CMR 17: Dean Mahomet, Edward Lane and more British authors from the 19th century

The great CMR project (Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History) has now published volume 17, on Britain, the Netherlands and Scandinavia in the 19th century. Volume 16 was on (Southeast) Asia and had 5 entries written by me. For volume 17 I wrote on Bilderdijk, Salomon Keijzer, J.B.J. van Doren and Snouck Hurgronje. Herewith a cooperation of more than 10 years has come to an end.

Volume 17 has been dedicated for 490 of its 605 pages to Britain with a fine selection of scholars. On the cover is Edward Henry Palmer, professor of Arabic in Cambridge, dressed in Arab style. There is a good introduction to Edward Lane, the giant in lexicography and description of common Egyptians. Pages 330-355 offer the stories of five Victorian ladies travelling in the Ottoman world. A special entry gives an analysis of novelists: not the Arab scholars alone or theologians, but quite a mixed genre of authors. It is also not all about Muslim-Christian relations. In fact, an author like Edward Lane lived and showed as a Muslim, but about his personal faith not much can be said, at least he was not the quite negative and proud 'orientalist' as suggested by Edward Said (who maybe never read his work but wrote about him!)

 A quite intriguing figure is Dean Mahomet (1759-1851), born in Bihar, India. He became as a young boy of 11 the private servant of an English Officer. So he came to Cork, Ireland in 1786, where he was baptised an Anglican and married a local lady. A grandson even became an Anglican priest. In 1800 he moved to London where he opened Indian restaurants. In 1815 he opened in Brighton 'Mahomet's Bath' on King's Road. He wrote in the first years after his arrival in Ireland a book with the long title of The travels of Dean Mahomet, a native of Patna in Bengal, through several parts of India, while in the service of the  Honourable the East India Company written by himself, in a series of letters to his friend. The book was published in 1794, but his conversion to Anglcanism nor his Irish marriage are mentioned here. He only gives a sophisticated and elegant introduction to his native country to British people. His biographer, Michael H. Fisher, who also wrote the CMR entry compares him to Oloudah Equiano (1745-1797), the abolitionist who converted to Christianity as an instrument for his fight against slavery and also wrote an autobiography. For Fisher, Dean Mahomet felt himself a 'member of several cultural communities, with expertise in traditions associated with Muslims, Christians, and Hindus.' So to say: an early, proud and well-informed product of global culture.

From hero to criminal and the other way round: De Kock/Diponegoro and Van Mook/Soekarno

 Concluding his great work on rise and fall of Dutch colonialism, Bossenbroek writes that 'in the 21st century heroes of colonialism like  General De Kock and Governor-General Van Mook once were considered as heroes in their country, The Netherlands, but now they are blamed as criminals. On the other side, also in Dutch perspective, Diponegoro and Soekarno are now seen as great fighters for independence of their country. That is the inevitable fate of writing (and reading) history.

Writing now about the second part of the book by Bossenbroek, the period 1925-1950 (pp. 329-682), I feel it as a strange exercise. The outcome of the historical struggle is clear: the Dutch did not like to allow and acknowledge independence for the Indonesians, but the final result is clear: independence recognised by the international community, finally also accepted by the Dutch. Many smaller aspects in this history were not yet known and they are mentioned, elucidated here. On 1 and 2 December 1930 Soekarno defended his political work in a famous speech in court: Indonesia menggugat! (= Indonesia accuses, Dutch translation Indonesië klaagt aan.) The Dutch translation has on its front page the harsh general Van Heutz with a number of coffins and a prison showing the fate of his enemies. This was published in 1931 by a Dutch Socialist Party! Bossenbroek writes in a vivid style, but has no images or pictures in his book.

Colijn is in this book the personification of the dream of Dutch politicians opposing Indonesian independence. The Indonesian organization, strongly defending contnuation of Dutch presence was the Vaderlandsche Club. Governor General De Jonge (1931-6): 'we have ruled here for 300 years and will continue this for another 300 years'. They receive also much attention, besides the Indonesian protagonists for independence, as well as some Dutch supporters. The anti-hero here is Hubertus van Mook, high official from 1920-1942 and Lieutenant Governor General 1945-8: he started as a progressive man, willing to give Indonesians more responsibility. But he remained someone who wanted to remain the deciding leader. He was the architect of the idea of a federal Indonesia, with strong states in Borneo and East Indonesia.

Hatta, Sjahrir are here sometimes depicted as the 'rivals' of Soekarno (501-2), but very few attention is given to opposition from Muslim side (Kartosuwiryo, Darul Islam in West Java) and the Communist uprising in Madiun, 1948 comes out of nothing (and leads to nothing!).

