Dutch Compensation

December 19th, 2007, in Opinion, by iamisaid

View the original article here.

Tags: Atrocities, Colonialism, compensation, Corruption, Dutch, Dutch East Indies, History, Japanese, Netherlands, voc, War

107 Comments on “Dutch Compensation”

Pages: « 1 2 3 [4]

Angela Stevens Says:
March 19th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
My comment is on the general theme of colonialism, exploitation and plundering.

It appears to me that 80% of the white (human) race were born to be leeches on the rest of the human races. It would be interesting to undertake a genetic study to explore whether whites have a gene that makes them feel superior to other races and cultures andthus feel at liberty -with the use of violence- to enslave them, colonize their territories, kill them, maim them and plunder their wealth.

Just wondering.

Angela Stevens
Canada
Janma Says:
March 21st, 2008 at 10:53 am
Angela, the gene that makes this happen is the white gene…. which is a recessive and weak gene…. there is a biological desperation to keep the race from turning brown.
The reason they feel superior are many, but mostly because in many ways they were.
they had superior fire power…. (don’t kid yourself, if non-whites had guns they would have used them too)
They also had Christianity, which made them feel superior.
Robert Says:
March 21st, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Angela,

It appears to me that 80% of the white (human) race were born to be leeches on the rest of the human races.

Where did you get the 80% from? When does one qualify to be a leech? Can you give me the minimum requirements.

It would be interesting to undertake a genetic study to explore whether whites have a gene that makes them feel superior to other races and cultures andthus feel at liberty -with the use of violence- to enslave them, colonize their territories, kill them, maim them and plunder their wealth.

Why do you think in the first place, there might exist such a thing like a “superiority” gene? I would link “feeling superior” to factors like religion and technological developments then rather to genes.
By suggesting that whites might have different genes then other races, you are entering the danger zone. Linking superiority to genes has been done (by whites) before and the people involved weren’t the nicest ones. What puzzles me that you want go in this direction.
pj_bali Says:
March 21st, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Angela

Prior to the colonial era you could argue that every kingdom/empire in the world were bent on expanding their territory. Might was right, and I don’t think that the moral implications of conquest were considered by the likes of the persians,greeks, romans, byzantines, sassanids, arabs, mongols, or ottomans. They all considered it to be their right to expand and subjugate those around them. The colonials just happenned to have the right combination of technology, drive and administrative skills to do it better than anyone else.

If there is a leech gene I think we all have it.
dewaratugedeanom Says:
March 24th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Janma

Angela, the gene that makes this happen is the white gene”¦. which is a recessive and weak gene”¦. there is a biological desperation to keep the race from turning brown.
The reason they feel superior are many, but mostly because in many ways they were.

What is puzzling is why so many Indonesians, especially women, are preoccupied even obsessed with white skin. Is this a kind of self-inflicted inferiority syndrome caused by historical subjugation or are there more complex reasons?
Not so long ago a book has been published by an Indonesian woman on the subject. Pity I forgot the name of the book and its writer.
tomaculum Says:
March 24th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
dewaratugedeanom,
that is maybe an indirect compensation from the whites? To help some Indonesian (man or woman) to a better life?
Oooops, my wife is also white …… (and I’m sure it is love).
Janma Says:
March 25th, 2008 at 11:04 am
White is synonymous with a life of ease indoors and black is synonymous with hard labor in the sun. That simple. It’s not about subjugation….before any type of colonialism women were vying for whiteness.

I’ve been thinking about this white black thing for ages…. the attitude seems to be that whites should be ashamed and coloreds should be proud…. which to me is a kind of reversed racisim that actually strengthens the white supremacist position in that it seems the whites are having to over compensate and apologize for being white, which weirdly kind of means they are superior.

At the Balispirit Yoga festival in Ubud last week the organizers (bule’s who think the sun shines out of Balinese ass…) made tickets for the last open day free for Balinese and white people had to pay. They called this positive racism.

