授業関係のお知らせ

This week we first looked into scenes from the film Max Havelaar that indicated interesting points, including a multinational component (including indigenous soldiers) of the Dutch army, an appearance of a Chinese man, and Malay language as a common language in the Dutch East Indies.

Then we start discussing questions regarding Chapter 8 of Osborne's book, The Years of Illusion: Southeast Asia between the wars, 1918-1941.

The first question is: Why is this chapter titled the "Years of Illusion"? How did contemporary ordinary Europeans perceive the interwar period?

To facilitate answering the question, we watched a video clip titled "Singapore - Crossroads of the East 1938". This footage, an audio-visual tour of the British colony of Singapore in 1938, typically shows how Europeans perceive the state of the colony in the interwar years; They believed in the continuity of colonization without understanding the changes taking place.

Finally, we briefly touched upon the second question: What is the difference between "traditional" anti-colonial rebellions before the 20th century and "modern" anti-colonial movements in the 1920s and 1930s?

Padri War (1803-37) was fought between the Padri (a group of Muslims who asked for stricter implementation of Islamic law) and the nobility class who wanted to keep traditional customs (adat). The Dutch helped the latter to defeat the former. The case shows a lack of nationalistic solidarity among the local population.

On the other hand, we will see in the 20th century, Islam was associated with nationalist or even Socialist movement.

We will continue on Chapter 8 next week.