Cultural Diplomacy and the Heritage of Empire: Negotiating Post-Colonial Returns 2019031534, 2019031535, 9780815382317, 9781351164245

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Cultural Diplomacy and the Heritage of Empire

Cultural Diplomacy and the Heritage of Empire analyzes the history of the negotiations that led to the atypical return of colonial-era cultural property from the Netherlands to Indonesia in the 1970s. By doing so, the book shows that competing visions of post-colonial redress were contested throughout the era of post-World War II decolonization. Considering the danger this precedent posed to other countries, the book looks beyond the Dutch-Indonesian case to the “Elgin (Parthenon) Marbles” and “Benin Bronzes” controversies, as well as recent developments relating to returns in France and the Netherlands. Setting aside the “universalism versus nationalism” debate, Scott asserts that the deeper meaning of post-colonial cultural property disputes in European history has more to do with how officials of former colonial powers negotiated decolonization, while also creating contemporary understandings of their nations’ pasts. As a whole, the book expands the field of cultural restitution studies and offers a more nuanced understanding of the connections drawn between postcolonial national identity making and the extension of cultural diplomacy. Cultural Diplomacy and the Heritage of Empire offers a new perspective on the international influence of the UNGA and UNESCO on the return debate. As such, the book will be of interest to scholars, students and practitioners engaged in the study of cultural property diplomacy and law, museum and heritage studies, modern European history, post-colonial studies and historical anthropology. Cynthia Scott is a historian and heritage scholar who earned a PhD in History from Claremont Graduate University in Los Angeles, California. Her career began at the Getty Information Institute, a former operating program of the J. Paul Getty Trust, where she managed numerous projects and helped lead a collaborative endeavor with UNESCO, the Council of Europe, INTERPOL and the International Council of Museums, that developed “Object ID”—the international documentation standard for identifying cultural objects in the event of theft.

Routledge Studies in Culture and Development Paul Basu, Wayne Modest and Tim Winter, Series Editors

There is a burgeoning interest among academics, practitioners and policy-makers in the relationships between “culture” and “development.” This embraces the now well-recognized need to adopt culturally sensitive approaches in development practice, the necessity of understanding the cultural dimensions of development, and more specifically the role of culture for development. Culture, in all its dimensions, is a fundamental component of sustainable development, and throughout the world we are seeing an increasing number of governmental and non-governmental agencies turning to culture as a vehicle for economic growth, for promoting social cohesion, stability and human wellbeing, and for tackling environmental issues. At the same time, there has been remarkably little critical debate around this relationship, and even less concern with the interventions of cultural institutions or creative industries in development agendas. The objective of the Routledge Studies in Culture and Development series is to fill this lacuna and provide a forum for reaching across academic, practitioner and policy-maker audiences. The series editors welcome submissions for single- and jointly authored books and edited collections concerning issues such as the contribution of museums, heritage and cultural tourism to sustainable development; the politics of cultural diplomacy; cultural pluralism and human rights; traditional systems of environmental management; cultural industries and traditional livelihoods; and culturally appropriate forms of conflict resolution and post-conflict recovery. Museums, Heritage and International Development Edited by Paul Basu and Wayne Modest Contemporary Perspectives on Art and International Development Edited by Polly Stupples and Katerina Teaiwa Global Heritage Assemblages Development and Modern Architecture in Africa Christoph Rausch The Cultural Turn in International Aid Impacts and Challenges for Heritage and the Creative Industries Edited by Sophia Labadi Cultural Diplomacy and the Heritage of Empire Negotiating Post-Colonial Returns Cynthia Scott www.routledge.com/Routledge-Studies-in-Culture-and-Development/bookseries/RSCD

Cultural Diplomacy and the Heritage of Empire Negotiating Post-Colonial Returns Cynthia Scott

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Cynthia Scott The right of Cynthia Scott to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Scott, Cynthia, author. Title: Cultural diplomacy and the heritage of empire : negotiating post-colonial returns / Cynthia Scott. Description: London ; New York, NY : Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, [2020] | Series: Routledge studies in culture and development | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019031534 (print) | LCCN 2019031535 (ebook) | Subjects: LCSH: Cultural diplomacy. | Cultural property–Repatriation. | Decolonization. | Netherlands–Relations–Indonesia. | Indonesia–Relations–Netherlands. Classification: LCC D842 .S326 2020 (print) | LCC D842 (ebook) | DDC 303.48/24920598–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019031534 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019031535 ISBN: 978-0-8153-8231-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-351-16424-5 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Aptara, India

Dedicated with gratitude to my parents, David and Nancy Scott, and to my husband, Greg Reeves.

Contents

List of figures Acknowledgements Introduction: the Netherlands and Indonesia: a rare success in the history of post-colonial returns 1

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3

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1

Colonial redress or post-colonial cooperation?: competing visions of cultural diplomacy in 1949

25

Cultural diplomacy at a crossroads: the Dutch struggle with Sukarno’s Indonesia, 1950–65

58

Cultural relations as development aid: reconciliation with Suharto’s Indonesia, 1966–70

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Returning cultural property: continuity and change in the cultural diplomacy of the Dutch center-left, 1970–79

120

Post-colonial cultural property return debates since the 1970s: the Dutch-Indonesian case as historical lens

153

Conclusion

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Index

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Figures

I.1 View of Batavia, by Hendrik Jacobsz Dubbels, 1640–1676 I.2 Portrait of Willem I, King of The Netherlands, by Joseph Paelinck, 1819 I.3 View of the house of the Resident, J. Ph. van Zuylen, in Banyuwangi (East-Java), by Auguste Antoine Joseph Payen, 1828 1.1 Japanese soldiers march through Batavia after the capitulation of the Netherlands East Indies government in World War II, March 8, 1942 1.2 Sukarno after discussions with Sjahrir. Behind him: Mohammed Roem, November 15, 1946 1.3 Queen Wilhelmina and Princess Juliana among soldiers, during a visit to Orange Haven (Oranjehaven), a club she established for Dutch exiles in London, September 11, 1944 1.4 During the “Second Police Action,” captured Republican leaders and employees were presented on the landing of the Residency office of Djokjakarta prior to deportations. In the middle: Lt.-Col. Van Beek, Commander, Special Troops Corps. Next to him: Sukarno and Hatta. Behind left: Sjahrir, Yogyakarta, December 19, 1948 1.5 UN-sponsored Round Table Conference on the sovereignty of Indonesia, in the Ridderzaal, August 22, 1949 1.6 The Frederiksplein, Amsterdam, during the Entry of Queen Wilhelmina, September 5, 1898, by Otto Eerelman, 1898–1900 1.7 The Lombok Treasure Room at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. On the left, a canon, in the middle, a display case enclosed by a fence and on the right another display case under a portrait 1.8 The security display case, surrounded by an iron fence, includes the great Banddjermassin diamond, gold krisses and other diamonds. Behind showcase is a display cabinet

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Figures

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1.12 1.13

1.14 2.1 2.2

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3.1

designed by architect P.J.H. Cuypers in which gold and silver objects are shown. On the wall hang medieval tapestries Room 157, in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, where a collection of gold and silver objects is shown. In the middle of the Hall are glass display cases designed by the architect P.J.H. Cuypers. Between these two cabinets, the security display case in which the “Lombok Treasure” is shown. The entrances to the Chamber with wrought iron gates closed Collection at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, of objects, precious stones, gold and silver work, coming from the Treasury of the Raja of Lombok and by the Netherlands East Indies army in 1894 on the capture of Lombok. The display case is surrounded by a wrought iron gate, right The High Commissioner of the Netherlands East Indies, A.H.J. Lovink, visiting the Bantam stationed troops of the first infantry Brigade Group of the C-Division, 7 dec. greeted by the school children of Waroeng Goenoeng, June 6, 1949 J.H. van Maarseveen speaking at UN Round Table Conference at the Ridderzaal, August 23, 1949, The Hague The signing of the Round Table Conference agreement on the sovereignty transfer from the Netherlands to the United States of Indonesia by Minister J.H. van Maarseveen, Sultan Hamid II (B.F.O) and Mohammed Hatta (Republic of Indonesia), in the Hague, the Netherlands, November 2, 1949 Sovereignty transfer of Indonesia enacted as Queen Juliana signs the deed, with Willem Drees and Mohammad Hatta Mr. P.J.A. Idenburg, October 30, 1967 Opening session of the Union Ministerial Conference in the building of the First Chamber at the Binnenhof in The Hague. Opening speech Dr. W. Drees, November 20, 1950, The Hague Mohammed Yamin at New Guinea conference at Schiphol with Minister van Maarseveen, December 1, 1950, Amsterdam Ministers of Foreign Relations, J.A.M.H. Luns, and Soebandrio, of Indonesia, April 1, 1964, The Hague Demonstrators destroy the Communist Party Headquarters, Djakarta, October 20, 1965 President Sukarno of Indonesia announces new Cabinet, July 26, 1966, while the new “strong man,” General Suharto, watches unmoved Meetings of Ministers, External Relations, Buono Hamengkoe, and J.A.M.H. Luns, September 5, 1966, The Hague

ix 38

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Figures

3.2 Lieutenant General Suharto (middle) and Sukarno (left), President of Indonesia, at the Bogor Palace with the press, July 19, 1967 3.3 Arrival of Adam Malik, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Indonesia at Ypenburg picked up by Minister J.A.M.H. Luns, October 24, 1967 3.4 Minister Malik at Soestdijk Palace in conversation with her Majesty the Queen, Juliana, October 26, 1967 3.5 Mr. E.L.C. Schiff, Dutch Ambassador to Indonesia at Schiphol, going to Rotterdam to attend the Conference of donor countries for Indonesia as Special Advisor to the Dutch Government, April 11, 1968 3.6 Arrival of Mashuri, Minister of Education and Culture in Indonesia, at Schiphol, October 22, 1968 3.7 Th. H. Joekes, Member of Parliament, Second Chamber, October 1968, The Hague 3.8 International conference on development aid in Amstel Hotel, Amsterdam. Minister Berend-Jan Udink in conversation with the Minister delegate of Indonesia, Mr. Widjojo Nitisastro, November 20, 1967 3.9 Tenth session of the Advice Committee for Cultural Cooperation, at the Binnenhof, The Hague 3.10 Signing of the international agreement on cultural relations between the Netherlands and Indonesia, by Ambassador Taswin Natadiningrat, and Foreign Minister Joseph Luns, January 8, 1970, The Hague 3.11 President Suharto speaks with Dutch ministers at Huis ten Bosch, September 3, 1970 3.12 President Suharto speaks with Members of Parliament in Second Chamber, September 3, 1970, The Hague 3.13 State visit of Indonesian President Suharto to the Netherlands (September 3–4, 1970). Gala dinner at Palace Huis ten Bosch, September 3, 1970, The Hague 3.14 State visit of her Majesty and Prince Bernhard to Indonesia. Queen Juliana and President Suharto walking before the honor guard, August 27, 1971 3.15 State visit of HM Prince Bernhard to Indonesia, with Ministers of Foreign Affairs Norbert Schmelzer and Adam Malik, August 28, 1971 3.16 State visit of her Majesty and Prince Bernhard to Indonesia, left Minister Norbert Schmelzer with Adam Malik, August 28, 1971 3.17 State visit of her Majesty and Prince Bernhard to Indonesia. Queen Juliana and President Suharto, August 27, 1971

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Figures 3.18 Her Majesty Queen Juliana and Prince Bernhard, receiving members of the Dutch community in the Netherlands Embassy in Jakarta, August 29, 1971 3.19 Demonstration by Ambonese (Moluccans) against the state visit of President Suharto, in Assen, August 22, 1970 3.20 Anti-Suharto demonstration at the Binnenhof in The Hague, September 1, 1970 3.21 Protest against the state visit of President Suharto, September 1, 1970 4.1 Joop den Uyl, April 27, 1971, Amsterdam 4.2 General Reflections by Joop den Uyl, Second Chamber, October 10, 1972, Amsterdam 4.3 Dr. J.E. Hueting speaking in Indonesia at cafe Pieterspoort about alleged war crimes in Indonesia, January 22, 1969 4.4 Minister of Culture, Recreation and Social Work, Henry Willem (Harry) Van Doorn (1915–92), (Political Party of Radicals (PPR)) giving a press conference at Schiphol Airport, North Holland, August 20, 1975 4.5 Meeting of Dutch and Indonesian delegations on the ¯ aramit ¯ occasion of the transfer of the Prajñap a¯ to the Central Museum (Museum Pusat), Jakarta, April 1978 4.6 Heads of Dutch and Indonesian delegations, the Netherlands Ambassador and the Minister of Education and Culture of Indonesia, who signed the deed of transfer for the ¯ aramit ¯ ¯ April 1978 Prajñap a, 4.7 The Submission of Diepo Negoro to Lieutenant-General Baron de Koch, by Nicolaas Pineman, ca. 1830–1835 4.8 Portrait of Raden Syarif Bustamen Saleh, by Friedrich Carl Albert Schreuel, ca. 1840 4.9 Peter H. Pott and M. Amir Sutaarga, on the occasion of the ¯ aramit ¯ ¯ April 1978 return of the Prajñap a, 4.10 Peter H. Pott, Director of the National Museum of Ethnology (Museum voor Volkenkunde), Leiden, on the ¯ aramit ¯ occasion of the transfer of the Prajñap a¯ to the Central Museum (Museum Pusat), Jakarta, April 1978 4.11 Dutch and Indonesian delegations at Museum Pusat, April 1978 4.12 Prince Bernhard accompanied at Borobudur exhibition at the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, April 20, 1977 4.13 Prince Bernhard in Zaire (formerly Belgian Congo), Prince Bernhard bestowing on President Mobutu of Zaire the Order of the Golden Ark, August 12, 1973

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108 110 110 111 121 122 126

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131 133 134 135

135 136 136

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Acknowledgements

In the process of working on this project, I have been encouraged, inspired and guided by a number of people. I especially want to thank the editors of the Routledge Studies in Culture and Development Series—Paul Basu, Wayne Modest and Tim Winter— as well as the anonymous reviewers of my draft manuscript, plus Heidi Lowther, Editor of Museum & Heritage Studies and Library & Information Science and Marc Stratton, Editorial Assistant, for their help and encouragement throughout the publication process with Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. I also owe a debt of gratitude to my graduate advisors at Claremont Graduate University (CGU) to whom I offer my sincerest thanks, including Joshua Goode, Janet Farrell Brodie, Jonathan Petropoulos and Elazar Barkan. For research funding and travel support during my time at CGU I am particularly grateful to The Honorable and Mrs. Ferdinand Fernandez for awarding me the Fernandez Prize in History (2013), to the Estate of Albert B. Friedman for two Friedman Awards (2009 and 2012), to the School of Arts and Humanities for support enabling me to attend the Emerging Scholars Workshop in Melbourne in 2012 and to the CGU Graduate Student Council for several Travel Awards. I also thank the CGU History and Cultural Studies Departments for fellowships in support of my doctoral studies. To the many academics and members of staff working in archives and museums who assisted and supported me in this project, I extend my deepest thanks, including Lyndel Prott, Susan Lêgene, Pieter ter Keurs, Katherine McGregor, Christina Kreps, Sarah Van Beurden, Jos Van Beurden, Roy Ellen, Peter Schumacher and Andrjez Jakubowski. For graciously receiving me during my archival research visits to the Netherlands, I thank Francine Brinkgreve and Siebrand de Rooij at the National Museum of Ethnology (Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde) in Leiden. I am also grateful to the staff of the National Archives of the Netherlands (Nationaal Archief) located in The Hague and the library of the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, KITLV) in Leiden, and to Lisa Maat for archival assistance. For support in securing photographic materials, I am grateful to Laurencia

Acknowledgements

xiii

Ekkers at Spaarnestad Photo for the National Archives of the Netherlands, to Ingeborg Eggink and Paul van Dongen at the National Museum of World Cultures and to Cecile van der Harten, Maria Smit and Bas Nederveen at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. In London, I am grateful to James Hamill at the Center for Anthropology, Fiona Sheales in the Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas at the British Museum, to the Bernie Grant Archives at the Bishopsgate Institute and to Beverly Emery and Sarah Walpole of the Royal Anthropological Institute. In Brussels, I am grateful for the assistance provided by Maarten Coutenir and Dieter Van Hassell at the Royal Museum for Central Africa (Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale, MRAC). I am also extremely grateful for several conferences where I began revising chapters for this book including in 2016, the Conference of the Historical Dialogues, Justice and Memory Network at the Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (NIOD), Amsterdam; and in 2014, the Conference of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies at the Australian National University, Canberra; the International Conference Political History at the Institute for History, University of Leiden and the International Conference on Looted Art and Restitution in the Twentieth Century at Newnham College, University of Cambridge. I am especially grateful for exchanges with fellow panel co-chairs, panelists and respondents at these meetings, including Susan Lêgene, Jos van Beurden, Folarin Shyllon, Andrzej Jakubowski, Sarah Van Beurden, Lucas Lixinski, Amy Strecker, Ciraj Rassool, Ana Filipa Vrdoljak, Wim Manuhutu, Klaas Stutje, Ulrijke von Hirshhausen, Joern Leonhard, Elizabeth Buetnner, Andrew Bellisari, Sunil Purushotham, Laetitia La Follette, Charlotte Woodhead, Janet Ulph, Ewa Manikowska and Evelien Campfens. My special thanks also go to Susan Lêgene at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam for inviting me in 2014 to lecture and to speak to her Research Seminar on the Historical Study of Cultural Relations between the Netherlands and Indonesia; and to Bianca Gaudenzi, Astrid Swenson and Mary-Ann Middelkoop—the editors of the special issue on Looted Art and Restitution in the Twentieth Century of the International Journal of Heritage Studies—for their comments on my article, and to the George Macaulay Trevelyan Fund, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge for a speaker’s travel grant. My fondest thanks also go to the organizers of earlier meetings which contributed to the doctoral research underlying this book, including the 2012 Emerging Scholars Workshop during the Historical Justice and Memory Conference at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, especially my fellow workshop participants, Dan Anderson, Michelle Bellino, Pawas Bisht, Maria Chiara Campisi, Debrin Foxcroft, Alexander Hasgall, Skye Krichauff, Hermann Ruiz, Julie Thi Underhill, Louise Vella and Yuliya Yurchuk for the inspiring exchange of ideas, written works and friendship. I also thank the organizers of the 2012 course for PhD students, on the Dynamics of Inclusion and Exclusion in Heritage Processes, during the Inaugural Conference for the Association of Critical Heritage Studies at the

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University of Gothenburg, Sweden: Anna Bohlin, Ingrid Martins Holmberg, Katarina Saltzman and Annelie Sjölander-Lindqvist; and the engaging group of participating scholars, including Kristal Coe, Silvia Colombo, Florence Fröhlig, Torgrim Guttormsen, Herdis Holleland, Johan Linder, Elisabeth Niklasson, Viktorija Pimpyte and Krystian Połomski for their camaraderie and good humor. I would also like to thank the editor of the International Journal of Heritage Studies, Laurajane Smith, and the journal’s anonymous reviewers, for their comments on the article published as a result of these special gatherings. I am also grateful for the support received from colleagues in the European Union-funded research project, HEURIGHT (The Right to Cultural Heritage—Its Protection and Enforcement through Cooperation in the European Union), including Andrzej Jakubowski, Francesca Fiorentini, Kristin Hausler, Alessandro Chechi, Amy Strecker, Ewa Manikowska, Alexandra Xanthaki and Alicja Jagielska-Burduk; at the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association, including Peter Blodgett, Barbara Molony, Janet Ward and David Wrobel; and the Getty Information Institute, including Robin Thornes, Marilyn Schmitt, Frances Biral and Vicki Porter. I am especially grateful to the J. Paul Getty Trust for providing professional opportunities during which I became immersed in issues related to the protection of cultural heritage, where this project was first conceived. My family and friends have been kind and understanding in ways that have reinforced me throughout this process. I am especially thankful for the encouragement of James Hull Jr. and Ellie Hull. I thank my parents for their enduring love and support. Finally, I thank my husband, Greg Reeves, for making this work and all things possible.

Introduction The Netherlands and Indonesia: a rare success in the history of post-colonial returns1

By the mid-1970s, the issue of returning cultural property to formerly colonized countries from museums in Europe’s metropolitan cities had taken on a new diplomatic urgency. Within the highly polarized United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), a number of member states in the emerging “Third World” coalition had begun agitating for the idea that former colonial powers adopt the “morally correct” attitude of addressing the legacy of colonial practices that had seen a wide-scale transfer of cultural objects to Europe.2 As they pushed to even the global economic playing field—with proposals for a New International Economic Order (NIEO), for example— some leaders saw the return of nationally representative and historically significant museum objects as one of a number of crucial steps that needed to be taken toward fair play and historical justice for past exploitation.3 In response, very few officials in European countries embraced what they saw as yet another anti-colonial ploy to undermine the West’s economic dominance, and to extract concessions in the wider context of Cold War rivalries. However, regardless of the resistance to such claims, the diplomatic challenges that came with decolonization had repositioned Europe’s museum collections into objects of contestation. As a result of the agitation, the UNGA assigned the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) the task of advocating for bilateral negotiation—the only avenue of redress open for resolving such claims. In due course, UNESCO began singling out examples of “success,” publicizing in a special issue of the journal, Museum, several exemplary cases, including: a 1968 agreement between France and Algeria over works taken between 1930 and 1962 from the Algiers Museum; an understanding reached that same year between Italy and Ethiopia over the return of the Axum Stele; a 1970 agreement between Belgium and Zaire for the Royal Museum of Central Africa in Tervuren to collaborate in building a national art collection in Zaire and an agreement between Australia and Papua New Guinea to return items from Australian collections to the new national museum in Port Moresby.4 Despite the contextual disparities, these exemplars were drawn together to provide a contrasting narrative to those some considered “failures,” such as Greece’s claims for the return

2

Introduction

of the “Elgin (Parthenon) Marbles,” and Nigeria’s calls for the “Benin Bronzes,” from the British Museum.5 Among the reports of “success,” the special issue included an article explaining a 1976 agreement by the Netherlands and Indonesia.6 Despite its co-authorship, the article was based on a note of advice to the Dutch government in 1974 written by Peter H. Pott (1918–89)7 —by that time, Director of the National Museum of Ethnology (Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde) in Leiden for nearly 20 years—in which Pott asserted, The problem of the return or transfer of cultural objects is rather complex and its solution demands a careful survey of the situation resulting from a historical process. As to the situation existing in the relations between Indonesia and the Netherlands, it is hardly possible to consider that it is the result of willful alienation of cultural property by the Netherlands administration from the former colonies.8 Pott’s claim that colonial authorities in the Netherlands East Indies had only inadvertently transferred Indonesian materials to the home country during the colonial era reaffirmed the museum director’s long-held reservations about returning contested items from Dutch national collections. Yet, despite Pott’s reluctance, the government did agree to return some colonialera objects that had ended up in Dutch museums. As the Museum article attests, a bi-lateral agreement had emerged in the mid-1970s following two meetings between Dutch and Indonesian counterparts—the first in late 1975—when the two sides prepared a Joint Recommendation to their respective governments—and the second in mid1977—after the Joint Recommendation had received official approval. At that point, an implementation phase began, continuing into 1978, during which experts from both sides selected objects from public collections for ¯ aramit ¯ return, including the renowned statue Prajñap a¯ from Singasari, the crown of Lombok and other items from the Lombok Treasure.9 These materials fell under the first category defined by the Joint Recommendation, of “State-owned objects linked directly with persons of major historical and cultural importance, or with crucial historical events in Indonesia.” Other categories pertained to objects that were not State-owned but, in the first instance, had once belonged to the Indonesian historical figure, Prince Dipo Negoro (also spelled Diponegoro), about which the Dutch government promised as far as possible to contact present owners to find ways of transferring them. They also included materials known as the state insignia of Luwu, which had been in official Dutch possession but lost after World War II. The agreement stipulated that should their whereabouts be discovered in the Netherlands, the government should be prepared to help arrange their return to Indonesia. The last category included natural history “specimens,” whose possibly unclear ownership the government should

Introduction

3

investigate. The Joint Recommendation also called for a program to create visual documentation of objects, which, if appropriate, could be kept by a repository in the other country, and established the principle that archives should be held by the originating administration, with reproductions being facilitated and transmitted to the other country.10 Over time, the article appearing in Museum would help establish the Netherlands’ reputation as a rare success in the history of bilateral negotiations over the return of cultural property in the context of post-colonial international relations. Since, following the report, experts in the 1980s continued to hold it up as one of the few cases in which a colonial power voluntarily returned collections to its former colony. Jeanette Greenfield’s volume, The Return of Cultural Treasures, for example, includes it in a short list of “instances of return.”11 Giving credit to the Netherlands and others, Greenfield described the actions as counter to the prevailing assumption, “that the return of cultural property [obtained in colonial contexts before 1970] is a hopeless cause.”12 Even E. Russell Chamberlin, who dismissed such disputes as “legalistic squabbles,” applauded the Dutch for their “positive approach,” which he characterized as “sane and civilized.”13 Greenfield and Chamberlin’s views were consistent with the available wisdom of the time. UNESCO’s publicity had made a lasting impression, and such reports helped associate the Netherlands with anti-colonial ethics that were emerging around the question of post-colonial cultural property return.14 Yet, news of the Dutch negotiations failed to explain why returns between the two countries were considered necessary, nor—as will be discussed in the chapters that follow— to fully acknowledge the history of post-colonial cultural diplomacy that finally made them possible. As for the “historical process” Pott alluded to in his defense of the Dutch government’s possession of museum collections from the former colony, the Museum article did not elaborate. However, we do know that the Dutch presence in the East Indies had been long-standing and deeply rooted in the histories of global trade, imperial competition, and finally, world war. It is to that history, and to the origins and expansion of their cultural involvement there, that the following now turns.

The Dutch colonial presence in the East Indies from 1595 Centuries before post-colonial questions emerged about returning cultural property, the Dutch began a history in the Indonesian archipelago. Starting in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries they played various roles in the region, as the United East Indies Company or “VOC” (Vereenigde OostIndische Compagnie) became the largest employer of European and Asian men.15 Arriving in 1595, nearly one hundred years after the Portuguese, they encountered Muslim governments, which had largely replaced their HinduBuddhist predecessors, but were now more widely established around the region.16 The Dutch traders sought rights to do business with local rulers and

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Introduction

Figure I.1 View of Batavia, by Hendrik Jacobsz Dubbels, 1640–76. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

to replace their European rivals. They laid down a network of settlements over those of the Portuguese, and in 1605 took over the fort and settlement at Ambon. In 1619, the VOC leadership established its headquarters on Java in the small port of Jayakarta, renaming it Batavia.17 Having replaced Javanese Muslim rule there, Batavia governed Dutch shipping, diplomacy with Indonesian kings and the distribution of cargo in Asia. They also coordinated fleets every year to return to Europe with cargo, plant specimens, business records and sometimes an Asian scholar or student.18 Yet, across the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, since Dutch settlements lay on the edges of powerful sultanates, trading activities also entailed raiding and putting Dutch armies and navies at the disposal of Indonesian kings against dynastic rivals. The Dutch also struck alliances with local rulers, either by military means or negotiation, in order to gain control of parts of the international trade.19 Since the Company had taken on several functions of state, including treaty-making and waging war in the Far East,20 by 1648 the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands held trading posts and forts around the world, and in Southeast Asia it had a ruthlessly defended monopoly position in the pepper and spice trade. Farther west, in the Caribbean, Brazil and North

Introduction

5

America, the West Indies Company (West-Indische Compagnie, or WIC) began extending Dutch possessions in 1621.21 As a result, between 1625 and 1675 the Republic excelled in trade, agriculture, industry and finance, and it made advances in science and technology.22 During this “Golden Age,” the Republic set many trends in fine art—especially painting and architecture— and in religious and intellectual tolerance.23 Yet, its dominance would not last. After nearly two hundred years of commercial activity, the declining VOC went bankrupt and dissolved in 1800. The French Revolution (1789–99) had brought invasion and an end to the Republic of the Seven United Provinces in late 1794. The next year, the Batavian Republic was proclaimed, but it only lasted until 1806, when the Netherlands became a Kingdom under Louis Napoleon (1778–1846), and was annexed to France altogether from 1810 to 1813.24 The Dutch state took over the company’s Asian territories, including its Indonesian ports, and Batavia became the Dutch administrative capital of the Netherlands East Indies.25 However, as part of the military and political upheavals of the Napoleonic era, Britain occupied Java between 1811 and 1815. Afterwards, following the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814, the East Indies was restored to Dutch control in 1816,26 and following the defeat of Napoleon, all Dutch colonial possessions were restored to the Netherlands by Great Britain (except the Cape of Good Hope, Ceylon and Giuana—later British Guyana).27 In subsequent years, during the struggle over hegemony in the region, Britain and Holland divided British Malaya and the Dutch East Indies into two respective spheres of influence.28 Then, between 1850 and 1940, Dutch rule spread across the archipelago, mostly through wars with indigenous rulers.

Scholarly learning during the VOC and early colonial periods The extension of Dutch colonial power during the VOC and early colonial periods included advancements in scholarly learning, and the emergence of an anthropological tradition, learned societies and museums. Initially, contact between the Dutch and indigenous populations brought forth some record of local cultures, mainly for trade and navigation purposes.29 However, early writings by naturalists, company historians and Protestant missionaries extended beyond strictly “commercial utility.”30 Later, Enlightenment impulses led to the establishment in the Netherlands in 1752 of the Royal Dutch Society of Sciences and Humanities (De Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen, or HMW) in Haarlem. Its members were interested in the study of Dutch trade, and the role of the arts and sciences in spreading Christianity in the colonies.31 The young VOC officer and naturalist, J.C.M. (Jacob Cornelis Matthieu) Radermacher (1741–83), impressed by the mission of the HMW, proposed establishing a similar institution in Batavia. It took twenty-five years for his proposal to be accepted, when an independent Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences

6

Introduction

(Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen) was established on April 24, 1778,32 becoming a Royal Society (Koninklijk Genootschap) over 130 years later in 1910.33 Across these long years, the artifact collections of the Batavian Society were assembled, initially by the donations of its members, starting with its founder, Radermacher, who contributed his house on Jalan Kali Besar, including its herbarium, books, musical instruments, coins and flora specimens.34 The decision in 1779 to display the collections marked the beginning of the Batavian Society Museum. Yet, belying its name, the Batavian Society did not consider itself a scientific institution since it was geared to the needs of the Dutch East Indies Company.35 Its Chief Director was the Governor General and its board and members were highly placed government officials and residents who appreciated learned pursuits.36 During the brief British occupation of Java, Lieutenant-Governor Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles (1781–1826) reinvigorated the Batavian Society and worked to increase knowledge of “indigenous society” in order to improve colonial administration for economic liberalization.37 This gave rise to studies of native custom, including language and local history, as well as to surveying of the temple complex, Borobudur, which led in 1817 to publication of a two-volume History of Java.38 The collections grew during the British period and Raffles provided another building (now demolished) to provide the museum more space.39 With Napoleon’s defeat in 1815, the Congress of Vienna brought unification of the northern and southern Netherlands into a single state for a time—the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, a constitutional monarchy— under King William I (Willem I) (1772–1843).40 At that point, Dutch foreign policy emphasized “the defense and the strengthening of independence,” especially from the Great Powers; however, a close relationship with Great Britain was seen as a protective measure that was mutually reinforcing to both the European balance of power and their respective colonial pursuits.41 In 1824, a revised Anglo-Dutch Treaty42 helped resolve colonial tensions by dividing the western archipelago. Yet, areas of contention remained, including British concerns about “expansionist politics in the Dutch East Indies, particularly in Sumatra,” and the “monopolistic and protectionist colonial policy” put in place by William I.43 As in the Napoleonic era, in the times that followed, political, diplomatic and learned pursuits overlapped and reinforced one another. At home, the foundations for museums were also being established. Under William I, new institutes were formed to advance knowledge and the arts, and the acquisition of collections began in the Far East, first for royal, but then for the eventual national museums.44 This included what would become the National Museum of Ethnology (Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde) in Leiden, whose origins were tied to the establishment of the Kingdom. Beginning in 1816, a Cabinet of Curiosities was established with the personal

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Figure I.2 Portrait of Willem I, King of The Netherlands, by Joseph Paelinck, 1819. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

involvement of King William I (with J.F. Royer’s collection of Chinese objects). It was made Royal five years later and expanded with the collection of Stadtholder William V (1748–1806). After 1837, other collections were added (including the German physician P.F. von Siebold’s collection of objects from Japan), and in 1864 the Royal Cabinet was transformed into a State Ethnography Museum (Rijks Ethnografisch Museum) in Leiden. It was later renamed the National Museum of Ethnology in 1937.45 These developments were not unique; across Europe in this period, numerous monarchies were transforming their antiquarian “cabinets of curiosities” into national museums.46 For the Dutch, after the establishment of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, scholarly learning began to thrive. King William I fostered scientific interest in the Dutch colonies, first by sending Professor C.J.C. Reinwardt (1737–1854) to the East Indies in 1815, to assess the potential for research. While there, Reinwardt’s attention was drawn to the monumental Hindu-Buddhist remains on Java. Between 1820 and 1836, subsequent researchers sent from the Commission on Physical Sciences in the Dutch East Indies (Natuurkundige Commissie) “followed in Reinwardt’s footsteps,” where they ended up assembling large collections of geological, botanical, zoological and ethnological materials that were sent to Leiden (now held in part by the Museum Naturalis).47 With the rise of scholarly

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Introduction

interests, therefore, ideas about scientific learning supported a wide range of activities in the colony.48 For Dutch antiquarians, the collecting of rarities, exotic items, natural materials, antiquities of earlier civilizations and ethnographic objects marked Enlightenment learning as part of the Kingdom’s early identity.49 As for the regulation of colonial collecting, later Dutch museum officials have slowly pieced together this history, including Peter H. Pott. Writing in 1975 on the subject of the possession of Indonesian objects in Dutch public museums, he explained that during the VOC-era, the policy had been strict with, an absolute prohibition on transmitting to the Netherlands of goods of which the Netherlands had not ordered. Civil servants of the VOC who repatriated had their own properties, which they could transfer or turnover then by means of a bill of exchange at the office of the VOC in Amsterdam. [Pott recalled, t]his provision was the reason why Governor-General Joannes Camphuys preferred in 1691, after his functions had ended, to remain in Batavia, [to avoid] selling his fancy collection of naturalis and (Japanese) ceramics.50 In addition, Pott emphasized, “the export of objects from Asia during the period of the VOC prior to 1795 was strictly prohibited because it would interfere with the trading system of that period.”51 Yet, collecting had increased, especially during the British interregnum, in tandem with growing interest by officials in the nineteenth century in the study of ancient temple sites and local peoples. This was part of a wider transformation—from antiquarianism to scholarly interest in antiquities— across the late VOC, through the British, and into the early colonial-periods. As Pott explained in the same text from 1975, It was only at the very end of the eighteenth century that Nicolaus Engelhard [1761–1831], one of the heist officers of that trading company, and a man strongly influenced by the ideas of Romanticism, started collecting antiquities from ancient sites on Java. Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, the Lt.-Governor of Java and Dependencies during the period of British occupation (1811–16) did likewise. [And, w]hen Netherlands rule was re-established in the years 1816–17, Professor C.J.C. Reinwardt [1737– 1854], who was commissioned by King William I to organize public instruction and research, sent to the Netherlands a small collection of antiquities chose [sic] from already existing collections, mainly from that of Engelhard.52 In other words, despite prohibitions, VOC-era and later colonial officials had become avid collectors. While Pott’s precision may have had a minimizing effect on conceptions of early collecting, a later curator at the Leiden

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Figure I.3 View of the house of the Resident, J. Ph. van Zuylen, in Banyuwangi (East-Java), by Auguste Antoine Joseph Payen, 1828. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Ethnology Museum, Pauline Lunsingh Scheurleer, would take a more expansive view, writing in 2007 that, In the eighteenth and the early nineteenth century, the antiquities were free for the taking in the eyes of the Europeans. It was quite common for higher officials to collect antiquities and erect them in the garden … or to take them home to the mother country. Engelhard, his subordinates, Raffles, the Resident of Kadu Valck—they all did this.53 In Amsterdam, as well, other curators have acknowledged, there was a brisk trade in ethnographic objects from Southeast Asia in the VOC and early colonial periods; however, unlike materials that were sent back by Engelhard, Reinwardt and other officials that ended up in state museums, these went mainly to private collections of rulers and wealthy citizens.54 The history of official prohibitions continued expanding however when, under William I, and his successors, William II (1792–1849) and William III (1817–90), new regulations emerged in the context of colonial collecting for

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Introduction

government institutions. In this period, the reasons included both fostering more control over personal collecting by colonial officials, and enhancing the state collections. For instance, following the British interregnum, the first Governor-General of the East Indies, G.A. Baron van der Capellen (1778– 1848), decreed in 1822 that private collections of Javanese antiquities were to be submitted to the Batavian Society. In the 1830s, as well, under the governorship of General J.C. Baud (1833–36), colonial officers were ordered to search for antiquities around the archipelago to add to the Batavian Society Museum collections.55 Then, the government decreed in 1840 that private persons were prohibited from taking antiquities as personal property, and export of antiquities—at that point allowed only to the homeland— required approval of the Governor General.56 In 1842, the government disapproved the “removal” of antiquities from their original sites, and the Residents were asked to provide “a list of antiquities in the Residencies” (something the government had tried without success to obtain in 1823) so that officials from the Batavian Society could select items for its collection.57 At the same time, in addition to enhancing the Batavia museum collections, the administration also set rules to protect the remains of ancient temple sites, and to prevent antiquities exportation, but again, to foster more governmental control. As Pott explained, A resolution was passed which declared all ancient monuments and sites public property, demanded the compilation of an inventory of such sites, and prohibited the export of antiquities. Later, officials amplified this resolution more than once; in 1858, the Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences was commissioned keeper of objects of cultural value which were owned by the government. The board of this society was very active in stimulating governmental policy in the line of the preservation of culture.58 In other words, the 1858 National Law on Items of Cultural Property required all archaeological finds to be submitted to the government for purchase; although budget concerns over maintenance limited the collections.59 Such precautions had become increasingly necessary, not only for absorbing looted materials from increasing military campaigns (as discussed in Chapter One), but for controlling collecting of Javanese antiquities by colonial officials—for both personal and national interests. It was the intensity of this activity that led the government to pass measures to foster “closer supervision” of their care. Therefore, even though the Dutch were active in the Indonesian archipelago since the late sixteenth century, it was not until the nineteenth century that the changes wrought by Europe’s philosophical and political revolutions began to inspire large-scale collecting in the interests of the state.60 Then, from the middle of the nineteenth century, until the advent of the Second World War, especially, Dutch museums in the colony and at

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home benefitted enormously from collecting in the colonial context of the East Indies. Over time, Dutch colonial expansion, in particular, contributed to the assembly of vast museum collections of art and artifacts. Despite such extensions, the early twentieth century also marked the beginning of the end of Dutch rule in the East Indies. For the Kingdom of the Netherlands, being strategically situated between the rivals of Britain and Germany, and possessing significant colonies, made it highly vulnerable in the period leading to the First World War. The economic and military rise of Germany, along with the relative decline of Britain, raised concerns in the Netherlands about whether Great Britain could support their defense at home or in the East Indies, if necessary, thus making it difficult to maintain neutrality and independence.61 In the 1930s, as well, during the Great Depression, the financial crisis increased international economic rivalry and protectionism. Economic and military tensions were rising, leading to the collapse of the League of Nations. Both internally and externally, the Netherlands was more vulnerable than before to threats, as were its colonial possessions in Southeast Asia. The East Indies suffered in the economic crisis that decade, and there were signs of the beginnings of an independence struggle.62 Japanese expansionism was growing, and the Nazi’s rise to power in Germany in 1933 created an increasingly dangerous threat on the Netherlands’ eastern border. The country’s pre-war policy of neutrality, which had protected it during the First World War, had finally shifted toward Britain in late 1940, and in October 1941, the Dutch government in exile in London decided to ally with Britain and the United States in the event of any Japanese attack on their forces or territories. As a result, following the raid on Pearl Harbor in December, Japan declared war on the Netherlands.63 By that time, Dutch perceptions of the national importance and economic significance of colonial possessions had increased, giving rise after the First World War to the famous slogan, “Indië verloren, rampspoed geboren” (The Indies lost, calamity the cost). While possession of the colonies still seemed to give the Netherlands the status of an important world power, its days were numbered. As historian Duco Hellema concluded, “It was an Indian summer for all the colonial powers.”64

The question of post-colonial cultural property return After the Second World War, and in the decades following independence until now, few scholars have explored how Dutch officials struggled with the question of returning cultural property to Indonesia, and with what its answer would mean to conceptions of the Netherlands’ cultural role there going forward. This book provides such an exploration. It argues that Dutch officials persistently linked cultural property return with both the establishment of good post-colonial cultural relations, and more importantly, an ongoing Dutch presence in Indonesia’s cultural life. This linkage limited the range of responses officials could make to Indonesian demands for returns. For example, when Dutch-Indonesian relations foundered in the 1950s and

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early 1960s, the Dutch government resisted the idea of returning cultural treasures if it meant relinquishing another colonial possession to Sukarno. In other words, in the absence of good cultural relations, officials could not let returns be seen as gestures of surrender, nor of remorse, or admissions of wrongdoing. The response of Dutch officials was not static, however. It transformed as the post-colonial situations in Indonesia and in the Netherlands changed. When Indonesia’s next president, Suharto, came to power in the mid-1960s, and the Netherlands was finding a wider role as international aid donor, Dutch officials were eager to renew cultural relations and to consider making returns if they were defined as aid toward the development of Indonesian repositories. They carried forward the idea of renewing and expanding cultural relations with Indonesia under center-right and center-left governments, both of which were eager to reassert traditional approaches to Indonesian cultural learning, but on their own terms. Tracing their visions of a Dutch cultural role in Indonesia, therefore, helps reveal the shifting ideals and disappointments in Dutch-Indonesian foreign relations by successive governments. Yet, due to the importance of colonial collecting to the emergence of Dutch identity in the colonial period, it also provides insights into their changing and competing post-colonial national narratives and colonial memory. By tracing the history of Dutch negotiations with Indonesia over the return of cultural property, Cultural Diplomacy and the Heritage of Empire shows that competing visions of post-colonial redress and reconciliation were contested throughout the era of post-World War II decolonization. As a result, rather than embracing claims for redress alone—such as the return of cultural property—Dutch officials favored a reconciliation based on renewing the presence of experts in the former colony instead. The transfer of cultural property was possible too, but only in the event of an ongoing cultural role. On one level, therefore, this reaffirms the difficulties of cultural diplomacy with Indonesia during the Sukarno era (1945–65), the challenges Dutch officials faced after decolonization in redefining the roles of museums and expertise developed in the colonial era (1950–65), and the eagerness with which they moved toward renewing cultural relations during the rise of Suharto (1966–98). On another, it offers a new understanding of how officials tied cultural diplomacy into emerging funding schemes for development cooperation—providing the Dutch a new international role—and in so doing, helped repair Dutch pride—damaged by the decolonization process— offered validation for particular images of a collective past, and contributed to the advance of contemporary imaginings of the country’s post-colonial future. Beyond highlighting the historical significance of the Dutch approach to cultural relations with Indonesia, Cultural Diplomacy and the Heritage of Empire also offers a new perspective on the international influence of the UNGA and UNESCO on the return debate. For since the 1970s, due to the timing of Dutch transfers, and their seeming responsiveness to international pressure to engage in bilateral negotiation over post-colonial returns,

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UNESCO publicity efforts helped the Netherlands gain a rare reputation for demonstrating goodwill on the issue of returning cultural property. This limited understanding speaks to UNESCO’s broader role in promoting and publicizing the voluntary return of cultural property dispersed under colonialism or imperial pursuits before 1970. As Chapter Five revisits, while supporters have looked to UNESCO to provide a forum for exerting international pressure on states to negotiate return settlements, detractors have criticized UNESCO for pushing “Third World” nationalism over the international or “universal” values of Western museums. The predominance of scholarly debate within and around UNESCO, however, has overlooked the emergence of some bilateral negotiations prior to, and independent of, its later engagement.65 Rather than over emphasizing UNESCO’s role, this book illustrates that historical research into the specific dynamics of post-colonial diplomacy offers a more complex reading of longer term bilateral negotiations. Instead of simply providing positive or negative exemplars of post-colonial return, critical historical research helps position the return of cultural property within a broader framework of the shifting post-colonial relations negotiated between former colonizers and leaders of newly independent states. The growing activism within UNESCO in the 1970s and subsequent debate about its handling of the issue are an important part, but only one part, of the complex history of post-colonial cultural property return. As the following chapters demonstrate, Dutch policy predated political developments within UNESCO, and remained independent despite coinciding with key milestones in the history of anti-colonial activism around the issue of cultural property return. In addition, while critics of post-colonial cultural property return have often highlighted the instrumental uses of such disputes by “nationalistic” leaders of former colonies, desperate to shore up internal political support for their regimes, less often have they considered the diplomatic and political motivations of officials in the former colonial powers. This book asserts instead that explorations of post-colonial cultural property disputes in European history help reveal the ways officials of former colonial powers negotiated decolonization, while also creating contemporary understandings of their nations’ pasts. In other words, by introducing an exemplary case in the cultural restitution debate—centered on the Netherlands and Indonesia—this book expands the field of cultural restitution studies, and connects it to national identity-making through the extension of postcolonial cultural diplomacy. That is, this study departs from published reports fostered by UNESCO, by exploring in particular how Dutch officials handled the question of returning cultural property in the decades following Indonesia’s independence, and by revealing what its answer would mean to Dutch conceptions of the Netherlands’ historical and contemporary cultural roles there. It builds on the work of other scholars though, especially those who began to understand cultural relations with Indonesia as part of the history

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of Dutch foreign development aid. When historians Susan Legêne and Els Postel-Coster argued, for example, that the government’s nearly thirty-year delay in returning certain objects from Dutch museums had stemmed from animosities linked to the history of colonial relations, and in particular, the bitter fight between 1945 and 1949 over Indonesia’s independence, it raised the question of whether the mutual hatreds originating in post-war struggles were the only factors hampering the return of materials at that time.66 Considering the longer history of cultural relations in the decades following decolonization, this book illustrates instead that the difficulties Dutch officials had in dealing with cultural property return demands—in the face of a troubled colonial past—were amplified by their determination to connect them with a secure cultural role in Indonesia in the future. As subsequent chapters show, the eventual return of cultural property emerged out of nearly thirty years of diplomatic negotiations over what cultural role, if any, the Netherlands would play in its former colony. In order to explore the importance of this question—beginning in 1949—and how it led eventually to the return of materials—in the 1970s—this book traces how Dutch officials handled the question of returning cultural property—across the fluctuating political regimes in both countries—and how its resolution depended on finding a mutually acceptable cultural role for the Netherlands in the new Indonesia. In order to address some of the neglected issues in the historical analysis of post-colonial diplomacy, this book considers what government officials believed about cultural involvement in the former colony and the question of returning cultural property. It also explores how and why these beliefs shifted over time, through analysis of thirty years of official correspondence and decision-making in the Netherlands. Sources for this reconstruction include materials retrieved from the National Archives in The Hague, the National Museum of Ethnology and the Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, in Leiden. Archived correspondence between officials in the Ministries of Foreign Affairs; Education, Arts and Sciences and Culture, Recreation and Social Work, as well as from the Netherlands’ Embassy in Indonesia, and select museums and libraries, also provides a revealing window onto how Dutch officials expressed themselves, both secretly and publicly, about the wider scope of cultural relations with Indonesia, and about the particular but interrelated question of returning cultural property. By scrutinizing official correspondence and reports, and placing them within the wider contexts of political and diplomatic developments in Indonesia and in the Netherlands, this book establishes a new level of historical knowledge about cultural property return between the two countries. Furthermore, it complicates the post-colonial history of Dutch foreign relations with Indonesia by opening new perspectives on the relationship officials drew between post-colonial diplomacy and colonial cultural learning. Examining the history of Dutch foreign relations with Indonesia in the cultural arena, therefore, shows that ideas about returning contested objects and archives were

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influenced not only by historical legality, or by contemporary ethical questions. They were also affected by emerging domestic politics and foreign policy goals of the state. When it comes to cultural diplomacy, therefore, this study recognizes as important another dimension of the post-colonial history of colonial museum collections: how former colonial powers in the decades following decolonization worked to formulate new bilateral cultural relations with former colonies in ways that maintained positive images of the colonial past, as well as its legacies in the post-colonial present. While the Dutch return of archives and museum objects in the mid-1970s fostered an image of postcolonial cooperation with a formerly colonized country, little is known about how this image of Dutch goodwill emerged in the tumultuous years of international diplomacy with an independent Indonesia. What is missing—the following chapters show—is a view of government involvement in colonial cultural policies, which informed the practices of museums and other repositories—leading eventually to the return of some cultural property to the former colony—but mainly leading to the return of Dutch expertise. By focusing specifically on how officials in the Netherlands interacted with the idea of returning cultural property to their former colony in Asia, this book demonstrates that such disputes have their own unique histories. Resolutions were often related to national ideas and practices developed during colonial times, which were then adapted to new diplomatic contexts brought about first by the end of colonialism, and then by changes in international relations over the years. Like “Third World” leaders, European officials used museums for instrumental purposes to further political, cultural and nationalistic goals across the divide between the colonial past and the post-colonial future. Negotiations over the return of colonial-era cultural property, therefore, reflected not only the state of international cultural relations, they played a part in reinforcing long-held views of Dutch national identity as well. In other words, the reactions in the Netherlands to the idea of returning cultural property in the post-colonial context ultimately helped transform that country’s image from colonizer to benefactor. While the eventual tying of cultural relations to development aid may only have been a matter of expedience for officials seeking funding for cultural diplomacy and new roles for museums and experts in the former colony, Cultural Diplomacy and the Heritage of Empire concludes that it also helped validate the colonial past, reaffirm a paternalistic approach to spreading European culture in the “Third World” and largely undermined anti-colonial visions for post-colonial redress. Since de-colonization repositioned Dutch museum collections into objects of negotiation, this book traces key phases in Dutch-Indonesian cultural diplomacy and how it was affected over time by the question of post-colonial cultural property return. “Opening the curtain” on a discussion of the first three decades following Indonesia’s independence, therefore, Chapter One describes the loss of control that came with the Japanese occupation of the

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Netherlands East Indies during World War II. This disrupted Dutch colonial power, and with it, the cultural traditions surrounding collecting and knowledge production in the colony. The war provided new space for expressions of Indonesian nationalism—centered on anti-Dutch-colonialism—which quickly expanded after Japan’s surrender in 1945 to a post-war battle between the return of Dutch colonial rule and recognition of Indonesian independence. It also goes to the root of Dutch-Indonesian negotiations by revealing the competing visions for post-colonial redress and reconciliation that were contested throughout the era of post-war decolonization. In so doing, it pinpoints the emergence of these opposing visions in 1949, and shows how they began to play out in negotiations between officials in the Netherlands, and the new leaders of an Indonesia struggling to gain independence under Sukarno. Yet, by the time the final sovereignty transfer was settled in 1949, Dutch and Indonesian counterparts had drafted a cultural agreement linking for the first time provisions for a future Dutch cultural role and the transfer of cultural or historical treasures that had come to the Netherlands in an “irregular manner” during the colonial era. At the time, Dutch officials expressed a surprising openness toward the notion of returning cultural and artistic treasures, but only if it would mean re-establishing good relations with Indonesia. This fluidity would evaporate, as a subsequent chapter shows, by the early 1960s. After the sovereignty transfer, Chapter Two reveals, Dutch officials needed to cope with the country’s loss of colonial power, and to begin redefining— amidst hostility from Indonesian officials—the country’s cultural relationship to the former colony. In a period of increasingly strained relations with Sukarno’s Indonesia, between 1950 and 1963, Dutch officials measured the question of returning cultural property against diplomatic struggles that increasingly interfered with the hoped-for cultural cooperation. While Dutch Foreign Ministry officials were initially optimistic about future cooperation, based on the 1949 sovereignty transfer agreement, poor relations with the new Indonesian rulers—leading to a number of crises in the 1950s—made returns, conceived as a goodwill gesture toward cultural cooperation, virtually impossible. The window that had opened in 1949 for making a deal with the Sukarno regime had closed, however, with the severing of diplomatic relations in 1960. By the time Indonesian officials renewed efforts to secure cultural property returns in 1963—after resolving a dispute over West New Guinea and resuming diplomatic relations—Dutch ministerial officials—in both Foreign Affairs, and in Education, Arts and Sciences—were adamantly opposed to such a move. Demonstrating what would become an expected rigidity against the question of post-colonial cultural property returns, so unlike officials in the late 1940s, the next generation of Dutch diplomats and politicians embraced the notion that refusing to address colonial-era cultural property return claims was a stance widely accepted internationally. While they worked in other ways to decolonize colonial-era museums at home, Dutch foreign affairs and cultural officials had become more defensive about anti-colonial cultural claims by Non-Aligned regimes, such as Sukarno’s.

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Political changes in Indonesia in the mid-1960s had a dramatic effect on Dutch visions of cultural cooperation and the return of cultural property, however. Beginning in the period emerging from the political turmoil, mass killings and imprisonments of suspected Communists in Indonesia— between 1966 and 1969—the discussion in Chapter Three centers on the new chance perceived to have emerged to negotiate an agreement on cultural cooperation during Suharto’s eclipse of Sukarno. It also shows how Dutch officials began to redefine cultural cooperation as bilateral development aid, and how this shift provided a flattering context within which they could consider exchanging archives, now understood as assistance toward the improvement of Indonesian repositories. At the same time, while Dutch officials faced the persistence of troubling claims for the return of cultural property, which may have delayed ratification of the new cultural agreement with Indonesia (signed in 1968 and ratified in the Netherlands in 1970), they remained delighted by what they saw as an improved diplomatic climate for negotiating cultural relations with the anti-communist, and more Westernoriented, Suharto. Yet with the rise in the Netherlands of critical views of cultural cooperation, Chapter Four returns to the mid-1970s to consider some of the motivations behind the return of cultural property to Indonesia by the progressive Cabinet of Joop Den Uyl: changing politics in the Netherlands, and anticolonial activism within the UNGA and UNESCO. An alternate explanation is suggested, as well, besides progressive politics and international pressure: official concerns to protect the newly established cultural cooperation negotiated in 1968 by the progressive Cabinet’s center-right predecessors. By presenting the contradictory motivations informing Dutch cultural diplomacy with Indonesia in the 1970s, Chapter Four goes on to show that both the new cultural cooperation—established by politicians on the center-right— and returns made in the 1970s—organized by those on the political left— soon became celebratory commemorations of Dutch colonial achievements in the past, providing new, more meaningful, roles for Dutch institutions and experts in the present. Despite the progressive turn—often associated with Dutch colonial guilt—it becomes clear in this chapter that decisions to define cultural relations as development aid enabled Foreign Ministry officials to explain the return of cultural property to a politically divided Dutch public as efforts to assist Indonesia’s development, not to make amends for the colonial past. Moving on, Chapter Five initially shifts the discussion toward other controversial post-colonial “cultural restitution” debates outside the Netherlands, and the UNGA and UNESCO. Since it was—and remains—widely understood in museum and diplomatic circles that decisions taken by leaders in one country could create precedents internationally, and thus pressure other states, officials such as Pott were reluctant to make the first move. By looking at debates in the United Kingdom—over the Parthenon Marbles and the “Benin Bronzes”—this chapter highlights some of the ways officials have defended British museums against making post-colonial returns, and some of

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the arguments and events that arose there that affected debates everywhere. It also looks at announcements in France by President Emmanuel Macron beginning in 2017 to return to Africa colonial-era objects from French museums. These developments have generated excitement in the international press and museum world, largely because of the long history of French officials refusing to consider making such returns. While further research is needed to track the intricacies of such shifts in cultural diplomacy, it appears they are connected to wider foreign policy aims of the president to foster French foreign policy in Africa. At the same time, the chapter shows that return debates after the 1970s continued echoing and amplifying the effects of earlier UNGA and UNESCO advocacy, starting with the polarization that emerged in writings by legal scholars, museum curators and archaeologists dealing with both historical claims, and contemporary restrictions on the international trade in antiquities. It also highlights the overshadowing of the so-called “lost cause” of post-colonial cultural property return between states by other arguably more compelling historically rooted, but contemporary, “cultural restitution” causes. Finally, Chapter Five demonstrates that the historical view of cultural diplomacy traced in earlier chapters complicates the usual ways of thinking about post-colonial cultural property return between the Netherlands and Indonesia. Since the 1980s, as well, Dutch developments continued mirroring international ones, but within a changing political and diplomatic landscape that has largely eroded long-held notions of Dutch-Indonesian cultural diplomacy, the uses of museums founded in the colonial era and the country’s role in the world after Indonesia’s decolonization. Before taking into account these events, however, the following chapters look at how it took time for the Netherlands to transition from colonial power to post-colonial benefactor. Beginning in Chapter One we will see that, after the difficulties leading to the transfer of sovereignty in 1949, nearly thirty years would pass before Dutch officials would carry out cultural property returns to Indonesia. The length of that trajectory suggests more was at stake than a legal or an ethical response to Indonesia’s claims for post-colonial cultural property return alone, that is, the return of a celebratory Dutch cultural presence based on colonial institutions and expertise. Before exploring that long process, the chapter begins with an origin story: the emergence, at the end of Indonesia’s independence struggle, of competing visions for post-colonial redress—through the return of cultural property— or reconciliation—through the renewal of cultural cooperation.

