect those that are in power, ensuring their iron grip on the colonized; prejudice runs deep within the veins of colonization” (Anzaldua, 1987: 49).

It is this turning point that he feverishly tried to discover his identity, one that he neglected for so long. Minke cannot see things within the binary perspective. In the course of domination and subjugation, he must act accordingly in order for him to still come out as himself, a person who dwells within the grey area. A person which always have to bargain within the contested space, shifting, traveling and moving without losing himself in the end.

“”Knowing” is painful because after “it” happens I can’t stay in the same place and be comfortable. I am no longer the same person I was before”

(Anzaldua, 1987: 48). Minke undergoes a profound transformation, of utilizing the knowledge he got from the dominant power and use it against the maladies of colonialism. As stated by Anzaldua in regards to people, suddenly the repressed energy rises, makes decisions, connects with consciousness energy and a new life begins…if she doesn’t change her ways, she will remain a stone forever

(Anzaldua, 1987: 49).

If Europe were all that good, everyone should be equal before the law, but instead the Europeans in power created a double standard. The Europeans in power who did not embody the values brought by the French Revolution, they, themselves refuse to be oppressed but they feel nothing wrong in oppressing

others, especially the Natives. In reality European ethnocentrism excludes and categories the non-Europeans, as people who have less rights and were treated like subhuman.

As soon as he discovers that Europe is not all good, Minke began to reject and questions his beliefs over Europe:

“But European power was a monster that became hungrier and hungrier the more it gobbled up. I found myself thinking of the greedy ogre in the wayang stories of my ancestors.” (Toer, 1979: 274)

It is this turning point that he starts to understand his part as a person within the colonial state, he is one of those Natives who are educated and can help others to be enlightened. Minke started to travel and understand more about what

Gayatri Spivak called the subaltern people and himself:

“The peasant farmers of Java were afraid of all outsiders, because their experiences over the centuries had shown them that outsiders—individuals or groups—would thieve everything they owed.” (Toer, 1979: 168)

Then he learns to discover who he really is as a person who is able to see colonialism and to know where he belongs within the spectrum. When he confronts Maurits Mellema, his wife’s half brother of his rights as Mellema was trying to seize his father’s assets in the Dutch East Indies, but because he is a

Native, his marriage to his Eurasian wife, Annelies, was not recognized. Due to the way Mellema behaves, Minke felt truly rejected affirming that even with his

European educational background, he is still seen as a Native that has no rights:

“You don’t recognize Native Law, Moslems law; you did not honor our legal marriage.” (Toer, 1979: 339)

“No, it isn’t enough that—a member of a conquered people who are taught to believe they are inferior because they have indigenous blood, believe in the supernatural and speak a deficient language…Now beating themselves over their

“inactivity” a stage that is as necessary as breathing” (Anzaldua, 1987: 48-49).

As he is rejected by the dominant culture and realized that his Europe was also not honest with him in regards to equality and freedom due to his race. He began to distrust and question whether the values that he embraced in Western hegemony are all truthful. Minke becomes more active, willing to ask his rights. Minke must constantly bargain his position, as Anzaldua stated that “every increment of consciousness, every step forward is a travesia , a crossing…Knowledge makes me more aware, makes me more conscious” (Anzaldua, 1987:49). He is a colonized person who is educated enough, who is able to see the colonial hegemony and now is going back and finding his identity and pride:

“I realized I am a child of all nations, of all ages, past and present. Place and time of birth, parents, all are coincidence: such things are not sacred.” (Toer, 1979:169)

Minke has shown us that the decolonization of the mind is an arduous but an important step to take in order to understand the complex colonial situation and where an individual places him/herself within it. Walter Mignolo stated in an interview that “we must remember that the decolonization of the knowledge is among other things learning to think with against and beyond the legacy of the

Western epistemology” (Delgado, fall 2000: 30). Minke is trying to question the ideologies that he has received so far and postulating it to his own identity which he no longer recognizes. “For it is precisely there, in the ordinariness of the day-

to-day, in the intimacy of the indigenous, that, unexpectedly, we become murderous, unrecognizable strangers to ourselves” (Bhabha, Spring 1995:7).

