Banalities of Subalternism: Positing the Tionghua Peranakan in the Colonial Discourse

By Sim Chee Cheang

ABSTRACT
Edward Said‘s Orientalism (1978) suggested that Orientalist discourse was a devious effort of the West to lure the colonized and the colonizer into an imaginary existence that would help ensure its domination of the East. Through the work of Homi K. Bhabha, this discourse was broadened to include the notion of delusive and elusive representations of the colonized “Other”. When Lacan introduced the psychoanalytic approach to complement the interrogation of tropes in western historiography, it became conclusive that the colonial discourse would embody resistance in the form of subaltern voices from the moment of colonial encounter. This article hopes to posit the Tionghua peranakan people within this colonial discourse, claiming their subaltern marginality and diaspo[ric] experience as the impetus that propelled them into a head-on encounter with the colonial.

Definition Of Subaltern
The general meaning of the word ‘subaltern‘ is defined by the Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary (1993) as “any officer in the army below the rank of captain”. Other dictionaries, including Webster‘s Revised Dictionary (2000), record this word under adjectival synonyms such as ‘junior‘, ‘lowly‘, ‘petty‘, ‘inferior rank‘ and ‘subordinate functionary‘. For our purposes, suffice it to say that a discourse in subalter[nity] is a discourse of power about a people in the grasp of an authority which subordinates the subject of the discourse.

The specific power discourse which we are about to acquaint ourselves with is a reference to the power of governance that explains the allusion to military semantics. In fact the word “subaltern” became a popular term within post-colonial discourse especially in reference to subjects in colonial outposts such as India. Twenty years ago, Ranajit Guha (1988) began publishing a series called Subaltern Studies whose objective was to resist the historiography of colonial India through a series of deconstructing descriptions and through recovering the histories of the subaltern. Dipesh Chakkrabarty (1992: 7) reviews Ranajit Guha‘s work in the following manner:

The declared aim of Subaltern Studies was to produce historical analyses in which the subaltern groups were viewed as the subjects of history.

In this perspective the subaltern refers largely to a people undermined by a hegemony, and who has been sidelined phantoms of colonial history. According to Key Concepts in Cultural Theory (1999: 223): The theory of hegemony, developed by the Italian marxist Antonio Gramsci, advances the theory of ideology, precisely by recognising that the ruling class cannot simply impose its own interpretation of the world upon the subordinate classes. Any such interpretation will be negotiated, so that culture becomes a site of class struggle.

Within the post-colonial discourse, the colonial imperialism of Western powers becomes the ‘ruling class‘ that subjugates the peasant nation by inflicting their views of civilization, knowledge and economic advancement for the sovereignty of their own nation. Antonio Gramsci‘s theory describes a reality experienced by many Asian nations stricken with the disease of Western imperial colonization even as early as in the 15th century. For the British, the post-1815 period, or more specifically, Queen Victoria‘s reign (1837-1901), represented their great age of colonization. While the British were concentrating their efforts on the Malay archipelago and surrounding islands, another equally strong European power was already quite established in the Malay islands of Java and Sumatera, also known as the Nusantara. The Dutch East Indies through the Verenigde Nederlandsch Geoctroyeerde Oost-Indische Compagnie or V.O.C. began their sojourn in the East Indies in 1596 in order to establish a spice trade which eventually was to lead to the conquering of strategic ports in Java like Jayakarta and Batavia. Ahmat Admat (1995) has provided a brief history of the beginnings of Dutch colonialism in Indonesia.

Motivated by economic gains, these western powers ensured profit durability by crippling native society through a system of exploitative rule. As support for these claims of abuse, postcolonial theory adopts a Marxist perspective that social structures have an economic base. For example, M.C. Ricklefs in his book entitled History of Modern Indonesia (1981) reports that in order to subsidize the growing expenditure incured by the wars with Napoleon in the early 19th century (the Dutch secured the whole of Nusantara only in 1830), the Dutch implemented the cultuurstelsel, a form of land cultivation in Java which (although never explicitly declared) involved the setting aside of parcels of land for the specific cultivation of products that were to be surrendered to the administration as payment for the rental of land in the outskirts. Ricklefs writes that:

Konsep [Johannes van den Bosch, Gabenur Jeneral di Java] tentang akan diperolehnya keuntungan oleh semua pihak berubah menjadi salah satu di antara kisah-kisah pemerasan yang lebih besar di dalam sejarah penjajahan. Para pejabat lokal, baik yang berkebangsaaan Belanda maupun Indonesia, menetapkan taksiran besarnya pajak tanah dan banyakanya komoditi ekspor bagi setiap desa, kemudian memaksa desa untuk merealisasikannya (Ricklefs 1981:184 translated by Dharmono Hadjowidjono).