Notes 1 This study uses terms, such as “post-colonial,” “post-colonial returns,” “former colonial power,” etc., as shorthand to denote the period following decolonization of Indonesia and other countries, the kinds of “cultural restitution” claims that have followed and that relate to the post-World War II period of decolonization in Asia and Africa, and countries such as the Netherlands that transferred

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2

3 4 5 6

7 8

19

sovereignty of some, but not necessarily all colonial possessions. The term, “the colonial past,” is used to invoke a sense of a past in which the Netherlands or other countries governed such possessions that are now independent. However, it also includes earlier periods in their histories of overseas exploration, trading monopolization, incursion or privileged status within colonies governed by other powers. It recognizes here, but does not elaborate upon the problematic nature of these terms in light of their imprecision as well as the ongoing nature of the “postcolonial” situation, which has been theorized as beginning not with the end of colonialism in certain places, but with its inception, the effects of which, including new iterations, continue to this day. See: Robert J.C. Young, Postcolonialism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); Ania Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism: The New Critical Idiom, 2nd ed. (London and New York: Routledge, 2005); Ann Laura Stoler, Duress: Imperial Durabilities in Our Times (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016). Lyndel V. Prott, “The Ethics and Law of Returns,” Museum International 61, no. 1/2 (May 2009): 101–6; Elazar Barkan, “Amending Historical Injustices: The Restitution of Cultural Property—An Overview,” in Claiming the Stones/Naming the Bones: Cultural Property and the Negotiation of National and Ethnic Identity, ed. Elazar Barkan and Ronald Bush (Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Trust, 2002), 16–46; Amadou-Mahtar M’Bow, “A Plea for the Return of an Irreplaceable Cultural Heritage to Those Who Created It,” Museum 31, no. 1 (1979): 58; Robert Peters, “Remedying Historical Injustice: Ethical and Historical Considerations in Returning Cultural Materials,” in Cultural Heritage, Cultural Rights, Cultural Diversity: New Developments in International Law, ed. Silvia Borelli and Federico Lenzerini (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2012), 141–56. Robert A. Mortimer, The Third World Coalition in International Politics (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1980). Museum 31, no. 1, Return and Restitution of Cultural Property (1979). On the “Elgin (Parthenon) Marbles” and “Benin Bronzes” controversies see Chapter Five, this volume. Excerpts from this chapter and other sections of this book appeared previously in: Cynthia Scott, “Renewing the ‘Special Relationship’ and Rethinking the Return of Cultural Property: The Netherlands and Indonesia, 1949–1979,” Journal of Contemporary History 52, no. 3 (2017): 646–8; and Cynthia Scott, “Negotiating the Colonial Past in the Age of European Decolonization: Cultural Property Return Between the Netherlands and Indonesia” (PhD diss., Claremont Graduate University, 2014). See: Chief DCV, Copi-Memorandum to DOA, September 24, 1974. BZ 1965– 74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9171; Scott, “Negotiating the Colonial Past,” fn. 452. Peter H. Pott and Mohammad Amir Sutaarga, “Arrangements Concluded or in Progress for the Return of Objects: The Netherlands-Indonesia,” Museum 31, no. 1 (1979): 38–42. At the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, Peter H. Pott became Keeper in the Department of Indian Culture in 1946, and in 1955, he became the museum’s Director, retiring in 1980. In addition, in 1973, having worked in the training of museum professionals, Pott became a Professor at the University of Leiden. See: Willem R. Gulik, Harald S. Van Der Straaten, and Gerrit D. Van Wengen, From Field-Case to Show-Case: Research, Acquisition and Presentation in the Rijksmuseum Voor Volkenkunde. In Tribute to Professor Peter H. Pott on the 25th Anniversary of His Directorship of the Rijksmuseum Voor Volkenkunde, Leiden (Amsterdam: J.C. Gieben Publisher, 1980). The coauthor Mohammad Amir Sutaarga (1928–2013) also worked at the Ethnology Museum in Leiden in the late 1940s, and studied law and anthropology at the university there. After his studies, he returned to Indonesia to head the ethnology

20

9 10 11 12 13 14

15 16 17

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

Introduction collection of the museum in Jakarta, and when the museum was transferred from the Netherlands to Indonesia in 1962, he became its Director See: Katherine E. McGregor, “Museums and the Transformation from Colonial to Post-Colonial Institutions in Indonesia: A Case Study of the Indonesian National Museum, Formerly the Batavia Museum,” in Performing Objects: Museums, Material Culture and Performance in Southeast Asia, ed. Fiona Kerlogue (London: The Horniman Museum and Gardens, 2004), 18. Pott and Sutaarga, “Arrangements Concluded or in Progress for the Return of Objects,” 41. Ibid. Jeanette Greenfield, The Return of Cultural Treasures (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 262. Ibid., 261. Eric Russell Chamberlin, Loot!: The Heritage of Plunder (London: Hudson Ltd., 1983), 283. Lyndel V. Prott and Patrick J. O’Keefe, Law and the Cultural Heritage: Vol. 3— Movement (London: Butterworths, 1989), 804–5. For further legal discussions about the question of returning cultural objects in contexts of decolonization see: Ana Filipa Vrdoljak, International Law, Museums and the Return of Cultural Objects (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). Jean Gelman Taylor, Indonesia: Peoples and Histories (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003), 140–1, 144–6. Ibid., 116. The name of the city now known as Jakarta has changed over time since the Dutch captured the port of Jayakarta in the seventeenth century: Batavia (1619– 1949), Djakarta (1949–1972) and Jakarta (1972–present). Throughout the text, I will vary the spelling, using that which was in use during the respective period about which I am writing. Ibid., 148. Ibid., 141. Duco A. Hellema, Dutch Foreign Policy: The Role of the Netherlands in World Politics, trans. Murray Pearson (Dordrecht: Republic of Letters Publishing BV, 2009), 9. Friso Wielenga, A History of the Netherlands: From the Sixteenth Century to the Present Day, trans. Lynne Richards (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015), 46. Hellema, Dutch Foreign Policy, 12. Wielenga, A History of the Netherlands, 50. Ibid., 6. Taylor, Indonesia, 146. Anglo-Dutch Treaty 1814, known as the Convention of London, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Sovereign Principality of the United Netherlands, London, August 13, 1814. Hellema, Dutch Foreign Policy, 26. Taylor, Indonesia, 220. Roy F. Ellen, “The Development of Anthropology and Colonial Policy in the Netherlands: 1800–1960,” Journal of the History of Behavioral Sciences 12 (1976): 303–24. Ibid., 305. Endang Sri Hardiati, “From Batavian Society to Indonesian National Museum,” in Indonesia: The Discovery of the Past, ed. Endang Sri Hardiati and Pieter ter Keurs (Leiden: National Museum of Ethnology, 2005), 11. Ellen, “The Development of Anthropology,” 306. In 1950, Indonesian authorities renamed it, the Lembaga Kebudajaan, and in 1962 it ceased operations. With independence, the collections of the Batavia

Introduction

34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47

48 49 50

51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64

21

Museum, which had been established in 1868 by the Batavian Society, became part of what would become the National Museum of Indonesia. Between 1779 and 1950, the Batavian Society published, Verhandelingen, a journal largely concerned with “ethnographic description.” Ellen, “The Development of Anthropology,” 306. Hardiati, “From Batavian Society to Indonesian National Museum,” 12. Ellen, “The Development of Anthropology,” 306. Ibid. Ibid., 306, 307, 309. Ibid., 307. Hardiati, “From Batavian Society to Indonesian National Museum,” 12. Wielenga, A History of the Netherlands, 149. Hellema, Dutch Foreign Policy, 28, citing N.C.F. Van Sas, Onze Natuurlijkste Bondgenoot. Nederland, Engeland en Europa, 1813–1831 (Groningen: WoltersNoordhoff, 1985), 350. Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824, known as the Treaty of London, United Kingdom and the Netherlands, London, March 17, 1824. Hellema, Dutch Foreign Policy, 32. Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, Guide to the National Museum of Ethnology (Rijksmusem voor Volkenkunde) Leiden (Leiden: Ministry of Education, Arts and Sciences, 1962), 1. Pieter ter Keurs, “The National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden,” in Indonesia: The Discovery of the Past, ed. Endang Sri Hardiati and Pieter ter Keurs (Leiden: National Museum of Ethnology, 2005), 16–17. James J. Sheehan, Museums in the German Art World: From the End of the Old Regime to the Rise of Modernism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Edi Sedyawati and Pieter ter Keurs, “Scholarship, Curiosity and Politics: Collecting in a Colonial Context,” in Indonesia: The Discovery of the Past, ed. Endang Sri Hardiati and Pieter ter Keurs (Leiden: National Museum of Ethnology, 2005), 26; Pieter ter Keurs, “The National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden,” 18. Endang Sri Hardiati and Pieter ter Keurs, eds. Indonesia: The Discovery of the Past (Leiden: National Museum of Ethnology, 2005), 25–31. Pauline Lunsingh Scheurleer, “Collecting Javanese Antiquities,” in Colonial Collections Revisited, ed. Pieter ter Keurs (Leiden: CNWS Publications, 2007), 84– 114; Ellen, “The Development of Anthropology,” 303–24. Nota inzake Indonesische cultuurgoederen (niet archieven) in Nederlands openbaar bezit (Note Concerning Indonesian Culture Goods (not files) in Dutch Public Possession), n.d. [1975]. KITLV. File: H710 63; and Curator’s Files, Indonesian Collections, RMV. Pott and Sutaarga, “Arrangements Concluded or in Progress for the Return of Objects,” 38. Nota inzake Indonesische cultuurgoederen, n.d. [1975]. KITLV and RMV. Scheurleer, “Collecting Javanese Antiquities,” 89. Sedyawati and Ter Keurs, “Scholarship, Curiosity and Politics,” 20. Hardiati, “From Batavian Society to Indonesian National Museum,” 12. Scheurleer, “Collecting Javanese Antiquities,” 89–90. Ibid. Nota inzake Indonesische cultuurgoederen, n.d. [1975]. KITLV and RMV. Hardiati, “From Batavian Society to Indonesian National Museum,” 13. Sedyawati and Ter Keurs, “Scholarship, Curiosity and Politics,” 20. Wielenga, A History of the Netherlands, 193. Hellema, Dutch Foreign Policy, 74. Ibid., 87. Ibid., 87–88.

22

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65 On the connection between cultural heritage and state succession see: Andrzej Jakubowski, “The Human Dimension of State Succession to Cultural Property: The Balkan Lesson,” in Cultural Heritage, Cultural Rights, Cultural Diversity: New Developments in International Law, ed. Silvia Borelli and Federico Lenzerini (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2012), 369–90; Andrzej Jakubowski, State Succession in Cultural Property (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). 66 Susan Legêne and Els Postel-Coster, “Isn’t it all Culture? Culture and Dutch Development Policy in the Post-Colonial Period,” in Fifty Years of Dutch Development Cooperation, 1949–1999, ed. Jan A. Nekkers and Petrus Adrianus Maria Malcontent (The Hague: SDU, 2000), 271–88.

References Manuscript collections Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken (BZ), 1965–74, Nationaal Archief, Nederland (NAN), (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1965–74, National Archives of the Netherlands), The Hague, https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/en.

Secondary sources Barkan, Elazar. “Amending Historical Injustices: The Restitution of Cultural Property—An Overview.” In Claiming the Stones/Naming the Bones: Cultural Property and the Negotiation of National and Ethnic Identity, edited by Elazar Barkan and Ronald Bush, 16–46. Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Trust, 2002. Chamberlin, E. Russell. Loot!: The Heritage of Plunder. London: Hudson Ltd., 1983. Ellen, Roy F. “The Development of Anthropology and Colonial Policy in the Netherlands: 1800–1960.” Journal of the History of Behavioral Sciences 12 (1976): 303–24. Greenfield, Jeanette. The Return of Cultural Treasures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Hardiati, Endang Sri. “From Batavian Society to Indonesian National Museum.” In Indonesia: The Discovery of the Past, edited by Endang Sri Hardiati and Pieter ter Keurs, 11–15. Leiden: National Museum of Ethnology, 2005. —–—–, and Pieter ter Keurs, eds. Indonesia: The Discovery of the Past. Leiden: National Museum of Ethnology, 2005. Hellema, Duco A. Dutch Foreign Policy: The Role of the Netherlands in World Politics. Translated by Murray Pearson. Dordrecht: Republic of Letters Publishing BV, 2009. Jakubowski, Andrzej. “The Human Dimension of State Succession to Cultural Property: The Balkan Lesson.” In Cultural Heritage, Cultural Rights, Cultural Diversity: New Developments in International Law, edited by Silvia Borelli and Federico Lenzerini, 369–90. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2012. —–—–. State Succession in Cultural Property. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Legêne, Susan, and Els Postel-Coster. “Isn’t it all Culture? Culture and Dutch Development Policy in the Post-Colonial Period.” In Fifty Years of Dutch Development Cooperation, 1949–1999, edited by Jan A. Nekkers and Petrus Adrianus Maria Malcontent, 271–88. The Hague: SDU, 2000.

Introduction

23

Loomba, Ania. Colonialism/Postcolonialism: The New Critical Idiom, 2nd ed. London and New York: Routledge, 2005. M’Bow, Amadou-Mahtar. “A Plea for the Return of an Irreplaceable Cultural Heritage to Those Who Created It.” Museum 31, no. 1 (1979): 58. McGregor, Katharine E. “Museums and the Transformation from Colonial to PostColonial Institutions in Indonesia: A Case Study of the Indonesian National Museum, Formerly the Batavia Museum.” In Performing Objects: Museums, Material Culture and Performance in Southeast Asia, edited by Fiona Kerlogue, 15–29. London: The Horniman Museum and Gardens, 2004. Mortimer, Robert A. The Third World Coalition in International Politics. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1980. Museum 31, no. 1, Return and Restitution of Cultural Property, 1979. Peters, Robert. “Remedying Historical Injustice: Ethical and Historical Considerations in Returning Cultural Materials.” In Cultural Heritage, Cultural Rights, Cultural Diversity: New Developments in International Law, edited by Silvia Borelli and Federico Lenzerini, 141–56. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2012. Pott, Peter H., and Mohammad Amir Sutaarga. “Arrangements Concluded or in Progress for the Return of Objects: The Netherlands-Indonesia.” Museum 31, no. 1 (1979): 38–42. Prott, Lyndel V. “The Ethics and Law of Returns.” Museum International 61, no. 1/2 (May 2009): 101–6. —–—–, and Patrick J. O’Keefe. Law and the Cultural Heritage: Vol. 3—Movement. London: Butterworths, 1989. Scheurleer, Pauline Lunsingh. “Collecting Javanese Antiquities.” In Colonial Collections Revisited, edited by Pieter ter Keurs, 84–114. Leiden: CNWS Publications, 2007. Scott, Cynthia. “Negotiating the Colonial Past in the Age of European Decolonization: Cultural Property Return Between the Netherlands and Indonesia.” PhD diss., Claremont Graduate University, 2014. —–—–. “Renewing the ‘Special Relationship’ and Rethinking the Return of Cultural Property: The Netherlands and Indonesia, 1949–1979.” Journal of Contemporary History 52, no. 3 (2017): 646–8. Sedyawati, Edi, and Pieter ter Keurs, “Scholarship, Curiosity and Politics: Collecting in a Colonial Context.” In Indonesia: The Discovery of the Past, edited by Endang Sri Hardiati and Pieter ter Keurs, 20–32. Leiden: National Museum of Ethnology, 2005. Sheehan, James J. Museums in the German Art World: From the End of the Old Regime to the Rise of Modernism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Stoler, Ann Laura. Duress: Imperial Durabilities in Our Times. Durham: Duke University Press, 2016. Taylor, Jean Gelman. Indonesia: Peoples and Histories. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003. Ter Keurs, Pieter. “The National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden.” In Indonesia: The Discovery of the Past, edited by Endang Sri Hardiati and Pieter ter Keurs, 16–19. Leiden: National Museum of Ethnology, 2005. Van Gulik, Willem R., Harald S. Van Der Straaten, and Gerrit D. Van Wengen. From Field-Case to Show-Case: Research, Acquisition and Presentation in the Rijksmuseum Voor Volkenkunde. In Tribute to Professor P.H. Pott on the

24

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25th Anniversary of His Directorship of the Rijksmuseum Voor Volkenkunde, Leiden. Amsterdam: J.C. Gieben Publisher, 1980. Van Sas, N.C.F. Onze Natuurlijkste Bondgenoot. Nederland, Engeland en Europa, 1813–1831. Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff, 1985. Vrdoljak, Ana Filipa. International Law, Museums and the Return of Cultural Objects. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Young, Robert J.C. Postcolonialism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

1

Colonial redress or post-colonial cooperation? Competing visions of cultural diplomacy in 1949

In the spring of 1949, a national railway employee from Station Winschoten in northeastern Netherlands suggested that the Dutch government return “various trophies”—such as “the crown treasures of distinguished Indian rulers” that had been “seized in earlier centuries and were currently [held] in our museums and the colonial Institute.” He prefaced the suggestion by saying such a gesture would, demonstrate a “goodwill” towards the rest of the world that will result in a highly exceptional effect provided that … your propaganda apparatus can establish an extremely subtle and sophisticated format that then would be presented to the whole world. [He ended with the old Dutch saying,] “The cost precedes the benefit.”1 What could have been motivating a railway employee from a small Dutch agricultural town to make such an impassioned suggestion? Times had changed, for one, as the following discussion shows, just eight years earlier, World War II had brought nearly 350 years of Dutch control of the East Indies to a bitter end.2

The end of Dutch colonial rule in the East Indies, 1942–49 It began on January 10, 1942, soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Japanese invasion and battle for the Indies lasted two months during which the Royal Netherlands Indies Army (Koninklijk Nederlands Indisch Leger, or KNIL), as well as additional conscripts and Allied forces, were unable to defend the territory. Dutch forces surrendered on March 9, 1942, and the occupation would last for just over three years. Allied forces in Asia included Americans, British, Dutch and Australians, led by the British General, Archibald Wavell (1883–1950), tasked with defending the Dutch East Indies, Singapore, Burma and Thailand, which had also fallen to Japan. During the war, tens of thousands of European civilians and former soldiers were interned, or forced into labor, as Japanese officials sought to destroy “white prestige,” cultural influence and governance structures.3

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Figure 1.1 Japanese soldiers march through Batavia after the capitulation of the Netherlands East Indies government in World War II, March 8, 1942. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Spaarnestad/ Photographer Unknown

With the capitulation, the failure of the KNIL to defend the colony made a lasting unfavorable impression on Indonesians. Under Japanese control, however, they were allowed to express what had been a suppressed nationalism in the inter-war period, and for the educated—including exiled nationalist leaders who were now freed—to attain high positions in the administration, concessions that were part of the Japanese strategy to secure local cooperation in the war effort.4 Decades before the Second World War, Indonesian nationalism had emerged in the early twentieth century around a changing array of ideas and aspirations among Islamic groups, communists, and mass student associations.5 In 1912, for example, the Islamic League (Sarekat Islam, or SI) was founded by Muslim textile traders and soon expanded into a mass organization of over two million members. In 1920, the establishment of

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27

the Communist Association of Indonesia (Perserikatan Komunis di India, or PKI) alarmed Dutch colonial authorities and led to a crackdown on party leaders and agitators through forced exiles, imprisonments and “voluntary” emigrations. In 1927, as well, Indonesian students formed the Indonesian National Party (Partai Nasional Indonesia, or PNI), led by the charismatic Sukarno—known only by the one name as is traditional in Javanese culture—and geared toward mass solidarity and education for youths and adults. However, the PNI’s larger goals included “the creation of one nation (Indonesia), one citizenship (Indonesian), one language (Malay), and, ultimately, Indonesian independence, none of which were to be obtained by cooperating with the Dutch.”6 In 1929, Sukarno and other PNI leaders were arrested as political threats, and the party disbanded two years later. The rising nationalist leaders Sukarno (1901–70), Mohammad Hatta (1902–80) and Sutan Sjahrir (1909–66) continued in the early 1930s to work toward an independent Indonesia. In early 1933, however, all activity perceived as subversive by colonial authorities was crushed on the orders of the Governor General, B.C. (Bonifacius Cornelis) de Jonge (1875–1954), in reaction to a mutiny staged by KNIL members on the cruiser, Zeven Provinciën. All Indonesian nationalists were arrested, and Sukarno, Hatta and Sjahrir were exiled to detention camps in the remote East Indies, where they were held until released by Japanese authorities in 1942. In the years following the crackdown, moderate Indonesian nationalists were more cooperative. Yet, throughout the decade before World War II Dutch officials rejected all political reform, even the mildest of proposals.7 For the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the loss of colonial rule in the East Indies, combined with German occupation at home, became a traumatic historical watershed.8 Yet, separation between metropolitan society and the colony during the war effectively increased the Dutch attachment to its colonial empire. In 1945, as war came closer to an end in Europe, there was widespread Dutch support for reestablishing colonial sovereignty in the East Indies. Despite an array of visions for reform—that had emerged across the political spectrum in the occupied Netherlands in the clandestine press, and in missives emanating from the Dutch government-in-exile in London—the coming end of German occupation in May that year turned the attention of Dutch leaders toward liberation of the East Indies in order to renew the country’s colonial mission.9 For the Dutch railway employee in 1949, the biggest problem was not the end of colonial rule in the East Indies, per se, but rather, what had happened in the days and years following the war, since events on the ground quickly overtook discussions and plans for the colony. On August 17, 1945, two days after Japan’s surrender to Allies, the popularly supported Indonesian nationalist leaders, Sukarno and Hatta—both of whom had been jailed in the inter-war period—unilaterally declared independence of the Republic of Indonesia.10 Hating Sukarno for having collaborated with the Japanese during occupation, Dutch officials refused to negotiate with him, preferring

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Figure 1.2 Sukarno after discussions with Sjahrir. Behind him, Mohammed Roem, November 15, 1946. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Anefo/NIGIS

instead to meet with other nationalist leaders. However, Sukarno was appointed first president of Indonesia and held office from 1945 to 1967. The declaration of independence of the Republic of Indonesia by Sukarno and Hatta changed the course of events, upsetting especially Dutch plans for the East Indies. Having set their sights on establishing a Netherlands East Indies Civil Administration in the colony, Dutch officials rejected the declaration and refused to recognize Sukarno’s authority and the new Republic.11 British forces, meanwhile, in late September, had landed in Batavia, the colonial capital on Java, and they soon began disarming and sending home Japanese troops, while also protecting Europeans and Eurasians who had been interned during the occupation. As Dutch and American troops slowly joined the Allied forces, they were incorporated under the command of British Lieutenant General Philip Christison (1893–1993). For his part, Christison allowed Republican forces to maintain their positions, and even to administer some territories in the absence of Allied control. At the same time, by late October 1945, revolutionary soldiers in the Indonesian People’s Army, operating outside orders of the new Republic, had begun fighting Allied forces in east Java.12 In the Netherlands at this time, the Dutch parliament began debate on Indonesia and lawmakers affirmed the approach outlined by the Minister

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of Overseas Territories, H.A. Logemann, who declared the government’s readiness to talk with “qualified” leaders in Indonesia, not Sukarno. To many Dutch leaders, Sukarno was seen as a traitor and a Japanese collaborator who deserved punishment for treason. While continuing to express a commitment to self-government in Indonesia, Logemann reinforced the idea that such autonomy would only take place within the wider Kingdom of the Netherlands, as declared on December 7, 1942, in a wartime speech by Queen Wilhelmina (1880–1962).13 Throughout 1945 and 1946, as well, as Dutch and Indonesian representatives began negotiating, any concessions officials attempted faced opposition at home. While the post-war political views on both sides were immensely complex, they can generally be understood in terms of a Dutch electorate determined to restore the pre-war colonial status quo, and an Indonesian nationalist republic demanding full sovereignty under Sukarno. In the Netherlands, any recognition of Sukarno and Hatta’s independence declaration threatened Dutch lawmakers with massive popular disapproval at a period crucial to post-war reconstruction. At the same time, the Dutch hardline position risked setting off a resourcedraining colonial insurrection, or worse, a full-scale colonial war.14 In May 1946, the new post-war Dutch government of Louis J.M. Beel (1902–77), of the Catholic People’s Party (KVP), continued to reject recognition of Sukarno and his Republic of Indonesia. The Beel government

Figure 1.3 Queen Wilhelmina and Princess Juliana among soldiers, during a visit to Orange Haven (Oranjehaven), a club she established for Dutch exiles in London, September 11, 1944. National Archives of the Netherlands/ Collection Anefo/Fotograaf Anbekend/Anefo

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negotiated with other Indonesian representatives, however. In early 1947, Dutch and Indonesian representatives concluded the Linggadjati Agreement, recognizing the Republic’s de facto authority over Java, Madura and Sumatra. Territories under Allied and Dutch forces, on the other hand, would eventually be included as separate states within a new federal United States of Indonesia. Yet, by July 1947, Dutch perceptions of Republican failures to implement the agreement led lawmakers to authorize a military offensive— later known as the “first police action” (politionele actie)—to reduce Republican-held areas on Java and Sumatra, and to expand Dutch strategic positions.15 Further negotiations led respective representatives to conclude the Renville Agreement (1948), and the Roem-van Roijen Agreement (1949). In response to events which would both activate the railway employee and, eventually, haunt Dutch memory of resistance to the Indonesian independence struggle, the 1949 Roem-van Roijen Agreement emerged in the aftermath of another Dutch military offensive, known later as the “second police action,” which had been approved in December 1948 under the new government of Prime Minister Willem Drees, a member of the Labor Party (PvdA). In this intervention, Dutch forces bombed the capital of the Indonesian Republic, Jogjakarta (then spelled Djokjakarta), and captured and deported the Indonesian leaders Sukarno, Hatta and Sjahrir.

Figure 1.4 During the “Second Police Action,” captured Republican leaders and employees were presented on the landing of the Residency office of Djokjakarta prior to deportations. In the middle: Lt.-Col. Van Beek, Commander, Special Troops Corps. Next to him: Sukarno and Hatta. Behind left: Sjahrir, Yogyakarta, December 19, 1948. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Dienst voor Legercontacten Indonesië/J. Zijlstra/DLC

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The offensive elicited varying reactions at the time, from widespread military and civil resistance in Indonesia, to international condemnation by East Asian and Pacific countries. In the United Kingdom and the United States public protest arose but, in the UNGA and UN Security Council (UNSC), political reaction divided along East/West lines.16 Ultimately, the UNSC passed a resolution on January 28, 1949, that called on both parties to cease military operations, and to cooperate in restoring peace and maintaining law and order.17 It asked the Netherlands to release political prisoners arrested in the second police action, to return Republican government officials to Jogjakarta and it called for the creation of a federal United States of Indonesia, to which the Netherlands would transfer sovereignty by July 1, 1950. Finally, it strengthened UN involvement in the dispute by renaming the Committee of Good Offices, which had been tasked to help resolve the conflict, the UN Commission for Indonesia (UNCI), which would play an expanded role. In the months that followed, the US Senate increased pressure on the Dutch when members asked to restrict foreign aid to governments who defied UNSC resolutions or requests, and the UNGA voted to debate the Indonesian question in the spring of 1949.18 The difficult and violent process leading to a resolution lasted until the end of December 1949, however. By this date, under international political pressure, the Netherlands finally transferred sovereignty of the former Dutch East Indies, except West New Guinea, to the United States of Indonesia at the conclusion of a UNsponsored Round Table Conference (RTC).19 Months earlier, in that fateful spring of 1949, therefore, the railway employee’s plea—written to J.H. van Maarseveen (1894–1951) who, as Minister of Overseas Territories, had become deeply involved in the sovereignty transfer of Indonesia20 —can be seen as a response to the uproar created by the “second police action.” The “trophies” and “crown treasures” he referred to had come to the Netherlands from the Dutch East Indies following colonial-era military actions. He seemed to believe their return at that moment would help rehabilitate the Netherlands’s international reputation, which had been badly damaged by the second police action. Even though costly to Dutch pride, he surmised, sacrifice would be worth it if it produced the “highly exceptional effect” as an expression of “goodwill” toward Indonesian leaders. The railway employee may have only been able to guess that the political visions of Indonesian nationalist leaders included new cultural agendas, and that the struggle for Indonesian independence between 1945 and 1949 included negotiations over cultural diplomacy and state succession to cultural property—now expected to come with sovereignty. For the Dutch in 1949, however, officials would more than anything else, link the question of returning cultural property to the promise of an ongoing cultural role. Yet, as the following discussion reveals, they would take up the railway employee’s plea, and secretly consider making a surprise voluntary handover of regalia items—obtained in colonial wars—to demonstrate Dutch goodwill in the face of the dreaded sovereignty transfer. When the idea was

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Figure 1.5 UN-sponsored Round Table Conference on the sovereignty of Indonesia, in the Ridderzaal, August 22, 1949. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Anefo/J.D. Noske/Anefo

raised of voluntarily making returns, they embraced it as a symbolic tool for forging a better relationship with the new Indonesian leaders. Facing international condemnation in the waning months of negotiations over the future political status of Indonesia, administration officials secretly began to think about using objects from the nation’s museum collections to try to salvage a positive public image and preserve a Dutch presence in the soon-to-be independent Indonesia. As we will learn later, these initial ways of thinking would persist in official circles for decades to come. A day after writing to Van Maarseveen, the railway employee also wrote to the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, D.U. Stikker (1897–1979), in a much more familiar tone, asking if Stikker would “be okay to advise” Van Maarseveen to return such trophies, but this time specifying the crown treasures of “former rulers of the regions of Bali, Lombok, [and] Java.”21 Like the railway employee, Stikker had roots in Winschoten. He had studied law at the University of Groningen, began his career in banking, but became director of Heineken International from 1935 to 1948. In 1945, he organized the Dutch Labor Foundation (Stichting van de Arbeid),

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which contributed to the success of post-war collective bargaining in the Netherlands. He became Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1948, under Prime Minister Willem Drees, until 1951. It is conceivable that the Winschoten and labor connections between Stikker and the railway employee were factors that helped facilitate this correspondence.22 Pressing the Minister, the railway employee argued, “such a ‘large gesture’ would give evidence to refined statesmanship and would cause an enormous effect on the involved Indian populations. However,” he wrote, … it needs to happen right away. The time is now. Now! Now! Now! To us those trophies may not mean anything now, yet to them they are very appealing. In that [gesture], the goodwill from our side would then be hard to transcend. You should only arrange that everything gets a format, both for the Indies and the world press, that is nearly perfect. This suggestion, provided it is realized directly, is worth gold!23 By urging the Minister to act “now!” the railway employee seemed well aware that it would only be a matter of months until the Dutch authorities would be pressured into ceding sovereignty. The urgency of his appeal suggests that he was desperate for Dutch officials to find a way to salvage the relationship with leaders in Indonesia and the image of the Netherlands in the esteem of the United States, and of the UNSC. He had guessed correctly that politicians would embrace the idea of using museum artifacts for political ends. However, as the following discussion of the historical connection between military-backed colonial expansion and the growth of museum collections shows, he overestimated their lack of “appeal” to the Dutch public. To them, these materials had meant a great deal, first as part of colonial traditions of scholarly learning, and later as a source of national pride over hard-won military victories celebrated in popular museum exhibitions.

Colonial expansion and the influx of war booty to Dutch museums After 1850, especially, museum collections multiplied quickly with the spread of Dutch rule across the archipelago. In the same period, in 1858, in the context of increasing numbers of military activities, the government commissioned the Batavian Society as “keeper of objects of cultural value which were owned by the government.”24 These included military expeditions to Bone and Gowa in South Sulawesi (1859–60), and later, the conquest of South Sulawesi (1905–6), which brought in cultural objects that ended up as donations to several museums.25 While part of the war booty went to the Batavian Society, weapons and jewelry went to Holland and were donated to what would become the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden. In the 1930s, materials from these military expeditions were returned to descendants of the traditional ruler, as a reward for good relations with the Dutch colonial government at the time.26 Yet, as the museum director, Peter H.

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Pott, acknowledged in a ministerial note in the mid-1970s, the connection between such military actions and museum collections was clear: “booty objects fell to the Government, and on the basis of a Gov. Decision of 1858, they were then offered to the Batavia Society for preservation, if those objects were to this end of sufficient importance.”27 The year 1862 was also significant to the growth of museum collections back home, since it marked the official beginning of divisions between the Batavia and Leiden museums. This development has been traced in the notes of the Batavian Society, which state, By govt. resolution of 24 May 1862 no. 2, an invitation was sent to the heads of regional govt. in the Dutch East Indies, to create ethnographical collections on behalf of the govt., to the best of their ability, with the instruction to send these to the society, the [board of directors] are also requested that, when such objects are received on the strength of this instruction, [they should] notify the govt, mentioning [the objects that] they wish to reserve for the society, with the intention of relinquishing them to the society, sending the remainder to The Netherlands for the assembly there of an ethnological collection.28 This formulation ensured that choice objects would continue to go to the Batavia museum, but it cleared the way for the Leiden museum to benefit from increasing collecting in the colony in this period. It was the Director of both the Ethnography Museum and Museum of Antiquities (Rijksmuseum van Oudheden) in Leiden, Dr. C. Leemans, who was partly responsible for instigating the government order, when he sent a note to the government suggesting that the State Ethnography Museum should become a general ethnology museum, which was largely achieved under the next director, L. Serrurier.29 At the time, the rationale motivating the museum director and board members of the Batavian Society was to create a “good ethnography museum,” which they defined as providing, “the opportunity of getting to know the people’s customs, habits, manufactures, agriculture, etc. etc.”30 However, such knowledge was also understood among Dutch scholars to be essential to colonial rule.31 As a result of the new regulations, in subsequent years, the collections in Batavia had grown to such an extent that, by 1868, a new building was established on Merdeka Barat for the Batavian Society Museum.32 The railway employee’s underestimation of public opinion is surprising since, in the wider context of Dutch rule in the East Indies in the late nineteenth century, changing colonial policy had led to an increase in military confrontations, and a rising culture of admiration of war booty at home. In certain respects, until the 1870s, governance had been somewhat detached, as it often allowed local rulers to hold sway and limited Dutch power to defending “trading monopolies, raising tribute and trading produce generated by indigenous economies.”33 Then, after 1870, colonial policy shifted

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toward liberalization, opening colonies to private investment in order to increase the agricultural and mineral production needed for industrial expansion in Europe.34 As a result of economic liberalization, the rather restrained colonial policy of previous decades shifted into a more forceful intervention in local politics by the Dutch East Indies government. From then on, the new policies spurred the military subjugation of wider swaths of the East Indies that had not previously been under governmental control.35 Military events on Lombok and Bali were politically important to this process, for example, for these colonial battles led to complete Dutch colonization of the two islands. In addition, the Dutch brought outlying districts—on islands beyond areas settled on Java and Sumatra—under control by military force, and thereby encouraged more entrepreneurial interest in the newly acquired territory. Before the First World War, this “pacification” of the East Indies was completed, effectively extending the central authority of Dutch rule. In the process, according to Hellema, “a more clearly nationalist selfawareness” had arisen in the Netherlands, along with “a certain politicalcultural chauvinism” that validated and publicized expansion of Dutch colonial rule as a moral pursuit.36 Similar to other European formulations of the “civilizing mission,” in the Queen’s Speech in 1901, Queen Wilhelmina announced the Ethical Policy (Ethische Politiek) as the guiding principle of Dutch governance in the East Indies; thus pronouncing the government’s acceptance of its responsibility for the welfare of colonial subjects as official policy.37 Accordingly, the argument went, the Dutch colonial government had a historic mission to fulfill: the modernization of East Indian society and the advancement of the population, based on the idea that the Netherlands owed the East Indies a “debt of honor.”38 This notion of a “debt of honor” had emerged when the liberal politician and lawyer C.T. van Deventer (1857–1915) publicly called upon the government to return the “millions” that had been illegally transferred to the Netherlands as a result of forced agricultural production, known in the nineteenth century as the Cultivation System.39 Yet, beyond its moralism, the Ethical Policy expressed what were becoming Dutch nationalistic impulses, increasingly expressed as a “civilizing” vocation. At this time, apart from the Dutch East Indies, the second Boer War of independence against the British in South Africa (1899–1902) was also generating great nationalist fervor in the Netherlands. As a result, according to Martin Kuitenbrouwer, a chauvinist and colonial mentality developed that extended well into the twentieth century.40 With these changes, as the railway employee highlighted, this period had become a heyday of colonial collecting as a result of military activities against local rulers. From the Sultanate of Aceh, for example, during the last phase of the long war undertaken there by the Dutch colonial government— between 1873 and 1914—collections ended up in the Batavian Society, and in the Netherlands at the Royal Military Academy in Breda, the Museum of Ethnology in Rotterdam and the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden.41 Today, according to the curator Harm Stevens, museum objects

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Figure 1.6 The Frederiksplein, Amsterdam, during the Entry of Queen Wilhelmina, September 5, 1898, by Otto Eerelman, 1898–1900. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

from this period remain in the Netherlands, Indonesia and Germany. Rotterdam’s collection of 140 objects, originating with the military officer and later Governor of Aceh (1905–8), G.C.E. (Gotfried Coenraad Ernst) van Daalen (1863–1930), are part of the World Museum collection there.42 The Royal Military Academy bequest was mostly returned to the Van Daalen estate in the 1950s.43 However, the National Ethnology Museum in Leiden now holds around five hundred objects. Dozens of objects were transferred to the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum in Cologne in an exchange with the Leiden Museum in the post-World War II period, and hundreds of objects remain in Jakarta at what is now the National Museum of Indonesia. In addition to materials from Aceh, some of the most celebrated collections arrived after a military confrontation, known as the Lombok expedition of 1894, an event that ended up tying military-backed colonial expansion to collecting for state museums in a way that helped fuel national pride. According to the author Ewald Vanvugt, after colonial troops looted the royal treasury of the Balinese ruler,44 the treasures were first sent to the Batavian Society from where, the next year, a large portion was sent to Amsterdam.45 According to Wahyu Ernawati of the National Museum of

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Figure 1.7 The Lombok Treasure Room at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. On the left, a canon, in the middle, a display case enclosed by a fence and on the right another display case under a portrait. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Indonesia, loot taken from the kingdom included 230 kilos of gold, 7,000 kilos of silver and a wide array of jewelry and precious stones.46 However, the less valuable ordinary objects, and items categorized as duplicates or parts of pairs were sold and the funds used to help defray war costs.47 By the end of the following year, when the Dutch government ordered the rest of the Lombok Treasure being kept at the Batavian Society to be sent to Amsterdam, the combined collection ended up being displayed in 1897–98 in a celebratory exhibition at the Rijksmuseum to a reported twenty-three thousand visitors, including the Queen. While the Dutch government wanted to sell part of this collection, Ernawati explained, vigorous objections by a government ministry official and by museum directors—Victor de Stuers (1843–1916), head of the Art and Sciences department of the Ministry of Inland Affairs; J.D.E. Schmeltz (1839–1909), director of the future National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden and B.W.F. van Riemsdijk (1850–1942), director of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam—dissuaded it from following through.48 The outcome of this

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Figure 1.8 The security display case, surrounded by an iron fence, includes the great Banddjermassin diamond, gold krisses and other diamonds. Behind showcase is a display cabinet designed by architect P.J.H. Cuypers in which gold and silver objects are shown. On the wall hang medieval tapestries. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

episode included the division of the collection between the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the museum of the Batavian Society and other Dutch museums. At the same time, even though the railway employee had not mentioned it in 1949, the historical influx of objects from the East Indies into the collections of the Leiden museum had other colonial sources besides military actions.49 Collections grew as a result of the government’s instruction to officers and missionaries to collect materials for the Batavia museum, and under the directorship of L. Serrurier, materials came to Leiden mainly from the Royal Cabinet of Curiosities in The Hague—which increased the Indonesian collection fivefold—and in 1883 the museum received objects displayed at the Colonial Trade Exhibition in Amsterdam.50 Yet, recent Indonesian and Dutch museum officials have acknowledged that military expeditions were an important source of collections,51 especially those that were related to the Aceh War (1874–1914),52 to Lombok (1894),53 Bali (1906–8)54 and South Sulawesi (1905–6).55 In other words, colonial expansion between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, among other activities, contributed to the assembly of vast museum collections of art and artifacts from the East Indies, and brought a huge influx of objects that ended up

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Figure 1.9 Room 157, in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, where a collection of gold and silver objects is shown. In the middle of the Hall are glass display cases designed by the architect P.J.H. Cuypers. Between these two cabinets, the security display case in which the “Lombok Treasure” is shown. The entrances to the Chamber with wrought iron gates closed. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

in Dutch museums;56 as the Indonesian museum curator Hari Burdiarti wrote, “In conquering these small kingdoms, the Dutch gathered valuable collections.”57 The railway employee’s plea, therefore, would have struck a resonant chord in 1949, since the acquisition of colonial war booty had been common practice, celebrated for nearly a century. The question at the time was, would the politicians embrace the idea of making voluntary returns?

Imagining returns as a gesture of goodwill In the end, Dutch officials believed the railway employee’s plea had merit. It attracted the immediate attention of Foreign Minister Stikker’s office, which followed up three days later with Van Maarseveen, saying that while normally “well-meaning suggestions” were “not worthy of attention,” the Minister had made an “exception.”58 While acknowledging, “objections against this idea speak for themselves”—since it would ordinarily be considered an insult to “national dignity and … a lack of respect for our glorious past”—Stikker concluded that the case with Indonesia was “slightly different.”59 If a moment arose in which there was a need to make a “slightly

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Figure 1.10 Collection at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, of objects, precious stones, gold and silver work, coming from the Treasury of the Raja of Lombok and by the Netherlands East Indies army in 1894 on the capture of Lombok. The display case is surrounded by a wrought iron gate, right. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

striking ‘gesture’ of our good intentions … [t]hen possibly this idea would deserve to be considered.”60 Stikker’s views about “our glorious past” would have cautioned him against provoking a negative reaction in Dutch public opinion, which had long supported colonial expansion in the East Indies and remained disappointed by its end. Yet, he could see the importance of what he called, appealing to “Indonesian feelings.”61 He began to think that the Dutch gave “too little attention in our Indonesian policy to certain ‘sentimental values’” and someone had pressed him to remember, “how for the Oriental ‘the value is of words, of symbols and of feelings.’”62 This seems to be a classic formulation of scholarly orientalism,63 since it was not uncommon for Dutch colonial administrators to view Indonesians as irrational, superstitious and sentimental. Yet, as historian Margaret J. Weiner has demonstrated, Dutch officials themselves had also long acknowledged the magical power of ceremonial objects in the East Indies.64 Stikker would have been aware that such a gesture would have drawn on traditions of the past, therefore, not as a mechanism for recalling historical wrongs, but as a diplomatic revival, and that this would not be the first time the Dutch state had returned such “crown treasures” since such returns had been an

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important part of colonial era diplomacy.65 In 1931, for example, the East Indies government had returned regalia heirlooms—objects believed to have sacred power that confers authentic authority on a ruler—that had been acquired as war booty in South Sulawesi in the middle of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century.66 In addition, the government considered returning war booty to local rulers of Balinese and other traditional states as part of a self-rule policy, called Zelfbestuursregeling, which would grant limited power; however, officials decided not to carry out returns in every case.67 In 1949, Stikker’s response implied that this gesture would have been a meaningful way to symbolize the transfer of sovereignty, since it had historical resonance and would, as the railway employee suggested, be enormously appealing to Indonesian leaders. Therefore, despite what could have been considered an affront to national honor, Foreign Ministry officials considered willingly returning “regalia” if they could present it as a way to appeal to the presumed sensitivities of Indonesian leaders. This may seem strange to contemporary readers who are more accustomed to rigid refusals by officials to make returns from national museums. However, with the Dutch government under political pressure from the US Senate and the UNSC over the second police action, the railway employee’s appeal persuaded most of the Dutch officials concerned who hoped to do something to restore Dutch credibility as a negotiating partner. A week later, Van Maarseveen presented the idea to the Council of Ministers, which decided to consider it at the end phase of the constitutional reforms, which were to pave the way for the sovereignty transfer.68 Following Stikker’s response, then, the proposal gained momentum, first when it received preliminary approval from the Council of Ministers, and by early July, when Van Maarseveen contacted the High Commissioner of the Netherlands in the East Indies, A.H.J. Lovink (1902–95), to suggest the idea. Lovink had followed L.J.M. Beel as High Commissioner (May 1949– December 27, 1949), and ended up becoming the last ruler of the Dutch East Indies.69 At this point, Van Maarseveen asked Lovink to privately give his views on how to go about it, to suggest when the government proceed, and alternatively, to advise as to whether it should be driven by a political process and popular support which could be raised by positive reports in the press. The latter, Van Maarseveen noted, would seem more generous, however, fearing it could set off a domestic political backlash, he said he did not want the idea to receive any publicity.70 For the present study, it is significant to note that Lovink’s response focused on crafting an acceptable narrative for such a gesture, thus revealing the importance given at the time to improving the public and diplomatic image of the Dutch administration. He replied that the idea was very attractive and would “prove” to their Indonesian counterparts the Dutch desire to establish good relations with Indonesia.71 He also suggested that Van Maarseveen begin preliminary research by the Dutch museums concerned into which “crown jewels” to send. However, Lovink also raised a thorny

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Figure 1.11 The High Commissioner of the Netherlands East Indies, A.H.J. Lovink, visiting the Bantam stationed troops of the first infantry Brigade Group of the C-Division, 7 dec. greeted by the school children of Waroeng Goenoeng, June 6, 1949. National Archives of the Netherlands/ Collection Dienst voor Legercontacten Indonesië/Photographer Unknown

problem; the issue of identifying to whom to return regalia, whether those he euphemistically called, “rightful power holders”—that is, descendants of the former princely rulers who had been defeated in the late nineteenth century which, he noted, would have been politically and practically objectionable—or to the soon-to-be new government of Indonesia. If the former, Lovink wrote, there were significant political objections. Indonesians perceived the confiscated crown jewels as “proof of legitimate authority.” Giving them back to the descendants of the “original dominators” would constitute a “faux pas,” since the former no longer held any claim to such power. He argued that there is no rightful owner in Indonesia at any rate, since the “ornamentalia” are “symbols of government power” and the Dutch had replaced the former authority and, thereby, had broken the line of native rule. In addition, treating them as objects of personal possession in this way, Lovink argued, would raise legal problems of inheritance in Lombok, as the line of governing authority had disappeared.72 He resolved the dilemma by asserting that the museum at Batavia should become the new home of such “regalia,” and that a refund to the so-called “claimants”

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Figure 1.12 J.H. Van Maarseveen speaking at UN Round Table Conference at the Ridderzaal, August 23, 1949, The Hague. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Anefo/Van Oorschot/Anefo

should be “excluded.” The Batavia museum, he reasoned, would soon become the national museum of Indonesia, and therefore would become a politically neutral place for such “crown jewels” presently held by Dutch museums.73 This solution had colonial roots, as well, especially in the early twentieth century when colonial processes turned “objects from all over the Indonesian archipelago … into museum pieces.”74 So, even though Dutch officials were willing to consider returning museum objects to Indonesia in this way, they were equally concerned with how to frame such a gesture. The railway employee had already called it a “goodwill gesture.” Now Lovink made it clear that he too did not want the act to be “explained as a penitential refund of unlawfully obtained colonial booty.” Rather, he argued, the Foreign Ministry should assert that since the Dutch became legitimate owner of authority as a legal successor of the local Indonesian government, it is now able to give possession of the objects to Indonesia, as a legal successor of the Netherlands. Therefore, the gesture should be made at the time of “sovereignty transfer (and not earlier) when … it could be explained as a goodwill measure toward a union partner … and as proof that the Netherlands does not want to hold back any of its highest power.”75

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These views predated the ethical imperatives of post-colonial cultural property return that would emerge years later within the UNGA and UNESCO, and they make clear that by framing the return in these terms—as a symbolic gesture of sovereignty transfer, rather than as one of repentance for past misdeeds—Lovink began shaping a narrative that would both legitimize Dutch possession of colonial power, and the recent Dutch struggle over its end. As soon as Van Maarseveen had Lovink’s views in hand, therefore, he started advancing the railway employee’s idea at home. On August 23, 1949, the first day of the UN-sponsored RTC in The Hague, where officials began negotiations over Indonesia’s sovereignty, he wrote to the Minister President, Willem Drees (1886–1988), to provide additional information so that the Council of Ministers could pay closer attention to it at their next meeting.76 Van Maarseveen noted that while care needed to be taken so as not to prematurely leak information to the press about the plan, he would need to call on the Minister of Education, Arts and Sciences, and the Executive Boards of the concerned museums, for assistance in drawing up “a list of possible objects … with precise as possible descriptions.”77 He warned that these officials would resist the idea of using museum possessions for a political aim, as they had in past refunds. However, despite this forewarning, when the Council of Ministers met on August 29, they decided to consider the idea and gave Van Maarseveen permission to contact the official responsible for the country’s national museums, Minister of Education, Arts and Sciences, F.J.T. (Franz Joseph Theo) Rutten (1899–1980), which he did two days later.78 As Van Maarseveen expected, Minister Rutten objected. Implying a lack of legal justification for return, Rutten mentioned that many items had come to museums by purchase and donation. Rather than giving a detailed description, he attached a brief list of “Inventories” which included the following four cryptic entries: one pertaining to objects purchased by or given to the Department of Ethnology of the Indies Institute in Amsterdam; two entries concerning objects from the Lombok Treasure at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the contents of a “security showcase.”79 To bolster this brief report, a few weeks after Rutten’s reply, a report emerged from the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden providing an “Overview of golden jewels in the possession of the museum.”80 These included, according to the report, objects purchased or transferred to the National Museum of Antiquities, or an earlier museum, between 1844 and 1915, which had since 1903 been in the collections of what became the National Museum of Ethnology, in addition to “booty objects from the Lombok and Bali expeditions, present in the museum …” The report also included an explanation of the governmental measures taken to prevent the loss of archaeological objects and antiquities in the Dutch East Indies. Such retracing of the history of collections acquisition became a common feature of efforts to substantiate how materials had been obtained for the museums, but lapses in the record challenged

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such accounting.81 Yet, despite being vague, the report from Minister Rutten provided a first review of when and how objects had come into the collections, and when they had been transferred between museums. More than a full accounting, however, the Minister’s response demonstrates that the Ministry of Education, Arts and Sciences rejected the idea of making a so-called “goodwill gesture” in the interest of foreign policy, if it meant diminishing the national museum collections. As the weeks wore on, and despite these discussions, subsequent “political considerations” made it impossible for officials to organize the hasty return of regalia objects. In late November 1949, just one month before the date planned for transferring sovereignty, developments in the UN-sponsored RTC negotiations were quickly superseding such plans.82 As a result, Dutch officials began scaling back hopes that they could execute the previously planned “goodwill gesture,” and Lovink instructed that only objects of booty—mainly treasures from Lombok and Bali—be sent back to Indonesia for the completion of the collection of the Museum of the Batavian Society

Figure 1.13 The signing of the RTC agreement on the sovereignty transfer from the Netherlands to the United States of Indonesia by Minister J.H. van Maarseveen, Sultan Hamid II (B.F.O) and Mohammed Hatta (Republic of Indonesia), in the Hague, the Netherlands, November 2, 1949. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Anefo/J.D. Noske/Anefo

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Figure 1.14 Sovereignty transfer of Indonesia enacted as Queen Juliana signs the deed, with Willem Drees and Mohammad Hatta. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Anefo/Joop van Bilsen/Anefo

in Djakarta.83 Dutch officials seemed disappointed to conclude that the original idea had “lost importance.” They recognized, as the following reveals, that in light of an emerging cultural agreement, they would be required to return colonial war booty anyway.

Tying returns to cultural cooperation in the future: the UN Round Table Conference draft cultural agreement While returning cultural property constituted a relatively minor issue in the wider scheme of the sovereignty transfer, the RTC deliberations included work on cultural affairs. By August 1949, a cultural sub-committee of the Committee for Indonesian Affairs had drafted a cultural agreement that covered the division of property and future cooperation.84 Article 19 referred specifically to cultural property and stipulated that, Objects of cultural value which have their origin in Indonesia and which came into the possession of the Netherlands government or of the former Dutch East Indies authorities by means other than as specified in private law for the acquisition of property shall be handed over to the

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Government of the RIS [Republik Indonesia Serakat (Republic of the United States of Indonesia)] pursuant to the transfer of sovereignty by the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the RIS.85 This language starkly implied that the Netherlands had come into possession of items by methods that had circumvented the normal bounds of private law, and its inclusion suggests that Indonesian counterparts were interested in redress, not cultural cooperation. Indonesian delegates would have been aware of the history of transfers of objects to Dutch museums, suspected that infractions of colonial regulations may have occurred and believed that Indonesia was entitled to returns. The question remains, why did the Dutch side agree? First, for the Dutch officials in 1949, given the precarious diplomatic situation that had so alarmed the Dutch national railway employee, the agreement to unilaterally return contested materials to Indonesia (without assurances of access to Dutch colonial records), meant that Dutch officials were hoping to improve the Netherlands’ international position. Dutch negotiators felt pressured by the international system to make a gesture that would demonstrate goodwill not only to Indonesian officials, but to their allies and the wider international community as well. However, these events also suggest that the question of returning cultural property related to more than political expediency in diplomatic affairs. It was also tied to Dutch memory of the nation’s status as a colonial power in the East Indies. Given the historical importance of cultural learning and colonial collecting to Dutch national identity, when Indonesian officials called for the return of irregularly acquired cultural objects they confronted the comfortable tradition of Dutch scholarship and preservation of cultural artifacts of the Far East. They raised doubts about the Dutch moralistic worldview, and about Dutch pride in the knowledge of local Indonesian history and culture. Yet, despite these challenges, Dutch officials were willing to make such returns in the context of the RTC agreement, but only if they were tied to ongoing cultural cooperation between the two nations—an arrangement amply provided for in the rest of the draft cultural agreement. In other words, for Dutch officials concerned with reasserting authority in the East Indies after the Japanese occupation, the question of returning cultural property was not high on the diplomatic agenda. When it finally came down to arrangements that would follow their release of ruling power, the draft cultural agreement shows they were more interested in restoring cultural relations, which would allow for a continuing Dutch cultural presence in an independent Indonesia. During the final months of negotiations over the sovereignty of Indonesia, therefore, Dutch officials agreed to return cultural and historical treasures to the former colony; but on one condition: that they would continue cooperation in cultural affairs. That provisions for transferring materials followed wider reaching aspirations for reciprocal cultural relations suggests there were competing visions between Indonesian

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and Dutch negotiators over what cooperation in cultural affairs would mean in the post-colonial future. Because the Dutch envisioned a close collaboration, therefore, the overall sovereignty transfer agreement—establishing Indonesia’s official independence on December 27, 1949 (later recognized by the Dutch as August 17, 1945)—led to the creation of the Netherlands–Indonesian Union; cooperation in foreign affairs, defense and on financial, economic and cultural concerns; acceptance of the Queen of the Netherlands as Head of the Union; a regular conference of cabinet ministers; parliamentary cooperation and a permanent secretariat and court of arbitration.86 Yet, according to historian Henri Grimal, the final arrangement ended up offering only a “loose union which could be terminated at the [insistence] of one or both parties.”87 Unwilling to concede what they saw as defeat, right-wing groups unsuccessfully disputed the constitutionality of the agreement, as well as the adequacy of protections for Netherlands-loyal minorities in Indonesia. The Dutch Parliament ratified the agreement in an atmosphere of national “weariness” coupled with threats by the US government to suspend post-war economic aid, and some hope among Dutch officials that “friendly relations” could be salvaged with the Indonesians.88 However, as with discussions concerning a so-called “goodwill gesture,” the wider agreement over the transfer of sovereignty did not persist for long. The Dutch had set up a federal structure which, seen by the Republican leaders of Indonesia as a way of continuing the “colonial order,” lasted only a few months. By May 1950, the federal Republic dissolved itself, and on August 17, 1950, it ushered in a unitary state.89 Decades later, the historian H.L. Wesseling concluded that the Dutch public had been agitated by the conflict with Indonesia until the transfer of sovereignty that, when finalized, “abruptly gave way to a thunderous silence.”90 Even though the question of Indonesian independence had been answered, Wesseling thought, Dutch relations with the new nation showed that the past relationship had not been fully “absorbed.”91

Conclusion When writing in the 1979 issue of the journal Museum about the recent agreement between the Netherlands and Indonesia to return cultural property, the museum director Peter H. Pott had asserted that negotiations had begun in the 1960s and 1970s.92 His accounting of their origins dismisses a longer trajectory, traced here, beginning in the final stages of talks over the transfer of sovereignty in 1949. When the idea was raised of voluntarily returning cultural property, Dutch officials momentarily embraced it as a symbolic gesture toward a better post-colonial relationship with the new Indonesian leaders. Their secret discussions concerning a “goodwill gesture” sprang from a desire to improve public perception of the Netherlands in the

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aftermath of criticism about the second police action. If it were to happen, they hoped to avoid expressing remorse for Dutch possession of booty from colonial wars in the East Indies. Nevertheless, Dutch authorities were challenged to find a diplomatically appropriate narrative to accompany such a gesture. It not only needed to be acceptable to Indonesian officials, it had to be framed in a way that would not dishonor Dutch memory of the colonial past. As such, in keeping with the traditional self-image of a benevolent colonial power coming out of the trauma of World War II, Dutch officials minimized colonial conflicts and focused instead on improving the country’s image as a reliable future partner in a Dutch-Indonesian Union. It is not surprising that officials reached for this highly symbolic expression of goodwill. Such gestures had been deployed in the past to symbolize cooperation, and while the move risked being interpreted as a sign of remorse for historical offenses, Dutch officials did not want to apologize for the colonial past, nor for the more recent conflicts over its end. They wanted to retain an image of the Dutch as bearers of goodwill, holding the power to bestow authority through the transfer of regalia. When this idea fell through, Dutch officials continued to hope that the draft cultural agreement would set the tone for cultural cooperation, and provide for a continuing Dutch presence of experts and institutions founded on the nation’s knowledge and power in the past. While they conceded the magnanimous image of the goodwill gesture—momentarily—it was only to open the possibility of securing an ongoing cultural role instead. It was not to be, however. As the following chapter shows, after the sovereignty transfer, it took nearly three decades before the Netherlands returned such objects. The 1949 draft cultural agreement faded away in further negotiations, and the Indonesian government rescinded it altogether— with the exception of Article 19, which stipulated the return of cultural property—in a 1954 protocol.93 With the end of Dutch colonial power in the former East Indies, officials in foreign affairs and museums would continue to grapple with the meaning of colonial endeavors, future cooperation and what they would say about the identity of the Dutch nation and its past.

