During the centuries, all nine Balinese kings—Klungkung, Karangasem, Mengwi, Badung, Bangli, Tabanan, Gianjar, Buleleng, and Jembrana—remained an unruly and obstinate lot, fiercely independent and not in the least interested in following the rules and regulations that the Dutch wanted to impose on them. They strongly objected to the curtailment of their power. Those pesky Dutch wanted to stop the nearly incessant fighting among the kingdoms, while not giving thought to how their demand for slaves would then be met. The rajas would also no longer be allowed to attack and plunder ships flying the red-white-and-blue, and not even have the right to cargo salvaged from ships stranded on their coasts.
Only in 1839 did all kings agree to recognise Dutch sovereignty. But whatever treaty was signed, its actual enactment was poor. The kings (all nine) remained stroppy and showed in no uncertain way that they did not agree to colonial power being superimposed on them. Unsurprisingly the colonial government did not stop complaining that its representatives were not received in a friendly and courteous manner, Dutch ships were plundered, and that letters from the Governor General were not responded to. This lead to a series of expeditions to punish the—some of them successful, quite a number not.
One wonders, however, what priority Bali was given in the colonial policy of the Dutch. The VOC's, and later the colonial government's, main interest was trade, and in that respect Bali had little to offer. Slaves were no longer a traded commodity after the British handed the Netherlands East Indies back to the Dutch, and Bali lacked the spices of Banda and Ambon, or the large foreign owned estates (coffee, tea, rubber) of Java and Sumatra.
Supremacy of the Dutch was not fully established till the twentieth century when in 1906, the raja of Badung, together with members of the nobility, some of his wives and children, and members of the royal household, marched into the gunfire of the Dutch troops, preferring death over a curtailment of his royal power and having to bend his knee to the Dutch. This puputan was repeated two years later in Klungkung. And after the remaining unruly elements were deported to Lombok, law and order was established. Dutch law and order, that is. Dutch sources of the day report that the common people were not sorry to see the kings go, as they had had enough of the lack of legal certainty (for the non-privileged) and the continual state of war that had been part of the old system.
That the population felt relieved might even be true and not wishful thinking on the part of the Dutch. According to the anthropologist Clifford Geertz[1] it is the Balinese who have the entrepreneurial drive to look for opportunities and to benefit from changing conditions. Whether made possible by the imposition of the new law and order, or because improved transport facilities opened Bali to the world, tourism started to become a profitable service activity.
Although negligible by present day standards, the number of tourists in 1930 was large enough to warrant the first tourist guide to Bali[2]. As an illustration of the Balinese entrepreneurial nous, the writer of the tourist guide, G.H. von Faber, remarks that woodcarvings of quality were becoming difficult to find, as carvers and traders, having noted that the tourists were undiscerning in their appreciation of the products, would prefer to produce virtually mass produced low-quality work and thereby improve their cash flow.
The 136 lorries, 264 busses and 787 rental cars, part of which were serving the tourist industry in 1930, have grown and grown and are still growing. Kuta, which in those days was a quaint fishing village with a beach and a government cabana to change into bathing costumes, has outgrown itself. Hotels, restaurants, bars, cafés, shops and market stands cater to the tourists' needs—cold beer, continental and American breakfasts at all hours, beach wear, souvenirs, it's all available at reasonable prices. What's more, thousands of foreigners have started a business, or taken up residence on the island, finding the official paperwork to get permits and licenses fairly easy, definitely when compared to other places in Indonesia.
If only the VOC, and later the colonial government, had let the kings keep their beachcombing rights, and sent tourists and cruise ships rather than Navy flotillas and marines, would not the Balinese, the common people, have brought about a smooth, silent and bloodless power change from the inside.
Sources: Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch-Indië, Martinus Nijhoff, 's Gravenhage, 1917
BALI, Het Land Der Duizend Tempels, G.H. von Faber, H. van Ingen, Soerabaia
BALI, Het Land Der Duizend Tempels, G.H. von Faber, H. van Ingen, Soerabaia
[1] Peddlers and Princes, Social Development and Economic Change in Two Indonesian Towns, Clifford Geertz, The University of Chicago Press, 1963. A comparative study of two Indonesian towns—Modjokuto, a market town in East Java, and Tabanan, a court town in southwest Bali.
[2] BALI, het land der duizend tempels, G.H. von Faber
No comments:
Post a Comment