Japanese Journal of Southeast Asian Studies
Online ISSN : 2424-1377
Print ISSN : 0563-8682
ISSN-L : 0563-8682
Volume 34, Issue 1
Displaying 1-17 of 17 articles from this issue
Special Issue
The Formation of the Indonesian Nation: In Memory of the Late Professor Kenji Tsuchiya
  • Kartini's IK and Soewardi's Saya
    Takashi Shiraishi
    1996 Volume 34 Issue 1 Pages 5-20
    Published: June 30, 1996
    Released on J-STAGE: January 31, 2018
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Kenji Tsuchiya rightly noted that Kartini and Soewardi marked the arrival of modern Indonesia. Kartini represented native awakening, Tsuchiya argued, for she obtained Dutch ik and wrote “Ik kijk....” It should be noted, however, that Dutch ethici were overjoyed with Kartini not only because she marked native awakening but also and more importantly because she obtained Dutch ik and became as civilized as anyone who obtained ik should be in the Dutch language world and enabled them to see what Kartini's ik was seeing. Kartini thus represented both native awakening and Dutch ethical success in native self-policing.
     Soewardi, Tsuchiya argued, represented the coming of Indonesian nationalism when he wrote “If I were a Dutchman.” It needs to be noted, however, that he also introduced Malay saya in an uncharted Malay-language world. This excited Indonesians, threatened the Dutch ethical project for native self-policing, and set in motion modern popular politics.
     Modern Indonesian politics, both modern surveillance politics and popular politics, started with Kartini and Soewardi in this sense.
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  • Shigeo Nishimura
    1996 Volume 34 Issue 1 Pages 21-34
    Published: June 30, 1996
    Released on J-STAGE: January 31, 2018
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Since its founding in 1922 by Ki Hajar Dewantara, the Tamansiswa school has often faced difficulties that threatened its continuation. This article aims to clarify how and why Tamansiswa kept its principles and sometimes revised them in order to overcome its difficulities. When the colonial government issued the so-called Wild Schools Ordinance in 1932,placing restrictions on educational activities, Tamansiswa took a leading role in the struggle to abolish the ordinance. In its struggle Tamansiswa used the principle of non-cooperation with the colonial government. After Indonesian independence, this principle was reversed to one of cooperation with Indonesian government. The new principles of Tamansiswa (Pancadarma) were formulated in order to correspond with Pancasila, the philosophical basis for the foundation of Indonesia. After the Coup of September 30, 1965, Tamansiswa was criticized because it was considered to lack the religious principle. Tamansiswa did not revise its principles, however, but explained that the principle of the natural law (kodrat alam) of Pancadarma was connected with the first principle of Pancasila, that is, belief in the One and Only God, because natural law was created by the God.
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  • Social Background of the Exile of the Threee Leaders of the Indische Partji
    Sumio Fukami
    1996 Volume 34 Issue 1 Pages 35-56
    Published: June 30, 1996
    Released on J-STAGE: January 31, 2018
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    It is well known in the history of the nationalist movement in Indonesia that E. F. E. Douwes Dekker, Cipto Mangunkusumo and Suwardi Suryaningrat were exiled by the colonial government in September 1913 because of their “dangerous propaganda.” The legal basis for their exile was not any specific law, such as one for regulation of the press, but the exorbitant rights vested in the Governor-General by the Regeringsreglement, the fundamental law of the colonial Indies. Suwardi's pamphlet “If I were a Dutchman,” and his article in the Expres in July 1913 were the immediate cause of the incident. The Expres was a daily paper in Dutch run by Douwes Dekker and the organ of the Indische Partij during the party's existence between September 1912 and March 1913.
     The outline of the affair and the contents of the pamphlet have been described and analyzed by the late Prof. Tsuchiya Kenji. It seems worthwhile, however, to point out a numbers of additional factors that formed the background to such an extreme reaction by the government. As such, this paper describes the critical social circumstances and public unrest of the time, in the years 1912 and 1913, such as natural disasters, the lack of rain in the rainy season, the widespread prevalence of the plagues of insects, the scarcity and high price of rice, the disturbances and clashes caused first by nationalistic Chinese and then by members of the Sarekat Islam and, last but not the least, the tremendous growth of the Sarekat Islam.
     Another important issue was the plan to publish Hindia Mulia (Expres Melayu), a Malay edition of the Expres. Using one page of the above-mentioned pamphlet, Cipto and Suwardi announced the publication of the daily from the middle of August 1913 and called for subscriptions. Now “the dangerous thought” of Douwes Dekker would not be limited to the Dutch press, but would be propagated by natives directly to native society. This seems to be the decisive factor that led the government to exile them.