Through his interaction with other people Minke starts to understand the ramification of colonialism and those that are part of it. Minke realized that those who are being exploited by the colonial situation suffer the most serious blow because they are being removed from history and from their own indigenous culture.

As a person who starts to understand his identity, Minke must also consider and connect himself to the greater global picture of the world that is around him. In knowing the self and relating it to the grand scheme of the world,

Minke starts to be aware of the his multiple-self, his bargaining position and his continual process of border thinker without completely loosing his identity.

Through the process of ‘seeing’ the Self and Others Minke strive to “unpack” and dissect the knowledge that he has gotten as unpacking of knowledge is an arduous yet necessary. Mignolo stated that “unpacking (that is what I call decolonization of knowledge) requires its own structure, to be inhabited in order to constantly reveal what they constantly hide (Delgado, fall 2000: 32).

Colonialism limits the choice that an individual can have in regards to his/her own destiny by seizing any form of freedom and peace that they can have.

The greatest damage that colonialism have is that it violently uproots people like

Minke from their culture, their people, their language and ultimately themselves.

A. 2 Max Havelaar within Postcolonial Theory

When Edward Douwes Dekker wrote the book, Max Havelaar , and in turn creating a character whose name emblazoned the title of his book, Dekker thought that nothing would have come out of it. Thankfully, he was wrong; Max Havelaar became one of the prominent characters in the colonial constellation. His existence created a stir among the Dutch citizen during its time, not because of the writer’s literary brilliance but because Max Havelaar became an enduring symbol of the struggle within the colonial world; the colonized and the colonizers.

The binary contestations between the actors within the colonial world were clearly portrayed. The following analysis examines Max’s role within the colonial constellation by postulating his characters with theories of postcolonialism, we will further understand whether or not he fits the characteristics of those who plays a role within the colonial enterprise. The character Max generated so many speculations and controversies within the mother countries, especially the Dutch, it helped to inspire many more Max Havelaars to speak out on the colonial matters that has been carefully hidden by the Dutch government. Colonial malpractices happens under his watch as he obtain the rank of the Assistant-Resident, as for the

Resident himself he is the actual represent of the Dutch authority in the eyes of the Javanese population (Multatuli, 1987:67).

Max was introduced in the book, as he was attending his own promotion ceremony as the new Assistant Resident of the Lebak district, recently arriving from Europe. For Max the Dutch East Indies is no strange land to him for he had been there in several occasions and the last was when he was appointed as the

Assistant-Resident of Amboina, but one of the purposes of him going to the Dutch

East Indies one was the reason of debt, simply to wipe out his debt:

“And yet money would have stood him in good stead! For he had spent the little he had saved over the past years on his travels in Europe. He had even left some debts there, and he was, in a word, poor. But he had never looked on this profession as a money-making business, and on his appointment to LEBAK he had contentedly determined to wipe out his arrears by economy” (Multatuli, 1987:107)

According to Frantz Fanon in his book Black Skin, White Masks , “many

Europeans go to the colonies because it is possible for them to grow rich quickly there, that with rare exceptions the colonial is a merchant, or rather a trafficker, one will have grasped the psychology of the man who arouses in the autochthonous population “the feeling of inferiority”” (Fanon, 1967:108). The opportunity for Max to go the East Indies was to redeem himself and rid himself of debts. He vowed to be the best and he is described in the book as a person of good character, when he took the oath as the new Assistant Resident he took the job seriously:

“We believe that Havelaar would have protected the poor and oppressed wherever he found them, even if he had promised the opposite by ‘God Almighty’.” (Multatuli, 1987:105)

For him, to be righteous is a must, therefore when he took the oath he took it genuinely. Max is described as a person who is intelligent, thus by no means he would make claims out of nothing. “Havelaar wasn’t such a fool”

(Multatuli, 1987:98). Furthermore his colleagues, such as Lieutenant Verbrugge described him as a person who has warm heart with a warm corner in it for justice

(Multatuli, 1978:83).

He is the kind of person who would do anything to uphold justice, he does not choose side, and he acts accordingly to the Dutch people as well as the

Natives.

One of the sickness of the people who are aware of the situation is their pacification in which they turn into blind eyes, for the people who are considered having dominant power, and use the advantages and benefits from the situation.

