Seeds Of Nationalism In Colonial Dutch East Indies

8 Pages 2013 Words

I’d like to start this paper by saying that I loved This Earth of Mankind, both for the story line and for the history lessons it contained. I now own the rest of the quartet and am half way through Child of All Nation. This Earth of Mankind addressed the struggle between the Javan native with oppressive colonial rule as well as the search for a new national identity by educated Javans. I thought that Pramoedya was successful in presenting the interrelated themes of social, cultural, and political life in the Dutch East Indies. He described the struggles of two different types of Native Javanese. Minke’s struggle was against himself and integration into, and identification with colonial civilization. Nyai’s struggle the brutalizing effects of Western civilization in her life. In the story the two struggles come together and both Minke and Nyai challenge the inhumanity of colonial justice.
The introduction of modernity was having a profound effect in the Dutch East Indies at the time of Minke’s story. This modernity manifested itself through advanced learning, science, and technological advances. Minke considered his opportunity to experience modern learning and science a blessing whose beauty was beyond description. He was the only Native in the Dutch High School (H.B.S.) in Surabaya. Minke’s life was put on a path other than those of his fellow natives through this science and learning he had been taught at school. He knew that this made him different from his own people, the Javanese.
Minke marveled at the wonders of science that he saw in his life all around him.
He was particularly amazed at the development of printing, especially zincography. For the first time in history, someone like Minke could experience the rest of the world simply through looking at a photograph. On Java, trains had been introduced ten years before, but still his countrymen marveled. At the time of the story, a railroad networ...