Notes 1 Schurink to Van Maarseveen, May 31, 1949. BZ 1945–54, NAN. Access No. 2.05.117. Inventory No. 13008. Translations from the original Dutch are my own, except for the handwritten notes from Schurink to Van Maarseveen and Stikker, which were translated by Lisa Maat. 2 Louis de Jong, The Collapse of a Colonial Society: The Dutch in Indonesia During the Second World War (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2002); Arend Lijphart, The Trauma of Decolonization: The Dutch and West New Guinea (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966); Leslie H. Palmier, Indonesia and the Dutch (London: Oxford University Press, 1962); Christiaan L.M. Penders, The West New Guinea Debacle: Dutch Decolonization and Indonesia, 1945–1962 (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2002); Jean Gelman Taylor, Indonesia:

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9 10 11

12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Competing visions of cultural diplomacy Peoples and Histories (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003), 146–7. Before 1949 “Indonesia” did not exist as an internationally recognized entity, nor had it been conceived widely before the 1920s and 1930s. Since Independence, the national identity “Indonesian” includes citizens with ancestry from across the Indonesian archipelago—including China, India, Arabia and Europe—while that of “Dutch” refers to persons born in the Netherlands. Today, the 13,466 islands of Indonesia that make up the fourth largest country in the world have a population of over 260 million people, who speak over three hundred languages. See: The World Factbook, Indonesia: Central Intelligence Agency, accessed October 28, 2018, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-worldfactbook/geos/id.html. Henri Grimal, Decolonization: The British, French, Dutch and Belgian Empires 1919–1963, trans. Stephan De Vos (Boulder: Westview Press, 1978), 185. See also: Jan Krancher, ed., The Defining Years of the Dutch East Indies 1942–1949: Survivors’ Accounts of Japanese Invasion and Enslavement of Europeans and the Revolution That Created Free Indonesia (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company, Inc., 1996). Grimal, Decolonization, 186. Jennifer L. Foray, Visions of Empire in the Nazi-Occupied Netherlands (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); William H. Frederick, Visions and Heat: The Making of the Indonesian Revolution (Athens: Ohio University Press 1989). Ibid., 45. Ibid., 47. On the German occupation: Louis de Jong, Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog [13 parts] (Leiden: Nijhoff, 1969–88); De Jong, The Collapse of a Colonial Society; Werner Warmbrunn, The Dutch under German Occupation, 1940–1945 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1963); Walter D. Maass, The Netherlands at War, 1940–45 (New York: Abelard-Schuman, 1970). Foray, Visions of Empire in the Nazi-Occupied Netherlands, 219. Palmier, Indonesia and the Dutch, 45; Grimal, Decolonization, 191. Foray, Visions of Empire in the Nazi-Occupied Netherlands, 286. On the Indonesian Revolution: Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper, Forgotten Wars: Freedom and Revolution in Southeast Asia (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007); George McT. Kahin, “Sukarno’s Proclamation of Indonesian Independence,” Indonesia 69 (April 2000): 1–4; Robert E. Elson, “Another Look at the Jakarta Charter Controversy of 1945,” Indonesia 88 (October 2009): 105–30; Robert J. McMahon, Colonialism and Cold War: The United States and the Struggle for Indonesian Independence (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981); George McT. Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1952); Adrian Vickers, A History of Modern Indonesia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Anthony Reid, The Indonesian National Revolution, 1945–1950 (Hawthorn, Victoria: Longman, 1974); Merle C. Ricklefs, A History of Modern Indonesia since c. 1200, 4th ed. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008). Foray, Visions of Empire in the Nazi-Occupied Netherlands, 286. Ibid., 288. Ibid., 291–8. Ibid., 293. Grimal, Decolonization, 203–6. UNSC Res. 67 [on the Indonesian Question], S/1234, 406th Meeting. January 28, 1949. Grimal, Decolonization, 209.

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19 Ibid.; Hendrik Spruyt, Ending Empire: Contested Sovereignty and Territorial Partition (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2005). 20 Maarseveen was serving in the Cabinet of Drees-Van Schaik (August 7, 1948– March 15, 1951). “Johannes Henricus van Maarseveen,” Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland, accessed October 20, 2011, http://www.inghist.nl/. I follow the Dutch convention of using initials rather than the full spellings of first names. When known, however, full first names will be indicated. 21 Schurink to Stikker, June 1, 1949. BZ 1945–54, NAN. Access No. 2.05.117. Inventory No. 13008. 22 “Dirk Uipko Stikker,” Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland, accessed October 20, 2011, http://www.inghist.nl/. I thank Professor Dr. Susan Legêne, Professor of Political History, VU Amsterdam, for pointing out that as a railway employee, Schurink would have been representative of the influential labor interest, personal interview, June 2011. 23 Schurink to Stikker, June 1, 1949. BZ 1945–54, NAN. 24 Peter H. Pott and Mohammad Amir Sutaarga, “Arrangements Concluded or in Progress for the Return of Objects: The Netherlands-Indonesia,” Museum 31, no. 1 (1979): 40. 25 Hari Burdiarti, “Taking and Returning Objects in a Colonial Context: Tracing the Collections Acquired During the Bone-Gowa Military Expeditions,” in Colonial Collections Revisited, ed. Pieter ter Keurs (Leiden: CNWS Publications, 2007), 123–7. 26 Ibid., 132, 135. 27 Nota inzake Indonesische cultuurgoederen (niet archieven) in Nederlands openbaar bezit (Note Concerning Indonesian Culture Goods (not files) in Dutch Public Possession), n.d. [1975]. KITLV. File: H710 63; and Curator’s Files, Indonesian Collections, RMV. 28 Edi Sedyawati and Pieter ter Keurs, “Scholarship, Curiosity and Politics: Collecting in a Colonial Context,” in Indonesia: The Discovery of the Past, ed. Endang Sri Hardiati and Pieter ter Keurs (Leiden: National Museum of Ethnology, 2005), 20; Pieter ter Keurs, “The National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden,” in Indonesia: The Discovery of the Past, ed. Endang Sri Hardiati and Pieter ter Keurs (Leiden: National Museum of Ethnology, 2005), 18. 29 Sedyawati and Ter Keurs, “Scholarship, Curiosity and Politics,” 20. 30 Ibid. 31 Maarten Kuitenbrouwer. Dutch Scholarship in the Age of Empire and Beyond: KITLV—The Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, 1851–2011 (Leiden: Brill, 2014). 32 Endang Sri Hardiati, “From Batavian Society to Indonesian National Museum,” Indonesia: The Discovery of the Past, ed. Endang Sri Hardiati and Pieter ter Keurs (Leiden: National Museum of Ethnology, 2005), 14. 33 Duco A. Hellema, Dutch Foreign Policy: The Role of the Netherlands in World Politics, trans. Murray Pearson (Dordrecht: Republic of Letters Publishing BV, 2009), 45. 34 Ibid., 37. 35 Ibid., 46. 36 Ibid., 48. 37 Elsbeth Locher-Scholten, Ethiek in Fragmenten: Vijf Studies over Koloniaal Denken en Doen van Nederlanders in de Indonesische Archipel, 1877–1942 (Utrecht: HES Publishers, 1981); Susan Lêgene, “Enlightenment, Empathy, Retreat: The Cultural Heritage of the Ethische Politiek,” in Colonial Collections Revisited, ed. Pieter ter Keurs (Leiden: CNWS Publications, 2007), 220–45. 38 Hellema, Dutch Foreign Policy, 48.

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39 C.T. (Conrad Theodor) van Deventer, “Een Eerschuld, (A Debt of Honor)” De Gids 17 (1899): 205–57. See: Foray, Visions of Empire in the Nazi-Occupied Netherlands, 36–37. 40 Hellema, Dutch Foreign Policy, 47–48. 41 Harm Stevens, “G.C.E. van Daalen, Military Officer and Ethnological Field Agent. The Ethnological Exploration of Gayo and Alas, 1900–1905,” in Colonial Collections Revisited, ed. Pieter ter Keurs (Leiden: CNWS Publications, 2007), 115–22. See also: Harm Stevens, “Collecting and ‘The Rough Work of Subjugation’: Van Daalen, Snouck Hurgronje and the Ethnographic Exploitation of North Sumatra,” in Indonesia: The Discovery of the Past, ed. Endang Sri Hardiati and Pieter ter Keurs (Leiden: National Museum of Ethnology, 2005), 76–84. 42 Stevens, “G.C.E. van Daalen,” 115–22. 43 Ibid., 119. 44 Ewald Vanvugt, De Schatten van Lombok: Honderd jaar Nederlandse Oorlogsbuit uit Indonesie (Amsterdam: Jan Mets, 1995); Wahyu Ernawati, “The Lombok Treasure,” in Colonial Collections Revisited, ed. Pieter ter Keurs (Leiden: CNWS Publications, 2007), 186–202; Jurrien van Goor, “De Lombok expeditie en het Nederlandse Nationalisme,” in Imperialisme in de Marge: de Afronding van Nederlands-Indie?, ed. J. van Goor (Utrecht: HES, 1985), 19–70. 45 Vanvugt, De Schatten van Lombok, 61. 46 Ernawati, “The Lombok Treasure,” in Colonial Collections Revisited, 197. 47 Wahyu Ernawati, “The Lombok Treasure,” in Indonesia: The Discovery of the Past, ed. Endang Sri Hardiati and Pieter ter Keurs (Leiden: National Museum of Ethnology, 2005), 155. 48 Ibid. 49 Ter Keurs, “The National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden,” 18. 50 Ibid. 51 Sedyawati and Ter Keurs, “Scholarship, Curiosity and Politics,” 37. 52 See fn 41. 53 See fn 44. 54 Francine Brinkgreve, “Balinese Chiefs and Dutch Dominion: Building a Collection and Politics,” in Indonesia: The Discovery of the Past, ed. Endang Sri Hardiati and Pieter ter Keurs (Leiden: National Museum of Ethnology, 2005), 122–45; Francine Brinkgreve and David Stuart-Fox, “Collections After Colonial Conflict: Badung and Tabanan 1906–2006,” in Colonial Collections Revisited, ed. Pieter ter Keurs (Leiden: CNWS Publications, 2007), 145–85; Margaret J. Wiener, “Object Lessons: Dutch Colonialism and the Looting of Bali,” History and Anthropology 6, no. 4 (1994): 347–70. On the display of kris (daggers) from Java, Bali and Sulawesi in the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, see: Margaret J. Wiener, “The Magical Life of Things,” in Colonial Collections Revisited, ed., Pieter ter Keurs, (Leiden: CNWS Publications, 2007), 45–70. 55 Sedyawati and Ter Keurs, “Scholarship, Curiosity and Politics,” 37. See also: Hari Burdiarti, “The Sulawesi Collections: Missionaries, Chiefs and Military Expeditions,” in Indonesia: The Discovery of the Past, ed. Endang Sri Hardiati and Pieter ter Keurs (Leiden: National Museum of Ethnology, 2005), 160–71; Burdiarti, “Taking and Returning Objects in a Colonial Context,” 123–44. 56 Ter Keurs, “The National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden,” 18. 57 Burdiarti, “The Sulawesi Collections,” 161. 58 Cabinet [of D.U. Stikker] to Van Maarseveen, June 4, 1949. BZ 1945–54, NAN. Access No. 2.05.117. Inventory No. 13008. 59 Ibid. 60 Ibid. 61 Ibid.

Competing visions of cultural diplomacy 62 63 64 65 66 67 68

69 70 71 72 73 74 75

76 77 78

79

80 81 82 83 84

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Ibid. See: Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978). Wiener, “The Magical Life of Things,” 45–70. Burdiarti, “Taking and Returning Objects in a Colonial Context,” 47; Brinkgreve and Stuart-Fox, “Collections After Colonial Conflict,”162–4; Wiener, “Object Lessons,” 362. Burdiarti, “Taking and Returning Objects in a Colonial Context,” 134–40. Brinkgreve and Stuart-Fox, “Collections After Colonial Conflict,” 162–4. Notulen Ministerraad, “Indonesisische kroonschatten” (Minutes of the Council of Ministers, “Indonesian crown treasures”), June 13, 1949, attachment to Van Maarseveen to Lovink, July 6, 1949. BZ 1945–54, NAN. Access No. 2.05.117. Inventory No. 13008. “Antonius Hermanus Johannes Lovink,” Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland, accessed October 19, 2011, http://www.inghist.nl/. Van Maarseveen to Lovink, July 6, 1949. BZ 1945–54, NAN. Access No. 2.05.117. Inventory No. 13008. Lovink to Van Maarseveen, August 1, 1949. BZ 1945–54, NAN. Access No. 2.05.117. Inventory No. 13008. On the descendants of the deposed Lombok Prince see: Ernawati, “The Lombok Treasure,” in Indonesia: The Discovery of the Past, 146–59. Lovink to Van Maarseveen, August 1, 1949. BZ 1945–54, NAN. For a discussion of these processes of “museumification” see: Susan Legêne, “Enlightenment, Empathy, Retreat, 220–45. Lovink to Van Maarseveen, August 1, 1949. BZ 1945–54, NAN. Regarding issues connected with sovereignty in the Dutch East Indies see: Elsbeth Locher-Scholten, Sumatran Sultanate and Colonial State: Jambi and the Rise of Dutch Imperialism, 1830–1907, trans. Beverly Jackson (Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2004). Van Maarseveen to Minister-President, August 23, 1949. BZ 1945–54, NAN. Access No. 2.05.117. Inventory No. 13008. “Denkbeeld Teruggave Indonesische Kroonschatten,” G.S. 4816, n.d., attachment to Van Maarseveen to Minister-President, August 23, 1949. BZ 1945–54, NAN. Access No. 2.05.117. Inventory No. 13008. Minister van Overzeese Gebiedsdelen to Minister-President, August 23, 1949; and Minister zonder Portefeuille to Minister van Onderwijs, Kunsten en Wetenschappen, August 31, 1949. BZ 1945–54, NAN. No. 2.05.117. Inventory No. 13008. Rutten to Gotzen, October 4, 1949. BZ 1945–54, NAN. Access No. 2.05.117. Inventory No. 13008; “Inventarislijst,” n.d., attachment to Rutten to Gotzen, October 4, 1949. BZ 1945–54, NAN. Access No. 2.05.117. Inventory No. 13008. Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde te Leiden, Onderwerp: Overzicht gouden sieraden in bezit van het museum, n.d. [October 18, 1949]. BZ 1945–54, NAN. Access No. 2.05.117. Inventory No. 13008. Pieter ter Keurs, “Introduction: Theory and Practice of Colonial Collecting,” in Colonial Collections Revisited, ed. Pieter ter Keurs (Leiden: CNWS Publications, 2007), 5–6. Lovink to Van Maarseveen, November 30, 1949. BZ 1945–54, NAN. Access No. 2.05.117. Inventory No. 13008. Lovink to Van Maarseveen, November 30, 1949. BZ 1945–54, NAN. Susan Legêne and Els Postel-Coster, “Isn’t it all Culture? Culture and Dutch Development Policy in the Post-Colonial Period,” in Fifty Years of Dutch Development Cooperation, 1949–1999, ed. Jan A. Nekkers and Petrus Adrianus Maria

54

85

86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93

Competing visions of cultural diplomacy Malcontent (The Hague: SDU, 2000), 272; Legêne, “Enlightenment, Empathy, Retreat,” 235. Legêne and Postel-Coster, “Isn’t it all Culture?,” 272; Round-Table Conference Agreement between the Government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Government of the Republic of Indonesia: Covering Resolution, with the Attached Agreements and Exchanges of Notes accepted at the Second Plenary Meeting of the Round Table Conference, The Hague, November 2, 1949, Protocol and Act of Transfer of Sovereignty and Recognition, Amsterdam, December 27, 1949. UNTS 69, 3. Article 19 also provided for the possibility of an “exchange of objects of cultural or historical value,” which reveals that both sides had hoped to exchange such objects, since at the time of the sovereignty transfer, Dutch cultural property still remained in Indonesia including the archival records of the East Indies Company. Grimal, Decolonization, 211. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 212; Penders, The West New Guinea Debacle, 191–4; Palmier, Indonesia and the Dutch. Henk L Wesseling, “Post-Imperial Holland,” Journal of Contemporary History 15, no. 1 (January 1980): 128–9. Ibid., 128–9. Pott and Sutaarga, “Arrangements Concluded or in Progress for the Return of Objects,” 42. Legêne and Postel-Coster, “Isn’t it all Culture?,” 272.

References Manuscript collections Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde Archive (KITLV), (Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies), Leiden, https:// www.knaw.nl/en/institutes/kitlv. Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken (BZ), 1945–54, Nationaal Archief, Nederland (NAN), (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1945–54, National Archives of the Netherlands), The Hague, https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/en. Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde (RMV), (National Museum of Ethnology), Leiden, http://www.volkenkunde.nl.

Secondary sources Bayly, Christopher, and Tim Harper. Forgotten Wars: Freedom and Revolution in Southeast Asia. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007. Brinkgreve, Francine. “Balinese Chiefs and Dutch Dominion: Building a Collection and Politics.” In Indonesia: The Discovery of the Past, edited by Endang Sri Hardiati and Pieter ter Keurs, 122–45. Leiden: National Museum of Ethnology, 2005. —–—–, and David Stuart-Fox. “Collections After Colonial Conflict: Badung and Tabanan 1906–2006.” In Colonial Collections Revisited, edited by Pieter ter Keurs, 162–4. Leiden: CNWS Publications, 2007. Burdiarti, Hari. “The Sulawesi Collections: Missionaries, Chiefs and Military Expeditions.” In Indonesia: The Discovery of the Past, edited by Endang Sri

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Hardiati and Pieter ter Keurs, 160–71. Leiden: National Museum of Ethnology, 2005. —–—–. “Taking and Returning Objects in a Colonial Context: Tracing the Collections Acquired During the Bone-Gowa Military Expeditions.” In Colonial Collections Revisited, edited by Pieter ter Keurs, 123–44. Leiden: CNWS Publications, 2007. De Jong, Louis. Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog [13 parts]. Leiden: Nijhoff, 1969–88. —–—–. The Collapse of a Colonial Society: The Dutch in Indonesia During the Second World War. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2002. Elson, Robert E. “Another Look at the Jakarta Charter Controversy of 1945,” Indonesia 88 (October 2009): 105–30. Ernawati, Wahyu. “The Lombok Treasure.” In Colonial Collections Revisited, edited by Pieter ter Keurs, 186–202. Leiden: CNWS Publications, 2007. —–—–. “The Lombok Treasure.” In Indonesia: The Discovery of the Past, edited by Endang Sri Hardiati and Pieter ter Keurs, 146–59. Leiden: National Museum of Ethnology, 2005. Foray, Jennifer L. Visions of Empire in the Nazi-Occupied Netherlands. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Frederick, William H. Visions and Heat: The Making of the Indonesian Revolution. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1989. Grimal, Henri. Decolonization: The British, French, Dutch and Belgian Empires 1919–1963. Translated by Stephan De Vos. Boulder: Westview Press, 1978. Hardiati, Endang Sri. “From Batavian Society to Indonesian National Museum.” In Indonesia: The Discovery of the Past, edited by Endang Sri Hardiati and Pieter ter Keurs, 11–15. Leiden: National Museum of Ethnology, 2005. Hellema, Duco A. Dutch Foreign Policy: The Role of the Netherlands in World Politics. Translated by Murray Pearson. Dordrecht: Republic of Letters Publishing BV, 2009. Kahin, George McT. Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1952. —–—–. “Sukarno’s Proclamation of Indonesian Independence,” Indonesia 69 (April 2000): 1–4. Krancher, Jan, ed. The Defining Years of the Dutch East Indies 1942–1949: Survivors’ Accounts of Japanese Invasion and Enslavement of Europeans and the Revolution That Created Free Indonesia. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company, Inc., 1996. Kuitenbrouwer, Maarten. Dutch Scholarship in the Age of Empire and Beyond: KITLV—The Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, 1851–2011. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Legêne, Susan. “Enlightenment, Empathy, Retreat: The Cultural Heritage of the Ethische Politiek.” In Colonial Collections Revisited, edited by Pieter ter Keurs, 220–45. Leiden: CNWS Publications, 2007. —–—–, and Els Postel-Coster. “Isn’t it all Culture? Culture and Dutch Development Policy in the Post-Colonial Period.” In Fifty Years of Dutch Development Cooperation, 1949–1999, edited by Jan A. Nekkers and Petrus Adrianus Maria Malcontent, 271–88. The Hague: SDU, 2000. Lijphart, Arend. The Trauma of Decolonization: The Dutch and West New Guinea. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966.

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Locher-Scholten, Elsbeth. Sumatran Sultanate and Colonial State: Jambi and the Rise of Dutch Imperialism, 1830–1907. Translated by Beverly Jackson. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2004. Maass, Walter D. The Netherlands at War, 1940–45. New York: Abelard-Schuman, 1970. McMahon, Robert J. Colonialism and Cold War: The United States and the Struggle for Indonesian Independence. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981. Palmier, Leslie H. Indonesia and the Dutch. London: Oxford University Press, 1962. Penders, Christiaan L.M. The West New Guinea Debacle: Dutch Decolonization and Indonesia, 1945–1962. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2002. Pott, Peter H., and Mohammad Amir Sutaarga. “Arrangements Concluded or in Progress for the Return of Objects: The Netherlands-Indonesia.” Museum 31, no. 1 (1979): 38–42. Reid, Anthony. The Indonesian National Revolution, 1945–1950. Hawthorn, Victoria: Longman, 1974. Ricklefs, Merle C. A History of Modern Indonesia since c. 1200, 4th ed. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008. Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books, 1978. Scheurleer, Pauline L. “Collecting Javanese Antiquities.” In Colonial Collections Revisited, edited by Pieter ter Keurs, 84–114. Leiden: CNWS Publications, 2007. Sedyawati, Edi, and Pieter ter Keurs, “Scholarship, Curiosity and Politics: Collecting in a Colonial Context.” In Indonesia: The Discovery of the Past, edited by Endang Sri Hardiati and Pieter ter Keurs, 20–32. Leiden: National Museum of Ethnology, 2005. Spruyt, Hendrik. Ending Empire: Contested Sovereignty and Territorial Partition. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2005. Stevens, Harm. “Collecting and ‘The Rough Work of Subjugation’: Van Daalen, Snouck Hurgronje and the Ethnographic Exploitation of North Sumatra.” In Indonesia: The Discovery of the Past, edited by Endang Sri Hardiati and Pieter ter Keurs, 76–84. Leiden: National Museum of Ethnology, 2005. —–—–. “G.C.E. van Daalen, Military Officer and Ethnological Field Agent. The Ethnological Exploration of Gayo and Alas, 1900–1905.” In Colonial Collections Revisited, edited by Pieter ter Keurs, 115–22. Leiden: CNWS Publications, 2007. Ter Keurs, Pieter. “Introduction: Theory and Practice of Colonial Collecting.” In Colonial Collections Revisited, edited by Pieter ter Keurs, 5–6. Leiden: CNWS Publications, 2007. —–—–. “The National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden.” In Indonesia: The Discovery of the Past, edited by Endang Sri Hardiati and Pieter ter Keurs, 16–19. Leiden: National Museum of Ethnology, 2005. Van Goor, Jurrien. “De Lombok expeditie en het Nederlandse Nationalisme.” In Imperialisme in de Marge: de Afronding van Nederlands-Indie?, edited by J. van Goor, 19–70. Utrecht: HES, 1985. Vickers, Adrian. A History of Modern Indonesia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Warmbrunn, Werner. The Dutch under German Occupation, 1940–1945. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1963.

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Wesseling, Henk L. “Post-Imperial Holland,” Journal of Contemporary History 15, no. 1 (January 1980): 128–9. Wiener, Margaret J. “The Magical Life of Things.” In Colonial Collections Revisited, edited by Pieter ter Keurs, 45–70. Leiden: CNWS Publications, 2007. —–—–. “Object Lessons: Dutch Colonialism and the Looting of Bali.” In Colonial Collections Revisited, edited by Pieter ter Keurs, 347–70. Leiden: CNWS Publications, 2007.

2

Cultural diplomacy at a crossroads The Dutch struggle with Sukarno’s Indonesia, 1950–65

In 1963, in what seems like a replay of events in 1949, a letter written by a national railway employee—this time H.A.M. Wurth of Brouwershaven— appeared in a Dutch newspaper urging the Foreign Ministry to return ¯ aramit ¯ ¯ 1 The famous museum objects, including the prized statue, Prajñap a. statue of the Buddhist goddess of transcendental wisdom of Candi Singasari had been found in 1819 in Java by D. Monnereau, Assistant Resident of Malang, and given to Professor C.G.C. Reinwardt in 1820. Reinwardt then brought the sculpture to the Netherlands, where it became part of the collections of the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden in 1823, and then moved in 1903 to the National Museum of Ethnography.2 This time, the long-serving Dutch Foreign Minister, Joseph Luns (1911–2002) (Catholic People’s Party, or KVP)—serving from September 2, 1952, to July 6, 1971—balked at the idea, stating that he had no intention of replying to the letter.3 In addition, after inquiries by the newly established Coordinating Committee for Cultural Relations with Indonesia (Coördinatiegroep cultuerel betrekkingen met Indonesië) had been made, it became clear in 1964 that the Dutch Minister of Education, Arts and Sciences, T.H. (Theodorus Hendrikus (Theo)) Bot (1911–84)—who later served as Minister for Development Cooperation among other posts—was, according to Lêgene and Postel-Coster, “vehemently opposed to surrendering any part of Dutch museum collections to Indonesia.”4 Bot argued, “It is a matter of principle and … an internationally accepted standpoint, because there is no telling where it will end if such a precedent is created.”5 How had the positions of Dutch officials toward the question of returning cultural property to Indonesia changed so much since 1949? One explanation is that, over time, regardless of Article 19 of the draft cultural agreement, the connection made between the return of cultural property and an ongoing Dutch presence in Indonesia’s cultural life limited the range of responses officials could make to Indonesian demands for returns. For instance, when relations with Indonesian leaders were at their poorest in the 1950s and early 1960s, the Dutch government dropped the idea if it only meant relinquishing another colonial possession to President

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Sukarno. That is, following the fight over Indonesia’s independence, and the troubled years leading to failure of the Netherlands–Indonesian Union, tensions over the sovereignty of West New Guinea—a still contested region annexed by Indonesia in 1963, and now known unofficially as “West Papua” (Papua Barat, the name preferred by ethnic Papuans)6 —and domestic political concerns, led Sukarno in late 1957 to nationalize Dutch companies and expel the forty thousand Dutch citizens living in Indonesia.7 Sukarno’s radical anti-Dutch economic and cultural decolonization under the slogans, “Nasionalisasi” and “Indonesianisasi,” drastically interrupted the Dutch presence in Indonesia.8 In August 1960, Sukarno broke off diplomatic relations, and the struggle over West New Guinea nearly led in 1962 to military conflict. During this period, Indonesian leaders rejected an official Dutch cultural presence, and demanded only that certain materials be returned from museums as an outstanding matter of the sovereignty transfer. Dutch officials, realizing the loss of cultural influence in Indonesia—not to mention the end of political and economic predominance—soon turned against carrying out the returns. Despite having been accustomed in the colonial period to exchanging gifts and symbols of power with local rulers in the East Indies, they dropped the idea when it became clear they could not plausibly associate them with cultural cooperation. In 1949, therefore, when cultural property return in the post-colonial context had not yet taken on the strongly anti-colonial edge it acquired in the 1960s and 1970s, its inclusion in the draft cultural agreement had opened a brief window to carry out returns as part of diplomatic traditions of exchange. Instead, delays persisted during the difficult Sukarno era. By the time the two states reconciled in the 1960s, the international climate had changed and Dutch Foreign Ministry officials were adamantly opposed to using return as a tool of statecraft with the former colony. However, they had not abandoned their primary hopes, of rekindling a Dutch cultural presence in Indonesia. As this chapter shows, back in 1950, following the sovereignty transfer, deteriorating foreign relations with Sukarno’s Indonesia left Dutch officials in the awkward position of implementing the draft cultural agreement and its provisions for returning cultural property. Although Dutch and Indonesian negotiators concluded the agreement in 1949, during the UN-sponsored Round Table Conference (RTC), following through on it proved extremely difficult in the politically tumultuous years following the sovereignty transfer. Animosity between both sides ran high, and Dutch officials viewed provisions for returning cultural property with mixed feelings and uncertainty about how to proceed. Indonesian officials were reluctant to meet with Dutch counterparts to discuss cultural relations, and they saw no reason to continue acting upon the agreement, except for Article 19, which called for the return of cultural property. Rather than pursue bilateral cultural relations, officials in this period fell back to an independent, or unofficial, cultural policy in Indonesia.

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While writing in 1979, the museum director Peter H. Pott may have had good reason to dismiss this period for not having played a role in the negotiation of returns in later years. However, it remains an important part of the story since it clarifies what Dutch officials thought about having—and losing—political and cultural influence in the newly independent Indonesia. At the same time, as Indonesian claims for returns continued, and Dutch officials struggled to find a way to meet obligations laid out in the 1949 draft cultural agreement, their internal discussions reveal a rare willingness to reflect on the cultural policies of the colonial past. Some officials saw certain legacies of colonialism as detrimental to present-day hopes of renewing Dutch influence in the former colony. In their reports, officials expressed disappointments about what they perceived as fading prospects for cultural relations, as well as possibilities for returning cultural property. While initially they had been hopeful, circumstances on the ground led officials to conclude they should settle for an independent cultural presence, rather than strive for a mutually agreed and cooperative cultural policy. In addition, by 1951 Dutch officials concluded, returns of cultural property to the Sukarno regime, like cooperation, had become diplomatically impossible. Throughout the 1950s, a number of crises, leading to the severing of diplomatic ties in 1960, had foreclosed any possibility of extending what earlier officials had conceived of as a “gesture of goodwill.” In 1963, therefore, when Indonesian officials reasserted claims for returns after renewing diplomatic relations, disillusioned ministry officials in both Foreign Affairs, and in Education, Arts and Sciences, thought the idea was simply out of the question. Yet it took time to reach this conclusion. As the following discussion shows, the first task in the Netherlands was to regroup after making the sovereignty transfer.

Hopeful, but not optimistic: cultural cooperation within the Netherlands–Indonesian Union After the Netherlands transferred sovereignty, the government rapidly moved to “decolonize” domestic institutions of learning that had been deeply rooted in the colonial system. Officials promoted a positive image of changes that were to have profound effects on the country’s institutions. Some journals that had been devoted to the study and political review of the “Far East,” such as the Far Eastern Survey and The Far Eastern Quarterly, for example, narrated such transformations positively. In an article, the American diplomat and professor Amry Vandenbosch (1894–1990), who served as Professor of Political Science at the University of Kentucky, and as a US State Department and Office of Strategic Services official (1959–66), applauded the results of the UN-sponsored RTC negotiations that had led to the Hague Agreement of 1949.9 As Vandenbosch explained, in addition to formation of the Netherlands-Indonesian Union—which would then govern relations between the Netherlands and Indonesia, the Charter of Transfer of Sovereignty and a Union Statute—the arrangement included a number of

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agreements and exchanges of letters of understanding.10 Surprisingly, given the major issues of peace and sovereignty negotiated at the RTC, Vandenbosch called the agreement that emerged there on “cultural cooperation” one of “[t]he most interesting, and in the long run probably the most significant …”11 He seemed optimistic about the potential for the cultural agreement to promote cultural relations through the work of a joint committee, which would include fourteen members, seven from each state, and would allow for the setting up of working committees to consider special projects. In addition, it would allow each country to promote knowledge of the other country’s culture, through various media and institutions. Perhaps best of all for cultural institutions in the Netherlands, Vandenbosch asserted, the agreement would allow each country to support the other’s educational and scientific development and cultural promotion if requested.12 This last stipulation kept open the possibility for Dutch educational, scientific and cultural institutions to remain involved with the now independent Indonesia. Further to this, Vandenbosch highlighted that the agreement foresaw professional exchanges and cooperation on a number of levels within these fields. Vandenbosch did not mention Article 19 of the cultural agreement, which stipulated the transfer of cultural property. This suggests that he did not necessarily see that piece as a positive development in their cultural diplomacy, especially for the Netherlands. Other commentaries offered positive appraisals of continuing Dutch involvement in learned activities in light of the drastic changes brought about by the end of colonial rule. Writing in The Far Eastern Quarterly about the new sphere of “cultural cooperation,” Johanna Felhoen Kraal, from the Department of Anthropology at the Royal Tropical Institute (known in Dutch as the Vereniging Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, or KIT), reported optimistically that the new Foundation for Cultural Relations between the Netherlands, Indonesia, Suriname, and the Netherlands Antilles—the new Union partners—had sponsored sociological field studies in Java, Bali and Suriname (Dutch Guiana), and publication of a monthly review of recent cultural topics from the Indonesian press, Cultureel Nieuws Indonesie.13 To ensure a cultural presence, Dutch officials would now rely on the Foundation, and on the level of cultural diplomacy, Kraal noted that the Indonesian High Commissioner’s office at The Hague would publish “weekly a survey of current topics and problems.” Finally, the note reassured readers that the Dutch would continue as usual to monitor affairs with Indonesia.14 The optimism of early reports suggests that officials were trying to make the most of the situation. Only months after the transfer of sovereignty, no one could admit the massive disruption brought to the cultural sector with the end of colonial rule. Professionals began to assess their new realities, however, and to hope that good cultural relations with Indonesia would bolster economic and political ties. However, if the Dutch administration wanted the sovereignty agreement to set the tone for cooperation between the two countries, their hopes were

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soon disappointed. In the early post-sovereignty transfer years, between 1950 and 1952, various official bodies in the Netherlands tasked to deal with cultural matters continued to meet and discuss subjects related to the RTC agreement, including the question of transferring cultural property. In these meetings, records show, officials struggled with the changes brought about by the end of colonial rule. They viewed the cultural agreement and its stipulation about the return of cultural property with mixed feelings, and with uncertainty about how to proceed. For the Dutch, a contingent on the Joint [Dutch-Indonesian] Cultural Commission dealt with issues related to cultural cooperation, as did a Dutch Cultural Sub-Committee (under the Ministry of Education, Arts and Sciences), of the Commission for Indonesian Affairs (CAVI) (itself under the Ministry of Unification Matters). As part of their discussions, officials again raised the questions of whether and how returning cultural property to Indonesia could play a role in improving relations between the two states. In October 1950, for example, the Secretary-General of the NetherlandsIndonesian Union, P.J.A. Idenburg (1896–1976)—who served in that position from 1950 to 1956, and whose father, A.W.F. Idenburg (1861– 1935) was Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (1909–16)15 —wrote to the Dutch State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, who was the President of the CAVI, concerning the Commission’s approach to the issue of transferring cultural objects to Indonesia with respect to Article 19 of the cultural agreement.16 He reported that during an informal discussion, members of the Cultural Commission thought that the topic in general should be raised during a plenary meeting of the Joint Cultural Commission. However, Idenburg mentioned that members were divided on the question of whether the Dutch should assert a more “generous” position by taking the initiative to bring up the question, or whether they should wait until the Indonesians did so. One consideration was that they did not yet have a concrete answer to the question raised earlier by the former High Commissioner, Lovink (discussed in Chapter One), of an overview of the categories of objects, and of these, which qualified for transfer. Idenburg suggested, based on a reading of Article 4 of the cultural agreement—which allowed for the appointment of work committees to treat particular subjects, made up of members who were not on the Commission—that CAVI propose that a working committee be appointed to the task of examining the matter and formulating “concrete proposals” for the Joint Cultural Commission. This step would provide a framework for the plenary Joint Commission to make a regulation in order to facilitate the transfer of objects covered by Article 19, that is, the provision requiring the return of cultural property from the Netherlands. Idenburg suggested that the State-Secretary, President of CAVI, find a reason to bring up the matter at the next meeting of the Commission, which he did a few days later.17 Following this meeting, the President of the CAVI asked the President of the Cultural Sub-Committee, H.J. Reinink (1901–79)—who had become

Figure 2.1 Mr. P.J.A. Idenburg, October 30, 1967. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Anefo/Joost Evers/Anefo/Unknown

Figure 2.2 Opening session of the Union Ministerial Conference in the building of the First Chamber at the Binnenhof in The Hague. Opening speech Dr. W. Drees, November 20, 1950, The Hague. From left to right: Sumandi Mangunkusomo, Sjafrudin Prawiranegara, Sumitro Djojohadikusomo, Djuanda, A.K. Pringodigdo, Moh. Rum, Drees, Van Maarseveen, Idenburg, Lieftinck, Brink, Götzen, Blom, and Bot. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Elsevier/Photographer Unknown/Anefo

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Secretary-General of the Department of Education, Arts and Sciences (1946– 55)18 —to bring Idenburg’s letter to the attention of the Sub-Committee.19 Reinink also organized the Foundation for Cultural Cooperation between Indonesia, Suriname and the Dutch Antilles, and later became DirectorGeneral, Arts and Foreign Cultural Relations (1955–66). When the SubCommittee met on November 8, 1950, it accepted Idenburg’s proposal and decided to set up a small working party to make recommendations to the Sub-Committee and, for the moment, it would wait to appoint a work commission.20 When Reinink wrote to the President of the CAVI the next day, he reported that the Sub-Committee thought it was “inevitable that the transfer of objects of cultural value would be brought up within the framework of the Cultural Commission.” He also wrote that the Sub-Committee could establish a joint work-commission in due time as recommended by Idenburg. Optimistically, he added that the Sub-Committee was already preparing for and had taken the necessary steps to determine the objects in the Netherlands and in Indonesia which could qualify for a possible transfer.21 With these steps, Dutch officials seemed to be moving forward to fulfill the cultural agreement. However, some officials were unhappy with Article 19, which called on the Netherlands to return cultural property unilaterally. Later that month, for example, Dutch Foreign Minister, D.U. Stikker, sent an extract from the minutes of a meeting on November 15, 1950, which suggests that some Dutch officials remained uncertain as to whether they should bring up the issue. It also indicated that some officials regretted that Article 19 of the cultural agreement had not been more equitable, in their view, on the issue of cultural property division. For example, regarding the transfer of cultural objects, the extract noted that someone had noticed that the first part of Article 19 only talked about the refund of objects to Indonesia. As a consequence of this imbalance, they raised the question as to whether the Dutch side must make the initiative. In addition, when an official noticed that Article 19 mainly concerned the so-called treasures of Lombok, he noted that, on the other hand, the archive of the whole history of the East Indies Company in Indonesia stands unmentioned. The participant regretted that the East Indies Company archive was not included in the sovereignty transfer agreement, and said that the whole question deserves to be treated carefully. It is not clear which officials, in particular, raised these questions. Today, the archives of the Netherlands East Indies are widely seen as one of the most significant records of the history of world trade. In 2003, they became part of UNESCO’s “Memory of the World” program. Back in 1950, these notes implied that some officials viewed Article 19 as unfair and that they saw greater significance in the VOC archives than the Indonesian materials. In addition, harkening back to the exchange in 1949 between Minister Van Maarseveen and High Commissioner Lovink during the sovereignty transfer negotiations, one of the members raised again the question of who were the rightful recipients of such a transfer by asking, to whom could the treasures of Lombok be transferred? Agitation on the Dutch side about the agreement to return cultural treasures seemed to reflect a mixture of diminishing hope,

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as well as bitterness about the loss of the East Indies. However, events in 1950—including Indonesia’s suppression of an anti-republican secessionist revolt in the Moluccas, whose Ambonese inhabitants had been traditionally pro-Dutch—and the dissolution of the federal structure, put in place with the Linggadjati Agreement in 1947, added to the animosity.22 Despite uncertainties in late 1950 about fulfillment of the cultural agreement, Dutch officials also faced the Indonesians’ refusal to cooperate. The meeting abstract presented in November by Foreign Minister Stikker made it clear that Indonesian officials avoided meeting with their Dutch counterparts to discuss cultural cooperation, when it said that Indonesian members of the Joint Cultural Commission would not come to the Netherlands.23 According to the abstract, the Indonesian representative Muhammad Yamin (1903–62)—an Indonesian historian, poet, playwright and politician who served as Minister of Education and Culture (1953–55), Minister without Portfolio (1957–59) and Director of the National Development Planning Agency of Indonesia (BAPPENES, or the Badan Perencanaan Pembangunan Nasional) (1962)—had explained that the Indonesian president would be too busy and that a misunderstanding would arise by meeting in the Netherlands. Privately, the extract noted, it was reported that participants would arrange a date for a Joint Commission meeting in Indonesia.

Figure 2.3 Mohammed Yamin at New Guinea conference at Schiphol with Minister van Maarseveen, December 1, 1950, Amsterdam. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Anefo/Harry Pot/Anefo

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The wider course of deterioration in Dutch-Indonesian relations, therefore, left Dutch officials in the position of having only to analyze and discuss the implications of their counterpart’s determination to forego cultural cooperation, and more importantly, to withdraw altogether from the Netherlands–Indonesian Union. This continued three months later, for example, when the Cultural Sub-Committee met on February 7, 1951, and its President, H.J. Reinink, told the assembled that the President of CAVI had, at its meetings of January 12, 1951, asked the Presidents of the different subcommittees to weigh the advantages and disadvantages to the Netherlands of the expiration of certain projects of cooperation that would come with a possible revision of the RTC agreements, including Articles 6–9 and 11–19 of the draft cultural agreement.24 Looking for something positive to report, while discussing Article 19, the group found that it would mainly be disadvantageous to Indonesia if it expired, since they would be deprived of the economic value of cultural objects. Idenburg who, as Secretary-General of the DutchIndonesian Union, attended the meeting, wrote that since it would mainly concern objects “obtained by the Netherlands by conquest,” expiration of this article would be of less importance. That is, unable to see any downside, he argued that its expiration would be more beneficial to the Netherlands. At that point, they gave no consideration to the idea of making a goodwill gesture by offering to return items identified in the draft cultural agreement, since officials could not see an advantage in it for improving cultural relations. Instead, this exchange reflected their hopes for some day improving the Dutch state’s bargaining position. If the Indonesian materials were retained at this time, for instance, the legal obligation of the Netherlands to follow through could be postponed until, as Idenburg suggested, the Netherlands would be in a position to return Indonesian objects of importance in exchange for country archives of Dutch history in the East Indies. Their strategy would ultimately be more acceptable to officials in the Netherlands. However, at this point it would only have been wishful thinking. Idenburg acknowledged that he expected Indonesia to hold on to the contents of Article 19, which meant retaining the Dutch state’s obligation to follow through on the transfer. While not explicitly stated, this suggests that the Indonesians had insisted on its inclusion in the cultural agreement negotiated at the RTC in 1949 in the first place, rather than Dutch officials who would have been in a position of accepting it under political pressure.

Reconsidering Dutch cultural cooperation: the beginning of an independent policy By the summer of 1951, while considering the implications for cultural relations posed by the wider threat of the end of the Netherlands–Indonesian Union, some authorities anticipated the probable expiration of the cultural agreement, and they considered that the time had come for the Dutch to reconsider their cultural policy with respect to Indonesia. In an unusually

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frank and, therefore, revealing internal report, Dutch Foreign Ministry officials reflected on whether colonial policies had put the country in a disadvantaged position given the new international circumstances. In one exchange, for example, an official named Mr. Polderman enclosed a “Note concerning cultural relations with Indonesia” in a memorandum to a Mr. Rookmaker, which he said represented some ideas that had been developed, and which attempted to see the cultural policy in the larger scope of the general policy toward Indonesia.25 Written in historical perspective, Polderman’s note seems to be a frank, but optimistic, assessment of the poor relations at that moment. If any regret is conveyed, it relates to the diminished position of the Dutch under changed political and diplomatic fortunes. However, the note also marks the beginning of an independent Dutch cultural policy—one that would reluctantly distance officials from pursuing a cooperative cultural presence—with Sukarno’s Indonesia. The author of the note began with the stark acknowledgment that despite “reciprocal feelings of hatred and resentment” between Dutch and Indonesian officials, brought about by the political and military conflict over independence, it was still possible at the time of the sovereignty transfer to speak about Dutch cultural relations with Indonesia. In a dozen years or so, the projection of the Dutch language, the note argued, along with English, could be anticipated. However, it continued, in the “feeling environment,” powerful arguments against Dutch cultural imperialism, stemming from feared Dutch economic preponderance and Indonesian dependence, could lead Indonesia to sever cultural relations with the Netherlands. According to the note’s author, the presence of President Sukarno, as “a representative of unbalanced Indonesian nationalism,” cautioned against such relations.26 However, despite all the political fighting, the note argued, members of the Indonesian nationalist intelligentsia had preserved their affection for Dutch culture. Continuing along this vein, the note suggested that the contribution to the future position of the Netherlands in Indonesia would possibly be more firmly made by the many Indonesian workers in the fields of science, governance and economy, who had been linked in the past with the Netherlands. In addition, it would be in the interest of Indonesia, or of individual Indonesians, to accept what could be offered by the Netherlands in the cultural area. Perhaps, the note speculated, there would be less “political dangers in a cultural alignment to the Netherlands than in such an alignment to English speaking powers.”27 Nevertheless, the note’s author warned, all of this makes clear that “the area on which the Dutch cultural relations measure themselves, with respect to Indonesia, is strewn with foot stings and traps.”28 The note continued by assessing the threat of disunion with Indonesia to Dutch economic interests, which had been, according to the note, the primary objective of Dutch activity there. It argued that cultural relations with Indonesia could contribute to creating an environment of sympathy and mutual trust by enabling the Dutch and Indonesians to speak each other’s languages, understand their humor and life habits and enjoy simultaneous education.

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Writing much later on the history of Dutch-Indonesian cultural cooperation, historians Lêgene and Postel-Coster argued that the colonial past had hampered cultural relations in the years following decolonization.29 Polderman’s note and the memoranda exchanged by other members of the cultural committees discussed above reinforce this view by demonstrating Dutch officials struggling to establish good bilateral relations with the new leaders of Indonesia in the aftermath of the sovereignty transfer process. The fight over independence had brought about intense mutual hatreds between the parties. Difficulties in its aftermath rendered Dutch officials unable to overcome both the resentment and the present political dilemmas. As the note sent by Polderman suggests, as well, Dutch officials began to look at colonial policies with regret, and to consider how they had put the country on a compromised footing. With regard to the past, for example, Polderman’s note continued, it was unfortunate that the possibilities of spreading Dutch cultural influence in Indonesia had not been fully shown off during the Dutch reign. Instead, the general opinion held that the modernization of Dutch life in Indonesia increased the isolation of Dutch rulers, especially in large cities, where Dutch education for Indonesians had been very limited. Positions of leadership on the governing board, in the military, and in trade were reserved for Dutch men and, therefore, contact between the leading Dutch and Indonesians had been discouraged.30 The note also compared Dutch policies unfavorably to those of the United Kingdom and France admitting, “in certain respects the [Dutch] policy was less liberal.”31 The author wrote that it was tempting to speculate on what the position of the Dutch in Indonesia would be now had the revolutionaries, Sukarno and Hatta, thought they could rise to leadership positions within their fields. He concluded that the isolation of the Dutch people in Indonesia and of Dutch education there must now be considered a shortcoming. He also argued that a cultural policy to address these disadvantages would entail a Dutch financial sacrifice. However, in the long run, it would produce indirect profits.32 In these passages, regret about the shortsightedness of past policies gave rise to the idea that a far-sighted post-colonial cultural policy could be costly, but worthwhile. With this assessment, the note proposed a new Dutch cultural policy that officials should develop in Indonesia, independently of the Indonesian government. First, the new policy should try to avoid suspicion that it would be an expression of “cultural imperialism;” it must try to break through the cultural isolation of the Dutch community in Indonesia; and it will have to be aimed at the “needs of Indonesian society,” meaning education.33 The note also remarked on the importance Dutch government officials must have given to a cultural accord during the RTC, and indicated that this should make clear that officials considered cultural relations with Indonesia to be of utmost importance. Yet, in contrast with the other agreements on financial and monetary cooperation, the military mission and cooperation in foreign relations, the note admitted, a beginning to implementation of

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the cultural agreement had hardly been given any attention.34 At the same time, the note acknowledged, Indonesian officials had clearly communicated that Indonesia had no present need for the cultural agreement to continue. For them, the agreement fostered distrust and they considered it an expression of “cultural imperialism.” All things considered, the note concluded, rather than an accord, the Dutch will have to have an independent policy to promote their own cultural interests, focused first on taking “cultural care of the Dutch community” in Indonesia and, second, “broadening Dutch culture under the Indonesians” in the hope that better days would come some day.35 Toward these ends, Dutch officials believed they could rely on the Foundation for Cultural Cooperation, which the note explained as a counterpart to the United Kingdom’s British Council, and France’s Alliance Française, organizations subsidized to promote their respective cultures abroad.36 In addition, the note mentioned, they would place a cultural attaché in Djakarta to address the concerns of the Dutch community’s cultural isolation. Dutch education would also be “a very important element in the cultural policy in Indonesia,” which would be open for not only the Dutch “trekkers”—those who went to Indonesia for a period of time to make their fortunes—but, more widely than in the past, to Indonesian and Chinese children there.37 The quality of this education, the note indicated, should remain high, and it should also pay attention to the Indonesian language and culture. This way, the Dutch would be in a position to fill the gap that, they believed, would inevitably be created by the lowering of quality in Indonesian education under the present regime. For, the note suggested, Indonesian parents will in that case want to send their children to Dutch schools for a “Western education.” This would also encourage Indonesians to study in the Netherlands, which in 1951, according to the note, numbered 2,000 Indonesian students. The author hoped this policy “would find a fertile feeding ground in Indonesia,” both for fulfilling the desire in Indonesia (and other Asian countries) for knowledge of Western culture and technique, and more importantly, for thwarting “sentimental considerations of extremism” that appealed to Indonesian students who “stand too much outside of Dutch society.” The note concluded that a positive reception to this approach deserved the striving of all attention.38

Assessing the “disappointing” history of Dutch colonialism and the impossibility of a goodwill gesture in 1951 Despite seeing some ways to move forward with an independent cultural policy in Indonesia, Dutch officials projected grim forecasts in the summer of 1951. In light of the likely demise of the Dutch-Indonesian Union, the High Commissioner in Djakarta, A.T. (Arnold Theodoor) Lamping (1893–1970)—who served in that position from mid-September 1950 to July 195239 —wrote to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, with much less

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optimism suggesting that it would be useful to exchange ideas about the impact of the Union’s suspension on possibilities for cultural cooperation.40 Lamping argued that cultural cooperation had become an abused term, since at that point the government had limited it to only sending artists to provide for the Dutch community in Indonesia. He argued that “cultural cooperation” should instead be only spoken of as an expression of both parties’ intentions of reciprocity.41 Like the author of Polderman’s note, Lamping also reflected on the past and its ongoing effect on cultural relations in the present. In another rare display of regret about the colonial period, he too wrote that past policies had been extremely detrimental. Due to the pre-war colonial regime’s policies, the political relations between the two countries lent themselves to the “catching up from a delay of centuries.”42 Lamping also argued that, despite admitting a lack of competency on the matter, he believed Dutch officials must accept “the consequences of history, even when they are disappointing.” Rather than compare Dutch policies with the English and French, he compared Dutch colonialism unfavorably with that of Spain and Portugal, for its lack of linkages, through “blood, religion and culture.”43 Instead, Lamping concluded, since the Netherlands had come to the East Indies in the interest of trade, not conquest, trade had been its primary focus. He continued, writing: Dutch colonial officials had mistakenly “thwarted the vulgarization of the Dutch language,” reduced “blood mixing … [which] as far as it took place [was] generally the result of concubinage, and strove only on a limited basis to Christianize the domestic population.”44 While it is now understood that officials in the Dutch East Indies had cultivated a particular social world based on these traditions,45 Lamping regretted how they had left the Netherlands unable to confidently assert its cultural influence in the former colony. On what he saw as positive Dutch contributions, however, Lamping noted that in the last decades, new colonial ideas had found acceptance. That is, officials had started to restore and conserve cultural monuments through the Dutch archaeology service, he argued, and “we provided [an] admirable and unique contribution to the knowledge of the culture of this country.” However, he asked, while being a “massive work, … was it ‘cooperation?’” He surmised that, “we must reach the conclusion that the cultures of both countries have influenced each other only minimally.”46 Continuing in this vein, the High Commissioner remarked that the Dutch had made an enormous contribution to Indonesia in the material area, in the form of hospitals, highways and buildings, and generally in the technical area. Even though, he said, the country itself produced all the resources. He reflected that the same thing had occurred in the cultural area too. That is, there was no talk of the reciprocal exchange of culture. In these remarks, Lamping seemed most concerned with the lack of reciprocity, and disappointed that Indonesia had offered little in the way of cooperation. He saw cultural activities as having only benefitted Indonesia, rather than having contributed to the identity and material wealth of the Netherlands.47

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Nevertheless, Lamping weighed the pros and cons of Dutch cultural diplomacy with Indonesia in the post-sovereignty transfer period. He thought that relations were traditionally improved when two countries were sovereign. However, in this case, he advised, tensions after the sovereignty transfer remained unfavorable for an alignment in the cultural area. The Indonesian aristocracy maintained its prerogative for the Dutch language, he wrote, but they now feared being subjected to criticism if they displayed too much favor for the Dutch.48 In this environment, cultural cooperation fostered distrust and fear, so that with the end of Dutch political dominance, the Indonesians wanted Dutch cultural dominance to be over as well. The other disadvantage, the High Commissioner noted, was that the high-minded Dutch officials in the civil service, as well as professors and other intellectuals, to whom the Indonesians would be attracted, were largely gone. In their place, the mercantile class had predominantly remained in the country, but for their primary concern for business, the Indonesians had largely felt aversion.49 In addition, Lamping noted, the Dutch community in Indonesia now was largely made up of “trekkers,” that is, those who were primarily interested in their careers and aimed to return to the Netherlands after enriching themselves, rather than remaining in Indonesia.50 On the other hand, Lamping argued that the Netherlands was probably better off without a Union contract in the cultural area. This would allow it to take independent unilateral action. He believed that cultural cooperation or alignment is primarily the mutual knowing of each other and desire to learn about the other. At that moment, the Indonesians knew the Dutch, but there was a gap in the reverse direction.51 Finally, Lamping concluded, Dutch attitudes needed to change. They needed to realize that they were now guests in Indonesia. Until then, they should not even think about an official cultural alignment.52 Instead, from Lamping’s perspective, cultural cooperation could be promoted by the Foundation for Cultural Cooperation and the cultural department in the High Commission in Djakarta, and a fresh start could be directed to the youth and future leaders of the country, who should be invited to study at Dutch universities.53 He warned, good political relations between the countries were of paramount importance, before it was “too late.”54 Lamping was pessimistic about the continuation of the Union, however. For this he too blamed the policies of the colonial past and advised officials to accept the new reality that cultural relations would remain on a limited basis, if at all.55 Lamping’s report also suggests that officials in the Netherlands wanted good cultural relations cooperation, eventually, especially because it would help validate Dutch ideas about the country’s historical contribution to Indonesia’s material wealth and culture during colonial rule.56 However, Dutch officials no longer considered the idea of making a goodwill gesture by returning cultural property. The determination of Indonesian officials to press the issue, the negative connotation implied in the language of Article 19 and the refusal of Indonesian counterparts to participate in the work of the Cultural Commission, made the Dutch options at the time all too clear.

