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Hidden Change in Late Colonial Urban Society in Indonesia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 April 2011

Extract

From at least the early sixteenth century, when Tomé Pires acclaimed the marvels of Malacca, Westerners have evinced an interest in the cities of Southeast Asia, though for different reasons and from varying perspectives. Travellers like Cesare Fredrici, Ralph Fitch, and Gasparo Balbi were generally impressed with what they saw and compared it favourably in many respects with Europe of the 1580s. In the course of the two hundred years, however, this appreciation altered markedly. Western authors after the late eighteenth century took a less sanguine view and tended to describe towns and cities rather disparagingly as little more than collections of villages. During the late 1920s, the panorama made possible by the advent of air travel in Southeast Asia distinguished clearly between rural and urban areas, but showed the latter as thoroughly Europeanized enclaves. In the popular aerial photographs of the day, these cities appeared slick in their new tropical-colonial architectural style and uncomplicated by large or even particularly visible non-European populations.

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Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1983

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References

1 A useful review of early European accounts, with complete references to the original sources, is Donald Lach, F., Southeast Asia in the Eyes of Europe (Chicago, 1965). A stimulating commentary on what these and similar sources reveal about the nature of pre-colonial Southeast Asian civilization is contained inGoogle ScholarReid, Anthony J.S., “The Structure of Cities in Southeast Asia, 15th to 17th Centuries”, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies XI, 2 (1980): 235–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 For Java, a good selection of such pictures is in Vries, H. M. de, The Importance of Java, Seenfrom the Air (Batavia, 1928)Google Scholar.

3 This is quite apparent from both the standard general work on the subject and the only substantial bibliography, which is nevertheless incomplete. McGee, T.G., The Southeast Asian City (New York, 1967)Google Scholar; Breese, Gerald (ed.), Urban Southeast Asia (New York, 1973)Google Scholar.

4 Reid's “Structure of Cities” is the first serious effort along this line by a Southeast Asian historian. A number of useful general ideas are contained in Ucko, Peter J., et. al., Man, Settlement and Urbanism (London, 1972)Google Scholar.

5 See particularly the comments of Cohen, Erik, Southeast Asian Urban Sociology — A Review and Selected Bibliography (Singapore, 1973), especially pages 4–5. Also helpful here is the critique byGoogle ScholarEmmerson, Donald K., “Issues in Southeast Asian History: Room for Interpretation,” Journal of Asian Studies XL, 1 (11 1980): 4368, which notes the absence of historical writing that grapples with the concept of social classCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 A recent example of the first type of study is Lockard, Craig A., “The Southeast Asian Town in Historical Perspective: A Social History of Kuching” (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 1973). With respect to the latter point, see the extended remarks inGoogle ScholarSullivan, John, Back Alley Neighborhood: Kampung as Urban Community in Yogyakarla (Melbourne, 1980), especially pages 17 and 14–53Google Scholar.

7 Much of the material used here appears in less abbreviated form in my “Indonesian Urban Society in Transition: Surabaya, 1926-1946” (Ph.D. diss., University of Hawaii, 1978)Google Scholar.

8 Something very much like this approach, with somewhat different emphasis as to the types of materials surveyed, has been used in works such as , Selosoemardjan, Social Changes in Jogjakarta (Ithaca, 1962)Google Scholar; Geertz, Clifford, The Social History of an Indonesian Town (Cambridge, Mass., 1965); andGoogle ScholarSharp, Lauriston and Hanks, Lucien M., Chan, Bang: The Social History of a Rural Community (Ithaca, 1978). But whether the same confluence of evidence is available for other locations is uncertain. There still has not been any regional or national effort to survey available records on urban historyGoogle Scholar.

9 There has been no previous scholarly treatment of Surabaya's past, though pieces of the story have figured prominently in a number of articles and general histories of Java and Indonesia. Three works by the journalist and amateur historian G.H. von Faber, useful but providing no analysis or academic treatment of source materials, are the most extensive look at the city in the colonial period and before. Oud Soerabaia (Surabaya, 1931)Google Scholar; Nieuw Soerabaia (Surabaya, 1936); and the much less satisfactoryGoogle ScholarEr Werd een Stad Geboren (Surabaya, 1953).Google Scholar

