a moment of inspiration

I have just finished reading "Krakatoa" by Simon Winchester. Funny that though I count myself as a new generation Indonesian, meaning, I have no attachment whatsoever to the "Old Batavia", I could not help but feeling nostalgic by his description of how Old Batavia was.



I have never got a "proper" Indonesian history during my formal education years due to the much propagandized history books then. It is always fun to read history from the view of a (hopefully) neutral person. In the propagandized books, the Dutch are always pictured as sadistic, sly, bloodsucking colonizers. Maybe some of the facts are true. Why try to rule a land thousand miles apart from your country if you can not get some benefits from the land? Purely social intentions? Nah I don't think so.

The irony is that... if not because of the greed of Indonesian people themselves at that time, the Dutch wouldn't have ruled Indonesia at all... and Portuguese were just too lazy to rule any distant countries and would easily be discouraged by several minor uprisings.

Here is what I am talking about: When the Dutch first arrived in Banten, they tried to build a small fort to protect their local interests. The Portuguese, being the first Europeans to establish themselves there, obviously did not like it at all. So, they prepared to attack the newly built fort.

Realizing their weak position, the Dutch General tried in vain to contact nearest colonies to ask for reinforcement. The other colonies simply said no... they were not that stupid to oppose the Portuguesans who have much larger firepower in the area. So, the Dutch was in a very precarious situation.

However, the Portuguese army never arrived because they were halted by the local minor sultan who feel that he would "deserve" whatever spoils the Portuguesans would have gotten from their obvious upcoming victory. The Portuguese basically said "screw you" to this slob, however did nothing but wait until this lazy slob got tired from blocking the road and let them attack the fort anyway.

It turned out, the big dog, the Sultan of Banten, heard of this news and got pissed at this sultan for trying to do such things. The Sultan of Banten felt that if anyone DESERVED to get a piece of the spoils, he would be THE ONE, since it was HIS area after all...

So, screw this minor sultan. The Sultan of Banten definitely doesn't really like the bloodsucking Portuguese and would like more allies to strenghten his fat grip on the area, so he made a pact with the Dutch: He would protect them from any dangers, while the Dutch would give him a share of whatever riches they got at that time.

This sudden change of situation scared the Portuguese away. They definitely did not want to piss the Sultanese of Banten. That would be suicidal at that time. So, they retreated and the Dutch miraculously got away from their predicament unscatched.

Everyone happy? Not really... The big dog, the Sultan of Banten, still pissed at this minor sultan, quickly deposed him from power...

The rest is history. That is the beginning of 350 years of colonization by the Dutch....

You see, money was thicker than blood even then... It was deemed as more important than our land, our own people. Screw them as long as I got money. Now I realized that the mentality had been there centuries ago.....

My gosh...