I have actually been wondering about that. Should a Republic of Indonesia form earlier in this TL, of approximately the same territorial makeup as OTL. Would they be hostile to Sarawak, even willing to go to war over it? Perhaps it would depend on how such a state forms.
Would such a state even form here? Are the Dutch east indies so unified at this time that the Javanese can in effect just oust the Dutch and make it their empire, without the events of the second world war?
The answers to that question will actually be addressed (or begin to be addressed) in the upcoming update. I will say beforehand that IOTL, the Dutch created one of the most centralized colonial administrations in the world in the East Indies under the Dutch East India Company and through later administrations. Many independence-era leaders / nationalists were educated through Dutch institutions in Java, especially during the Ethical Policy, which created a common identity among the elite of a unified Indonesian archipelago.
However, this is also counterbalanced with early ideas of separate states for some of the more notable ethnic groups, such as the Balinese, Javanese, and Ambonese. While most of these ideas were subsumed into the greater Indonesian nationalist movement in the 20's and 30's, a few held out till the Second World War.
I wonder if Sarawak may just expand enough to also include Western Kalimantan and "Great Dayak", they seem to be the most obvious bits of Dutch Borneo they might pick up eventually based on both geographic and cultural proximity.
Charlie MacDonald, Strange States, Weird Wars, and Bizzare Borders, (weirdworld.postr.com, 2016)
So, with all things considered, it’s safe to say that the Dutch East Indies is incredibly, mind-numbingly, and brain-meltingly diverse. There are islands that are larger than European nations and more than tenfold as diverse, not to mention the sheer variety of faiths and syncretic mixtures.
Now, have you considered of a way to piss-off nearly all of them?
Before we start, let me talk about Java. Despite the name, Java Island does not fully belong to the ethnic Javanese. In fact, the isle’s western half is inhabited by another great ethnic group, one that possesses their own history, culture, language, and writing system: the Sundanese.
And they have a traditional grudge with their eastern neighbour.
For centuries, the two groups have swung between reconciliation and hostility. In the most infamous event, dating back to the 1300’s, a match was planned between a princess of the Sunda and the monarch of the glorious Majapahit Empire. However, as the Sundanese royal family, nobles, and bride-to-be arrived at the Javanese court, it was revealed that the princess would only be wed as a concubine, not a consort, as a symbol of Majapahit dominance over their close neighbours. The outrage from this culminated in the horrific Massacre of Bubat; a slaughter of the entire Sundanese royalty and nobility by Javanese soldiers with the princess herself, Dyah Pitaloka Citraresmi, choosing to commit suicide and join her fallen family. Echoes of this event became embedded in local culture and to this day, there is still a popular saying of this outrage: “Javanese men should not marry Sundanese women.”
Now, fast-forward to 1903.
You are a high-ranking Dutch government official in Batavia or Buitenzorg, and you are unsettlingly worried (and yes, I believe that is proper grammar). Why? Because a new report mentioned of over 15,000 Javanese citizens permanently settling in faraway Makkah [1]. Number figures show that hundreds of Indies’ youths are taking their studies in Aceh, Johor, and the Ottoman Empire, and they are bringing the winds of agitation when they return home. Already, reports are afoot of local religious schools called pesantren where reformist ideas are being passed – not just to students, but their parents as well! And all this is done with the ever-increasing use of the Malay Jawi script, the lingua franca of Muslim Southeast Asia. The tide is shifting.
Understandably, you are worried. The last thing you and your mates want is another Aceh. But how can you change this? A travel ban to the Ottoman Empire? The anger from millions would be incalculable and would only redirect people to Acehnese and Johorean ports. Close borders with the two sultanates then? But they are the richest independent states around (discounting Siam) and there are many Dutchmen with lucrative businesses there, not to mention the explosive diplomatic fallout of angering two major states that can choke the Malacca Strait. Increasing local conversions is one option, but that takes time, more than you have.
Wait. What’s this? Some team of translators have successfully crafted a Standard form of the Javanese language? Could that be the answer? A new, controlled lingua franca that could stem the regional exchange of ideas? At the very least, it’s worth looking into. [2]
And this is where the bullcrap blew out.