Aside from the economic oppression of the natives, a list of social and political atrocities committed by the Dutch administration towards the natives is outlined in a novel entitled Max Havelaar (1860). The significance of the novel can be weighed by the changes it wrought on the administration in Indonesia from 1870 to 1900. A new system implemented at the insistence of C. Th. Van Deventer pledged to pay close attention to the education system, the emigration process and the irrigation system as a step towards rectifying their neglect and its effects on the native.

The example of Dutch rule is an echo of the colonial imperialism of others such as that of the Spanish in Philippines, differing perhaps only in the dialogics of time and objectives. What is extremely clear is that the subaltern in the postcolonial context appears powerless and is perceived to be so by his or her governor. Power in the conventional sense in conformity with a Marxist perception of hegemony is dictated by the persons who hold the reins controlling the economy, politics and social centres of a nation. To hold these centres, the person of power must have total control of the tools of language, knowledge and space. Inversely, the subaltern who is dispensed of these centres is without voice or identity, and is reduced to merely a shadow in the world of colonial imperialism.

The Tionghua Peranakan Subaltern
Having established these aspects of subalternism in a postcolonial perspective, we now ask; Where does the Tionghua Peranakan of Indonesia fit in? Perhaps the question of positing the Tionghua Peranakans of Indonesia into the subaltern discourse is nullified by their position as a community within the Chinese diaspora. Then again, the diaspora made them ‘occidental‘ subalterns since they were not without an identity or a history and they had had a choice of being a subaltern in another country or returning to their motherland China where the threat of subaltern non-entity may not have existed.

In choosing to remain in Indonesia, their port-of-call, however temporary their sojourn may have initially been planned to be, the first Chinese migrants chose the path of the subaltern. Subsequent generations of Chinese migrants were subjected to Dutch colonial separatist policies. Although the Dutch separated the Indonesians into three broad categories with the Europeans at the top, the Chinese in the centre and the indigenous people at the bottom, the Chinese themselves were divided into two sub-groups, namely the totoks and the Tionghua Peranakans. These two groups further divided themselves along political lines in the early 20th century, with political parties representing the interest of each group.

In the late 19th century, Chinese Indonesians were gathered together and forced to live in quarters that bred resentment toward the colonial masters. They were denied free movement and were not allowed to own land. …the Chinese were not so much resentful of these native criticisms as they were disappointed with some of the measures taken by the Dutch government toward the Chinese community in the Indies in general. They were particularly unhappy over the wijkenstelsel [residential zoning system] regulations which restricted their domicile to what were called Chinese quarters. They complained that they had no freedom of access to the native villages in Java and that their movements were impeded under the travel pass system introduced on July 21, 1863 by the government resolution of Staatsblad No. 83 of that year (Ahmat Adam 1995: 59).

To add injury to insult, while they were treated like outsiders and encouraged to maintain their own customs, questions of inheritance, marriage and divorce were brought before a Weeskamer (Court of Chancery) (Admat Adam 1995: 60 footnotes 12). On that, Leo Suryadinata observed: Chinese grievances came to a peak towards the end of the nineteenth century when the Dutch introduced the Ethical Policy attacking the financial strength of the Chinese (1976: 4).

The deliberate physical control of movement exercised over the Chinese Indonesians and ultimately the implementation of economic restrictions along with the interruption of cultural legacies leave us in no doubt about the position of the Chinese Indonesians as subalterns. A reminder of David Arnold‘s contribution to the issue of Ranajit Guha‘s (1988) Selected Subaltern Studies highlighting the fact that the body can be a site for colonial and subaltern conflict. Similarly Ania Loomba‘s observation of the subaltern discourse in general is an apt observation of the Chinese Indonesian subaltern. It reads:

…but whoever our subalterns are, they are positioned simultaneously within several different discourses of power and of resistance. The relations between coloniser and colonised were, after all, constantly intersected, spliced by many other forms of power relations. This also means that any instance of agency, or act of rebellion, can be truthfully assessed in many different ways (1998: 239).

