For discusion

[A. G. Maisey]

This morning I have recieved a PM from one of our esteemed members.

This PM requested me to consider the removal of some of the text in a previous post. The text that the writer of the PM apparently found offensive was my translation of a sign that had stood at the entrance of a public garden in East Jawa during the 1930's.

It has occurred to me that failure to understand the context of my writing could generate offense in somebody who is not a native English speaker.

Please permit me to clarify this passage:-


During the colonial period a European demand for the unusual in keris arose, and at the same time, colonial policies ensured a depressed standard of living for native Javanese. We may look back upon this time as a golden period. Maybe it was for Europeans, but I can still recall the photos I have seen of the entrance to a public garden in the hills behind Malang in East Jawa. A sign at the entrance read (translated) " DOGS AND JAVANESE ARE FORBIDDEN ENTRY". Those photos were taken in the 1930's.


This translation is necessary to demonstrate to those who have no understanding of the situation in Jawa during colonial times of just exactly how the Javanese of the working classes were treated and regarded during those times.

This translation is in fact a condemnation of the colonial attitude, it is most definitely not a slight directed at the people of Jawa.

Too often Europeans and other people from western cultures who have only a cursory knowledge of Jawa will read a few early travel books and they gain the opinion that Jawa during the colonial times was paradise on earth. I have had people who had lived and worked in Jawa prior to the Japanese occupation, say as much to me.

However, this view of Jawa fails to acknowledge the plight of the pribumi upon whose backs the Dutch colonialists and their Chinese overseers rode.

I have had other people who have noted the failures of the new nation of Indonesia comment to me upon the stupidity of the pribumi in wanting to have their own nation, and to govern themselves when in fact they were little better than children, and would have been better off if they had retained the Dutch to guide and to manage them.

This flawed opinion fails to acknowledge that in colonial Jawa the working class people of Jawa were regarded as something less than human beings.

All people have the desire of self determination and to manage their own affairs.

This desire was denied the people of Jawa when they were under the colonial heel.

It is only by attempting to understand the attitude of the colonialists that we can understand the powerful forces that drove the people of the old Dutch East Indies to fight for their freedom from European domination.

The actual language in which the original sign is couched is precisely in line with signs which we can find today in Central Jawa, such as :- "Anjing2 boleh kencing disini" ( Dogs may urinate here) atau "Hanya anjing kencing disini" (Only a dog will urinate here). Walk around the market areas of Central Jawa towns and you will find an abundance of these signs --- signs which have been produced by Javanese people, for Javanese people.

[BluErf]

During the colonial era, there was a similar sign put up at the entrance of a park in Shanghai, China. It said "Chinese and dogs are not allowed in the park". This was told to me and fellow tour group members by a tour guide who brought us to the park. I was about ten years old then, but it left a very deep impression on me.