Observe: Javanese (left) vs. Sundanese (right)
Also, nice try. But making the script look European does not make any of it understandable.
Chiefly, Standard Javanese wasn’t even meant to be a lingua franca! The language was a Dutch creation that was in-progress since the 1890’s; a hodgepodge of stunted words, butchered grammar, and simplified structure, which was so because actual Javan-Javanese has 3 different forms of speech, all of whom can be interchangeably used depending on your class and family and status and just who you are! A noblewoman would address her servant with one form of Javanese, and be answered with another! [3] No wonder the Dutch just stuck with Malay for a long while as the common tongue.
So the decision by Batavia’s Governor-General to approve, “…the experiment of local language change to Javanese.” was eyebrow-raising enough.
To do so when the very homelands of the Sunda people are literally around the capital, without asking for their consultation, was full-on absurd.
To say the Sundanese elites were offended were an understatement. The first local mass-protests of the 20th century had shouts of “Remember Bubat!” while rumours abounded that the Dutch, “…shallmake the Javanese dominant across the whole Nusantara.”(Another term for Sundaland. Oh look, what a name!). In an instant, local pride for the Sunda language became a boiling sore as clerks used the language instead of the traditional Malay or Dutch tongues, as well as writing orders in the traditional Sundanese script. The American explorer and noted traveller of the Indies, Theodore Roosevelt, pretty much encapsulated how many thought of the affair by laughing his ass off as he cried out, “Only in the Dutch Indies do they have native language disobedience!”
The Dutch tried to reverse the decision, but across the archipelago, people began asking, “wait, we aren’t Javanese. Why should we learn how they speak?” From the highlands of Toba to the terraces of Sulawesi to the bay of Fakfak, the catastrophe of the Javanese Language Experiment led to a lot more attention for local culture from local people, for good or ill.
In short, Pandora’s Box was forever opened…
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Oka Mahendra, The Dutch East Indies: from Colony to Independence (Bulan-Bintang: 1998)
…By the midpoint of the Great War, the local situation was irrevocably changed.
Given the swirling currents of change, it was perhaps inevitable for new groups and associations to form and ferment; there was still enough lingering bitterness regarding the Javanese language debacle for locals to form their own groups of self-interest, despite continued Dutch efforts at stamping out agitation. Now, the continuous coverage of the global conflict, the particular involvement of nearby Sarawak and Aceh, the influx of new European families fleeing the Repossession Laws of British Malaya, the experimental rise of modern industry at Johor and Aceh, and the wild swings in local prices of goods… all added to the transformation.
And with the seeds of a new education policy bearing its fruit in the first crop of modern intellectuals (ironically minted from the very patronizing Ethical Policy that created the Javanese experiment), a perfect storm was brewed that would accelerate local self-awareness.
Notable groups that grew in popularity during this period were:
Sarekat Batik: a union of ethnic Javanese batik cloth weavers and traders that formed in 1905. Considered the first secular economic group of the East Indies, the Sarekat Batik (literally: Batik Union) were concerned at the growth of European, Chinese, and Peranakan businesses that were outcompeting the Javanese cloth industry, which was heavily cottage-based. This concern rapidly grew to alarm during the Great War as fleeing Italian, Russian, and French families immigrated from British Malaya [4] and prices for raw materials spiked beyond the reach of most weavers. Besides advocating for local industry, the Sarekat Batik also called for boycotts of foreign businesses and self-sufficiency in the local economy.
Kampelan Sunda: Created from the backlash of the Javanese language experiment, the Kampelan Sunda (literally: Sunda Group) was made up of intellectuals, elites, and civil servants of Sundanese descent whom all advocated for the preservation of their language and culture. They were among the first groups to print their own pamphlets and were moderately successful at laying the foundations of a cultural revival in their homeland of West Java. However, the Kampelan Sunda were also the first to provoke racial tensions to further their own agenda; a 1907 riot involving a looted Chinese sundry and Javanese batik store was linked to the group whom accused the owners of price-gouging (in actuality, a Great War side-effect) and, two weeks prior, printed a pamphlet that espoused “the liberation of the Sunda people from foreign dependence”.