As being portrayed by Memmi, that “the colonizer enjoys the preference and respect of the colonized themselves, who grant him more than those who are the best of their own people; who, for example, have more faith in his word than in that of their own population” (Memmi, 1965: 12). Along with the great sense of justice, Max ponders with a heavy weight on his shoulder of his duty.

“There are few circumstances in the material world that do not give a thinking man occasion to make observations in the intellectual plane. I have often asked myself whether many errors which have the force of law among us, many obliquities which we have been sitting with the same company in the same coach for too long?” (Multatuli, 1987:85)

For Max, he took time to think about where he is in regards to the colonial situation, to question whether or not he endorses the subjugation or against it. It is ironic in a place of abundance in which the colonies are set up there exist many atrocities being done in the name of profit. “In this becalmed zone the sea has a smooth surface, the palm tree stirs gently in the breeze, the waves lap against the pebbles, and raw materials are ceaselessly transported, justifying the presence of the settler: all while the native, bent double, more dead than alive, exists interminably in an unchanging dream. “The settler makes history; his life is an epoch, an Odyssey. He is the absolute beginning: “This land was created by us”;

he is the unceasing cause: “If we leave, all is lost, and the country will go back to the Middle Ages”” (Fanon, 1963: 50). Many logics are being turned and twisted so that logic itself can serve the purpose of legitimizing colonialism. Max studies the relationship in which helps to legitimize colonialism:

“I think the tone which should prevail in the relationship is fairly well indicated in the official instructions on it: ‘the European official is to treat the native officer who assists him as his younger brother .” (Multatuli, 1987:70-71)

Reducing the subjectivity of the oppressed helps to justify the conquest In the process of infantilizing the indigenous culture, it created a sense of duty for

Europeans to ‘civilize’ and to make them an evolue , a God given right to help those who are not enlightened. Within this also comes the double standard in which laws can be transposed and interpreted at will—to benefit the dominant power. Max is a person who knew the mechanism of how the Dutch government works in Java, as he stated the way the Dutch colonial government works “very shrewd political use is thus made of their ancient feudal influence—which, in

Asia, is generally of great importance, and is regarded by most people as part of their religion: because, by appointing these chiefs as officers of the Crown, a hierarchy is created, at the summit of which stands Dutch authority, exercised by the Government-General” (Multatuli, 1987: 68).

“Since he has discovered the colonized and their existential character, since the colonized have suddenly become living and suffering humanity, the colonizer refuses to participate in their suppression and decides to come to their assistance” (Memmi, 1965: 24). Max studied the situation and further became

aware of the ongoing exploitation and misappropriation done by the Dutch

Government.

“The Government compels him (Javanese peasant) to grow his land what he pleases it ; it punishes him when he sells his crop so produced to anyone else but it ; but it ; and it fixes the price it pays him. The cost of transport to Europe, via a privileged trading company, is high. The money given to the Chiefs to encourage the, swells the purchase price further, and since, after all, the entire business must yield a profit, this profit can be made in no other way than by paying the Javanese just enough to keep him from starving, which would decrease the producing power of the nation.” (Multatuli, 1987:73)

“Having discovered the economic, political and moral scandal of colonization, he can no longer agree to become what his fellow citizen has become; he decides to remain, vowing not to accept colonization” (Memmi, 1965:

19). Since Max arrived in the Dutch East Indies, Max observe a phenomena that happened to the Javanese peasants in which the forced labor practice called culturstelsel , is insidiously applied and when he arrives in the district of Lebak-

Bantan Kidul that he decided upon doing some justice. Max knew the misappropriation done by the Dutch Government.

“But strangers came from the West, who made themselves lords of his (Javanese) land. They wished to benefit from the fertility of the soil, and commanded its occupant to devote part of his labor and time to growing other products which would yield greater profit in the markets of EUROPE.” (Multatuli, 1987:73)

He is aware that the oppression by the Regent endorsed by the Dutch

Government is rampant and allowed to happen because the Lebak region is one of the most productive regions for sugar, rice and other crop commodities being

traded in European markets. It is because of these crops that sustain the

Netherlands as a big contender in the European markets.

