Back to Indonesia: the kris of Diponegoro

Prince Diponegoro (1785-1855) was a member of the Yogyakarta court and candidate for the succession to the throne of the sultanate in the early 1820s, but not selected. He started a campaign to become still the Sultan and this was the beginning of the Java Wat (1825-1830). Diponegoro was supported by some Muslim leaders: the most important being Kiai Modjo and Ali Basah Abdul Mustapa Sentot. In 1830 Diponegoro had the idea that he could have a meeting about conditions for negotiations, but was arrested and sent in exile to Manado and later to Makassar.
The dagger or keris of Diponegoro, a costly weapon with golden decorations, was presented to the Dutch King in 1831 and kept in the Anthropological Museum of Leiden. Now there is a policy of returning precious pieces of art that were robbed from colonial subject to the new countries (to be found on the internet under https://www.trouw.nl/cultuur-media/ex-kolonies-kunnen-roofkunst-terugkrijgen-met-nieuwe-leidraad~bec7741d/). The keris  of Diponegoro is one of the first to be restituted under this regulation.

Above a drawing of Diponegoro with his kris and the issue of the magazine of the Eurasian people in the Netherlands with Dutch minister of Education and Culture (left) and the Indonesian Ambassador in the Hague, I Gusti Agung Wesaka Puja (centre) during the ceremony in early March 2020.

Nyepi in Bali in a time of corona-virus

Nyepi is a day of rest, calm down, silence. Just one day per year in Bali, not unlike ramadan, but that is one month and every evening crowded, festive even. But in day-time also meditation, forgiving. Elga Sarapung sent me a nice wish or nyepi:

Nyepi of Bali gves now a special flavour to the social lockdown: few social contacts, staying in the house us much as possible. No libraries open, no restaurants, cinemas, mosques and churches closed down. No choir rehearsals, no concerts. Easter without the Passion music of Bach. Some very serious communal Nyepi. But we still could make a nice walk along the canal in the cold but sunny weather of what we consider as a quiet spring! Happy claming down!

A new Balinese Muslim myth about seven founders, Wali Pitu, and a war about the Prambanan Mosque

Syaifuddin Zuhri has a name quite similar to the famous writer and pesantren leader Saifuddin Zuhri, father of Minister of Religion Lukman Hakim Saifuddin. But he is younger and probably has no connections to the two others mentioned above. Due to the corona virus, sitting at home, without access to the books of the libraries in Utrecht and Leiden, I read two articles, available through the internet.
The most fascinating was published in 2013 in Indonesia and the Malay World (vol 41:1-13): Inventing Balinese Muslim Sainthood. Parallel to the Nine Founders of Islam in Java, the Wali Songo, Zuhri wrote about seven graves in Bali, signs of a long history of Islam. The first is in Gèlgèl, where in 1380 a Muslim trader arrived and was given an area to stay. A second arrived in 1580 in Klungkung, in 1609 there was a report of a few Muslims from Goa, Buginese who settled in Jembrana. In 1992 a tradition of Wali Pitu was invented/created by one Toyib Zaen Arifin (1925-2000), who had a pesantren in Sidoarjo, but also spread the Qadiriya tariqa and the Manaqib of Abdulqadir Jaelani to Bali. He heard voices, hâtif, about 1. a Muslim grave close to Tanah Lot; 2. in Bedugul, 3-5 in Karangasem; 6. Singaraja (of a Chinese Muslim; 7. of someone of Arab descent in Loloan.

Above here the seven Muslims buried in a maqam in Bali, with bottom left Toyib Zaen Arifin who discovered the graves. - There is a modest number of activities close to the simple graves, nothing similar to the crowds in Surabaya, Ampel, but maybe it will rise again. Of the 3,5 million citizens of Bali 10% is Muslim.
A second article by Syaifuddin Zuhri is about the 'infiltration of Salafi Muslims in moderate mosques'. The case here is about Masjid al-Muttaqun in Prambanan, Central Java. It was built in the 1950s at the initiative of the court of the Sunan of Solo and led by Muhammadiyah people. Due to the earthquake of 26 May 2006 the Aisyah School next to the mosque was destroyed. PKS leader Hidayat Nur Wahid, born in Prambanan and chair of parliament since 2004 took this opportunity to have a PKS individual to be nominated a major leader of the mosque, the prevent rebuilding of the Aisyiyah school and instead to extend the existing mosque into an Islamic Centre, financed by gifts from Kuwait. Muhammadiyah teachers were given higher salaries at the PKS Islamic Centre. Its leader received a free ticker for the haj pilgrimage. The Muhammadiyah also took action: national leaders like Amin Rais and Chamamah Suratno were present at ceremonies and an action of bersih-bersih (to clean the institutions from Salafi/PKS influence) had some success. After some time the full board of the Muttaqun mosque had become united as Muhammadiyah Members.

The dominant colour of the Muttaqun mosque in Prambanan in now brown (PKS colour), while Nahdlatul Ulama mosques are mostly white and Muhammadiyah prefers green.
The father of Hidayat Nur Wahid was a staunch Muhammadiyah leader, but his son, although educated in Muhammadiyah schools, before going to Gontor and then to Medina, got the 'tarbiyah virus' and became a prominent leader of PKS. Story to be continued!
(On Al-Muttaqun from Kees van Dijk & Nico Kaptein (eds), Islam, Politics and Change, Leiden Univ. Press. 2016, 79-100.)