Jamiat Kheir: Revolving around religious and educational concerns, the al-Jamiyyatul Khairiyyah (Association of Goodness) was formed by a group of Arab, Hadrami, and Turkish families in Batavia in order to teach their foreign children a comprehensive Islamic education, as well as to assist the community in times of need. However, the association exploded in popularity during the Great War as locals clamoured for new Jamiat Kheir schools to be built in their villages, perceiving them to be better-run and more educational than the traditional pesantren hut schools. The Dutch authorities quickly banned the association in 1908 from operating outside Batavia, but the Jamiat Kheir continued to let local pesantrens to align their studies with the main organization – and to use imported books.
These and many other associations were not originally formed to combat Dutch colonialism, but their very character of fighting for local interests would make them the nuclei of political culture. However, the Great War-era Dutch Indies also saw the birth of two other, openly semi-political groups, each with completely different goals. They would play pivotal parts in the fate of the archipelago:
Sarekat Ambon: Perhaps the smallest of the new organizations, the first meeting of the Sarekat Ambon recorded only 29 people in attendance, most of whom were Christian civil servants, clerks, veterans, and traders from the Ambonese community in Batavia. Their home islands of Ambon were among the longest-held Dutch territories in the Indies (dating back to the Age of Exploration) and this longevity, coupled with the Dutch Ethical Policy of prioritizing Christians over Muslims, led to them being favoured both in the colonial army and government service. As such, the Sarekat Ambon was meant to protect the privileges of the Ambonese, whom were jittered over the Great War and recent language policy.
Dutch Socialist Association (I.S.V): Perhaps the most explicitly political group, the Indische Socialistische Vereeniging was actually the brainchild of a naturalized Indo-Spanish workman, Ignazio Dagala Soler, who based the association on its much more successful Philippine counterpart that flowered after the fall of the Devil’s Island prison complex in Italian Sabah and the subsequent escape of many Italian leftists [5]. Formed in 1907 with an initial attendance of 30 people, Ignazio espoused the formation of unions for Javanese rail workers and port hands, believing in the power of collective action.
On the village-level, these changes were exemplified in several ways, most of which were religious in character – though much of this was limited to the major islands of Java, Sumatra, and coastal Borneo. The first was the explosion in learning through the rise of secular and pesantren religious schools, some of which are affiliated with outside groups like the Jamiat Kheir. Another was the ‘critical mass’ of village-scholars, imams, and the orthodox-minded santri class now teaching in these schools, borne forth from the decades of migration between Southeast Asia and the Turco-Arab world. Thirdly, there was a resounding call for villagers to unite together to press for changes in local issues.
Lastly, there was the appeal of looking at the Dutch East Indies’ independent neighbours…
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Eko Rohmanudin, Centrifugalism? Change in the Dutch East Indies’ Borderlands (Journal of Southeast Asian Studies: 1989)
…For the most part, the roiling war between Italian Papua and the Royal Australian Navy did not impact the locals of Dutch Papua much.
Of course, this didn’t mean they were completely immune to the Great War or the goings-on up north. Whispers of armed conflict swirled around the coastal villages of the Onin and Bomberai Peninsulas while strange metal ships criss-crossed the straits, passing awed fishermen in their sampans and canoes. Strange demands were also being heard from the peoples living up in the Italian territory, calling for sulphur, charcoal, and malleable metals. Native traders were particularly perplexed by the sudden rise in the price of foodstuffs like rice, sago, and salt.
But other than that, ethnic difference and geographic distance made the Papuan front and the Great War a faraway issue for the people of Dutch Papua. What was more worrisome was the intrusion of Dutch control into everyday life.
This was already a creeping issue since the 1890’s, but the explosion of the War and the particular battles near Aceh and Sarawak amplified the pressure for Batavia to hold on to their slice of New Guinea. Makeshift barracks were swiftly constructed and filled with troops from Java and the Moluccas to patrol the coastal towns, which were themselves transformed into ever-jostling construction sites in the rush to build large docks and piers, capable of handling the oceanic might of the Dutch. Further afield, new trading posts were quickly erected to gain as much trade (and contacts) with the natives as possible.
