The Netherlands is trying to come to terms with its colonial past. What role does literature play in that discussion, in particular Max Havelaar; or, The coffee auctions of the Dutch trading company (1860), the famous novel by Eduard Douwes Dekker (1820-1887), better known as Multatuli? The book sent a 'shiver' through the country when it was published and at the time triggered debate on colonial abuses and the exploitation of the Javanese. How do we feel about it today?
Mixed feelings about Max Havelaar
Even today, the novel stirs up controversy. The book is considered the first 'Indonesian novel' in Dutch literature and is thought to be one of the most important works in the canon of Dutch literature. The novel was also translated into more than 40 languages. Authors such as E. du Perron, W.F. Hermans, Jan Wolkers, Willem Elsschot and Arnon Grunberg are known admirers. However, it has also attracted strong criticism from the likes of authors Alfred Birney and Gustaaf Peek. The latter, for instance, wrote in a scathing critique in May 2023: 'With Max Havelaar, Multatuli produced an authoritative document that helped prolong Dutch colonialism.’
“Surely, one should be more nuanced than that,” VU professor of modern Dutch literature and holder of the Multatuli Chair Jacqueline Bel states, who countered the author during the Abraham Kuyper Lecture. According to her, Max Havelaar is still an extremely important book, as a literary work of art but also as a sharp critique of the colonial enterprise. Earlier, in 2021, she subjected the work to a postcolonial, cultural-critical analysis.
Western perception of 'the East'
“Older literature acts as a rear-view mirror,” Jacqueline Bel argues. Reading novels from the colonial era reveals how the Dutch experienced and judged colonial life at the time, how they saw themselves and how they behaved towards the indigenous population. The representation and the justification of colonial reality are easily found. The basic principle here is that literature not only represents reality but also helps shape it.
Colonial and postcolonial works often present the image of an inferior indigenous population and a civilised Western ruler. Thinking patterns and power structures were maintained by literature, among other things – literature both justified and cultivated imperialism, influential cultural scholar Edward Said and other postcolonial thinkers argue. This perception continues to this day and can be observed in stereotyping, (institutional) racism, oppression, exclusion and poverty.
Was Multatuli a resentful white man?
How about Multatuli and his Max Havelaar? Even though the novel reads like a pamphlet against colonial abuses in the Dutch East Indies, that does not mean the book cannot be read critically, says Jacqueline Bel. For instance, the inspired denunciation is given by a white man who is a colonial authority official and therefore part of the colonial system. What does a cultural-critical rereading using postcolonial insights reveal? Should Multatuli be taken down from his pedestal?
“Certainly not,” argues Jacqueline Bel. “Naturally, there is no doubt that the author was a white man, criticising from within.” Multatuli incorporated his own experiences as a colonial official in the East Indies into the novel. He sounded the alarm bell about serious abuses and resigned when his charges were ignored. Despite later investigations that proved he had rightly opposed injustice, he was never exonerated. “Multatuli not only called attention to the abuses in the colony, he also wanted vindication. Of course, it would be folly to claim that it is all there is to his book or that he should have ended the regime single-handedly, as some critics argue. How could one reasonably expect the latter from an author? It would simply have been impossible. Besides, Multatuli was one of the first to denounce colonial abuses – in a fantastic literary work that, even after more than 160 years, is still deserving of attention.”
Max Havelaar under postcolonial scrutiny
“Looking at the text itself, one can examine how indigenous characters are represented. Are they presented in Max Havelaar as ‘the other’ and compared to animals, things or children through so-called othering strategies, as is often the case in colonial literature? Is there inferiority, patronisation, stereotyping?”
The novel has a remarkable construction and is composed of several parts that fit together like matryoshka dolls. Roughly speaking, the book consists of three parts, each of which centres around a different character: first the Amsterdam colonial profiteer Batavus Droogstoppel, then the inspired colonial government official Max Havelaar, who fights against injustice and for the Javanese people in the Dutch East Indies, and the novel ends with a sharp indictment of the colonial system by the author Multatuli, who expels all the characters from the novel and takes up the pen himself. The book is populated almost entirely by Amsterdam citizens and Dutch-Indonesian officials. Most of the native and Indo-European characters are nameless, voiceless and only given supporting roles, as in much colonial literature, the Javanese Saïdjah and Adinda excepted, of course.
