Max Havelaar

by Multatuli

  Kemuning: Fine wood with yellow streaks, obtained from the root of the eponymous shrub and therefore never found in very large pieces. Very expensive.

  Ikat-pending: The pending is the waistband itself. Ikat: In bad Malay, a commonly used abbreviation of pengikatan, its clasp or hook.

  Susuhunan of Solo: The Emperor of Surakarta. In his official correspondence with the Governor-General, one of the titles he uses is “grandfather.”

  Kondé . . . caught in its own knot: In the first English translation of Havelaar, that excellent fellow Nahuÿs, without meaning any harm, saw fit to alter part of this description. He had Adinda’s hair held together by a ribbon, which is very un-Javanese. In the Edinburgh Scotsman, this blunder earned me a sharp reprimand from a Dutch correspondent—as chance would have it, a former tea contractor, toko keeper, and . . . wholesale rice buyer, which is to say, a profiteer of the worst kind, a true bloodsucker of the Javanese—who concluded from it that I don’t understand the first thing about the politics of the Indies, and that the natives are very well off.

  The type of ghost (pontianak) that dwells in trees is very hostile to women, especially pregnant ones. I don’t know if there’s a connection between this meaning of the word and the name of the Dutch settlement on the west coast of Borneo.

  “Eye of day” for the sun: A Malay expression.

  Pelita: A small lamp.

  Bajing: Javanese squirrel. This creature always seemed smaller to me than the European variety. It is easy to tame.

  Caning: Under the influence of Havelaar, this form of punishment was abolished—a poor decision, I believe. As usual, the debate was beside the point. If there must be punishments for petty crimes, then caning is more effective, more ethical, and above all more humane than imprisonment or forced labor on public works. On this last point, see p. 183. I regret not having the space to go into this matter more deeply here, as I first intended. Let me simply remark that the abolition of caning in response to Havelaar, given the deliberate disregard for the main point of that work, is a hypocrisy of Escobarian proportions. Yet again, the nation has allowed the wool to be pulled over its eyes. The reintroduction of caning in the Indies is an urgent necessity in the interest of the Javanese.

  An offering to the crocodiles is made after dark, by placing rice and other food in a bamboo basket or dish along with a small candle and letting the current carry it away. When a fair number of offerings are put out on the rivers, the gently drifting flamelets make a pretty sight.

  Balai-balai: Bamboo cot.

  115 I’ve heard that individual land ownership is now being introduced outside Banten. This very important initiative will probably founder on the difficulty of organizing the communal irrigation of rice fields. I must confess, I don’t know how this is done in the Banten area at present. Besides this measure, which is a life-and-death matter for Java, steps will have to be taken to protect the unsophisticated Javanese from the “commercial spirit” of certain industrialists. If the intent of this measure is to allow the natives to be wheedled out of their land by the first fortune hunter who happens to come along, then I am against it!

  116 It’s true that very fine straw hats are woven in Tangerang, which come close to Manila hats in strength and flexibility. Why doesn’t this industry receive some encouragement? If only un chapeau Tangerang could become all the rage in Paris, it would mean large sums of money pouring into Java. Indeed, there are many, many products of this kind in the Indies, including some of far greater significance, to which the European market remains closed—simply because the government requires all available hands for its spice shop, just like that fellow Drystubble, who knows and cares for nothing but his coffee. Oh—and then there’s sugar, too, we mustn’t forget that!

  117 On this song of Saijah’s, see the beginning of note 6. During my revision of the manuscript (in 1875), I learned that Mr. Wiersma, a missionary in Minahasa, had translated the Saijah episode into Malay. I am sorry to say I never had the chance to look at that translation. It would have been especially interesting to see this song in Malay. My version began, “Lihatlah bajing cari penghidupan”; I remember that, but not much more.

  118 The lines quoted here are from Tollens. They form the end of his fairly apocryphal narrative Dirk Willemsz van Asperen.

  119 With reference to note 84, I ask again whether I may fairly be accused of “exaggeration.” If so, then I’d think it would be most evident in the conclusion of the Saijah story. Yet there was no shortage of material!

  120 Never has anyone expressed any desire to see the evidence referred to here.

  121 Minister Fransen van de Putte promised the lower house that “stories like Saijah’s would no longer take place.” But there has been no sign whatsoever of anything being done to attain this end. On the contrary, he—not a bit less than his many predecessors and successors—always stood in the way of reform by distracting the nation with trifles.

  122 I believe I can prove that the number of poisonings—even in Europe—is shockingly high, but I will save that dismal argument for another time. As for the incident described here, the health officer Bensen reported in the Rotterdam newspaper soon after Havelaar was published that after Mr. Carolus returned home from Parangkujang, he survived not just for “a few hours” but—if I am not mistaken—for two days. I accept Mr. Bensen’s account without reservation and believe him to be an honorable man, and therefore acknowledge that either the widow was mistaken, or I misunderstood her, or my memory deceived me in 1859 when I wrote Havelaar. Bensen’s rectification is all the more welcome to me because:

  1. By making this comment on a minor detail, he has tacitly confirmed the overall accuracy of my statements regarding the main issues.