And then there were the Christian missionaries, which were the most grating of them all. It was one thing to have faith, but another to have a person who would bark about it for hours and follow someone into a dwelling over it. For a few village-states, this went beyond annoyance; the coastal state of Patipi had converted to syncretic Islam and its sultan had sent forth imams to proselytize across the Onin and Bomberai lands [6]. Now, he was running up against swarms of missionaries that could out-walk, out-transport, and out-preach across the region. Much of the Onin Peninula would eventually be Islamized, but the conversion of Dutch Papua would belong to the colonizers.
So perhaps it wasn’t a surprise that Patipi’s sultan, Fahim Kanumbas, looked to the far west for inspiration.
A similar outlook was also spreading among many of the Malay sultans of eastern Sumatra, whom were shocked by the Javanese language experiment and its implications. For these rulers and the larger Malay people, their language was the lingua franca that linked themselves to the wider world; to cut it off would mean to sever themselves from their neighbours and to lose contact with the high scholarship and intellectualism of the greater Malay world. The recent moves by the Dutch to open missionary activity across Sumatra and to import new migrants from Java and beyond were also troubling for the local demography.
So it similarly shouldn’t be surprising that these sultans of Sumatra also looked abroad for inspiration and guidance. Only in their case, it was to the north and east…
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Notes:
Whew! This took a while. As you can all guess, the current crisis and the Great Lockdown has somewhat sapped my will to write, though reports of my disappearance are greatly exaggerated.
In a nutshell, the Dutch East Indies is starting to get really affected by all that’s been going on, and the conflicts/mishaps the Dutch have planted are slowly growing up to bite them – in small ways, for now. For the most past, this growth in modern self-awareness is taking place in the local level, which is why we are not delving into the actions of the Dutch officials much (and also, because I am more interested in local happenings). But there’s a hint of ethnic separatism amongst some of the elite and intellectuals brewing about, and a whiff of completely foreign ideologies that… may not gel well with local thinking.
Sidenote: If you wonder why I had to fall back on pre-colonial history despite this being an update set during the Great War (1905-190X), it’s because… I forgot to write about local history and culture as a backgrounder in previous updates, and now I have to fill them in lest future installments become devoid of context and be misunderstood.
Also, and despite the floridness of it all, the Europeanized Javanese script is really beautiful.
1. This is actually close to OTL! Religious pilgrimages from Southeast Asia soared towards the end of the 19th century; by 1910, the port of Penang recorded close to 10,000 Malays from across the archipelago partaking in Hajj and Umrah pilgrimages, and similar numbers of Indonesians were recorded living in the holy cities by the late 19th century. On a personal scale of reference: when I was in Makkah for my Hajj, my Malay-but-Saudi-born guide explained how the local hills used to be inhabited by permanent Malay and Indonesian communities until the Saudis started bulldozing them for their own megaprojects.
2. See Post #945 on the Javanese language change. It is worth mentioning that Dutch authorities were becoming increasingly worried at the congregation of East Indies’ locals at home and in Makkah and Madinah IOTL, and how pilgrims and intellectuals could talk openly on the colonialism of their homelands while on Ottoman ground, in Malay.
3. The closest I can compare Javanese styles of speaking is with Japanese honorifics and how different forms of vocabulary and grammar are used depending on a person’s relation to a family member or superior, but even that comparison is a bit imperfect. At times, the different Javanese styles can almost sound like different languages entirely!
4. See Post #1445 for how the Great War tore the European community of Malaya apart.
5. See the final paragraph in Post #929 for the Isolo del Diavolo / Devil’s Island prison complex on Italian Sabah. Also, f o r e s h a d o w i n g . . .
6. See Post #1034 for a background look into the Islamization of Patipi and Dutch activities in Papua in general.
Wait. What’s this? Some team of translators have successfully crafted a Standard form of the Javanese language? Could that be the answer? A new, controlled lingua franca that could stem the regional exchange of ideas? At the very least, it’s worth looking into. [2]
...Jesus Christ. Moved to Indonesia a few months back, and had a long chat with folks about the pidgin/conlang-made-lingua franca that is Bahasa Indonesia. They all said (none being Javanese) that if something like this was imposed, Indonesia would've collapsed in five minutes. Hyperbole, perhaps, but still...from what I've seen of Javanese...the horror.
