Hari Sejarah Nasional (National History Day)
Rabu, 29 Februari 2012 di The
British International School Jakarta.
Key note speech oleh Dr. Peter Carey
Born of parents who
had made their lives in Asia, the Far East has always been a part of my life.
My first seven years (1948-55) were spent in Burma and these early years marked
me. In my very traditional British
boarding school – Winchester - I retained a fascination for SE Asia. But
studying Southeast Asian history for A level was sadly not an option. It was
the same at Oxford. Even though my Oxford tutors quickened my love of history
through insisting that I use primary sources, it was not until I graduated in
1969 that I was able to pursue my Asian interests.
Like all the best
things in life, the unexpected had a hand in determining my decision to take up
SE Asian history. On finishing my written exams, I was placed on the borderline
between a First and a Second-Class Honours degree. This necessitated an oral
examination – then called a ‘viva’ (viva voce). I contacted my French
Revolution Special Subject tutor in Balliol, Richard Cobb (1917-96), who had
inspired me with his idea that a successful historian has to have a ‘second
identity’ in the country and epoch she is studying: for Richard it was late
eighteenth-century France. I asked him to prepare me for the viva. His idea of
preparation was to invite me to take a pint of beer with him on Balliol lawn.
It was a wonderful
June evening and who should walk over to join us but the chair of the History
Examination Board, Professor Jack Gallagher, a famous historian of India and
imperial Britain. ‘And what will you do with a First, young man, if you give a
good account of yourself in the oral exam tomorrow?’ He asked. ‘Oh! That’s
easy!’ I replied, ‘Richard has been such an inspiring tutor that I will look at
a French department and write a local history of the French Revolution.’ ‘Don’t
do that!’ came Gallagher’s immediate reply, ‘that’s an over-subscribed field.
But if you like that period why don’t you study the impact of the French
Revolution overseas by looking at Java during the administration of Napoleon’s
only non-French marshal – Herman Willem Daendels (1762-1818; in office as
Governor-General, 1808-11). His papers must be somewhere in the Colonial
Archives in The Hague or Paris. Give it some thought!’
This was a bombshell
and it did indeed get me thinking. I had an English Speaking Union (ESU)
scholarship to do graduate studies at Cornell University in the USA. Why not
use that opportunity to take up Jack Gallagher’s challenge? I arrived and
announced to my Cornell professors that Daendels and his French Revolutionary
inspired colonial administration in Java was my research topic. ‘Great! But
that’s not what we do here!’ they said. ‘First, learn the local languages
(Indonesian and Javanese) along with the language of the colonial
administration – Dutch – and then tell us what you want to do!’ Starting with Dutch, I headed for Cornell’s
famed Olin Library, taking out HJ de Graaf’s Geschiedenis van Indonesie
(History of Indonesia) (1949) in its Dutch original which I read from cover to
cover. When I came to his chapter on the Java War (1825-30), my eye fell on an etching
of the Javanese prince, Diponegoro (1785-1855), who had led the five-year
struggle against the Dutch. I then had what the Javanese would call a ‘kontak
batin’ (a communication from the heart). It was a Eureka moment. Who was this
mysterious figure on horseback at the head of his troops entering the prepared
encampment from whence he would be captured by treachery and exiled to the
Celebes (Sulawesi) for the rest of his life (1830-55). Maybe instead of the very European Daendels,
I would look at the impact of the French Revolution in its colonial setting by
studying the life and thoughts of someone at the receiving end, the
quintessential Javanese prince, Diponegoro, now one of Indonesia’s foremost
national heroes.
The rest is history.
Over 40 years have passed since I sat on Balliol lawn, and in that time my
whole professional life has been focused on thinking and writing about
Diponegoro. In 2007 my magnum opus biography – Power of Prophecy: Prince
Dipanagara and the End of an Old Order in Java, 1785-1855 - was published by the Royal Institute for SE
Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) in Leiden, and sold out its first two
editions. This month it will come out in an expanded Indonesian language
edition: Kuasa Ramalan: Pangeran Diponegoro dan Akhir Tatanan Lama di Jawa,
1785-1855 (Jakarta: Kepustakaan Populer
Gramedia). The age through which Diponegoro lived in late eighteenth and early
nineteenth century Java is an excellent illustration of the theme of the current
History Day – Revolution, Reaction and Reform. The Revolutions through which he
lived were not made in Java but imported from Europe: namely the twin
industrial and political revolutions which tore the old regimes in both Europe
and Asia apart and hit Java like an Asian tsunami with the coming of Daendels
in January 1808.
