UNKNOWN JAVA
Commonwealth and Foreign
By WILLIAM PATON
The main interest, however, of Java lies in the people themselves. They present the remarkable phenomenon of a nation whose religion is Islam, but whose folk-lore is Hindu. The earliest Hindu touch with Java seems to have been shortly after the Christian era, and it was both in Hindu and in Buddhist forms, as the great ruined temples, such as that of Borobodur, testify. The rapid Islamisation of the island would not seem to have been more than superficial, for the Hindu culture has persisted during centuries of Islamic rule. A graphic example of this is to be found in the popular amuse- ment of the wajang or shadow-play. Moving silhouettes are • shown on a screen, the pictures being created by holding cardboard or parchment figures with jointed legs and arms against the light. Apart from some standard clown figures, practically all the heroes are taken straight out of the great Hindu epic, the Mahabharata.
Another fact that suggests the presence of an Islam less rigid than that of northern India or the Near East is the growth in Java of a Christian Church of some 50,000 mem- bers drawn almost entirely from Islam. No other part of the world has anything like this to show. It comes therefore as something of a shock to find that Java sends more pilgrims to Mecca than any other region in the entire Islamic world. There were recently as many as to,000 Javanese studying in Mecca. Altogether a somewhat puzzling situation.
The Dutch are rightly proud of their work in the Indies. The other islands, such as Sumatra, Celebes or the much more primitive New Guinea, I have not seen (incidentally, it is in the other islands that the bulk of the million and a half of Christians are to be found), but Java, crowded with its forty millions of people, is admirably laid out, with splendid roads, a good railway, air cervices in all directions (you get from Batavia to Amsterdam in five and a half days), superb hospitals, and a school system which has been transformed in the last forty years. The older policy in the Netherlands Indies was to discourage the learning of Dutch on the part of the islanders, and such education as existed was in the vernaculars. There is now a double system of schools, vernacular and Dutch-vernacular, the latter leading to colleges of medicine, law and engineering, which (though not yet combined into a university) are approximately of the level of the Dutch universities. A child may start on the vemicular side and at a later stage spend a year in a " link- school " in which he will learn Dutch intensively, after which he may proceed to the secondary schools in which Dutch is the medium of education.
The Dutch have had great Orientalists among their colonial administrators, and it is possible that in the past they have been unduly influenced by them in the development of colonial policy, particularly in regard to education. There is, no doubt, some truth in the view that a culture based upon the vernacular preserves the continuity of society, and the whole of the East is full of the evidences of a higher education in the Western learning divorced from the deeper life of the community. Nevertheless, it is hard to see how either in the work of government, or in such activities as those of missions and churches, responsibility can be assumed by the natives of a country unless they receive an education of the same grade of excellence as that enjoyed by those whose responsibility is to be transferred. In the modern world that at least means a Western language ; those who know only an Eastern tongue are confined to limits which debar access to the moulding forces of modern life.
It is not surprising, then, to find in Java, compared with British. India, many fewer among the natives of the country who are able to stand up to the white man on an equality. That this disparity will disappear is certain ; at present, it means that the nationalist movement in Java, in spite of an ancient culture and contact with a European Power for over three hundred years, is greatly behind that of India in its vigour, its consciousness of purpose and in the mettle of the men it produces. It was with a slightly amused feeling that one listened to a leading Javanese nationalist expatiating upon the liberal character of the Indian Government—how that there were Indians in-the Viceroy's council, in the High Courts, in the Civil Service, while for them in Java none of these things were possible. All very true—but such bouquets are not commonly handed by Eastern nationalists to the Government of India.
The islands taken as a whole must comprise as many and diverse stages of civilisation as any similar area in the world. Islam and Animism as well as Christianity are found all over them. To the anthropologist they must be a happy hunting- ground. Bali, of course, is famous for its preservation of a complete society based on Hinduism. In the north of Sumatra there are Muslim tribes of rigid orthodoxy and great fanati- cism. I met in Java members of a Sumatran tribe, the Minang-kabau, who are Muslim, preserve a matriarchal order of society, and claim to be descended from Alexander the Great. In Sumatra, also, are the Bataks, a tribe which has during the last half-century become chiefly Christian through the labours of the famous Rhenish Mission. It is a pecu- liarity of the Bataks (who were formerly cannibals) that they cannot abide the smell of mutton. Snake or dog meat they can enjoy, but the smell of mutton they find quite intolerable.
The Netherlands Indies are likely to come much more into the world picture in future years. Already the question is asked : What of Japan ? The southernmost point of the Philippines is not far from the north of Celebes ; men ask what will happen to the Philippines when America goes, and it is known that economically the Netherlands Indies have much that Japan needs. Living almost under the shadow of the naval base at Singapore Dutchmen seem to be divided between those who rejoice in its protection and those who wonder whether it may not bring a war to their doors.
Whatever happens in the world of empires, the Nether- lands Indies are quite certain to become more prominent in another world, that of religion. Already, as has been said, they afford a most interesting example of the contact of Islam with other faiths. Between them Christianity and Islam are certain to absorb the whole of the primitive animistic peoples, though much that is animistic may sur- vive in Islam and, it is to be feared, in some kinds of Christianity. Those who are interested in the contact of Christianity with Islam would do well to keep their eyes on the Netherlands Indies.
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