Australia is in 1945 the strongest supporter for Indonesian Independence. The British were also willing to recognise Soekarno, until General Mallaby was  shot in Surabaya by pemuda (p. 564), followed by the killing of British pilots and Gurkan/Indian army in Bekasi.

Quite much attention is here given to Nasution: from his education (at a KNIL military academy under Dutch supervision) to the strongest military man under Sudirman, leading the Siliwangi division. At many places in this book we see developments that could have directed towards different developments in the future, but the study of history cannot do much with suggestions like 'what if..',  Bossenbroek manages to keep his book clear  and leading towards understanding how the fight and war between the Dutch and the Indonesians was determined by the strong will for independence on the Indonesian side and the strong support finally from the UN and the USA.

The 2d 'police action' or overall attack on the Republic in Java of 19 December 1948 is mentioned on p. 646-653, It mentions that Soekarno and Hatta had promised to flee from the capital of Yogyakarta to the mountains and join the guerilla fight against the Dutch. Soekarno and Hatta did not run away, but in fact were taken prisnoer to the island ofBangka. They are followed here in some detail, but it is not mentioned, that some six ministers fled to the mountains and lived for six months the life of guerilla warriors. Because of my own interest I only mention here the Catholic Minister Kasimo (Catholics in Independent Indonesia, p. 160). In this way no history is complete and all have their preference, in the case of Bossenbroek very much information is about the negotiations between the Dutch and the Americans.

A personalized and more dramatic history of Indonesia: Martin Bossenbroek

Besides the two books mentioned in December, a third book has appeared: De Wraak van Dipenogeoro (=The Revenge of Diponegoro), by Martin Bossenbroek (Amsterdam: Atheneum, 2020, 798 pp.) On the cover of the book it is written that Bossenbroek 'has brought the writing of history on a higher level with his book on the Boer war in South Africa (about 1900-1902), which sold 80,000 copies in the Netherlands and was translated into English and Afrikaans. What is a 'higher level'?  Only in higher number of people buying this book? In this new book Bossenbroek has on pages 19-20 an analysis of Dutch historiography especially at Leiden University (with the most eminent example  in Cees Fasseur) of a neutral, nearly indifferent style of writing history. They did not take position in the debate about the meaning of its course, did not write about the ethics and traditions of the period. Different from Multatuli and Alfred Birney (De tolk van Java) this Leiden tradition declared cruelty as an exception, something that 'also' happened in history. 

Bossenbroek wrote a 'short history' of Indonesia in two acts: first Diponegoro and General Hendrik Merkus de Kock as the two most important figures of the Java War (1820-1825) and then he switches to the struggle for an independent Indonesia with Huib van Mook and Soekarno as the two leading figures for the period 1925-1950. For him this is the beginning and the end of the Dutch East Indies.

The tiger of the picture on the cover is the Dutch side, the buffaloe is Indonesia, on a hugh painting by Raden Saleh (12 m2!). With Diponegoro fighting against the Dutch true colonialism has started (therefore we should not talk about the Java War, but the Diponegoro War). The photograph is from a painting by Raden Saleh only discovered in 2007 in a Dutch royal palace, sold in 2013 by the younger generation of the Oranje Royal family to the national gallery of Singapore.

Bossenbroek does not give us the full story of the struggle of Dipenegoro and Soekarno. In the first 325 pages much space is given to De  Kock and his family, friends: much about Raffles, Dutch politics. Much space is given to the colonial policy of King William I (1813-1840) who did not want to spend money to the colonies, but instead they should give money in return, they were to be seen as an investment. Only through the Cultuurstelsel, the forced production of agricultural products like sugar, coffee, indigo, for the international market this plan worked. Diponegoro did not like to live in the palace, the kraton, but ina more religious context. Therefore his ultimate ideal was an Islamic society under his leadership. During the war he called himself Sultan Abdulhamid. The ideal of De Kock has not become clear: just a reliable military leader?

Bossenbroek makes easy reading, but his emphasis on personal anecdotes, does not give us enough information to come close to the psychology of the major persons. As to the first part I found S. van Praag (Onrust op Java) much more relevant for the personal history of Diponegoro (and of course the writings of Merle Ricklefs and the 900 pages book by Peter Carey). The various Dutch people are pictured with sharp contrast: Resident Smissaert only as lazy, not really interested in his job; Huib Nahuys as a smart man, full of energy, mostly for his own profit. De Kock as a man with much discipline, patient, not really sentimental about the many deaths he caused through his actions, also not really a believer in the new order he had to create in Central Java. Finally: this is more interesting reading, but I am not sure about the higher level of historiography claimed here.