In the space of under
a decade (1808-16) during the administrations of the Napoleonic marshal and his
British nemesis, Lieutenant-Governor Thomas Stamford Raffles (1781-1826; in
office, 1811-16), the old colonial order of the Dutch East India Company
(1603-1799) was destroyed and a new Netherlands-Indies administration
(1818-1942) was born in its place. This Administration’s founding charter – the
constitutional regulation (regeerings-reglement) of January 1818 - envisaged a
new legal order or rechtstaat and a complete replacement of the corrupt
administration of the Company by a new colonial administrative service. This
was the reform which turned Java into one of the most lucrative colonies in the
world. In the space of just forty years following the end of the Java War, the
Dutch took USD75 billion in today’s money out of the island through the profits
they made from the ‘Cultivation System’ (1830-70) – in which export crops like
sugar, tea, coffee and indigo were bought at low fixed prices from Javanese
farmers and sold on world markets at international rates.
This underlying
energy to make profits at any price sparked the reaction of the Java War in
which the twin forces of Javanese nationalism and Islam were united under
Diponegoro’s ‘holy war’ banner. For the probably the first time in Javanese
history, all sections of society were brought together in a single cause.
Diponegoro’s efforts came to naught, but his name lived on and just ninety
years after his death in 1855, the Indonesians once more rose against the Dutch
and after four years of guerrilla war known as the Indonesian Revolution
(1945-49), they eventually won their formal independence from Holland in 1949.
Revolution, Reaction, Reform colonial style was thus played out across the
world’s largest archipelago which placed on the map of Europe would stretch
from Lisbon to Minsk and Copenhagen to Ankara. This is an Asian epic, a chapter
of world history which at this year’s National History Day you can begin to
explore.
Remember the National
History Day gives you a rare opportunity to learn the value of rigorous
academic research and how such research can shape popular perceptions and
events. Cathy Gorn, the Executive Director of the NHD who has just been awarded
the prestigious National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama, in her
acceptance speech cited how three students along with their History teacher
from Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois, helped to change
history in the famous ‘Mississipi Burning’ case. The students selected the 1964
murders of civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Mississippi, for their
National History Day Project, creating a documentary that presented important
new evidence and helped convince the state of Mississippi to investigate,
reopen the case and convict Edgar Ray Killen for the murders. Just think of
that - a documentary based on painstaking research which helps to change the
course of justice. Just amazing!
Here in Indonesia, Batara Hutagalung (Surabaya, 1944- ), an historian from North Sumatra who has
written numerous books on colonial history (including the British military
campaign in Surabaya in November 1945 which left thousands dead), also won a significant
victory for the cause of justice. His persistence in securing evidence
regarding the Rawagede massacre of 9 December 1947 during the Indonesian War of
Independence against the Dutch (1945-49) won a ruling from a Dutch court on 14
September 2011. The court ordered that €20.000 compensation be paid by the
Dutch Government to each of the eight remaining widows of the 431 young men massacred
by Dutch troops in a village between Karawang and Bekasi. Long immortalised in
Indonesian poet Chairil Anwar’s 1948 poem ‘Karawang-Bekasi’ whose opening lines
read: ‘We who lie sprawled between Karawang and Bekasi cannot cry ‘Freedom’ or
raise our weapons any more!’ Batara Hutagalung’s research symbolically raised
the bodies of those massacred young men and brought them to the court room,
thus ensuring their eventual valediction.
Remember, through their writings and research historians can
literally change the course of history. Knowledge is power and for those who
serve the Muse of History, Clio, that power is very considerable. But to use it
properly there must be great intellectual integrity and honesty of purpose. All
too often history can be abused for political ends – think of the way history
is written in dictatorships and totalitarian states. Today you will learn how
the craft of the historian can be applied. That craft requires skill and
motivation. It is open to abuse and to honour. Today you will learn the path of
honour. You are embarking on a journey which will literally change your life.
Make sure you have packed everything you need for the road and step forward
with confidence!
The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step!
Dr. Peter Carey
Fellow Emeritus of
Trinity College, Oxford
18 February 2012
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Dr. Peter Carey, penulis buku:
‘The Power of Prophecy: Prince Dipanagara and the End of an
Old Order in Java, 1785-1855’,
KITLV 2007.
Edisi bahasa Indonesia:
'
Kuasa Ramalan: Pangeran Diponegoro dan Akhir
tatanan Lama di Jawa, 1785-1855'
Gramedia, Maret 2012.
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Dimuat di weblog ini
dengan seizin Dr. Peter Carey
Gambar-gambar dan foto-foto, lihat:
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Gambar-gambar dan foto-foto, lihat:
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