post-colonial_translation

Composing the other 89
Haafner further maintains that it is Dutch rule that has made the ‘natives’
into what the Dutch – at least in Batavia – perceive them to be (p. 107):
As long as these acts of violence and mistreatment that cry to
heaven are not reined in, you must not hope that the wretched
creatures who labour under your iron sceptre will fear death or
the torments with which you render it more heavy; rather they
look on it as the end of their suffering, and rightly so, and,
thinking of their imminent liberation, they undergo the most
cruel pains with an incredible steadfastness, without allowing
a sigh to escape or even to show pain in any feature of their faces.
Perhaps the most telling opposition between Batavia and Haafner’s
Lotgevallen is to be found in the description of the Malay custom of
‘amok’. Here, first, is de Marre (pp. 71–2):
When you [opium] help the mutineer’s vengeful heart to fury,
Incite the evil-doer to a horrible evil deed,
Where he runs out of his senses, and murders along market
and street,
Or shouts Amok! Amok! in blood-curdling tones;
Then you are full of danger for those who live in the town.
Now for Haafner (p. 107):
One should not imagine, as so many travellers and white
inhabitants pretend, that these creatures who have been
plagued so much shout amok for every little thing and give
themselves up to certain death – Oh no! Only after the most
steadfast and often the most humiliating torments does he take
the decision to die, but not unavenged, like the meek Hindu,
who bends his neck sighing, but without resistance, under the
murderous axe; he, on the other hand, grips the snaked kris in
his fist, and captured by the intoxicating power of bang, or
opium, he first kills his torturer and runs then, his long jetblack
hair waving wildly around his head, through the streets
rich with people.
Finally, van Haren’s Agon describes the Dutch as ‘natives’ from the
Indonesian point of view (p. 233b):