My Balinese neighbor who owns three hotels and hectares of land did not have to pay, but we did although our income is like a tenth of his… to me this whole thing smacks of racism….. white people are rich, brown people are poor…. Same thing in hospitals, we have to pay double just because we are white, and Cokorda, the king of Ubud only has to pay half of what we pay.
There were stalls at the festival too, some from non-profit organizations… one was the new ‘Green School’, an alternative steiner based new school being built by John Hardy in Sibang Kaja. The school fees for parents (white ones of course) are almost $10,000 a year, but they proudly talk about how they are going to have at least 17 places free under scholarship for local balinese children. They presented this scholarship plan in such a way as to give the impression that the scholarship would be awarded with the criteria being ‘poor and balinese’…. for example the guy presenting the idea to me went all misty eyed and said “imagine we find a farmer, a simple man, working in the fields and we support his child to go to our school.” No talk about ability or talent in the children to be selected for these scholarships.
I must admit that in the end it felt as though if I sent my child to that school, I would be paying thousands of dollars scraped together with huge effort (in order to ensure our child will get an education that will give her the tools to cope in an ever changing and challenging world), and that probably 15% or 20% of that will go to educating children that don’t necessarily have the desire or ability to learn, nor is it sure their parents even care about education. So how is that fair and is that not racism?

But back to the balispirit festival, In the end hundreds of Balinese turned up and stood on the sidelines to stare at the bules with open mouths, pointing, laughing and whispering amongst themselves.
dewaratugedeanom Says:
March 26th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Janma

White is synonymous with a life of ease indoors and black is synonymous with hard labor in the sun. That simple. It’s not about subjugation”¦.before any type of colonialism women were vying for whiteness.

Do you mean like in the West before outdoor leisure became ‘en vogue’ and suntan the norm? I don’t believe it’s that simple either. Many here think white is bersih and dark is kotor but I doubt if it has something to do with economic wealth or hardship, rather with a general appearance of radiance. Radiance is a characteristic of the divine. Actually dewa (god) - pun intended - literally means ‘the radiant’.
I wish I could locate this book I mentioned in my former post because it’s an interesting phenomenon.

“¦.. white people are rich, brown people are poor”¦.

Don’t blame us poor Indonesians. It’s because in the West bule’s have money trees and we don’t. It’s not fair, they should be ashamed.

At the Balispirit Yoga festival in Ubud last week the organizers (bule’s who think the sun shines out of Balinese ass”¦) made tickets for the last open day free for Balinese and white people had to pay. They called this positive racism.

I’m beginning to understand where a wanker like Purba Negoro gets his inspiration from.
janma Says:
March 27th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Radiance is a characteristic of the divine. Actually dewa (god) - pun intended - literally means ‘the radiant’.

well, how about Krishna? He is radiant, but he has a dark blackish blueish hue, like a monsoon cloud… so does shiva…. but for women (goddess) types, it’s pretty true that they are always portrayed in for example hindu scriptures, as having pure and pale complexions. But i still think it’s because it denotes a life of leisure, even from way back when…. Hey do you think that’s behind the white peoples obssession with tanning? For them it denotes a life of leisure? (ie. lying in sun beside pool)?
janma Says:
March 27th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
I remember being at the pool once with my sister in law, who is German. She was lying in the sun tanning and rubbishing Michael Jackson for (allegedly) changing his skin color from white to black.
Oigal Says:
March 27th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
It appears to me that 80% of the white (human) race were born to be leeches on the rest of the human races. It would be interesting to undertake a genetic study to explore whether whites have a gene that makes them feel superior to other races and cultures andthus feel at liberty

Angela, the gene that makes this happen is the white gene

Laugh.. You have to admire the science behind standing tall despite facts..its a hoot!
janma Says:
March 27th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
I know…. don’t you just love a good hoot!?
Rob Says:
March 28th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Dewaratugedeanom…

The following sounds like drivel to me because it seems that your counter argument against Cukurungan is that provided we as humans replace one travesty or tragedy with another then it is better than us having not doing anything at all?