It is thus necessary to determine the particular layer of power politics to be scrutinized by a postcolonial microscope. Chinese Indonesians separated into three different groups (in the early 20th century), namely the China orientated Sin Po group, the Dutch orientated Tionghua Peranakans (Chung Hua Hui) and the Partai Tionghoa Indonesia (PTI) which is the Indonesian orientated Tionghua Peranakan political party (Leo 1976). My analysis of the subalternism of the Tionghua Peranakan will be confined to the Tionghua Peranakan from Soerabaia who have generally been more inclined toward an anti-colonial stance.

Subaltern Insurgence
Although most historians agree that the insurgence of Tionghua Peranakan subalterns emerged clearly with the formation of PTI in 1932 (Leo 1976), the active pursuit of creating and establishing a common language of communication marks the initial steps of subaltern response. Attributing it to the amazing ability of the Chinese to learn a new language, in the 17th century, Dong Xi Yang Kao, a scribe for the Sultan of Banten reports that there was a group of Chinese who had embraced Islam in Java and who were fluent in local dialects (Claudine Salmon 1984: 2-6). Perhaps this signifies a linguistic displacement in the postcolonial discourse, often viewed negatively as the loss of the mother tongue by the colonised, which eventually silenced the subaltern.

However, the deftness in which the Tionghua Peranakan acquired another language abrogated their loss, since a new language was an effective tool of communication that rendered the subaltern less isolated and, most importantly, his loss could subsequently be voiced. Salmon Claudine has recorded how the Tionghua Peranakan substituted their mastery of Arab with Latin in order to accommodate themselves to the language used in Dutch schools (Claudine Salmon 1984: 2-6).

Perhaps the most significant move that obliterated the paralysis inflicted by the Dutch upon the Tionghua Peranakan was the adoption of ‘low Malay‘ as an emblem of their hybrid identity. Low Malay as it is called by several historians (Shellabear 1977/78: 36-37), is described as a Malay language that owes its origins to the need for a common language to enable trading between foreigners, locals and the Dutch administration. Loosely known as Melaju Rendah, Melaju- Pasar (Nio Joe Lan 1939: 14-19) and Melajoe Betawi (Ahmat Adam 1995: 9-10), it was the language the locals used in daily communication with the Dutch and other ethnic groups, including foreign traders from Arab or Persia. Although it may be of low quality – it was noted by Shellabear as but merely a jargon concocted by the mixed multitude of various tongues who live together in that island (1977/78:50) – its important communicative properties forced the Dutch government to adopt it as an official language. In adopting “low Malay” as their cultural language, the Tionghua Peranakan gained access to the legal system and media proliferation, both of which were tools calculated to give voice to the subaltern.

Beyond this, the Tionghua Peranakan chose a definitive way to prevent their existential erasure, and perhaps unbeknown to them at that time, to sear themselves into the memories of Indonesia. Just was the case with the aforementioned objective for the Subaltern Studies series, the Tionghua Peranakan immersed themselves in writing and publishing in newspapers, journals, magazines and literature. Their foray into writing yielded at least 3,005 products that include 1398 original novels, 233 western translations, 759 Chinese translations, 183 syair and 73 dramas (Claudine Salmon 1984: xv). Salmon Claudine acknowledges that these numbers were sourced from only four places, namely the Jakarta Museum, the Kotamadya Library in Yogya, Leiden University Library and the Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal, Land en Volkenkunde (KTLV) Library also in Leiden, but despite the quality of the language, Balai Pustaka has now recognized the writings of the Tionghua Peranakan from as early as the 1870s as the precursor of modern Indonesian literature.

