Three Lions of Batavia : Part I
“To change the world one has to change the ways of world-making”
(Bourdieu, Social Space and Symbolical Power)
Departure
Jakarta, in the present day, is a modern city with skyscrapers and modern buildings dominating its vertical and horizontal landscape; millions of cars, motorcycles, and people moving along and crossing the streets signifying the life of the city; and the chorus of the honks of the vehicles, the shouts of the street peddlers, beggars, street musicians composing the rhythm and rime of the city. Then, try to freeze this ‘modern’ temporality and spatiality and travel backward in time-space to other timelines and spatiality of this city; to the times when this city was known as Sunda Kalapa, Jayakarta, and Batavia –to the time when it was entitled ‘the Queen of the East’. As we move along in time and space travel, we will find that this city was created and developed as the hub for cultural, economic, and political transaction across nations, the hub of transnational and global ‘cultural flow’. When we unfreeze the time, and look back again to the present timeline, to the current status of the city as one of the modern cities, where can we find that part of historicity and identity brought about by the past cultural flow? Is it frozen, confined, and trapped in the notion and materiality of cultural heritage? Or is it alive and made visible in the cultural practices of the people of the city and embraced as the part of their identity?
The questions led me to follow de Certeau ‘walking in the city’, and headed to The Jakarta History Museum and Glodok business district, both are located in the Old City of Jakarta. Located at the centre of Fatahillah square; the area of cultural heritage, Jakarta History Museum is the best example of how the collections related to the past and identities of Jakarta are preserved and then how the notions and ideas about this past are narrated and projected toward the present. While, Glodok business district area, which is also an Old China town in this city, provides me with the example of how the notion of heritage and identities are being exercised and enliven by the people in contrast to the narrative provided by ‘the official point of view’, as this area is the place and space where cultural transaction among people occurs. The result of this flaunerian walk, is these lion pictures
Lion of Fatima Church
Lion of Petak Sembilan
Lion of Stadhuis
On my curiosity, I ‘googled’ and found the information about these lions. One article in Wikipedia mentions that:
They are believed to have powerful mythic protective powers that has traditionally stood in front of Chinese Imperial palaces, Imperial tombs, government offices, temples, and the homes of government officials and the wealthy from the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220). Pairs of guardian lions are still common decorative and symbolic elements at the entrances to restaurants, hotels, supermarkets and other structures, with one sitting on each side of the entrance, in China and in other places around the world where the Chinese people have immigrated and settled, especially in local Chinatowns. (Chinese guardian lions)
Two important points I can take from this explanation: 1) the buildings where these lions stand (…government offices, temples…) and 2) the place where they are located (in China and in local Chinatowns). The lions in Fatimah church and the lion dance in Petak Sembilan signify the Chinese heritage and cultural practices that are preserved and practiced by the Chinese ethnic in this city. However, the lions in Jakarta History Museum may signify different reading.
Embedded as the part of the building which was built during the VOC period in this city, the lions to my perception signify the cultural transaction between the Chinese and the Dutch. This also implies, what Bourdieu calls as, ‘scheme of perception’ and ‘appreciation of practices’ of the VOC and Dutch colonial authority towards Chinese cultural identity. Contextualized this to the notion of the preservation of cultural heritage and the narrative of history of Jakarta, two questions arise here: How the narrative perceives and appreciates Chinese cultural identity in narrating the history of Jakarta? Does the narrative include this cultural identity into the identity construction of Jakarta?
The questions lead me to revisit the museum, and then try to read the narrative of the history it tells. And this mission leads to the points I try to discuss in this paper. Before I jump off to the points that I am trying to explain, let me sketch some notions influencing my analysis.
Theoretically, my points of argument are indebted to Appadurai’s ideas about cultural flow (Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy). In his arguments, he implies that the notion of cultural flow cannot be separated from the context of ‘global cultural economy’. He argues that this context moves the flow of five scapes which he terms as ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, financescapes, and ideoscapes (51). Another idea that influences me is that his concept about hegemonization and heterogenization. To extend his argument, I use Gikandi’s point of view in relating the context of globalization to the context of a postcolonial condition (Globalization and the Claims of Postcoloniality). My purpose to connect Appadurai’s ideas and Gikandi’s is that to link the notion of cultural flow to the context of Jakarta in the past which is one important seaport in the constellation of past global order. What I am trying to draw is that what brought the present landscape cannot be separated from this context. I am also much indebted to Bourdieu’s ideas about the construction of the social space (Social Space and Symbolic Power ) and to Hall’s ideas about identity and cultural identity. Some travel narratives written by some English travelers during 18th and 19th Century provide me with some information related to the history of the city.