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  • Kenichi Goto
    1996 Volume 34 Issue 1 Pages 57-77
    Published: June 30, 1996
    Released on J-STAGE: January 31, 2018
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Although Iwa (1899-1971) is one of the well-known nationalist leaders in 20th century Indonesia, his thoughts and actions have not received due attention in contemporary Indonesian studies.
     As a son of Sundanese aristocratic family (menak) he was expected by his parents to become an official of the Dutch colonial government. However, he refused to become one of the “indigeneous elites” who supported the colonial system from the below. During his stay in the Netherlands in the early 1920s, he was elected as chairman of Perhimpunan Indonesia and contributed greatly to making the organization more nationalistic. Furthermore, upon obtaining a law degree, he moved to Moscow in order to combine the nationalist movement and the international communist movement. Among the top nationalist leaders of his generation, he is exceptional in having such an experience. Due to his political background, the colonial government in Batavia arrested him in 1929 and soon exiled him to Bandaneira Island, where he was forced to spend about 10 years until the early 1940s.
     From independence in August 1945 until his death in 1971, he held three cabinet posts, but at the same time he also had a number of bitter experiences, including two years of imprisonment for his connection to the “July Third Affair” of 1946, as well as being forced to resign as Defense Minister under political pressure from the army. He strongly insisted that the armed forces should be an instrument of the state and opposed the concentration of power in the armed forces. He also insisted that such a culturally diverse country as Indonesia should have a political system whereby each ethnic group could develop its own culture and identity. He believed that this was more desirable than strengthening of unification from the center, in order to bring real unity to the country.
     When we look at the Indonesian political situation in 1990s, Iwa's arguments concerning the politico-military relationship and the coexistence of nationality and ethnicity still appear pertinent.
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  • Changing Conceptualizations of Administrative Space in the Late Colonial Period and the New Order
    Tsuyoshi Kato
    1996 Volume 34 Issue 1 Pages 78-99
    Published: June 30, 1996
    Released on J-STAGE: January 31, 2018
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    This paper compares different conceptualizations of administrative space in the late colonial period and the New Order and attempts to understand the significance of this difference. Specifically, it compares the listing order of the provinces or their colonial equivalents in such government documents as Regeeringsalmanak, Statistical Pocketbook of Indonesia, and Statistical Yearbook of Indonesia. First, the paper reviews indigenous conceptualization of space in pre-colonial Sumatra and then discusses changes in the ordering of Sumatran residencies between the early 1930s and after 1939. During the 1930s, the Sumatran residencies seem to have been listed in the order in which they had come under direct Dutch control. From 1939, they began to be listed from the northern to the southern end of the island.
     The “provinces” of the colony as a whole were listed more or less in clockwise order during the late colonial period, starting from “Java and Madura,” moving to Sumatra, then to Borneo, Celebes, Manado, Molukken, Timor, “Bali and Lombok” and implicitly ending back at “Java and Madura,” thereby closing the imaginary circle of listing. The clockwise, circular listing of provinces highlights the central importance of Java in the Netherlands Indies.
     The post-independence listing of provinces during the 1950s and 1960s resembles the colonial one. A major and critical difference, however, is observed in eastern Indonesia. The post-independence listing of provinces in this area does not follow the clockwise movement. Rather, it runs from Bali to Nusa Tunggara, and from Maluku to New Guinea, thus highlighting the eastern border areas, the areas of contention after independence.
     A completely different mode of listing of provinces was established by the late 1970s. It can been seen in Statistical Yearbook of Indonesia 1976 published in 1978. Interestingly, 1976 is the year when the geographical expanse of the Republic of Indonesia was finally bounded according to the wishes of Indonesian political and military leaders, as East Timor was formally incorporated into the republic in this year. We may also assume that after putting its house in order, so to speak, in Java in the late 1960s and during the first Five Year Plan, the Suharto regime turned its attention increasingly to the whole of Indonesia from the mid-1970s, for which it supposedly needed a well-organized view of the entire country.
     In the new mode of listing, which is here called the bird's-eye view of Indonesia, the provinces are basically listed in two strokes from west to east : the first from Sumatra to Java, Bali, Nusa Tunggara and East Timor: the second from Kalimantan to Sulawesi, Maluku, and Irian Jaya. The bird's-eye view projects an image of a homogenenous Indonesian space which consists of twenty-seven provinces of presumably equal political standing.
     The paper further examines some of the New Order's cultural and educational policies during the 1970s and 1980s and concludes that the provinces are now filled with their respective regional cultures (kebudayaan daerah), regional histories of independence struggle (sejarah perjuangan daerah), and so on. The provinces are no longer simply administrative spaces on the map. They can be experienced, studied, identified and identified with, and even emulated in the case of regional architectural styles and wedding costumes. As the provinces are considered politically equal in the homogeneous space of Indonesia, the regional cultures and regional ethnic groups which represent the provinces are also considered equal. For example, they are treated “equally” in the Taman Mini Indonesia Indah or “Beautiful Indonesia” in-Miniature Park.