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Rather than push the idea of mutual cooperation with Indonesian officials, at that point, Dutch officials turned to focus on what they could do for the Dutch, and their allies, in Sukarno’s Indonesia. The last few exchanges between Dutch officials in 1951 and 1952 on cultural relations with Indonesia reflect the dichotomy between demands for redress and desires for acceptance of a Dutch cultural presence in the former colony. The Indonesians pushed for cultural property return, while the Dutch fell back on unilateral activities aimed at supporting the Dutch in Indonesia. By mid-October 1951, for example, the new President of the Cultural Sub-Committee of the CAVI, R.W. van Diffelen, wrote to the President of the CAVI to report that at the October 9, 1951, meeting, the Sub-Committee was asked to consider cultural issues related to the possible revision of the RTC agreements.57 In response, a memorandum appeared on the subject of the CAVI discussions with Indonesia. It reported that Indonesia’s position had not changed. It only put a value on conserving Article 19 of the previous agreement.58 In other words, Indonesia wanted to drop provisions for closer cultural relations with the Netherlands, and to press only for the return of cultural property. The memorandum also said that CAVI had shifted into thinking about what the Netherlands could do unilaterally, in an “inconspicuous” way, to preserve cultural ties with Indonesia. They too cited the work of the Foundation for Cultural Cooperation, Dutch education, and promoting study in the Netherlands by Indonesian students, plus the “cultural wing of the H.C. (High Commission) at Djakarta.” Finally, when the Cultural Sub-Committee held its last meeting on February 25, 1952, coinciding with the end of the Sukiman Cabinet in Indonesia, it produced a “Discussion Report” from a meeting between two Dutch and two Indonesian officials: P.J.A. Idenburg and H.J. Reinink; and Muhammad Yamin and F.S. Hajadi, respectively.59 The report described their negotiation over the language of a revised cultural agreement. However, again, their positions polarized. The only matters the Indonesians were concerned with were the transfer of cultural objects from the Netherlands, and the process whereby that would be facilitated. The Dutch were also concerned with “Social Matters” related to “Dutch civil servants in Indonesia” and “the problem of Indonesia oriented Netherlanders.”60 Overall, political matters continued to drive a wedge between the two governments. In the longer term, these included—since the transfer of sovereignty and throughout the 1950s and early 1960s—several political crises in relations between the Dutch and the Republican leaders of Indonesia. War booty seized in colonial military operations was neither the only, nor the most significant, property the Dutch were unwilling to hand over. The critical dispute over West New Guinea was a major obstacle that led the Indonesians to push against the Dutch-Indonesian Union. A year-and-a-half after the joint meeting on cultural relations, therefore, on August 10, 1954, Indonesian officials severed the Union linkage with the Netherlands.61 In an atmosphere of worsening relations, as the Dutch had anticipated, the

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Indonesian authorities scuttled the cultural agreement too, on the basis that it represented cultural imperialism. The exception remained Article 19, which the Indonesians retained in a 1954 Protocol. The cultural sub-committee of the CAVI suggested that the Netherlands drop the idea of an official cultural relations treaty, which it did, rather than “provoke the Indonesians,” and in February 1956 further negotiations on the RTC agreements failed.62 “Provocation” could go both ways, especially since the issue of returning cultural property remained a point of contention once the Indonesians dropped the wider provisions of the cultural agreement. After Indonesian officials made calls for the return of cultural property part of the cultural platform of the anti-colonial Bandung Conference of Asian and African nations in 1955, they continued to press the issue with the Dutch.63 In 1956, according to Legêne and Postel-Coster, the Secretary-General of the Indonesian Department of Education, Research and Culture, for example, wrote to the Dutch Foreign Ministry and complained that, despite the rescission of the cultural agreement, and in light of Article 19 retained in the 1954 Protocol, which replaced it, “no information had been received about many objects of art-historical value and the results of much research carried out in the Netherlands.”64 In this note, the Indonesian Secretary-General lamented that, “compared to the vast number of objects removed to the Netherlands, the museums in Indonesia are empty.” This may have been an exaggeration since by 1945 there were already twenty-six museums in Indonesia that had been established by the Dutch administration.65 However, due to the strained relations between the two countries, the Dutch government issued no reply.66 In other words, the wider political situation had negative consequences on cultural relations, and Dutch officials were no longer under pressure to make a gesture of goodwill. Over the next few years, matters worsened until, in 1960, Sukarno launched a military confrontation over West New Guinea that led to the severing of diplomatic ties.67 The international system—through the diplomacy of the United States and the UN— again brought pressure on the Netherlands in 1962, this time to resolve the West New Guinea conflict. When the two countries signed the New York Agreement,68 West New Guinea was shortly thereafter ceded to Indonesia, and the renewal of formal diplomatic relations followed in 1963. About this issue, Dutch historian H.L. Wesseling concluded many years later that the Netherlands’ refusal to give up sovereignty of West New Guinea was a symptom of “wounded pride, stubborn hope for national grandeur, and deep anger against the treason of ‘former subjects.’”69

Rejecting the question in 1963, but resuming technical cooperation with the Republic of Indonesia Writing later, the museum director Peter H. Pott marked the period starting in 1963 as the point of origin for negotiations to improve cultural relations and eventually to return cultural property.70 He was not wrong. When

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prospects for advancing international relations improved in 1963, following the renewal of diplomacy that came with ending the sovereignty dispute over West New Guinea, the idea of re-establishing cultural relations between the Netherlands and Indonesia began to gain traction as well. Yet it was a tentative beginning. To start, the Netherlands administration set up an interdepartmental working group in June that year, known as the Coordinating Committee for Cultural Relations with Indonesia (Coördinatiegroep cultuerel betrekkingen met Indonesië), made up of representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of Education, Arts and Sciences, to negotiate.71 The Indonesians quickly recalled Article 19 of the 1949 draft cultural agreement and reminded the Netherlands about the matter of returning cultural property. According to a Dutch Foreign Ministry memorandum, the Indonesian government requested an exchange of objects of cultural or historical value.72 The Indonesian newspaper Antara, as well, reported that the Deputy Prime Minister of Indonesia, M. Djojomartono, intended to ask for the return of archival documents and museum objects based on the 1949 agreement.73 According to historians Legêne and Postel-Coster, this report had several effects. One was to send the Committee members, who were unfamiliar with the 1949 agreement, searching within their ministries for more information.74 Soon after, the provocative letter mentioned earlier appeared in a Dutch newspaper from the second national railway employee, urging the Foreign Ministry to return museum objects, but this time eliciting strong rebuttals from officials in the government. To historians of Dutch foreign relations, such as Arend Lijphart, the angry responses of Ministers Luns and Bot to this railway employee’s letter could have reflected an aspect of the “trauma of decolonization,” which he argued followed the end of colonial rule in the East Indies.75 Having been forced to give up Indonesia, Lijphardt claimed, Dutch officials irrationally held on to West New Guinea out of misplaced “emotional attachment.” According to Maarten Kuitenbrouwer, as well, “during the 1950s the Dutch trauma was mainly expressed in conservative ‘ethical’ terms, in a national effort to prove itself to the world once and for all as a model colonizer and de-colonizer in [West] New Guinea.”76 Yet, throughout the 1950s, the mutual hostility between Indonesia and the Netherlands had escalated, as the Sukarno regime undermined Dutch interests in the former colony, and eventually forced the sovereignty issue over West New Guinea.77 Its loss, historians such as H.L. Wesseling have argued, also produced in the early 1960s a sullen silence among the Dutch public.78 Luns, in particular, took it personally since he had hoped from the start of his tenure as Foreign Minister in 1952 to improve relations without relinquishing the disputed area. Even when the Dutch foreign policy toward Indonesia had failed by 1956, Minister Luns and the Dutch government remained determined to hold on to this last piece of its East Indies territory. Luns even tried to keep West New Guinea away from Indonesia by transferring its administration to the UN. However, the UN quickly transferred it to the

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Republic of Indonesia in 1963. After this relinquishment, therefore, claims for the return of prized objects in national museums seemed to Dutch officials to “add insult to injury.” Another reason for the hostility of Luns and Bot’s responses could have been new developments within UNESCO, spurred by increasing numbers of newly independent nations that had become members of the UN. As a result, by the mid-1960s, the issue of returning cultural property to former colonies had become more politically sensitive at the international level than it had been in 1949. During gatherings of UNESCO, the question was raised in a general way, as part of increasing anti-colonial aspirations of newly independent states. At the General Conference in 1964, for example, new measures for the protection of cultural heritage against overexploitation in poorer, but antiquities-rich, countries were linked in a series of resolutions with other post-colonial issues, including human rights and the eradication of racial prejudice, as well as economic and social problems of newly independent countries.79 The UNESCO General Assembly had also made post-colonial cultural heritage protection an issue by inviting member states to become parties to the Recommendation on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Export, Import and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property.80 The precursor to the 1970 UNESCO Convention (discussed in Chapter Four), the Recommendation was developed by a thirty-three-member working party and adopted by the General Conference at its ninth (1956), twelfth (1962) and thirteenth (1964) sessions. Previously, anti-colonial demands for the return of cultural property had been part of the 1955 Asian-African Conference in Bandung, where representatives of a number of formerly colonized countries called for Third World unity on cultural cooperation. According to historian Vijay Prashad, this cooperation aimed to work against what many delegates viewed as the “indignity of imperialism’s cultural chauvinism.”81 In this wider diplomatic context, Minister Luns and Bot’s responses reflected the frustrations expressed by Western leaders about anti-colonialism within the UN—linked to both political self-determination and cultural autonomy—and especially about openly hostile leaders such as Sukarno.82 Despite their misgivings, however, the question of returning cultural property in 1964 was not an obstacle to renewing diplomatic cooperation, and talks about cultural relations soon began with the Indonesian Foreign Minister, Subandrio (1914–2004)—an Indonesian politician who became Foreign Minister, and First Deputy Prime Minister of Indonesia, under President Sukarno. Therefore, while ministry officials responsible for foreign affairs, and for oversight of the nation’s museums, opposed at that point the idea of transferring cultural property to enhance diplomatic relations, re-establishing cooperation with Indonesia was a priority. In meetings held in April 1964, the two respective Foreign Ministers, Subandrio and Luns, signed a limited agreement on “technical cooperation.”83 However, for the time being, without a mutually acceptable diplomatic context, nor a way to

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Figure 2.4 Ministers of Foreign Relations, J.A.M.H. Luns, and Soebandrio, of Indonesia, April 1, 1964, The Hague. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Elsevier/Photographer Unknown/Anefo

narrate such a gesture, the 1964 technical agreement went forward without resolving the question of cultural property return. Little time remained for cooperation, however. On September 30, 1965, troops led by Major General Haji Mohammad Suharto (1921–2008), or Suharto as he was known—who became the second President of Indonesia (1968–98)—countered an alleged coup that was blamed on the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). The army then led an anti-communist purge in which an estimated 500 thousand Indonesians were killed and hundreds of thousands interned as political prisoners.84 While the history of the 1965 coup and events that followed are highly contested, we know that President Sukarno was sidelined, between October 1965 and March 1966, during which time he passed de facto executive power to Suharto in a Presidential Decree known as Supersemar. This meant that while Sukarno retained the title of President, de facto power moved to Suharto. In 1967, Suharto was appointed Acting President, and in 1968, he became President.85 His administration ushered in the thirty-year long “New Order” that was authoritarian, strongly anti-communist and largely supported by Western governments. In light of these developments, the technical agreement established in 1964 represented merely a brief prelude to a cultural agreement soon to be struck in 1968 with the Suharto administration. While the question of returning cultural property had remained part of Sukarno’s

Figure 2.5 Demonstrators destroy the Communist Party Headquarters, Djakarta, October 20, 1965. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Spaarnestad/Photographer Unknown

Figure 2.6 President Sukarno of Indonesia announces new Cabinet, July 26, 1966, while the new “strong man,” General Suharto, watches unmoved. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Spaarnestad/ Photographer Unknown

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anti-colonialism, and what he saw as imperialism’s lingering effects—which came, he said, in “its modern dress in the form of economic control, intellectual control … [And which] does not give up its loot easily”86 —without an agreement on cultural relations that offered an official cultural role for the Netherlands, the period ended without its resolution.

Conclusion The agreement made in 1949 to return cultural property faced many obstacles following the sovereignty transfer. As this chapter shows, in the 1950s and early 1960s colonial history and its end had ruined Dutch hopes for cooperative post-colonial cultural diplomacy with Sukarno. In the process, officials struggled with how to define cultural relations with Indonesia. Yet, based on the perspectives demonstrated here, it can be said that Dutch disappointments in this period reinforced what had emerged in 1949. That is, Dutch officials preferred to have an ongoing cultural role, a role that would honor the colonial past while providing new avenues to influence Indonesia in the future. A sense of resignation led some officials to look regretfully at the past, where they saw mistakes of the colonial government as harmful to Dutch prospects for an ongoing cultural role. Despite acknowledging failures of colonial policies, however, the efforts of officials in the early 1950s demonstrate the importance they attached to formulating a foreign cultural policy in the aftermath of colonial rule. Their reflections on the image of Dutch colonialism led officials to begin taking an independent course. In other words, in the era of strained relations with Sukarno’s Indonesia, those responsible for cultural diplomacy had only just begun to contend with the legacies of the colonial past. Yet, as the following chapter shows, perceptions of the diplomatic and political opportunities for extending cultural cooperation and addressing the question of cultural property return would change, as the post-colonial situation evolved in both countries. What would remain unchanged, however, were Dutch aspirations for a celebratory cultural role in Indonesia.

Notes 1 Susan Legêne and Els Postel-Coster, “Isn’t it all Culture? Culture and Dutch Development Policy in the Post-Colonial Period,” in Fifty Years of Dutch Development Cooperation, 1949–1999, ed. Jan A. Nekkers and Petrus Adrianus Maria Malcontent (The Hague: SDU, 2000), 274. 2 Pauline Lunsingh Scheurleer, “Collecting Javanese Antiquities,” in Colonial Collections Revisited, ed. Pieter ter Keurs (Leiden: CNWS Publications, 2007), 83. 3 Legêne and Postel-Coster, “Isn’t it all Culture?,” 359, fn. 13. 4 Ibid., 275. 5 Ibid., 274. 6 Christian Lambert Maria Penders, The West New Guinea Debacle: Dutch Decolonization and Indonesia, 1945–1962 (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2002). 7 Ibid.

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8 John O. Sutter, Indonesianisasi; Politics in a Changing Economy, 1940–1955 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, 1959); J. Thomas Lindblad and Peter Post, eds. Indonesian Economic Decolonization in Regional and International Perspective (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2009); J. Thomas Lindblad, “The Importance of Indonesianisasi During the Transition from the 1930s to the 1960s.” (Paper presented at the conference, Economic Growth and Institutional Change in Indonesia in the 19th and 20th Centuries, Amsterdam, February 25−26, 2002). 9 Amry Vandenbosch, “Cooperation under the Netherlands-Indonesian Union,” Far Eastern Survey 19, no. 5 (March 8, 1950): 54–55, fn. 1. 10 Ibid., 55. 11 Ibid., 54–55. 12 Ibid., 55. 13 Johanna Felhoen Kraal, “News of the Profession,” The Far Eastern Quarterly 11, no. 1 (November 1951): 118–34, 120–1. 14 Ibid. 15 “P.J.A. Idenburg” and “A.W.F. Idenburg,” Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland: 1880–2000, accessed August 27, 2019, http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/ bwn1880-2000/lemmata/bwn1/idenburg. 16 Idenburg to Staatssecretaris van Buitenlandse Zaken (State Secretary for Foreign Affairs), October 11, 1950. BZ 1945–54, NAN. Access No. 2.05.117. Inventory No. 13009. 17 RTC/Ontw.-Acc/CIV/1). BZ 1945–54, NAN. Access No. 2.05.117. Inventory No. 13009; “Ontwerp Cultureel Accoord Tussen het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden en de Republik Indonesia Serikat” (Draft Cultural Accord between the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Republic of Indonesia Serikat), October 28, 1949. 18 “H.J. Reinink,” Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland: 1880–2000, accessed August 27, 2019, http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/bwn1880-2000/lemmata/ bwn4/reinink. 19 Van Gorkom to Reinink, October 21, 1950. BZ 1945–54, NAN. Access No. 2.05.117. Inventory No. 13009. 20 Verslag van de vergadering, Culturele Sub-commissie van de Commissie Aangelegenheden van Indonesië (Report of the Meeting, Cultural Sub-Committee of the Commission on Affairs of Indonesia), November 8, 1950. BZ 1945–54, NAN. Access No. 2.05.117. Inventory No. 13009. 21 Reinink to Voorzitter van de CAVI, November 9, 1950. BZ 1945–54, NAN. Access No. 2.05.117. Inventory No. 13009. 22 Arend Lijphart, The Trauma of Decolonization: The Dutch and West New Guinea (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 12, 126–7. See also: Geert Oostindie, Post-colonial Netherlands: Sixty-Five years of Forgetting, Commemorating, Silencing, trans. Annabel Howland (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2011), 85–88, 114–16; Richard Chauvel, Nationalists, Soldiers and Separatists: The Ambonese Islands from Colonialism to Revolt, 1880–1950 (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1990). 23 Stikker to DOA/IN, DVB/NV, November 25, 1950. BZ 1945–54, NAN. Access No. 2.05.117. Inventory No. 13000. 24 Verslag van de Vergadering, Culturele Subcommissie van de Commissie Aangelegenheden van Indoensië (Report of the Meeting, Cultural Sub-Committee of the Commission on Affairs of Indonesia), February 7, 1951. BZ 1945–54, NAN. Access No. 2.05.117. Inventory No. 13008. 25 Polderman to Rookmaker, June 29, 1951. BZ 1945–54, NAN. Access No. 2.05.117. Inventory No. 12974. 26 Polderman to Rookmaker, June 29, 1951. BZ 1945–54, NAN. 27 Ibid.

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28 Aantekening Betreffende de Culturele Betrekkingen met Indonesië, June 29, 1951. BZ 1945–54, NAN. Access No. 2.05.117. Inventory No. 12974. 29 Legêne and Postel-Coster, “Isn’t it all Culture?,” 271–88. 30 Polderman to Rookmaker, June 29, 1951. BZ 1945–54, NAN. 31 Ibid. 32 Ibid. 33 Aantekening Betreffende de Culturele Betrekkingen met Indonesië, June 29, 1951. BZ 1945–54, NAN. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid. 36 Philip H. Coombs, The Fourth Dimension of Foreign Policy: Educational and Cultural Affairs (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, Inc., 1964). 37 Aantekening Betreffende de Culturele Betrekkingen met Indonesië, June 29, 1951. BZ 1945–54, NAN. 38 Ibid. 39 “A.T. Lamping,” Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland: 1880–2000, accessed August 27, 2019, http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/bwn1880-2000/lemmata/ bwn2/lamping. 40 Hoge Commissaris to Minister voor Buitenlandse Zaken (High Commissioner to Minister of Foreign Affairs), July 9, 1951. BZ 1945–54, NAN. Access No. 2.05.117. Inventory No. 12974. 41 Hoge Commissaris to Minister voor Buitenlandse Zaken, July 9, 1951. BZ 1945– 54, NAN. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid. 45 Jean Gelman Taylor, The Social World of Batavia: European and Eurasian in Dutch Asia (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983); Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic Anxieties and Colonial Common Sense (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009); Frances Gouda, Dutch Culture Overseas: Colonial Practice in the Netherlands Indies 1900–1942 (Singapore: Equinox Publishing, 2008). 46 Hoge Commissaris to Minister voor Buitenlandse Zaken, July 9, 1951. BZ 1945– 54, NAN. 47 Ibid. 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid. 50 Ibid. 51 Ibid. 52 Ibid. 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid. 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid. 57 Diffelen to Voorzitter van de C.A.V.I., October 15, 1951. BZ 1945–54, NAN. Access No. 2.05.117. Inventory No. 13009. 58 DOA/IN to Z, December 20, 1951. BZ 1945–54, NAN. Access No. 2.05.117. Inventory No. 13009. 59 Bespreking Interdepartmentale Commissie—Missie Supomo (Discussion Report, Interdepartmental Commission—Mission Supomo), n.d. BZ 1945–54, NAN. Access No. 2.05.117. Inventory No. 13009. 60 On the precarious status of Dutch and Eurasians in Indonesia in this period see: Justus M. Van der Kroef, “The Dutch Position in Indonesia Today,” Far Eastern Survey 23, no. 6 (June 1954): 88–94; Justus M. Van der Kroef, “Minority

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61 62 63

64 65 66 67 68

69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79

80 81 82

81

Problems in Indonesia, II,” Far Eastern Survey 24, no. 11 (November 1955): 165– 71; Paul W. Van der Veur, “The Eurasians of Indonesia: Castaways of Colonialism,” Pacific Affairs 27, no. 2 (June 1954): 124–37; Leslie H. Palmier, Indonesia and the Dutch (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), 73–137. Henri Grimal, Decolonization: The British, French, Dutch and Belgian Empires 1919–1963, trans. Stephan De Vos (Boulder: Westview Press, 1978), 213; Penders, The West New Guinea Debacle; Palmier, Indonesia and the Dutch. Legêne and Postel-Coster, “Isn’t it all Culture?,” 273. George McT. Kahin, ed., The Asian-African Congress: Bandung, Indonesia, April 1955 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1956); Jamie Mackie, Bandung 1955: Non-Alignment and Afro-Asian Solidarity (Singapore: Editions Didier Millet, 2005). Legêne and Postel-Coster, “Isn’t it all Culture?,” 273–4. Christina F. Kreps, “On Becoming ‘Museum-Minded’: A Study of Museum Development and the Politics of Culture in Indonesia” (PhD diss., University of Oregon, 1994), 129. Ibid. Amry Vandenbosch, “Indonesia, the Netherlands and the New Guinea Issue,” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 7, no. 1 (March 1976): 102–18; Penders, The West New Guinea Debacle. Agreement Between the Republic of Indonesia and the Kingdom of the Netherlands Concerning West New Guinea (West Irian), August 15, 1962. UN Doc. A/5170 and Corr. 1 (annex). United Nations Review, September 1962, 39–43, UNTS 437, 273. Henk L. Wesseling, “Post-Imperial Holland,” Journal of Contemporary History 15, no. 1 (January 1980): 129, 125–42. Peter H. Pott and Mohammad Amir Sutaarga, “Arrangements Concluded or in Progress for the Return of Objects: The Netherlands-Indonesia,” Museum 31, no. 1 (1979): 42. Legêne and Postel-Coster, “Isn’t it all Culture?,” 274. DOA/IN, Memorandum to DOA via Plv. DOA, April 13, 1966. BZ 1945–54, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9161. Legêne and Postel-Coster, “Isn’t it all Culture?,” 274. Ibid. Lijphart, The Trauma of Decolonization. Maarten Kuitenbrouwer, “The Never-Ending Debt of Honour: The Dutch in the Post-Colonial World,” Itinerario 20 (1996): 23. Penders, The West New Guinea Debacle. Wesseling, “Post-Imperial Holland,” 128–9. UNESCO, General Conference, Thirteenth Session, Paris, 1964. Res. 3.251 and 3.252 (human rights and racial prejudice); Res. 3.253 and 3.254 (economic and social problems); and Res. 3.331, 3.332, 3.333, and 3.334 (cultural heritage protection), Records of the General Conference, Resolutions, 53. UNESCO, General Conference, Thirteenth Session, Paris, 1964. Res. 3.331, Records of the General Conference, Resolutions, 56. Vijay Prashad, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World (New York: New Press, 2007), 45. Mark Mazower, No Enchanted Palace: The End of Empire and the Ideological Origins of the United Nations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009); Richard L. Jackson, The Non-Aligned, the UN and the Superpowers (New York: Praeger, 1983); Robert A. Mortimer, The Third World Coalition in International Politics (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1980); Prashad, The Darker Nations; Vijay Prashad, The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South (London; New York: Verso, 2012).

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83 Legêne and Postel-Coster, “Isn’t it all Culture?,” 274. 84 John Roosa, Pretext for Mass Murder: The September 30th Movement and Suharto’s Coup d’Etat in Indonesia (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006). 85 Bradley R. Simpson, Economists with Guns: Authoritarian Development and U.S.-Indonesian Relations, 1960–1968 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008). 86 Prashad, The Darker Nations, 34, quoting Kahin, ed., The Asian-African Congress, 42.

References Manuscript collections Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken (BZ), 1945–54, Nationaal Archief, Nederland (NAN), (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1945–54, National Archives of the Netherlands), The Hague, https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/en.

Professional journal reports Kraal, Johanna Felhoen. “News of the Profession,” The Far Eastern Quarterly 11, no. 1 (November 1951): 118–34, 120–1. Vandenbosch, Amry. “Cooperation under the Netherlands-Indonesian Union,” Far Eastern Survey 19, no. 5 (March 8, 1950): 54–55, fn. 1. —–—–. “Indonesia, the Netherlands and the New Guinea Issue,” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 7, no. 1 (March 1976): 102–18. Van der Kroef, Justus M. “The Dutch Position in Indonesia Today,” Far Eastern Survey 23, no. 6 (June 1954): 88–94. —–—–. “Minority Problems in Indonesia, II,” Far Eastern Survey 24, no. 11 (November 1955): 165–71. Van der Veur, Paul W. “The Eurasians of Indonesia: Castaways of Colonialism,” Pacific Affairs 27, no. 2 (June 1954): 124–37.

Secondary sources Chauvel, Richard. Nationalists, Soldiers and Separatists: The Ambonese Islands from Colonialism to Revolt, 1880–1950. Leiden: KITLV Press, 1990. Coombs, Philip H. The Fourth Dimension of Foreign Policy: Educational and Cultural Affairs. New York: Council on Foreign Relations, Inc., 1964. Gouda, Frances. Dutch Culture Overseas: Colonial Practice in the Netherlands Indies 1900–1942. Singapore: Equinox Publishing, 2008. Grimal, Henri. Decolonization: The British, French, Dutch and Belgian Empires 1919–1963. Translated by Stephan De Vos. Boulder: Westview Press, 1978. Jackson, Richard L. The Non-Aligned, the UN and the Superpowers. New York: Praeger, 1983. Kahin, George McT, ed. The Asian-African Congress: Bandung, Indonesia, April 1955. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1956. Kreps, Christina F. “On Becoming ‘Museum-Minded’: A Study of Museum Development and the Politics of Culture in Indonesia.” Ph.D. diss., University of Oregon, 1994.

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Kuitenbrouwer, Maarten. “The Never-Ending Debt of Honour: The Dutch in the Post-Colonial World,” Itinerario 20 (1996): 20–42. Legêne, Susan, and Els Postel-Coster. “Isn’t it all Culture? Culture and Dutch Development Policy in the Post-Colonial Period.” In Fifty Years of Dutch Development Cooperation, 1949–1999, edited by Jan A. Nekkers and Petrus Adrianus Maria Malcontent, 271–88. The Hague: SDU, 2000. Lijphart, Arend. The Trauma of Decolonization: The Dutch and West New Guinea. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966. Lindblad, J. Thomas. “The Importance of Indonesianisasi During the Transition from the 1930s to the 1960s.” Paper presented at the conference, Economic Growth and Institutional Change in Indonesia in the 19th and 20th Centuries, Amsterdam, February 25−26, 2002. —–—–, and Peter Post, eds. Indonesian Economic Decolonization in Regional and International Perspective. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2009. Mackie, Jamie. Bandung 1955: Non-Alignment and Afro-Asian Solidarity. Singapore: Editions Didier Millet, 2005. Mazower, Mark. No Enchanted Palace: The End of Empire and the Ideological Origins of the United Nations. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009. Mortimer, Robert A. The Third World Coalition in International Politics. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1980. Oostindie, Geert. Post-colonial Netherlands: Sixty-Five years of Forgetting, Commemorating, Silencing. Translated by Annabel Howland. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2011. Palmier, Leslie H. Indonesia and the Dutch. London: Oxford University Press, 1962. Penders, Christiaan L.M. The West New Guinea Debacle: Dutch Decolonization and Indonesia, 1945–1962. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2002. Pott, Peter H., and Mohammad Amir Sutaarga. “Arrangements Concluded or in Progress for the Return of Objects: The Netherlands-Indonesia.” Museum 31, no. 1 (1979): 38–42. Prashad, Vijay. The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World. New York: New Press, 2007. —–—–. The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South. London; New York: Verso, 2012. Roosa, John. Pretext for Mass Murder: The September 30th Movement and Suharto’s Coup d’Etat in Indonesia. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006. Scheurleer, Pauline L. “Collecting Javanese Antiquities.” In Colonial Collections Revisited, edited by Pieter ter Keurs, 84–114. Leiden: CNWS Publications, 2007. Simpson, Bradley R. Economists with Guns: Authoritarian Development and U.S.Indonesian Relations, 1960–1968. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008. Stoler, Ann L. Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic Anxieties and Colonial Common Sense. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009. Sutter, John O. Indonesianisasi; Politics in a Changing Economy, 1940–1955. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, 1959. Taylor, Jean G. The Social World of Batavia: European and Eurasian in Dutch Asia. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983. Wesseling, Henk L. “Post-Imperial Holland,” Journal of Contemporary History 15, no. 1 (January 1980): 125–42.

3

Cultural relations as development aid Reconciliation with Suharto’s Indonesia, 1966–70

Speaking before participants at what would be the first meeting in Djakarta of an Indonesian cultural relations advisory committee in early 1971, the Dutch Director-General for Political Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs boldly asserted that the now newly established cultural agreement reflected no ordinary friendship politics, but an “age-long relationship, characterized by the colonial time, and for twenty-five years, by the relationship between two sovereign states.”1 Yet, some delicacy would be required to describe what were actually the awkward historical dimensions of the unofficial cultural diplomacy of those years, which had, nevertheless, finally brought the two countries into a formal arrangement. For this, the DirectorGeneral said, During that period, the history and high cultural development of each separate country gave wide occasion for activities in many areas. Since in former days, there had been a strong relationship and cooperation between different cultural institutions and between individual nationals of both sides, although the relationship was not organized according to the normal agreement rules. The cultural agreement between the Republic of Indonesia and the Kingdom of the Netherlands, now, creates a formal basis that introduces cooperation and brings us to a new stage where both interested parties express their wishes to extend and intensify the cultural contacts in an effective manner. [He concluded, t]here are a lot of cases, which can be considered in the exercise of the promotion of cooperation.2 What he did not admit to those assembled—a group who would have known all too well—was that recent cataclysmic political events in Indonesia had ushered in a new leadership regime, thus dramatically changing the course of Dutch-Indonesian post-colonial affairs. The rise of Westernfriendly authoritarian regimes—such as Suharto’s Indonesia, Mobutu’s Congo or Pinochet’s Chile—offered for some officials “improved” diplomatic climates for the renewal of diplomatic relations. With regard to the

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Netherlands, the dramatic political shifts in Indonesia changed the course of Dutch cultural diplomacy, and ultimately would enable the return of cultural property in the 1970s. For, between 1966 and 1968, when Dutch diplomatic officials saw that the regime change was empowering Indonesian cultural authorities who welcomed, or who were more favorably disposed toward, Dutch involvement in cultural matters, they took the opportunity to negotiate a new cultural agreement. They also hoped to capitalize on the changing situation by establishing productive ties with the new regime from the beginning. At the very least, re-formalizing a cultural agreement meant the further normalization of relations between the two states. As this chapter explains, while continuing to face troubling claims for returns, Dutch officials remained delighted by the “improved” diplomatic climate. In addition, in the process of reaching a new agreement in 1968, Foreign Ministry officials and cultural authorities began to see cultural relations as an extension of international development aid, which had come to largely define the Netherlands’ international role in the years following Indonesia’s decolonization. To some, this shift in emphasis—as assistance toward the improvement of Indonesian repositories—initially offered a flattering justification for considering the exchange of archival materials, and contributing to the restoration of ancient temple sites in Indonesia.3 With the rise to power of the Suharto regime, the Netherlands became increasingly confident about its emerging cultural diplomacy, and eventually, how it could narrate any returns. Within months of the regime change, therefore, ministry officials had rekindled hopes for a wider Dutch presence in Indonesia, and Indonesia began to welcome new gestures of Dutch goodwill.

Figure 3.1 Meetings of Ministers, External Relations, Buono Hamengkoe, and J.A.M.H. Luns, September 5, 1966, The Hague. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Elsevier/Jan Voets/Anefo

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Figure 3.2 Lieutenant General Suharto (middle) and Sukarno (left), President of Indonesia, at the Bogor Palace with the press, July 19, 1967. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Spaarnestad/UPI

The rise of Suharto: A new chance for an agreement on cultural cooperation Little recognition has been given in the history of Dutch-Indonesian cultural diplomacy to the enthusiasm Dutch officials expressed for the unfolding regime change in Indonesia in early 1966, when they recognized that the more Western-oriented Suharto regime would offer an “improved” diplomatic climate. That winter, the government formed an interdepartmental Working Group for Cultural Relations with Indonesia to prepare a list of possible topics for discussion with the emerging leaders.4 By the early fall of 1967, the group concluded that a forthcoming visit by the new Indonesian Foreign Minister, Adam Malik (1917–84)—an anti-communist politician who had replaced Subandrio (removed from office after the 1965 “failed coup” and, subsequently, imprisoned for twenty-nine years)—offered an opportune moment for talks.5 Malik, who served as Foreign Minister between 1966 and 1977, had been a journalist in his early career, and later became the country’s third Vice President. Dutch diplomatic officials in Indonesia concurred with the Working Group. They reported that the Indonesian side had indicated that it could sign a cultural accord during Minister Malik’s coming visit to the Netherlands. In general, they said this suggestion had “received a positive reception here, as an appropriate ‘political gesture’ of friendship in the Indonesia policy of the Netherlands.” In particular, they believed an accord could create the occasion for “reviving the Netherlands cultural activities in Indonesia.”6

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With the meeting with Foreign Minister Malik scheduled so soon, officials stressed that “quick work would have to be performed” to reach an agreement that included “reasonable contents. … The Netherlands’ Ambassador in Djakarta would have to be consulted, and he must then approach someone in Indonesia eager to close a cultural agreement.”7 In addition, the draft text would need to be written and circulated both in Indonesia and in the various concerned departments and ministries in the Netherlands.8 Within a month, after reviewing other cultural cooperation agreements, and the relevance of signing such an accord with Indonesia to agreements with its remaining colonies in the West Indies, Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles, Dutch officials were already seeking approval on a new draft text by the various departments.9 Within days, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent a confidential Code Bulletin to Djakarta with the draft text of the cultural agreement.10 At first, Working Group officials thought the language could be based on agreements already in force with seventeen other countries.11 However, they quickly came to realize that the draft text needed to differ enough from past agreements with other states, in order to address the “particular character expressed by the Netherlands/Indonesia relations.”12 Dutch diplomatic officials in Indonesia also explained that while the initial model for such an agreement was thought to have been those established with EasternEuropean countries, an official opposed this idea because it would lessen the political gesture by suggesting that the Netherlands “still treated Indonesia with a certain mistrust;” that after three-and-a-half centuries of partly overlapping history, “more was demanded than the kind of superficial cultural contacts between the Netherlands and Eastern-European countries;” and that “the amorphous situation of the Netherlands’ Indonesian cultural contacts on the one hand, and the immensity of the future prospects on the other, resists against over specification.”13 In light of this and other discussions, the draft text ended up resembling in its simplicity the 1964 accord on technical cooperation, with the exception that it would bring activities in science and culture together within one agreement.14 At that point, however, the Indonesians hesitated to commit. The embassy in Djakarta informed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that in a recent discussion they learned that the policy of the Indonesian government was to avoid formal treaties on cultural relations since, reportedly, they presently could not meet the financial costs of cultural performances abroad. An embassy official also reported that Dutch officials had two concerns as well. First, there were mixed opinions in the Netherlands that objected to a “one-way traffic” in the cultural area, and second, some argued that cultural relations may not be of “much importance.”15 This development took Dutch officials by surprise. An internal memorandum stated that the Indonesian Ambassador, S. Sudjarwo, had brought up the idea of signing a cultural agreement during the visit of Foreign Minister Malik and that the rejection of the idea reported by the Netherlands Ambassador in Djakarta was completely unexpected. The memorandum reminded

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officials that the proposed cultural treaty would mirror the tame Subandrio agreement on technical cooperation by not imposing “concrete obligations,” nor the form of reciprocation, and by understanding that in the beginning, nearly all the financial input would come from the Netherlands. Also, it emphasized that the Netherlands would benefit by having an institutional framework provided by a cultural agreement, that is, for protection from “possible reproaches” motivated by possible Indonesian suspicion or fear of cultural penetration.16 At the same time, the memorandum recalled, the Indonesians had not neglected to offer cultural activities in the Netherlands and had proceeded independently in certain respects like the Dutch government, such as with an active cultural institute. Based on these arguments, the memo suggested that Ambassador Sudjarwo be invited to discuss and clarify any differences about the handing over of the current draft text.17 In light of this hesitation, Dutch officials also quickly surveyed the state of unofficial cultural relations between the two countries. They found that Indonesia had already been active in the Netherlands, through the work of an Indonesian cultural institute that distributed knowledge about Indonesian culture, giving language and gamelan lessons, and publishing an illustrated cultural magazine.18 In the arts, there had also been museum and dance performances. In Dutch universities, Indonesian professors had been provided. There was also a connection, a memorandum explained, between an Indonesian Foundation in Bandung and the Netherlands. At the same time, they argued, the Netherlands had been active in Indonesia. The embassy had a department occupied with cultural matters, linked with reading and film screening rooms, and which made available scientific books and illustrated magazines. Also, delegations of students and political young people had visited Indonesia without resistance. These activities clearly mirrored the plan set forth by the Dutch Foreign Ministry in the early 1950s to conduct in Indonesia a modest unilateral policy of cultural activities in support of the Dutch living there. It appears, however, that in further discussions, the Indonesian diplomats came around rather quickly. That same month, Dutch officials were already counting on the agreement with Indonesia. They expected the Indonesian Minister of Foreign Affairs to visit the Netherlands in a few days and, on the suggestion of Indonesia, that the two governments intended to sign a cultural agreement. Both Ministers, of Education and Sciences, and of the newly created Ministry of Culture, Recreation and Social Work, had responded positively to the draft, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs planned to bring up the subject verbally with the Rijks Council of Ministers at the end of the next week.19 The Dutch official, C.W. van Boetzelaer, Chief of the Executive Board, Foreign Country Information, reported to the Minister of Culture, Recreation and Social Work, as well, confirming that an interdepartmental consultation had been prepared to be opened on the texts of cultural treaties, and that the Minister would set up a coordination commission for international cultural relations.20 It appeared, therefore, that Dutch officials were eager to coordinate across Ministries to develop a

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Figure 3.3 Arrival of Adam Malik, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Indonesia at Ypenburg picked up by Minister J.A.M.H. Luns, October 24, 1967. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Anefo/Eric Koch/Anefo

new cultural relations policy with Indonesia. However, despite the rush to draft a text, Dutch and Indonesian officials did not sign a cultural agreement on the occasion of Malik’s visit in 1967. The delay did not dampen the enthusiasm for strengthening DutchIndonesian cultural diplomacy, however, and by July 1968, both sides had signed the new accord. Among those officials supporting closer ties with Indonesia during this period, the Dutch Ambassador to Indonesia, E.L.C. (Emile Louis Constant) Schiff (1918–2007)—the first Ambassador to Indonesia after restoration of diplomatic relations (from January 1965 to October 1968)—urged Foreign Ministry officials to take advantage of what he saw as the present favorable climate in Indonesia to renew cultural cooperation.21 After his first visit with the recently appointed Indonesian Minister of Education and Culture, S.H. Mashuri, Schiff reported to the Foreign Minister that they had talked several times in the last two years, and that Mashuri “had proven already to be very positive regarding Netherlands-Indonesia cooperation in the cultural area in general and in that of higher education in particular.”22 Mashuri hoped, Schiff wrote, “with the signing of the cultural accord, and within the framework of the program of technical cooperation,

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Figure 3.4 Minister Malik at Soestdijk Palace in conversation with her Majesty the Queen, Juliana, October 26, 1967. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Anefo/Ron Kroon/Anefo

that new contents could be given to cultural and scientific relations.”23 Ambassador Schiff stressed that Mashuri’s intentions were serious, and that the moment presented an opportunity of “exceptional importance,” which had not been seen in a long time. Schiff concluded that it would be advisable to react positively to Indonesian requests for cultural cooperation.24 Further, highlighting the enthusiasm raised among Dutch officials by the signing of the new agreement, a Dutch parliamentary delegation visited Indonesia, in August 1968, on the subject of cultural cooperation. Those representing the Second Chamber included, the Labor (PvdA) member, F.H.J.M. Daams (1920–2001), the Liberal (VVD) member, Th. H. Joekes (1923–99) and the Catholic (KVP) member, J.A. Mommersteeg (1917–91).25 Upon their return, the lawmakers stressed with the Foreign Ministry and members of the Working Group what they saw as the highest priorities in the area of cultural cooperation—although they still emphasized modest services to the Dutch population—including promoting the Dutch language in Indonesia, and, at a small cost, providing for existing radio programs and extra illustrated magazines and other literature.26 Having impressed the President of the Coordination Commission’s informal “Workgroup-Indonesia” that the visit had resulted in “a particularly pleasant and fertile idea exchange,” the lawmakers also made clear their concern—in an echo of fears expressed in the early 1950s—that the new cultural relations policy must avoid any appearance of patronization or force in advancing cultural goals.27

Figure 3.5 Mr. E.L.C. Schiff, Dutch Ambassador to Indonesia at Schiphol, going to Rotterdam to attend the Conference of donor countries for Indonesia as Special Advisor to the Dutch Government, April 11, 1968. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Anefo/Eric Koch/Anefo

Figure 3.6 Arrival of Mashuri, Minister of Education and Culture, of Indonesia at Schiphol, October 22, 1968. National Archives of the Netherlands/ Collection Anefo/Ron Kroon/Anefo

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Figure 3.7 Th. H. Joekes, Member of Parliament, Second Chamber, October 1968, The Hague. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Elsevier/ Koch/Anefo

Despite their support for the new cultural relations agreement with Indonesia, however, the visit by the lawmakers did not bring about its immediate ratification by the Dutch Parliament. Later that month, the Coordination Committee for International Cultural Relations reported that ratification had been given up, after having gone through the public Commission, when the States-General decided it preferred that ratification be according to a tacit procedure.28 One explanation for the delay in ratifying the new cultural agreement may have been that, during the same period, Dutch officials were preoccupied with determining how a wider expansion of development aid to Indonesia could include funding for the renewal of cultural relations.

Economic aid and technical assistance: the Netherlands as international aid donor For this study, it is important to note that the emerging connection between cultural diplomacy and development aid would not only affect funding of cultural relations activities, but one day would inform how Dutch officials could begin to narrate cultural property returns. Yet, there were more immediate reasons for turning to the question of international aid as well. During Suharto’s rise to power, Dutch officials were reviewing Indonesia’s need for “support of its [economic] stabilization and rehabilitation programs,” and initial discussions about cultural cooperation were subordinated to issues of

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economic aid and technical assistance.29 This may have been a factor in the initially halting response of Indonesian officials to signing the new cultural agreement. Financing would have concerned Malik since, by 1966, Indonesia’s foreign debt was 2.3 billion US dollars and its debt service obligations exceeded export earnings. It owed a billion dollars to the Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries. In 1967, as well, Indonesia had begun talks with Western and Japanese creditors for aid and credit. As for the Netherlands in this period, it began taking on a larger role in Indonesia’s economic development, by founding the Intergovernmental Group on Indonesia (IGGI), which began as an informal group of major Western nations, Japan and multi-lateral aid groups, such as the World Bank, to coordinate aid programs for Indonesia.30 Chaired by the Netherlands, the IGGI gained enormous influence over economic policy-making in Indonesia from 1967 through 1991.31 Dutch leadership of the IGGI was one of the developments that helped transform the Dutch image from colonizer to benefactor. So, rather than conclude a cultural agreement during the meeting mentioned earlier, with Minister Malik, the Dutch Minister for Development Aid, B.J. (Berend Jan) Udink (1926–2016) (Christian Historical Union, or CHU),32 reported that during that meeting he had assured Malik that the Netherlands would continue to offer financial assistance along the lines of 1966 and 1967, and to implement the technical assistance programs upon which the two governments had already agreed.33

Figure 3.8 International conference on development aid in Amstel Hotel, Amsterdam. Minister Berend-Jan Udink in conversation with the Minister delegate of Indonesia, Mr. Widjojo Nitisastro, November 20, 1967. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Anefo/Jac. De Nijs/Anefo

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Figure 3.9 Tenth session of the Advice Committee for Cultural Cooperation, at the Binnenhof, The Hague. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Anefo/Rob Mieremet/Anefo

Historically, the role of the Netherlands in Indonesia’s economic planning beginning in this period fit within the new international relations stance officials formulated following the Second World War. Across Europe, technical assistance and economic aid programs to underdeveloped countries are largely considered to have emerged in response to “Point Four” of the 1949 inauguration speech of Harry S. Truman. At first, such programs were geared to help with post-war reconstruction, and then post-colonial development in the emerging “Third World.” The Netherlands adopted this approach as one dimension of its international relations following the war and its subsequent loss of the East Indies. It has been argued that a combination of commercial rationale and internationalist ideals led the Dutch government to participate in a new multi-lateral technical assistance program launched by the UN in the early 1950s. According to historian Esther Helena Arens, for example, “In the interplay of international influences and the construction of another perception of self, [after failing to withdraw from the colonial empire without violence,] development cooperation functioned increasingly as a means to shape a new profile.”34 In the post-war era, international development aid, or development cooperation as it was also known, appealed to both the left and right in Dutch

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politics since it opened new opportunities in the face of severe economic challenges. With regard to Indonesia, Dutch politicians largely agreed that economic assistance programs would be advantageous to the Netherlands’ commerce and employment. In the 1950s, for example, international development aid policy brought together the seemingly opposite goals of the Dutch political left and right. Under post-war Prime Minister Willem Drees, a member of the Labor Party (Partij van de Arbeid, or PvdA), social democrats transitioned experts and technicians returning from Indonesia toward the new field. At the same time, Minister of Foreign Affairs, D.U. Stikker, a member of the Liberal political party (Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie, or VVD), viewed foreign aid as a tool for easing international tensions caused by the division of rich and poor, and as a way to promote Dutch scientific and business expertise, and advance Dutch exports.35 Domestically, the idea of providing aid to decolonized countries in Africa and Asia became popular as well. In 1955, Queen Juliana (1909–2004)— reigning from September 4, 1948, to April 30, 1980—strongly endorsed development aid as a humanitarian duty of rich nations of the Western world.36 In 1956, the first non-governmental development organization, NOVIB, was founded in the Netherlands, directed by socialists and progressive Christians, advised by Foreign Office officials, and with Prince-Consort Bernhard (1911–2004) serving as the honorary chairman.37 According to historian Maarten Kuitenbrouwer, the main “motive of early Dutch development aid” after “colonial development and compensation for the loss of Indonesia” was anti-communism.38 However, the hope of holding onto its economic dominance in Indonesia played a part as well. Despite Dutch participation in multi-lateral aid schemes of the UN, between 1950 and 1962, Kuitenbrouwer wrote, its bilateral aid remained higher in former and remaining colonies, that is, “only 340 million guilders was spent through multilateral channels like the UN, against 280 million guilders for bilateral aid to Indonesia, 263 million for [West] New Guinea and 241 million for the Netherlands West Indies.”39 Historian Marc Frey concurred, arguing that the Netherlands tried to retain its favorable position in the Indonesian economy through development aid schemes after the transfer of power.40 Ultimately, between 1966 and 1984, trade between the Netherlands and Indonesia increased from 450 to 1,500 million guilders, and nearly 10% of Dutch development aid was given to Indonesia.41 Between 1965 and 1972, the period under discussion in this chapter, the bilateral aid budget increased from 4.5 to 328 million guilders.42 As discussions with Indonesian officials progressed in early 1968, therefore, their Dutch counterparts became preoccupied, not only with the extent of economic aid, but with determining how cultural relations would fit within a development aid framework. Yet, this too had been in the works for over a year. As early as the fall of 1966, the embassy in Djakarta had begun to devise a comprehensive plan for cultural cooperation with Indonesia. By 1967, while

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it was still too early to establish an agreement, a number of specific projects had been noted and J.E. Schaap, Embassy Council for Press and Cultural Matters, submitted a five-year plan. At the time, the Chief of the Directorate for Education Abroad (Directie Voorlichting Buitenland, or DVB) in the Foreign Ministry thought, “the difficulty of realizing Schaap’s plan lay in the absence of a structure for reaching a policy for international cultural relations.”43 Previously, the memorandum said, with the participation of the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Education and Sciences had undertaken the conception and financing of such activities and, more recently, the new Ministry of Culture, Recreation and Social Work had funds available. Coordination of several activities had, in addition, been given to the Coordination Commission for International Cultural Relations.”44 Furthermore, during its first two meetings, the Coordination Commission had drafted a note for the Council of Ministers intended to increase budgets for cultural relations for a number of countries, or groups of countries, including Indonesia.45 These efforts met with success. In 1968, Foreign Ministry officials successfully linked cultural relations with development aid when they began pressing the Council of Ministers for extra funding for cultural activities in 1969, and receiving fl. 3 million by that summer.46 By envisioning how cultural relations could be funded as development aid, they began to widen the scope for involvement and funding of cultural projects across multiple ministries. This reorientation, plus the speed with which Dutch officials came to a cultural agreement with Suharto’s Indonesia—signed but not ratified, in the summer of 1968—reveals their eagerness to expand both the arena of “friendship diplomacy,” and as will be demonstrated below, a range of options for a paternalistic cultural role in the former colony that would later inform responses to the question of returning cultural property.

The persistence of claims for returns Despite the emphasis on economic aid to, and finding a place within development aid budgets for, cultural relations with Indonesia, however, the question of returning cultural property had also been affecting the ratification process for the new cultural agreement. In late 1968, for example, in addition to discussing their support for intensifying cultural relations with Indonesia, the Dutch parliamentarians who had visited Indonesia— specifically, Mommersteeg and Joekes—had argued “with emphasis” that the art objects and documents of cultural value to Indonesia should be refunded without delay, a subject which President Suharto had touched upon when meeting with the president of the delegation.47 The Coordinating Committee also had on its agenda, “the question of the possible refund of Indonesian art objects and documents of historico-cultural value.”48 Such discussions had been going on in early 1966, as well, as can be seen in the list of discussion topics developed by the interdepartmental working group,

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which included the issue of exchanging objects of “cultural or historical value,” since the question had already been raised by the Indonesians in 1963. Even then, given the improving political climate, some officials thought it would be possible to discuss the subject, and to reassert the government’s interest in obtaining historical documents—either the originals or copies—from the VOC and colonial eras that had remained in Indonesia after the transfer of sovereignty.49 By late 1968, the Workgroup-Indonesia expressed that such a gesture would be “appropriate … on the occasion of the visit of President Soeharto,” “that no objection existed in Leiden to ‘refund of precious lontok-documents’ [sic], however, this would be examined still further,” and it raised the idea of “a counter-payment,” in the form of a request for the return of the East Indies Company files, an idea that had been circulating among Dutch officials for nearly twenty years.50 The idea persisted. When the draft text of the new cultural agreement circulated among the various ministerial departments in September 1967, the cover memorandum from the Directorate for Education Abroad (DVB) indicated, A particular difficulty to the elaboration of this draft text was that the Indonesians brought up in 1963 after talks, that the sides had recognized at the R.T.C. [Round Table Conference] the wish to recover objects of cultural value, which had come in an irregular manner to our possession. The draft text gives no vessel to Indonesian claims on this point. However, the draft text gives the Netherlands, a starting point for its wishes with respect to obtaining [originals] or copies of the archives of interest to the Netherlands, such as the Company’s Archive at Djakarta.51 It appears that since the Sukarno administration raised the issue of returns to Indonesia in 1963, “after talks,” the Netherlands could leave the subject off the table unless, or until, the Indonesians raised it again themselves.52 At the same time, anticipating that the subject would be raised in talks about a new cultural agreement, Dutch officials began revisiting the earlier one, by circulating the verbatim text of Article 19, “Transfer of Objects of Cultural Value,” that had been included in the cultural agreement concluded at the 1949 RTC and retained in a 1954 protocol.53 According to Lêgene and Postel-Coster, a review of this text was included in efforts made by the interdepartmental committee to research the earlier agreement.54 Officials noted that the text had over time become largely unavailable and, as a result, they wanted the various departments and ministries to have it during the process of preparing the new cultural agreement.55 In addition, the Secretary General for the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, E.O. van Boetzelser, sent the text to the Minister of Culture, Recreation and Social Work, to ask for an opinion on the idea of concluding a cultural agreement during the October 1967 Malik visit.56 Presumably, knowing that the Ministry’s predecessors in the Department of Education, Arts and Sciences had a history

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of resisting the return of items from the national collections, Foreign Affairs wanted to be sure the Ministry of Culture, Recreation and Social Work knew that accepting a new agreement would again raise the question of returning objects of cultural or historical value. It would take longer to resolve this issue, however. At that moment, the Dutch government was no longer under pressure to prove their goodwill through such a return. Instead, officials were increasingly convinced that development aid would be a better vehicle. In other words, some officials believed that Indonesia would benefit more financially from development aid, than from the return of cultural property. At the same time, development aid, they anticipated, would provide for cultural cooperation, if a cultural agreement could be concluded. This time, therefore, the renewal of cultural relations would not include an agreement to return cultural property, as it had in 1949. Instead, Dutch Foreign Ministry and cultural officials measured their reactions to Indonesia’s demands for returns. As the following discussion illustrates, officials tended to prefer minimally disruptive, yet symbolically significant, exchanges of microfilmed archival material—rather than museum collections—to help advance Dutch-Indonesian reconciliation, and to cultivate greater acceptance of a renewed Dutch cultural presence in Indonesia.