“…a Regency in Java is headed by a native official who combines the rank given to him by the Government with his autochthonous influence, in order to facilitate the rule of the European officer who represents the Dutch authority.” (Multatuli, 1987:70)

As stated by Memmi: many traits of the colonized shock or irritate him but he seems to have the will to change the situation as he took the oath of trying to be the best at his job. “He is unable to conceal the revulsion he feels and which manifest themselves in remarks which strangely recall those of a colonialist”

(Memmi, 1965:25).

The colonial situation is a complex situation which involves the local ruling elites and the colonizers.

“The relationship between European officials and such highly placed Javanese grandees is of a very delicate nature…the Regent, by virtue of his local knowledge, his birth, his influence on the population, his financial resources and corresponding way of life, is in a much higher position…even in the eyes if the Government, a much more important person than the simple European official, whose discontent need not be feared, since many others can be found to take his place, whereas the displeasure of a Regent might become the germ of unrest or rebellion…All this, then, results in a strange situation whereby the inferior really commands the superior . The assistant Resident orders the Regent to furnish him with reports. He orders him to send labors to work on the bridges and roads. He orders him to have taxes collected.” (Multatuli, 1978: 70)

The oppressions that are done by the colonized to another are well known colonial practice encourage by the colonizer for their benefit. The Dutch government allowed it to happen because of the wide profits that they were

getting by the forced labor practice. That in any colonial practice the colonizer needs the assistance of the few of the high class society to subjugate and opiate the masses that are the aim of their oppressions as described by Max.

“The number of Europeans in that Division was so insignificant as to be negligible, and the Javanese in LEBAK were too poor to become interesting through still greater poverty, no matter what vicissitude befell on them” (Multatuli, 1987:113)

Max studied the relationship between the Dutch government and the

Regents, in the end are the Javanese peasants that are the subject of their oppression:

“It is true, then, that the poor Javanese is lashed onward by the whip of a dual authority; it is true that he is often fetched away from his fields to labour elsewhere; it is true that famine is often the outcome of these measures.” (Multatuli, 1987:73-74)

Max tries to change this colonial practice in which the double oppression led to the exploitation of Javanese peasants, thinking that he will be awarded for investigating oppression in his district:

“I want to do my duty gently. I don’t want to know too much about what happened in the past. But whatever happens from to-day is my responsibility, and I will answer for it!” (Multatuli, 1987:128)

According to Memmi, Max is a colonizer who refused, because Max realized that since the colonized became a living and suffering humanity, the colonizer refuses to participate in their suppression and decides to come to their assistance (Memmi, 1965: 24). Max having promised to work to the best of his capabilities to uphold his oath, he began to try to change things and question people who work with him whether or not they observe the continuous oppression and exploitation. Max reprimands and confronts his Controleur, Verbrugger, for

having allowed the Regent to summon people to labor in the rice paddy fields without any payment.

“As Controleur, you ought to have known it! I do know it!” (Multatuli, 1987:126)

Max cannot bear to let the oppressive practice to continue, especially when the members of the Dutch Government hides the truth of the ongoing lies. Max realized that most of the reports to the Dutch Government which pertains to the governing system of the Dutch East Indies were exaggerated; nowhere near the truth.

“The Government of the Dutch East Indies likes to write and tell its masters in the Motherland that everything is going well. The Residents like to report that to the Government. The Assistant Residents, who in their turn, receive hardly anything but favourable reports from their Controleurs, also prefer not to send any disagreeable news to the Residents. All this gives birth to an artificial optimism in the official and written treatment of affairs.” (Multatuli, 1979:211)

The Dutch Government chooses to accept these superfluous reports even though most of the reports are not consistent with the facts at hand, the Dutch closes the eyes of its justice as they exploit the Javanese peasants. According to

Bhabha in his essay “Sly Civility”, “those substitutive objects of colonialist governmentality—be the systems of recordation or “intermediate bodies” of political and administrative control—are strategies of surveillance that cannot maintain their civil authority once the “colonial” supplementary of their address is revealed” (Bhabha, 1985:74). The Dutch rationalizes and transpose their rules and laws for the Javanese, to give the Javanese equality meant that the Dutch cannot exploit them, thus it is necessary to degrade him by infantilizing the colonized.