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  • Aiko Kurasawa
    1996 Volume 34 Issue 1 Pages 100-126
    Published: June 30, 1996
    Released on J-STAGE: January 31, 2018
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    It is largely agreed that a considerable number of middle class people have emerged in Indonesia as the result of rapid economic development under the Suharto regime. This new middle class can be roughly defined as having monthly income of one to several million Rupiahs (one US dollar is approximately 2,250 Rupiahs), being professionals, business executives, bureaucrats, and high-ranking army officers in profession, and having high education equivalent to academy or university. Most of them share more or less the same way of thinking, behaviour pattern, values and life style.
     For example, they enjoy a wide range of access to information, having portable telephones, fax machines, parabolas, a wide choice of printed media, and newly established private TV stations. Second, they tend to live in a new, modern, Western-style housing complex or a condominium built in Western style. Third, their diet is wide, consisting of Western, Japanese, Korean, Thai and other foreign cooking including various fast foods. Fourth, they value education and spend lots of money on it. Fifth, they enjoy shopping at very gorgeous and expensive shopping centers that are emerging in various parts of Jakarta. Sixth, they are very conscious of maintaining prestige (“gensi”), which they express by wearing expensive suits, riding in expensive cars, organizing extravagant parties, etc. Seventh, they are very anxious to keep healthy and spend money on membership fees for prestigious sports clubs and highly equipped medical centers. Eighth, they have frequent contact with overseas. In short we can conclude that their culture is extremely extravagant and exposed to foreign influence.
     This group of people pay relatively little attention to politics and it is very doubtful that they can be an “agent of change” towards democratization, because they are the very beneficiaries of development policy and are still very dependent on the regime. Facing the emergence of such a social group, government are anxious to control and guide them in such a direction that they should not lose discipline and identity as Indonesians and as Moslems (in most cases). Pancasila Moral Education and Islamization of the middle class are considered very important in this context.
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  • Yoshifumi Tamada
    1996 Volume 34 Issue 1 Pages 127-150
    Published: June 30, 1996
    Released on J-STAGE: January 31, 2018
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    This essay is an attempt to reassess the nationalism of the first Phibun government before the outbreak of the Pacific War. In Thailand, orthodox nationalism is usually equated with an ideology demanding loyalty to “chat (a Thai word for nation), religion and the king” and giving the king the highest value. This formulation does not conform to academically predominant views of nationalism and nations so well. First, nationalism is an ideological movement vesting the highest value in the nation, not the king. Thai orthodoxy is royalism rather than nationalism. Second, nation can be defined as a group of people characterized by a shared culture, popular sovereignty and equality. But the word chat scarcely has such a connotation as it usually means the country, the state or ethnic groups.
     Phibun's nationalism has been blamed for deviation from this orthodoxy and characterized as militarism, statism, and cultural Westernism. He was a nationalist only in the economic aspect. In this essay his nationalism is reexamined in terms of academic (not Thai) orthodoxy. Phibun was a leader of the People's Party, which successfully put an end to the absolute monarchy and realized the popular sovereignty on June 24, 1932. A brief check of the lists of cabinet ministers since the third Mano government, starting in April 1933, proves that Phibun's first government, formed in December 1938, was not a military government but one of the whole Party. The Party, faced with a political challenge from royalist conservatives, had to make every effort to convince the people that the new regime was better than the old one. It launched economic and social development policies to improve people's lives. No less important was an attempt to turn the highest object of the people's loyalty from the king to the nation. Phibun pushed these policies further. He made June 24 a national day and held grand ceremonies on this day every year from 1939 to demonstrate the democratic and national legitimacy of the regime.
     However, the masses still lacked a national consciousness, for there had been little effort to instill it either from above or from below. Insofar as Phibun intended to stabilize the new regime by vesting the highest value in the nation instead of the king, he logically had to nationalize the masses. He thus embarked on an ardent policy to create a national culture, which is indispensable for the formation of a nation. This invented culture was Thai only in name and Western in fact, because what was important was whether the people would come to share it, and no other adjective could facilitate the people's coming to share it and imagining a nation better than “Thai.&rdquot; This undertaking to create a national culture and consciousness is quite common among nationalists in this century, and Phibun must be regarded as a far more typical nationalist than the more orthodox Thai nationalists.
