The 1911 Indische begrotingsdebat — the 1911 Indies budget debate in the Tweede Kamer — is the parliamentary debate that “concentreerde zich vooral om de door deze adviseur van het ministerie van Koloniën ontvouwde denkbeelden” — concentrated especially on the ideas unfolded by Snouck Hurgronje, the advisor to the Ministry of Colonies, in his recently published Nederland en de Islam ([[1911)|Nederland en de Islam]]. The debate is the canonical parliamentary exchange on the question of government support for Christian zending (missions) in the Indies — including, by direct implication, the recently-pacified territories of Atjeh.
The Kuyper-Malefijt exchange
In the 1911 begrotingsdebat Kuyper (a.r.) mounted a principled argument against Snouck’s position. The neutral (neutraal) education that Snouck advocated was, in Kuyper’s reading, equivalent to “modernistic” education: “Het zou de inlanders tot vrijdenkerij brengen of tot het hindoeisme terug doen zinken” — it would bring the natives to freethinking or sink them back into Hinduism. Kuyper’s rule for the Indies was: “de bizondere school regel, de gouvernementschool aanvulling” — the confessional school the rule, the government school a supplement. To the objection that, where the private initiative could not provide, the government must step in, Kuyper replied: “Ik heb gezegd: de bizondere school regel, de gouvernementschool aanvulling. Moeten er 100 scholen komen en richt het particulier initiatief er slechts 11 op, dan moeten er eenvoudig 89 door het gouvernement worden opgericht. Ik laat geen enkele plaats onbezet”.
Malefijt’s response
De Waal Malefijt — minister of Colonies — replied that he adhered to the position of his predecessors: no direct support for the zending (missions), but strong support where the missions operated on social terrain. Kuyper’s rule for confessional schools was, in his view, possible only in a few regions of the Buitenbezettingen where the missions had gained a firm foothold; on Java — where the Muslim majority lacked the organisation to act on its own initiative — the rule was inapplicable.
The Kuyper-Heemskerk incident
Kuyper’s feeling that De Waal Malefijt had failed to “warm genoeg voor de a.r. beginselen uitkomen” — to come out warmly enough for the anti-revolutionary principles — and his suspicion of “de explosie van gejubel bij de linkse heren” — the explosion of jubilation among the gentlemen of the left — led to an incident in which De Waal Malefijt “zich op zijn beurt door Kuyper gekrenkt [voelde]” — felt himself in turn injured by Kuyper — and the first minister Heemskerk had to come to his defence. The incident, “die in die tijd veel opzien baarde” — which in its day caused much stir — was, in Vermeulen’s judgement, perhaps most of all a symptom of the “geprikkelde stemming” between Kuyper and the Heemskerk-De Waal Malefijt government.
The Snouck position
Snouck Hurgronje had argued that the Dutch state — religiously neutral — could not, and should not, attempt to convert its Muslim subjects to Christianity. The state should confine itself to “een actie, die bedoelt de inlanders op veel steviger wijze dan tot dusver het geval is, bij ons staatsverband en bij onze nationaliteit in te lijven” — an action intended to incorporate the natives far more firmly than hitherto into our state-association and our nationality. Snouck hoped that, with a proper associatiepolitiek, the Indonesians would of their own free will remain as equals within the realm.
Significance for Atjeh
The 1911 begrotingsdebat bears directly on Atjeh because the post-pacificatie administration of the sultanate was, in part, a question of education and zending. The Snouck-Kuyper-Malefijt exchange set the framework within which the question — whether the Atjehnese population should be educated in government-neutral or in Christian-confessional schools — would be decided.
See Also
- C. Snouck Hurgronje
- Abraham Kuyper
- J. H. de Waal Malefijt
- Heemskerk (first minister)
- Nederland en de Islam (Snouck Hurgronje, 1911)
- Ethische Politiek
- Pacificatie van Atjeh
- Buitenbezittingen
- 1911
Source
Schets eener parlementaire geschiedenis van Nederland van 1849 tot 1901, by Mr W. J. van Welderen baron Rengers, 4th rev. ed., Vol. IV: Oost-Indië 1891-1918 by Dr W. H. Vermeulen (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1955), pp. 281-282, 319-320.
A. Kuyper, Algeperst, pp. 24-25, 31.