Reframing notions of Dutch goodwill: cultural cooperation as development aid By early 1969, for example, the Dutch Minister of Education and Sciences faced the question, in consultation with experts in Far Eastern studies, of how a new cultural agreement would impact Dutch national museum and related manuscript collections. Ultimately, he would rely on the recommendations of Andries (Hans) Teeuw (1921–2012), head of the Department of Language and Culture at the University of Leiden (1968–86), and President of the Board of the organization known as the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (originally, the Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, or KITLV, the acronym by which it is still known despite the name change), who was called upon for an assessment.57 As an expert in Indonesian and Malay language and literature, Teeuw’s advice to the Minister of Education and Sciences would emphasize historically significant manuscript material—before museum objects—and frame an array of Dutch activities as gestures of goodwill toward Indonesia’s economic and technical development. For instance, Teeuw suggested that the Netherlands should try to “tackle altogether” the problem of poor museum conditions in Djakarta. From a “professional scientific” basis, Teeuw argued—considering the situation from the standpoint of expert staff and climate at the Central Museum (Museum Pusat)—the renamed museum, founded in 1868 by the former Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences, returns were not yet justified. However, among the rather “random and accidentally” collected texts in the

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so-called Lombok collection, Teeuw added, “some are very important.”58 He cited the, “Nagarakrtagama!” and “also possibly the Malay and Atjehse manuscripts,” as by far the most historically significant for Indonesia.59 The Nagarakrtagama is an Old Javanese manuscript containing an epic poem, written in 1365 by Mpu Prapanca during the reign of Hayam Wuruk (r. 1350–89), a Javanese king and ruler of the Majapahit Empire based in Java (1293–c. 1500). Yet, Teeuw emphasized, the science in Indonesia would not be able to avail itself to them should they be returned now. He recommended that the Dutch responsibility lay in helping create the conditions for the proper conservation of the manuscripts, developing Indonesian scientific research on their “literary possession,” and engaging in an exchange program of microfilms of manuscripts instead of returns.60 Teeuw added that he recognized the “political emotional aspect” among Indonesian counterparts of the problem of returning such materials. He argued, however, if the Dutch supported the improvement of storage in Djakarta, helped train experts and engaged in a systematic exchange of microfilms, it would engender goodwill and demonstrate that the Dutch were willing to address Indonesia’s “weighty question with the heart.”61 He would not be opposed to an early refund of this document of almost religious value to Indonesia, he wrote, since it had been thoroughly studied and, as a result, a lot of good copies had been made. Therefore, a refund would imply little or no scientific risks.62 With these suggestions, Teeuw helped frame an array of cultural activities as gestures of Dutch goodwill, aimed at improving Indonesia’s national repositories. Rather than recommend the government make any politically difficult returns from museums, Teeuw’s plan featured microfilming archived manuscripts and providing new roles for Dutch experts and institutions in Indonesia.63 Teeuw was not the only expert consulted. Another was the museum director, Peter H. Pott, whose advice about contested museum objects mostly paralleled that of Teeuw’s, although (as discussed in Chapter Four) Pott disagreed about returning the manuscript. Pott, in particular, despite having trained Indonesian museum personnel and contributed to rethinking ethnographic museum exhibitions after decolonization,64 had long opposed returning materials obtained during the colonial era, and he had tried to maintain solidarity with officials in the United Kingdom, who also resisted return claims.65 While Dutch officials weighed their options, however, resolution of the question of return did not stop Indonesian officials from moving forward to formalize the new cultural relations agreement. That same month, in January 1969, an internal memorandum from the Dutch Directorate of Asia and Oceania (Directie Azië en Oceanië, or DOA) reported that Professor Erman Moeriantoro had notified a Dutch official that the Indonesian government had ratified the Netherlands-Indonesia Cultural Treaty. They were waiting therefore for the Netherlands to complete the procedure, which could be expected, the memorandum said, in March 1969.66 They would have to wait a bit longer, however.

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Almost nine months past the date expected by the Indonesians, but not long after Teeuw’s assessment, the Foreign Ministry announced on January 8, 1970, the exchange at The Hague of ratification deeds for the cultural relations treaty, signed by the respective foreign ministers on July 7, 1968, in Djakarta.67 Soon after, Prince-Consort Bernhard—who was active in Dutch public life through the promotion of trade and industry overseas—visited Indonesia to officially open the cultural center at the Dutch embassy known as the “Erasmus House.” This was followed by a state visit to the Netherlands in August 1970 by President Suharto. At that point, in addition to enabling a positive narrative for the future return of archival materials, defining cultural relations as a component of development aid had far-reaching implications for Dutch cultural institutions founded in the colonial era. By the fall of 1970, prospects for implementing the cultural agreement had begun to offer new pathways for their involvement in the government’s developmental vision, as the Coordination Commission for International Cultural Relations started inviting non-governmental organizations to develop activities in the area of cultural relations with Indonesia.68 This included Dutch anthropology museums.69 In one instance, the Minister of Development Cooperation, B.J. Udink, proposed at an annual speech to the Royal Tropical Institute (Vereniging Koninklijk Instituut Voor De Tropen, or KIT), which included the Tropical Museum (Tropenmuseum) in Amsterdam as a department, that he would like to see the museum become a national center focused on exhibitions

Figure 3.10 Signing of the international agreement on cultural relations between the Netherlands and Indonesia, by Ambassador Taswin Natadiningrat, and Foreign Minister Joseph Luns, January 8, 1970, The Hague. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Elsevier/ANP/Gé van der Werff

Figure 3.11 President Suharto speaks with Dutch ministers at Huis ten Bosch, September 3, 1970. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Anefo/Eric Koch/Anefo

Figure 3.12 President Suharto speaks with Members of Parliament in Second Chamber, September 3, 1970, The Hague. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Anefo/Eric Koch/Anefo

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Figure 3.13 State visit of Indonesian President Suharto to the Netherlands (September 3–4, 1970). Gala dinner at Palace Huis ten Bosch, September 3, 1970, The Hague. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Elsevier/Eric Koch/Anefo

about development cooperation. Wilhelmina H. Kal, Head Curator at the time, recalled Udink’s remarks, in which he reportedly said: I would like to examine the possibility of expanding the museum’s field of operation to make it a national centre for exhibitions about development cooperation something analogous to the way the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam has achieved national prominence in the field of modern art. A dynamic meeting place which would make use of audiovisual techniques with an appeal to a wide public and which would stage ever-changing exhibits in order to present the many facets of development in a clear fashion to vast numbers of visitors, a centre every bit as vital as the process of development itself. …70 In addition to the Tropenmuseum, Kal reported, the Museum for Geography and Ethnology in Rotterdam (Museum voor Land- en Volkenkunde, founded in 1883, and later known as the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam (World Museum)) had also accepted Minister Udink’s proposal. Although, she emphasized, both museums maintained that they were still anthropological museums—thus marking the museums’ independence from governmental influence—and that while the museum staff accepted Udink’s proposal and

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funding, they declared that they wanted the museum to remain independent of government policies and perspectives.71 Such comments can be seen within a wider context of discussions about ethnographic museums among museum anthropologists in the Netherlands and Germany in the early 1970s. By then, confusion starting in the early 1950s over such roles had given way to an intense questioning of the nature of anthropological museums, what function museum anthropologists served and what were their tasks in the museum context.72 Here, Kal emphasized the debates that were going on among museum staff about the role of their institution, and she explained that some museum staff in the Tropenmuseum felt personally conflicted by the call to serve the political purposes proposed by government officials. However, they also realized that there were limits to their taking opposing positions against its policies, and in certain respects they were sympathetic to the ethical implications of the proposal’s developmental imperative.73 In the end, seeing Udink’s proposal as a way to transform the institution, museum staff accepted the call. It took time to refocus, however. From 1976 to 1979 the doors were closed and the collections were stored while the museum underwent renovation.74 When it reopened, its mission had changed to one of enriching public appreciation of development issues, and “to show[ing] how the Netherlands and countries of the Third World share in one another’s fate.”75 According to Kal, the museum’s new approach would de-emphasize cultural objects as art, so it could focus on people (how they lived and how their societies developed), and the relationship between people of the “First” and “Third Worlds.”76 This would change in subsequent years (as discussed in Chapter Five). However, in the diplomatic context of the 1970s, under the museum’s revised mission, in addition to exhibitions and other public presentations, the staff increasingly became involved in foreign development aid-funded cultural cooperation projects—including assisting in setting up museums, cultural centers and cottage industries.77 While participation in such projects meant further integration of museums in the contemporary implementation of Dutch foreign policy, such involvement echoed the colonial past, since the Tropenmuseum had previously played a role in supporting Dutch activities in the East and West Indies. It had been founded in 1864 in Haarlem as the Colonial Museum (Koloniaal Museum) by the Society to Stimulate Trade and Industry (Maatschappij te Bevordering Van Nujverheid), which worked to promote commerce in the Dutch colonies.78 The Colonial Museum itself was set up to illustrate colonial life and to promote the “great [colonial] achievements” of the Kingdom.79 Later, in 1910, a separate Colonial Institute (Kolonial Instituut) was founded in Amsterdam, which operated as a private commercial organization involved in colonial trade in the Dutch East and West Indies, gathering and disseminating knowledge about the tropics and subtropics. These institutes were combined in the early 1920s, when the Colonial Museum was moved to Amsterdam and became part of the Colonial Institute there.80

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The museum then continued its colonial promotion, but began working with the Colonial Institute in the language and cultural training of Foreign Service personnel for the civil administration, military and commercial sector in the colonies.81 It was after World War II that the Colonial Institute’s name was changed to the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT), and the Colonial Museum was renamed the Tropenmuseum.82 With the independence of Indonesia, the museum continued to be the public face of the KIT and it began expanding its geographical scope beyond the Dutch colonies to include tropical and subtropical regions of the world.83 In the 1950s, the Dutch government had already begun to fund and organize “Third World” development projects through the KIT, and the Tropenmuseum had shifted exhibition themes toward the development of tropical and subtropical regions. However, after 1970, the new cultural agreement enabled them to play an expanded role in advancing Dutch cultural relations as development aid to Suharto’s Indonesia.

Alternate views of the new cultural diplomacy: diplomatic success or neocolonial failure? While cultural diplomacy paled in significance to other aspects of international affairs and economic cooperation emerging between the two countries in this period, for some Dutch officials and cultural institutions, these events signaled the end of post-colonial animosity that, under Sukarno, would have been inconceivable only five years earlier. Therefore, in what would prove to be the waning months of a long-standing center-right political dominance in the Dutch government, Foreign Ministry officials were pleased with the reconciliation in cultural affairs that their diplomacy had achieved between the Netherlands and Indonesia. While promoting its success in early 1971, for example, officials celebrated how cultural diplomacy had served to repair the awful rift in Dutch-Indonesian relations, and how it had provided opportunities for reprising an ethically oriented developmental role. By the time the first meeting of the Indonesian advisory committee met in Djakarta on January 20, 1971, the Dutch Director-General for Political Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would be able to repeat the views, expressed during the rise of Suharto in the mid-1960s, that a cultural agreement reflected no ordinary friendship politics, but an “age-long relationship, characterized by the colonial time, and for twenty-five years, by the relationship between two sovereign states.”84 In addition to glossing over the historical changes that had made the agreement possible, he also reiterated what had by then become the usual areas of activity—education, exchange of professors, the training of experts, visitor grants and affiliation between universities— highlighting in each things that emphasized the benefits to Indonesia.85 In the fall of 1971, as well, after elections and a Cabinet shuffle brought another Catholic People’s Party (KVP) member, Norbert Schmelzer

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(1921–2008), to head the Foreign Ministry,86 the Dutch Ambassador, H. Scheltema (serving from 1968 to May 30, 1973), drew an extremely positive picture of cultural relations with Indonesia in an assessment he gave to the new Minister of Foreign Affairs. On the diplomatic side, Ambassador Scheltema confirmed, following a recent state visit to Indonesia by Queen Juliana and Prince-Consort Bernhard (August 16–26, 1971), that the lessening of tensions in the last years between the countries had continued. Based on visits from several sectors of Indonesian society, the current has now been as a whole standardized that relations should be built further in the interest of both peoples. In the past objections remained by some Indonesians or reservations had existed with regard to Dutch influences or activities but, with the royal visit, the path is cleared not only for more initiatives from the Netherlands. However, increasingly, the country will be asked to give more and new contents to bilateral links.87 Furthermore, Ambassador Scheltema reported that very diverse elements of Indonesian society expressed aspirations for contact with the Netherlands including, “young people, Islamic leaders, the scientific world, the intellectuals, and the media,” making it necessary for the Netherlands to continue developing initiatives to promote cultural relations.88 In the same report, Scheltema recalled seeing editorials in all the authoritative newspapers, conversations held with Indonesians and hearing the free use of the Dutch language during the whole of the state visit.89 To Scheltema, these signs indicated “a victory of initial and possibly still existing reserves.” In light of this, he was “overjoyed” to say that the embassy had rightly been reinforced with a director for the Erasmus House, and a coordinator for the Dutch language courses.90 He also expected increasing activities in other areas and, as a result, he wanted to plead for the largest possible allocation of liquid assets for the Indonesia-specific programs, so that the state visit will have as its side effect greater bilateral relations.91 The Foreign Ministry agreed. The progression of events, officials thought, from the signing of a cultural accord in 1968, to the visit to the Netherlands by President and Mrs. Suharto in August 1970, had contributed “very important cultural contacts between both countries, particularly by the large publicity in the media of both countries preceding and during these visits, including brochures, films and newspaper articles.”92 In addition, by continuing to promote an ethically oriented developmental mission, officials concluded, the Netherlands had more to offer in the cultural and scientific areas than Indonesia, especially with regard to the Dutch language, of which passive knowledge is still considered of great importance by both parties. Drawing on colonial legacies of scholarly learning, officials believed as well that the Netherlands had much to offer in the sciences, especially in the areas of sociology, anthropology, linguistics, ethnology, adat law and

Figure 3.14 State visit of her Majesty and Prince Bernhard to Indonesia. Queen Juliana and President Suharto walking before the honor guard, August 27, 1971. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Anefo/Photographer Unknown/Anefo

Figure 3.15 State visit of HM Prince Bernhard to Indonesia, with Ministers of Foreign Affairs Norbert Schmelzer and Adam Malik, August 28, 1971. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Anefo/Joost Evers/Anefo

Figure 3.16 State visit of her Majesty and Prince Bernhard to Indonesia, left Minister Norbert Schmelzer with Adam Malik, August 28, 1971. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Anefo/Joost Evers/Anefo

Figure 3.17 State visit of her Majesty and Prince Bernhard to Indonesia. Queen Juliana and President Suharto, August 27, 1971. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Anefo/Joost Evers/Anefo

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Figure 3.18 Her Majesty Queen Juliana and Prince Bernhard, receiving members of the Dutch community in the Netherlands Embassy in Jakarta, August 29, 1971. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Anefo/Photographer Unknown/Anefo

history, areas of which “the Netherlands is the only guardian.”93 In other words, the new accord finally enabled Dutch officials to honor the colonial past by “giving back” to a scientifically needy Indonesia. The transfer of knowledge is urgent, they argued, since the “knowledge carrying generation in the Netherlands is dying out.”94 Yet, reflecting political changes in the Netherlands, there were increasingly divergent opinions about the celebratory attitudes, precisely because they valorized the past and sought a kind of Dutch-privileged re-enactment of colonial relations. To explain, throughout the 1950s and 1960s—the Dutch government had been dominated by center-right coalitions and Dutch foreign policy had largely been an arena of tradition run by a tightly knit elite operating outside the realm of political party conflict. The Catholic People’s Party (KVP) member, Joseph Luns, for example, had been the longest-serving Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs in the country’s history, serving almost twenty years, between 1952 and 1971.95 It was under the center-right Cabinet of Piet de Jong (April 5, 1967–July 6, 1971) that relations with Indonesia had improved, resulting in a state visit by President Suharto. With significant domestic upheaval in the late 1960s and early 1970s, however—including greater politicization and polarization—foreign policy became increasingly subjected to the protests of public opinion, and by “action groups” that

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wanted to see changes.96 For example, criticism of Dutch foreign policy in this period centered on issues related to nuclear weapons, NATO and American policy in Vietnam. As a result, despite the urgency felt by Foreign Ministry officials to expand cultural diplomacy in a particular way, critics on the political left had begun to see the revival of the Dutch cultural presence in Djakarta as disturbingly nostalgic. In an editorial in De Gids, for example, journalist Peter Schumacher criticized the cultural policy as a reflection of the neo-colonial interest of Dutch business concerns, and as a return to pre-war relations, which, he argued, amounted to the “colonial under normalization.”97 The cultural policy, in particular, Schumacher viewed as primarily “aimed at Dutch-speaking Indonesians…,” those who are of the nostalgic “time lost” persuasion.98 The Erasmus House contributed to a kind of colonial re-enactment, Schumacher argued, by showing well-known Dutch documentaries without subtitles, organizing evening events stylized on “Old Batavia” and presenting politically acceptable Dutch-language newspapers only, often censored with pages pointing to any “shortcomings of the embassy … torn out!”99 Those on the left, such as Schumacher, were offended by what they saw as colonial nostalgia among “old Indies guests,” as well as intellectuals and other elites in Indonesia thriving under the repressive Suharto regime. Rather than seeing the cultural policy as a reassertion of an ethical approach to the development of Indonesia, Dutch cooperation with the Suharto regime was seen as supporting political oppression and corruption, in the name of anti-communism. For the Netherlands, this study affirms that Suharto’s rise to power enabled a renewal of cultural diplomacy, but the renewal came with an important shift in the history of “Third World” politics. The historian Vijay Prashad has characterized the transformation as a period when, “the most conservative, even reactionary social classes attained dominance over the political platform created in Bandung.”100 In Prashad’s analysis, the new leaders adopted “a cruel cultural nationalism that emphasized racialism, religion, and hierarchy … [and with it] a manufactured vision of ‘tradition.’”101 Opposition to such conservatism had become widespread in the Netherlands. In the aftermath of “student revolts” in 1969, which emerged in both Western Europe and the United States in 1968, for example, many groups in the country had taken up political causes in the developing world.102 In the Netherlands, according to political scientist Mei Li Vos, Critical study groups sprouted at Dutch universities, advocating the end of the apartheid regime in South Africa, supporting the guerrillas in El Salvador and Ecuador, Fidel Castro in Cuba, and many more revolutionary causes. The attention for Indonesia displayed by students was on the regime in Indonesia, rather than the fine arts, cultures and languages. Some groups even demanded that the official relation of the Dutch government with the Indonesian regime should be ended.103

Figure 3.19 Demonstration by Ambonese (Moluccans) against the state visit of President Suharto, in Assen, August 22, 1970. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Anefo/Bert Verhoeff/Anefo

Figure 3.20 Anti-Suharto demonstration at the Binnenhof in The Hague, September 1, 1970. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Anefo/Eric Koch/Anefo

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Figure 3.21 Protest against the state visit of President Suharto, September 1, 1970. National Archives of the Netherlands/Anefo/Eric Koch/Anefo

However, according to Vos, the critique also applied to some factors associated with the cultural agreement, for instance, when critics called the Advisory Committee an “old boy’s network,” referring to many of its members who had mainly been drawn from the pool of civil servants with ties to Indonesia—as former colonial administrators—and who had returned to the Netherlands and taken up posts in Dutch universities or ministries.104 The argument here, Vos explained, was that these officials were able to channel their own academic and political interests toward improving both Indonesian studies in Indonesia and maintaining Dutch-Indonesian relations, and that they had even used their colonial experience and status as civil servants to gain the trust and support of the Dutch government.105 During their tenure, Vos illustrated, the Advisory Committee had tremendous influence on the Department of Dutch Language at the University of Indonesia and the Indonesian Studies Program there.106 Its respective cultural relations committee established in Indonesia met only once on its own, choosing instead to meet bilaterally with its Dutch counterpart. As president of the Advisory Committee, Teeuw led the cultural program until it was dissolved in 1983, and under revised institutional arrangements located within the Royal Tropical Institute, until he retired in 1991. A new chairman, J.W. (Johan Willem (Pim) Schoorl (b. 1927), assumed his duties in 1992. When members retired from the scene, Vos noted, other ideas emerged about Dutch cultural relations with Indonesia.107

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Conclusion Despite domestic political tensions arising in the late 1960s and early 1970s, this period marked a turning point in relations between the Netherlands and Indonesia that reinvigorated Dutch visions for a renewed cultural role. While the museum director Peter H. Pott had cited this period as instrumental to the eventual agreement to return cultural property in the 1970s,108 he did not connect the new accord with the regime change in Indonesia. Nor did he link it to the strategy to define future returns as merely a cultural aspect of Dutch development aid. What we know now is that the return of cultural property continued to be part of negotiations over the future of cultural relations, broadly defined, as the issue remained important to the new Indonesian leaders. And once Dutch officials recognized the regime change as an “opportunity,” they were eager to move forward with a cultural agreement anyway. It can also be said that when relations were poor, Dutch officials were reluctant to return materials because it confronted their self-image as ethical colonialists, enlightened scholars and stewards of Indonesian material culture. When relations improved, they hoped to ensure exchanges of colonial-era archives—primarily their own—and to help Indonesia improve its national repositories, as a gesture of goodwill. Defining returns as development aid, therefore, would be key to unlocking the stalemate. However, officials had not yet geared the new institutional framework—based on development aid, and on providing a Dutch cultural presence in Indonesia—to facilitate such exchanges and returns at that point. As the next chapter shows, the inroads made in their diplomacy would not only intensify in the years to come, they would reinforce the idea that cultural relations—and the question of returning cultural property from the colonial era—were best mediated through the goodwill of Dutch technical assistance and foreign aid programs. Yet, at that point too, the revival of cultural relations was not enough to persuade Dutch Foreign Ministry officials and cultural authorities to return contested museum collections in 1970. The groundwork had been laid, but such a gesture would require a new mix of diplomatic and political developments.

Notes 1 Redevoering van de Directeur-Generaal Politieke Zaken van het Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken bij de eerste vergadering van de Adviescommissie inzake de Overeenkomst voor Culturele Samenwerking tussen de Republiek Indonesië en het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden, March 2, 1971, Bijlage bij brief no. 3782/472, Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken (Speech of the Director-General of Political Affairs from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the first meeting of the Advisory Committee concerning the agreement for cultural cooperation between the Republic of Indonesia and the Kingdom of the Netherlands), March 2, 1971, Appendix to letter no. 3782/472). BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 916.

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2 Redevoering van de Directeur-Generaal Politieke Zaken van het Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken, March 2, 1971, Appendix to letter no. 3782/472). BZ 1965–74, NAN. 3 Beyond the scope of this study, the restoration of Borobudur became an important aspect of Dutch-Indonesian cultural diplomacy in 1970. Borobudur is an enormous ninth-century temple complex located in central Java devoted to Buddha worship. Built between 760 and 830 c.e., the temple site fell into disuse and neglect following conversion of Java’s ruling elite to Islam. Its restoration became the focus of Dutch and English antiquarians in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and in 1970, Prince Bernhard established a Foundation for the Conservation of Borobudur with a contribution of fl. 400,000. The project quickly became internationalized through UNESCO, with Borobudur eventually becoming a World Heritage site. 4 DOA/IN to DOA via Plv. DOA, April 13, 1966. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9161. 5 Wnd. DOA/PL to DOA via Plv. DOA, September 8, 1967. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9163. 6 Chief DVB to DVE/VV, September 27, 1967. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9163. 7 Chief DVB to DVE/VV, September 27, 1967. BZ 1965–74, NAN. 8 Wnd. DOA/PL to DOA via Plv. DOA, September 8, 1967. BZ 1965–74, NAN. 9 Ibid.; Chief DVB to DVE/VV, September 27, 1967. BZ 1965–74, NAN. 10 Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken, Verzonden Codebericht to Djakarta, (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sent Code Bulletin to Djakarta) October 5, 1967. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9163. 11 Wnd. DOA/PL to DOA via Plv. DOA, September 8, 1967. BZ 1965–74, NAN. 12 DVB/AV to S, via Chief DVB, DVE, DOA and DGPZ, September 26, 1967. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9163. 13 Chief DVB to DVE/VV, September 27, 1967. BZ 1965–74, NAN. 14 DVB/AV to S, via Chief DVB, DVE, DOA and DGPZ, September 26, 1967. BZ 1965–74, NAN. 15 Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken, Ontvangen Codebericht afkomstig van Djakarta, (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Received Code Bulletin submitted by Djakarta) October 3, 1967. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.5.313. Component No. 9163. 16 DOA to DGPZ, October 6, 1967. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9163. 17 DOA to DGPZ, October 6, 1967. BZ 1965–74, NAN. 18 DVB/AV to DVB, October 16, 1967. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9163. 19 Kramer to plv. Gevolmachtigd Minister van de Nederlandse Antillen (Deputy Plenipotentiary Minister of the Netherlands Antilles), October 17, 1967. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.117. Component No. 9163. 20 Van Boetzelaer to Minister van Cultuur, Recreatie en Maatschappelijk Werk (Minister of Culture, Recreation and Social Work), November 14, 1967, reportedly, responding to a letter from the Minister of October 26, 1967 (No. I.B. 60883-I). BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9163. 21 “E.L.C. (Emile) Schiff,” Parlement & Politiek, accessed February 7, 2014, http://www.parlement.com/id/vg09llzufdnj/e_l_c_emile_schiff. After serving as Ambassador, Schiff became Secretary General, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (October 1, 1968, to October 1, 1977), where he worked with his friend, Minister Luns, as well as with subsequent Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Schmelzer and Van der Stoel.

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22 Schiff to Minister van Buitenlandse Zaken, July 19, 1968. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9161. 23 Schiff to Minister van Buitenlandse Zaken, July 19, 1968. BZ 1965–74, NAN. 24 Ibid. 25 DCV to S via DGPZ, November 11, 1968. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9161. 26 Culturele Betrekkingen met Indonesië (Cultural Relations with Indonesia), Doc. 43, F/12880/68, n.d. [after November 8, 1968]. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9161. 27 DCV to S via DGPZ, November 11, 1968. BZ 1965–74, NAN. 28 Coordinatiecommissie voor Internationale Culturele Betrekkingen, Samenvatting bespreking Werkgroep—Indonesië (Coordination Committee for International Cultural Relations, Summary Discussion of Working Group—Indonesia), November 26, 1968. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9163. 29 Unsigned note on “The economic situation of Indonesia,” n.d. [approx. October 20, 1967]. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9163. 30 G.A. Posthumus, “The Inter-Governmental Group on Indonesia,” Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies 8, no. 2 (July 1972): 55–77. 31 William H. Frederick and Robert L. Worden, eds., Indonesia: A Country Study (Washington, D.C.: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1993), accessed March 19, 2013, http://countrystudies.us/indonesia/23.htm. 32 Earlier, Udink had headed the Dutch Chamber of Export Promotion. As Minister of Development Cooperation (1967–71), he acted as Chairman of the yearly meetings of the international aid consortium for Indonesia (IGGI). In 1971, he became Minister of Transport, Public Works and Water Management. Then, between 1973 and 1978, he became a member of the Board of Directors of the Dutch Gas and Electricity Company (Overzeese Gas en Elektriciteitsmaatschappij N.V.), and from 1978 to 1980, its President. 33 Unsigned note on “The economic situation of Indonesia,” n.d. [approx. October 20, 1967]. BZ 1965–74, NAN. 34 Esther Helena Arens, “Multilateral Institution-Building and National Interest: Dutch Development Policy in the 1960s,” Contemporary European History 12, no. 4 (2003): 458. 35 Ibid., 459. 36 Maarten Kuitenbrouwer, “The Never-Ending Debt of Honour: The Dutch in the Post-Colonial World,” Itinerario 20, no. 2 (1996): 23. 37 Ibid., 24. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid. 40 Marc Frey, “Control, Legitimacy, and the Securing of Interests: European Development Policy in South-East Asia from the Late Colonial Period to the Early 1960s,” Contemporary European History 12, no. 4 (Nov. 2003): 395. 41 Peter R. Baehr, “Problems of Aid Conditionality: The Netherlands and Indonesia,” Third World Quarterly 18, no. 2 (June 1997): 366. 42 Paul Hoebink, “Of Merchants and Ministers: A Short History of the Foreign Aid Programme of the Netherlands,” in Current Issues in Development Studies: Global Aspects of Agency and Structure, ed. Frans J. Schuurman (Saarbrücken: Verlag für Entwicklungspolitik Breitenbach, 1994), 132. 43 Chief DVB, Copie-Memorandum to R via S, February 22, 1968. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9161. 44 Chief DVB, Copie-Memorandum to R via S, February 22, 1968. BZ 1965–74, NAN.

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45 Ibid. 46 Cort van der Linden voor de Minister van Buitenlandse Zaken to Ambassadeur te Djakarta (for the Minister of Foreign Affairs to the Ambassador to Djakarta), (no. 2574/200), June 19, 1968. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9161. 47 DCV to S via DGPZ, November 11, 1968. BZ 1965–74, NAN. 48 Coordinatiecommissie voor Internationale Culturele Betrekkingen, Samenvatting bespreking Werkgroep—Indonesië, November 26, 1968. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9163. 49 DOA/IN to DOA via Plv. DOA, April 13, 1966. BZ 1965–74, NAN. 50 Coordinatiecommissie voor Internationale Culturele Betrekkingen, Samenvatting bespreking Werkgroep—Indonesië, November 26, 1968. BZ 1965–74, NAN. 51 DVB/AV to S, via Chief DVB, DVE, DOA and DGPZ, September 26, 1967. BZ 1965–74, NAN. 52 Ibid. 53 Wnd. DCA/PL, Copie-Memorandum to DVE/AV, September 27, 1967. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9163. 54 Susan Legêne and Els Postel-Coster, “Isn’t it all Culture? Culture and Dutch Development Policy in the Post-Colonial Period,” in Fifty Years of Dutch Development Cooperation, 1949–1999, ed. Jan A. Nekkers and Petrus Adrianus Maria Malcontent (The Hague: SDU, 2000), 274. See also: Indonesie-PaysBas, Accord Culturel (Indonesia-Kingdom of the Netherlands, Cultural Agreement), No. 125, n.d. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9163. 55 Wnd. DCA/PL, Copie-Memorandum to DVE/AV, September 27, 1967. BZ 1965–74, NAN. 56 S. Van Boetzelser voor de Minister van Buitenlandse Zaken to de Minister van Cultuur, Recreatie en Maatschappelijk Werk (for the Minister of Foreign Affairs to the Minister of Culture, Recreation and Social Work), October 9, 1967. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9163. 57 On the KITLV see: Martin Kuitenbrouwer, Dutch Scholarship in the Age of Empire and Beyond: KITLV—The Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, 1851–2011, trans. Lorri Granger, ed. Harry A. Poeze (Leiden: Brill, 2014). 58 Teeuw to Hofstee, January 6, 1969. KITLV. File H710 63. 59 Teeuw to Hofstee, January 6, 1969. KITLV. 60 Ibid. 61 Ibid. 62 Ibid. 63 Mei Li Vos, International Cooperation Between Politics and Practice: How Dutch-Indonesian Cooperation Changed Remarkably Little after a Diplomatic Rupture (Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis, 2001). 64 J.B. Avé, “Ethnographical Museums in a Changing World,” in From Field-Case to Show-Case: Research, Acquisition and Presentation in the Rijksmuseum Voor Volkenkunde, ed. Willem R. Van Gulik, Harald S. Van Der Straaten, and Gerrit D. Van Wengen, National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden. In Tribute to Professor P.H. Pott on the 25th Anniversary of His Directorship of the Rijksmuseum Voor Volkenkunde (Leiden. Amsterdam: J.C. Gieben Publisher, 1980), 11–28; Hermann Heinrich Frese, Anthropology and the Public: The Role of Museums (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1960). 65 Pott to Nagtegaal, 14 November 1973. Curator’s Files, Indonesian Collections, Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde (RMV), (National Museum of Ethnology),

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66 67

68 69

70 71 72

73 74 75 76 77 78

79 80 81 82 83

84 85 86

Cultural relations as development aid Leiden. File Series 2364 on transfer to Indonesia, 1977; and Nagtegaal en Tunnissen to Vernède, 29 November 1973. RMV, File Series 2364 on transfer to Indonesia, 1977. Chief DOA to S via DOA en Plv. DGPZ, January 7, 1969. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9163. Persbericht (Press Release), January 8, 1970. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9163. Representing their countries at the ceremony were Ambassador, General-Major Taswin A. Natadiningrat, and Foreign Minister Joseph Luns. DCV/CS, Copie-Memorandum to DOA via Chef DCV, July 23, 1970. BZ 1965– 1974, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9161. Nagtegaal to de Chef van de Directie Oosten, Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken (Chief of the Executive Board East, Ministry of Foreign Affairs), July 29, 1970. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9161. Wilhelmina H. Kal, “Museum and Anthropology,” in Current Issues in Anthropology, The Netherlands, ed. Peter Kloos and Henri Claesen (Rotterdam: The Netherlands Sociological and Anthropological Society, 1975), 157. Ibid., 157. For examples of these debates, see the special issue: Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 101, no. 2, Völkerkundesmuseen morgen—Afugaben und Ziele (1976); and Volker Harms, “The Aims of the Museum for Ethnology: Debate in the German-Speaking Countries,” Current Anthropology 31, no. 4 (August– September 1990): 457–63. Christina F. Kreps, “Decolonizing Anthropology Museums: The Dutch Example.” (master’s thesis, University of Oregon, 1988), 57. Ibid. Ibid., 51 and fn. 12, citing N. Bogart, “Vision and Visualization,” Opening Address at Symposium on Vision and Visualization, Amsterdam, June 12, 1979. Ibid., 52. Ibid., 60. Ibid., 47, citing Royal Tropical Institute, Survey of Activities (Amsterdam: Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, 1986), 3; Tropenmuseum, Guide to the Tropenmuseum (Cadier en Keer, The Netherlands: Tropenmuseum, 1987), 1; Kal, “Museum and Anthropology,” 157; Frese, Anthropology and the Public. Kreps, “Decolonizing Anthropology Museums,” 47. Ibid., 49. Ibid. Ibid., 49–50. Ibid. About the collections of the Tropenmuseum see: Janneke Van Dijk and Susan Lêgene, eds., The Netherlands East Indies at the Tropenmuseum: A Colonial History (Collections at the Tropenmuseum) (Leiden: KIT Publishers, 2011). Redevoering van de Directeur-Generaal Politieke Zaken van het Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken, March 2, 1971, Appendix to letter no. 3782/472). BZ 1965–74, NAN. Ibid. Wilhelm Klaus Norbert Schmelzer served as Foreign Minister in what is known as the Cabinets of Biesheuvel I and II (i.e. July 6, 1971–August 9, 1972, and August 9, 1972–May 11, 1973). The Prime Minister, Barend Willem Biesheuvel (1920–2001), was a member of the now defunct Anti-Revolutionary Party (ARP). In 1977, both the Catholic People’s Party (KVP) and the ARP merged with the Christian Historical Union (CHU) into the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA).

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87 Scheltema to Minister van Buitenlandse Zaken (Minister of Foreign Affairs), October 18, 1971. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9161. 88 Scheltema to Minister van Buitenlandse Zaken, October 18, 1971. BZ 1965–74, NAN. 89 Ibid. 90 Ibid. 91 Ibid. 92 Chef DOA, Chef DCV, Concept Memorandum to M, S, via DGPZ, June 28, 1972. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9162. In 1970, important events also included an official visit to Indonesia by Minister for Culture, Recreation and Social Work, Dr. Marga Klompé, and a state visit to Indonesia by Prince Bernhard. 93 Culturele Betrekkingen tussen Nederland en Indonesië, n.d. [1972]. BZ 1965– 74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9162. 94 Culturele Betrekkingen tussen Nederland en Indonesië, n.d. [1972]. BZ 1965– 74, NAN. 95 Following his post as Foreign Minister, Luns became the longest-serving Secretary General of NATO (October 1, 1971–June 25, 1984). On Dutch foreign policy see: Duco A. Hellema, Dutch Foreign Policy: The Role of the Netherlands in World Politics (Dordrecht: Republic of Letters Publishing BV, 2009). 96 Rudy B. Andeweg and Galen A. Irwin, Governance and Politics of the Netherlands (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2002), 197. 97 Peter Schumacher, “Het zit verkeerd met de Nederlandse culturele politiek in Indonesia,” (“To Me, the Dutch Cultural Politics in Indonesia is Wrong”) De Gids, January 2, 1973. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9165. 98 Ibid. 99 Ibid. 100 Vijay Prashad, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World (New York: New Press, 2007), 163–4. 101 Ibid. For an example of this phenomenon in Indonesia see: Katharine E. McGregor, History in Uniform: Military Ideology and the Construction of Indonesia’s Past (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2007). 102 Vos, International Cooperation Between Politics and Practice, 104. See also: Gerd-Rainer Horn, The Spirit of ’68: Rebellion in Western Europe and North America, 1956–1976 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). 103 Vos, International Cooperation Between Politics and Practice, 104. 104 Ibid. 105 Ibid., 88. 106 Ibid., 87–88. 107 Ibid., 107, 87. After 1983, the Program of Indonesian Studies (PRIS) continued to be a major outlet for implementation of the Cultural Agreement, managed in Leiden in the Bureau of Indonesian Studies (BIS) as a department in the KITLV, under Professor Teeuw until he retired in 1991, and then replaced by a new postdoctoral institute, named the International Institute of Asian Studies (IIAS). In 1994, a new committee structure was established to manage scientific cooperation policy implementation, centered at the Royal Academy of Sciences (KNAW), chaired by a high-ranking civil servant in the (reorganized) Ministry of Education, Culture and Sciences, not by an Indonesian scholar. Ibid., 88. 108 Peter H. Pott and Mohammad Amir Sutaarga, “Arrangements Concluded or in Progress for the Return of Objects: The Netherlands-Indonesia,” Museum 31, no. 1 (1979): 42.

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References Manuscript collections Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde Archive (KITLV), (Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies), Leiden, https:// www.knaw.nl/en/institutes/kitlv. Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken (BZ), 1965–74, Nationaal Archief, Nederland (NAN), (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1965–74, National Archives of the Netherlands), The Hague, https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/en. Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde (RMV), (National Museum of Ethnology), Leiden, http://www.volkenkunde.nl.

Press clippings Schumacher, Peter. “Het zit verkeerd met de Nederlandse culturele politiek in Indonesia” (“To Me, the Dutch Cultural Politics in Indonesia is Wrong”). De Gids, January 2, 1973. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9165.

Secondary sources Andeweg, Rudy B., and Galen A. Irwin. Governance and Politics of the Netherlands. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2002. Arens, Esther Helena. “Multilateral Institution-Building and National Interest: Dutch Development Policy in the 1960s,” Contemporary European History 12, no. 4 (2003): 457–72. Avé, J.B. “Ethnographical Museums in a Changing World.” In From Field-Case to Show-Case: Research, Acquisition and Presentation in the Rijksmuseum Voor Volkenkunde, edited by Willem R. Van Gulik, Harald S. Van Der Straaten, and Gerrit D. Van Wengen, National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden. In Tribute to Professor P.H. Pott on the 25th Anniversary of His Directorship of the Rijksmuseum Voor Volkenkunde, 11–28. Leiden. Amsterdam: J.C. Gieben Publisher, 1980. Baehr, Peter R. “Problems of Aid Conditionality: The Netherlands and Indonesia,” Third World Quarterly 18, no. 2 (June 1997): 363–76. Bogart, N. “Vision and Visualization,” Opening Address at Symposium on Vision and Visualization, Amsterdam, June 12, 1979. Frese, Hermann H. Anthropology and the Public: The Role of Museums. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1960. Frey, Marc. “Control, Legitimacy, and the Securing of Interests: European Development Policy in South-East Asia from the Late Colonial Period to the Early 1960s,” Contemporary European History 12, no. 4 (November 2003): 395–412. Harms, Volker. “The Aims of the Museum for Ethnology: Debate in the GermanSpeaking Countries,” Current Anthropology 31, no. 4 (August–September 1990): 457–63. Hellema, Duco A. Dutch Foreign Policy: The Role of the Netherlands in World Politics. Dordrecht: Republic of Letters Publishing BV, 2009. Hoebink, Paul. “Of Merchants and Ministers: A Short History of the Foreign Aid Programme of the Netherlands.” In Current Issues in Development Studies:

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Global Aspects of Agency and Structure, edited by Frans J. Schuurman, 125–56. Saarbrücken: Verlag für Entwicklungspolitik Breitenbach, 1994. Horn, Gerd-Rainer. The Spirit of ‘68: Rebellion in Western Europe and North America, 1956–1976. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Kal, Wilhelmina H. “Museum and Anthropology.” In Current Issues in Anthropology, The Netherlands, edited by Peter Kloos and Henri Claesen, 156–64. Rotterdam: The Netherlands Sociological and Anthropological Society, 1975. Kreps, Christina F. “Decolonizing Anthropology Museums: The Dutch Example.” Master’s thesis, University of Oregon, 1988. Kuitenbrouwer, Maarten. Dutch Scholarship in the Age of Empire and Beyond: KITLV—The Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, 1851–2011. Translated by Lorri Granger, edited by Harry A. Poeze. Leiden: Brill 2014. —–—–. “The Never-Ending Debt of Honour: The Dutch in the Post-Colonial World,” Itinerario 20 (1996): 20–42. Legêne, Susan, and Els Postel-Coster. “Isn’t it all Culture? Culture and Dutch Development Policy in the Post-Colonial Period.” In Fifty Years of Dutch Development Cooperation, 1949–1999, edited by Jan A. Nekkers and Petrus Adrianus Maria Malcontent, 271–88. The Hague: SDU, 2000. McGregor, Katharine E. History in Uniform: Military Ideology and the Construction of Indonesia’s Past. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2007. Posthumus, Godert A. “The Inter-Governmental Group on Indonesia,” Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies (July 1972): 55–77. Pott, Peter H., and Mohammad Amir Sutaarga. “Arrangements Concluded or in Progress for the Return of Objects: The Netherlands-Indonesia,” Museum 31, no. 1(1979): 38–42. Prashad, Vijay. The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World. New York: New Press, 2007. Royal Tropical Institute. Survey of Activities. Amsterdam: Koninklijk Instituut Voor de Tropen, 1986. Tropenmuseum. Guide to the Tropenmuseum. Cadier en Keer, The Netherlands: Tropenmuseum, 1987. Van Dijk, Janneke, and Susan Lêgene, eds. The Netherlands East Indies at the Tropenmuseum: A Colonial History (Collections at the Tropenmuseum). Leiden: KIT Publishers, 2011. Vos, Mei Li. International Cooperation Between Politics and Practice: How Dutch Indonesian Cooperation Changed Remarkably Little after a Diplomatic Rupture. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis, 2001. Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 101, no. 2 Völkerkundesmuseen morgen—Afugaben und Ziele (1976).

4

Returning cultural property Continuity and change in the cultural diplomacy of the Dutch center-left, 1970–79

In April 1975, in what must have been a stunning public announcement at the Amsterdam Schiphol airport, the new Minister of Culture, Recreation and Social Work, Henry Willem (Harry) Van Doorn (1915–92), a member of the Political Party of Radicals (PPR), declared upon returning from a visit to Indonesia that he supported the idea that “all art objects originating from Indonesia, and documents which have come since 1942 to the Netherlands and national possession, if possible, must be returned to Indonesia.”1 Even though it did not address colonial-era transfers, the date 1942 was significant since it marked the end of Dutch control in the East Indies under Japanese occupation, and could include the independence era, as well as the period of Dutch rule in West New Guinea. While the entire Dutch government supported this new view, Van Doorn stopped short of revealing why they had suddenly come to such a bold decision. What we do know is that for nearly thirty years, Dutch officials had struggled to deal with the question of returning cultural property in a way that would express the country’s present goodwill. During this same period, they had hoped that such a move would provide an opening for ongoing cultural influence within the former colony on the basis of its deep historical involvement. Until then, their response to the question of returns had long centered on the promotion of a national image of just, moral and benevolent colonial rule.2 With Van Doorn’s announcement, it appeared as if they had finally found a way to see that vision through. By the 1970s, few Dutch citizens could doubt that their country was playing an important part in cultivating the improvement of Indonesia and other poorer states through development cooperation. At the same time, while some abhorred working with the military dictatorship of President Suharto, few questioned the premise of Dutch historical superiority in the area of Indonesian cultural knowledge, or that this knowledge should be shared with the former colony. Having weathered the preceding years of strained diplomacy, Dutch officials were relieved to finally be able to play a cultural role that would draw upon the nation’s centuries-long experience of governing in the East Indies. The conviction that the Netherlands could aid Indonesia by drawing upon the colonial past became part of what it meant to be Dutch in this period, and it had a

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profound impact upon the way Dutch officials in the Foreign Ministry, and the Ministry of Culture, Recreation and Social Work, as well as the directors of certain Dutch museums, interacted with Indonesian counterparts. Because the story told here is primarily concerned with how Dutch officials responded to the question of returning cultural property, and how they linked returns to an ongoing cultural role in the former colony, this chapter considers the diplomatic motivations behind what became the government’s new returns policy in the 1970s. It highlights the significance of the emergence in the Netherlands of a progressive coalition Cabinet in 1973, and what seems to have been a new responsiveness of Dutch officials to rising international pressure from the UNGA and UNESCO. It offers an alternative explanation for the policy, as well, by revealing how Dutch officials handled new claims by Indonesian leaders, and what they saw as threats to the fledgling cultural cooperation only recently negotiated by the new Cabinet’s center-right predecessors. For, under the long-dominant center-right coalition governments, the Dutch Foreign Ministry had overseen the renewal of an officially sanctioned cultural presence in Indonesia. Dutch authorities, with the advice of cultural experts, had also concluded that any returns of cultural property would be made, if at all, after the development of Indonesia’s national repositories. By mid-1973, however, the changing political climate in the Netherlands led to a reshuffling of the government, bringing to power a center-left coalition Cabinet, which would change the Netherlands’

Figure 4.1 Joop den Uyl, April 27, 1971, Amsterdam. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Anefo/Photographer Unknown/Anefo

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Figure 4.2 General Reflections by Joop den Uyl, Second Chamber, October 10, 1972, Amsterdam. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Anefo/Rob Mieremet/Anefo

circumspect approach to returning cultural property. This coalition, led by Labor Prime Minister Joop den Uyl (1919–87), serving between May 11, 1973, and December 19, 1977, sought a radical reform of government through a wide range of progressive political, social and economic initiatives.3 The Ministries of Foreign Affairs and of Defense were both taken up by Labor ministers, which also raised for some the specter of change in the country’s approach to foreign relations policy.4 What has not been recognized until now, however, is that officials in the new coalition government soon began responding to the question of returning cultural property in ways that, they hoped, would remove the subject as a threat to the long awaited—yet finally achieved—diplomatic reconciliation.

Nurturing cultural diplomacy with the Suharto regime: the return of manuscripts and archives There were several developments contributing to this trend. That year, for instance, the Foreign Ministry made a striking gesture by returning the ancient manuscript, Nagarakertagama—as Teeuw had advised in 1969, but the government rejected because it decided to adopt a “waiting attitude”—to mark the two countries’ emerging post-colonial bond.5 During a state visit in 1973, Queen Juliana returned the manuscript directly to President Suharto for the Indonesian national collections.6 While the transfer represented a

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“gesture of goodwill,” the return of the ancient manuscript also helped initiate a long hoped-for “two-way exchange,” by expanding Dutch access to the records of the VOC and colonial authorities still remaining in Jakarta and Bogor.7 In the months following its return—between March and April 1974—officials were allowed to search for Dutch archival records during a visit to the state archive of Indonesia.8 Perhaps setting the tone for a new approach to foreign relations under the center-left coalition, Dutch officials also began to investigate how to resolve the question posed in early 1974 by the Indonesian Foreign Minister, Adam Malik—who by then had been elected President of the UNGA in 1971—that the Dutch government consider “the possibility of Indonesian archaeological and historical cultural treasures, that were originally transmitted to the Netherlands, to be returned to the Indonesian government.”9 The Dutch Ambassador, P.W. Jalink (1920–87)—who had served in that post since May 30, 1973—responded by saying that while the Foreign Minister’s request did not surprise him, he would have to “get in touch with the competent Netherlands agencies.”10 Reinforcing the Dutch preference to frame returns as a part of a knowledge transfer drawing on expertise developed in the colonial past, and which could be facilitated through foreign aid, Ambassador Jalink urged Minister Malik to think differently, reportedly saying, On my side I brought the conversation toward the quantity of knowledge, concerning Indonesia, which is present in the Netherlands, and to the possibilities of letting this knowledge help Indonesia. I indicated the difficulties, that the [recent] cultural accord had little financial possibility, to offer to transfer such knowledge from the Netherlands to Indonesia. [However,] within the framework of development aid, there were possibly wider possibilities. It required that the Indonesian side submit a proposal.11 This advice reinforced the stance Dutch officials had recently developed, to frame any returns as development aid and gestures of goodwill. Yet, Malik’s request alone was not enough to persuade Dutch officials. What really attracted their attention were the dangers the unanswered question of making returns posed to the fledgling cultural cooperation, since Malik’s appeal coincided with a concerted effort by Indonesian officials to press the matter in the media and at meetings with Dutch foreign ministry and cultural officials. During a visit to Indonesia to discuss Dutch-Indonesian historical cooperation—that is, to support the development of Indonesia’s repositories of historical records, and its historical profession—for example, J.J.P. de Jong (b. 1941)—the Dutch historian who was serving in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the Executive Board East—along with embassy staff were confronted by Indonesian officials and historians who pressed the subject of the “refund” of cultural and historical objects.12 According to De Jong,

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the Counselor for Press and Cultural Affairs at the embassy in Jakarta, A.L. Schneiders, had reported a conversation he had had with I.B. Mantra (1928– 95), the Indonesian Director-General for Culture (who would later become Governor of Bali (1978–88)), in which Mantra was said to have expressed himself on the subject “very sharply.” De Jong was surprised to learn, and concerned enough to warn Professor Teeuw, that Mantra had even drawn a connection between the refund of cultural objects and the Indonesian willingness to cooperate on the implementation of the newly formulated cultural agreement. Furthermore, at a “Congress of Asia-Historians at Djokjakarta” in August 1974, De Jong warned, the status of the so-called “Djokja archive” became an issue, as well. These materials included a collection of Republican government files from the period 1945–50 that had been taken in 1948 by Dutch troops during the “second police action” (politionele actie). As mentioned previously in Chapter One, in this military offensive taken against the Republic of Indonesia in December 1948–January 1949, the Republic’s capital of Yogyakarta was captured, and the leaders Sukarno, Hatta and Shjarir were deported. It constituted one of the last Dutch efforts to force the Republic to cooperate, rather than resist, implementation of the federalist policy that would keep Indonesia closely tied to the Netherlands. (In Dutch, Yogyakarta is spelled: Jogjakarta. However, during the colonial period, until 1972, it was known as Djokjakarta, hence the name, “Djokja files.” The various spellings will be used here, depending on the context being discussed.) As for De Jong’s report, he recalled that the question of what “became of the Indonesian side of the Djokja-archive” had been brought up repeatedly, even by the most prominent historian, Nugroho Notususanto. Ambassador Jalink and his Counselor, Schneiders, were there to address the issue, De Jong noted, but they were concerned that something would have to happen, that is, “the matter could no longer be kept dragging.”13 As a result, “exhaustive discussions” concerning historical cooperation between both countries were conducted with representatives of the Indonesian delegation.14 De Jong also reported that Indonesian officials were already planning to send an Indonesian historical team to the Netherlands to inventory and select archival material from Indonesia, which would include, among others, the so-called Djokja archive.15 Back in 1970, this unresolved question had already begun to take on some urgency when Indonesian officials started a propaganda effort to secure the return of materials removed from Djokjakarta in 1948,16 and even then, they had secretly started searching Dutch museums for what they considered to be missing objects. Dutch officials were aware of this, as evidenced by a briefing to the Dutch Foreign Minister that summer, which included a note concerning the eventual return of art treasures that said, From the Ministry of Defense in February last it was learned, the Indonesian military attaché unexpectedly and incognito made a visit to the

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museum of the Royal Home for Old Soldiers, “Bronbeek,” The aim of this visit was to examine which objects would qualify for refund. Such a visit was also paid to the Dutch Armies and Weapons Museum, “General Hoefer,” at Leiden.17 Collections in these museums included items deposited over time by former soldiers, including veterans of military operations in the East Indies. Dutch officials would have been concerned about such museum visits by the Indonesian official, but they had to respond cautiously for domestic political reasons. For one, the question of returning the Djokja archives, raised in 1970 in this way, had not been resolved by 1974 was the Dutch public’s sensitivity, heightened by a recent controversy related to Dutch military actions during the Indonesian Revolution. In 1969, the ex-soldier J.E. Hueting had made disturbing allegations during a television broadcast that Dutch troops had committed “serious war crimes” in 1947 and 1948.18 At the time, veterans groups were angry about accusations of war crimes, some felt used by authorities and believed they had been led into a messy war, rather than a purportedly “good cause” of peacekeeping against a small insurgency. According to historian Vincent J.H. Houben, until Hueting’s accusations the question of excesses had largely been silenced, as two governmental reports made in 1947 and 1954 had been kept secret, and no legal actions were taken against those responsible for counter-terror activities that had resulted in several thousand casualties.19 As a result of the allegations in 1969, according to Houben, the Dutch parliament debated the question. The government searched the archives, as well, and then published a “Memorandum of Excesses” (Excessennota), which summarized the “excesses” found documented in the archival reports, but gave no analysis. At the time, Prime Minister P.J.S. (Petrus Jozef Sietse (Piet)) de Jong (1915–2016)—who was a member of the Catholic People’s Party (KVP), serving as Prime Minister from April 5, 1967, to July 6, 1971—concluded that while the government deplored the excesses that had taken place, on the whole, the military had behaved correctly. Rather than pursue an investigation into those responsible for the actions, the government decided to publish a source edition of the archives from the period, 1945–50. It took thirty years to publish the full twenty volumes.20 Questions about this period would arise again in subsequent decades but, in 1970, the government was still in the midst of dealing with the public reaction to the Hueting crisis. In that politically heightened year, therefore, officials would have been very concerned about Indonesian military personnel searching Dutch museums, and reticent about how to respond to claims for returns of archives taken during that particular war. Despite the threat that unfulfilled Indonesian demands were posing to the recently improved cultural cooperation with Indonesia, Dutch officials needed to manage public opinion at home too.

