The article was first published in The Jakarta Post April 4, 2001 http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaileditorial.asp?fileid=20010404.C02&irec=1
https://www.library.ohio.edu/indopubs/2001/04/03/0047.ht
AMSTERDAM (JP): Arriving in cold and grim Holland on March 21, 1951,
they never imagined they would have to remain so far from their
homeland. Yet their future was a fait accompli, creating a minority
abroad that is still dealing with the consequences three generations
later.
The story of the South Maluku communities in the Netherlands is a
painful one — the result of colonial divide and rule strategies that
turned thousands of former loyal soldiers and their families into a
disillusioned and sometimes troublesome ethnic group. Thousands were
left stranded in the land of their former masters, yearning for their
homeland.
On March 21 these dispossessed people commemorated the 50th
anniversary of the arrival in Rotterdam harbor of the first group
aboard the Kota Inten. It was an emotional event, with festivities and
discussions on the future of the new generation tinged with nostalgic
sadness.
Essentially their fate had been decided when the Dutch finally
recognized the Indonesian republic (then RIS, the United States of
Indonesia) at the Round Table Conference on Dec. 27, 1949. As a
result, the Dutch colonial army (KNIL) was dissolved in July 1950.
As the Indonesian troops blockaded Ambon and crushed the
Dutch-supported Republic of South Maluku (RMS), the Dutch decided in
February 1951 to transport their Maluku soldiers left in Java for a
“temporary stay” in the Netherlands. It was clearly assumed that one
day they would return home, to a “free Ambon” under RMS. Some 12,500
soldiers and their families went with 14 ships from Surabaya and
Semarang.
Tragically, these soldiers and their families only learnt of the
decision to dismiss them from the Dutch army — made in February —
when they arrived in Rotterdam in March.
This was “a false start”, as the Maluku historian Wim Manuhutu
described it. In a single stroke their military pride was dashed,
their lives changed dramatically and their political ideals
frustrated. “We left Semarang with mixed feelings, and (once) in
Holland I remember my father continued to feel deeply disappointed for
years,” said Chris Manuputy, then 17 years old.
It was this shock, disillusionment, humiliation and confusion that led
to tensions in their early years abroad. Clashes in 1952 between
Ambonese and groups of Southeast Maluku people from Kei and Tanimbar,
and between Christians and Muslims, led to a few thousand Muslims
being excluded from the majority. Many of those excluded later chose
Indonesian citizenship and returned home.
As post-war Holland was unable to properly accommodate the former
soldiers, they had to live in camps — including one former Nazi
concentration camp — only moving to segregated housing areas a decade
later. Even today about half of the Dutch-Malukus — now totaling
about 45,000 — are still segregated, resulting in a strong emphasis
on Maluku identity and pride. This has been the response of what one
Ambonese writer aptly calls the “transplanted community”.
As the relationship between the Netherlands and Indonesia improved
steadily after the mid-1960s, the Dutch-Malukus saw their ideal of RMS
slipping even further away. Yet “we should keep (it) alive for the
sake of Maluku and the future generations”, the late RMS President J.
Manusama told this writer in 1989.
Indeed, the 1970s saw a growing radicalization of Maluku youth. The
Dutch authorities were taken by surprise by violent actions including
the occupation of the Indonesian consulate in Amsterdam, an attack on
the residence of the Indonesian Ambassador in Wassenaar, the hijacking
of a train, the occupation of a school, and a failed attempt to kidnap
Queen Juliana.
These actions actually led to some sympathy and a better understanding
of the Dutch-Malukus’ plight among sections of Dutch society.
Indonesian authorities also began to be interested, as the ex military
intelligence (Bakin) chief Gen. Soetopo Juwono became RI Ambassador
and reportedly attempted to infiltrate their communities.
For the Dutch government, too, the violence of 1970s was a wake-up
call. It was not until this time that The Hague started “a coordinated
policy of permanent integration”, the Minister for Urban Affairs and
Integration, Rogier van Boxtel, acknowledged last week. “The Dutch
society should become a pluriform society or else, nothing,” he
insisted.
The Netherlands has been home for migrants, refugees and asylum
seekers for centuries. Yet 50 years on, the integration of
Dutch-Malukus — one of the country’s smallest but toughest minorities
— proved to be difficult.
“I’m a military man (Beta orang militer”) was the standard reply of
the former soldiers, who refused to be re-educated. The second
generation, by contrast, has been successful in terms of education and
local adaptation, but failed to sustain it to the next.
Now, as 85 percent of Maluku teenagers have gained access only at the
lowest level of high school, the third generation, despite its very
low unemployment level of 4 percent, does not seem to offer better
prospects.
“The integration process has stagnated,” sociologist Justus Veenman
concludes.
In political terms, though, the Dutch-Malukus have become increasingly
pluralistic. It is a myth to view them simply as an “RMS hotbed”. With
RMS and its ideal having long died down in the Malukus, the movement
in the Netherlands has become a living dinosaur and its activities
increasingly look like a political ritual.
Yet RMS has not died. Many still support the idea, but it is neither
universally popular nor actively supported by most Maluku expatriates.
No longer would RMS leaders claim to be the pioneers for the people in
Maluku as they had maintained in the past. The gravity, some RMS
leaders have privately said, has shifted from the Netherlands to
Maluku.
In other words, they have finally come to realize, however lately,
that whatever the future of Maluku, it is a matter for those Malukus
living in Maluku.
The change ironically came as the civil war broke out in 1999 and
worsened in Ambon and North Maluku. The priority is peace, not RMS, is
the consensus in the Netherlands. But the anger was still great and it
is widely feared that some Maluku radical youth would lose patience.
Public meetings, fundraising and an exchange between public figures
and representatives of mosques, churches and NGOs in Indonesia have
been intensified to help promote peace and reconciliation in the
Malukus.
In an unprecedented gesture to show Dutch concern and sympathy, Queen
Beatrice chose a background of Maluku music when she delivered her
Christmas message last year.
Meanwhile, the Maluku communities remain distinct from war-crime
victims. Unlike the Dutch-Jews and the Dutch-Indies (Indonesians of
Dutch-Indonesian mixed blood), who have been successfully integrated,
fully honored and have gained huge financial compensation for their
loss, the Dutch-Malukus were neither integrated nor materially
compensated.
As a token of respect, though, the Dutch government has promised to
start an official historiography of its most loyal soldiers and their
innocent children, whose painful experiences have not been fully
grasped — let alone appreciated.
The writer is a journalist based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