10 The outline provided by Wertheim, W.F. in his classic Indonesian Society in Transition 2nd ed. (Bandung, 1956) and in his later article with The Siauw Giap,Google ScholarSocial Change in Java, 1900–1930”, Pacific Affairs XXXV, 3(1962): 223–47, remains the basis of thinking on the subject. Despite a substantial debate over how Indonesian social history ought to be written and whether Western sociological concepts are applicable, ther e has been little real progress in our understanding at the ground level. Works such asGoogle ScholarTichelman, Fritjof, The Social Evolution of Indonesia (The Hague, 1980), are highly derivative and do not really focus on the nature of the society they examine. Social histories of the type represented byCrossRefGoogle ScholarAveling, Harry (ed.), The Development of Indonesian Society (New York, 1980), are more properly designated histories of society, which is rather a different matter, and are in any case too comprehensive to give us a clear view of how levels of society work, for exampleGoogle Scholar.

11 Graaf, H.J. de and Pigeaud, Th. G. Th., De Eerste Moslimse Vorstendommen op Java ('s-Gravenhage, 1974), p. 159. On the theory that he was a Chinese, seeCrossRefGoogle ScholarMulyana, Slamet, Runtuhnja Keradjaan Hindu-Djawa dan Timbulnja Negara-negara Islam di Nusantara (Jakarta, 1968), pp. 101102Google Scholar.

12 The range of evidence and appropriate literature are effectively reviewed in Soekadri, Heru, Dari Hujunggaluh ke çurabhaya(Sumbaya, 1977) andGoogle ScholarTimoer, Sunarto, Mythos Curabhaya (Surabaya, 1973)Google Scholar.

13 See, for example, Broeze, F. J. A., “The Merchant Fleet of Java, 1820–1850”, Archipel 18 (1979): 251–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Pigeaud, Th. G. Th., Java in the Fourteenth Century, 5 vols. (The Hague, 19601964), I, p. 14; and the commentary inGoogle ScholarGraaf, de and , Pigeaud, Moslimse Vorstendommen, p. 157Google Scholar.

15 On the entire period see Veth, P.J., Java, Geographisch, Ethnologisch, Historisch, 3 vols. (Haarlem, 18751882), 11: 300497Google Scholar.

16 On the great Pangeran Pekik and his son Jayenggrana see Graaf, H. J. de, “Soerabaja in de XVII Eeuw, van Koningkrijk tot Regentschap”, Djawa 21, 3(05 1941): 198225; andGoogle ScholarGraaf, de and , Pigeaud, Moslimse Vorstendommen, p. 166.Google Scholar

17 The reputation of the arek Suraboyo as tough and independent-minded, as well as kasar or somewhat coarse, direct, and outspokenly temperamental, is known everywhere in Java. Presently Surabayans still take a certain pride in this popular characterisation even when it does not, in fact, fit the individual very well. Veth, though he never visited Java himself, had heard the characterisation frequently enough to include it in his work.

18 The classic account is Hageman, J., “Bijdragen tot de Kennis van de Residentie Soerabaja, V”, Ttjdschrifl voor Nederlandsch-Indië XXII, I (1860): 267ffGoogle Scholar.

19 The word is often used to refer to rural villages or sub-village units, but in the urban setting it means a rather different arrangement, something closer perhaps to “neighborhood”. Henceforth the term will be used to mean only the urban phenomenon, except where specified otherwise.

20 Faber, Von, Oud Soerabaia, p. 74Google Scholar.

21 Encyclopaedic van Nederlandsch-Indie, 2nd. ed., 6 vols. (The Hague, 19171939), IV: 30Google Scholar.

22 Until as late as 1908, for example, drinking water was a serious problem for Europeans and many relied on the supply delivered by train from Pasuruan. Cabaton, A., Java, Sumatra, and the Other Islands of the Dutch East Indies (London, 1911), p. 89. On the frontier flavor, see the caustic remarks ofGoogle ScholarVeth, Bas, Hel Leven in Nederlandsch-Indië (Amsterdam, 1900) and the panoramic view in the historical novels byGoogle ScholarToer, Pramoedya Ananta, Bumi Manusia and Anak Semua Bangsa (Jakarta, 1980).Google Scholar

23 Ikhtisar Keadaan Politik Hindia Belanda Tahun 1839–1849 (Jakarta, 1973), p. 33. There were, however, reactions from Indonesians living in the environs. As early as 1835 nearly one hundred of them marched on the city in protest against hiring and payment practices in the burgeoning sugar industry.Google ScholarLaporan Politik Tahun 1837 (Jakarta, 1971), p. 67Google Scholar.

