Nieuwe Courant is a subject named in General Swart, Pacifier of Atjeh (1943) by M. H. du Croo, in connection with the history of Atjeh and the governorship of H. N. A. Swart.
Account in du Croo’s Generaal Swart (1943)
From H. N. A. Swart
The appointment was contested. Dr. Snouck Hurgronje published in the Nieuwe Courant of 16–19 June 1908 a hostile judgement: asked whether the new governor’s appointment offered any guarantee of better policy, “We must answer this question decidedly in the negative.” As a troop commander Swart was valued by the most competent, but by no means placed on a level with Van Daalen; in knowledge of Atjeh and the Acehnese he could not stand in Van Daalen’s shadow. Snouck concluded that Swart was “by no means the man to give Atjeh … the combination of means of pacification derived from sound principles of government with the unavoidably hard measures that must break the resistance. It may well be that he would be in favour of it; behind it he is not, and behind it he will not come.”
From H. N. A. Swart
The Nieuwe Courant chronicler of Atjeh affairs — reprinted in the Sumatra Post of 25 November 1912 — read the promotion to lieutenant-general as “the confirmation of a policy which from its beginning meant a true revolution, a reversal of ideas concerning our administrative task in the north of Sumatra.”
From Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje
By 1908 the relation between van Heutsz and the scholar had sharpened into a very unpleasant one, partly as a result of what du Croo called “utterances and publications that gave offence not without reason” of Snouck’s. In the Nieuwe Courant of 16–19 June 1908 Snouck wrote of the newly appointed Governor Swart: “Does the appointment of the newly named Governor Swart offer any guarantee of a better policy? We must answer this question decidedly in the negative. As a troop commander Swart is indeed valued by the most competent judges, but he is by no means placed on a level with Van Daalen. As regards knowledge of Atjeh and the Acehnese, he cannot stand in Van Daalen’s shadow. In character there is perhaps as much difference between Swart and Van Daalen as between Van Daalen and Van Heutsz, but this difference does not benefit the provision of what Atjeh needs above all else…”
See Also
- H. N. A. Swart
- Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje
- Koeta Radja
- General Swart, Pacifier of Atjeh (1943)
- Atjeh
Source
Generaal Swart, Pacificator van Atjeh (“General Swart, Pacifier of Atjeh”), by M. H. du Croo, Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with the collaboration of H. J. Schmidt, Titular Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with a foreword by His Excellency Lieutenant-General K.N.I.L. (retired) G. K. Dijkstra (Maastricht: N.V. Leiter-Nypels, 1943), passim.