  2. In a piece apparently intended to gauge the strict veracity of my description of these incidents, he does not return to the particular matter of the liver abscess. If ever a denial were called for, it would be there!

  123 I do not know whether my predecessor’s body was exhumed as part of the investigation instituted by Governor-General Pahud in 1860. What I do know is that the District Chief of Parangkujang was relieved of his office on that occasion. The Adipati was punished by being allowed to keep the sum advanced to him and—as I was told but do not know for certain—with an increase in his stipend.

  124 I pursued this investigation in order to meet the obligations explicitly stated in my oath and my instructions.

  125 Pancens and kemits: Unpaid guards and servants. Appropriation of goods and labor without pay is a true cancer in the Indies, as Tamerlane (pp. 182–182) appears to have known. But our government still does not know it! Take, for instance, the incredible costs of a so-called inspection tour by a governor-general—“so-called,” I say, because the man is led around by the nose! Just recently, I was sent a newspaper from England with an article on this subject, in connection with the Prince of Wales’s planned trip to Bengal. Since I do not have the space to reproduce that article in full here, I will send it to De Locomotief in Semarang, and interested readers can find it in that newspaper.

  126 Pusing: Dizzy, confused, at their wit’s end. I can still produce the witness mentioned here.

  127 It is disturbing to see the moral pressure exerted on native chiefs, when a senior official leaves office, to purchase some of his belongings at fabulously high prices. What is more . . . they have no choice! Otherwise, they reason, the new Resident may think they have nothing to offer him. Needless to say, this bounteousness is ultimately at the expense of the common man. To my great surprise, I recently heard the high price paid for Mr. Loudon’s furnishings being presented as evidence of his accomplishments. It seems to me that, since he must have known the reason for those inflated prices, he should have prevented this wrong by issuing an explicit warning. That’s what I did, as poor as I was, when I left Lebak, and I can still have that confirmed by witnesses.

  128 I said in note 48 that there are those who will have a better understanding of certain expressions i
n this book than the ordinary reader, and that among them are Havelaar’s most zealous persecutors. That’s especially true of this brief passage, where I appear to have hit a sore spot with my reference to the . . . peculiar decision to renew the tea contracts in 1845. Again, it goes without saying that the person alluded to here was appointed as the representative of the entire Dutch nation. Our man in tea—who was also our rice buyer, etc. (see the note on the word kondé, p. 339)—acquitted himself quite well in parliamentary debates on political economy, the national interest, human rights, Indies affairs, etc., etc.

  129 See also pp. 79–80.

  130 The poisoning of Mr. Carolus.

  131 A clause in the oath of office.

  132 “And”—I might have added—“from murdering me as well.” Incidentally, the fear that the Resident himself would “tip off” the Adipati speaks volumes about the situation. And the Resident didn’t even feel stirred to protest that fear as a kind of defamatory supposition. Instead, he demonstrated through his actions (see p. 268 and p. 273) that Havelaar had understood only too well what to expect from his superior—even though the man had sworn the very same oath to protect the natives from the greed of their chiefs.

  133 Again, it is striking that Resident Brest van Kempen allowed all such statements to pass without protest, or even a request for clarification. His silence indicates that he understood very well what Havelaar was asserting, which, in turn, demonstrates the accuracy of my description of the general situation. Here, for example, the Resident should surely have asked, “What do you mean by the ‘spirit’ of East Indies officialdom?”

  134 Another remark like the one in note 132.

  135 “Frivolousness” and “prematurity” should be deplored and punished, to be sure, especially in such grave circumstances. In that respect, Havelaar’s loyal offer is beyond criticism. However, if it is taken to mean that a man required by the terms of his office to make a criminal accusation should be held personally liable for the truth of the accusation, we must concede that here Havelaar went beyond the requirements of duty. Who would ever agree to become a public prosecutor under those conditions? Yet Havelaar was too certain of the facts to allow himself even the smallest loophole.

  136 “Investigating, reporting, and proposing”—for clarity’s sake, all within the limits of my office, and by the authority of that office.

  137 That investigation did not actually take place until years later, and the government was forced to acknowledge that Havelaar had told the truth. See the August 1860 issue of De Gids, in which Professor Veth, after discussing the affair in detail, says the following:

  Since then Havelaar and his loved ones have lived in poverty, he has become an object of abuse for the Drystubbles—because the Drystubbles in the Netherlands still make common cause with the Slymerings in the Indies—and he has become Multatuli, not only in adopted name, but in fact.

  And what can we conclude from the fact that, after his dismissal, an investigation was in fact undertaken in the regency of Lebak, that the Adipati received a severe reprimand, and that a few minor chiefs were deposed?

  Firstly, the truth of the adage that petty thieves are hanged and great thieves pardoned.

  Secondly, that the affair had caused too much of a stir to be hushed up.

  Thirdly, that the wrongdoing in Lebak must have been very serious indeed, if even a Resident so fond of “finessing,” and so reluctant to prosecute a native chief, had to take the complaints seriously, and therefore,

  Fourthly, that Havelaar was absolutely right.

