ISBN 978-90-6718-289-8 ISBN 978-90-6718-289-8 9 789067 182898 9 789067 182898 Beyond empire and nation (CS6)-2012.indd 1 11-09-12 16:57 BEYOND EMPIRE AND N ATION This monograph is a publication of the research programme ‘Indonesia across Orders. The reorganization of Indonesian society.’ The programme was realized by the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (NIOD) and was supported by the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport. Published in this series by Boom, Amsterdam: - Hans Meijer, with the assistance of Margaret Leidelmeijer, Indische rekening; Indië, Nederland en de backpay-kwestie 1945-2005 (2005) - Peter Keppy, Sporen van vernieling; Oorlogsschade, roof en rechtsherstel in Indonesië 1940-1957 (2006) - Els Bogaerts en Remco Raben (eds), Van Indië tot Indonesië (2007) - Marije Plomp, De gentleman bandiet; Verhalen uit het leven en de literatuur, Nederlands-Indië/ Indonesië 1930-1960 (2008) - Remco Raben, De lange dekolonisatie van Indonesië (forthcoming) Published in this series by KITLV Press, Leiden: - J. Thomas Lindblad, Bridges to new business; The economic decolonization of Indonesia (2008) - Freek Colombijn, with the assistance of Martine Barwegen, Under construction; The politics of urban space and housing during the decolonization of Indonesia, 1930-1960 (2010) - Peter Keppy, The politics of redress; war damage compensation and restitution in Indonesia and the Philippines, 1940-1957 (2010) - J. Thomas Lindblad and Peter Post (eds), Indonesian economic decolonization in regional and international perspective (2009) In the same series will be published: - Robert Bridson Cribb, The origins of massacre in modern Indonesia; Legal orders, states of mind and reservoirs of violence, 1900-1965 - Ratna Saptari en Erwiza Erman (ed.), Menggapai keadilan; Politik dan pengalaman buruh dalam proses dekolonisasi, 1930-1965 - Bambang Purwanto et al. (eds), Citra kota lama, citra kota baru Published in Indonesia: - Freek Colombijn, Martine Barwegen, Purnawan Basundoro and Johny Alfian Khusyairi (eds), Kota lama, kota baru; Sejarah kota-kota di Indonesia / Old city, new city; The history of the Indonesian city before and after independence (2005). Yogyakarta: Ombak. - ‘Indonesianisasi dan nasionalisasi ekonomi’, Lembaran Sejarah; Jurnal Sejarah dan Ilmu-Ilmu Sosial Humaniora 8/2 (2005) - Taufik Abdullah and Sukri Abdurrachman (eds), Indonesia across Orders; Arus bawah sejarah bangsa, 1930-1960 (2011). Jakarta: LIPI Press. - Sarkawi B. Husain, Negara di tengah kota; Politik representasi dan simbolisme perkotaan (Surabaya 1930-1960) (2011). Jakarta: LIPI Press. Several other workshop proceedings are in preparation Indonesia across Orders BEYOND EMPIRE AND NATION The decolonization of African and Asian societies, 1930s-1960s EDITED BY ELS BOGAERTS AND REMCO RABEN KITLV Press Leiden 2012 Published by: KITLV Press Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies) P.O. Box 9515 2300 RA Leiden The Netherlands website: www.kitlv.nl e-mail: [email protected] This book is volume 244 in the Verhandelingen Series of the Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde KITLV is an institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) Cover illustration: ‘“Een jonge heethoofd”; Merdeka. Jonge Indonesië r op het Koningsplein te Batavia’. Collection NIOD beeldnummer 49174 Cover: Creja ontwerpen, Leiderdorp ISBN 978 90 6718 289 8 © 2012 Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie KITLV Press applies the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/) to selected books, published in or after January 2011. Authors retain ownership of their copyright, but they permit anyone unrestricted use and distribution within the terms of this license. Printed editions manufactured in the Netherlands Contents Els Bogaerts and Remco Raben 1 Prologue Els Bogaerts and Remco Raben 7 Beyond empire and nation 7 Raymond F. Betts 23 Decolonization A brief history of the word Frederick Cooper 39 Decolonization and citizenship Africa between empires and a world of nations Anne Booth 69 The plural economy and its legacy in Asia W.G. Wolters 109 Decolonizing money Central banks in the Philippines and Indonesia Karl Hack 137 Decolonization and violence in Southeast Asia Crises of identity and authority Greg Bankoff 167 ‘For the good of the barrio’ Community associations and the state in the rural Philippines 1935-1965 Jim Masselos 189 Decolonized space The reconfi guring of national and public space in India vi Contents Freek Colombijn 213 Solid as a rock, or a handful of dust? The security of land tenure in Indonesian cities from 1930-1960 Bill Freund 241 The African city Decolonization and after Cathérine Coquéry-Vidrovitch 267 Racial