Max is trapped unable to interpret the hybridity of the colonial space in which it relies on the hybrid tongues in order to survive and exist; sly civility.

“Between the civil address and its colonial significance —each axis displaying a problem of recognition and repetition—shuttles the signifier of authority in search of strategy of surveillance, subjection, and inscription” (Bhabha, 1985: 76).

Logically deducing and differentiating those subjected to colonialism by subhumanizing and/or infantilizing them so as to the existence of colonizer is pertinent to ensure in civilizing the oppressed. “It is this reason that ambivalence within colonialism exist, for despite its connotations of death, repetition, and servitude, the despotic configuration is a monocausal system that relates all differences and discourses to that transcendental signified, the absolute, undivided, boundless body of the despot” (Bhabha, 1985:76). Max unknowingly has taken his complaints against the colonial system in which the Dutch government are deeply entrenched. The Dutch Government is dependent on the practice of forced labor of the colonized people as the cork that keeps the Dutch afloat.

“And those officials, those Controleurs and Residents, are not the most guilty parties. It is the Government itself which, as though struck with incomprehensible blindness, encourages, invites and rewards the submission of favourable reports. And this is particularly the case where there is questions of oppression of the people by native Chiefs” (Multatuli, 1987:215)

Still, Max blamed the subjugation and oppression of the Javanese peasants mainly to the native Chiefs. Max does not see how beneficial the relationship of the native Regents and the Dutch Government is in term of economics as it yields much profit. The subjugation of the Javanese peasants are physically done and

delegated to the native Chiefs in which the native Chiefs will receive some rewards. In regards to the native Chiefs, Max feels that the Government should pay them much higher remunerations in order to avoid unlawful use of property and labor of people.

“…the Government needs in order to uphold its authority…Havelaar believed he could rely on the help of the Governor-General in doing his difficult duty, and I added that that belief was just another proof of his naïveté.” (Multatuli, 1987:244)

Max was adamant in trying to bring justice by talking to other Residents and of the forced labor practice in Java, but to no avail all complaints went to deaf ears. “…so the interviews all led to nothing but further ill-treatment of the people who had complained” (Multatuli, 1987:282). Max discovered that his predecessor

Mr. Slothering also tried to report of the ongoing abuse in his resident but shortly after that he died a suspicious death.

Surprisingly, when Max wrote to the Governor-General about the exploits of the Javanese peasants, he was met with disappointment. The Resident himself came to inquire about the reports written by Max, the Resident pleaded with Max on changing his mind and retract the charges Max had made about the Regent. In the end the Resident yielded and brought the letter to the attention of the

Governor-General. Max tried to report of the injustices done to the Governor-

General but he is met with rejection, instead it was him that got reprimanded. It is then he realized that the Governor General is also part of the corrupted system:

“…an appointment as Governor-General often carries in itself the seeds of corruption even for men who possess outstanding mental and moral capacities” (Multatuli, 1979: 234)

Max had pledge to do his duty and uphold the law, and thus he refused to retract his claim as for thousands of Javanese peasants who are suffering under such forced labor are waiting for justice.

“The people of LEBAK cannot know that his promise and this pledge have been disavowed, and that I stand alone, poor and powerless, in my desire for justice and humanity.” (Multatuli, 1987: 313)

According to Memmi, Max is a colonizer who refused he is conscious of the practices that are going on and wished to rectify it, but he is met with many challenges because he is going against a colonial system. In turn, due to his incessant plea for justice and correction, he is toppled over and exiled.

“I have done my DUTY, MY WHOLE DUTY, AND NOTHING BUT MY DUTY, with discretion, with restraint, with humanity, with gentleness and with courage ...THE SYSTEM OF ABUSE OF AUTHORITY, OF ROBBERY AND MURDER, UNDER WHICH THE HUMBLE JAVANESE GROANS, and it is that that I complain about. ” (Multatuli, 1987:316)

Max’s staunch criticism towards the colonial world has cost him his job.

His plea for colonial reformation fell to deaf ears among to the Dutch government.