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Figure 4.3 Dr. J.E. Hueting speaking in Indonesia at cafe Pieterspoort about alleged war crimes in Indonesia, January 22, 1969. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Anefo/Joost Evers/Anefo

Subsequently in 1974, since the historian J.J.P. De Jong favored resolving the issue of the Djokja archives in the interest of cooperation, he also supported a plan for “returning” them. He explained that the selected material would have to be microfilmed and taken up by Indonesia’s National Archive (Arsip Nasional Indonesia), where it would serve as an Indonesian source publication for the revolution period.21 As Professor Sartono had suggested when announcing the plan, De Jong wrote, with this Indonesian source publication concerning Dutch-Indonesian relations between 1945 and 1950, the “chafing vacuum” that exists in Indonesia with respect to the knowledge of its own history would be filled.22 De Jong also reported that Professor Sartono had asked him what point of view the Dutch government would take about such a plan, and to what extent Dutch funds would be possible for the arrangement.23 Despite the project’s potential sensitivity among the Dutch public, therefore, officials in 1974 embraced the question of microfilming the contested “Djokja Files” if it meant preserving good relations with Indonesian historians and cultural officials. It is no coincidence that Sartono’s proposal allowed Dutch officials to frame the anticipated microfilm project as just another aspect of development cooperation aimed at supporting the field of Indonesian history. In De Jong’s opinion, such a solution was the most “elegant regulation” of the question of the Djokja archive.24 From a tactical perspective, De Jong

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concluded, it offered large advantages for the Dutch government to seriously consider supporting the Indonesian historians, and now that Indonesia had proposed a more concrete initiative, it seemed judicious not to ignore the historical cooperation between both countries for which strong bases were now laid, and which could otherwise be damaged.25 At the same time, the “sharp expression” of I.B. Mantra notwithstanding, the Indonesian officials astutely took up the Dutch preferred narrative and framed the request for the Djokja archive, not as the repatriation of war booty, but in a language acceptable to Dutch counterparts, who were relieved that the recovery of Indonesian archives would be defined as assistance toward the development of the fields of Indonesian history and archival science. Dutch receptivity to this approach, therefore, represented a continuation of the policy of cultural cooperation defined as development aid, advanced most recently by previous center-right coalition governments, not an expression of left-leaning colonial guilt—an often alleged attribute of progressive politics. Professor Sartono must have felt encouraged. Soon after the discussions with Indonesian historians at Djokjakarta, the Director of the Indonesian National Archive submitted an official proposal to the Netherlands embassy requesting assistance with inventorying the contents of the “Foreign Affairs Archives” in the Netherlands related to Indonesian history, and the training of an archivist in the Netherlands.26 As a result, a microfiche project of so-called “pre-war material on Indonesia” began in 1975, slated to last five years.27 It was soon thereafter that Minister Van Doorn made that striking announcement at the Schiphol airport, declaring, “all art objects originating from Indonesia, and documents which have come since 1942 to the Netherlands and national possession, if possible, must be returned to Indonesia.”28 The date 1942 was significant, therefore, not only for marking the end of Dutch control in the East Indies under Japanese occupation, but for including the independence era—when Dutch forces removed archives from Jogjakarta in 1948. The newspaper report of Minister Van Doorn’s announcement in the NRC Handelsblad confirms the importance Dutch officials placed in this period on prioritizing cultural cooperation with Indonesia, and with framing returns within a rubric of development aid. Even the journalist Van der Velden (who wrote the article) highlighted the government’s new policy, reminding readers about the development aid program already underway since 1970, and explaining that the largest interest for Dutch aid in the cultural arena was to advance museums in the former colony—through the assistance of Dutch museum experts—in qualifying Indonesians in the Netherlands to work in museums at home, and in assisting Indonesia in the writing of its history.29 Yet, the article also reflected a concern for public opinion, since readers would have been sensitive to Van Doorn’s emphasis on the decision to conduct returns, and the connection being made with Dutch aid to Indonesia’s museums and historical profession, and whether they had anything to do

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Figure 4.4 Minister of Culture, Recreation and Social Work, Henry Willem (Harry) Van Doorn (1915–92), (Political Party of Radicals (PPR) giving a press conference at Schiphol Airport, North Holland, August 20, 1975. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Anefo/Rob C. Croes/ Anefo

with the recent “Hueting Affair” controversy. In other words, following so soon after government investigations into the allegations in 1970, Van Doorn’s announcement would have raised questions about the meaning of returns from Dutch museums. Framing the decision as part of Dutch aid to Indonesia in the cultural realm helped the government temper any potentially adverse public opinion which, at that time, would have been conflicted over returns related to sensitive historical subjects, and especially returns framed as reparations for so-called “excesses” of military actions during the conflict over Indonesia’s post-war decolonization. Evidence of what had motivated the government to consider returns can also be found in a telling editorial that followed Van Doorn’s announcement. In this piece, the historian J.J.P. De Jong echoed Van Doorn’s assurances by explaining that the Dutch government merely wanted to further its broader cooperation toward the advancement of Indonesian archives and museums, and to identify cultural objects and archives in the Netherlands, which are important for Indonesia.30 At the same time, De Jong criticized unfavorable press in Indonesia, which he wrote had vaguely and wrongly accused the Netherlands of robbing Indonesia of its cultural treasures. These rumors were just plain wrong, De Jong argued, and Indonesian officials were

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envious of how Dutch archives and museums had, compared to Indonesian institutions, carefully kept their collections. De Jong’s remarks may have purposely helped assuage domestic fears about the potential emptying of Dutch museums, by refocusing attention on how Dutch cultural institutions and experts could assist Indonesian repositories. In this respect, his comments would have reassured a Dutch public growing accustomed to the country’s role as international aid donor, as well as to those who were resistant to expressions of “colonial guilt,” as exemplified by Minister Jan Pronk (b. 1940)—the socially and economically progressive member of the Labor Party, or PvdA, who became Minister of Development Cooperation in 1973—and who wanted to find ways to start equalizing the prosperity of Indonesia as an important region of the “Third World.” However, the question remained, how far were Dutch officials willing to go in the mid-1970s to “advance museums” in Indonesia in the name of cultural cooperation? For besides wanting to address questions about the Djokja archives, Indonesian officials were carrying deeper ambitions to resolve claims for the return of materials obtained in the colonial period. Now that Dutch officials finally possessed a plausible narrative to support such a gesture, they seemed more responsive.

Reinforcing the narrative of goodwill: the return of objects from Dutch museums In one instance, by the end of May 1975, just a month and a half after Van Doorn’s announcement had appeared in the NRC Handelsblad, the Director of the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, Peter H. Pott, moved to carry out the government’s new orders to return items from West New Guinea, which, he reported, had been sent to the museum by one of the last officials of the Dutch administration there in 1962.31 Acting on the authority of both the “Ministry of Cultural Affairs” (known officially as the Ministry of Culture, Recreation and Social Work) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pott explained in a letter to the Indonesian Ambassador that the materials had been kept at the museum since 1962, until the moment they could be turned over to the authorities of the Indonesian Government, and returned to Indonesia.32 Explaining how events in 1962 had landed the collection in the Leiden museum, however, Pott downplayed the rationale, connected most likely with the threatened military hostilities with Indonesian forces that year, which may have played a part in the sudden transfer of the materials to the Netherlands. Instead, he characterized their transfer as a “confused situation,” whereby the ethnographic collection, “brought together by the Office for Population Matters in Hollandia,” had been sent, “for protection,” and conducted to the Leiden Museum. There, Pott explained, the museum received the collection as a temporary loan, which could, he said, be sent back in 1975.33 For Dutch cultural officials, such as

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Pott, who typically resisted such moves, the return of these materials was relatively easy to justify, since he understood that they had been sent to Leiden on a temporary basis only for protection. Returns relating to materials obtained before 1942—during the colonial period before World War II— required further negotiation. Yet, even these more difficult issues were addressed later that year, when Dutch officials moved to resolve return claims related to the more sensitive earlier periods. As described previously in the Introduction, negotiators meeting in Jakarta with Indonesian counterparts, on November 22, 1975, came to an agreement to present a Joint Recommendation on the issue of transferring museum objects, which had been obtained in a wide range of colonial collecting contexts.34 After getting governmental approval on both sides, a group of experts met again a year and a half later, on June 25 and July 1, 1977, where they reaffirmed the 1975 agreement.35 According to the group’s report, the implementation program began immediately, and would continue into 1978. The results of the meetings are well known from reports provided by Peter H. Pott and M. Amir Sutaarga. First, the delegations distinguished objects that were “State-owned” from those that were privately held, because it was easier to suggest their transfer. However, they also noted that formulating any plans to transfer objects that were in either category, as well as to address objects whose owners were unknown, would have to be made

Figure 4.5 Meeting of Dutch and Indonesian delegations on the occasion of the ¯ aramit ¯ transfer of the Prajñap a¯ to the Central Museum (Museum Pusat), Jakarta, April 1978. Collection Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen. Coll.nr. RV-12420–10

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Figure 4.6 Heads of Dutch and Indonesian delegations, the Netherlands Ambassador and the Minister of Education and Culture of Indonesia, who ¯ aramit ¯ ¯ April 1978. Collecsigned the deed of transfer for the Prajñap a, tion Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen. Coll.nr. RV-12420-11

carefully in order to avoid the raising of “undue resistance” by the public. That is, according to Pott and Sutaarga: [I]t was clear that, if the joint recommendation were to be acceptable as well as workable, it would have to be formulated in such a way that no undue resistance against a transfer of objects would be aroused; and sufficient time would have to be allowed for its implementation.36 However, Pott and Sutaarga also reported that the “ultimate recommendation” that “was submitted to and accepted by both governments” suggested that historical and archaeological objects should be transferred as soon as possible by stages, including “State-owned objects linked directly with persons of major historical and cultural importance, or with crucial historical events in Indonesia,” to be selected by experts from both delegations. This ¯ aramit ¯ would include the Prajñap a¯ statue from Singasari, mentioned earlier, the crown of Lombok and other items from the Lombok Treasure in public collections.37 Second, for objects that were not State-owned, the Netherlands government would assist as far as possible to contact present owners, including finding ways to transfer objects once belonging to Prince Dipo Negoro (also spelled Diponegoro) that were kept in the Bronbeek Museum at Velp.

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Third, for objects such as the state insignia of Luwu, which had disappeared after the Second World War, should their whereabouts be discovered in the Netherlands, the government should prepare to contact their holders and help arrange for their return to Indonesia. Fourth, the government should conduct further investigation into possibly unclear ownership of “specimens.” Fifth, a program of visual documentation for objects should be initiated and, if it is deemed appropriate that they be kept in a repository of the other country, their transfer should be undertaken. Finally, in principle, archives should be kept by the originating administration, with reproductions being facilitated along with their transmission to the other country.38 The Dutch government then carried out several of the recommendations. For example, during the second meeting of experts held in June 1977, objects from the Lombok Treasure were selected for transfer. As mentioned in Chapter One, while much of the Lombok treasure had already been returned to the Batavian Society in 1898, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam had kept a selection until it was transferred in 1937, in part, to the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden.39 Officials in the Rijksmuseum moved the rest of the collection to the Leiden museum in 1977, in advance of preparations for some of the materials to be returned to Indonesia. To this end, on July 1, 1977, Dutch officials handed over for shipment to Indonesia many objects of gold, silver and precious jewels from the famous war booty including: “diamond rings, loin cloths, ankle rings, bracelets, brooches, tobacco pipes, [and] sirih articles [related to the chewing of betel leaf].”40 At the same time, the Leiden museum retained a collection of 220 objects for preservation, study and display in the Netherlands. Similar transfers continued—between June 1977 and April 1978—when objects once belonging to Prince Diponegoro (1785–1855)—obtained during the Java War and later kept at the Bronbeek Museum—plus a painting by Radèn Saleh (1811–80), on the subject of Diponegoro’s capture in 1830, were returned to Indonesia.41 Their historical significance can be traced to the Java War (or Diponegoro War) (1825–30), which had begun when the Javanese Prince Diponegoro started a rebellion against the Dutch colonial authorities that turned into a guerilla war.42 Over 200 thousand fighters died during the conflict before the rebellion ended. Diponegoro, now considered an Indonesian national hero, was lured into Dutch custody and deported to Manado, then to Makassar, where he died in 1855. Many objects from the conflict ended up in what became the Bronbeek Museum and Home for Elderly Soldiers at Velp, which had been built in the nineteenth century and purchased by King William III in 1845. In 1859, he donated it to the Dutch state where it was to be a home for disabled soldiers of the KNIL. Souvenirs from the East Indies brought to the home by former soldiers provided the basis of the museum’s collections. As for the famous painting, entitled “Capture of Prince Diponegoro,” by Saleh—a painter of Arab descent from the Dutch East Indies, who worked in

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Figure 4.7 The Submission of Diepo Negoro to Lieutenant-General Baron de Koch, by Nicolaas Pineman, ca. 1830–35. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

the nineteenth-century European Romantic style—the artist had presented it to King William III in The Hague in 1857. Its return was made as a gift from the Royal Palace of Amsterdam, and has been displayed at the Merdeka Palace in Jakarta. Due to its symbolic association with Prince Diponegoro, as well as having been produced by the prominent artist, Saleh, the painting has been considered an object of incipient national pride in the East Indies.43 Arguably, while the return of the Lombok Treasure could be considered the most well known action taken in connection with the Joint Recommendation—due to UNESCO publicity in the journal, Museum—the breadth of transfers was clearly designed to include materials that had come to the Netherlands in several different periods of the colonial past. Most sig¯ aramit ¯ nificantly, these included the prized statue Prajñap a¯ (formally transferred on April 24, 1978), whose loss was so great to the museum director, Peter H. Pott, that the replicas he commissioned came to be referred to by a later museum director as, “the four tears of Pott.”44 Regardless of how painful the return had been for Pott, this move can be seen as an example of the mutually reinforcing nature of the cultural diplomacy at that point, since Dutch and Indonesian officials agreed that the statue’s return to the Central Museum in Jakarta—soon to become, in 1979,

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Figure 4.8 Portrait of Raden Syarif Bustamen Saleh, by Friedrich Carl Albert Schreuel, ca. 1840. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

the National Museum of Indonesia—would mark the celebration of the second centenary—in April 1978—of the former Batavian Society.45 According to historian Katherine E. McGregor, Indonesian leaders had begun to use the collections as Dutch colonial officials had to help bolster the regime.46 That is, “[w]hile the museum collection served new purposes in the era of independence, Dutch colonial values continued to penetrate the collections and the meanings made of them in this museum.”47 For Dutch officials, therefore, ¯ aramit ¯ while the return of the Prajñap a¯ was conceived as a measure that would help secure ongoing cultural cooperation, it would also re-validate the Dutch founding of the Batavian Society, and celebrate the Indonesian state as their successor. This move enabled Dutch officials to both define the return as a gesture of goodwill that addressed the concerns of Indonesian officials, while also stressing the importance of Dutch collecting activities and institutions established in the colonial past. Yet, the question remains as to what was motivating the Dutch government to make such returns in that historical moment? In addition to the pressure coming from Indonesian counterparts to resolve the question, the timing of the Dutch agreement to transfer materials to Indonesia, and to cooperate on future investigations, paralleled developments within UNESCO, as the issue had been gaining political momentum in the UNGA.

Figure 4.9 Peter H. Pott and M. Amir Sutaarga, on the occasion of the return of the ¯ aramit ¯ ¯ April 1978. Collection Nationaal Museum van WereldPrajñap a, culturen. Coll.nr. RV-12420-03

Figure 4.10 Peter H. Pott, Director of the National Museum of Ethnology (Museum voor Volkenkunde), Leiden, on the occasion of the transfer of the ¯ aramit ¯ Prajñap a¯ to the Central Museum (Museum Pusat), Jakarta, April 1978. Collection Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen. Coll.nr. RV12420

Figure 4.11 Dutch and Indonesian delegations at Museum Pusat, April 1978. Collection Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen. Coll.nr. RV-12420-18

Figure 4.12 Prince Bernhard accompanied at Borobudur exhibition at the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, April 20, 1977. National Archives of the Netherlands/ Collection Anefo/Rob C. Croes/Anefo

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Rising activism within the UNGA and UNESCO: the ethics of post-colonial cultural property return First, in late 1973, when the issue of post-colonial cultural property return had been heating up, General Mobutu Sese Seko (1930–97), an anti-communist who became President of the former Belgian colony, the Democratic Republic of Congo (known as Zaire during most of his thirtytwo year rule (1965–97), spoke before the UNGA to call for the return of works of art to countries that had been “victims of expropriation,” arguing: During the colonial period we suffered not only from colonialism, slavery, economic exploitation, but also and above all from the barbarous, systematic pillaging of all our works of art. In this way the rich countries appropriated our best, our unique works of art, and we are therefore poor not only economically but also culturally.48 This intervention at the UNGA on an issue which had until then been dealt with by UNESCO (the UN organization focused most directly on educational, scientific and cultural topics) led to UNGA Resolution 3187— entitled, “Restitution of Works of Art to Countries Victims of Expropriation,” and to UNESCO being called upon by the UNGA to promote and publicize the issue.49 Mobutu’s views expressed what was becoming a widely held post-colonial grievance among a number of leaders in newly independent African and Asian countries. While his speech is now largely remembered as a nationalistic expression of the dictator’s pro-African cultural awareness, or “Authenticity” campaign,50 at the time, President Mobutu spoke for leaders who had become critical of the withholding by European powers of the spoils of imperial history. Such frustrations had been building ever since, three years before Mobutu’s speech, UNESCO had passed an international Convention to help stem the problem of “illicit import, export, and ownership of cultural property,” a measure largely aimed at assisting poorer nations that struggled to hold onto their rich deposits of archaeological and ethnographical heritage, and to keep intact the remains of monuments from ancient civilizations located in their territories. With its origins going back to the 1960s, early drafts of what would become the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Ownership of Cultural Property,51 included attempts to provide for the return of materials collected in the colonial past. These measures failed, however, when the idea of retroactivity was removed from the final version. Therefore, the passage of the 1970 UNESCO Convention aimed only at reducing the losses of poorer countries in the future. By excluding retroactivity, it was decided that politically sensitive cultural property disputes leading to agreements to return materials obtained before 1970 needed to be resolved through bilateral diplomatic negotiations instead.

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Figure 4.13 Prince Bernhard in Zaire (formerly Belgian Congo), Prince Bernhard bestowing on President Mobutu of Zaire the Order of the Golden Ark, August 12, 1973. National Archives of the Netherlands/Collection Anefo/Rob Mieremet/Anefo

As a result, resistance to the forward- rather than backward-looking stance of the 1970 UNESCO Convention moved Mobutu and other “Third World coalition” leaders to continue insisting that some historical appropriations still needed to be reversed. Through Resolution 3187, which followed Mobutu’s intervention for example, a majority of UNGA member states condemned historical appropriations and deplored, “the wholesale removal, virtually without payment of objets d’art from one country to another, frequently as a result of colonial or foreign occupation.”52 By declaring that wealthy nations had the moral duty to return at least some of the works of art amassed during the colonial era—whether antiquities or ethnographic objects—based on the imperatives of anti-colonialism, nationalism and improved international relations—Resolution 3187 challenged predominant Western views on this issue. It was no coincidence, therefore, that Dutch officials revisited the idea of using the return of cultural property to advance diplomatic relations in this period. Throughout the 1970s, developments within the UNGA and UNESCO had raised the political stakes of the return question, and passage of Resolution 3187 sent Dutch officials searching for guidance from museum and archive specialists so that the government could consider options for its response.

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At the same time, as the Dutch government weighed its options, members of the UNGA continued to press the issue more widely. In 1974, two years after passing Resolution 3187, for example, a majority of members passed a second resolution, which reasserted the same ideas. Now, however, the resolution noted steps taken by several states toward “restitution” of works of art, and that the UNGA would look forward to receiving a report from a UNESCO-convened Committee of Experts, meeting in Venice in early 1976 to study the question.53 Yet, by the time the Expert Committee met, Dutch officials had already agreed with Indonesian counterparts on the Joint Recommendation. Therefore, while both sides in the Dutch-Indonesian negotiations worked to gain acceptance by their governments of the Joint Recommendation, coincidental developments were proceeding apace within UNESCO that would validate their conclusions. As for the UNESCO Committee of Experts that met in 1976, it concerned itself strictly with the restitution or return of cultural property lost either as a consequence of foreign or colonial occupation, or through illicit traffic, prior to the application of the 1970 UNESCO Convention, and not covered by the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. It focused on generalities, rather than specific situations, that is, primarily on defining obstacles to the settlement of such cases, principles to guide future actions and priorities for measures to be taken.54 In terms of obstacles, the Committee believed that the constitutional and legislative protections given national collections would be the most powerful, that the lack of public awareness of the significance of these issues, and an unfavorable climate of opinion against returns, were hindrances to be overcome, and that the setting of time and space limits for claims would be extremely difficult.55 However, the Committee’s final report reiterated the importance of cultural property to national identity, continued the condemnation of colonialism and re-affirmed the primacy of the principle of restitution as a mechanism of international solidarity. The conclusions of the experts’ report cut two ways, however. First, it characterized the historical losses of former colonies or poorer nations as a form of deprivation, that it … deprives the people concerned of elements essential for their cultural development, especially if the cultural property in question is made up of irreplaceable objects, which are of overriding significance for their identity.56 Second, having validated the claims of poorer nations in this way, the experts asserted that wealthy nations could define “voluntary” returns as gestures of goodwill, when it said, … The restitution or return of these objects … is a principle which should govern the action of Member States and to which they should give concrete form in a spirit of international solidarity and good faith.57

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In other words, the Expert Committee drew a compromise between the claims of poorer states, and the rationale of wealthy countries to make returns. For the former, they acknowledged that some objects were “essential” to a nation’s identity, while for the latter they allowed room to define returns as noble acts of “solidarity and good faith,” not embarrassing admissions of historical wrongdoing. The Committee also reaffirmed the importance of bilateral negotiation as fundamental to resolving claims on a case-by-case basis, regardless of time passed and legal status, by writing, The principle should be determined on a case-by-case basis through bi-lateral negotiations, not subject to any statutes of limitation, nor obstructed by the present legal status of an object.58 They tempered this principle, however, by lowering any expectations that claimants could in effect empty European museums as a result of negotiations, asserting, claims for restitution or return would not aim at recovery of the totality of the cultural property … [which, it believed,] would be contrary to the purposes of international cultural exchanges and consequently against the interests of all peoples, [but rather, to enable countries to make small representative collections where none now existed.]59 While these principles validated both sides, it could be argued that by advocating for bilateral negotiation, the Expert Committee gave more ethical weight to anti-colonial claims. Yet, by defining returns as gestures of “solidarity and good faith,” it conceded that former colonial powers could plausibly define returns as acts of goodwill, not as “restitution” (meaning restoration of something that had been stolen, or recompense for injury or loss), and it was at this point that the term “return” could more often be seen as an alternative or replacement for the embarrassing “restitution.” The Committee’s report had several effects. First, the UNGA tasked the Director-General of UNESCO to issue an urgent appeal to all member states to work toward solving the problem. Then it pressed him to implement the Committee’s call for the creation of a deliberative body to help member states deal with these issues, and it recommended that States become parties to the 1970 Convention in order to minimize future claims.60 For its part, UNESCO, through its General Assembly, the Director-General, and the Secretariat, stepped up efforts to fulfill these assignments and to meet the priorities set forth in the Committee’s Report, despite the recognized obstacles. That year, for example, the General Conference passed a resolution calling for the establishment of an intergovernmental committee to seek “ways and means of facilitating bilateral negotiation for the restitution and return of cultural property to the countries having lost them as a result of

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colonial or foreign occupation.”61 Two years later it adopted the Recommendation for the Protection of Movable Cultural Property, empanelled another Committee of Experts to meet in Dakar in 1978 about the establishment of the proposed Intergovernmental Committee and founded the Museums Exchange Program (MUSEP) to help facilitate international loans for exhibitions.62 By the end of 1979, arrangements for the UNESCO Committee, newly named the Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation, had been completed and its first meeting held in Paris. With twenty-two members, the Committee was designed to serve as a forum for promoting the negotiation of bilateral agreements for the return of cultural property, particularly cases that had resulted from colonization and military occupation, when all legal means had failed, or where previous negotiations had been unsuccessful.63 At the same time, while the 1976 Expert Committee’s report marked a first step in defining international principles for UN member states, the UNESCO-driven advocacy that followed would also have lasting implications for the reputation of the agreement between the Netherlands and Indonesia. For, among the several priorities for UNESCO action that had been set by the UNGA had arisen a call for the Director-General to create a favorable worldwide climate of opinion to encourage restitution or return. As a result, by the time UNESCO had formed the new Intergovernmental Committee in 1979, it had also brought forth the special issue of the journal Museum as part of its advocacy. As already highlighted in the Introduction, the special issue focused on the topic of voluntary restitution or return, highlighting especially, examples of “successful” bilateral negotiation. To reinforce its advocacy, the journal also featured the analysis of writers such as Louis-Jacques Rollet-Andriane, who was a permanent consultant to the prestigious International Center for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) and a special representative of the Director-General of UNESCO, in Rome. He was also, from 1956 to 1967, responsible for a program of university relations and cultural exchanges between members of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), and later its administration. In his remarks, Rollet-Andriane elevated the rhetoric around such international cooperation as a new way to protect cultural property.64 Bolstering the ethical imperative, as well, he focused on the historical significance of post-colonial returns of cultural property, writing that Not until our present day has the problem been approached in terms of co-operation and justice and, where necessary, for the benefit of the weaker party. A first attempt in this direction was made during the multilateral negotiations which, under the aegis of UNESCO, led to the convention signed at The Hague on 14 May 1954 on the protection of cultural property [in the event of armed conflict … and then, t]en years

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Connecting the idea of voluntary returns in this way with the highly respected 1954 Hague Convention—an important advance in international law aimed at protecting cultural property in times of war—Rollet-Andriane implied that states negotiating with former colonies were participating in a noble form of cultural diplomacy, rooted in the emergence of “cooperation and justice” after the Second World War. In other words, they would be displaying a higher level of goodwill than those who continued to stubbornly refuse. Within such publicity, where the so-called “successful” cases—such as the Netherlands and Indonesia—were weighed against those that resisted, the former could be applauded as only a handful of remarkable exemplars. In addition, despite efforts to valorize states that had made voluntary arrangements to return museum objects, the 1979 issue of Museum included efforts to persuade through appeals for deeper empathy toward the development of national identity in formerly colonized countries, since frustrations remained high among leaders of several newly independent states, especially among African cultural officials. In one statement, for example, the archaeologist Ekpo Eyo (1931–2011) (the first Nigerian-born Director of the Nigerian Federal Department of Antiquities (1968–1979) and head of Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM) (1979–1986), then Professor of African Arts and Archaeology at the University of Maryland, College Park (1986–2006)),66 who served as ViceChairman of the Expert Committee that had met in Venice in 1976, supported not only the developing UNESCO measures to encourage bilateral negotiations, he pressed for greater recognition of how returns stemming from such negotiations would contribute to a former colony’s national identity, asserting, … the world has now gradually but surely become convinced of the need for each country to retain and present within its own territory the relics of the ingenuity of its own people. Such action enables a country to create an awareness among its people, to instill [sic] a sense of pride in them and to inspire them to even greater achievements.67 He also questioned why more returns were not forthcoming, asking, … should the recipient countries continue to be so completely oblivious to the feeling of deprivation which is suffered by the loser countries? What is more, in many cases, objects which now adorn museums and private homes in the recipient countries and which are merely regarded as

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curios or objets d’art have overriding cultural and historical importance for the countries of origin. That is why the discussion on the restitution or return of cultural property is often accompanied by impassioned outbursts.68 Echoing Eyo’s sentiments, Amadou Mahtar M’Bow (b. 1921)—a Senegalese educator from Dakar who served as Director-General of UNESCO from 1974 to 1987—also made an impassioned “plea for the return of an irreplaceable cultural heritage to those who created it,” asserting on behalf of former colonies that, These men and women who have been deprived of their cultural heritage therefore ask for the return of at least the art treasures which best represent their culture, which they feel are the most vital and whose absence causes them the greatest anguish.69 In addition to standing on their own as representative views, when M’Bow and Eyo’s statements were published side-by-side with the examples of “successful” bilateral negotiation—such as the Netherlands and Indonesia—their pairing also implied that the latter had been more responsive to the suffering of countries that had been subjugated in the past. For the Dutch, when they were seen as having addressed the claims of Indonesian cultural authorities on the basis—asserted by Pott—that a small number of returned objects had held strong historical and emotional value to Indonesians,70 they were in effect benefitting from this juxtaposition, and Dutch officials were credited for having assuaged the cultural losses of their former subjects in ways that other states were largely refusing to do. Yet, more was going on in the Dutch-Indonesian negotiations than meeting Indonesian emotional needs. Despite the intensity of developments within the UNGA and UNESCO in this period, cultural authorities in the Netherlands were not entirely persuaded by these calls. The Director of the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, Peter H. Pott, had long established that the fundamental position of the East Indies government was to insist that important art treasures must remain in the colony.71 As a result, Pott continued to emphasize that, due to the collections held in Batavia, while some pieces had been relocated to Europe, the largest numbers of objects remained in Jakarta. Furthermore, Pott also warned government officials, since the refund of art treasures had become a “sharp matter with international aspects,” the Netherlands must take no initiatives without consultation with other countries.72 Within the heightened political atmosphere of 1973–74, therefore, Pott advised government officials against making what he saw as potentially rash diplomatic gestures of goodwill.73 As the previous discussion illustrates, however, the decisions taken by ministers within the center-left Cabinet of Den Uyl overrode Pott’s advice, leaving him no

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alternative but to reluctantly release materials when directed to do so by government ministers.

The Dutch response to UNGA and UNESCO activism: an independent history of bilateral negotiation Overall, while Dutch policymakers were aware of and responsive to international debate, Dutch-Indonesian negotiations remained independent of pressures emanating from UNESCO. In 1976, news was merely circulating of the Dutch government’s 1974 decision to return the West New Guinea collection, to continue archival exchanges and to support the 1975 Joint Recommendation. When the UNESCO Expert Committee met to develop international principles to guide member states, the Dutch-Indonesian negotiations were mentioned, and incorporated into a short list of successful cases illustrating precedents for restitution or return.74 When the Committee cited the “1976 [sic] agreement between the Netherlands and Indonesia on the transfer of specific objects, specimens, and ethnographical and archival material, to be made available for exhibition and study in Indonesia,”75 they were, presumably, referring to both the 1974 agreement announced by Minister Van Doorn, and the 1975 Joint Recommendation. The perception that these developments illustrated the lengths some former colonial powers were willing to go to embrace the principles developed by UNESCO could have reflected the fact that the meeting was not attended by a representative of the Netherlands, but one from Indonesia.76 In fact, Dutch officials did not have a direct role in shaping the principles of the Expert Committee since they were not represented at the meeting. However, Mr. B. Soemadio, Director of the Central Museum (Museum Pusat) in Jakarta attended as a representative of Indonesia. Yet, as hinted to above, even Pott would draw on the rhetoric advanced within UNESCO circles about the emotional significance of returns for former colonies. Writing a few years after transferring items from the Leiden museum, he remarked that some of those who had participated in the DutchIndonesian meetings held in November 1975 had known each other for “a long time,” and he surmised, informal talks had enabled the experts to speak frankly about each others’ “ideas, arguments and general feelings.”77 Informal discussions in particular, Pott recalled, had helped the Dutch participants learn that the core of Indonesia’s claims related to “a number of objects with a strong historical as well as emotional value.”78 Therefore, for those items falling under the category of state-owned objects, Pott explained, Dutch authorities faced fewer difficulties in justifying their immediate return on the basis that they were “linked directly with persons of major historical and cultural importance, or with crucial historical events in Indonesia.”79 These items, Dutch authorities determined, would be transferred as soon as possible. For items that were not state-owned, if found, and objects whose whereabouts were not known, the Netherlands government agreed to help make

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contacts and to further negotiations in the future. As for particular questions of ownership, the government promised to carry out investigations.80 However, while the long-standing personal relationships Pott described—such as the one he enjoyed with his Indonesian counterpart and protégé Sutaarga— would have made discussions of the returns easier for officials, no discussions would have been possible without broader political will and government support. Renewed cultural cooperation would see returns as gestures of goodwill toward the development of Indonesian repositories based on Dutch historical expertise. It may be said that, given the attention paid within UNESCO to the issue of returning cultural property, it is no coincidence that Dutch officials under the progressive Den Uyl Cabinet reconsidered the idea of using the gesture to advance diplomatic relations in this period, even if it was with the authoritarian regime of Suharto. At first glance it may even seem like the new policy could have stemmed in part from a sense of “colonial guilt,” or an ethical response to “Third World” claims. Developments within the UNGA and UNESCO, which had raised diplomatic pressure around the return question as a matter of post-colonial redress, may have appealed to such views. Yet, bilateral negotiations over cultural relations and the question of returns were already well underway. While UNESCO publicity—such as the special issue of the journal, Museum—raised the profile of calls for bilateral negotiation over the return of cultural property in the post-colonial context, it cannot be said that UNESCO mediated or facilitated negotiations between Dutch and Indonesian officials in this period. It can be argued, however, that the special issue may have given rise to misperceptions about the history of Dutch returns, since the text coauthored by Peter H. Pott and M. Amir Sutaarga downplayed the history of cultural relations between the states concerned, and what the authors did not write about post-colonial negotiations is almost as telling as what they included.81 Without noting the dramatic political changes in Indonesia since 1949—including, breakdowns in Dutch diplomatic relations with the Sukarno regime, bitter settlement of sovereignty over West New Guinea, and later, the overthrow of Sukarno and installation of the Suharto regime— they only recounted that, “formal relations were restored in 1963, and in 1968 a new cultural agreement was settled.”82 They also downplayed a range of diplomatic efforts—and failures—to extend a Dutch cultural presence in, and return of cultural property to, Indonesia before the Suharto period, by highlighting that only “archival exchanges” beginning in 1970 had constituted the first steps in their cooperative engagement.83 Negotiations over returns had actually begun in 1949, during sovereignty transfer deliberations, and the resolution of promises made in the draft cultural agreement—struck at that time—were thereafter hugely impacted by political and diplomatic changes over the next thirty years. Despite their presentation of the deep learned traditions of Dutch museums as, somehow, divorced from the uncomfortable political realities of the colonial and independence

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eras, we now know that the history of negotiations between the Netherlands and Indonesia complicates what conclusions can be drawn about the return of cultural property from the Leiden museum—and other repositories.84

Conclusion The political orientation of the Den Uyl Cabinet has not been associated in published reports with the rapid unfolding in the 1970s of the Dutch cultural property returns to Indonesia. However, it appears that the progressive outlook of the center-left coalition government between 1973 and 1977 had a significant impact on the official Dutch views. By late December 1977, the government had swung back to a center-right coalition under the new Prime Minister, Dries van Agt (b. 1931), a member of the newly formed party known as the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA). It is not clear whether the new government pursued any further investigations, as promised in the Joint Recommendation. Yet, the timing of the 1975 Joint Recommendation on returns suggests a number of reasons why a new center-left Cabinet—interested in furthering Dutch development cooperation with Indonesia—decided it was necessary to return archival collections and museum objects at that stage. While Dutch progressive politics and the involvement with the issue by the UNGA and UNESCO were influential, they had only been fairly recent developments in the history of cultural property return. By contrasting what seems to have been a new willingness to address “Third World” visions for colonial redress, and the persistence of concerns to rejuvenate the Dutch cultural presence in Indonesia, this chapter suggests an alternative explanation for the Dutch approach. That is, the transfer of materials in the 1970s reflected the belief that Dutch experts were well suited by their predecessors’ historical roles and by their current involvement in Indonesia’s economic development, to carry out returns as if they were merely philanthropic gestures of goodwill toward the new leaders of the former colony. The idea that the Netherlands could return cultural property to Indonesia as a gesture of goodwill struck a resonant chord in a country that had become deeply invested in its role as international development aid donor. It also hints at an extended trajectory for Dutch cultural diplomacy in the 1970s, rooted in events of the late 1940s and linked to older traditions designed to engender Dutch-Indonesian cooperation. At the same time, while the Dutch policy toward Indonesia had evolved independently of UNGA and UNESCO advocacy, the publicity UNESCO brought to the issue would have lasting effects on debates over the question of cultural property return, both inside and outside of the Netherlands. As the next chapter shows, the Dutch agreement to return cultural property to Indonesia had been resisted by museum officials, especially in light of the pressure it would bring to other countries facing similar, if not more pressing,

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challenges. It is to those countries that the next chapter turns, including the United Kingdom, where the resistance to making returns from earlier eras of exploration, collecting missions and colonialism largely set the tone of international debates; and to recent events in France, where the young President, Emmanuel Macron, has announced what appears to be a new attitude toward the consideration of post-colonial cultural property return to African countries, yet in the service of wider aims of French foreign policy going forward. It also looks to changes in the Netherlands beyond the 1970s that have altered cultural diplomacy with Indonesia, its wider reliance on defining cultural diplomacy as development aid and the organization of colonial-era museums in favor of consolidation and new forms of “global investment.”

Notes 1 Ben Van der Velden, “Minister wil kunst Indonesië teruggeven” (“Minister will Return Indonesian Art”), NRC Handelsblad, April 14, 1975. Curator’s Files, Indonesian Collections, RMV. 2 Some scholars continue to advance this view of Dutch colonial history, e.g.: Wim van den Doel, “The Dutch Empire. An Essential Part of World History,” BMGN—Low Countries Historical Review 125, no. 2–3 (2010): 179–208. 3 The coalition formed when the Labor Party (PvdA) and the Catholic People’s Party (KVP) agreed to work together. It also included the smaller left-leaning parties, i.e. Democrats 66 (D66), and the Political Party of Radicals (PPR), as well as progressives from the Anti-Revolutionary Party (ARP). 4 Ken Gladdish, Governing from the Center: Politics and Policy-Making in the Netherlands (DeKalb, Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press, 1991), 170; Rudy B. Andeweg and Galen A. Irwin, Governance and Politics of the Netherlands (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2002); Gerd-Rainer Horn, The Spirit of ’68: Rebellion in Western Europe and North America, 1956–1976 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); Duco Hellema, Nederland in de Jaren Zeventig (Amsterdam: Boom, 2012); Frans Becker, “Das Kabinett den Uyl (1973–77) als Höhe- un Wendepunkt der 1970er Jahre, in Radikalismus und Politische Reformen: Beiträge zur Deutschen und Niederländischen Geschichte in de 1970er Jahren, ed. Duco Hellema, Friso Wielenga, Markus Wilp (Münster: Waxmann, 2012), 55–80. 5 Teruggave (reproductie) culturele voorwerpen waaronder Negarakertagama (Refund cultural objects among which Negarakertagama), n.d. [approx. July 1969]. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9161. 6 Nota inzake Indonesische cultuurgoederen (niet archieven) in Nederlands openbaar bezit (Note Concerning Indonesian Culture Goods (not files) in Dutch Public Possession), n.d. [1975]. KITLV. File: H710 63; and Curator’s Files, Indonesian Collections, RMV. 7 G.Louisa Balk, Frans Van Dijk, and Diederick J. Kortlang, eds., Indonesia: The Archives of the Dutch East Indies Company (VOC) and the Local Institutions in Batavia (Jakarta) (Leiden: Brill, 2007). 8 Ibid. 9 Jalink to Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken, Ontvangen Codebericht (Jalink to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Received Code Bulletin), January 25, 1974. BZ 1965– 74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9165.

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10 Jalink to Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken, Ontvangen Codebericht (Jalink to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Received Code Bulletin), January 25, 1974. BZ 1965– 74, NAN. 11 Ibid. 12 De Jong to Teeuw, November 25, 1974. KITLV. File: H710 63. 13 De Jong to Teeuw, November 25, 1974. KITLV. 14 On the history of Indonesia’s New Order-era historians see: Katharine E. McGregor, History in Uniform: Military Ideology and the Construction of Indonesia’s Past (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2007). The Indonesian group included: Professor Sartono—described as “primus inter pares” among the Indonesian historians; Dr. Sudjatmoko, of BAPPENAS, Indonesia’s Ministry of National Development Planning; and Professor Harsja Bachtiar, head of a consortium for social and cultural sciences. 15 De Jong to Teeuw, November 25, 1974. KITLV. 16 Scheltema to Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), July 30, 1970. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9165. 17 DCV/CS Copie-Memorandum to DOA via Chief DCV, July 23, 1970. BZ 1965– 74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9161. 18 Vincent J.H. Houben, “A Torn Soul: The Dutch Public Discussion on the Colonial Past in 1995,” Indonesia 63 (April 1997): 57–58. 19 Ibid., 57. 20 On government reaction to Hueting’s allegations see: Ibid., 58, and fn. 3, citing: Simon L. van der Wal, Pieter J. Drooglever, and Mieke Schouten, Officiële Bescheiden Betreffende de Nederlands-Indonesische Betrekkingen 1945–1950, 20 volumes (The Hague: Nijhoff/Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis, 1971–96); see also the online complement to the publication: Pieter J. Drooglever and Mieke J.B. Schouten, “Nederlands-Indonesische Betrekkingen 1945–1969,” accessed April 15, 2014, http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/ indonesischebetrekkingen1945-1969/, for resources on Dutch-Indonesian relations, 1945–69. 21 De Jong to Teeuw, November 25, 1974. KITLV. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid. 26 Soemartini to Schneiders, December 23, 1974. Nederlandse Ambassade in Indonesië. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.188. Component No. 590. 27 Microfiche Project Pre-War Material on Indonesia 1975/1976–1979/1980. Nederlandse Ambassade in Indonesië. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.188. Component No. 590. 28 Van der Velden, “Minister wil kunst Indonesië teruggeven.” 29 Ibid. 30 J.J.P. de Jong, “Opinie: Er zijn weinig schatten uit Indonesiëe geroofd,” (“Opinion: There are few treasures robbed from Indonesia”) n. title, n.d. [1975]. Curator’s Files, Indonesian Collections, RMV. 31 Pott to Yuwono, May 30, 1975. RMV, File Series 2364 on transfer to Indonesia, 1977. 32 Smit to Hotke, May 30, 1975, and Smit to Cort van der Linden, May 30, 1975. RMV, File Series 2364 on transfer to Indonesia, 1977. Copies of the letter were also sent to officials in both ministries: Drs. R. Hotke, Director-General for Cultural Matters, Ministry of Culture, Recreation and Social Work; and Mr. P.W.A.G. Cort van der Linden, Director, Cultural Cooperation and Foreign Country Information, Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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33 Nota inzake Indonesische cultuurgoederen (niet archieven) in Nederlands openbaar bezit (Note Concerning Indonesian Culture Goods (not files) in Dutch Public Possession), n.d. [1975]. KITLV and RMV; Pott to Koesnadi, June 18, 1975. RMV, File Series 2364 on transfer to Indonesia, 1977. 34 Hotke for the Delegation of the Netherlands, and Mantra for the Delegation of Indonesia, Report of the Work Programme Agreed Upon by the Delegations of Experts of Indonesia and The Netherlands Concerning Cultural Cooperation in the Field of Museums and Archives, Including the Transfer of Objects, Leiden, July 1, 1977. KITLV. File: H710 63. The Joint Recommendation was signed by the respective representatives: R. Hotke, Director-General for Cultural Matters, Ministry of Culture, Recreation and Social Work, for the Delegation of the Netherlands; and I.B. Mantra, Director-General, Culture, for the Delegation of Indonesia. 35 See Hotke document for the names of experts who attended the meeting. The Report included sections on: the Transfer of Historical and Archaeological Objects, Training of Museologists, Visual Documentation, and Archivology. 36 Peter H. Pott and Mohammad Amir Sutaarga, “Arrangements Concluded or in Progress for the Return of Objects: The Netherlands-Indonesia,” Museum 31, no. 1 (1979): 40. 37 Ibid., 41. 38 Ibid. 39 Wahyu Ernawati, “The Lombok Treasure,” in Colonial Collections Revisited, ed. Pieter ter Keurs (Leiden: CNWS Publications, 2007), 198. 40 Ibid. 41 Pott and Sutaarga, “Arrangements Concluded or in Progress for the Return of Objects,” 42. 42 Merle C. Ricklefs, A History of Modern Indonesia since c. 1200, 4th ed. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008), 116–17. 43 On Radèn Saleh see: Koes Karnadi, ed., Modern Indonesian Art: From Raden Saleh to the Present Day (Denpasar: Koes Art Books, 2006). 44 Jos Van Beurden, The Return of Cultural and Historical Treasures: The Case of the Netherlands (Amsterdam: Kit Tropenmuseum: KIT Publishers, 2012), 13. 45 Hotke for the Delegation of the Netherlands, and Mantra for the Delegation of Indonesia, July 1, 1977. KITLV. 46 Katherine E. McGregor, “Museums and the Transformation from Colonial to Post-Colonial Institutions in Indonesia: A Case Study of the Indonesian National Museum, Formerly the Batavia Museum,” in Performing Objects: Museums, Material Culture and Performance in Southeast Asia, ed. Fiona Kerlogue (London: The Horniman Museum and Gardens, 2004), 18. 47 Ibid. 48 UNGA Address by General Mobutu Sese Seko, President of the Republic of Zaire, Twenty-Eighth Session, Plenary Meeting, 2140th Meeting, October 4, 1973. 49 UNGA Res. 3187 (XXVIII), December 18, 1973. 50 Sarah Van Beurden, Authentically African: Arts and the Transnational Politics of Congolese Culture (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2016). 51 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Ownership of Cultural Property, Paris, December 14, 1970, in force April 24, 1972, UNTS 823, 231. See: Conventions and Recommendations of UNESCO Concerning the Protection of the Cultural Heritage (Paris: UNESCO, 1983). 52 UNGA Res. 3187 (XXVIII), December 18, 1973. The Resolution also made specific reference to human rights, the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, the conclusions of the Fourth Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries in Algiers,

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September 5–9, 1973 (specifically, Paragraph 18 of the Political Declaration); the Third Congress of the International Association of Art Critics in Kinshasa-n’Sélé, Zaire, September 14–17, 1973; and the 1970 UNESCO Convention. UNGA Res. 3391 (XXX), November 19, 1975. UNESCO Doc.SHC-76/CONF.615.5. Final Report, Committee of Experts to Study the Question of the Restitution of Works of Art, Venice, March 29–April 2, 1976. 1. UNESCO Doc.SHC-76/CONF.615.5, 2–4. Ibid., 4–5. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 6. UNESCO Gen. Conf., Res. 4.128. Nineteenth Session, Nairobi, 1976, 48. UNESCO Gen. Conf., Rec. Concerning the International Exchange of Cultural Property. Nineteenth Session, November 26, 1976, 51; and UNESCO Doc.CC78/CONF.609/3. Committee of Experts on the Establishment of an Intergovernmental Committee Concerning the Restitution or Return of Cultural Property, Dakar, March 20–23, 1978. UNESCO Doc. CC-79/CONF.206/3. Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation, First Session, Paris, November 26–29, 1979. In subsequent years, UNESCO highlighted some additional voluntary settlements, “post-colonial” in nature, including: in 1980, an agreement between France and Iraq (for long-term loans of fragments of Babylonian codes to the Iraq Museum in Baghdad); and in 1981, agreements between France and Egypt (regarding the Amon Min Statue); the Cape Museum in South Africa and Zimbabwe (for sculptured birds); the Historic Places Trust in New Zealand and the Solomon Islands (for over 1,000 items); the Australian Museum in Sydney and Vanuatu (for a large ceremonial drum); the Wellcome Trust in London and the Museum of Sana’a (for a collection of Himyarite items); and the United Kingdom and Kenya (over the two-million year old skull, “Proconsul Africanus”). UNESCO Doc. CLT/CH/4.82. Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation, “Return and restitution of cultural property—a brief resume,” Paris, June 11, 1982. Louis-Jacques Rollett-Andriane, “Precedents,” Museum 31, no. 1 (1979): 4–7. Ibid. “Ekpo E. Eyo,” accessed December 5, 2013, http://www.beallfuneral.com/ sitemaker/memsol.cgi?user_id=393623. Ekpo Eyo, “Nigeria,” Museum 31, no. 1 (1979): 18. Ibid. Amadou Mahtar M’Bow, “A Plea for the Return of an Irreplaceable Cultural Heritage to Those Who Created It,” Museum 31, no. 1 (1979): 58. Pott and Sutaarga, “Arrangements Concluded or in Progress for the Return of Objects,” 39. Chief DCV, Copi-Memorandum to DOA, September 24, 1974. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9171. Chief DCV, Copi-Memorandum to DOA, September 24, 1974. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Pott to Meijer, March 13, 1974. RMV, File Series 2364 on transfer to Indonesia, 1977. UNESCO Doc.SHC-76/CONF.615.5. See also: “Study on the Principles, Conditions and Means for the Restitution or Return of Cultural Property in View of Reconstituting Dispersed Heritages,” Museum 31, no. 1 (1979): 59–60.

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75 UNESCO Doc.SHC-76/CONF.615.5. 76 UNESCO Doc.SHC-76/CONF.615.5, 1. 77 Pott and Sutaarga, “Arrangements Concluded or in Progress for the Return of Objects,” 39. 78 Ibid. 79 Ibid., 41. 80 Ibid., 41–42. 81 Ibid., 40. 82 Ibid. 83 Ibid. 84 In addition to examples of conclusions made about Dutch returns, mentioned in the “Introduction” to this book, see also: Christina F. Kreps, “Decolonizing Anthropology Museums, fn. 54, citing Nooter, interview with the author; Alma Robinson, “The Repatriation Dilemma,” Museum News (March/April 1980): 55–59 (discussed in Chapter Five).

References Manuscript collections Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde Archive (KITLV), (Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies), Leiden, https:// www.knaw.nl/en/institutes/kitlv. Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken (BZ), 1965–74, Nationaal Archief, Nederland (NAN), (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1965–74, National Archives of the Netherlands), The Hague, https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/en. Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde (RMV), (National Museum of Ethnology), Leiden, http://www.volkenkunde.nl.

Press clippings De Jong, J.J.P. “Opinie: Er zijn weinig schatten uit Indonesiëe geroofd” (“Opinion: There are few treasures robbed from Indonesia”), n. title, n.d. [1975]. Curator’s Files, Indonesian Collections, RMV. Original in Dutch. Van der Velden, Ben. “Minister wil kunst Indonesië teruggeven” (“Minister will Return Indonesian Art”), NRC Handelsblad, April 14, 1975. Curator’s Files, Indonesian Collections, RMV. Original in Dutch.

Secondary sources Andeweg, Rudy B., and Galen A. Irwin. Governance and Politics of the Netherlands. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2002. Balk, G. Louisa, Frans van Dijk, and Diederick J. Kortlang, eds. Indonesia: The Archives of the Dutch East Indies Company (VOC) and the Local Institutions in Batavia (Jakarta). Leiden: Brill, 2007. Becker, Frans. “Das Kabinett den Uyl (1973–77) als Höhe- un Wendepunkt der 1970er Jahre.” In Radikalismus und Politische Reformen: Beiträge zur Deutschen und Niederländischen Geschichte in de 1970er Jahren, edited by Duco Hellema, Friso Wielenga, and Markus Wilp, 55–80. Münster: Waxmann, 2012. Eyo, Ekpo. “Nigeria,” Museum 31, no. 1 (1979): 18.

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Gladdish, Ken. Governing from the Center: Politics and Policy-Making in the Netherlands. DeKalb, Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press, 1991. Hellema, Duco. Nederland in de Jaren Zeventig. Amsterdam: Boom, 2012. Horn, Gerd-Rainer. The Spirit of ‘68: Rebellion in Western Europe and North America, 1956–1976. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Houben, Vincent J.H. “A Torn Soul: The Dutch Public Discussion on the Colonial Past in 1995,” Indonesia 63 (April 1997): 47–66. Kreps, Christina F. “Decolonizing Anthropology Museums: The Dutch Example.” Master’s thesis, University of Oregon, 1988. M’Bow, Amadou Mahtar. “A Plea for the Return of an Irreplaceable Cultural Heritage to Those Who Created It,” Museum 31, no. 1 (1979): 58. McGregor, Katharine E. History in Uniform: Military Ideology and the Construction of Indonesia’s Past. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2007. —–—–. “Museums and the Transformation from Colonial to Post-Colonial Institutions in Indonesia: A Case Study of the Indonesian National Museum, Formerly the Batavia Museum.” In Performing Objects: Museums, Material Culture and Performance in Southeast Asia, edited by Fiona Kerlogue, 15–29. London: The Horniman Museum and Gardens, 2004. Pott, Peter H., and Mohammad Amir Sutaarga. “Arrangements Concluded or in Progress for the Return of Objects: The Netherlands-Indonesia,” Museum 31, no. 1 (1979): 38–42. Rollett-Andriane, Louis-Jacques. “Precedents,” Museum 31, no. 1 (1979): 4–7. “Study on the Principles, Conditions and Means for the Restitution or Return of Cultural Property in View of Reconstituting Dispersed Heritages,” Museum 31, no. 1 (1979): 59–60. UNESCO. Conventions and Recommendations of UNESCO Concerning the Protection of the Cultural Heritage. Paris: UNESCO, 1983. Van Beurden, Jos. The Return of Cultural and Historical Treasures: The Case of the Netherlands. Amsterdam: Kit Tropenmuseum: KIT Publishers, 2012. Van Beurden, Sarah. Authentically African: Arts and the Transnational Politics of Congolese Culture. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2016. Van den Doel, Wim. “The Dutch Empire. An Essential Part of World History,” BMGN—Low Countries Historical Review 125, no. 2–3 (2010): 179–208. Van der Wal, Simon L., Pieter J. Drooglever, and Mieke Schouten. Officiële Bescheiden Betreffende de Nederlands-Indonesische Betrekkingen 1945–1950, 20 volumes. The Hague: Nijhoff/Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis, 1971–96.

5

Post-colonial cultural property return debates since the 1970s The Dutch-Indonesian case as historical lens

Writing in 1974, the Director of the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, Peter H. Pott, asserted that the fundamental position of the colonial government in the East Indies was to insist that important art treasures remain in the colony.1 He emphasized that due to the collections held in Batavia, while some pieces had been relocated to Europe, the largest numbers of objects still remained in Indonesia. Pott felt justified, then, in warning government officials that the Netherlands must take no initiatives to unilaterally return materials without consultation with other countries, since the refund of art treasures had become what he called, a “sharp matter with international aspects.”2 While this warning reflects Pott’s opposition against making what he saw as potentially rash diplomatic gestures of goodwill,3 it also speaks—albeit without much elaboration—to the wider international context within which Dutch leaders were weighing their options. More widely, we know that when it came to cultural diplomacy, the wave of decolonization that followed the end of the Second World War began disrupting Imperial traditions that were based on late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century notions of European internationalism.4 As part of this process, many leaders of new post-colonial states began embracing culture as part of their countries’ emerging national identities, and new demands for cultural sovereignty began complicating bilateral relationships with their soon-to-be former colonizers. We have also seen how the UN emerged as a forum for post-war multi-lateral diplomacy—giving rise to UNESCO, the agency charged with promoting science, education and intercultural dialogue as a means of peaceful international integration5 —and how UNGA and UNESCO deliberations increased challenges to bilateral negotiations over the legacies of empire. With regard to calls for post-colonial cultural property return, in particular, we know from previous discussions that it became a topic of heated debate within the UNGA and UNESCO in the 1960s and 1970s. On one end of the diplomatic spectrum, there were officials of Member States who resented what had become the strictly forward- rather than backwardlooking nature of the 1970 UNESCO Convention, and they saw the ethics of post-colonial returns—to be achieved now only through bilateral diplomatic

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negotiations—as an urgent necessity of historical justice for past exploitation. On the other, there were representatives of Member States whose interests they believed were better served by drawing the historical line at 1970, a move that prevented the emergence of new international legal obligations to return materials collected in the colonial past, and which only encouraged them to take up bilateral negotiations at their discretion. Yet, Pott’s allusion to the “international aspects” of the question of return points not only to the context of multi-lateral forums, such as the UNGA and UNESCO. It also reveals his wider concern for the points of view of cultural leaders of other former (or diminishing) colonial powers. It was his desire, as a museum director, to help maintain a united front against setting diplomatic precedents that would raise the pressure on other countries to act in kind. The story in this chapter, therefore, shifts now to a discussion of these alternative locations of international debate, that is, to how other former (or diminishing) colonial powers responded to the question of returning cultural property obtained in colonial or other kinds of imperial contexts prior to 1970, and how they largely resisted setting precedents that would validate claims for voluntary post-colonial redress. Using the Dutch-Indonesian case as an historical lens, this discussion focuses on the United Kingdom where defending the collections of the British Museum and other institutions from post-colonial return claims has remained a priority for many decades. It also highlights recent events in France, illustrating some of the tensions that can arise when unresolved colonial legacies confront officials who long to restart political, economic and cultural cooperation with leaders of formerly colonized states in order to revive things at home. And it offers an ongoing view of transitions in the Netherlands, as political tides continued altering earlier arrangements with Indonesia. However, it is not yet clear what their effects will be on long-held notions of Dutch national identity and remembrance of the colonial past.

