House of Glass Read online

  The success of the Chinese revolution and the unity of the Chinese people under Sun Yat-sen also shook the Indies. It was as if a fresh wind had blown out the fire of terror and division that had previously disturbed the Chinese community. Chinese nationalism in the Indies grew stronger and stronger and climaxed when the Republic was declared in 1911.

  In Betawi, the Indies-born Chinese, the educated youth, full of nationalist fervor, published the paper Sin Po. Governor-General Idenburg could do nothing to dam up this torrent of Asian nationalism. He had no authority to ban the paper, not even by using his Extraordinary Powers. Issues relating to China and its citizens were the affair of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in s’Gravenhage, in Holland. The Indies was just a colony.

  Idenburg was able to take only a small initiative, an attempt to dam the torrent—but it was a long-term plan. He established the HCS, the Hollandsch Chineesche Schul, a Dutch-language school for Chinese children at the same level as the ELS Dutch-language primary schools for Europeans. He hoped that these schools would eventually create a core of people in the Chinese community who would look to Europe instead of China. It was true, however, that he could pass on most of these problems to the Dutch Cabinet. But there was one area that was his responsibility alone and that he could not avoid dealing with. This was the effect of the Chinese revolution on the educated Natives of the Indies!

  There was one educated Native man, who was not just being influenced by the Chinese Revolution but was its great admirer. He was a raden mas, a former student of the STOVIA medical school for Natives. He had established an organization using non-European methods and seemed to want to follow the example of the Nationalist Chinese. He was very much interested in using that weapon of the weak against the strong—the boycott. He dreamed of uniting the Native peoples of the Indies, both in the Indies and overseas in other parts of Asia and in Africa, just as Sun Yat-sen had done for the Chinese. He dreamed of an Indies nationalism that the peoples of the Indies themselves would understand. It was possible to gather all this from reading the editorials in his paper Medan, even though he rarely mentioned China or the Chinese.

  With the formation of the Sarekat Dagang Islam (SDI), and with his teachings about the boycott, he had planted time bombs in almost every town in Java. And Idenburg had begun to imagine the day when those time bombs would explode and set Java aflame, if nothing was done to stop him.

  This heavy task was entrusted to me and thrust upon my back—me, Jacques Pangemanann.

  The official view was that the government was caught between the rising up of the Native and Chinese bourgeoisie, both becoming a force sharper than the point of a spear, or an arrow or a bullet. It was the governor-general’s desire to channel both these movements, from outside and within, along the gentlest possible path. Eliminate them altogether? Impossible. Nationalism was but a natural product of the modern era itself. There was a special officer appointed to deal with the Chinese nationalists. It was my task to handle the Natives.

  My work was of a special kind, not known to the general public. Among the forty-eight million people of the Indies, it was not even certain that there were ten and a half that knew of my work. So it was indeed an interesting experience. And worth recording. Who knows but that one day such notes may be of use?

  I will set down first of all some notes about what was happening in education. After all, it is education that causes one’s eyes to see, causes one to hear, and to evaluate the things that are occurring far away, outside your own country, so that you reflect upon your own situation, and discover how far it is you have advanced and just where you are situated in the state of things.

  The ELS schools had become the object of anger among the second layer of rulers, the Native officials I mean, because they were not allowed the opportunity to send their children to these European institutions. I myself could understand their anger. For their children there were only the special schools for the Inlanders, the Natives.

  In each regency, under the control of a Dutch assistant resident, assisted by a Native bupati, the government established only one public primary school, which had two curricula—Grade 1 and Grade 2. In Grade 1 students received a little instruction in Dutch. In Grade 2 there was no Dutch instruction at all. The buildings had wooden frames and the walls were made from bamboo. In a few places, the walls would be covered with plaster, so that from afar they looked like stone walls. In the villages there were also village schools that taught a three-year course. They taught a little reading in the local language and some basic numeracy. It was only students from the Grade 1 courses who would know a little Dutch, who would learn a little of the outside world. The others would be more or less blind to that outside world.

  But the children who graduated from the ELS, the European children and the children of the Natives at the pinnacle of Native society, could, with their Dutch, immediately come to terms with Europe and all things related to Europe. As a graduate of ELS myself, I had understood ever since primary school just how great was the gap between us and the students in the Grade 1 and Grade 2 public schools, let alone those in the village schools. It felt as if it would always be impossible to cross that gap.

  One school divided into two streams, in each regency. And to serve how many thousand children? At least ten thousand. Yet, according to government regulations, wherever there were forty European children the government was obliged to establish an ELS school. The building must meet health regulations for European children, and the children must wear European clothes and shoes and speak in Dutch. This last was particularly emphasized because there were quite a few European children in the Indies, including some of Dutch descent, who did not speak Dutch. The fees were ten times what it cost to send a child to a Native primary school. So, of course, there were many middle and lower ranking Native officials who grumbled about this—but only grumbled. They did not even dare to put their grumblings down on paper as an official complaint. And the Indies bureaucracy took no heed of grumblings. Indeed, even official letters of complaint often did not arrive at their destination. They would be thrown into the wastepaper basket by officials who felt they had been bypassed.