The arrival of Europeans may have indeed put an end to the horror but in turn introduced a more devastating horror in which no man, woman, or child was spared!

The arrival of the Europeans at least put an end to the horror of Mesoamerican natives (Mayas, Aztecs, Toltecs etc.) slaughtering each other by the tens of thousands in their ritual human sacrifices. During these mass rituals the victims were ripped open alive and their still beating heart pulled out of their chest. Excavations in the area revealed that even children weren’t spared.

So, in this case if these Europeans saved these heathen Mayans, Aztecs, and Toltecs from their blood-thirsty murdering, human-sacrificing selves then compensation is clearly not a warranted claim in that case, right?

Angela…

As for the 80% of the white elements of the human race being born to be leeches, is this empirical or anecdotal evidence to which you refer? Yes, genetic studies would be interesting and they are already being undertaken, perhaps you could fund your question yourself! Your research topic presupposes that there is a superiority gene which by default should also presuppose that there is an inferiority gene that allows people to be colonized by those with the superiority gene. While we are at it we should also lok for a stupidity gene, a racist gene, a violence gene, a stereotyping gene, a bigot gene, and billy gene, and levi genes, and wrangler genes…

All…

It seems that a common theme here is that the world was a better place when it was a bigger place. The races could not interact and any interaction such as those between Neanderthal man and woman (presumably God’s creatures too) and cro-magnon’s were oftern violent and led to the extinction of one…oh no, our very modern existence is based on a colonization and the invasion of the homelands of the Neanderthals who were then ruthlessly wiped out and their places of residence were pillaged.

Colonization is never pretty but what is now missing from this debate is whether any compensation is due for the acts committed by the Dutch during their period of occupation. Because if this is the debate that we want to have then we should also look at Indonesia’s colonization of Timor Leste and what compensation is payable and whether this is dependent on Indonesia getting compensation from the Dutch. Or is it Indonesia’s position that the compensation burden in the East Timor case should be borne by Portugal as the first European colonizers?

We should also add an additional gene test for Angela’s serious of tests to find out whether Indonesians carry a superiority gene with respect to their Timorese brothers and sisters…wah, hold on Indonesia is a socio-political construct so should we be testing for whether there is a Javanese superiority gene or a Batak superiority gene or a Sundanese superiority gene? Perhaps, we just test everyone for the superiority gene.

What is not needed is a debate on the general pros and cons of colonization. That is a different post and one that needs to include more current issues of neo-colonialism.

Sorry for the long post…late to the thread and I just could not help myself! As Forrest Gump used to say…”My Momma always used to say, ’stupid is as stupid does!’”

Good weekend to all
timdog Says:
March 28th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
What is puzzling is why so many Indonesians, especially women, are preoccupied even obsessed with white skin. Is this a kind of self-inflicted inferiority syndrome caused by historical subjugation or are there more complex reasons?

I don’t think it has anything to do with historical subjugation. Sunbathing in Europe was only “invented” (mainly by American ex-pats in the south of France) in the 1920s. Before that - and for a long time afterwards - negative connotations were associated with tanned, dark skin.
It’s fairly obvious if you think about it - tanned skin was associated with poverty: only poor people worked out of doors in the sun and only poor people were dark, and if you were poor you were uneducated, and quite possibly “dangerous”.
Even though now in the west suntan=wealth and privaledge and exotic holidays, there’s still a degree of racism that may have its roots in the old idea of dark=poor.

The negative poverty conotations of darker skin are something found in many, many cultures. In northern Europe the issue was simply one of social status; elsewhere it was further “coloured” by race.

