授業関係のお知らせ

This week we discuss the film Max Havelaar (now available at Youtube), based on a novel (a new English translation appeared in 2019) with the same title published in 1860, written by Multatuli (the pen name of Eduard Douwes Dekker). The novel takes materials from the author's own experience as a Dutch administrator in the Dutch East Indies. The film was directed by the Dutch director Fons Rademakers and released in 1976.

The film focuses on the idealistic colonial administrator Max Havelaar's eventually failed endeavor to change the local ruler's brutal treatment of the local peasants. Though depicted as a righteous champion of justice, Max Havelaar does not advocate abolishing colonial rule but aspires to achieve more humane colonial management. Whether or not he realizes that it is the Dutch colonial system itself that profits from colonial rule that perpetuates injustice depend on how we interpret the film's final scene.

In the end, only the nationalist independence movement, which manifested in different ways, could bring an end to the colonial rule in Southeast Asia. We will look into the emergence of nationalism in the following weeks, base on Chapter 8 of Osborn's book.