オランダ領東インド植民地都市の心象風景:初期バレ・プスタカ小説を手がかりと して(<特集>植民地都市の社会史 : オランダ領東インドの事例)

Abstract

Many of the cities in Southeast Asia were created by colonial powers or transformed from forts, port towns or even villages to modern cities during the colonial period. From around the turn of the century they exuded a strong European atmosphere as attested by a comment and a drawing (Fig. 1) made by Osano Sase-o, a Japanese cartoonist who accompanied the Japanese troops invading Batavia in March 1942. How did the indigenous people perceive colonial cities, which were exogenous to Southeast Asia? This is the question I shall address here. In order to answer this question, specifically in relation to the Netherlands Indies, I review six novels, four published by Balai Poestaka and two by others, and try to glean common themes, topics, and expressions related to colonial cities. The six novels are Sitti Noerbaja-Kasih Ta'Sampai (1922) by Mh. Roesli, Salah Asoehan (1928) by Abdoel Moeis, Kalau Ta' Oentoeng (1933) by Selasi, Roesmala Dewi (Pertemoean Djawa dan Andalas) (1932) by S. Hardjosoemarto and A. Dt. Madjoindo, Student Hidjo (1919) by Marco Kartodikromo, and Rasa Merdika-Hikajat Soedjanmo (1924) by Soemantri. One reason why I chose these novels was that I had first editions at my disposal. As is exemplified by Sitti Noerbaja, there are sometimes marked differences between the first editions and the post-World-War-Two editions with respect to the usage or non-usage of terms and expressions evocative of the colonial period. Results of the review show that the six novels have few passages directly describing the characteristics of colonial cities. However, it is remarkable that they more or less exclusively use the same term kota to refer to cities and towns. In contrast, most writings in the nineteenth century use the term negeri or negri for this purpose, which means "country" and "region" as well as "city" and "town." This shows, it is suggested, that indigenous people already shared the same term and similar ideas about cities and towns by the time these novels were written. Four themes or topics are gleaned from the six novels pertaining to images of colonial cities : love and "freedom"; the question of "I" or "saja"; modern education and administration; and clock time and western calendrical dates. The central theme of the novels revolves around love in the face of social convention and tradition. The hidden theme in this connection is freedom or merdeka. The story about the person who craves for the fulfillment of love, that is, freedom from social convention, is narrated in terms of "saja." Other than Sitti Noerbaja, which generally uses "hamba" to describe "I, " the novels on the whole prefer "saja" to "hamba" or "akoe" in referring to "I." It is argued that "saja" began to be used in the meaning of "I" by Europeans in translating European writings and stories into Malay and talking to the indigenous population in Malay. However, the Europeans tended to use "saja" only in talking to their equals or superiors; to their inferiors they tended to use "akoe." The meaning of "saja" became more "democratized" as its usage spread among the indigenous population through schools, newspapers, political gatherings, meleseng (lectures and sermons) after Islamic Friday prayers, and so on. Behind freedom and "I" at the center stage of the novels, there stand two themes seemingly constituting the background of the novels' stories. The life courses of the heroes are in a large measure narrated in terms of their educational progress and careers in the bureaucracy, and they are punctuated by clock time and western calendrical dates. In due course, they fall in love, leave their native places, and travel to a city, where all the four themes converge. The novels describe the heroes' craving for freedom from old social conventions but fail to make explicit the emergence of new social conventions, shaped by new conceptualizations of space (education, bureaucracy, and colonial state) and time (clock time and western calendrical dates), which