I am also informed by books written by Leonard Blusse (Visible Cities) and Jean Gelman Taylor (The Social World of Batavia). Their analyses about the history of Batavia provide me with alternative perspectives compared to the narrative of History of Jakarta narrated in the Museum.
During my second visit on 8 May 2011, I was also informed by Pak Kasirun, an officer at the museum, who acted as my travel guide and informant. As an officer who manages the Collections and Equipment Section of the museum, he gives me some important information about the museum that enrich my perspective in analyzing the place; the museum. While my conversation with Pak Yulus Latif, owner of Warung Kopi Tak Kie (coffee shop), gives an alternative perspective about the history of this city mainly about the Chinese cultural identity and practices.
Lions of Stadhuis: The Speaking Silence and the Silencing Speaking
The questions about heritage and preservation of past cultural practices responded by the local government of Jakarta, through cultural heritage policy dated back to 1970. The cultural conservation zones in the area of Fatahillah square, located in the old city of Jakarta, is the result of the implementation of this policy. Walking around this square, I sensed ‘nostalgia for the present’ of the colonial time as passing the arrays of old building surrounding it.
Stadhuis/The Jakarta History Museum
Central to this square is the Stadhuis, City Hall of Batavia, which now serves as Museum Fatahillah or The Jakarta History Museum. Built in 1710, Stadhuis, had witnessed various cultural practices due to its status as the City Hall. Served as VOC and Dutch Colonial administrative headquarters, Stadhuis was the central for the Dutch authority to exercise power upon the people of Batavia. The centrality of this building continues up to current status as the Jakarta History Museum. As its name implied, the museum is the centre of the narrative for the history of Jakarta.
Built upon the old building and serving the narrative of the present, the Jakarta History Museum is more like the conjuncture of the two spatiality and temporalities. On one side, I faced the silent past confined, embedded, and carved in the architecture and the materials that construct the building. On the other side, I faced the present interpretation of the history as represented through the selection of collection it displays, the arrangement of the collections, and the division of collection rooms. Seeing from Bourdieu’s perception, this suggests me to read the objective and subjective construction of realities; in this context, the objective side of the materiality constructed the building and the collections, and the subjective side of the selection, arrangement, and division.
Therefore, this leads me to analyse the narrative on history of Jakarta into two focuses. First, the narrative constructed by the structure of the building which in this context relates to the past time, and second the narrative arranged by selection, arrangement, and division of collections, which relates to the present interpretation about the past.
The First Narrative: The Visible Lions
Built in classic baroque architectural design, the building is in dialogue with the red ceiling, the staircase, the door, the ornate stone floors, and two mythological lions which all of them constructed my perception about the visibility of Chinese cultural identity.
Handrails
Ceiling
Pak Kasirun informed me that the combination of red colour and the two lions symbolized “the symbol of fortune because at that time …the building served as Batavia city hall….” and the ornaments of the building including “…the profiles, the doors, …[which]were painted in red” referred to Chinese culture. And then, in response to my questions, he added that the Chinese had come long before the VOC came, and the Chinese were involved in the social orders of the city. In relation to the construction of the building, he added that the borrowing of the Chinese Culture was based on their research on Chinese culture and this relation (Chinese in Batavia and the Dutch), as I inferred from his statement, was also related to the China Emperor (China in the mainland).
What I can draw is that how the flow of technoscape and ideoscape materialized and put in dialogue with the construction of the building. This dialogue shows how the European ideoscapes of rationality and colonialism in conjuncture with Chinese’s mythology in signifying the spatial and social distance of ‘the colonial world’ of Batavia.
