Soekarno and Governor General Starkenborgh

Because of the corona disease the direct contacts with friends and family are limited. Libraries are closed, and therefore I am now reading books which were in my private library since long, but never read. I have now started the first volume out of five on Indonesia in 1942-1945 by Lou de Jong, published in the early 1980s. It are the closing volumes of a series on the Netherlands during World War II. De Jong never lived in Indonesia, does not know much about its history and so much of his writing is just a summary of what he (and his assistents) read. In his introductions he quoted some severe critics of his book and added  a quote from Professor Geyl, that 'history is a debate withoutn end'. He made once a trip to Indonesia while we were there (I was teaching in Ciputat at IAIN Syarif Hidayatullah), some time in 1982 or 1983. He invited then a selection of scholars living in Jakarta for a short meeting, where je emphasized that he was just digging in the archives. It is clear that he relied nearly exclusively on Dutch archives. But the first volume is a (much criticized)  general story of Dutch colonialism as a series of wrong initiatives and oppression. Some details were striking to me: on page 383 he writes about the exile of Sjahrir, Hatta and Tjipto in Banda (from 1936, after a harsh period in Upper Digul). They were in frequent contact and followed international developments (with much criticism about rise of fascism). On Soekarno he writes that he 'lived in intellectual solitude'. From later reports I know that he was in regular contacts with the Catholicpriests in Ende and borrowed many books from their libraries. He translated a biography of King Saud of Arabia and wrote a dozen theatre plays who were performed in Ende. He also studied Islam and concluded that it should be radically modernised. After he suffered malaria he could move to Bengkulu in early 1938 where he lived in the former palace of Raffles and had close contacts with Muhammadiyah people.

I searched on the internet and found many signs that the Surat-surat Islam dari Ende are still quite popular in Indonesia. The letters were sent to Achmed Hassan, founder of Persatuan Islam in Bandung. His books on Soal-jawab were sent to Ende. Soekarno was quite critical about the ample use of hadith by A. Hassan and judged that for practical matters like cleaning (after a dog licked some clothes) just one time washing with good soap would be better than the 7 times of the hadith. He wrote: "dunia Islam menjadi mundur oleh karena banyak orang "jalankan" hadits yang dhaif dan palsu.  Karena hadits-hadits yang demikian itulah, maka agama Islam menjadi diliputi oleh kabut-kabut kekolotan, ketakhayulan, bid'a" (the TBC of Muhammadiyah people). Soekarno later had to acknowledge the more conservative influence of  'ulama in his Republic. He was not an abangan: he was rather an independent intellectual, who considered that whole heritage of fiqh and shari'a rules as an impediment for the rise of a truly modern Islam.

Quite interesting is also the description of Governor General Van Starkenborgh. Born in 1888 as a son of a local politican (mayor of the town, later governor of the Province of Groningen) he was a lawyer, worked in the foreign service in Western countries only (Brussels, Paris, Washington, Berlin), was also governor of the Province of Groningen and then became Governor General in Indonesia in 1936. He was, like his predecessor convinced that Indonesia was backward and that decisions should be made in the 'headquarters' of the kingdom, in The Hague rather than in the Dutch East Indies. He always remained an outsider in the Dutch East Indies.
In a positive mood De Jong mentions that Starkenborgh was baptised a Protestant but at the age of about 15 he followed a course to become full member (anggauta sidi) of the Protestant Church but rejected the confirmation and continued as a-religious. Also De Jong gives very little attention to religion: not to Islam, not to Christian missionary actions.