Robin Block and Angelina Enny have cowritten a poetry collection about shared Dutch-Indonesian history.

Before the Dutch colonial era ended in the 1940s, Indonesians and Dutch settlers lived alongside each other for hundreds of years.

Yet how much do Indonesians and Dutch people really know about each other, especially about their shared history?

In an effort to provide fertile creative ground for writers and artists from both countries, the Salihara cultural center in Pasar Minggu, South Jakarta, collaborated with the Dutch Culture and Indisch Herinneringscentrum to allow six Indonesian artists and their six Dutch counterparts to work together for several months.

The fruits of these encounters provided the material for the cultural center’s 2019 Literature and Ideas Festival (LIFE), which they organized from Oct. 12 to 20. The event featured dramatic readings, discussions, a buffet dinner, lectures and performances.

The festival, called My History, Shared History, emphasized the Indonesian-Dutch connection through personal experiences.

The festival invited writers and readers to celebrate the diversity and richness of individual stories and their ability to fill the empty spaces found within the grand narratives of Indonesian-Dutch history. The festival sought to move beyond country flags, racial sentiments and nationalism.

The program included a bilingual collection of poetry called Di Antara (In Between), cowritten by Indonesian writer and stage actress Angelina Enny and Dutch actor, musician and stage actor Robin Block. The collection remains faithful to the festival's theme and emphasizes personal historical experiences.

The two artists corresponded via email and Skype for several months before the event to discuss their creative visions. They brainstormed their personal experiences with shared Indonesian-Dutch history before they started writing.

They used free association to bounce ideas off of each other.

“For instance, I would grasp certain fragments from Robin’s poetry and write something in response,” Angelina told The Jakarta Post.

Angelina added to her inspiration by joining a history class in Salihara and visiting the Netherlands.

While going through the process, Angelina, who had never been to the Netherlands before, said she was surprised to discover how much she had yet to learn about the two countries’ historical ties.

“For instance, while we celebrate our Independence Day on Aug. 17 every year in Indonesia, Dutch people mourn the Dutch-Indonesians who perished during the Japanese invasion, which happened just two days before the declaration [in 1945], on Aug. 15,” Angelina said.

Japanese invaders enlisted the help of some Indonesians to attack the Dutch as well as mixed-race individuals in Indonesia at that time. The mass slaughter forced Dutch-Indonesian families to flee the country in droves, resulting in a mass migration to the Netherlands.

Robin’s was one of the families who had to flee. The author, whose Indonesian-Dutch grandparents went to the Netherlands to become part of the first-generation diaspora, said the sudden geographical uprooting was quite traumatic.

“The mixed race immigrants were mocked by the Dutch with various names. They called them peanuts [due to their skin color],” said Robin, whose great grandparents on the Indonesian side came from several parts of Java, including Mojokerto, Blitar and Surabaya.

“They were told to go back to their island, and during the winter there was hunger because of the war. They told the [Indonesian-Dutch] individuals to just climb up a tree and eat coconuts since that was how their ancestors supposedly used to eat,” he said.

The mixed race individuals had also faced racism among Indonesians as well.

According to Robin, the struggle of mixed-race people to be embraced by both cultures has resulted in an inferiority complex, which has been passed down to the current generation.

“We feel ashamed of our origins, and we are very timid — not so assertive in public places. While queuing in a bakery, for instance, we will just let the Dutch people cut the line,” he said, while raising questions on the issue of purity and native blood in a world where people are migrating all the time.

Some parts of Indonesian culture, however, have been embraced by the Dutch over the years, including popular dishes such as fried rice, soto ayam (chicken soup with noodles) and gado-gado (salad with peanut sauce dressing), according to Robin. Some mixed race musical acts were also popular, like the Thielman Brothers and Blue Diamonds.

“Being aware of this baggage, more and more third-generation mixed-race individuals have been eager to explore their Indonesian roots by visiting the country and studying various archives,” Robin explained.

“Growing up in an Indonesian-Chinese family, I know how racial discrimination feels. Sharing is healing. By passing our work to further generations, we can help ourselves reconcile with the past,” said Angelina.

Robin hoped by healing historical wounds, the next generations of Indonesian-Dutch could be proud of their cultural inheritance. (ste)

— Photos Courtesy of Dutch Culture Amsterdam/Armando Ello

Popular

Indonesia not affected by Southeast Asia-wide heat wave: BMKG

Residents fear for safety as Mount Ruang volcano erupts

In defense of Indonesian democracy