  ELS students who did not get official jobs could become a source of trouble for the government. They knew some geography, which was not taught at the schools for Natives. They knew about the world and the world’s peoples, and about what products the different nations of the world produced. They knew what was the same and what was different between the peoples. They were a product of Europe. They rose far above their fellow countrymen, and could, of course, become the eyes of their people. And if their mouths could speak well, they could become the voices for their people, and at the very least, spokespeople for themselves.

  The HCS schools were established in an attempt to divide the Chinese. They had earlier been divided by the Tong. Now they were to be divided by the new orientation to Europe, and by loyalty to the Netherlands Indies. But something different happened. The new generation of educated Natives did not just grumble to themselves like the generation before them. They announced their dissatisfactions in newspapers and magazines, in whatever languages they were capable of using. Their concerns became public, and became public knowledge too, and were no longer just their own private problems. The newspapers and magazines had given birth to a democratic spirit, in spite of the government’s wishes. Of course, the government could just remain quiet about it all and pretend it didn’t know what was happening, but in reality the government in its silence felt that all that was being written and discussed in these newspapers and magazines was also endangering its authority. The face of the Indies was changing as more and more printshops were established and with all these Natives who could read and write. And in all this, there was one person whose share was not at all small—in fact, he had the leading share in it all. Yes, him! That’s the one. Minke!

  A graduate of the ELS, but no government job? That’s him! A Native who was the eyes and mouth of his people? Him
again! So it wasn’t too surprising to find that the special case that had been given to me to handle was the case of Minke himself. Like his teacher to the north, Sun Yat-sen, he too was a medical student, except that he did not graduate. A graduate or not, in the eyes of the government he was somebody who had all sorts of potential—potential to give rise to big problems in the future. But the situation that he faced, perhaps without realizing it, was pushing him in more and more dangerous directions.

  When I was given this task, I was struck dumb. I had been hoping that someone else would be given the job. But my boss, Chief Commissioner Donald Nicolson, an Englishman, said to me: “We are giving you this task based on your own report, Mr. Pangemanann. No one else understands the ins and outs of this case like you do. This is not a criminal matter, not a case of arresting some burglar. This is a special problem, and it has been you yourself who has pointed the way forward in handling it.”

  A special problem, he said—a problem that had taken me out of the work I loved so much, police work, and transferred me to this other arena, where it was your brains they squeezed instead of your muscles. For the last five years, my work had consisted of reading the newspapers and magazines of the Indies, interviewing people, studying documents, and preparing various reports. And now I was reaping the harvest—this new task before me. This time I let it show very clearly how unhappy I was.

  “But you have advanced very quickly in these last few years. You are the only one who can handle it, Mr. Pangemanann. Only a sensitive hand can deal with a sensitive problem.”

  These events all took place last year in the Betawi Police Headquarters, at the beginning of 1911. They shook my soul. What was it that I was supposed to do to him? He was not a criminal, nor was he a rebel. He was just an educated Native who very much loved his people and his country, the Indies, who was trying to advance his people, who was trying to see justice done for his people on this earth of the Indies, for all peoples on this earth of mankind. What he was doing was totally right and I not only agreed with what he was doing but was one among many of his sincere and genuine admirers.

  There had never been any report of his involvement in criminal activity. I don’t know about anything that the police never found out about. And where was there any person who had not carried out some bad deed at some time or another? Big or small? Known only to themselves? Nobody knew this better than the police—there was no such thing as a totally innocent person on this earth. Everyone had done something wrong, made some mistake, done some evil. Including the police themselves. People were arrested by the police because their evil could be proved, because there were witnesses. Where there was no proof and no witnesses, then their deeds would remain their secret, perhaps until death.

  He was basically a good man, not evil. Clearly he was no criminal. That he had a weakness for pretty women need not be discussed here. In any case, that is a basic characteristic of real manhood. I don’t need to discuss here the hypocrisy of the priyayi, those members of the Javanese aristocracy who became minor officials working for the Dutch, and of others who go about parading their piety. Anyway, I had often watched this man. He didn’t know me and, for the time being, did not need to know me.

  He always wore Javanese clothes—a destar on his head, a white vest-shirt, with a gold watch-chain hanging from his top pocket, widely pleated batik sarong and leather slippers. When he walked he did not swing both arms. As far as I knew, his right hand always held the bottom corner of his sarong. He had smooth creamy skin like the langsat fruit and a well-kept mustache, very thick and black and twirled up sharply at each end.