Droogstoppel is a good man, according to the saint himself
The novel first focuses on the Amsterdam coffee merchant Droogstoppel. There are many orientalist passages in these chapters. The greedy and supposedly devout Amsterdam coffee merchant extols himself and admires Reverend Wawelaar, who speaks negatively about the Javanese: '[...] children of the accursed son of the noble, God-serving Noah, heathens who end up in hell "with their black frizzy heads" [and who] have no choice but to work for the Dutch to earn their place in heaven [...]'.
These statements about the natives fit the prejudices that befit Wawelaar and Droogstoppel as characters. They are portrayed mockingly and negatively in the novel and so the author cannot be held accountable for their views. Therefore, these passages cannot be considered orientalist. On the contrary.
Patronising Max Havelaar fights against ‘prejudice’
But what about the idealistic colonial official Max Havelaar, who makes his entrance in the second part and fights against the injustice inflicted upon the Javanese peasants? When the Javanese are described, this is generally not condescending and without emphasis on skin colour. Yet even in the Havelaar passages, the indigenous people are presented as 'different', albeit mostly without being truly denigrated.
There is also some patronisation in these chapters, another so-called othering strategy. In his address to the heads of Lebak, for example, Max Havelaar lectures the regents on just governance as if he were a white saviour. The regents are also portrayed as Javanese authorities who abuse their position, even if they do so in the name of the Dutch government. So, the noble regents don’t come off so well in the novel, but clearly Max Havelaar is actually standing up for another group of Javanese – the oppressed population. Another aspect that often raises postcolonial criticism concerns the role of the Indonesian widow of Slotering, Havelaar's murdered predecessor, although she plays only a limited part in the story. She too, was given no voice. Furthermore, the text sharply criticises the use of the term liplap, at the time a derogatory term for Indo-Europeans. The word is used several times in the novel despite this criticism, although Max Havelaar does speak out against prejudice based on their skin colour.
Saïdjah and Adinda's (not very) rosy Javanese history
Max Havelaar also tells the dramatic love story of the Javanese Saïdjah and Adinda: ‘I shall speak of men who move in the way same as we do.’ It is one of the first stories in Dutch literature to feature two indigenous protagonists whose inner thoughts are told.
Yet even this story is not unproblematic: some would argue that this is a Western idealisation and romanticisation of a Javanese history. However, the end for both lovers is by no means sweet. It also severely criticises the role of the Dutch army. When Saïdjah finds his beloved Adinda badly maimed and killed, he walks through 'a village that had just been taken by the Dutch army, and was therefore in flames’. According to Jacqueline Bel, this puts a damper on the supposed idyllic nature of the story.
The writer takes the floor
In the third part, Multatuli himself takes up the pen. Droogstoppel, who in the first part has erected a statue to himself, so to speak, as a 'wretched spawn of sordid moneygrubbing and blasphemous cant!', is immediately expelled from the book with the words 'Choke in coffee and disappear!' Multatuli makes short shrift with the capitalist Dutchman who profits from looting the colony revenues in the name of faith. If anyone in this book should be thrown from his pedestal, it's Batavus Droogstoppel, says Jacqueline Bel.
Also, Multatuli's tone here becomes militant. He wants to be read and heard. If that doesn't happen, he threatens, he will translate the novel into the languages spoken in Europe as well as the Dutch East Indies: ‘I should sharpen Klewangs, the scimitars and the sabres, by rousing with warlike songs the minds of those martyrs whom I have promised to help – I, Multatuli would do this!’ First by legal means, but by force if necessary. This militant passage can hardly be read as promoting the colonial system, Jacqueline Bel believes. Then finally the novel's famous conclusion follows, in which he '[...] asks King William III in flaming terms whether it is his will that in the colony of the Dutch East Indies more than thirty million subjects be mistreated and exploited in his name.’
Does his criticism hold up in this era of decolonisation?
However critical Multatuli was in life and however much he tried to put himself in the shoes of the indigenous population, sharp analysis shows that in Max Havelaar, despite his good intentions, he could not completely extricate himself from the colonial discourse that dominated thinking at the time. “However, if we make an assessment,” Jacqueline Bel argues, “it is nevertheless my opinion that the novel is still extremely important and invites interesting interpretations. The sharp criticism of the colonial past, of 'the band of robbers between Germany and the Scheldt', is still relevant.” The bottom line, then, is that Multatuli and his Max Havelaar still hold up.