Indonesia is clearly never going to be a thing ITTL.
The Dutch just blew the Javanese vs Sundanese thing up again.
The protectorates in Sumatra and Dutch Papua are going to stop being Dutch very soon. I am guessing that Onin and Bomberai break off and then the Aussies buy the rest.
Sumatra’s Malay kingdoms are probably going to break off as a group, after which Onin and Bomberai rebel, and Malay uprisings along coastal Kalimantan start, and Java and Sunda go into revolt. The Dutch are going to have to have to decide which independence movements they will have to allow to succeed to prevent all of them from succeeding, and they will probably pick the Malays, Onin and Bomberai over Java and Sunda.
Australia will probably end up owning all of Papua minus the Bird’s Head, Onin and Bomberai.
I think I may have set my standards really high after reading TL's like Malê Rising, With the Crescent Above Us, Minarets of Atlantis, Heart of Dixie, and (recently) Land of Sweetness.
If there's one thing I learned from all of them, it's that worldbuilding is really important. And that really weird stuff can happen, as long as there is context that makes sense (or not, depending on the weirdness).
...Jesus Christ. Moved to Indonesia a few months back, and had a long chat with folks about the pidgin/conlang-made-lingua franca that is Bahasa Indonesia. They all said (none being Javanese) that if something like this was imposed, Indonesia would've collapsed in five minutes. Hyperbole, perhaps, but still...from what I've seen of Javanese...the horror.
Yeah. This is also why the Dutch made the Standard Javanese endeavor as an experiment; they were aware that some disruption will arise and wanted to test the waters, but were blown back by the sheer vitriol and outrage it caused among the Sundanese, Malays, and other groups. The Malay language and its associated Jawi script has been the language of communication across the archipelago for centuries, even in the Hindu kingdoms of Bali. So the sheer thought of replacing it for that of a specific ethnicity - and one with a complicated vocabulary and grammar, at that - was seen as maddening to almost everyone.
On another note, which part of Indonesia did you move to?
The Javanese Language Experiment has definitely given a big boost to regionalism and separatism, especially in ethnically homogeneous regions. However, there are still many links that tie the D.E.I's peoples together, such as religious schools and scholars that are associated with one another, regardless of distance. The centralizing nature of Dutch colonialism (everything about government on Java Island, dammit!) is also a strong anchor that pulls the archipelago in step, and the Ethical Policy is starting to force new students from multiple regions to sit down together in classrooms and talk about unity - though as the Ambonese and other groups show, this is not an agreed subject.
Well, not exactly nationalism. But the coastal sultans of west and south Borneo are taking notice of the goings-on around the archipelago and the backlash of the Javanese experiment. For the common folk, there has been some new secular and religious schools built in the capital towns, with associations to the new organizations over in Java.
Parts of Sulawesi are also taking note, especially the southern peninsulas that once had kingdoms like the Bone Sultanate. In other parts and especially in the north (think Manado and thereabouts), Dutch missionaries are making inroads and the Javanese language debacle hasn't had much of an impact on these places - though the rulers have taken notice.
Wow! What a great chapter. Looks like the Balkanization of Indonesia is in the works, and the reasons you've laid down sound realistic and plausible. I do make me wonder however just how they plan to get full independence from the Dutch. OTL this didn't happen until after WWII after the Japanese invasion and the subsequent imposed administration gave them enough political strength to challenge Amsterdam. I'm looking forward to how these things resolve, wonder chapter.
I wonder what the whole 'no Indonesia' situation will lead to. No doubt the more resource-rich and already-developed parts of the DEI will be just fine, probably better off than OTL. However, I do wonder if the less developed parts may end up sticking with the Dutch to not become the playthings of their neighbours. Interesting times.
Wow! What a great chapter. Looks like the Balkanization of Indonesia is in the works, and the reasons you've laid down sound realistic and plausible. I do make me wonder however just how they plan to get full independence from the Dutch. OTL this didn't happen until after WWII after the Japanese invasion and the subsequent imposed administration gave them enough political strength to challenge Amsterdam. I'm looking forward to how these things resolve, wonder chapter.
