The Glory of Batavia in Lelystad

Colonialism, including VOC history, nowadays often is described as something negative. It should have brought other countries in a situation of dependency and poverty. Especially the period 1945-1949 is now under scrutiny as to Indonesia. However, there is still are groups in the Netherlands who cherish sympathy for aspects of the colonial past. One is the group of 'lovers of the classical vessels of the VOC period'. In 1985 one such group started building a replica of the sailer Batavia who in 1629 went to the Indies and by chance 'discovered' islands off the Western coast of Australia. The boat was also a teaching/learning project for people how to work with ancient technology tobuild such a wooden vessel. Now it is a tourist attraction, supported by many volunteers.

In the new 12th province of the Netherlands, of the 'new land' a reclamation from the former Southern Sea, since the dyke of the 1930s a lake, Ijsselmeer, the capital is Lelystad, after engineer Lely who designed this great project for safety and more land. Inorder to make the capital of the province more interesting, two museums were built, one about the history of the place, former sea with many ship wrecks, another about the replica of the VOC ship.
We went here with Kobayashi Yasuko, colleague from Nanzan University in Nagoya. She is a specialist of Indonesian Islam, mostly about Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, knowing many details of the internal strategies, politics and quarrels of the two great organizations.

The boat has four decks, only four toilets for some 250 personnel, and was built for trade, but there was no VOC trade without guns and canons!
Next to the ship in the water, which could be visited, there was a museum where a group of some 20 volunteers are building a copy 1:10 of another vessel. The love for boats can be shown in many different ways (see last picture below).
The town of Lelystad was considered as somewhat boring and not really attractive, because it is at a distance of more than 30 minutes from Amsterdam. In order to attract more people also a mall was built in traditional style,called Bataviastad or City of Batavia. It looks a bit like a reconstruction of the town of Batavia, built 400 years ago in 1619 by Jan Pieterszoon Coen but is now filled with outlet shops, promising cheap prices, as well a numerous restaurants. For those who know a nice trip through a quiet part of the Netherlands to some colonial past.