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.