As been said by Bhabha that individuals must throw themselves into the mental position of those who think differently from them, only to use it ambivalently; both as the principle that preserves the liberty of the Western individualist “public sphere” as well as a strategy for policing the culturally and racially differentiated colonial space (Bhabha, 1985: 73). Max is being caught in the middle as he strives to uphold the essence of what liberty and justice is. He is unable to grasp the double standard that the Dutch government applied to the colonized. In the attempt of hiding the truth the Dutch government created false records of the

colonial handlings as Max revealed. It is slippage between the Western signs and its colonial significance which emerges as a map of misreading that embarrasses the righteousness of recordation and its certainty of good government (Bhabha,

1985, 73). Max as an honest person do not understand the deliberate misrecordation that has been done to cover up the colonial atrocities within the colonies. He interprets them as mishandling that must be rectified as a good government officer working for the good of his nation. After all Max is a good and honest person intending to do his duty as best as he can, but instead his good intention was met with utter ignorance. Dejected and angry Max tried to bring justice to the natives and himself, but in the end it has cost him his job affirming the colonial situation that uses double standardness in the way they handle the colonies.

B. Authors’ Background and Portrayal of Colonial Identities

For both writer, Toer and Multatuli (I have suffered) the pseudonym of

Edward Douwes Dekker, of course there are motives behind the reason of writing these novels. There are relationships between the colonial identities of the main characters (Minke and Max) within the two books and how it reflects the author’s view about colonialism both Multatuli and Toer.

B. 1 Edward D. Dekker’s/ Multatuli’s Background and Colonial Identities

Multatuli the book was written having dual purpose of one: to criticize the colonial atrocities that happened in the Dutch East Indies, and the second: to

reinstate himself back to the Dutch Government after being revoked from his duty for writing his protests of the colonial handling in the East Indies.

“I wrote my book with double intentions, the first is to improve the conditions in the Dutch East Indies and reinstate my position. It is not the problem of me saying: give me this or that much then I will shut my mouth, because I know what I had last said before that I will fight for the oppressed, that is my choice and that is my calling.” (Hermans, 1988:75)

Dekker wrote this book not only to protest but also hope to rectify the practices in the Dutch Government. He was concern for the impact of the colonial policies on the Indonesian people. Dekker, who always had a penchant for justice had once strived to be a minister before going to the Dutch East Indies wanted to uphold his duty as a civil servant. When he arrived in the East Indies, Dekker quickly got a job with the Dutch government as a civil servant. Once he was posted in North Sumatra and he was in trouble with his superior as he defended a village chief who had been torture. :He was then transferred to West Sumatra where he also created problem for the Dutch Government as he protested the

Government’s effort to incite ethnic rivalry” (Toer, April 19, 1999). Dekker was an Assistant Resident working in Lebak Bantan district, and it was he that saw those colonial mishandlings the autobiographical book acts as a double edged sword. The book helped to reveal the colonial happenings in the Dutch East

Indies; for those who were against colonialism this book became evidence in order to end colonialism and for those who supported colonialism this book became a helpful tool to refine laws pertaining to colonialism. At the age of eighteen he left the Netherlands to go to Indonesia.

Within a few months he found a job in Indonesia and he quickly rose in ranks due to his brilliance and good work. When he became the Assistant

Residence he saw a lot of oppressions and he wrote about it to rectify and find justice, but instead he was fired from his job for voicing his opposition towards the colonial practices. And in the end Dekker ended up in West Java where he became disillusioned by the way the Dutch Government operates and soon resigned himself as to draw attention to the ongoing oppression in the area, but sadly instead of gaining positive momentum, he was ignored and returned to the

Netherlands empty handed.

According to Pramoedya Ananta Toer in his article published in New

York Times “The Book that Killed Colonialism” that the publication of ''Max

Havelaar'' in 1859 was nothing less than earth-shaking. Just as ''Uncle Tom's

Cabin'' gave ammunition to the American abolitionist movement, ''Max Havelaar'' became the weapon for a growing liberal movement in the Netherlands, which fought to bring about reform in Indonesia. Helped by ''Max Havelaar,'' the energized liberal movement was able to shame the Dutch Government into creating a new policy known as the ethical policy, the major goals of which were to promote irrigation, inter-island migration and education in the Dutch Indies.”