24 This famous institution later achieved a certain recognition as the site of the founding of the Vaderlandse Club, an openly racist and ultranationalist Dutch organisation. See the recent study by Drooglever, P. J., De Vaderlandse Club, 1929–1942 (Franeker, 1980).Google Scholar

25 For example, the rumor in 1859 that all Indonesian women in the city would be removed to the island of Bone by the Dutch government. Faber, Von, Oud Soerabaia, p. 70Google Scholar.

26 Surabaya was in fact built largely on kampun g lands illegally encroached upon from the late eighteenth century. See Faber, von, Oud Soerabaia, pp. 2628, 38; Algemeen Rijksarchief, Ministerie van Koloniën, Mailrapport [hereafter cited as ARA MvK Mr] 139/1916; andGoogle ScholarKempen, Th. W. van, “Over het Kampongvraagstuk in de Groote Indische Stadsgemeenten”, Kolonial Tijdschrift 16 (1926): 447. On changing employment patterns seeGoogle Scholar, Hageman, “Bijdragen, I”, Tijdschrift XX, 2 (1858): 100.Google Scholar

27 The principal materials on this revolt are contained in ARA MvK Verbaal 28 Apr. 1906, p. 33. A general account is in Sartono Kartodirdjo, Protest Movements in Rural Java (Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta, 1973), pp. 80-86. On the popular outlook 1 have relied on Soeroso, “Mengapa 1 April, 1906 Surabaja Mendjadi Stadsgemeente?” Gapura IV, 3 (1971): 68, and interviews in Surabaya, 1971, and in Gedangan with villagers who recall the revolt and stories about it from their youth, 1978Google Scholar.

28 A summary of both the complicated legal apparatus involved and the ways in which municipal governments tended to ignore (illegally, strictly speaking) the separation between the European city and the indigenous one in kampung areas is contained in Kerchman, F.W.M. (comp.), Vijf-en-twintig jaren decentralisatie (Weltevreden, 1930), and, in English,Google ScholarMilone, Pauline D., Urban Areas in Indonesia (Berkeley, California, 1966), pp. 1835Google Scholar.

29 Kampung interviews, 1972.

30 On kampung congestion and its consequences see Wertheim, W. F. et. al., (eds.), The Indonesian Town (The Hague, 1958)Google Scholar; Cobban, James, “The City on Java: An Essay in Historical Geography”, (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1970), and the same author'sGoogle ScholarUncontrolled Urban Settlement: The Kampung Question in Semarang”, Bijdragen tot Taal-, Land-en Volkenkunde 130, 5 (1974): 403–27; alsoGoogle ScholarEerste Verslag van de Kampongverbeteringscommisie (Batavia, 1939)Google Scholar.

31 Kampung interviews, 1971–72.

32 On these events, see Rapport het Kantoor van Arbiedtoestanden in de metaal-industrie le Soerabaja (Weltrevreden, 1926)Google Scholar; Verslag omtrent de Koeliemoeilijkheden in de Haven van Soerabaia (Surabaya, 1922); ARA MvK Mr 557 secret/ 1926, 700 secret/ 1926, 727 secret/ 1926Google Scholar.

33 This section owes much to the description of kampung life, certainly the best available, in Ruslan Abdulgani's recollection of growing up in Surabaya in the period 1916–26, “My Childhood World”, trans. Frederick, William H., Indonesia 17 (04 1974): 113–36.Google Scholar I have not cited information from this source. My knowledge of Surabayan kampung life depends heavily on a series of more than 175 interviews with arek Suraboyo, long-term residents of Peneleh, Plampitan, Dinoyo, and other kampung, madeduring 1971 and 1972. These have not been cited, except where directly relevant and where other sources were lacking.

34 City police kept their distance, and when “inspectors” came, it was for a very short while. A number of kampung were known to be particularly hostile and were avoided except in emergencies.

35 Interview, Ruslan Abdulgani, 1972.

36 “See, for example, the comments of Resident Cohen cited in Kempen, van, “Kampongvraagstuk”, p. 446, and of Resident Hillen cited in Cobban, “The City”, p. 151; alsoGoogle ScholarTillema, H. F., Kromoblanda, 2 vols. (Semarang, 19151916) 1: 126Google Scholar.