Barring a foreign invasion or outside shocks, the Netherlands would have the upper hand in the D.E.I and possess enough power to stamp out any Balkanization attempts, though this isn't concrete after Aceh showed independence can be possible. Despite this, they may try to go with the British India-style system of local and provincial elections to mollify local nationalists. Or just conjure upa toothless legislature.
I should mention that with such disparate movements and groups around, a few might decide to put up a united front in an alliance or create an Indian National Congress-style organization. It's one thing to face the Dutch as a scattering of groups, but another to face them as a unified-(ish) force.
But if you ever read Indonesian history (or any national history), things can get a lot complicated when different groups and ideologies ever meet and mingle.
I wonder what the whole 'no Indonesia' situation will lead to. No doubt the more resource-rich and already-developed parts of the DEI will be just fine, probably better off than OTL. However, I do wonder if the less developed parts may end up sticking with the Dutch to not become the playthings of their neighbours. Interesting times.
That's an interesting position. Resource-wise, the archipelago is scattered full with raw resources and materials that could rival the Congo in sheer wealth. The only stumbling block was/is that the Dutch prioritized certain places more than others. For example, the island of Tarakan in the previous update had so much raw petroleum that it wholeheartedly made up 1/3rd of all oil exports of the D.E.I, and the Dutch invested heavily in the place and in parts of northern Borneo. On the opposite scale, the mountains of Dutch Papua were home to some of the largest gold and copper deposits on earth, yet they weren't prospected until 1939 and the ginormous mine that now sits there wasn't dug until 1973.
All this complicates the question of "resource-richness and development being conducive to independence." Some regions, if they do break off, can right themselves quickly as they know of the potential wealth they can export. But then there are other islands or regions also wanting out but have no idea how to monetize raw resources or conduct international commerce. And you are getting somewhere with a few islands maybe siding with the Dutchman they know against a neighbor they don't. For groups like the Ambonese, they may side with the Netherlands due to reasons of privilege.
Darud Dunya Palace, Kutaraja, Sultanate of Aceh Darussalam, 7 October 1907
“If you please, putri-putri?”
Entering the space, Raja Pocut Syakirah couldn’t help but be impressed. The small room was furnished to the full with multiple pieces of furniture and props for the photography session, with one particular stand being piled with an assortment of curtains, cushions, tomes, and plant arrangements that pleased her eye. Perfect for commemorating our introduction of us both as future sister-in-laws. “I think I’ll try this place first.”
“Where do I stand?” Uttered said sister-in-law, and Pocut turned around at the lilt of accented Acehnese. It was a strange thing to see a foreigner dress in traditional clothing, but Ayshe Konca looked stunning in the dress and fineries personally handpicked by Pocut’s grandmother. It is traditional for outsiders to don Acehnese clothing when in the presence of royalty [A], but to have beauteous Circassians be wedded into the family, it does well to bring out the stops.
“How about behind me for one session, and then you can sit in front for the next?” Pocut queried, taking her place on the chair. “And you need to tell me of the legends of Turki and Tanah Sirkassia after this! Especially the women’s tales! I simply must know of the girls who fought against the Russians when they arrived! And also-”
“Your Highness, please.” The photographer interrupted, ferrying his contraption forward. “Enough talk and hold your positions.”
“Oh.” Pocut stopped, the words still buzzing in her mind. The following minutes were full of silence and as she angled her body according to the man’s directives. Lady Ayshe – no, Putri Ayshe soon enough – assembled herself behind as the photographer made his final preparations.
Still, the images of Turkey and the mountains of her new sister-in-law danced in Pocut’s eyes. Like all royal ladies, she had heard tales of Circassia and how it fell to the horrid empire of Rusia, and how the mighty Uthmaniyah offered them as much refuge and protection as it could to the expulsed people. And having them to actually be here, in Aceh! For a moment, she wondered if her parents were reminded of their own struggle against the Dutch when they first saw Ayshe. I wish Mother and Father talked of their time in the mountains.