The phrase “blue blood” meaning of aristocratic birth comes from post-reconquista Spain, where the fact that many people were (and are) of Arab origin led to an intense colour-conciousness. If you were high enough born to be free from the “taint of the Moor” then your skin would be pale enough for the blue veins to show through, hence “blue blood”.

In India skin colour is inextricably linked to the caste system. Generally the higher the caste the fairer the skin (exacerbated by the fact that low caste people would generally work outdoors). Part of the reason for this lies in the fact that the higher caste people (of aryan origin) had more recent origins in Central Asia; the lower castes were probably of darker, longer-established dravidian extract, or even aboriginal… Later Persian and Mughal rulers were fairer still.
Some historians have possited the theory that the fact that the British colonialists were able to establish hegemony over India so easily lay in the deep-seated caste-idea that fairer = higher born… so conditioned by the caste system were the Indians to accept the idea that someone fairer than them was of higher caste position, that they were able - against all their other religious or cultural insticts - to accept the idea of (pale) British rule… Personally I think it would be gross oversimplification to put it all down to that, but I’m sure it played a part… If you accept this theory it is crucial to recognise that the British were taking advantage - possible unknowingly - of a PRE-EXISTING colour-conciousness, rather than instigating it.

Similar things surely come into play in Indonesia, though perhaps without the rigidity of caste associations (India is probably the most colour-concious country in the world).

Awareness of skin colour - on all sides - may have had a role in European colonialism, but modern conciousness of skin colour and obsession with “whitening creams” etc in post-colonial nations almost certainly is directly linked to ideas that existed long before the arrival of the first bules… In my opinion…

Sorry to stray so very far from the original point of this thread, but as we seem already to have engaged in highly dubious discussion of “genetics” I thought it might be worth slipping in with another irrellevant aside…
Angela Stevens Says:
March 29th, 2008 at 6:29 am
Robert wrote

We should also add an additional gene test for Angela’s serious of tests to find out whether Indonesians carry a superiority gene with respect to their Timorese brothers and sisters”¦wah, hold on Indonesia is a socio-political construct so should we be testing for whether there is a Javanese superiority gene or a Batak superiority gene or a Sundanese superiority gene? Perhaps, we just test everyone for the superiority gene.

Dealing with Indonesia V. Timor, that is within the realm of psychology. ‘Barring an effective therapy, an abuser is most likely to abuse.’ The best example is being currently provided by the Jewish state of Israel.

Though anecdotal, my ‘80% of whites’ figure has a rationale. One look at the European nations’s history of colonizing others (in Africa, Asia, Middle East, the Americas etc..) would reveal that few, may be 20% of the total Europeans were not involved in colonizing. The rest were adicted to it.
timdog Says:
March 29th, 2008 at 7:05 am
Angela, sorry to be dismissive, but the idea that 80% of “whites” were actively involved in colonialism is patently absurd. For a start the scope of colonialism had an intraeuropean realm: Ireland, for example, was as much a brutally colonised and oppresed nation as any far flung land full of “exotic orientals”, and had to go through its own bloody struggle for self-determination - startlingly recently in the grander historic scheme of things.

And the idea that the entire population of a colonialist state was active and culpable in the process of colonialism is stupendously simplistic.. Was an impoverished tenant farmer in mid-19th Century Scotland playing any kind of active, culpable role in the British empire? I think it might be easier to argue that he was in fact a victim of it… Even to argue that many of those Europeans who were part of the machinery of empire - breadline workers in the Dundee jute mills, or Amsterdam dockers for example - were somehow one with the cliched image of the rapacious plantation owner is a little difficult…

Post-colonial guilt is all well and good, and I’m certainly no empire-revisionist, but come on!
dewaratugedeanom Says:
March 30th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
timdog said

And the idea that the entire population of a colonialist state was active and culpable in the process of colonialism is stupendously simplistic.

See also my posts of December 19th, 2007 at 9:34 pm, December 21st, 2007 at 7:59 pm and December 24th, 2007 at 6:03 pm under this thread.