37 Kampung interviews, 1971–72.

38 Kampung interviews, 1972. See also Arbeidtoestanden, passim.

39 Pigeaud, Java IV:310.

40 Kampung interviews, including those with six former sinoman heads (kepala sinoman), 1971–72.

41 One example: in the late 1920s a kampung Peneleh resident decided to establish his own reformist Islamic group. When pressured by some neighbors and several outside groups like Muhammadiyah, the sinoman assure d his right to act as he wished, within the bounds of propriety, and prevented Muhammadiyah involvement. Home-grown unorthodoxie s were apparently permissable when those from outside were not. Kampung interviews, 1971.

42 See, for example, what two neighborin g kampung were able to put together as a document for self-rule under a modernised sinoman organisation: Raad sinoman, Perhimpunan Pendoedoek Kampoeng Dinoyotangsi dan Darmoredjo, typed manuscript, dated 1933, in the author's possession.

43 I do not, obviously, intend a precise definition along the usual Western lines, but follow the more general sense, for example of the treatment offered by the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (New York, 1933), p. 407Google Scholar.

44 Needless to say, this is not a group that Indonesianists have as a rule identified as being middle class. Wertheim, Compare and , Giap, “Social Change”, pp. 239–41, which follows the usual pattern of outlining a middle class of doctors, lawyers, teachers, and the likeGoogle Scholar.

45 Kampung interviews, 1971–72.

46 Kampung interviews, 1972. As one man put it, he felt “suspect” when, at the age of fourteen, he had hesitated to get a job and expressed instead a desire to continue his schooling.

47 Those with more than sufficient income were, for example, expected to contribute according to their ability to sinoman coffers and toward the aid of kampung ceremonies on special occasions. Donations to help less fortunate neighbors when extraordinary needs arose were also expected. In most kampung with sizable middle-class populations, Koran proscriptions against misuse of wealth were frequently brought up in sermons.

48 Kampung interviews, 1971–72.

49 Kampung interviews, 1972.

50 For one such dispute resulting in deliberation at the highest levels in the colony, see Faber, von, Nieuw Soerabaia, 47, and the relevant documents in ARA Mvk Mr 139/1916. For quite a different interpretation, seeGoogle Scholar, Kartodirdjo, Protest Movements, pp. 3637. A particularly bitter dispute over kampung graveyards is covered in Soeara Oemoem, 3 Dec. 1932 and 11, 13 and 14 Feb. 1933. I have supplemented my understanding of this event with interviews with the kampung leader involved, who was in his 80s when 1 met him in 1971. On the Indonesian Municipa l Council (Gemeenteraad Bangsa Indonesia) experiment of 1928, seeGoogle ScholarFaber, von, Nieuw Soerabaia, p. 51Google Scholar.

51 Colijn, H., Koloniale Vraagstukken van Heden en Morgen (Amsterdam, 1928), pp. 4142.Google Scholar

52 These have been best described by Geertz, Clifford, The Religion of Java (Glencoe, Illinois, 1959), pp. 227ff.Google Scholar More recent analytical treatments of the priyay i as a social class are Kartodirdjo, Sartono, “Bureaucracy and aristocracy; the Indonesian experience in the 19th century”, Archipel 7 (1974): 151–68; andCrossRefGoogle ScholarSutherland, Heather, “The Priyayi”, Indonesia 19(04. 1975): 5777CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53 Tichelman, Social Evolution, uses the term “neo-priyayi” in apparently much the same sense as intended here, though with more emphasis on traditional origins and with a rather more narrow limitation of the group as a “class”.

54 “Intellectuals” has been used here rather than “intelligentsia” because the latter term generally conveys a more homogeneous and limited group than was the case, either in fact or as they were perceived, for the kaum terpelajar.

55 Note the difference between the following description and that given in Wertheim and Giap, “Social Change”, passim.

56 Achmad Djais, a man of little no formal education, seems to have arrived in Surabaya around 1918 at the age of about twenty. He married a local girl and opened a tailor shop that became renowned for its excellent work and attention to style. Djais soon catered to not only kampung residents but the Indonesian elite and even Dutch clients. Through contacts with the new priyayi he grew interested in their political and social ideas, eventually joining several political organisations. Djais is probably the only contemporary kampung son to have a major paved avenue named for him in Surabaya. Kampung interviews, 1971–72; Soeara Oemoem, 8 04. 1933; Soeara Persatoean Bangsa Indonesia 15 May and 25 June 1935Google Scholar.