“You will have to forgive me then, sister.” The voice of said person whispered, her accented words lilting her ears. “I’m not much of a storyteller compared to my brothers.”
But I want to hear what it’s are like over there from you, Pocut wanted to say, but the spider-like machine was ready and she didn’t want to blur herself on its frames.
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Notes:
This piece was originally supposed to form the introduction to the next update (Aceh and Johor), which is underway. However, the length of the next instalment is now reaching so long, I need to consider making major edits or splitting up some parts in order to make it all palatable to read. In the end, it was either putting this up first, or have it cut entirely on editing.
Why yes, we shall be delving a bit into how Aceh and Johor sees the Ottoman Empire and her residents. And yes, we shall view just how that entails to Circassians being married off to royal houses in Southeast Asia, amongst other strange marriages.
putri-putri = princesses (plural meanings are formed when a word is duplicated) Turki = Turkey Tanah Sirkassia = Circassian land / homeland Rusia = Russia Uthmaniyah = Ottomans
[A] This may seem like an odd rule, but this is actually a documented subject amongst western traders in Aceh’s heyday. In the court and in the homes of major officials, it was customary for guests and envoys to don traditional Acehnese clothing presented by their hosts. No wearing the clothes, no business whatsoever.
[A] This may seem like an odd rule, but this is actually a documented subject amongst western traders in Aceh’s heyday. In the court and in the homes of major officials, it was customary for guests and envoys to don traditional Acehnese clothing presented by their hosts. No wearing the clothes, no business whatsoever.
This piece was originally supposed to form the introduction to the next update (Aceh and Johor), which is underway. However, the length of the next instalment is now reaching so long, I need to consider making major edits or splitting up some parts in order to make it all palatable to read. In the end, it was either putting this up first, or have it cut entirely on editing.
In that usually, many Western nations expect people whom they consider their inferiors to 'dress up' as them to gain attention and/or respect. To have the Westerners dressing up in Acehnese clothing to conduct business, that is a hilarious reversal. In another note, this is one reason why many (though not all) Europeans and Americans are hesitant to conduct business with Aceh.
No problem! The upcoming update is still being written, though don't expect a new post anytime soon. There is still a lot to write and edit to prevent things from becoming a giant Wall of Text.
In that usually, many Western nations expect people whom they consider their inferiors to 'dress up' as them to gain attention and/or respect. To have the Westerners dressing up in Acehnese clothing to conduct business, that is a hilarious reversal.
The interlude makes me wonder: how well-developed is the "western luxury" trade in the free states of Nusantara? For comfortable but not exceptionally wealthy and important people, are such parlour photographs, for example, becoming commonplace?
The interlude makes me wonder: how well-developed is the "western luxury" trade in the free states of Nusantara? For comfortable but not exceptionally wealthy and important people, are such parlour photographs, for example, becoming commonplace?
Well, for the majority of Johoreans, Acehnese, and Sarawakians whom primarily live in villages, they would care less if they get a photograph or not. But for those whom live in major towns and the capital, it is becoming a thing to get at least one photograph of yourself for either business, pleasure, or posterity, though there are still many families whom don't see it as necessarily important.
Photography in general was going through a transition phase IOTL, around the turn of the century. Ever since it was introduced to Southeast Asia, many photographers were transient men whom moved from town to town, advertising their services each time before moving on. They would take photos for a fee, but they would also be employed by officials to take pictures for government work, or take shots of nature, notable surroundings and events, or important figures to use as postcards or souvenirs to sell off. But in the late 1800's and early 1900's, most towns and cities had a permanent photo studio which led to many transients either going out of business or settling down.
As for "western luxuries", there is a growing market for such among the royals and high-classes of Aceh and Johor, but their numbers are still too small to truly sustain a market when compared to, say, the foreign residents of Singapore. Mid-range items though (Turkish rugs, Chinese porcelain, Japanese laquerware, Indian jewellery, etc.) are becoming a big thing for the well-to-do townsfolk. If you think Dayak tribes competing to buy porcelain pots was insane, just wait till the Acehnese spice lords get their hands on a Uşak carpet!