(Toer,1999:1). In other words people like Max and Dekker, the colonizer who refused want to work toward economic equality and social liberty, expressed in the colony by a struggle for liberation of the colonized and the equality between the colonized and the colonizer (Memmi, 1965:28). Dekker used Max to convey

how he feels in regards to the colonial atrocities and what must be done in order to rectify the situation.

What propels Dekker to write such stunning novel in such short period of time within two weeks the book was finished at the end of October 1859, colonialism was still widely practiced. The book was an autobiographical novel of the atrocities that Dekker had seen as the Assistant Resident of Lebak Bantan.

Dekker had the intention in focusing the atrocities that had gone on during the forced labor. The forced labor or the culturestelste imposed by the Dutch has engulfed so many innocent people’s lives for so long. Like that of his character

Max, Dekker misinterpreted the colonial situation and his role as a civil servant.

Dekker did not understand the double standard that exists as the colonial power applies their governing laws to their colonies. Dekker and Max are caught within the colonial enterprise unable to read the fine lines that the natives cannot be position equal to that of the Europeans. The reason why colonialism works is through double interpretation, ambivalence and temporality.

In many ways the dual purpose of Dekker’s novel dominates the speculation of why he wrote the novel. Yet, there are some inconsistencies within his writing that support the fact that the author wrote the book out of the concern for the Dutch Government and its practices. The extreme oppression that has been overlooked by the Dutch Government sooner or later will become unbearable and thus the whole colonial project collapses because of its own weight. As Dekker had stated in his book that:

“I want to do my duty gently” (Multatuli, 1987: 128). Throughout the novel and even in the end Dekker stressed the fact that he is writing this book out of duty. He felt that it was his duty as he took a serious oath to God and to the

Dutch Government to perform his job to the best of his ability. The book became a double edge sword and which in the end Dekker indicted the Regents instead for the reason of his writing is to bring attention to the situation not to bring down the whole Dutch Government as stated by Dekker once again, one of the reason for him to write the book was to get himself reinstated within the Dutch Government.

What Dekker didn’t know is that the Dutch East Indies is the cork that supports the Netherlands afloat and the very burden of it all lies in the free and forced labor of the Javanese peasants.

Like that of his character Max, Dekker in the end his persistence created an undeclared conflict with his own people unless he returns to the colonialist fold or utterly defeated by the colonial government. In the eyes of the Dutch colonial government, Dekker became a traitor and must be destroyed before he can unravel and ultimately dismantle the perfect colonial system. Misunderstanding the colonial agenda, Dekker and Max did not realize that “those substitutive objects of colonialist governmentality—be they be systems of recordation, or

“intermediate bodies” of political and administrative control—are strategies of surveillance that cannot maintain their civil authority once the “colonial” supplementarity of their address is revealed” (Bhabha, 1985: 74).

B. 2 Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s Background and Colonial Identities

As for Toer, he was imprisoned by the New Order for being too subversive in his writing. He was jailed but never had a trial, thus he never knew the real reason why he was imprisoned. After he was released from the prison he published his books and one of them is the Child of All Nations many years after the Dutch colonialism ended and this book portrays the struggle of an individual under a certain oppressive system, much like what he underwent in the past with the New Order. Toer never ceases to stop from preaching about freedom and justice. As was wrongly accused for a crime that he will never know the reason for, Toer experience being oppressed as he spend years within the confinement of prison. Toer was a person who incessantly criticizes the New Order for its practices. During the time of the New Order, Indonesia under the dictatorship of

Suharto has undergone an unprecedented oppression and exploitation. Whereas people’s knowledge and freedom were curbed and censored, anyone who defied the New Order were subjected to imprisonment, exile and even death.

In writing this book Toer used Minke as a character to simply give knowledge to the people who were once physically being oppressed by colonialism and further being oppressed by their own people about colonial happenings. The colonized mentality still exists within the people who were once colonized. They reproduce rage, repression and the dangers of people who had never felt freedom is that once they assume the position of the colonizer (the dominant power) they will exercise their power to the full extent mercilessly. Like wild animals they thrive on terror and fear. As stated by Mignolo that Toer’s

attempt in writing signifies the desire to communicate through the eyes of those that were oppressed as they encounter of the global designs imagined and exported from certain local histories (European) to other local histories (in

America, Asia or Africa) the importance of both the concept of border and of border thinking from the perspective of subalternity (Delgado, fall 2000:6).