57 Kampung interviews, 1971.

58 The first phrase is the motto, always given in English, of the Pendidikan Oemoem schools, cited in Soeara Persatoean Bangsa Indonesia, 29 05 1941. The second phrase is a Taman Siswaaphorism, quoted in S oeara Oemoem, 12 04. 1941Google Scholar.

59 On this subject, still largely unexplored for Indonesia, see the general essay by Worsley, Peter, “The Concept of Populism”, in Ionescu, G. and Gellner, E., Populism, Its Meaning and National Characteristics (New York, 1969), pp. 212–50Google Scholar.

60 Occasionally this resulted in intellectuals writing about “we, the rakyat” in a rather self-conscious vein, but inevitably one of their number would expose this folly for what it was and remind the new priyayi that their role was to lead. Soeara Oemoem, 12 10. 1931Google Scholar; Menjala, 1 11. 1932Google Scholar; Berdjoeang, 3 05 1934Google Scholar.

61 Soeara Oemoem, 13 02. 1941Google Scholar.

62 Soeara Parindra IV, 7–8 (07–08. 1939): 240Google Scholar.

63 The figures are estimates. Official municipal statistics did not record the number of Indonesian-run schools, though a handful of the most prominent appear along with Dutch institutions in early counts. Verslag Soerabaja 1930, 1: 333–36. ARA MvK Mr 1004/1935 notes that in Surabaya residency there were 101 wild schools and lists by name 21 that were within the city limits and being watched carefully.Google ScholarSoeara Oemoem, 10 02. 1941 reports approximately 75 wild schools in SurabayaGoogle Scholar.

64 Interviews with former teachers, 1971–72. The remainin g students came from old priyayi and intellectual families who wished to avoid government education for their children, and occasionally from wealthy farming families.

65 Kampung interviews, 1971–72.

66 Interviews with teachers from the period, 1971.

67 Interviews with former employees of the newspaper, 1971–72; Swara Oemoem, 3 01 1931; Sin Tit Po 4 Jan. 1930Google Scholar; Berita Yudha 3 03. 1971Google Scholar.

68 Kampung interviews, 1972.

69 Kampung interviews, 1971.

70 Pigeaud, Th. G. Th., Javanese Volksvertooningen (Batavia 1938), pp. 322–23Google Scholar.

71 Interviews with the last four surviving members of the original Durasim troupe, 1971–72.

72 Cak is the characteristically Surabayan form of address among kampung people; it has an egalitarian flavor. Gondo was Durasim's childhood nickname (nama julukan), meaning “smelly”. The giving of similarly cruel names was a common practise among Surabayan kampung children.

73 Ludruk interviews, 1971–72.

74 Dr. Soetomo is said to have asked, when he first met Durasim, whether the ludruk director knew the meaning of the white skirt and red hat his actors wore, or of the torch they carried in the performance. When Durasim replied that he did not, Soetomo explained that the red and white were the national colors of Indonesia, and the flame in the torch symbolised the enlightenment of the people, a goal of the Pergerakan. Thereafter, he said, ludruk and the Pergerakan were one. Ludruk interviews, 1971–72.

75 Kampung interview, 1972.

76 See, for example, Ensiklopedi Umum (Jakarta, 1973), p. 669Google Scholar.

77 Kampung interview, 1972.

78 Kampung interview, 1971.

79 At one especially memorable performance of this type, the following story was acted out by new priyayi leaders. A poor woman, abandoned by her husband, manages to have her child adopted by a Western-educated Indonesian doctor. The boy is given modern schooling and is sent to Holland to be trained as a lawyer. Returning home, he happens to offer legal aid to an impoverished woman accused of killing her cruel husband. It is the young man's mother, and he thereafter devotes himself to serving the masses, in whom he has found his literal and figurative roots. Soeara Oemoem, 18 02. 1933, reports there was hardly a dry eye in the houseGoogle Scholar.

80 Their absence was noticed by the players as well as the audience. Ludruk interviews, 1971–72.

81 For some interesting examples, see Mehmet, Ozey (ed.), Poverty and Social Change in Southeast Asia (Ottawa, 1979)Google Scholar.