When “The Earth of Mankind” began Minke was enamored with all things European. “I was truly grateful,” he had said, “to all those people who had worked so tirelessly to give birth to these new wonders” (17). He accepted the belief that the Europeans are superior and that he, as a native, is inferior. He accepted the dichotomy they had posited of the European as enlightened, rational, and civilized, and the Native as childish, passionate, and irrational. However, by the end of the novel we see how Minke has changed. When the courts decide to strip Nyai of her property, and him of his wife he finally grasps the true nature of the colonial enterprise. “If no one wanted to listen, then I would know: All that glorified European science and talk of learning was a load of nonsense, empty talk (335).”
The Europeans created this persona for themselves as the benevolent civilizer. They had come to the Indies to teach the natives European science, and to give them a rational government to replace one where savage despots had “stolen people’s wives” (327). However, the end of the novel reveals this civilizing discourse as a lie, for the Dutch have proven as despotic as any Javanese king. Their science, their rationality, and their “just” laws are all pretenses to extract money, and power from the Natives.
However, Toer has taken pains to show that not all Europeans have bad intentions. The European discourse is not monolithic. There is Magda Peters who is a Radical and who believes that the Dutch should leave, there is Jean Marais who questions the war the Dutch waged against the Acehense, and the assistant resident who resigned over the unjust ruling of the Amsterdam’s Court concerning Mr. Mellema’s inheritance. Clearly Europe has texture, and there were many different types of Western discourses.
What I wonder is why has the violent, colonizing West always won out over the West that believes in natural rights and brotherly-love? Certainly there are different strands of Western thought, and the hegemony of the school that believes in brutally colonizing the natives was not inevitable. There are many kind and well-intentioned Europeans in this novel, so how come with all these sympathetic Europeans in the Indies it is a racist judge who ultimately is the only one who gets to determine the course of Nyai, Annelies, and Minke’s life?
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That is an interesting question to ask. My intrepretation is that Pramoedya is trying to reflect the actual situation of the Indies at this time. The kind and well-intentioned Europeans are far less in number and have much less power than the racist or brutalizing ones. The theories of humanism and equality that pop up in the novel are all fairly new philosophies and are just starting to gather a following. People like Magda Peters and Herbert de la Croix represent the minority of people who think that the Native or Indos do have the power or intelligence to govern themselves. Even though the sympathizing Europeans do exist, we must not forget that at the time period the novel is set in, the racist Europeans were the ones in power and the only ones whose opinions ultimately mattered. It would be nice to think the nice Europeans would be able to make a difference, but the rules of life apply when Magda Peters is sent back to Europe (indirectly) for her radical views. Pramoedya is trying to show that these humanist ideals are just starting to take form in the Indies but they have a long way to go before they can actually get established. Until then, power still lies vested in the hands of the racist judges and brutalzing Europeans.
ReplyDeleteMuch in the same way we’ve spoken about Minke and the other “hybrids” in the story as the first of the new generation of native-borns that will challenge colonial perceptions; Magda Peters and Herbert de le Croix are among the first of the colonialists who stand as cracks in the system. Counter to the judge they will be the ones who begin the loosing of the reigns. But just as we said about Minke’s generation; it is not their time. The unhappy ending we get is going to be one in a long line of failures that will have to happen in order to build the history of near misses that will propel the next generations forward.
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