Bij den dood van Generaal Swart, den pacificator van Atjeh (“On the Death of General Swart, the Pacifier of Atjeh”) is a Dutch-colonial elegy by F. Kunst, published in the *Melati en rotan* collection (Bandoeng, 1947), that laments not the death of General H. N. A. Swart — the Pacificator van Atjeh — but the post-war destruction of his life’s work: the reduction of the country’s well-being to chaos, the raging of fanatic hatred where Swart had brought peace, and “Holland in blindheids nacht” (“Holland in night of blindness”). The poem is the principal Dutch-colonial literary document of the political memory of the pacification of Atjeh, and a counterpart — within the same collection — to the landscape-poem “Westmoesson (Kust van Atjeh).”
The poem
The poem, as published in *Melati en rotan* (p. 41), reads:
Wanneer wij treuren aan het graf van Swart, Die nu geland is aan Doods veil’ge kust En van een daadzwaar, roemrijk leven rust, Is ‘t niet om hem, die dwars door vreugde en smart Atjēh gedragen heeft in zijn groot hart En van volbrachten plicht zich was bewust, Toen ‘s Levens laatst bivakvuur werd gebluscht. Ons voegt geen rouw om hem, maar het is hard, Zijn levenswerk roek’loos te zien vernield: Het heil van ‘t land, waar hij zoovéél van hield, Chaos, waar hij eens orde en welvaart bracht, Het razen van den fanatieken haat, Waar vredestichten was zijn grootsche daad, En ergst van al Holland in blindheids nacht.
Poetic structure
The poem is composed in a single sonnet-form stanza of regular Dutch-colonial verse, with the turn (volta) at line 9 — “Zijn levenswerk roek’loos te zien vernield” (“to see his life’s work recklessly destroyed”) — that introduces the three complaints of the closing sestet. The octave (lines 1–8) is a declaration of the proper object of mourning: not Swart himself — who has reached “Doods veil’ge kust” (“Death’s safe coast”) after a “daadzwaar, roemrijk leven” (“deed-heavy, glory-rich life”) — but the destruction of his work. The sestet (lines 9–14) enumerates the three complaints: the reduction of the country’s well-being to chaos, the raging of fanatic hatred where Swart had brought peace, and “Holland in blindheids nacht” (“Holland in night of blindness”) — the motherland’s failure to defend the colonial achievement.
The occasion
The poem’s occasion — the death of General H. N. A. Swart — is the rhetorical point of departure for a lament on the destruction of the colonial order established by Swart in Atjeh. The collection’s publication in 1947 — in the immediate aftermath of the Japanese occupation and the early phase of the Indonesian National Revolution — fixes the historical horizon of the lament: the “razen van den fanatieken haat” (“raging of fanatic hatred”) is the Indonesian revolution, and “Holland in blindheids nacht” is the Dutch political failure to defend the colonial achievement. The general’s death, in this frame, is the occasion for a lament on the destruction of the colonial order itself.
The title Pacificator van Atjeh
The poem’s title — “Bij den dood van Generaal Swart, den pacificator van Atjeh” — fixes Swart, in the colonial memory of the mid-twentieth-century Dutch community of the Indies, as the Pacificator van Atjeh — the officer credited with bringing the Atjeh-oorlog to its definitive close. The title is itself a document of the colonial memory: the war that had opened with the death of Köhler in 1873 and had been brought to its military conclusion by Van Heutsz in 1903 is, in the colonial memory of 1947, identified with the Pacificator van Atjeh — the officer under whose command the pacification was completed.
Significance
The Bij den dood van Generaal Swart, den pacificator van Atjeh is significant for the encyclopedia of Achehnese history on three counts. First, it is the principal Dutch-colonial literary document of the political memory of the pacification of Atjeh — the elegy that fixes General Swart in the colonial memory as the Pacificator van Atjeh. Second, it is a document of the colonial reaction to the destruction of the Atjehnese colonial order in the Indonesian National Revolution — the lament for the “heil van ‘t land” (“well-being of the country”) reduced to chaos, the “fanatieken haat” (“fanatic hatred”) raging where Swart had brought peace. Third, it is a document of the colonial judgement of the Dutch motherland — “Holland in blindheids nacht” — for the failure to defend the colonial achievement. The poem’s placement in the *Melati en rotan* collection — alongside the landscape-poem “Westmoesson (Kust van Atjeh)” — fixes the two poles of the Dutch-colonial poetic imagination of Atjeh: the scenic landscape of the coast and the political memory of the pacification.
See Also
- Aceh War
- Bandoeng
- H. N. A. Swart
- J. B. van Heutsz
- J. H. R. Köhler
- Melati en rotan
- Pacificatie van Atjeh
- Westmoesson (Kust van Atjeh)
- 1873
- 1903
- 1947
Source
Melati en rotan: Gedichten van F. Kunst, pentekeningen van Johanna Roberti (Bandoeng: Vacuüm-Handel Maatschappij Vortex en Uitgeverij en Boekhandel W. Mellink, 1947), p. 41.