Like that of Minke, through the book Toer attempts to create an understanding between the dominant power and the oppressed, not by creating the past and nostalgically talk about the pre-colonial state, but rather talking about the situation through the view of those being colonized. As stated by Mignolo: “since we cannot go back to other “original” thinking traditions (China, Islam, India,

Amerindians and Latin Americans) because of the growing hegemony of the

Western and modern/colonial world, what remains available to us is either reproducing Western abstract universals and projecting them all over the world, or exploring the possibilities of border thinking to imagine possible futures”

(Delgado, fall 2000:6). Within Minke Toer instill the idea that one must take his destiny within his own hand, like that the destiny of a group of oppressed people, as one being enlighten, one must pass the knowledge to others in order to wake a whole nation. Minke, like that of Toer, both are trying to understand the present situation through understanding the past, the colonial past and the colonial ideologies that froze many people who are under oppression. Minke opens himself and thus creates chains of events that will later open other people’s eyes of the colonial happenings. As for Toer, by writing he opens reader’s eyes to the not so far past, of the atrocities done by colonial power.

Through understanding the past, Toer hopes that one can be enlightened and rise against any kind of regime that suppresses and oppresses the people (New

Order). As stated by Mignolo that “the complicity between language, literature, culture, and nation was also related to geopolitical order and geographical frontiers” (Mignolo, 2000:218). The statement above is further amplified by

Plobette in which “Language and literature were part of a state ideology, supported by its organic intellectuals” (Plobette in Mignolo, 2000: 218). Both

Minke and Toer is border thinker, they have multiple-selves in order to answer to the dominant power, within this multiplicity one is not lost, but rather traveling and creating understanding with other. Both must continuously make bargaining position in order to make themselves exist against the dominant power.

The panacea for people who was once colonized does not come instantly as that when they declared their independence from the colonizer because as has been stated by Frantz Fanon and Albert Memmi that the danger of the colonized is that they psyche has been thoroughly disrupted that they themselves does not know who they really are and thus they are in volatile and sensitive state, especially the subalterns and in which during these time the new dominant power eject their hegemony again and again until it is ingrained. In learning the colonial past and what it did to the people who were once colonized to avoid the new form of colonialization from happening and explain the inferiority complexes and dependencies complexes that are exhibited to once colonized people. Like that of

Minke, Toer simply wants to spread the knowledge as knowledge and power are two entities that are deeply intertwined from one another. To know the history is

also a process to know oneself, discovering its strength and weaknesses and to demand the rights that are entitled to these people.

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION

In many senses the colonial experience brought many kinds of people willingly or unwillingly together in the same contested space. Not only colonialism changes the physical characteristics of an area but also its people; it brought the contestation of ideas, knowledge, power, class, race and gender together. Within this sphere there lie many actors who are conscious and unconscious participant of the colonial system. Within the colonial spectrum there lies various kinds of interjections and resistance, some are clearly binary in opposition, some are living comfortably within the contested in-between areas. It is here that this thesis tries to answer, whether or not the black and whites are clearly demarcated or yet it is still unclear and it is called in-between. As for people like Max and Minke clearly they are not in binary opposition to one another, in fact, they reside in-between. Their political consciousness enables them to position themselves in-between. As a colonized, Minke has more privilege than low class colonized people, because of his status. As a result, he has more bargaining position towards the dominant power. While Max, he is from the colonizer, but he is a colonizer who cares for the well beings of the colonized.

This form of movement, as stated by Bhabha is often displayed but never really recognized that they are at the ambivalence of their border proximity.

The author’s experience like Multatuli helps to portray the way colonialization works, it is because Multatuli lived during the colonial time and

part of the colonial system that he is able to speak about it. Meanwhile, Toer experiences injustice being imprisoned for unknown reasons. And thus, he expresses it through Minke, who is physically not imprisoned but his mind is imprisoned. Minke is unconsciously rejecting his tradition for the dominant power which in turn rejects him. The contested space of power never ends within colonialism. The tension between dominated and subordinated is always there.

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