  So says Professor Veth. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to anyone, however, that any sort of compensation was due to Havelaar, or that the refusal to allow him any sort of legal recourse had most unfortunate repercussions for the welfare of the natives. Can any senior official in the interior be expected to do his duty, now that it has become so obvious that both the nation and the government will side with the wretches who turn a blind eye to the abuse of the Javanese people?

  138 See p. 273.

  139 I could have incited riot among the people. Instead, I did everything in my power to defend the honor of the Dutch government, as the Resident trusted I would.

  140 Nobody in Lebak doubts that my predecessor was poisoned. So why won’t Mr. Pahud have his body exhumed?

  141 I still possess this statement. No one has ever gone to the trouble of asking to see it.

  142 A tamtam is a large, suspended hollow wooden block on which the hour is struck. The name is another example of onomatopoeia.

  143 This letter from the Adipati is still in my possession and—rather characteristically!—torn to pieces, but still thoroughly legible. His intent in writing it was to implicate me in his extortion, and this plan would have succeeded if I had agreed to his proposals or thoughtlessly corresponded with him about them.

  144 In the third paragraph of this letter, I am criticized for performing my duties under the law by a man charged, above all, with reprimanding and even punishing me in the event of neglect of said duties. Furthermore, his dissatisfaction with “my attitude toward my superior, the Resident of Banten” is utterly groundless, and Mr. B. v. K. himself told me later that he couldn’t understand what this was supposed to mean.

  The claim that the Adipati had been “the subject of glowing reports throughout his career” was a falsehood. The official file on him showed repeated complaints. The comment that I had failed to support my accusation with “facts, let alone proofs,” is curious, coming as it does from a man who chose not to respond to my urgent plea for an opportunity to support my accusations with facts and proofs.

  It is untrue that I refused to provide “full disclosure of the information at my disposal regarding the actions of the Native Administration in Lebak.” It was precisely in order to provide “full disclosure” that I called for a free and open investigation. But I wanted to avoid falling back into the same kind of pointless “conferring” that had been so common under my predecessor, which had led only to the complainants being officially punished or covertly mistreated.

  “Unsuitability for office in the Colonial Administration” must mean that I was unable to work in the “spirit of the government,” which is to say, the spirit of the Slymerings, the spirit of the exalted Duymaer van Twist. The nation should have demanded that all those varieties of duty-shirking good-for-nothings equip themselves to work in the spirit of Havelaar. How can his subsequent admission that the government thought well of me be reconciled with his base insinuation in Parliament that he “could say so much”—did he mean “speak so much evil”?—“about the author of that book”?

  As for the assignment to Ngawi, there were yet more reasons than I gave on p. 279 to reject that appointment. But Van Twist, being so utterly ignorant of native affairs, was unaware of them. In picking that office for me, he was again the puppet of the Buitenzorg bureaucracy, which had a truly overriding interest in preventing me from making my case. It was a foregone conclusion: I had to be sent to Ngawi.

  As much as I would relish exposing the machinations that this entailed, I will refrain from doing so, as I am not at liberty to name my sources. Maybe one day this objection will no longer stand in my way.

  The final paragraph of this delightful letter means, once again, that it remained to be seen whether Havelaar had the competence and temperament to serve among those infatuated with the “spirit of the government.” And the judge of that would be some senior official or other in the Slymering mold! Anyone can see that Van Twist’s incompetence was not restricted to native affairs, and that he was an equal dunce in “the proper study of mankind.” Recall that he had seen Max Havelaar’s letters, written for the express purpose of jarring him awake. People of the Netherlands, what sort of creatures do you consent to have foisted upon you as viceroys of Insulindia?

  145 Which is near there: This is another illustration of my earlier remarks, on pp. 171–172, about becoming familiar with the situation in a region by residing in a neighb
oring province.

  146 That successor was Mr. Pahud, another crown jewel of insignificance and therefore a darling of his nation, which found him useful for five years as a minister and another five as governor-general. As the words of this edition clearly state, I knew in ’56 what three million of my compatriots have learned since—that “nothing could be expected from him.” That is also the version in the manuscript of Havelaar. But whether it was Mr. Van Lennep himself, or the typesetter, or this or that editor—how should I know?—one of those people saw fit to falsify my words. The sentence in earlier editions is, “I do not know his successor”—that is, Van Twist’s—“and I do not know whether anything can be expected of him.” I do not know what the intention was of this apparently deliberate alteration—it cannot be a printer’s error—but to me, it smacks of dishonesty.

  147 A member of the Society for the Benefit of the Javanese, speaking in Friesland—Bolsward, I believe it was—regaled his audience with the news that “Havelaar had sunk to the lowest depths, and left the service in a most unpleasant manner.” As far as I know, this did not lead to the speaker being shown the door. How it could possibly be to the benefit of the Javanese to slander the man who sacrificed everything for their sake, I cannot fathom. On this subject, see my letter to that priceless society in the collection Verspreide Stukken (“Scattered Writings”).

  148 As you read this letter to the Controleur, please keep in mind that it was addressed to someone who’d witnessed all that went on in Lebak, and who had moreover been involved in his official capacity. This document, particularly the episode described in the final paragraphs, provides the most concise proof I can imagine of the truth of my book’s overall message.