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  • An Introduction to the Formation of Sundanese Writing in 19th Century West Java
    Mikihiro Moriyama
    1996 Volume 34 Issue 1 Pages 151-183
    Published: June 30, 1996
    Released on J-STAGE: January 31, 2018
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • Marco Kartodikromo's Student Hidjo
    Hendrik M.J. Maier
    1996 Volume 34 Issue 1 Pages 184-210
    Published: June 30, 1996
    Released on J-STAGE: January 31, 2018
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • A.B. Lapian
    1996 Volume 34 Issue 1 Pages 211-223
    Published: June 30, 1996
    Released on J-STAGE: January 31, 2018
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • S. Saya Shiraishi
    1996 Volume 34 Issue 1 Pages 224-238
    Published: June 30, 1996
    Released on J-STAGE: January 31, 2018
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • A Study of the Loemboeng Padjak
    Yasuo Uemura
    1996 Volume 34 Issue 1 Pages 239-257
    Published: June 30, 1996
    Released on J-STAGE: January 31, 2018
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    During the Great Depression, land tax became more and more burdensome for the peasants in Java because of the impoverished rural economy. P. B. I., one of the most active nationalist organizations at that time, regarded this as one of the most serious problems. Initially, it advocated reduction of the tax and agitated for nonpayment at many villages in East Java. But with the decline of its influence because of supression by the colonial government in about the middle of 1933, P. B. I. was forced to change course, and accordingly it made plans to establish its own warehouses in which to store rice until the lean months (i. e., the end of the year) and pay the land tax from the profit which could be made on its sale later at a higher price. P. B. I. began to excute this plan in 1935,mainly in the Loemadjang region, but smooth progress was hampered by interference from the colonial government, which would not allow P. B. I.'s participation in the tax affair and wanted to maintain the rule of the installment system. This confrontation between the two sides was finally resolved when early payment became possible through reorganization of the warehouse as a corporate body which could get funds for land tax from the P. B. I.'s bank. The peasants who deposited their rice in these warehouses thus became able to pay the land tax with less trouble than before.
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  • From a Life History of an Old Javanese Romusha in Sabah, Malaysia
    Yoshimichi Someya
    1996 Volume 34 Issue 1 Pages 258-285
    Published: June 30, 1996
    Released on J-STAGE: January 31, 2018
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    In Sabah, many of the romusha, or forced laborers, taken from Java by the Japanese Military Government during World War II are still alive. When the war ended, they were obliged to stay in Sabah. Among the natives there, they have earned a reputation for diligence and good conduct, which seems to derive from their efforts to adapt to the different cultures and societies of Sabah. Particular attention should be paid to the ways of thinking of their leaders, who have had a strong influence on their compatriots. Here, I will introduce the life history of one such leader.
     This man comes from a village on the north coast of Central Java. He is a pious Muslim and a rational man. Although he came as a romusha, he insists that he came of his own will. In thus emphasizing the voluntary aspect and de-emphasizing the passive aspect of the forced labor, he showed his spirit of independence. Now he is well-off, and he attributes his success to absolute submission to the will of Allah, and his own bravery and willingness to fight for advancement.
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  • Focusing on the Wayang Beber of Wonosari, Central Java
    Ryoh Matsumoto
    1996 Volume 34 Issue 1 Pages 286-306
    Published: June 30, 1996
    Released on J-STAGE: January 31, 2018
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Among all the various dramatic forms of wayang, including wayang kulit, the earliest to appear was wayang beber. Wayang refers to “the shadows that sway in men's hearts,” while beber means “unrolling.” A dalang (narrator) gradually unrolls a long scroll bearing pictures of the narrative he is expounding. This is accompanied by a continuous performance of gamelan music, interspersed with the songs of pesinden (female singers). This form was created in the court of the Kediri kingdom (928-1222) in East Java and enjoyed a high reputation; but gradually it fell from favor and was replaced by wayang kulit, which emerged from around the fifteenth century. Today wayang beber is performed in only two places, Pacitan in East Java, and Wonosari in Central Java. In this paper, I shall present a full picture of wayang beber, focusing on the full translation of the dalang's narrative (from the performance of Panji Asmorobangun), and note its correlations with other forms of wayang as well as touch upon the true essence of wayang itself.
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  • A Critique from the Viewpoint of “World Uits”
    Yoshikazu Takaya
    1996 Volume 34 Issue 1 Pages 307-326
    Published: June 30, 1996
    Released on J-STAGE: January 31, 2018
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The view of the “imagined community” that Benedict Anderson proposed in discussing the formation of the nation-state in Indonesia cannot be considered to be correct in that it overlooks two points. First, this region is not the homogeneous entity that Anderson considers it to be, since it consists of two world units, the Java World and the Maritime Southeast Asia World (Fig. 1). Second, Southeast Asia is a world of pantheism, where the force that attracts people takes the form of an electrode that emits a “point discharge” rather than the “canopy type” seen in Europe (Fig. 2 A, B).
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  • 1996 Volume 34 Issue 1 Pages 327-335
    Published: June 30, 1996
    Released on J-STAGE: January 31, 2018
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • 1996 Volume 34 Issue 1 Pages 336-
    Published: June 30, 1996
    Released on J-STAGE: January 31, 2018
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