In his visit to Batavia around 19th , Worsfold captured this :
Batavia may be divided (like all Gaul) into three parts. First, there is the business quarter, the oldest, where the houses are tall and built in the style still prevalent in the warm countries of Europe, with balconies and verandahs and widely projecting eaves, and where the streets are narrow. Then there is the Chinese Campong, which, with the adjacent streets, occupies the central portion of the town, containing the bulk of the population closely packed in their curious dwellings. And, lastly, there is Weltevreden, the Dutch town, where the officials, the military, and the merchants reside. (33)
What I can relate from his description is that the Chinese was in a ‘close’ spatial and social distance with the Dutch, as is also implied by the building and the information from Pak Kasirun. It implies that for the Dutch authority at that time Chinese was very important. The importance of Chinese for the colonial world cannot be separated from the context of global trade at that time, as it is also implied by Pak Kasirun by mentioning “there was related to the Chinese emperor”. In his analysis about Batavia, Blusse points out that during the VOC time, Batavia was located in the network of inter-Asia trade along with Nagasaki and Canton (5). To maintain the good relation with the Chinese Empire in the mainland, VOC and Dutch authorities in Batavia gave special privileges for the Chinese in Batavia. He shows that:
[c]uriously enough, they provided comparable structures for Chinese institutions, such as the palatial dwelling of the Chinese kapitein (captain) that included an office where he met weekly with the other Chinese officers in town, and the well-equipped Chinese hospital. Directly outside the city walls stood Chinese temples and extensive cemeteries where the Chinese could bury their dead. (39)
What can I draw from this, is that the Chinese in Batavia was placed under the negotiation between political and economic constellation between the China Empire in the mainland and Dutch authority in Batavia. This implies that how the global context influences the local landscapes of Batavia and vice versa. Thus when anything befell with the Chinese in Batavia due to the policy of the Batavia authority, the effect would affect the relation between China Empire and the Dutch.
Blusse mentions that on the account of the massacre of Chinese in Batavia on October 1740 (Chinezenmoord), the interest of China Empire and Dutch colonial authority played its role (41). On one side, the carnage was responded by the removal of Adriaan Valckenier, the Governor General who was responsible for the carnage, from his position, but on the other side “[the China] emperor did not care about his overseas subjects, who generally were referred to as hanjian—traitors or renegades”. Two things can be inferred from this account: first, the Chinese in Batavia was not always in a harmonious relationship with the Dutch authority in Batavia, and the Second, the importance of trading relation between the China Empire and the Dutch authority was prioritized despite the interest of the Chinese in Batavia. Thus, it can be concluded that the condition of the Chinese in Batavia cannot be separated from a wider context of overseas trading between China and Batavia.
However, the flow of ethnoscape from China mainland to Batavia cannot be limited only to the colonial context, as actually implied by Kasirun by mentioning that the Chinese had come long before the Dutch of which he did not extend in his next explanation. Explanation from Taylor’s book provides me the information about this context. Taylor implies that the flow of the Chinese to this city also took place during the city was known as Jayakarta. Taylor mentions that:
WHEN THE DUTCH NAVIGATOR Cornelis Houtman first put in at Jacatra on 13 November 1596, the town was a minor port lying across the mouth of the Ciliwung River on the northwest coast of Java. Its inhabitants, principally members of the Sundanese ethnic group and numbering several thousands, lived within a bamboo enclosure; there was a small settlement of Chinese traders and arrack brewers outside the wall on the north side. (3)
This implies that the global context of this city was rooted back long before the Dutch named it as Batavia and the Chinese settlement in this city was dated back to this period. Therefore, a line can be drawn here: the landscape of this city always deals with the context of global trade and the ethnoscape; the Sundanese, the Dutch, the Chinese, and any other ethnics brought along by its position as the hub for global trade. However, this perception led me to wonder whether this information was also given and depicted in the narrative of the museum. Before I extend this further, let me go back to the point where I started.
Going back to the point of the dialogue between the baroque and China ornament, what I am trying to relate here is that the construction of the building cannot be separated from the structure of perception and practices of the social space of Batavia at that time; from how the Dutch privileging the Chinese ethnic in social structure of Batavia. The physical and social distance of the Chinese ethnic through the division of city space is brought together in the artistic construction if the building. This constructs the closed-tied relation between the colonial power and the Chinese.
On the other hand, this also signifies the superiority and power of the colonial ideoscape over other ethnics. By selecting and visualising Chinese cultural identity, the building distancing itself from other cultural identities practiced by other ethnics living in Batavia. It seems that the multicultural aspect of this city is silenced and made invisible in the structure of this building. It shows that central and periphery relation structured the social reality of Batavia is represented in the construction of the building. In his report, Worsfold mentions that outside the three divisions of the city “[o]n the outskirts of the town, along the country roads, where the cocoa palm and banana plantations begin, are the bamboo cottages of the Sundanese natives” (35). Thus if a line is drawn from the centre to the periphery, the series will start from the Dutch/European, Chinese , and to “native of Batavia” .
However, how then these ‘schemes of perception’ and ‘appreciation of practices’ are narrated in the present narrative of history of Jakarta? This leads my discussion to the next narrative.
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