...is the opening line of the Kartini Letters, another book I quoted from but did not read while at SOAS. I'm not going to read the whole thing but just pick those letters I find most interesting and skim the rest. The link above gives you the details of Kartini's life, though if you are interested in Indonesia you probably know the basic story.
Kartini is celebrated as a pioneer of women's right and has her own national holiday in Indonesia. She was born the daughter of a minor aristocrat who worked for the Dutch colonial administration, and who for the time had somewhat progressive views, and also spoke Dutch fluently.
This did not stop him treating his daughter in the traditional fashion of the Javanese aristocracy and forcing her to accept an arranged marriage. Tragically she died in childbirth shortly after her marriage, a few years later her letters were published in Holland and became a bestseller that had some influence on the new Ethical Policy for colonial administration.
But read the Wiki entry yourselves.
What I find fascinating in the letters is the conflict between modernism and tradition. Kartini's delight in European modernism is very similar to that of Pramoedya's character Minke in the opening pages of the Buru Quartet. Rather than feeling oppressed by the colonial power there is excitement and enthusiasm for the liberation that came with the railways, telegraph, printing press, education, medicine and socialist egalitarian ideas, that were starting to blossom in Europe. Later the colonised were to realise how limited the freedom would be and how repressive the true nature of the colonial system. But in the early 1900s middle class intellectuals in Indonesia looked to Europe to find hope for the future.
Interesting too are the glimpses of European fascination with Eastern spirituality and mysticism. This was the time when spiritualism was all the rage in the West and people like Annie Besant were offering an intoxicating mix of theosophy, socialism and feminism.
The Kartini letters are now available online at Project Guttenberg and are well worth dipping into.
I should add that there is still some controversy surrounding the letters
-as mentioned in the Wikipedia entry under 'Letters'. -
and there is an interesting piece in the Jakarta Post about some unedited letters published in 1987.
Kartini is celebrated as a pioneer of women's right and has her own national holiday in Indonesia. She was born the daughter of a minor aristocrat who worked for the Dutch colonial administration, and who for the time had somewhat progressive views, and also spoke Dutch fluently.
This did not stop him treating his daughter in the traditional fashion of the Javanese aristocracy and forcing her to accept an arranged marriage. Tragically she died in childbirth shortly after her marriage, a few years later her letters were published in Holland and became a bestseller that had some influence on the new Ethical Policy for colonial administration.
But read the Wiki entry yourselves.
What I find fascinating in the letters is the conflict between modernism and tradition. Kartini's delight in European modernism is very similar to that of Pramoedya's character Minke in the opening pages of the Buru Quartet. Rather than feeling oppressed by the colonial power there is excitement and enthusiasm for the liberation that came with the railways, telegraph, printing press, education, medicine and socialist egalitarian ideas, that were starting to blossom in Europe. Later the colonised were to realise how limited the freedom would be and how repressive the true nature of the colonial system. But in the early 1900s middle class intellectuals in Indonesia looked to Europe to find hope for the future.
Interesting too are the glimpses of European fascination with Eastern spirituality and mysticism. This was the time when spiritualism was all the rage in the West and people like Annie Besant were offering an intoxicating mix of theosophy, socialism and feminism.
The Kartini letters are now available online at Project Guttenberg and are well worth dipping into.
I should add that there is still some controversy surrounding the letters
-as mentioned in the Wikipedia entry under 'Letters'. -
and there is an interesting piece in the Jakarta Post about some unedited letters published in 1987.