and social zoning in African cities from colonization to postindependence Contributors 287 Index 291 ELS BOGAERTS AND REMCO RABEN Prologue Decolonization has become one of the major themes in twentieth-century historiography. Within the span of three decades, most of the countries that had been colonized by European powers became independent. Discussions tend to concentrate on the causes of decolonization, particularly on the motives and policies of the European powers. As a result, writings on the history of decolonization have for a long time been primarily about unmak- ing and about departure. Recently, however, the perspective has shifted, with more weight being attached to global dynamics on the one hand, and greater agency being ascribed to local actors on the other. This volume aims to enhance the debate by moving the analysis away from the political interpretations of decolonization that have been used by both the departing powers and the new national leaders, interpretations that have subsequently dominated our retrospective view of the period. In the next pages, twelve authors give their views on the meaning of decoloniza- tion in African and Asian societies. They all view decolonization over a long span of time in order to assess the convergences and divergences between major social changes and political decolonization. Most articles concentrate on social and institutional changes in the middle decades of the twentieth century, ranging in topic from land titles, urban symbolism, racial and class segregation, the banking system, plural economies, neighbourhood asso- ciations, and competing nationalities. The authors uncover the experiences of peoples and institutions that were part of the history of decolonization but whose experiences do not easily fit into the temporal dichotomy of a ‘before’ and ‘after’. Avoiding a strictly political interpretation of decoloniza- tion causes the process of disentanglement from formal colonial relations to become part of a much wider trend of re-thinking and re-ordering societies. This concern has been central to the large research programme ‘Indonesia across Orders; the Reorganization of Indonesian Society, 1930s-1960s’, initi- ated and coordinated by the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation in Amsterdam, which led to the articles in this volume. The chapters in this volume approach the mid-twentieth-century transi- tion as a story of experimentation and adjustment that started long before 2 Beyond empire and nation and continued far beyond formal independence. By stressing the long-lasting concerns in late-colonial and newly-independent countries, they try to restore a concept of history as a development by fits and starts, and offer an approach to overcome the ‘epistemological rupture’ that the departure of the colonial powers brought about (Le Sueur 2003:2). We have attempted to cover neither most countries nor all aspects of the decolonization and reorientation of these societies. Instead, the authors have focused on a few main themes to illustrate the multiple dynamics of societies under the strain of decolonization and modernization. The volume begins with an exploration of decolonization away from con- ventional parameters. Bogaerts and Raben suggest an alternative approach, beyond political narratives and western temporalities, and across the fissures in history that are so often taken for granted. They argue in favour of an approach of decolonization as part of a much wider history of reorientation and plead for a focus on, in the words of Ousmane Sembène, ‘the people that are never mentioned’, to reveal the diverging experiences of the various groups and communities that do not comfortably fit the nationalized dis- courses of independence and thus offer alternative perspectives on changes and continuities in the societies during decolonization. Raymond Betts sets off with a discussion of the meanings attached to the term ‘decolonization’. He shows how our thinking about decolonization has followed the evolving concerns in the world. It demonstrates how much, as Betts (2004:1) wrote elsewhere, decolonization was ‘historically loose-ended’. The term ’decolonization’ was minted to serve the concerns of the colonial powers and to describe the retreat of the West from formal dominance, offering an apt image of imperial departure and global repositioning. Soon, however, the idea of decolonization was tied up with questions of the lasting effects of colonial dominance, thereby shifting the focus from the former and soon-to-be former imperial powers to the postcolonial societies in the south. Many studies tried to explain how colonialism had crippled the local econo- mies and how Western powers