In comparison to other forms of subaltern resistance to colonial domination, the Tionghua Peranakan‘s difference or rather strength lay indeed in their literacy. They were not the illiterate peasant divested of all, and thus silenced for good by the colonial power. What they suffered was a diasporic and disparate migrant milieu, compounded by colonial domination and racial prejudice. Ania Loomba reminds us of the dislocation and deracination of a diasporic people with these words:

It is important to recall that large numbers of people in the Third World have not physically moved, and have to speak from ‘where they are‘ which is often an equally ideologically or politically or emotionally fractured space (1998: 181).

In the numbness that besieged them, the Tionghua Peranakan first looked to the past in a desperate attempt to retrieve classical written works, and translate and then publish them in ‘low Malay‘ for distribution. But the diasporic Tionghua Peranakan‘s liaison with the romantic past of China quickly dissipated, to be replaced by an awareness of the need for an identity of their own. There were those in the Sin Po group who never really abandoned their dreams of China and instead continued their quest for Sinicism, while others pursued western ideals, either lured by promises of the colonial master or mentally snared by a Dutch education. The Tionghua Peranakan‘s quest for an Indonesian identity was in tandem with their subaltern resistance.

The existence of the large number of literary works, something hard to ignore, unveiled the insurgent tactics of the Tionghua Peranakan. They literally wrote themselves a history in a metaphorical sense. Armed only with a smattering of low Malay, they made sure that they would not be victimized by colonial history by establishing themselves in the publishing business. According to Ahmat Adam:

The participation of the peranakan Chinese in the Malay press began in 1869 when Lo Tun Tay assumed the post of editor for the bi-weekly newspaper, Mataharie, which had appeared from the Bruining & Wijt printing press in Batavia (1995: 59).

Although evidence suggests that the Tionghua Peranakan were driven into the publishing business by Dutch policies and the economy downturn of the late 19th century, there are indications that they specifically chose to embroil themselves in publishing because they realized its significance to their quest for identity.

Ahmat Adam further observes:
For the Chinese community the sale of the Gebroeders Gimberg press was symbolically significant. It marked the beginning of Chinese participation in newspaper publication and ushered in a new era of development in the vernacular press (1995: 64).

For the Tionghua Peranakan, the taking over of the Bintang Timor, one of the oldest newspapers in Indonesia, after the European owners went bankrupt not only signified an economic victory over the colonial power but also represented a seizure of a mouthpiece from the colonizer by the colonized. Economic and legal limitations were no longer borne in silence by the Tionghua Peranakan who through a multitude of newspapers called for a redress to policies that inhibited and underpinned them socially or politically. With the advent of formal education for the Chinese in 1905, the subaltern Tionghua Peranakan gained a voice that could now be loudly and clearly heard. The Tiong Hoa Hwee Koan was formed in 1905 and it offered a kind of formal education to the Chinese Indonesians in the Chinese language which was taught by an import from China. Although the THHK did not benefit the Tionghua Peranakan, it succeeded in prompting the rise of informal schooling (offered to the Tionghua Peranakan who did not know Chinese) in makeshift schools throughout Java by European missionaries who taught in low Malay.

References
Ahmat Adam. 1995. The Vernacular Press and the Emergence of Modern Indonesian Consciousness (1855-1913). New York: Cornell University Southeast Asian Program.

Edgar, Andrew & Sedgwick, Peter. 1999. Key Concepts in Cultural Theory. London: Rutledge.

Guha, Ranajit. 1988. Selected Subaltern Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Nio Joe Lan. 1939. Sastera Indonesia-Tionghua. Djakarta: Gunung Agung.

Loomba, Ania. 1998. Challenging Colonialism. London: Routledge.

Ricklefs, M. C. 1981. Modern History of Indonesia. Yogyarkarta: Universitas Gadjah Mada.

Salmon, Claudine. 1984. Sastra Cina Peranakan Dalam Bahasa Melayu. Djakarta: Balai Pustaka.

Shellabear, W. G. 1977/8. An Introduction of Straits-Born Chinese. JMBRAS Reprint 4: 36-45.

Suryadinata, Leo. 1976. Peranakan Chinese Polities in Java (1917-1942). Singapore: Singapore University Press.
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Sim Chee Cheang, The Center for the Promotion of Knowledge, and Language Learning University Malaysia Sabah, Sabah, Malaysia, e-mail: suesim@ums.edu.my

Source: www.penerbit.ukm.my
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