post-colonial_translation

84 André Lefevere
father. The latter two fight the fleet the Maatschappij has sent against
them with great heroism, but fail to overcome it, not least because Abdul
intervenes with his troops on the side of the Maatschappij, against his
father and his brother. As the play ends, Abdul will be king, but Bantam’s
freedom will be lost.
The theme of intrigue and treason, for or against the Maatschappij,
for or against the rulers, is prominent in both de Marre and van Haren,
and has obviously shaped the Dutch perception of the ‘natives’ by
the time Haafner’s son publishes his father’s early adventures. The
dangers to the Maatschappij’s rule are stereotyped in Batavia (p. 33)
as follows:
These are not Iberians, who mean you harm;
No, these are your friends, who intrigue for your ruin:
I hear the cry of anguish that rustles through Java’s forests:
I see evil Christians, with the sword in their fists,
Marching up to your inheritance: I see the cunning
Bantam flattering
To lead you into the snare, under the guise of help.
The Maatschappij is, therefore, constantly the target of attacks
by both Christians – the Iberians, who stand for the Spaniards
and the Portuguese (also called the Lusitanians), and later the
English – and by pagans, among whom the Bantamese appear to
occupy the most prominent position. It is interesting to note, in
this respect, that de Marre sees the Dutch colonial adventures in
Holland, to some extent, as the logical conclusion of the Dutch
War of Independence against Spain, an interesting parallel to the
post-World War II situation, when most of the Dutch thought
that the liberation of Holland from Nazi occupation would find
its logical conclusion in the reoccupation of Indonesia by Dutch
troops.
It is no coincidence that the allegorical figure most in evidence in
Batavia is Discord. The Dutch use it to divide the Indonesian rulers,
and the British and the Portuguese use it against the Dutch. The rule of
thumb seems to be that if it is ‘our’ discord, meaning discord that leads
to a favourable outcome for the Dutch, it is all right; if it is ‘their’ discord,
on the other hand, it is reprehensible. De Marre can, therefore, describe
the Portuguese in terms immediately reminiscent of the Dutch, without
being in the least conscious of the fact that his description might easily