Dutch Royal couple in Jakarta: no apology for bad illusions

The Dutch King Willem Alexander and Queen Maxima are today in Jakarta for a lunch with President Jokowi in Bogor. The newspapers bring the news that Alexander has asked forgiveness and spoke about apology for the extreme violence by the Dutch against the young Indonesian Republic in 1945-1949. This was the first time that such excuses were uttered. Then King repeated his conviction that 1945 was the year of Indepence of Indonesia and he expressed his congratulations for the 75th anniversary of Independence this year. But it was still not an overall excuse for the warfare, the military actions against Indonesian Independence. The Dutch cherished in 1945-9 an impossible colonial illusion about the need for Indonesians to be steered, instructed and led by the Dutch administration in order to reach adulthood as a state. The colonial dream was continued, notwithstanding the fact that the Netherlands had lost independence between 1940 and 1945 and recently had received freedom again through help of American, Canadian, British, French and Polish soldiers.
Not everybody in the Netherlands was happy with this royal statement. Eurasians claimed that they had suffered much violence from Indonesian fighters for independence. Others saw this excuse for extreme violence as not enough.

Klaas van Berkel was today also in the media. He retired as professor of modern history in Groningen. His latest book is given the title: Een en al illusies (Only illusions) because he considerd the study of culture as a study of its illusions, dreams, impossible goals. Some illusions are functional: they may stimulate people to reach at least part of their ideals. But other ideals are only ways to cover up bad practices.
Karl Marx wrote about religion as the opium of the poor, the soothening product to create dreams. Jan van Baal, governor of colonial administration in Papua and anthropologist wrote about the three dreams: art, sport and religion. The colonial dream is rather an ideology, a system of thinking or political and social manipulation to sell bad practice overseas. Nevertheless, Professor van Berkel defined illusion as bouwsteen van de beschaving, illusion as the cornerstone of civilisation.

Huizinga, Van Vollenhoven and the image of Javanese courts

The best known book on late mediaeval history of the Netherlands is written by Johan Huizinga (1871-1945) with the title: Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen or The Autumn of the Mediaeval Society. One of the possible titles of the book is also 'The Burgundy Century and the Low Countries, 1400-1500.' It tells how a feudal family ruled over about 25% of present-day France, conquered present-day Belgium and Netherlands through wars and marriages. The book was published in 1919, I use now a 21st edition of 1997. Huizinga was professor of history in Leiden University. He was a multi-talented scholar. He gave much attention to comparative languages. His dissertation was on Sanskrit. Before publication of his book on the late European Middle Ages he asked the opinion of Cornelis van Vollenhoven, the eminent scholar of Indonesian adat or customary law. His reaction was: "An eminent book. I enjoyed reading it. I was continuously thinking: it helps me much in understanding the courts of Surakarta and Yogyakarta." (Schitterend, ik genoot. En doorlopend denk ik: door dit de hoven van Soerakarta en Jogjakarta begrijpen. page 394)

'Burgundian' is in European culture the equivalent of 'exuberant, excellent food and drinks, great festivities, rich nobility, absolute rulers and rich citizens'. It is nearly the opposite of the sparsimonious living Calvinists, it is joy for living, warriors but also pious Christians. It is the beginning of absolute power of the monarch. It is a mixture of local tradition and elaboration of the still unbroken Roman Catholic tradition. This altogether probably made Van Vollenhoven think that it is a good stimulus for the writing about the Javanese courts.
Merle Ricklefs was the Huizinga for Indonesia. He wrote individual portraits of the lives of the major rulers in the period 1700-1800, gave a theory of the way they included Islam in their mystical synthesis. Of course, there are more differences than similarities. Java did not have independent towns like Gent or Bruges, not a strong middle class of traders. Still, Van Vollenhoven made an interesting remark about comparative history.

Snouck Hurgronje and the ethics of academic research

Beatrice de Graaf is Professor of International Relations at Utrecht University. She has some fame as a specialist on the history and presence of terrorism. Recently she paid a visit to Indonesia and met a former leader of Jemaat Islamiyah. She wrote in the Newspaper NRC (Nieuwe Rotterdamse Courant) a column about this visit. Was it with Imam Samudra? No name was mentioned. When she talked about her Dutch origin the man said "Oh. Ah! Belanda, Leiden, Snukhurgronnie!” And added that Snouck formally became a Muslim, married a young lady from a good Muslim family, was a truly scholar of Islam and wrote books about Muslim practice in Indonesia. The reaction of Beatrice de Graaf was that this Snouck probably would meet serious problems in the Dutch academic world for abuse of his knowledge and research facilities. She mentioned a recent case of a colleague who did research on the hard-line Muslim chats on the internet and was condemned by the academic ethical committee, because she used personal material without permit of the authors (een collega mocht geen onderzoek doen naar uitlatingen op extremistische fora, omdat ze dan eerst formeel de instemming van alle anonieme reaguurders had moeten vragen.)

This is just one of the problems for academic researchers of different religions. I remember an article by the German anthropologist Susanne Rodemeier who did research about an Evangelical Megachurch in Surakarta and met often the question, whether she was planning to join the community. Contact with religious people seldom can be done without consequences. One of my Indonesian students wrote a dissertation and thanked God in the preface for help and inspiratioon. This was criticised by one of my Dutch/German colleagues in Utrecht because prayers and invocations are not usual in academic writings! How 'objective' and 'detached' should academic research be?
Snouck Hurgronje showed great concern for his Indonesian students like Hoessein Djajadiningrat. He definitely was not anti-Islam in general, although he hoped that some modernisation of shari'a should be possible: academics do not live in another world than the present one!