  This man walked along confidently, with the authority of somebody with a strong and solid body. Perhaps he had once played some heavy sport. He was about 1.65 meters tall, not much less than that at all. He gave the appearance of someone who would have his own opinions about things. But his writings were not like that. They read as if written by a person who was restless, uncertain, always groping about, and somewhat confused, drowning in a sea of hodgepodge European ideas, all of which he learned in fragments. For a Native, he could be considered handsome, manly, and attractive, especially to women.

  Neither his hands nor his mouth were frugal in their use of words, so that even the Natives, who liked to sit and chat, avoided him. And according to my assessment, his general knowledge was quite limited, if measured by European criteria. But in the life of the Natives, it could be said that he was the ignition point for the developments to come. Never in the last hundred years had there been a Native who, as a result of his personality, his good intentions, and his knowledge and understanding, had been able to unite thousands of Natives without reference to a raja, prophet, saint, wayang hero or a devil.

  He had thousands of followers from among the Moslems, and especially from among the Moslems of the independent classes. He himself was from the priyayi, so it was easy to guess how deep was his Islam. For him Islam was what was available to unify the Indies. And he used it cleverly. And with as many followers as that he had the right to consider himself as the possible third Asian president, after Aguinaldo in the Philippines and Sun Yat-sen in China. Perhaps my guess was not too far wrong. He was very confident of his own strength. He was the kind of person who knew he was striding off toward greatness. He truly believed in the picture he had of himself. People would forgive, forget, and close their eyes to his weaknesses. He strode firmly and without hesitation in the direction of greatness.

  He never quoted from the verses of the Quran. He was actually a liberal, someone who had thrown off the vestiges of feudalism but retained his title only for the purposes of helping him in his work. He was more successful as a trader in words than in money. He found it easier to mix with Europeans than with his own followers. He had been able to lead them without interfering in their religious affairs.

  I personally truly honored this outstanding man. He had achieved far, far, far more than I had been able to in my much longer life. Silently I honored him.

  As a servant of the state, and on instructions from my superiors, I had written a paper analyzing, assessing, and putting forward what the different outcomes might be of all his attacks on the government. Now they had given me the task of carrying out my own suggestions and recommendations. This meant that I would now have to spy on and take actions against this man whom I respected and honored so much. I would be spying on him and moving against him from very close up. My admiration and respect for him would be from afar.

  To refuse an order would be considered an act of rebellion. Even if I carried out my task only halfheartedly I would still feel that I had violated my own feelings towards him.

  Yes, I now found myself in a difficult situation. Zihhh—zihhh!

  Perhaps I was getting weaker as I grew older, or perhaps because in these last ten years I had grown used to violating my own conscience, perhaps, perhaps—no, I could say for certain—the truth was that when it came to sticking with my own opinions I was losing my backbone, my principles, like a crawling worm, just like the criminals I used to arrest ten years ago.

  Don’t think I carried out these duties happily. But of course I carried them out in accordance with the recommendations in my report.

  First, the activities of Minke were not illegal. There were no laws that could be used to stop his activities, neither colonial laws nor any laws from Holland. But every activity that tended to lead toward the accumulation of power was a danger to the government. At the very least, the coming into being of powerful political groups would diminish the government’s authority. Such groups would try to pressure the government to do what they wanted, which would ultimately lead to their opposing the government. Every concentration of power would lead to some form of disturbance for the government. And it would be only when the government began to feel that its authority was being defied that it would be able to act against such groups.

  But the Indies was not Europe, just an occupied colony. There was no House of Representatives here that
could contain the power groups that existed. The government based its power here on the strength of its armed forces and the loyalty of the Native officials who served it. Its foundations were not as strong as those of the European democracies. Every wound against authority encouraged further moves toward the growth of power groups. And all of this had an effect on the natives of other colonies.

  Second, the activities of this raden mas were to be expected of any Native in whatever colony, especially where they had begun to be exposed to European knowledge. His actions were in fact simply the logical and proper result of his new knowledge and understanding. He was the bearer of reform and change in the life of the Natives, a reflection of the spirit of European knowledge and understanding. The fruit of European education and learning in all the colonies would always be the same—trouble for the governments concerned.

  As the colonized people grew in understanding, so too must the governments of such colonies because the process of advancement could not be stopped. Whenever a colonial government tried to stop this development, all that would happen is that the people would find their own way around this obstacle, with or without the government. It was foolish and stupid not to pay heed to the laws of progress, even though the government might not be sufficiently equipped to do so.

  But I don’t think I need explain all this here in these notes. The thing was that something startling had happened, something I now had to confront. Minke and his SDI had moved more quickly and grown much bigger than anyone had predicted. The concentration of power in his movement now hung like the sword of Damocles. Such a situation could not be handled effectively within the law.

  “Not be handled effectively within the law,” I had written. And so it was that I found myself speaking with an Indo in a Chinese restaurant. The meeting had been arranged by the commissioner. He introduced me to the Eurasian.