Beyond the UNGA and UNESCO: post-colonial cultural property return debates in the United Kingdom In The Return of Cultural Treasures, the legal scholar Jeanette Greenfield highlighted British and European disputes, drawing attention to how the British Museum came to own a large quantity of antiquities when early travelers, traders and wealthy collectors brought material to the home country.6 Going farther, however, she added that many collections had also resulted from “long-distance archaeological raids”—practices also undertaken by other colonial powers—in a highly competitive atmosphere in Chinese Turkestan, Greece, Egypt and Mesopotamia.7 This was, Greenfield argued, a pattern established in Africa, Southeast Asia and South Asia, which included, “exploration, colonization, tribute and punitive removal.” To Greenfield, the reason Britain and its museums had “gained the greatest notoriety [in claims for return was] because of Britain’s primacy as an

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exploring, collecting and colonial power and attention has increased as certain states have called for their return.”8 While the breadth of complaints and claims directed at the United Kingdom have largely reflected the historical scope and geographical extent of British exploration, collecting missions and colonial pursuits, debates over the return of the “Elgin (or Parthenon) Marbles” from the British Museum have amplified what Greenfield called their “notoriety.” More than any other, the controversy with Greece dominated concerns of British officials about the dangers of precedent setting, giving rise to arguments both for and against the return of imperial-era acquisitions by metropolitan museums across the board.9

The Parthenon Marbles debate and fears of “anti-Elginism” While calls for the return of the Parthenon Marbles first emerged in the early nineteenth century following their removal and shipment to England by Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin (1766–1841), decolonization and UNESCO activism in the post-World War II era aggravated the question until Greek politicians reignited it in the early 1980s. As a result, a growing literature emerged that saw all post-colonial claims as mere variations of “anti-Elginism,” defined as the questioning of the legal and moral rights of wealthy nations to own the cultural treasures of the poorer. The historian E. Russell Chamberlin illustrated the argument well, for example, when he wrote that claims for returns by “Third World” countries merely expressed “fetishism,” or an irrational reverence for certain objects, which took on political significance in countries emerging from colonialism. He also concluded that they should be dismissed as politically motivated “legalistic squabbles.”10 Concerns about the spread of “anti-Elginism” fostered disagreements, and both legal scholars and museum officials who embraced such views used them to advance a counter-narrative to developments within the UNGA. Some began posing a dichotomy—between the “universalism” of Western museums and the “nationalism” of claimant “source” countries. The legal scholar John Henry Merryman, in particular, applied this contrast against Greece’s calls for repatriation of the Parthenon Marbles from the British Museum, citing not only a legal basis, but a moral one as well. To Merryman, the values of “cultural internationalism,” which he theorized as preservation, integrity and distribution/access to objects in Western museums, overrode Greece’s claim to the Parthenon Marbles, which Merryman believed was merely nationalistic and sentimental.11 For some, the idea that Western museums represent higher “universal” values somehow places them above the “nationalistic” political fray.12 In such discussions, as well, aspirations for the redress of the historical injustices of early exploration, collecting missions and colonialism have been at times conflated with efforts to stem the tide of contemporary international trafficking of illegally exported materials from poorer countries. This has led to the dismissal of both as merely “nationalistic” attempts to undermine the

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“universalism” of European museums. Even recent books dealing with the return of imperial-era acquisitions have been geared toward either defending the contemporary international trade in antiquities, or opposing such trade.13 By connecting criticism of the long-standing “Elgin (Parthenon) Marbles” dispute with that of prohibitions against contemporary antiquities trading, such analyses—framed by the basic incompatibility between the “universalism” of Western museums and the “nationalism” of “Third World” regimes—helped divide scholarly and public opinion over the ethics of post-colonial cultural property return, whether rooted in historical or contemporary “collecting” contexts.14 At the same time, they have said very little about the meaning of post-colonial return claims in the wider scheme of foreign relations, and of national imaginings of a decolonizing Europe. The primacy of the Parthenon Marbles dispute, therefore, and the continuing fear of setting a precedent for post-colonial cultural property return, has largely shaped the United Kingdom’s responses to calls for “cultural restitution” from throughout the former British Empire and beyond. One of the first responses to such claims by UK officials occurred in 1963, when Parliament strengthened laws regulating national museum collections. It amended the British Museum Act 190215 to ensure that Trustees would be unable to “dispose” of objects on the basis of “moral claims.” In Section Five, the Act stipulated that disposal of objects “by sale, exchange, give away or otherwise” was only permitted in the case of duplicate objects, printed matter (obtained no earlier than 1850) that could be reproduced or objects “unfit to be retained” and “disposed of without detriment to the interests of students.”16 Twenty years later in 1983, Parliament debated whether to amend the British Museum Act 1963 to allow for more flexible responses to restitution claims by extending to Trustees the authority to resolve international obligations that may include return of cultural objects to their countries of origin.17 According to Greenfield, The debate on that bill clearly reflected the divide of opinion on the general issue of returning cultural property, and revealed the entrenched position of existing Trustees against return. It also indicated the predominantly negative British response towards any notion of “international obligation” regarding this matter.18 At the time, Greenfield reported, museum professionals tended to oppose an amendment, while many in academia supported it.19 The British Museum’s official position had been that legislation prohibited it from permanently disposing of any object, other than duplicates, and that its aim was to preserve exhibits “for the benefit of international scholarship and the enjoyment of the general public.”20 In this period, the Dutch museum director, Peter H. Pott, would have been well aware of views in the United Kingdom, and reticent to upset the status quo of former colonial powers resisting post-colonial cultural property returns. Yet, while pressure may have been

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building in the United Kingdom as a result of UNGA and UNESCO developments and their publicity—highlighting among a few others the DutchIndonesian case as an exemplar—UK officials continued to hold the line.

Nigerian claims for returns of the “Benin Bronzes” Perhaps the most publicized post-colonial cultural property return controversies have revolved around the hundreds of objects widely known as “Benin Bronzes” looted from the Kingdom of Benin in the aftermath of a British “punitive expedition” in 1897,21 many of which ended up in the collections of the British Museum and other museums, most notably in Berlin.22 At the time of the raid, British public opinion largely supported the action as part of the Empire’s so-called “civilizing mission.” Later, it was increasingly seen as one of overt colonial domination, as it led directly to British colonization of Nigeria in the territories previously controlled by the Kingdom of Benin.23 In January 1914, Nigeria was created as a colony when Great Britain combined the administrations of the Colony of Lagos, with its Southern and Northern Protectorates. In 1954, the Constitution created regional governments and, in 1959, a year before independence, federal elections were held. On October 1, 1960, Nigeria was granted independence with Dominion status, and the Federation of Nigeria was admitted to membership in the United Nations. In 1963, it became a Federal Republic.24 By the late 1970s, the UK government’s rejection of various schemes toward the return of “Benin Bronzes” was highlighted as an exemplar of resistance to negotiating a bilateral agreement favorable to post-colonial return. That is, we know from a report by the Director of Nigeria’s Federal Department of Antiquities, Ekpo Eyo (discussed in Chapter Four)— published in the 1979 issue of the journal, Museum—that attempts to recover examples from the “Benin loot” were unsuccessful. We also know that after independence, further attempts had not followed a straight or direct line. In Eyo’s account, the first efforts had begun during the colonial period, in the 1950s, with the help of the British Museum and the eventual Keeper of the Ethnography Department, William Buller Fagg (1914–1992).25 Reportedly, single plaques from the Department’s collection were exchanged with Nigeria in 1951 and 1953, with possibly another in 1954.26 At the time, the British Museum was involved in efforts to create a National Museum in Lagos, where curators wanted important examples of Benin culture to be displayed. In 2002, as well, reports emerged about this period in The Art Newspaper by journalist Martin Bailey revealing that the British Museum had sold over thirty “Benin Bronzes” since the end of World War II, including several purchased by the government of Nigeria. The process of de-accessioning went beyond exchanges with Nigeria, however, reportedly with several being sold through New York art dealer J.J. Klejman, and auctioned off through Sotheby’s, with the last transaction of this kind occurring in 1972 in an exchange of “Bronzes” between the British

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Museum and the art collector, Robin Lehman.27 According to the 2002 reports, beginning in 1950, the British Museum decided that thirty plaques were duplicates and could be sold, and after a London art dealer made initial “test sales,” the Nigerian government bought thirteen of the plaques. The revelations raised the specter—soon dismissed—that these sales could possibly provide precedents for a more flexible reading of the law governing British Museum policy with respect to de-accessioning colonial-era objects. Eyo reported another attempt made by Nigerian officials back in 1968, as well, when they hoped to obtain objects to display at a new National Museum in Benin City and had drafted a Resolution at a meeting of the International Council of Museums General Assembly (ICOM GA) in France, appealing for donations of one or two pieces from museums that had large collections of Benin works. Having been modified to read as a general “appeal for restitution or return,” the Resolution was adopted by the ICOM GA and circulated to embassies and high commissions of “holding” countries, however, as reported by Eyo, it received no reply.28 Writing in 1979, Eyo lamented that every piece displayed in the Lagos museum had had to be purchased and brought back to Nigeria, and that by the end of the 1960s, the government of Nigeria could no longer afford to purchase Benin works of art, whose prices had risen dramatically.29 In 1973, moves were also made that contradicted the ethics of postcolonial cultural property return. For example, when in a gesture reminiscent of earlier diplomatic “gift giving” traditions, the President of Nigeria, General Yakubu Gowon (b. 1934), gave as a gift to HM Queen Elizabeth II (b. 1926) one of the bronze statues that had been bought in London and returned to the Lagos Museum in the 1950s.30 Four years later in 1977, however, cultural officials made another request—that went unfulfilled—for a loan from the British Museum of a Benin ivory mask for the Second World Black-African Festival of Arts Culture (FESTAC) in Lagos.31 To those who were making preparations for what was to be the largest arts and cultural festival in Africa, the rejection was particularly disappointing. Following this in 1980, reportedly, the Nigerian government purchased four Benin pieces, and one Yoruba mask, at a London auction.32 In 1982, while Nigeria had not made a request through the UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation, a Report by the Committee listed the dispute between Nigeria and the United Kingdom, over “masks from Benin,” as one among several pending cases.33 A year later in 1983, an Intergovernmental Committee report noted that, The representative of Nigeria also mentioned the results of various bilateral negotiations launched by her country (as well as outright purchase of objects so as to obtain their return to Nigeria) and indicated the hopes it placed in the work of the Committee.34

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By this meeting in 1983, however, the UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee had already shifted away from issues of post-colonial claims, and toward the contemporary problem of illicit trafficking. Highlighting the problem, for example, in a very different tone from his 1979 plea for colonial-era restitution (discussed in Chapter Four) then UNESCO Director-General Amadou Mahtar M’Bow’s address to the Intergovernmental Committee indicated his concern about the growing “scourge” of illicit traffic, linked to “unrestrained speculation,” and the inability of countries of origin to prevent their illegal export. At this point, M’Bow regretted that, The illicit traffic could not be stopped as long as the governments involved—that is all governments—did not take the necessary measures. Sometimes there was too great a degree of slackness, not to say complicity in certain cases, on the part of those entrusted with enforcing the law, thus making things [easier] for the traffickers.35 M’Bow was not alone among African officials who called for a re-focus of efforts. As a result of a 1983 fact-finding mission to the Congo, Gabon and Nigeria, Henrique Abranches’ “Report on the Situation in Africa”— which the UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee endorsed and considered to be applicable to all developing countries—concluded that, given the contemporary situation, restitution efforts were a misdirection of focus.36 Instead, the report suggested to newly independent countries practical measures related to the policy of restitution or return—such as becoming States Party to the 1970 UNESCO Convention.37 Nigeria continued participating in meetings of the Intergovernmental Committee and, in 1985, a representative was elected again as one of its Vice-Chairmen.38 Yet, what began to replace calls for restitution were notices of Nigeria’s staggering losses. That year, for example, at the meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee, the report mentioned recent thefts, and a decade later, in 1995, the extent of the losses had become so clear that the Nigerian representatives issued a notice to UNESCO about a vast number of stolen objects that had disappeared from several museums between July 1979 and March 1995.39 In this period, therefore, when it came to post-colonial cultural property concerns, many legal scholars, museum directors and archaeologists began emphasizing categories other than return including, issues related to present-day theft, looting and illegal export of antiquities from poorer countries.40 Talk about the unfulfilled claims by leaders of newly independent states largely receded in the literature, as new problems came to the fore. For example, when the legal scholar Ana Filipa Vrdoljak wrote about the campaigns by newly independent states to achieve restitution of cultural objects removed by colonial powers prior to 1970, she shifted attention on the history of “decolonization without restitution” to how central governments of newly independent states often co-opted the cultural materials of

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indigenous peoples and minorities to bolster national unity campaigns.41 The marked shift of attention reinforced what predecessors such as Greenfield had concluded, that voluntarily negotiated bilateral settlements favorable to formerly colonized countries had been “few and far between.” With just a handful of counter examples, Greenfield conceded and the view persisted, that post-colonial return had become a “hopeless cause.”42 Following a period of relative silence in the press, however, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the issue of “restitution” of the “Benin Bronzes” began attracting wide attention in the popular media. Starting with the recovery in 1997 of a “bronze head” (stolen after 1970), the press tracked various requests for the treasures, as well as the controversy mentioned earlier over the British Museum’s sales of thirty bronzes in the colonial and early post-colonial periods.43 In addition to decades-long efforts to combat illicit trafficking in cultural property, one explanation for this sudden interest was the upsurge in requests for return. This time, the issue was raised as part of a wider movement to seek redress for slavery, colonialism and racism, a commemoration of the centenary anniversary in 1997 of the “Punitive Expedition,” as well as Nigeria’s return to civilian government in 1999. The period marked the beginning of renewed efforts by various parties to recover items from the British Museum and other repositories. The origins of efforts connected with Pan-African reparations could be traced to several occasions including, in April 1993, the First Pan-African Congress on Reparations, in Abuja, Nigeria, and in March 1996, when Lord Anthony Gifford, QC (b. 1940), initiated debate on the subject in the House of Lords of the British Parliament.44 One of Gifford’s goals was to build a legal framework that would enable the prosecution of reparations claims for slavery as a crime against humanity. While only a minor part of his proposition, returning some works of art or artifacts obtained by invasion or plunder in Africa, would be included.45 In the Parliamentary debate, Gifford challenged the government to pay reparations to African countries and descendants of Africans. These payments would include an apology for the slave trade and slavery, the cancellation of debt for African and Caribbean countries, the return of treasures and works of art that came from Africa and were retained in Britain’s museums, and last, measures to assist in the repatriation and resettlement of those who wanted to return to Africa. After lengthy debate, the session ended with Lord Chesham (1941–2009) concluding that reparations for slavery, including the return of cultural property by the British national museums, were not appropriate.46 That same year, as an element of a broader program for Pan-African redress, the UK-based Africa Reparations Movement (ARM) began campaigning for the return of the “Benin Bronzes.” In December 1996, Bernie Grant, M.P. (1944–2000), formally requested, on behalf of the Benin royal family and ARM, the restitution of religious and cultural objects from the Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum.47 Emmanuel N. Arinze (1945–2005), the Lagos-based Chairman of the West African Museums Programme (WAMP)

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and President of the Commonwealth Association of Museums (CAM), joined the appeal.48 The Glasgow City Council ultimately rejected it, however, on the recommendation of the Director of Glasgow Museums, Julian Spalding (b. 1947). In a subsequent publicity stunt, Grant sent a “Repossession Notice” to the British Museum calling for the return of Benin objects.49 In response, in what was characterized as a “period of fluidity” in debates over artworks held by the country’s museums, the British Museum was reported to have been unresponsive.50 ARM’s efforts were largely distinct from those made by African countries through UNESCO in the 1960s and 1970s. In a statement that illustrated to what extent, Bernie Grant complained that the Africa Reparations Movement did not have practical support from African governments in the campaign to get artifacts returned. He argued that they had not come forward to give resources, such as researchers and other professionals, to the campaign; and that ARM had their verbal, but not financial, support.51 The untimely death of Grant in 2000 in the midst of the campaign put a temporary halt to the efforts of ARM, though not to the wider Pan-African movement for reparations.52 Acting within a new political context at home, however, other Nigerians soon began making efforts to recover the treasures. In March 2000, Prince Edun Akenzua, brother of Oba Erediauwa I (1979–2016), who was succeeded by Oba Ewuare II (b. 1953), submitted to a House of Commons Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, a request for restitution of the following items: 1) the official record of property removed from the Palace of Benin in 1897; 2) the cultural property which had belonged to the Oba of Benin or, as an alternative, the payment of monetary compensation based on the cultural property’s current market value; and 3) for Britain to take full responsibility for retrieving either the property or compensation from all of those to whom Britain had sold them.53 Then, in December 2001, at a UNESCO conference organized with the Institute of Art and Law in London, Nigerian Professor of Law, Folarin Shyllon (b. 1940), called again for the return of the “Benin Bronzes” held in the British Museum, as well as public collections in Oxford and Liverpool. And a month later, in January 2002, BBC News reported that the Nigerian parliament had called for the return of Nigerian works of art in the British Museum.54 According to the report, Nigeria’s lower house of parliament unanimously called on President Olusegun Obasanjo (b. 1937) to request repatriation of works of art taken from the Kingdom of Benin by the British in 1897. It also demanded that the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments submit a list of all Nigerian artifacts at the British Museum and their value.55 In March 2004, as well, reports emerged of efforts by the Benin Historical Heritage Group, in conjunction with senior Nigerian politicians, to renew the late Bernie Grant’s campaign and

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demand a response from the British government. According to Ekenakede Aihie, President of the Heritage Group, activists were hopeful that lobbying behind-the-scenes and an official letter from the Nigerian government would bring pressure on the UK government to formally respond.56 By 2007, a new “Benin Dialogue Group” (about which more below) had formed to facilitate an eventual permanent display of the bronzes in Benin City. Back in 2000, however, nearly two decades after debates were held over amending the British Museum Act 1963, pressure to respond to a wider range of cultural property issues led to the convening of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport mentioned above to consider evidence relating to contemporary museum acquisition, and to historyrelated returns.57 With regard to post-colonial cultural property return claims, including those concerning the “Benin Bronzes,” the Committee found it inappropriate that the government enact new legislation that would give powers to national museums and galleries to dispose of objects for reasons other than were already permitted.58 However, if a special case could be made on “moral grounds,” for instance, then the return should require a special Act of Parliament and new legislation that prescribed the unique circumstances that permitted disposal.59 The only kinds of cases the Committee recommended the government take measures to amend related to requests by indigenous groups for the return of sacred objects and human remains, and those connected with art spoliation during World War II, especially the Nazi period from 1933 to 1945.60 The former became part of a growing trend to acknowledge the self-determination and sovereignty of indigenous communities, many of whose sacred objects and ancestral human remains were gathered under settler colonialism, and to respond to legal developments concerning the cultural rights of minority groups within newly independent countries, often alienated by centralizing authorities.61 Therefore, as contemporary issues of historical justice and respect for the cultural rights of living communities, new legal requirements for certain museums to entertain requests and carry out returns to indigenous peoples had increasingly gained momentum. The Committee also found that decisions on restitution requests could entail “constructive” options other than return including, changing the way objects were stored or displayed, making loans to an “appropriate” party, such as a museum, and research-sharing schemes.62 As mentioned earlier, subsequent discussions largely dismissed speculation about the power that “moral claims” seemingly offered Museum Trustees to make returns. The former Chief Justice of Australia (1987–1995), The Honorable Sir Anthony Mason (b. 1925), for example, helped lower expectations when he argued, The fact that a third party has a moral claim to an object in the collections would not of itself render it “unfit to be retained.” It is perhaps conceivable that a particular moral claim could be so strong as to render the

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object “unfit to be retained.” But the case would have to be exceptional. Even then the criterion “without detriment to the interests of students” would remain as an obstacle to disposal. This power of disposal does not appear to extend to situations of the kind under consideration.63 Furthermore, the directors of eighteen museums presented a united front—between the United States, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Russia—when they issued in late 2002 a defensive “Declaration on the Importance and Value of Universal Museums.”64 Illustrating the persistence of the “universalism” vs. “nationalism” debate, yet contradicting any nationalism displayed by their own policies, the Declaration reasserted that museums played a “universal” role that overrode the desire of individual countries or “racial groups” for returns. The museums whose officials signed the Declaration included the Louvre in Paris, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the Prado in Madrid, the Metropolitan, Guggenheim, Whitney, and Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the State Museums in Berlin. A representative of the British Museum did not sign the Declaration, but its director at the time, Neil MacGregor (b. 1946), expressed support for its intent.65 In the years following the Select Committee’s recommendations, however, British Museum administrators continued to search for what they saw as constructive ways for the Museum to work with African countries. In 2003, The Guardian reported that Neil MacGregor had sought funds for African exchange projects, which resulted in a series of links with several African museums. Among these initiatives, British Museum officials had developed with a curator from the National Museum of Kenya an exhibition to be held in Nairobi of Kenyan artifacts from the British Museum’s collection.66 In a July 2004 BBC Radio broadcast on the question, “Who Owns Culture?,” as well, Neil MacGregor promoted the idea of traveling exhibitions, and the need for a better legal framework to enable the sharing of cultural property more widely. At the same time, he reiterated the notion of the British Museum as a “universal” one that enabled the drawing of connections between the peoples of the world.67 While such comments may seem—and usually have been seen—as self-serving attempts to evade or redirect away from the question of post-colonial cultural property return, when considered from the perspectives of officials working in contemporary museum contexts, they also point to what have been substantial, but largely unsung international projects of cooperation that get less credit than they may deserve. As in the Netherlands, the notion that there were “alternatives” to cultural property return that could inform cultural diplomacy with newly independent countries—and help ethically deal with the heritage of empire—therefore, reflected contemporary debates, as well as professional aspirations of those “on the ground” in European museums.

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Recent publicity surrounding the “Benin Bronzes” Advocacy for post-colonial returns continued on other fronts, however, with arguably one of the most dramatic coming out of Hollywood in 2018 with Marvel Studio’s release of Black Panther, directed by Ryan Coogler. Grossing over 1 billion US dollars, the superhero film includes a shocking heist scene in the fictional “Museum of Great Britain,” which directly challenges the British Museum’s moral right to possess objects taken from Benin City and Ghana in the colonial past. Further excitement has been generated around the Benin objects by recent press reports, as well. These have centered on discussions within the Benin Dialogue Group (BDG), whose participants have included representatives of Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM), the Royal Court of Benin and several museums in Europe with collections of Benin objects that had been looted in 1897 and then sold. Such reports have raised expectations that a new approach to resolving the question of “returning” some “Benin Bronzes” to Nigeria— that “could possibly set a significant precedent”—may be in the offing in the future. In the summer of 2018, for example, CNN reported that the group was negotiating over creating what would be, according to a spokesperson for the British Museum, “a permanent, but rotating, exhibition of loaned objects to Nigeria.”68 The spokesperson also reportedly said that, “The British Museum and others are open to contributing to this collection. Negotiations are at an early stage with no timescale established.” However, the representative, Crusoe Osagie, Special Advisor to Governor Obaseki Godwin of Edo State in Nigeria, reportedly hoped the discussions were merely a starting point, saying that, the administration favors permanent restitution, although he added that “in the event of not getting our wishes we have to negotiate. […] A loan is not what we want or the best choice […] But in the absence of another choice, we can start with that.”69 Weighing in and tempering expectations, Martin Bailey, Senior Correspondent with The Art Newspaper, who broke the story in 2000 about the sales of Benin objects by the British Museum in earlier decades, reportedly said, the lack of an elite venue in Benin City has been a barrier to regaining […] “arguably the finest works of art that have been created in subSaharan Africa. … Until now there has not really been a suitable place to lend objects of this importance. […] The British Museum will have to think more carefully if and when the (Benin) museum is built. [… N]ot all plans are realized—and I suspect very little will happen until the museum is actually built.”70

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A subsequent report by CNN in late November 2018 confirmed Bailey’s assessment, but announced that, a deal was struck last month by the Benin Dialogue Group (BDG) that would see “some of the most iconic pieces” in the historic collection returned on a temporary basis to form an exhibition at the new Benin Royal Museum in Edo State within three years.71 However, the loans would be contingent on the completion of the new museum. Explaining the report, a spokesperson said, “‘the key agenda item (at the October meeting) was how partners can work together to establish a museum in Benin City with a rotation of Benin works of art from a consortium of European museums.’”72 Reportedly, representatives from the museums attending the meeting agreed on behalf of their institutions, to lend artifacts to the Benin Royal Museum on a rotating basis, to provide advice as requested on building and exhibition design, and to cooperate with the Nigerian partners in developing training, funding, and a legal framework for the display in a new planned museum.73 Evidently, reflecting long-standing responses to questions of return, the widely established tradition of offering expertise from Western museums remained a priority. As in the Netherlands, in this case it appears that any deal—to loan now, not return materials to Nigeria—would have to come with the technical assistance of museum officials in Europe. As before, the Nigerian official from Edo State, Crusoe Osagie, reportedly remarked that while grateful for these steps, he hoped they were only the first “toward ‘permanent restitution.’”74 The enthusiasm generated in the press over these developments arose within a wider context of acknowledgment in some quarters of the ethics of post-colonial cultural property return including, an announcement by Jeremy Corbyn (b. 1949), UK Labor Party leader and, since 2015, opposition leader, that his government would be willing to discuss returns.75 Reminiscent of remarks made by progressive politicians in the Netherlands in the 1970s, according to reports, Corbyn’s interview with the Greek newspaper Ta Nea reiterated his view that, the Parthenon sculptures belong to Greece [… and] as with everything stolen or removed from a country that was in the possession or colony— including objects looted from other countries in the past—we should also begin constructive talks with the Greek government on the return of the sculptures.76 Corbyn’s comments came soon after the UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee called on “both sides to find an equally acceptable solution” to

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resolve the issue of the reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures, which had been pending on the Committee’s agenda since 1984,77 and that “twelve countries, including for the first time France, backed UNESCO’s stance.”78 While the substance of the Committee’s Recommendation did not break new ground on the Committee’s involvement in encouraging bilateral negotiations to settle the ongoing controversy, France’s comment, that “progress should be made through bilateral consultations and [that] it hoped that this could be achieved for a swift outcome,”79 was new. Yet, they must be seen within a larger context of recent political developments in France.

President Emmanuel Macron: a new start to French cultural diplomacy with Africa? Following the election in June 2017 of French President Emmanuel Macron (b. 1977) came new expressions of support for post-colonial cultural property return to Africa. As leader of the new Party, La République en Marche (Republic on the Move), Macron’s policies have been aimed at improving France’s economy (by lowering unemployment and government spending, and raising economic growth through investment in skills and training, environmental reform and other sectors). In foreign relations with Africa, Macron planned to increase overseas aid and review military bases. And as part of efforts to promote French culture, Macron also planned to make the French language the main qualification for gaining French nationality, to train religious leaders in France’s “secular values” and to support Francophone institutions abroad.80 The latter were confirmed in August 2017 when Macron spoke to France’s 170 ambassadors, reportedly saying that Africa was at the core of his foreign policy, and establishing an eleven-member advisory group, or Presidential Council for Africa. Then, in early 2018, he pledged 200 million euros for the Global Partnership for Education in developing countries.81 In November 2017, however, Macron surprised African officials and students in a speech at the University of Ouagadougou in Burkino Faso when he reportedly said, I cannot accept that a large part of the cultural heritage of several African countries is in France […] There are historical explanations for this but there is no valid, lasting and unconditional justification. African heritage cannot be only in private collections and European museums. It must be showcased in Paris, but also in Dakar, Lagos, Cotonou. This will be one of my priorities.82 Furthermore, he said, In the next five years, I want the conditions to be met for the temporary or permanent restitution of African heritage to Africa. [… and pledging,] African heritage cannot be a prisoner of European museums.83

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Macron’s appearance in Ouagadougou has been seen as part of his efforts to redefine France’s relationship with its former colonies, Burkino Faso and Ivory Coast, and his travels there also included a first time visit to the Anglophone country of Ghana, and a visit to Lagos for a “Celebration of African Culture” where he announced plans to host the “Seasons of African Cultures 2020.”84 Yet, Macron also followed up a few months later in early March 2018, when he announced in an appearance with Patrice Talon (b. 1959), President of Benin—a country invaded in 1892 by France and subsequently governed as a colony until 1960—the appointment of two consultants to prepare a report on the question of the repatriation of African artifacts from French museums.85 The consultants were the Senegalese writer and economist, Felwine Sarr (University of Gaston Berger of Saint-Louis), and the French art historian, Bénédicte Savoy (Technical University of Berlin and the Collège de France). When their report emerged in late November 2018, it included a wide-ranging and far-reaching discussion of colonial-era losses and unfulfilled claims for redress through returns.86 Having travelled to Mali, Senegal, Cameroon and Benin, as well as researched collections in the Musée du Quai Branly–Jacques Chirac in Paris, they concluded that forty-six thousand of the ninety thousand African works in French museums were acquired during the colonial period, between 1885 and 1960.87 Their Recommendations included, therefore, permanently returning objects that cannot be proved to have been taken legitimately, not on long-term loan; changing French law to allow restitution of cultural works to Africa; and as a start, returning palace doors, thrones and statues stolen from Abomey (the capital of the Kingdom of Dahomey from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century), which had long been requested by Benin.88 The Report also suggested a role for French experts, saying that, “restitution should be part of a collaborative process of information gathering, research, scientific exchange and training in the next five years.”89 In response, President Macron’s initial reaction was to announce that twenty-six objects looted in 1892 by French colonial forces would be returned by the Quai Branly Museum to Benin. He also assigned French Ministers of Culture and Foreign Affairs to ensure the accessibility of cultural treasures from sub-Saharan Africa “through restitutions, but also exhibitions, exchanges and loans,” and to convene an international conference in early 2019 on the subject.90 Reportedly, the conference will bring together “African and European museum managers and cultural professionals to ensure that works of art circulate not only among the major museums of the world […] but also on the African continent.”91 While these developments have been met with excitement in the press, the findings of the report became a source of disagreement for the President of the Quai Branly Museum, Stéphane Martin (b. 1971), who reportedly said that it was, “a bad answer to the courageous question posed by the President. […] While restitution was ‘not a word that I’m scandalized by’ […] there are ‘other ways to engage in cultural cooperation with Africa.’”

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Martin also said, reportedly, that it was his suggestion to President Macron, “that the 26 objects from his museum be returned to Benin,” and that, “museums must not be hostages to the painful history of colonization.”92 As the novelty of Macron’s gestures settle down, into what may or may not become a further reconsideration of the French government’s response to post-colonial cultural property return claims, further critical historical research will be needed to assess their particular dynamics and meanings in the wider scheme of French cultural diplomacy with African countries. In France, as in the Netherlands beyond the 1970s, any conclusions that may be drawn about future returns or national museums policy will depend on the available wisdom of the time, knowledge of changing contexts of politics and diplomacy, and the application of new approaches in historical analysis.

Dutch projects since the 1970s: a mirror of international change In the Netherlands, due to its seemingly radical departure from the status quo of the 1960s and 1970s, when former colonial powers largely resisted making returns, some scholars concluded that the Dutch government’s approach to returning cultural property to Indonesia had played a part in promoting the ethical ideals proposed in the UNGA and UNESCO. Writing on the decolonization of Dutch museums in the late 1980s, for example, anthropologist Christina F. Kreps agreed with earlier positive assessments, concluding that, “The Rijksmuseum Voor Volkenkunde had been involved in the movement for several years, and in fact, it was one of the first ethnographic museums in the world to confront the issue of cultural restitution.”93 Crediting the museum for cooperating with the Dutch and Indonesian governments, Kreps explained that, the Rijksmuseum negotiated the return of a number of “objects with a strong historical as well as emotional value.” After a series of meetings in Den Haag in 1977, it was agreed that the Lombok Treasures … or the Hindu-Javanese sculptures from Singasari in the Rijksmuseum [voor Volkenkunde] would be returned to Indonesia. Other objects were to be transferred over a period of five years. According to P.H. Pott, then director of the museum, the restitution program “has proved … acceptable to both parties; it has also had a beneficial effect upon the cultural relations between both countries.”94 In Kreps’ analysis, the reason for the involvement of the Leiden museum was that it had been affected by the wider “crisis in anthropology and … growing criticism of the discipline,” which questioned the ethics of museum practices such as collecting cultural property of non-Western people, of exhibiting collections outside of their cultural contexts, of maintaining possession or returning collections to countries or cultures of origin and more

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generally of owning and using the cultural property of other cultures.95 Furthermore, while Kreps recognized the strains characterizing international relations between the two countries since Indonesia’s independence in 1949, she also declared that the Leiden museum had been part of the international “cultural restitution” movement that began, … in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when new nations of the Third World began to recognize the consequences of Western cultural imperialism. Many countries started to demand the return of cultural property that had been removed from their territories during colonial domination. Such property was seen as a vital link with a precolonial past and necessary for the rebuilding of a new cultural identity.96 As for the Dutch cultural property return policy, Kreps wrote, “continued cooperation has taken place between museums and respective ministries of culture regarding the rights to and exchange of cultural property,” since the establishment of a new cultural agreement in 1968.97 Furthermore, by the time Kreps visited the Netherlands in the 1980s she concluded from personal observations and interviews that Dutch museum anthropologists had increasingly recognized the ethical dilemmas that infused their work and their relations to non-Western people. As a result, their practices had changed, she said, “to take people and not just objects, into consideration.”98 While rightly situating the Leiden museum within the period of ethical questioning about colonial anthropological collections, one limitation of Kreps’ formulation is that it was largely based on the politically neutral and only partial accounting provided by Pott and Sutaarga in 1979 of the history of the return agreement. The longer history of negotiations between the Netherlands and Indonesia, described in earlier chapters of this study, complicates any reading of the Leiden museum’s role in the broader cultural restitution movement and the specific negotiations that led to the Dutch returns. Therefore, while Kreps had considered the history of the returns to Indonesia within the diplomatic context of the international cultural agreement between the two countries, her assessment of the museum’s role in negotiating returns reinforced the institution’s UNESCO-fostered reputation as a driving force in the ethical re-appraisal of European ethnographic museums. Perhaps because of the UNGA and UNESCO advocacy at the time, the Dutch history of post-colonial museum restitution could been seen—in general rather than specific terms—as an ethical response to exploitation under colonial rule or foreign occupation. In other words, as Pott had feared, the Dutch-Indonesian case could be seen as setting an unfortunate precedent for other European museums. Nevertheless, the impulse by Kreps to situate the Dutch-Indonesian case within a wider historical context went further than earlier accounts, and it reflected an approach since the 1990s by historians—such as Elazar Barkan

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for example—to reposition post-colonial cultural property restitution claims emerging in the 1970s within a wider history of post-World War II negotiations over “historical justice.”99 That is, his analysis reassessed arguments that called for Western museums to return certain items based, not necessarily on international law, but on a post-colonial morality. According to Barkan, while the new morality largely changed perceptions of certain acquisition methods—such as colonial exploitation, and the purchase of plundered art—it also made those actions seem unjust, even if they were not strictly illegal at the time. Similarly, post-colonial claims for cultural property restitution provided what Barkan saw as a productive avenue for victimized groups to reconstitute their identities in the aftermath of historical injustice. In other words, The identity of these objects, even when separated from ownership, manifests the group’s history and tradition. [That is,] often the longing itself for these unavailable objects or sites constitutes an essential component of the group’s identity.100 Therefore, regardless of whether objects are returned, Barkan argued, unfulfilled claims provide not only a focal point for asserting a group’s contemporary identity, but they contribute to how its wider history is to be understood as well. At the same time—and it is this view that has informed the present study—Barkan’s insight raises the possibility of seeing both sides in such conflicts as engaged in a negotiation of identity and memory. As such, if the present study of the Dutch-Indonesian negotiations reveals anything, it is the deep historical connections made between national identity and Dutch colonial-era museums. In other words, the historical lens applied here helps expose the particular dynamics of post-colonial cultural property return negotiations, making it more possible to see how agreements between states—such as the Netherlands and Indonesia—may continue to seem partial, provisional and defiant of easy resolution. For, as the following examples show, even though the question of returns to Indonesia had received an answer in the 1970s, colonial-era collections in Dutch museums, as well as doubts about whether more returns should be made on the basis of post-colonial morality, remained. As a result, we can see the ongoing nature of the questioning that has surrounded issues of historical justice mediated through cultural diplomacy. In this case, it continued throughout the 1980s, when a range of scholars wove new threads into the discourse of post-colonial cultural property return by investigating how colonial-era collections had come to European museums. By the late 1980s, historical anthropologists across Europe had begun researching the colonial contexts in which collections had been amassed.101 And in the Netherlands, the struggle to address the history of colonial collecting led to new efforts to discover the origins in the former East Indies of Dutch museum collections.102

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Historical anthropology and the quest to retrace the origins of colonial collections One of the first volumes to deal with the politically sensitive subject of collecting in the Dutch East Indies entitled, Treasure Hunting? Collectors and Collections of Indonesian Artefacts,103 for example, emerged from a 1989 symposium at the Nusantara Foundation in Delft, which helped pave the way for further research.104 In this project—similar to Kreps’ approach— the editors connected the studies represented in the volume to the wider questioning of the purposes of ethnographic collections, which they said had forced ethnographic museums to consider whether their central focus should be history, art or even “Third World activism,” and what to do in the face of claims by countries for restitution of cultural heritage.105 Such questions, they explained, underpinned efforts to determine how objects were collected and sent to “the West,” and what were the roles of museums in housing them. The essays that emerged mainly focus on the histories and acquisition policies of the major museums of Indonesian ethnographic collections. However, they also explore the motives and methods of individual collectors, and include a discussion of the role of museums in Indonesia. Thus, while this scholarship expanded the conversation about the colonial cultures of collecting for European and, more specifically, Dutch anthropology museums, it also made a significant contribution to an ethical reconsideration of the history of anthropology and its role in colonial projects in Asia, Africa and the Americas. However, unlike the present study, it stressed the history and meaning of colonial collections acquisition, and their contemporary display, rather than the history and meaning of colonial collections within post-colonial cultural diplomacy and the national identity making of a former colonial power. Therefore, it can be seen as a response to the accusatory claims for post-colonial cultural property return. In this sense, it reflects conflicting professional impulses including, curiosity about the colonial past, but also a defensive hope that adapting attitudes and practices could help shore up the place of ethnographic museums in the post-colonial future. While such museum research projects continued in the 1980s to promote the positive cultural diplomacy established between the two countries in the 1970s, new political developments in the Netherlands began changing its character. When a severe economic recession struck in 1980, for example, the Dutch government cut subsidies to the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT), and development aid policies were amended according to an emerging neoliberal policy that envisioned the private sector as having a larger role to play, and the government having less. Aid programs were thus redirected, to move away from the “basic needs” of the poor, and toward the middle classes from whom development was supposed to “trickle down.”106 Under the Minister of Development Cooperation, Eegji Schoo (b. 1944) (of the Liberal-Democrat party, VVD, from late 1982 to mid-1986), Dutch aid

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programs received less funding as a whole, and Schoo retreated from the view propounded by the previous Minister of Development Cooperation, Jan Pronk, that development aid should reflect the “debt of honor” owed to Indonesia for the colonial past.107 One result of this change could be seen at the Tropenmuseum, where this policy ended up releasing curators from the strict view of programming, in which temporary exhibitions focused on foreign development needs, and enabling them to include the exploration of foreign “culture.” However, since this shift coincided with emerging conceptions of the role of traditional cultures in development processes, it also became possible again to display colonial objects from Dutch history at the museum as beautiful objects representing traditional cultures in the “Third World.”108 In the period between the mid- to late-1980s, therefore, the popularity of the Tropenmuseum’s cultural-oriented temporary exhibitions soared, with rising numbers of visitors.109 Throughout this period and beyond, the questioning of what the Dutch response to its colonial legacy should be continued to circulate within changing political and diplomatic contexts. Despite understanding of the DutchIndonesian case as having largely reinforced the ethics of post-colonial return expressed within the UNGA and UNESCO, the question of post-colonial cultural property return persisted more widely in public discourse. And in the Netherlands, it continued influencing conversations about the histories and ethics of colonial-era collecting for Dutch museums, how the country should understand its colonial past and any “debts” it might owe going forward. Detractors at home continued to criticize the Dutch state for falling short of redressing the historical injustices of colonialism, and the question of returning contested cultural property to Indonesia.

Critical responses to Dutch colonialism and the suspension of development aid to Indonesia in 1992 As part of a literary trend to raise awareness about injustices of the colonial past, for example, the Dutch writer Ewald Vanvugt has written about the return of the Lombok Treasure—obtained in 1894 by colonial troops as loot from the royal treasury of the defeated Balinese ruler on the island of Lombok.110 By tracing one hundred years in the life of the famous war booty, Vanvugt provided a critical view of the military expansionism that benefitted Dutch museums in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, while providing significant historical detail about Dutch cultural policies during the colonial period and its aftermath, as well as a potent critique of the spoils of colonial conquest, Vanvugt’s study did not give enough scope to the meaning of Dutch cultural policies in the postcolonial era. In some respects, Vanvugt’s critique labeled the Dutch state as hypocritical, without explaining the persistent appeal of Dutch learning about Indonesia, nor its relationship to post-colonial foreign policy-making.

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Nevertheless, both the highly contested contemporary international trade in protected cultural objects and antiquities—exported illicitly from poorer countries to the art markets and museums of the rich—as well as what some regard as the largely unfulfilled claims for post-colonial redress, reinforce the validity of his critique. At the same time, they continued to spur agitation over questions of historical justice for colonial exploitation. In subsequent years, as well, there were several notable political ruptures in the arrangements between Dutch and Indonesian officials for a post-colonial cultural diplomacy based on development aid. A major rift occurred in the aftermath of events in Dili, East Timor, a former Portuguese colony annexed by Indonesia in 1975. While Indonesia’s rule in the province had included human rights violations before, on November 12, 1991, the Indonesian army killed hundreds of Timorese (following the funeral of a Timorese youth), and shot an Australian reporter. International media coverage based on BBC filming of events led to condemnations by the UN and several governments. As a result, the Dutch parliament and government of Canada ordered the suspension of all new development cooperation projects with Indonesia. The two parliaments pressed other countries and multi-lateral organizations to punish Indonesia as well, and the government of Denmark—soon to take over presidency of the EU from the Netherlands—postponed aid. President Suharto, fearing such losses, despising Dutch influence in Indonesian affairs and needing to reinforce popular support domestically, decided to take defensive action. He aimed his ire in particular at Jan Pronk, the Dutch Minister of Development Cooperation, who chaired the aid syndicate known as the Inter-Governmental Group for Indonesia (IGGI), and who had long pressed the Indonesian government to curb human rights abuses. Soon after, through a series of diplomatic maneuvers, the Indonesian government ended the Dutch chairmanship of the IGGI, negotiated the launch of a new donor syndicate centered at the World Bank, and secured continuing support from a number of other foreign governments.111 It then suspended Dutch-funded development aid projects and demanded the recall to the home country of Dutch aid workers in Indonesia. Until then, as previous chapters have shown, the framework of agreements that had governed Dutch-Indonesian cooperation since the mid-1960s included a general agreement on Technical Cooperation (1964) which provided for bilateral development assistance to Indonesia. Discussed every year, Dutch and Indonesian delegations would decide funding levels, projects and activities to be outlined in Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) or Agreed Minutes.112 In 1964, a new ministry without portfolio was created for foreign aid policy-making, known as the Directorate of International Cooperation (DGIS). Its Minister of Development Cooperation headed the Dutch delegation, and the Indonesian delegates were sent from the Ministry of Finance and Economy, and the Planning Agency, BAPPENES. There were also agreements on Economic Cooperation and Cultural Cooperation (1968), which were renewed and populated with projects and activities on

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a bi-annual basis. Overall, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs continued to coordinate foreign policy (including maintaining responsibility for diplomatic posts internationally and representation in multilateral organizations, such as the UN and EU), with the Dutch parliament playing a large role in decision-making, often reacting later to decisions by the executive.113 However, as a result of the somewhat overlapping remits of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and of Development Cooperation since 1964, there had been conflicts over perceptions of responsibility. In 1992, these arrangements became problematic when events in East Timor led Foreign Minister Hans Van den Broek (b. 1936) to see Minister Jan Pronk as having overstepped his role in remarks Pronk made to the Indonesian government, linking development aid to human rights. In light of the rupture with Indonesia, and other imperatives at the time, the Department of Foreign Affairs underwent a major reorganization in 1995 in which the conduct and organization of foreign affairs was shifted away from objectives—such as foreign aid, diplomacy or economic affairs—and geared instead toward regions and countries. It also more clearly demarcated the respective roles of the Ministers of Development Cooperation and Foreign Affairs and outlined for the first time the objectives of Dutch foreign policy as a whole.114 While some had hoped the position of the Minister of Development Cooperation would have been downgraded into a state secretary function, the separate Ministry remained in place following elections in August 1998. To the Indonesian government, however, the diplomatic crisis of 1992 aimed to redefine bilateral cooperation with the Netherlands, especially in the area of development aid. By March 1992, all bilateral projects funded by the Dutch government under the Department of Development Cooperation (DGIS), Indonesia Bureau, were affected, and the bureau was closed by December.115 Since Dutch foreign cultural policy had been part of development cooperation—and included in funding from the DGIS—it also was affected by Suharto’s decision to end Dutch development aid projects that year. In response to the threat to cultural cooperation that came with Indonesia’s decision to end Dutch development aid, by September of 1992 the Dutch Minister of Education and Sciences, Jo Ritzen (b. 1945), travelled to Indonesia to meet with President Suharto in order to revive the Cultural Agreement. After talks with the Indonesian Minister of Education and Culture, Fuad Hasan (1929–2007), and then Minister of Research and Technology, B.J. Habibie (b. 1936), a MoU emerged outlining new cultural initiatives, followed by administrative arrangements and allocation of special funds.116 To address Suharto’s complaints, future projects were to display “equality” between, and “mutual benefit” to, both countries; meaning joint research projects which would serve strategic and economic interests, rather than education. At the time, this position meshed with Ritzen’s foreign policy stance, since Ritzen saw its main objective to be the economic interests of the Netherlands, and that cultural performances abroad were to represent

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the country’s “trademark,” not necessarily assistance to Indonesia.117 However, despite many visiting delegations on both sides, fewer projects were started, since they would have required Indonesia to contribute 50 percent of the funding. Some of the earlier projects were continued, while others were wrapped up.118

The end of the Suharto regime and beginning of the “Shared Cultural Heritage” concept in Dutch-Indonesian cultural diplomacy Within six years—in May 1998—the Suharto presidency came to a close in the wake of severe financial crisis. In the interim, Habibie became President, until the election of Abdurrahman Wahid and Megawati Sukarnoputri,119 in a period of transition in Indonesia. The new relationship between the Netherlands and Indonesia in the post-Suharto period continued to embrace the notions of “equality” between and “mutual benefit” to the Dutch and Indonesian governments, eventually giving rise to projects, such as the Shared Cultural Heritage (SCH), which carried forward some remnants of the Dutch interest in establishing the origins of museum collections.120 Yet as a shared cultural heritage project, it focused on exchanging information about the collections of the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, with the National Museum of Indonesia in Jakarta.121 The question of returns lurked in the shadows of the project too, however, as it became another extension of the need to establish how collections had come to the Netherlands, and whether this created any disproportionate gaps in Indonesian museum collections. For example, through the project Dutch and Indonesian researchers further reconstructed the history of collecting and the divisions made between the museums during the colonial period. They identified in particular several types of collectors and collecting contexts by which vast stores of objects had been assembled.122 These included scholarly expeditions and archaeological discoveries, colonial exhibitions and missionary work, gift giving by Indonesian princes to Dutch rulers and military interventions. Reflecting contemporary concerns about the ethics of colonial collecting practices these studies contributed important insights into colonial cultures, yet they gestured only lightly toward questions concerning the historical injustices of plundering and booty taking in colonial wars. And the understandable preoccupation with the origins of collections did not extend to interest in the more recent diplomacy of cultural property return. At the same time, while the notion of “shared cultural heritage” became a new conceptual framework for Dutch-Indonesian cultural diplomacy— including ongoing Dutch support for the National Museum of Indonesia in Jakarta—it continued to carry older Dutch conceptions with it, including valorization of a colonial past that gave rise to Dutch institutions and expertise (and by extension Indonesian institutions and expertise), to Dutch officials being seen as experts and benefactors supporting development of Indonesian repositories and to further validation of Indonesian

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governments—celebrated through Indonesian museums—as rightful successors to the Dutch.

The consolidation of Dutch anthropology museums and the reversal of “cultural relations as development aid” Additional changes emerged in late 2011, however, that would disrupt things even further. In a move that shook the Dutch museum world, Ben Knapen (b. 1951) (Christian Democratic Appeal, or CDA), the State Secretary for Foreign Affairs in charge of Development Cooperation, announced the suspension of government funding to the Tropenmuseum at the end of 2012.123 The government then revised this decision in 2014—after public debate and an administrative reorganization of the museum that included large-scale personnel layoffs—deciding instead to bring it together with the country’s other anthropology museums (the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden and the Afrika Museum in Berg en Dal) into one overarching National Museum of World Cultures (Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen, or NMVW).124 In 2017, the World Museum (Wereldmuseum) in Rotterdam also became part of the NMVW. At that time, the government also shifted responsibility for the museum out of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and into the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, and it nationalized the collections, which had been the property of the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT).125 The announcement surprised museum officials especially since it reflected Knapen’s view that museum funding should not come out of the Dutch development aid budget.126 This reversal went against long-standing notions of cultural relations as development aid that had emerged in the post-World War II era, and in the years when the Netherlands was deepening its cultural diplomacy with Suharto’s Indonesia. As mentioned previously, the connection made between cultural relations and development aid deeply affected the Tropenmuseum, whose exhibitions history between 1950 and 1990 came to reflect the various shifting conceptions of international development cooperation, all of which were funded by Dutch development aid.127 The reconfiguration of Dutch ethnographic museums in the 2010s, therefore, can be seen as marking a new phase in the relationship between Dutch statecraft and the country’s national museums. The more recent Minister of Development Cooperation, Lilianne Plouman (b. 1962) of the Labor Party, advocated the further drawdown of the Dutch foreign aid budget as a whole, with the caveat that greater “trade investments in developing countries” would compensate for the reductions.128 Such ideas have been criticized as a new form of “trade imperialism” and have shocked those officials and scholars who have understood and embraced the logic, as well as the historical traditions, that have tied together trade relations and development aid since the post-World War II period.129 While the history of Dutch political and diplomatic changes reflected in budget reductions and reorganizations of the country’s anthropology museums awaits its full telling

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in the years to come, it can be said that the government’s moves have signaled another shift in its use of museums in international relations, whether it be for cultural diplomacy or for domestic political concerns.

The persistence of claims for historical justice and new understandings of post-colonial cultural diplomacy Despite these political and diplomatic changes, however, the belief in the Netherlands that more needs to be done to make amends for the colonial past has persisted, for example, in work of the journalist and historian Jos Van Beurden, who recently proposed that a new process of conflict resolution be initiated in Europe around the question of repatriation of colonial cultural objects.130 In Van Beurden’s analysis, the moral question of post-colonial returns to formerly colonized countries remains unanswered, and furthermore he argued, the few returns that were made in earlier years did not go far enough in meeting the moral obligation to make amends for the violence that underpinned colonial collecting. Van Beurden’s work stands as a poignant reminder that the numerous dilemmas typical of our post-colonial era continue to resist easy resolution. More could be done, he has argued, starting with a conflict resolution process to reconcile solutions developed for addressing other historical injustices against cultural property—such as Nazi-era art looting, and the collecting of human remains and sacred materials of indigenous groups—with those committed in other colonial and imperial contexts. Van Beurden’s appeal to the moral rather than strictly legal basis for returning colonial cultural objects also echoes arguments for redress that have been made before, and especially since, the 1970s. However, should a process of conflict resolution be initiated—in bilateral negotiations between individual countries—such as the Netherlands and Indonesia—or multilaterally within the EU, should it take up the question—it would add a new page to the history of Dutch-Indonesian cultural diplomacy, and potentially, to the relationship of the EU to formerly colonized countries. At the same time, alternative research approaches have also emerged that are focused on tracing “both sides” of return controversies. The art historian Sarah Van Beurden, for example, saw the conflict over returns from Belgium to Congo/Zaire in the 1960s and 1970s less in the ethical terms defined in UNGA and UNESCO advocacy, and more in terms of what the various players were trying to do—politically, culturally and diplomatically— when they engaged in debates over post-colonial cultural property return. To Van Beurden, objects and collections—amassed in Belgium in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century from the colonial Congo Free State (1885–1908) and its successor, the Belgian Congo (1908–1960)—were redefined after decolonization as cultural and national heritage of Congo/Zaire. This process echoed colonial processes through which Belgian officials had sought to “legitimate political power through the stewardship of cultural heritage,” a process Van Beurden termed, “cultural guardianship.”131

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After decolonization, Van Beurden argued, President Mobutu (who took over the newly independent Republic of the Congo (Leopoldville) by coup, renaming it Zaire in the mid-1970s), reinvented this strategy in order to remake traditional Congolese cultures into national and world heritage, and to use them as political tools to frame a culturally sovereign Zaire as an “appropriate guardian for the country’s cultural heritage.”132 Like the cultural diplomacy of the Netherlands and Indonesia considered in the present study, cooperation between Belgian and Congolese/Zairian cultural officials depended on who was in power, and their cooperation on the development of a national museum in Africa went more smoothly in the early years of Mobutu’s rule, when Belgian institutions were accepted as offering aid, and Mobutu was seen as someone to be supported. In the early 1970s when Mobutu changed the Belgian narrative of their “giving a gift,” his complaints about colonial plunder, and demands for post-colonial redress framed as “restitution” to bolster his cultural authenticity campaign, made cultural relations more difficult for Belgian officials to sustain.133 In addition, similar to what had happened when Suharto came to power in Indonesia, the rise of the Mobutu regime (in the aftermath of the Belgian-assisted assassination of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba (1925–1961)) helped pave the way for cooperation between cultural officials in the newly independent state. Studies such as Van Beurden’s, therefore, illustrate that focusing more closely on the specific dynamics of post-colonial cultural diplomacy makes it easier to begin drawing comparisons between cases, beyond the conceptual constraints of the “universalism” vs. “nationalism” debate.

Conclusion Much has changed in the post-World War II and post-colonial era when it comes to cultural diplomacy and the heritage of empire. The challenges to and transformations in European internationalism have questioned, but not necessarily changed, the legacies of the colonial past. Yet, the terms of the debate have broadened to include those who call for some form of moral redress from Europe’s colonial-rooted museums. When used as a historical lens, therefore, the Dutch-Indonesian case elaborated in this study illustrates some of the insights that can be gained by going beyond the generalizations typified by the “universalism” vs. “nationalism” debates. However, it also raises some questions about the degree to which such seemingly “successful” cases may have fallen short of ideals propounded within the UNGA and UNESCO. There continue to be debates at the national level— including within the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium and elsewhere—and when these are viewed as falling short, appeals have been made to international ideals to reinvigorate moral claims and bring international pressure to bear. At the same time, recent policies in the Netherlands have raised questions about how changing attitudes toward the Dutch role in the world will affect Dutch museums. While the historical analysis of this

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moment awaits it future telling, cuts in international development aid budgets and reductions and reconfigurations of anthropology museums marked yet another new phase in both national identity making, and Dutch memory of the colonial past in the former East Indies.

