Paul de Chauvigny de Blot, Jesuit, Professor of busines sspirituality

Paul de Blot was a member of the well-known Indonesian Eurasian family Chauvigny de Blot with roots in Protestant France (Huguenots). He was born15 May 1924 in Kotawinangun, a small village in Central Java, Kebumen. In 1948 he entered the Jesuit society in Muntilan, ordained a priest in 1960 after study of theology and chemistry. In 1965 he became in Yogyakarta and Semarang a proponent of a softer approach of 'ex-Communists' than the hard line of fellow Jesuit Joop Beek in Jakarta. I wrote about an interview on 11 September 2012, where he told me that he 'could plea for the discharge of those suspects that he deemed to be innocent' to Colonel Soetopo Joewono, then still army commander of Central Java in Semarang (and later head of BAKIN intelligence. See  Catholics in Independent Indonesia, 154-156).  There was even a Komando Operasi Mental, for the promotion of the true meaning of Pancasila as the Indonesian State philosophy of harmony.

In 1978 he came to the Netherlands where he was active in the counseling of students, especially at the business school of Nyenrode. He became after 2006 an Honorary Professor of Business Spirituality. He could proudly say that his way of talking about this subject was not esoteric, even not religious, but that it was a universal guideline to become rich, successful and happy, without hurting other people. Business not as a warfare but a way to common happiness for mankind. Always calm and smiling, he quietly talked to Indonesian visitors about the time of horror, the killing of so many suspected Communists as a disaster that had hit Indonesians as a nation, without too much blaming individual persons. Journalists and students who came for information about the notorious Jesuit Joop Beek, found a smiling but rather silent fellow Jesuit.

Huibert Gerard Nahuys and the female line in inheritance in Minangkabau

Huibert Gerard Nahuys, (1782-1858) was a Dutch baron, educated as a lawyer but mostly active as a colonial officer and administrator. At the age of  21 he already had defended his doctoral dissertation on the economic rights of criminals (written in Latin, the English or international European language of the academic life between 1500-1860s!). But he wanted to go to Indonesia and made the trip five times. In 1805 he had problems with the British in South Africa, but he could nevertheless arrive in Batavia, did not much there and returned through America in 1807. Between 1809-1813 he made his second trip, was taken prisoner by the British, but given a position in Benkulu by Lord Minto. His third trip began in December 1814 and he became Resident of Yogyakarta, after positions in the army. His return then was in 1823. Between 1827-1830 he was Resident in Surakarta and was a major figure in the Java war. His most important writing was about the Java War, four volumes totalling 1916 pages. About 20% was written by Nahuys himself, the rest are reports, mostly of army leaders,

Verzameling van officiële rapporten betreffende den oorlog op Java in de jaren 1825-1830.

His fifth and last trip was between 1836 and 1839 when he was member (Edeleer) of the Council of the Indies.

Above the four volumes on the Java War. Below this diplomat-administrator, warrior in a very civilised outfit.

Nahuys liked writing. He wrote Herrinneringen, a biographical account, published privately in 1852 and a public reprint about the time of his death. He took time for his return trip in 1826-7 and wrote about this trip a book with the long title Brieven over Bencoolen, Padang, het Rijk van Menang-Kabau, Rhiouw, Singapoera en Poelo-Pinang. These are 'Letters from..' On Riau he has mostly economic information (page 232). The Dutch administration had some income here from four sources: opium (64.140 guilders), Arak (27.120), gambling 35.400, slaughtering of pigs (6.780). Apparently they got money from Chinese traders who rented the position of administration in these fields, with opium, gambling and drinking as the major income!

On page 106 he has some comments on the adat of inheritance in Minangkau: 'not according a holy prescript, such as the laws and teachings of Muhammad and the Qur'an, but through a ridicule and fabulous tradition which hurts all commons sense. At the moment of the finishing of a boat and its launching in the ocean, the 'emperor' ordered a grandchild from one of his son to lay under the boat. The son rejected the idea, but a daughter consented. Since then inheritance is in Minangkabau through the line of daughters (at least according to the anonymous source of Nahuys).

In his account of the Java War the 'priests' in their white robes and turbans are mentioned from time to  time as part  of the army of the rebels. Hajis are mentioned, the Friday prayers, some information about booty to be divided according the sacred law. The information about the Paderi of Minangkabau is very poor.

I am now involved in the last details for CMR volumes 16 and 17, the Bibliographical History of Christian-Muslim Relations. 19th century for Europe (Netherland: vol 16) and Indonesia (vol 17). Nahuys is not important here.

The movie Nasir: victim of a pogrom in Tamilnadu, India

We went yesterday to Rotterdam to see a movie at the IFFR, the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Filmmaker Arun Kartick is from Coimbatore, the second largest town after Chennai in southeast India. Among the vast majority of Tamil Hindus, there are some pockets of Muslims quarters. The movie Nasir follows a day in the life of Nasir, a man working in a shop, selling clothes. It is a very slow and quiet going movie with shooting from short distance. We see a sleeping man, hear the call to prayer from the mosque, the man performs his ablutions, where there are pictures of his hands, feet, water. Short details of the prayer. He gets tea, water at the pump of the community, waiting in a row. He goes to the shop, where the Hindu gods are shown in their shining lights. For our perception perhaps clear Indian kitsch. Working people and customers in the shops are mostly Hindus (red sign on the face), sometimes we hear the sound of alarming and shocking sermons by preachers, most Hindus who plead for a Muslim-free and clean Mother India.

The large theatre in Rotterdam was fully packed for the movie. After the show, filmmaker Arun Kartick was interviewed by a lady from the IFFR organization who is responsible for the South Asian movies at IFFR.
At lunch time, Nasir goes back home for a nap. He meets an older friend who just returned from Abu Dhabi, had earned some good money and maybe will have a good job opportunity for Nasir. Back at the shop, Nasir goes to a dormitory for students, to bring jackets they ordered. That is a very different world and he is basically only neglected by the students, with the exception of one. He comes back to the shop and returns home quite late, when it is already dark. Streets are empty in his quarter of the town. But then at once as a surprise, a mob of Hindus come in the narrow street, from a side street, yelling anti-Muslim threats, asking for a clean Hindu Mother India and the killing of all Muslims. Nasir remains lying on the ground, dead, after this one minute orgy of violence.

We had contact before with Saumyananda Sahi, called Somo, because he was the photography director for the movie, but there was no opportunity to see him in person here. For people like us, not knowing where the movie would end, it was a somewhat uncertain adventure. Looking in so much detail at the day of the life of this man (his wife left early in the morning, neatly dressed, with a bus to meet some family in another town), it was from the beginning clear that there were problems between Hindus and Muslims, although we saw them behaving quite normal in actual encounters and Nasir functioned quite normal in a pretty large shop, with some 6-8 people serving clients. The attackers came out of the unknown and had also no clear faces. They were anonymous, like a disaster of nature coming without showing a human face.
I was thinking about the parade and the violence of the FPI in the big towns of Indonesia, where individuality is not shown and people only become member of a group. The movie is very beautiful in images, but also left us uncertain about the origin and background of religious violence: as if it comes out of another world, has nothing to do with the daily reality of people living together in a calm and normal way. Like an earthquake, a typhoon, hot a human action.