Notes 1 Chief DCV, Copi-Memorandum to DOA, September 24, 1974. BZ 1965–74, NAN. Access No. 2.05.313. Component No. 9171. 2 Chief DCV, Copi-Memorandum to DOA, September 24, 1974. BZ 1965–74, NAN. 3 Pott to Meijer, March 13, 1974. RMV, File Series 2364 on transfer to Indonesia, 1977. 4 Tim Winter, “Heritage Diplomacy,” International Journal of Heritage Studies 21, no. 10 (2015), 1002. 5 Ibid. 6 Jeanette Greenfield, The Return of Cultural Treasures, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Greenfield included a wide range of disputes besides those related to British imperialism, including the Nazi era, other armed conflicts and important developments in relevant international cultural property law. 7 Ibid., 91. 8 Ibid. In addition to the “Elgin Marbles” dispute, Greenfield cited other disputes with Great Britain, including Egypt for the Sphinx’s beard; Ghana for Ashanti Gold; Nigeria for the Benin Bronzes; Pakistan/India for the Koh-i-noor diamond; India for Ranjit Singh’s throne; Sri Lanka for bronze statues, ivories and manuscripts; Australia for Aboriginal skulls; Zambia and Kenya for fossil remains of early humans; Scotland for the Stone of Scone; China for the Aurel Stein Collection from Tunhuang; New Zealand for the Taranaki Panels and the Ortiz Case and India for the London (Pathur) Sivapuram Nataraja. See: Ibid., 113–56. 9 Committee for the Reunification (formerly Restitution) of the Parthenon Marbles, accessed February 19, 2019, https://www.parthenonuk.com; Ian Jenkins, The Parthenon Sculptures (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007); Yannis Hamilakis, “Stories from Exile: Fragments from the Cultural Biography of the Parthenon (or ‘Elgin’) Marbles,” World Archaeology 31, no. 2 (October 1999): 303–20; Dorothy King, The Elgin Marbles (London: Hutchinson, 2006); William St. Clair, Lord Elgin and the Marbles: The Controversial History of the Parthenon Sculptures (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967, 1998); Christopher Hitchens, Imperial Spoils: The Curious Case of the Elgin Marbles (New York: Hill & Wang, 1988); Christopher Hitchens, The Parthenon Marbles: The Case for Reunification (New York: Verso Books, updated ed., 2008). 10 E. Russell Chamberlin, Loot!: The Heritage of Plunder (London: Hudson Ltd., 1983), 8, 235. 11 John H. Merryman, “Thinking About the Elgin Marbles,” Michigan Law Review 83, no. 8 (August 1985): 1881–1923. Subsequently: John H. Merryman, Thinking about the Elgin Marbles: Critical Essays on Cultural Property, Art and Law (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 2000, 2009). 12 See for example, “Declaration on the Importance and Value of Universal Museums,” ICOM News 1 (2004): 4, accessed April 15, 2014, http://icom.museum/ fileadmin/user_upload/pdf/ICOM-News/2004-1/ENG/p4_2004-1.pdf. John H. Merryman, ed., Imperialism, Art and Restitution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

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13 James Cuno, Who Owns Antiquity? Museums and the Battle Over Our Ancient Heritage (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008); Neil Brodie and Kathryn Walker Tubb, eds., Illicit Antiquities: The Theft of Culture and the Extinction of Archaeology (New York: Routledge, 2002). 14 Greenfield, The Return of Cultural Treasures; John H. Merryman, “Cultural Property Internationalism,” International Journal of Cultural Property 12, no. 1 (May 2005): 11–39; Joe Watkins, “Cultural Nationalists, Internationalists, and ‘Intra-nationalists’: Who’s Right and Whose Right?,” International Journal of Cultural Property 12, no. 1 (May 2005): 78–94; Lyndel V. Prott, “The International Movement of Cultural Objects,” International Journal of Cultural Property 12, no. 2 (August 2005): 225–48; Merryman, Imperialism, Art and Restitution; Cuno, Who Owns Antiquity?; Lyndel V. Prott, ed., Witnesses to History: A Compendium of Documents and Writings on the Return of Cultural Objects (Paris: UNESCO, 2009). 15 British Museum Act 1963, Fourth Schedule Repeals, accessed February 18, 2019, http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1963/24/schedule/FOURTH/ enacted?view=plain. 16 British Museum Act 1963, accessed February 18, 2019, https://www .britishmuseum.org/PDF/BM1963Act.pdf. 17 Greenfield, The Return of Cultural Treasures, 115–23. 18 Ibid., 115. 19 Ibid., 123–6. 20 Ibid., 110. 21 Staffan Lundén, “Displaying Loot: The Benin Objects and the British Museum” (PhD diss., Gothenburg University, 2016); Ian Hernon, The Savage Empire: Forgotten Wars of the 19th Century (Stroud: Sutton Publishing Limited, 2000), 155–72. 22 Elazar Barkan, “Aesthetics and Evolution: Benin Art in Europe,” African Arts 20, no. 3 (Summer 1997): 36–41. See also: African Arts 30, no. 3, Special Issue: The Benin Centenary, Part I (Summer 1997); African Arts 30, no. 4, Special Issue: The Benin Centenary, Part II (Autumn 1997). 23 Annie E. Coombes, Reinventing Africa: Museums, Material Culture and Popular Imagination in Late Victorian and Edwardian England (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1994). 24 “Nigeria: History,” accessed February 18, 2019, The Commonwealth, http:// thecommonwealth.org/our-member-countries/nigeria/history. 25 Ekpo Eyo, “Nigeria,” Museum 31, no. 1 (1979): 18. William Buller Fagg was an ethnologist and art historian who became Assistant Keeper of Anthropology, British Museum (1938–40), seconded to Industries and Manufactures Department Board of Trade (1940–45), Assistant Keeper of Anthropology, British Museum (1944–55), Deputy Keeper (1955–69), Keeper Ethnography Department (from 1972 the Museum of Mankind) (1969–74). He was also a Consulting Fellow, Museum of Primitive Art New York (1957–70), CMG (1967) and Consultant in Tribal Art, Christie’s (1974–90). Frank Willett, “Obituary: William Fagg,” The Independent, July 14, 1992. 26 Martin Bailey, “British Museum Sold Benin Bronzes,” The Art Newspaper, March 4, 2002, accessed February 18, 2019, https://www.forbes.com/2002/ 04/03/0403conn.html#380b131c41aa; Dalya Alberge, “Museum Sold Benin Bronzes for ₤75 Each,” The Times, March 27, 2002; “Benin Bronzes Sold to Nigeria,” BBC News, March 27, 2002. 27 Bailey, “British Museum Sold Benin Bronzes.” 28 Eyo, “Nigeria,” 21. 29 Ibid., 18.

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30 Dalya Alberge, “President’s Priceless Gift for Queen was National Treasure,” The Times, February 18, 2005. 31 Dalya Alberge, “Bronzes at Heart of Tussle for African Art,” The Times, December 9, 2001. 32 “The British and the Benin Bronzes,” Africa Reparations Movement UK (ARM), accessed January 14, 2016, http://www.arm.arc.co.uk/biritshBenin.html. See: Bernie Grant Archive, Bishopsgate Institute Library, London. See also: ARM materials retained by: Black Cultural Archives (BCA), Reference: GB 1443 ARM. See: https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/data/gb1443-arm (accessed February 18, 2019). 33 UNESCO Doc. CLT/CH/4.82, CLT.82/WS/21. Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation, “Return and Restitution of Cultural Property; A Brief Resume,” Paris, June 11, 1982, 6. 34 UNESCO Doc. CLT.83/CONF.216/8, CLT.83/CONF.216/COL.6. Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation, “Final Report,” Third Session, Istanbul, Turkey, May 9–12, 1983, 7. 35 UNESCO Doc. CLT.83/CONF.216/8, CLT.83/CONF.216/COL.6, 8. 36 Folarin Shyllon, “The Recovery of Cultural Objects by African States Through the UNESCO and UNIDROIT Conventions and the Role of Arbitration,” Uniform Law Review 5, no. 2 (April 2000), 219–40. 37 Ibid., 221. 38 UNESCO Doc. 23 C/87. General Conference, 23rd Session, Sofia, 1985, “Report by the Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation,” Summary of the proceedings of the fourth session, Athens and Delphi, April 2–5, 1985, 3. See: A. Decker, “Protecting Africa’s Heritage [conference in three African countries on the state of museums in Africa],” Art News 90 (April 1991), 63–65; Dele Jegede, “Nigerian Art as Endangered Species,” in Plundering Africa’s Past, ed. Peter R. Schmidt, and Roderick J. McIntosh (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996). 39 UNESCO Doc. 24 C/94. General Conference, 24th Session, Paris, 1987, “Report by the Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation,” Summary of the proceedings of the fifth session, Paris, April 27–30, 1987, 8. 40 Paul M. Bator, The International Trade in Art (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983); Lisa J. Borodkin, “The Economics of Antiquities Looting and a Proposed Legal Alternative,” Columbia Law Review 95, no. 2 (March 1995): 377–417; Joseph L. Sax, Playing Darts With a Rembrandt: Public and Private Rights in Cultural Treasures (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001); Cuno, Who Owns Antiquity?; Janet Blake, “On Defining the Cultural Heritage,” The International and Comparative Law Quarterly 49, no. 1 (January 2000): 61–85; Brodie and Walker Tubb, Illicit Antiquities; Neil Brodie, Jennifer Doyle, and Colin Renfrew, eds. Trade in Illicit Antiquities: The Destruction of the World’s Archaeological Heritage (Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 2001); Clemency Coggins, “Illicit Traffic of PreColumbian Antiquities,” Art Journal (New York) 29 (Autumn 1969): 94, 96, 98, 114; John H. Merryman and Albert E. Elsen, “International Movement of Stolen or Smuggled Works of Art,” Law, Ethics and the Visual Arts (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1980); John H. Merryman, “‘Protection’ of the Cultural ‘Heritage’?,” The American Journal of Comparative Law 38, Supplement.

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Post-colonial cultural property return debates (1990): 513–22; John H. Merryman, “The Free International Movement of Cultural Property,” New York University Journal of International Law and Policy 31, no. 1 (1998): 4–14; John H. Merryman, “The UNIDROIT Convention: Three Significant Departures from the Urtext,” International Journal of Cultural Property 5, no. 1 (1996): 11–18; Karl E. Meyer, The Plundered Past: The Story of the Illegal International Traffic in Works of Art (New York: Atheneum, 1973); Patrick J. O’Keefe, Trade in Antiquities: Reducing Destruction and Theft (Paris: UNESCO Pub., 1997); Colin Renfrew, Loot, Legitimacy, and Ownership: The Ethical Crisis in Archaeology (London: Duckworth, 2000); Jürgen Schick, The Gods are Leaving the Country: Art Theft from Nepal (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998); Peter R. Schmidt and Roderick J. McIntosh, eds., Plundering Africa’s Past (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996). Ana Filipa Vrdoljak, International Law, Museums and the Return of Cultural Objects (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 97. Greenfield, The Return of Cultural Treasures, 261. See also: Andrzej Jakubowski, State Succession in Cultural Property (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). See: Barkan, “Aesthetics and Evolution.” Anthony Gifford, “The Legal Basis of the Claim for Reparations,” A paper presented to the First Pan-African Congress on Reparations, Abuja, Federal Republic of Nigeria, April 27–29, 1993, accessed February 18, 2019, http://www.shaka.mistral.co.uk/legalbasis.htm. Ibid. United Kingdom. Hansard Parliamentary Debates, vol. 570, Slavery: Legacy Debate in Lords Chamber, March 14, 1996. See also: The official record from Hansard of the debate initiated by Lord Gifford QC in the House of Lords of the British Parliament on 14th March 1996 concerning the African reparations, accessed February 18, 2019, http://www.shaka.mistral.co.uk/lordhansard.htm. Bernie Grant to Julian Spalding, regarding: African Religious and Cultural Objects, December 10, 1996; Julian Spalding to Bernie Grant, regarding: African Religious and Cultural Objects, January 10, 1997, ARM, accessed January 14, 2016, http://www.arm.arc.co.uk/biritshBenin.html. See: Bernie Grant Archive, Bishopsgate Institute Library, London. See also: ARM materials retained by: Black Cultural Archives (BCA), Reference: GB 1443 ARM, accessed February 18, 2019. https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/data/gb1443-arm. Emmanuel N. Arinze to Julian Spalding, regarding: Return of Benin Objects to the Oba of Benin, January 22, 1997, accessed January 14, 2016, http://www .arm.arc.co.uk/biritshBenin.html. See: Bernie Grant Archive, Bishopsgate Institute Library, London. See also: ARM materials retained by: Black Cultural Archives (BCA), Reference: GB 1443 ARM. On Emmanuel N. Arinze see: http://www.maltwood.uvic.ca/cam/archived_news/20050210_memoriam_ arinze.html (accessed February 19, 2019). Heather Holloway, “African Royalty Demands Return of Ancient Stolen Treasures,” Blink (Black Information Link), March 26, 2004, accessed January 14, 2006, http://www.blink.org.uk/print.asp?key=3116. Jeffrey Kastner, “Returns Policy” [art restitution claims, New York and London], Art News 96 (May 1997): 96. James Oqunley, “Let’s Keep the Flame Burning,” West Africa, October 27– November 9, 1997, reproduced by the ARM, BCA, Reference: GB 1443 ARM. “Labor MP Bernie Grant Dies,” BBC News, April 8, 2000, accessed February 18, 2019, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/706394.stm. United Kingdom. House of Commons Publications and Records, Vol. I (HC 371-I). Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, Seventh Report, July 25, 2000, Appendix 21, “The Case of Benin, Memorandum submitted by

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Prince Edun Akenzua,” accessed February 18, 2019, http://www.publications .parliament.uk/pa/cm199900/cmselect/cmcumeds/371/37102.htm. Alberge, “Bronzes at Heart of Tussle for African Art.” “Nigeria Demands Treasures Back,” BBC News, January 24, 2002. Holloway, “African Royalty Demands Return of Ancient Stolen Treasures.” United Kingdom. House of Commons Publications and Records, Vol. I (HC 371I). Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, Seventh Report. See also: UNESCO Doc. CLT.2001/CONF.202/2, CLT.2001/CONF.202/CLD.2. Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation,11th Session, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, March 6–9, 2001, “Secretariat Report,” 4. United Kingdom. House of Commons Publications and Records, Vol. I (HC 371-I). Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, Seventh Report. Ibid. Ibid. Elazar Barkan and Ronald Bush, eds., Claiming the Stones, Naming the Bones: Cultural Property and the Negotiation of National and Ethnic Identity (Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Trust, 2002); Elazar Barkan, The Guilt of Nations: Restitution and Negotiating Historical Injustices (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000); Tamara L. Bray and Thomas W. Killion, eds., Reckoning with the Dead (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994); Michael F. Brown, Who Owns Native Culture? (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003); Miriam Clavir, “Reflections on Changes in Museums and the Conservation of Collections from Indigenous Peoples,” Journal of the American Institute for Conservation 35, no. 2 (Summer, 1996): 99–107; Cressida Fforde, Jane Hubert, and Paul Turnbull, eds., The Dead and Their Possessions: Repatriation in Principle, Policy, and Practice (New York: Routledge, 2002); Isabel McBryde, ed., Who Owns the Past? Papers from the Annual Symposium of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, 14th Symposium, 1983, Canberra (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985); Ian J. McNiven and Lynette Russell, Appropriated Pasts: Indigenous Peoples and the Colonial Culture of Archaeology (Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2005); Phyllis Mauch Messenger, ed., The Ethics of Collecting Cultural Property: Whose Culture? Whose Property (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1989); Bruce H. Ziff and Pratima V. Rao, eds., Borrowed Power: Essays on Cultural Appropriation (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1997); Vrdoljak, International Law, Museums and the Return of Cultural Objects; Louise Tythacott and Kostos Arvanitis, eds., Museums and Restitution: New Practices, New Approaches (New York: Routledge, 2016); Paul Turnbull and Michael Pickering, eds., The Long Way Home: the Meaning and Values of Repatriation (New York: Berghahn Books, 2010). United Kingdom. House of Commons Publications and Records, Vol. I (HC 371-I). Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, Seventh Report. Anthony Mason, “Ethical Dilemmas for Charities,” Inaugural lecture for the Institute of Philanthropy, University College London, Art, Antiquity and Law 8, no. 1 (March 2003): 1–25. UNESCO Doc. CLT.2003/CONF.204/CLD.2, CLT.2003/CONF.204/2. Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation, 12th Session, Paris, March 25–28, 2003, “Secretariat Report,” 3. Peter Fray, “Museums Get Tough on ‘Trophy’ Returns,” The Age, December 11, 2002, accessed February 18, 2019, http://www.elginism.com/similar-cases/ universal-museums-declaration-aims-to-block-artefact-restitution/20021211/ 4623/. Neil MacGregor was director of the National Gallery in London

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Post-colonial cultural property return debates (1987–2002), and director the British Museum (2002–2015). Hartwig Fischer, previously director of the Dresden State Art Collections (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden), succeeded MacGregor as Director of the British Museum in spring 2016. Stuart Jeffries, “A Private View,” The Guardian, October 22, 2005. Kenan Malik, “Analysis: Who Owns Culture?” BBC Radio 4, Transcript of broadcast, July 29, 2004, accessed February 18, 2019, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/ hi/programmes/analysis/3918399.stm. For an extensive critique of such views see: Lundén, “Displaying Loot.” Kieron Monks, “Benin Bronzes: Will Britain Return Nigeria’s Stolen Treasures?,” CNN, June 29, 2018, accessed February 17, 2019, https://www.cnn .com/2018/06/29/africa/nigerias-stolen-treasures/index.html. Ibid. Ibid. Kieron Monks, “British Museum to Return Benin Bronzes to Nigeria,” CNN.com, November 22, 2018; updated December 14, 2018, accessed February 17, 2019, https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/26/africa/africa-uk-benin-bronzereturn-intl/index.html. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. James Tapsfield, “Corbyn Says He Wants to Hand the ‘Stolen’ Elgin Marbles Back to Greece if He Becomes Prime Minister,” Daily Mail, June 3, 2018, accessed February 17, 2019, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article5800747/Corbyn-says-wants-hand-stolen-Elgin-Marbles-Greece.html. Ibid. UNESCO Doc. ICPRCP/18/21.COM/Decisions. Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation, 21st Session, Paris, May 30–31, 2018, 2–4. Anny Shaw with Gareth Harris, “Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn Pledges to Return Parthenon Sculptures to Greece,” The Art Newspaper, June 4, 2018, accessed February 17, 2019, https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/labourleader-jeremy-corbyn-pledges-to-return-parthenon-marbles-to-greece. UNESCO Doc. ICPRCP/18/21.COM/Report. Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation, 21st Session, Paris, May 30–31, 2018, 13. “Emmanuel Macron: What are the French President’s Policies?,” BBC News, May 10, 2017, accessed February 17, 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/worldeurope-39845905. Khatya Chhor, “Macron’s Soft Power Push in Africa is Key to ‘Making France Great Again,’” France24, March 7, 2018, updated April 7, 2018, accessed February 17, 2019, https://www.france24.com/en/20180703-macron-soft-powerpush-africa-make-france-great-again-global-influence-diplomacy. Ruth Maclean, “France Urged to Change Heritage Law and Return Looted Art to Africa: Report Commissioned by Macron Recommends Restitution of Artworks Taken During Colonial Era,” The Guardian, November 21, 2018. Analisa Quinn, “After a Promise to Return African Artifacts, France Moves Toward a Plan,” New York Times, March 6, 2018. Chhor, “Macron’s Soft Power Push in Africa.” Maclean, “France Urged to Change Heritage Law.” Felwine Sarr and Bénédicte Savoy, “Rapport sur la restitution du patrimoine culturel africain. Vers une nouvell éthique relationnell,” November 2018; Felwine

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94 95 96 97 98 99

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Sarr and Bénédicte Savoy, “The Restitution of African Cultural Heritage. Toward a New Relational Ethics,” trans. Drew S. Burk, November 2018, accessed February 18, 2019, http://restitutionreport2018.com/sarr_savoy_en.pdf. Ibid. Ibid. Farah Nayeri, “Museums in France Should Return African Treasures, Report Says,” New York Times, November 21, 2018. Farah Nayeri, “Return of African Artifacts Sets a Tricky Precedent for Europe’s Museums,” New York Times, November 27, 2018. Nayeri, “Return of African Artifacts Sets a Tricky Precedent.” The possible connection between talk of returns to Africa and French foreign policy, under Macron, brings to mind discussions of the 2008 Friendship Treaty struck by Italy with Libya, suspended in 2011 and renewed in 2018, which included postcolonial cultural property return. See: Chiara De Cesari, “The Paradoxes of Colonial Reparation: Foreclosing Memory and the 2008 Italy–Libya Friendship Treaty,” Memory Studies 5, no. 3 (2012): 316–26. Nayeri, “Return of African Artifacts Sets a Tricky Precedent.” See also: Naomi Rea, “A French Museum Director Pushes Back Against a Radical Report Calling on Macron to Return Looted African Art,” Artnet, November 28, 2018, accessed February 17, 2019, https://news.artnet.com/art-world/quai-branlypresident-macron-africa-restitution-report-1404364; Anna Codrea-Rado, “African Officials Respond to France’s Restitution Report,” New York Times, November 30, 2019. On the Quai Branly Museum–Jacques Chirac see: Sally Price, Paris Primitive: Jacques Chirac’s Museum on the Quai Branly (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007). Christina F. Kreps, “Decolonizing Anthropology Museums: The Dutch Example” (master’s thesis, University of Oregon, 1988), fn. 54, citing Nooter, interview with the author; Alma Robinson, “The Repatriation Dilemma,” Museum News (March/April 1980): 55–59; and Pott, Peter H. and Mohammad Amir Sutaarga, “Arrangements Concluded or in Progress for the Return of Objects: The Netherlands-Indonesia,” Museum 31, no. 1 (1979): 38–42. Kreps, “Decolonizing Anthropology Museums,” fn. 55, citing Robinson, “The Repatriation Dilemma.” Ibid., 73. Ibid., 74. Ibid., 74–75; fn. 56, citing Pott and Sutaarga, “Arrangements Concluded.” Ibid., 76. Barkan, The Guilt of Nations; Robert Peters, “‘Remedying Historical Injustice’: Ethical and Historical Considerations in Returning Cultural Materials,” in Cultural Heritage, Cultural Rights, Cultural Diversity: New Developments in International Law, ed. Silvia Borelli and Federico Lenzerini (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2012), 141–56; Lyndel V. Prott, “The Ethics and Law of Returns,” Museum International 61, no. 1/2 (May 2009): 101–6; Lyndel V. Prott and Patrick J. O’Keefe, “The History and Development of Processes for the Recovery of Cultural Heritage,” Art, Antiquity and Law 8, no. 2 (2008): 175; Vrdoljak, International Law, Museums and the Return of Cultural Objects; Andrzej Jakubowski, “The Human Dimension of State Succession to Cultural Property: The Balkan Lesson,” in Cultural Heritage, Cultural Rights, Cultural Diversity: New Developments in International Law, ed. Silvia Borelli and Federico Lenzerini (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2012), 369–90. Elazar Barkan, “Amending Historical Injustices: The Restitution of Cultural Property—An Overview,” in Claiming the Stones/Naming the Bones: Cultural Property and the Negotiation of National and Ethnic Identity, ed. Elazar Barkan and Ronald Bush (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2002), 18, 35.

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101 Nicholas Thomas, Entangled Objects: Exchange, Material Culture and Colonialism in the Pacific (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991); Tim Barringer and Tom Flynn, eds., Colonialism and the Object: Empire, Material Culture and the Museum (London: Routledge, 1998); Chantel Gosden and Chris Knowles, Collecting Colonialism: Material Culture and Colonial Change (Oxford: Berg, 2001); Anthony Shelton, ed., Collectors: Expressions of Self and Other (London: Horniman Museum and Gardens and Coimbra: Museu Antropológico da Universidade de Coimbra, 2001). 102 Margaret J. Wiener, “Object Lessons: Dutch Colonialism and the Looting of Bali,” History and Anthropology 6, no. 4 (1994): 347–70; Reimar Schefold and Han F. Vermeulen, eds., Treasure Hunting? Collectors and Collections of Indonesian Artefacts (Leiden: Research School of Asian, African, and Amerindian Studies (CNWS), Leiden University, The Netherlands, published in cooperation with the National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden, 2002); Donna C. Mehos, “Colonial Commerce and Anthropological Knowledge: Dutch Ethnographic Museums in the European Context,” in Henrika Kuklick, ed., A New History of Anthropology (Malden: MA, and Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2008), 173–90; Endang Sri Hardiati and Pieter ter Keurs, eds., Indonesia: The Discovery of the Past (Leiden: National Museum of Ethnology, 2005); Pieter ter Keurs, ed., Colonial Collections Revisited (Leiden: CNWS, 2007); Pieter ter Keurs, “Collecting in the Colony: Hybridity, Power and Prestige in the Netherlands East Indies,” Indonesia and the Malay World 37, no. 108 (July 2009): 147–61. 103 Schefold and Vermeulen, Treasure Hunting? 104 Ter Keurs, “Collecting in the Colony,” 148. 105 Schefold and Vermeulen, Treasure Hunting? Preface, n.p. On debates over the post-colonial role of anthropology museums see: J.B. Avé, “Ethnographical Museums in a Changing World,” in From Field-Case to Show-Case: Research, Acquisition and Presentation in the Rijksmuseum Voor Volkenkunde, ed. Willem R. Van Gulik, Harald S. Van Der Straaten, and Gerrit D. Van Wengen, National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden. In Tribute to Professor P.H. Pott on the 25th Anniversary of His Directorship of the Rijksmuseum Voor Volkenkunde (Leiden. Amsterdam: J.C. Gieben Publisher, 1980), 11–28; N. Bogart, “Vision and Visualization,” Opening Address at Symposium on Vision and Visualization, Amsterdam, June 12, 1979; Hermann Heinrich Frese, Anthropology and the Public: The Role of Museums (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1960); Wilhelmina H. Kal, “Museum and Anthropology,” Current Issues in Anthropology, The Netherlands, ed. Peter Kloos and Henri Claesen (Rotterdam: The Netherlands Sociological and Anthropological Society, 1975): 156–64; Kreps, “Decolonizing Anthropology Museums;” and the special issue: Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 101, no. 2, Völkerkundesmuseen morgen—Aufgaben und Ziele (1976); and Volker Harms, “The Aims of the Museum for Ethnology: Debate in the German-Speaking Countries,” Current Anthropology 31, no. 4 (August– September 1990): 457–63. 106 David Hildering, Wayne Modest and Warda Aztouti, “Visualizing Development: The Tropenmuseum and International Development Aid,” in Museums, Heritage and International Development, ed. Paul Basu and Wayne Modest (New York: Routledge, 2015), 317. 107 Ibid., 317. 108 Ibid., 317–18. 109 Ibid., 317 and 327. 110 Ewald Vanvugt, De Schatten van Lombok: Honderd jaar Nederlandse Oorlogsbuit uit Indonesie (Amsterdam: Jan Mets, 1995). For a broader critique

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125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133

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see, for example: Geert Oostindie, Postcolonial Netherlands: Sixty-Five Years of Forgetting, Commemorating, Silencing, trans. Annabel Howland (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2011). Mei Li Vos, International Cooperation Between Politics and Practice: How Dutch-Indonesian Cooperation Changed Remarkably Little after Diplomatic Rupture (Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis, 2001), 4–5. Ibid., 8–9. Ibid., 72–73. Ibid., 72. Ibid., 15. Ibid., 17. Ibid., 86. Ibid., 17 and 21. Ibid., 66–67. Cynthia Scott, “Sharing the Divisions of the Colonial Past: An Assessment of the Netherlands-Indonesia Shared Cultural Heritage Project, 2003–2006,” International Journal of Heritage Studies 20, no. 4 (February 2014): 181–95. Ibid. Wiener, “Object Lessons”; Schefold and Vermeulen, Treasure Hunting?; Mehos, “Colonial Commerce and Anthropological Knowledge”; Hardiati and Ter Keurs, Indonesia: The Discovery of the Past; Ter Keurs, Colonial Collections Revisited; Ter Keurs, “Collecting in the Colony.” Hildering, Modest and Aztouti, “Visualizing Development,” 310. Such consolidation can also be seen at the Humboldt Forum being built in Berlin, within the reconstructed Berlin Palace on Museum Island for the collections of the city’s Asian Art Museum and Ethnological Museum, along with exhibitions by the Berlin City Museum and Humboldt University, set to open in late 2019. Ibid., 310. Ibid. Ibid., 311. Ibid., 328. Ibid. Jos van Beurden, “Treasures in Trusted Hands: Negotiating the Future of Colonial Cultural Objects” (PhD diss., VU University Amsterdam, 2016). Sarah Van Beurden, Authentically African: Arts and the Transnational Politics of Congolese Culture (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2015), 1. Ibid., 19. Huguette Van Geluwe, “Belgium’s Contribution to the Zairian Cultural Heritage,” Museum 31, no. 1 (1979): 32–37.

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and on other instruments of international law concerning such protection. Brookfield, Vermont: Dartmouth Publishing Company, and Paris: UNESCO, 1996. Turnbull, Paul, and Michael Pickering, eds. The Long Way Home: the Meaning and Values of Repatriation. New York: Berghahn Books, 2010. Tythacott, Louise, and Kostos Arvanitis, eds. Museums and Restitution: New Practices, New Approaches. New York: Routledge, 2016. Van Beurden, Jos. “Treasures in Trusted Hands: Negotiating the Future of Colonial Cultural Objects.” PhD dissertation, VU University Amsterdam, 2016. Van Beurden, Sarah. Authentically African: Arts and the Transnational Politics of Congolese Culture. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2015. Van Geluwe, Huguette. “Belgium’s Contribution to the Zairian Cultural Heritage.” Museum 31, no. 1 (1979): 32–37. Vanvugt, Ewald. De Schatten van Lombok: Honderd Jaar Nederlandse Oorlogsbuit uit Indonesië. Amsterdam: Jan Mets, 1995. Vos, Mei Li. International Cooperation Between Politics and Practice: How Dutch Indonesian Cooperation Changed Remarkably Little after a Diplomatic Rupture. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis, 2001. Vrdoljak, Ana Filipa. International Law, Museums and the Return of Cultural Objects. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Watkins, Joe. “Cultural Nationalists, Internationalists, and ‘Intra-nationalists’: Who’s Right and Whose Right?” International Journal of Cultural Property 12, no. 1 (May 2005): 78–94. Wiener, Margaret J. “Object Lessons: Dutch Colonialism and the Looting of Bali.” History and Anthropology 6, no. 4 (1994): 347–70. Winter, Tim. “Heritage Diplomacy.” International Journal of Heritage Studies 21, no. 10 (2015): 997–1015. Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 101, no. 2, Völkerkundesmuseen morgen—Afugaben und Ziele (1976). Ziff, Bruce H., and Pratima V. Rao, eds. Borrowed Power: Essays on Cultural Appropriation. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1997.

Conclusion

The negotiations leading to an agreement between the Netherlands and Indonesia to return archives and museum objects removed from the Dutch East Indies are particularly revealing in their complexity. Indonesia’s leaders in both the Sukarno and Suharto eras challenged the colonial legacy by pressuring officials to return certain materials. As diplomatic relations fluctuated in the aftermath of the sovereignty transfer in 1949, however, cooperation on matters of culture that could have resolved such questions progressed slowly and unevenly. By explaining the history of cultural relations between the Netherlands and Indonesia, therefore, this study complicates previous understandings of how Dutch officials dealt with the issue of post-colonial cultural property return. It reveals that as claims emerged, again and again, their responses were shaped by the diplomacy of governments, strategies of politicians and the meaning cultural authorities gave to their work. As such, the eventual resolutions of Dutch-Indonesian cultural property disputes were designed to unite parties around particular images of the Dutch national past. How officials answered the question of cultural property return is presented here as a process of contestation whose negotiation became a form of commemoration. In other words, the meaning of Dutch-Indonesian post-colonial cultural property return had less to do with conflicts between the “nationalistic” values of formerly colonized states, and the “universal” values of Western museums, and more to do with how officials of a former colonial power negotiated contemporary understandings of both the nation’s past, and its post-colonial future. The emergence of the Suharto regime in particular enabled Dutch officials to both renew the “special relationship” established in the colonial past, and to rethink the return of cultural property. This interpretation reinforces Frederick Cooper’s proposition in Colonialism in Question—that imperial spaces are zones of debate and struggle over inclusion and differentiation.1 Efforts to establish cooperative cultural relations in the late 1960s and early 1970s signaled a renewed probing of the remains of imperial space, and an engagement with the struggle over Dutch post-colonial inclusion in Indonesian affairs. By exploring hopes for a conversion of the Dutch absence into

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a renewed presence in the early years of Suharto’s Indonesia, we can view the delay in returning cultural property to Indonesia between 1949 and the mid-1970s as reflecting strained diplomatic relations in the aftermath of colonialism—as Legêne and Postel-Coster have rightly argued.2 However, it can also be seen as part of a long-standing commitment by Dutch officials to reanimate the remains of a former imperial space by finding favorable roles for Dutch experts and institutions in Indonesia; roles that would also provide some justification for legacies of the colonial past—including cultural expertise and collections—suspended still in Dutch museums and archives. By tracing the history of Dutch diplomacy with Indonesia over what cultural role—if any—the former colonial ruler would play, this book shows that competing visions of post-colonial redress and reconciliation were contested throughout the era of post-war decolonization and Cold War. Rather than embracing the Sukarno regime’s claims for returns as a form of redress, Dutch officials favored reconciliation based on renewing the presence of experts in the former colony instead. The transfer of cultural property was possible too, but only in the event of an ongoing cultural role. At the same time, what may appear to have been mediating roles for UNESCO and the UNGA were not borne out by the archival research that informed this book. Rather, Dutch officials were driven to negotiate the return of cultural property to Indonesia from the colonial era by foreign policy objectives informed largely, at first, by the “trauma of decolonization” and, later, by the need to protect the long-awaited reconciliation in cultural relations. However, the Dutch reputation for cooperation and goodwill benefitted from association with UNESCO publicity. By positioning the DutchIndonesian settlement within reports that encouraged bilateral negotiations, UNESCO officials reinforced closely held notions within Dutch government circles that returns could help honor the achievements of the colonial past, and provide a positive role for Dutch cultural institutions in Indonesia in the future. In other words, UNESCO publicity amplified a narrative long cherished by Dutch officials and experts, and set a tone that helped reinforce it for years to come. Other countries, by not coming to similar agreements around the question of cultural property return, missed out on the public relations bonus they may have gained, in ways that are still being realized to this day. The widely publicized histories of intractability among officials in the United Kingdom, France and other countries have contributed to their ongoing controversy and debate, among what appear to be a growing audience worldwide. As for UNESCO’s advocacy since the 1970s on behalf of bilateral negotiation, it has provided an important baseline for understanding post-colonial cultural property return in the face of secretive diplomatic discussions. By simply contrasting such agreements with the intractable ones, however, UNESCO publicity helped mark precedent setting cases as celebrationworthy diplomatic achievements, yet without enough historical depth. A deeper critical analysis is required to better understand the diplomatic

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history of negotiations over European possession of cultural property from the colonial past, as well as the sometimes contentious, sometimes celebratory, discourse over its return. The Dutch-Indonesian case also suggests several important shifts in postimperial cultural politics that deserve more historical consideration. First, for a brief period prior to anti-colonial activism within the UNGA and UNESCO, some European officials were amenable to the tradition of returning contested cultural property as a tool of cultural diplomacy. This may disturb present sensibilities that demand the de-politicization of museums and their collections against the claims of “nationalism.” However, if the history of colonial collecting and contested cultural returns demonstrates anything, it is a deep and lasting connection to politics and diplomacy that requires reflection and review. Second, officials in the former colonial powers faced many difficulties in renewing cultural relations in the years immediately following decolonization, and in redefining the roles of museums and expertise developed in the colonial era. More historical research is needed on the dynamics of these challenges in the contexts of decolonization and Cold War, especially as they were mitigated through the careful management of public perceptions at home, and self-interested diplomatic negotiations abroad. And third, the wide-scale framing of post-colonial cultural relations and the return of materials from archives and museums as development aid calls for further critical assessment of how such schemes helped former colonial powers repair post-colonial pride, validate particular images of the collective colonial past and advance contemporary imaginings of their post-colonial futures. For, as European experts became involved in cooperative projects to develop repositories and professional practices in the former colonies, they also helped dampen competing visions of post-colonial cultural reconciliation and anti-colonial redress illustrated here. Paradoxically, this study suggests, there has been a symbiotic relationship between the competing visions of post-colonial redress and reconciliation, rather than their exclusive opposition. That is: the stronger the desire for reconciliation, the greater willingness to make returns, but only if transfers were accepted as gestures of goodwill, not of remorse or redress for the colonial past. Strengthening linkages between the two aspirations going forward—by making symbolic returns on the terms of former colonies, as redress—would bring long-awaited recognition to anti-colonial aspirations for historical justice that, to many states, remain unfulfilled to this day. The histories of the United Kingdom and France with respect to these issues remain as multi-faceted as they are in the Netherlands. However, they also illustrate how over time the resistance to both “returns as redress” and “returns as development aid” has exacerbated calls for return, and overshadowed accomplishments that may have been achieved through international museum cooperation projects. At the very least, this study suggests further research is needed into the histories of diplomatic relationships between the countries that deal with the issue of cultural property return

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from the colonial era, to assess how their advancement of development oriented cultural diplomacy—either with, or without the return of cultural property—has been used as self-serving justification for the return of cultural influence—through European experts and institutions. However, it is also time to know the ways and extent to which the return of experts—through development aid and other cooperative projects—have both accomplished and fallen short of what has been promoted as an alternative form of redress for the legacies of the colonial past. This suggestion goes for inquiries into the meaning of new political changes in Europe—as exemplified by the Netherlands—that have led to a retreat from narratives of “development cooperation” and an advance toward those of “global investment.” The recent consolidation of colonialera museums into a unitary “Museum of World Cultures” marks the kind of departure that retains, in this case, aspects of a long-standing Dutch national image that needs to be understood in a context wider than “museum funding.” For, if this study illustrates anything, it is the persistence of officials trying to manage public opinion at home while playing a wider role in the world, and showing it off in an array of museums founded in a colonial past. The question is: how are they doing it now?

Notes 1 Frederick Cooper, Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 22. 2 Susan Legêne and Els Postel-Coster, “Isn’t it all Culture? Culture and Dutch Development Policy in the Post-Colonial Period,” in Fifty Years of Dutch Development Cooperation, 1949–1999, ed., Jan A. Nekkers and Petrus Adrianus Maria Malcontent (The Hague: SDU, 2000), 271–88.

References Secondary sources Cooper, Frederick. Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Legêne, Susan and Els Postel-Coster. “Isn’t it all Culture? Culture and Dutch Development Policy in the Post-Colonial Period.” In Fifty Years of Dutch Development Cooperation, 1949–1999, edited by J.A. Nekkers and P.A.M. Malcontent, 271–88. The Hague: SDU, 2000.

Index

Note: Locators in italic refer to figures. Aceh War (1874–1914) 35–36, 38 Afrika Museum in Berg en Dal 176 alleged coup in Indonesia (1965) 76, 77, 86; “failed coup” 86 Anglo-Dutch Treaty (1814) 5; revised (1824) 6 anti-colonial ethics/anti-colonial activism 3, 13, 17, 137, 155, 195 anti-communist purge in Indonesia 76 antiquities 8, 9, 10, 18, 74, 138, 154–6, 173 archive of the Dutch East Indies Company 64, 97, 54n85 Arinze, Emmanuel N. 160 Bandung Conference of Asian and African nations (1955) 73, 75, 109 Batavia 4, 5, 8, 10, 26, 28, 34, 38, 42–43, 109, 143, 153 Batavian Republic 5 Batavian Society Museum 6, 10, 33–38, 45, 98, 132, 134 Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences (Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen) 5–6, 10, 33–38, 45, 98, 132, 134; Radermacher, J.C.M. (Jacob Cornelis Matthieu) 5–6 Baud, J.C. 10 Beel, Louis J.M. 29, 41 “Benin Bronzes” 2, 17, 157, 160–2, 164; “Benin Objects” 161, 164–5; “Benin Loot” 157; Benin works of art 158–9, 165; Benin Historical Heritage Group 161; Benin Dialogue Group 162, 164–5; National Museum of Nigeria, Lagos 157–8; National Museum of Nigeria, Benin City 158, 162, 165; Benin Royal

Museum, Benin City 164–5; National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM), Nigeria 142, 164; Eyo, Ekpo 142, 157, 180n25; Bailey, Martin 157, 164–5; Klejman, J.J. 157; Gowon, Yakubu: gift given to Queen Elizabeth II (1973) 158; Oba Ewuare II (b. 1953) 161; return to civilian government (1999) 160; Osagie, Crusoe 164; contemporary theft of cultural objects (1979–95) 158, 159; Henrique Abranches’ “Report on the Situation in Africa” 159 bilateral diplomatic negotiations 1, 13, 137, 143, 145, 153–4, 177, 194 Black Panther, dir. Ryan Coogler (Marvel Studios, 2018) 164; “Museum of Great Britain” 164 Bot, T.H. (Theodorus Hendrikus (Theo)) 58, 63, 74–75 British interregnum 8, 10 British Museum 17, 154–8, 160–1, 163–4; Trustees 156, 162; 1902 British Museum Act 156; 1963 Amendment British Museum Act 156, 162; Fagg, William Buller 157, 180n25 British Parliamentary debate (1983) 156, 160; Parliamentary Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport (2000) 162; Parliamentary Select Committee recommendation on alternate “constructive” options to restitution (2000) 162 Bronbeek Museum at Velp 125, 131–2 “Capture of Prince Diponegoro,” painting by Radèn Saleh 132, 133

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celebratory exhibitions 37; celebratory views of renewed Dutch cultural relations with Indonesia (1971) 108; celebratory commemorations 17; celebratory cultural role 78; celebratory discourse 195 center-left coalition government 12, 146, 147n3; progressive coalition Cabinet (1973) 17, 121–3, 145–6, 165 center-right coalition Cabinets 17, 108, 121; center-right coalition governments 12, 104, 127, 146 Central Museum (Museum Pusat), Jakarta 98, 130, 133, 135, 144 Christison, Philip 28 “civilizing mission” 35, 157 colonial collecting 8–12, 16, 34–36, 46–47, 130, 134, 147, 155–6, 170–2, 175, 177, 195 colonial guilt 17, 127, 129, 145; remorse 12, 49, 195; admissions of wrongdoing 12, 140; reparations 128 Colonial Museum (Koloniaal Museum) 103–4 Commonwealth Association of Museums (CAM) 161 “Congress of Asia-Historians at Djokjakarta” (August 1974) 124 contemporary international trade 18, 156, 173; illegal/illicit trafficking 155, 159–60 Coordinating Committee for Cultural Relations with Indonesia (Coördinatiegroep cultuerel betrekkingen met Indonesië) 58, 74, 92, 96, 98; interdepartmental Working Group 74, 86, 87, 90, 96; “Workgroup-Indonesia” 90, 97 Corbyn, Jeremy 166 Cultural agreement with Indonesia (1968) 2, 16–17, 84–90, 92–93, 96–100, 100, 104, 111–112, 117n107, 124, 145, 169–70, 173 cultural diplomacy in the Netherlands (1980s) 18, 168, 170–2 “cultural restitution” debates/causes/ claims 13, 17–18, 139–40, 156, 158–62, 164–71, 178 cultural sovereignty 31, 59, 153, 162 Daams, F.H.J.M. 90 “debt of honor” 35, 172

Declaration of independence of the Republic of Indonesia (August 17, 1945) 28–29 “Declaration on the Importance and Value of Universal Museums” (2002) 163 De Jong, J.J.P. 123, 126, 128 De Jong, P.J.S. (Petrus Jozef Sietse (Piet)) 108, 125 De Jonge, B.C. (Bonifacius Cornelis) 27 Den Uyl, Joop 17, 121–2, 122, 143, 145–6 development aid (Netherlands) 14–15, 17, 84–85, 92–93, 92–96, 98, 100, 103–4, 112, 123, 127, 129, 146–7, 171–4, 176, 179, 195–6; development cooperation (Netherlands-Indonesia) 102, 146, 173–4, 176, 196; developmental role of Tropical Museum 100, 102–4, 172; development of Indonesia’s repositories 123, 127, 145; critical views in 1971 of renewed cultural relations with Indonesia 109, 173 “Djokja archive” 124–5, 127, 129 Djokjakarta 30, 124, 127; Jogjakarta 30–31, 124, 127; Yogyakarta 30, 124 Drees, Willem 30, 33, 44, 46, 63, 95 Dutch colonial-era museums 2, 5, 6, 8, 15, 16, 18, 41, 49, 59, 75, 76, 99, 100, 125, 127, 147, 155, 156, 158, 165, 168, 170, 172, 176, 177, 178, 179; decolonization of 16; reorganization of 147, 171, 172, 176, 177, 179 Dutch identity 8, 12–13, 15, 47, 49, 71, 170, 179 Dutch parliamentary delegation visit to Indonesia (August 1968) 90 Dutch presence in the East Indies/Indonesia 3, 11–12, 18, 31, 49, 58–61, 67, 72, 85, 98, 109, 112, 121, 146, 194 Engelhard, Nicolaus 8, 9 “Erasmus House” 100, 105, 109 Ethical Policy (Ethische Politiek) (1901) 35 “failures” 1, 145; resistance 1, 30, 132, 147, 157, 195 “first police action” (politionele actie) (1947) 30

Index Foundation for Cultural Relations/Cooperation between the Netherlands, Indonesia, Suriname, and the Netherlands Antilles 61, 64, 71–72 France 1, 5, 18, 68–69, 147, 150n63, 154, 158, 163, 166–8, 178, 194–5; overseas aid (France) 166 Ghana 164 Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum 160 Great Britain 5–6, 11, 154, 157, 160–1 Greece 1, 154–5, 165; “Elgin (Parthenon) Marbles” 2, 155–6; “anti-Elginism” 155; Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin 155 Habibie, B.J. 174–5 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (1954) 139, 142 Hasan, Fuad 174 Hatta, Mohammad 27, 29–30, 30, 45, 46, 68, 124 Hueting, J.E. 125, 126; “Hueting affair/crisis” (1969) 128; allegations of “serious war crimes” 125 Idenburg, P.J.A. 62, 63, 64, 66, 72 Indonesian cultural relations advisory committee 84, 104, 111, 117n107; Advice Committee for Cultural Cooperation 94 “Indonesian” national identity (post-independence) 50n2 Indonesia’s/Indonesian independence 11, 13–16, 18, 20, 27–30, 48, 50n2, 59, 67–68, 104, 120, 127, 145, 169 Intergovernmental Group on Indonesia (IGGI) 93, 114n32, 173 International Council of Museums (ICOM) 158 Jalink, P.W. 123, 125 Japan/Japanese 7, 11, 15–16, 25–29, 26, 47, 93, 120, 127 Jayakarta 4, 20n17; see also Batavia Joekes, Th. H. 90, 92, 96 Jogjakarta see Djokjakarta Joint Recommendation on the Transfer of Objects between the Netherlands and Indonesia (1975/1977) 2–3,

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130–1, 133, 139, 144, 146; approved (1977) and implemented (1977 and 1978) 2–3, 130–3, 144, 146, 149n34; agreement to return 48 Queen Juliana 29, 46, 90, 95, 105, 106, 107, 108, 122 Kingdom of the Netherlands 47 Knapen, Ben 176 Kreps, Christina F. 168–9, 171 Lamping, A.T. (Arnold Theodoor) 69–71 Linggadjati Agreement (1947) 30, 65 Logemann, H.A. 29 Lombok expedition (1894) 35–36, 38, 40, 44, 172 Lombok Treasure 2, 32, 36–37, 36–37, 39–40, 40, 44–45, 64, 99, 131–3, 134, 168, 172 Lovink, A.H.J. 41–42, 42, 43–45, 62, 64 Luns, Joseph 58, 74–75, 76, 85, 89, 100, 108, 114n21, 117n95 MacGregor, Neil 163, 183–4n65 Macron, Emmanuel 18, 147, 166, 167, 168, 185n91 Malik, Adam 86–87, 89, 89–90, 93, 97, 106–7, 123 Mantra, I.B. 124, 127, 149n34 Martin, Stéphane 167 Mashuri, S.H. 89–90, 91 Mason, Anthony 162 M’Bow, Amadou Mahtar 143, 159 “Memorandum of Excesses” (Excessennota) 125; see also Hueting, J.E. Merryman, John Henry 155 Mobutu Sese Seko 84, 137–8, 138, 178; UNGA speech on restitution or return (1973) 137; pro-African cultural awareness campaign 137; cultural “Authenticity” 137, 178; see also United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3187 (1973) Mommersteeg, J.A. 90, 96 Monnereau, D. 58 Museum (1979) 1, 48, 133, 145, 156–7 Museum for Geography and Ethnology, Rotterdam (Museum voor Land- en Volkenkunde) 35, 102 Museum of Antiquities (Rijksmuseum van Oudheden) in Leiden 34, 44, 58

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Nagarakrtagama manuscript 99; return of Nagarakertagama (1973) 122–3 Napoleonic era 5–6; Napoleon, Louis 5; Congress of Vienna 6 National Archive of Indonesia (Arsip Nasional Indonesia) 99, 126 National Law on Items of Cultural Property (1858) 10, 33–34 National Museum of Ethnology (Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde) in Leiden 2, 6–7, 9, 15, 19, 34–37, 44, 130, 132, 143, 153, 168, 175–6 National Museum of Indonesia, Jakarta 36, 134, 175 National Museum of Kenya, Nairobi 163 National Museum of World Cultures (Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen) (NMVW) 176 national railway employee from Brouwershaven 58 national railway employee from Station Winschoten 25, 33 Netherlands Commission for Indonesian Affairs (CAVI) 46, 62; Cultural Sub-Committee of CAVI 46, 62, 64, 66, 68, 72–73 Netherlands (Dutch) East Indies 2–7, 10–11, 16, 25, 26, 27–28, 31, 34–35, 38, 40–41, 42, 44, 46–47, 49, 59, 62, 64–66, 70, 74, 94, 104, 120, 125, 127, 132, 134, 143, 153, 170–1, 179, 193 Netherlands Embassy in Indonesia 14, 87–88, 95, 100, 105, 108, 109, 123–4, 127 Netherlands Indies Army (Koninklijk Nederlands Indisch Leger) (KNIL) 25, 26, 27, 40, 132 Netherlands-Indonesian/DutchIndonesian Union 43, 48–49, 59–62, 66, 69, 71–72 Netherlands Ministry of Culture, Recreation and Social Work 14, 88, 96–98, 121, 129, 176 Netherlands Ministry of Education, Arts and Sciences 14, 16, 44–45, 60, 62, 64, 74, 96–97 Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs 16, 60, 74–75, 84, 87–89, 97–98, 104–5, 112, 122–3, 129, 174, 176

Netherlands’ reputation 3, 13, 141, 169, 194 Nigeria: British colonization and granting independence of 157; Kingdom of Benin 157, 160–1; British “punitive expedition” 157; see also “Benin Bronzes” opposition to conservatism in the Netherlands (1969) 110 Pan-African Reparations 160, 161; Africa Reparations Movement (ARM) 160, 161; Bernie Grant, M.P. (1944–2000) 160, 161 Plouman, Lilianne 176 post-colonial reconciliation/cooperation 12, 16, 18, 47, 72, 84, 98, 104, 122, 146, 194–5 post-colonial redress 1, 12, 14, 16, 18, 25, 47, 72, 145–6, 154–5, 160, 167, 172–3, 177–8, 194–6 Pott, Peter H. (1918–89) 2, 8, 48, 60, 73, 99, 112, 129, 130, 133, 135, 141, 145, 153, 156 ¯ aramit ¯ Prajñap a¯ statue from Singasari 2, 58, 128, 131, 135, 139, 168 Presidential Decree known as Supersemar 76 Prince Dipo Negoro (or Diponegoro) 2, 131–3, 133 Pronk, Jan 129, 172–4 Quai Branly–Jacques Chirac Museum (Musée du Quai Branly–Jacques Chirac) 167 Raffles, Thomas Stamford 6, 8–9 Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum, Cologne 36 Reinink, H.J. 62, 64, 66, 72 Reinwardt, C.J.C. 7–9, 58 Renville Agreement (1948) 30 Report by Felwine Sarr and Bénédicte Savoy to President Macron (2018) 167 Republic of the Seven United Provinces 5 The Return of Cultural Treasures 3, 154–6, 160 Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 37–40, 37, 38, 44, 132, 163; Van Riemsdijk, B.W.F. 37

Index Ritzen, Jo 174 Roem-van Roijen Agreement (1949) 30 Rollet-Andriane, Louis-Jacques 141, 142 Royal Cabinet of Curiosities, The Hague 6–7, 38 Royal Dutch Society of Sciences and Humanities (De Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen, or HMW) in Haarlem 5 Royal Military Academy, Breda 35 Royal Tropical Institute (known in Dutch as the Vereniging Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, or KIT) 100, 104, 176 Ruptures in Dutch-Indonesian cultural diplomacy (1991) 173–4; suspension of Dutch development aid to Indonesia 173 Rutten, F.J.T. (Franz Joseph Theo) 44–45 Saleh, Radèn 132–3, 134 Schaap, J.E. 96 Scheltema, H. 105 Schiff, E.L.C. (Emile Louis Constant) 89–90, 91, 113n21 Schmeltz, J.D.E. 37 Schmelzer, Norbert 104–5, 106–7, 114n21, 116n86 Schoo, Eegji 171–2 Schoorl, J.W. (Johan Willem (Pim)) 111 Schneiders, A.L. 124 Schumacher, Peter 109 “second police action” (politionele actie) (1948) 30, 31, 30, 41, 49, 124 self-rule policy (Zelfbestuursregeling) 41 “Shared Cultural Heritage (SCH)” 175 Sjahrir, Sutan 27, 28, 30, 30 Soemadio, B. 144 Spalding, Julian 161 State Ethnography Museum (Rijks Ethnografisch Museum) in Leiden 7, 34, 58; Leemans, C. 34; Serrurier, L. 34, 38 state visit of HM Prince Bernard to Indonesia (August 28, 1971) 106 state visit to Indonesia by Queen Juliana and Prince-Consort Bernhard (August 16–26, 1971) 105, 106–8; state visit by Queen Juliana in 1973 123

201

state visit to the Netherlands by President and Mrs. Suharto (August 1970) 100, 101–2, 108, 110–11; Anti-Suharto demonstration 110–11 Stikker, D.U. 32–33, 39–41, 64–65, 95 Stuers, Victor de 37 Subandrio 75, 86, 88 “success” 1, 2, 3, 104; “successful” cases 141–2, 178 Suharto 12, 17, 76–77, 84–86, 86, 92, 96, 98, 100, 101–2, 104–5, 106–7, 108–9, 110–11, 120, 122, 145, 173–6, 178, 193–4 Sukarno 12, 16–17, 27–30, 28, 30, 58–60, 67–68, 72, 73–78, 86 Sutaarga, M. Amir 20n8, 130–1, 135, 145, 169 Technical Cooperation Agreement (1964) 75–76, 88, 173 Teeuw, Andries (Hans) 98–100, 111, 117n107, 122, 124 “Third World” nationalism 13, 156 Transfer of cultural objects/property/ regalia 1–2, 8, 16, 37, 44–45, 47, 49, 54n85, 61–62, 64, 66, 72, 75, 97, 120, 122, 129, 130–4, 130–1, 135, 142, 144, 146, 149n33–35, 168, 194 Transfer of Sovereignty (1949) 16, 18, 31, 41, 43–49, 45–46, 54n85, 59–60, 62, 64, 67–68, 71–72, 74, 78, 95, 97, 193 “trauma of decolonization” 74, 194 Treasure Hunting? Collectors and Collections of Indonesian Artefacts 171 Tropical Museum (Tropenmuseum), Amsterdam 100, 104, 176; Kal, Wilhelmina H., Head Curator 102–4 Udink, B.J. (Berend Jan) 93, 93, 100, 102, 103, 114n32 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Ownership of Cultural Property 75, 134, 138–9, 153; exclusion of retroactivity (1970) 137–8, 153 UNESCO Expert Committee (1976) 139–42, 144; effects of Final Report 139–41, 144, 150n63

202

Index

UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation 141, 158–9 UNESCO Recommendation on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Export, Import and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property 75, 142 United East Indies Company or “VOC” (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie) 3–6, 8–9, 64, 97, 123 United Kingdom 17, 31, 68–69, 99, 147, 154–8, 178, 194–5; see also Great Britain United Kingdom of the Netherlands 6–7, 11 United Nations Commission for Indonesia (UNCI) 31 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) 1, 3, 12, 13, 18, 44, 64, 75, 121, 133–4, 137, 138–46, 153–5, 157–61, 165–6, 168–9, 172, 177–8, 194–5; see also UNESCO United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) 1, 12, 17, 18, 31, 44, 121, 123, 134, 137–42, 143–6, 153–5, 157, 168–9, 172, 177–8, 194–5 United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 3187 (1973) 137–9, 149n52 United Nations Round Table Conference (RTC) draft cultural agreement (1949) 16, 46–47, 49, 58–62, 64–66, 68–69, 72–74, 76, 78; Article 19; Draft Cultural Agreement (1949) 59, 72; Protocol (1954) 49, 73, 97 United Nations Security Council (UNSC) 31, 33 United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution on Indonesia (January 28, 1949) 31 United States (of America) 11, 31, 33, 73, 109, 163 United States of Indonesia 30–31, 45, 47

“Universal” values of Western museums 13, 155, 163, 193 Unofficial cultural policy in/relations with Indonesia 59, 84, 88 Van Agt, Dries 146 Van Boetzelaer, C.W. 88 Van Boetzelser, E.O. 97 Van Daalen, G.C.E. (Gotfried Coenraad Ernst) 36 Van den Broek, Hans 174 Van der Capellen, G.A. Baron 10 Van Deventer, C.T. 35 Van Diffelen, R.W. 72 Van Doorn, Henry Willem (Harry): announcement to return art objects to Indonesia (April 1975) 120, 127–9, 128, 144 Van Maarseveen, J.H. 31–32, 39, 41, 43, 44, 45, 51n20, 63, 64, 65 Vanvugt, Ewald 36, 172 voluntary return of cultural property 13, 31, 39, 139, 141–2, 150n63, 154 war booty 33–34, 39, 41, 43–44, 46, 49, 72, 127, 132, 172, 175 Wavell, Archibald 25 West African Museums Programme (WAMP) 160 West Indies Company (West-Indische Compagnie, or WIC) 5 West New Guinea collection 129, 144 West New Guinea dispute 16, 31, 59, 65, 72–74, 95, 120, 145 Queen Wilhelmina (1880–1962) 29, 29, 35, 36 Queen Wilhelmina’s Speech (1901) 29, 35 King William I (Willem I) 6–9, 7 King William II 9 King William III 9, 132–3 Stadtholder William V 7 World Museum (Wereldmuseum), Rotterdam 102, 176 Yamin, Muhammad 65, 72 Yogyakarta see Djokjakarta