Generaal Dijkstra was a Dutch colonial general officer who, on 27 January 1922, delivered the commemorative address (gedenkrede) at the unveiling of the bronze statue of Pastoor H. C. Verbraak at Bandoeng, thereby publicly fixing the institutional memory of the soldatenpastoor of Atjeh in the post-war colonial army. His appearance at the ceremony is the only documented fact of his career preserved in the mission jubilee volume.
The 1922 statue unveiling at Bandoeng
The mission jubilee volume records the unveiling of the bronze statue of Pastoor H. C. Verbraak at Bandoeng on 27 January 1922 in a single compressed sentence:
“Later, op 27 Jan. 1922, werd te Bandoeng ter zijner eere een bronzen standbeeld onthuld, waarbij Generaal Dijkstra een gedenkrede uitsprak en den HoogEerw. Pater van Hoof namens den Bisschop en de geestelijkheid zijn dank betuigde.”
The record fixes three facts: (1) that the ceremony took place at Bandoeng on 27 January 1922; (2) that Generaal Dijkstra delivered the commemorative address; and (3) that the Very Reverend Pater van Hoof — on behalf of the Bishop and the clergy — expressed the thanks of the church. The presence of a general as the orator at a clerical-statuary ceremony is itself a document of the institutional bond between the colonial army and the memory of its wartime chaplain — a bond that the foundation of the Pastoor Verbraak-Stichting in the same period was also intended to formalise.
Identification
The source does not give Generaal Dijkstra’s initials, and no further biographical details of his career are preserved in the mission jubilee volume. He is identifiable, on the basis of the date and the context, as a senior general officer of the Dutch colonial army of the early 1920s, presumably with personal knowledge of the Atjeh-oorlog — possibly a veteran of the closing campaigns of the war or of the post-1904 consolidation. His selection as orator implies a recognised capacity to speak, in official military voice, to the institutional meaning of Verbraak’s thirty-year chaplaincy.
Significance
Dijkstra’s significance for the encyclopedia of Achehnese history is documentary. His 1922 address is the only formally recorded military speech in honour of Verbraak, and it is therefore the principal official military testimony to the chaplain’s place in the institutional memory of the colonial army. The bronze statue itself, raised by subscription at Kotta-Radja in 1908 and reproduced in bronze at Bandoeng in 1922, was — together with Dijkstra’s address — the most visible monument to the Catholic military chaplaincy of the Atjeh war-footing.
Service under Swart
Dijkstra was, as captain, civil authority and simultaneously troop commander at Moeara Teweh, Paloppo and Sigli, and thus experienced under Swart as provincial administrative head some six years of what he and his fellow “mindere goden” called the schoonmaaktijd (cleaning-up time).
Especially in the first two places, far in the interior with few means of communication and few connections with the chief town, he came to know the consequences of “the pernicious policy of non-intervention* (“policy of non-intervention”)” — the pernicious policy of non-intervention — in full.
In Pidië he had only to follow the road indicated by tested predecessors, but even there “the beacons had in some respects to be moved in governing this self-conscious and difficult people.” It became hard work; virtually everyone did it with zeal and cheerfulness, “for our chief himself led the way, showed himself a capable leader and held the reins firmly in his hands.” For at least half the time they were absent, and on returning to the station the accumulated office work and the ordinary business of the service occupied a large part of the day. For their wives, Dijkstra wrote, those became years of self-sacrifice, loneliness and care. The spirit, influenced from above, was one of dedication and good mutual understanding; of the katjau so notorious in Atjeh they experienced little.
He took over the government of Pidië from major Schröder in 1908, having previously served under Swart in Borneo and Celebes. Swart placed him at Sigli, the most important troop command on the north coast, before Scheepens.
The foreword of 1943
Dijkstra opened his foreword with the words “Watchful and industrious” and with a citation of Dr. F. W. Stapel’s remark in the introduction to De Gouverneurs-Generaal van Nederlandsch-Indië that, faithful to the good custom of biographical works, no life-notice is included for those still living. Notwithstanding his own view on the matter, Dijkstra had no objection to placing a short foreword before du Croo’s work, which he regarded “not as a biography of General Swart but as a broadly conceived description of the so-called Van Heutsz period with regard to the Outer Provinces]].” That so large a place was accorded in the book to the said senior officer, one of the leading collaborators of Governor-General van Heutsz, would surprise nobody competent in the matter.
Significance (du Croo, 1943)
Dijkstra’s foreword is the principal contemporary testimony to Swart’s method as seen from below by one of his own subordinates, and the source of the phrase schoonmaaktijd for the pacification years. His own career — from captain and civil authority in Borneo, Celebes and Pidië to lieutenant-general — exemplifies du Croo’s proposition that Swart’s long administration formed “an excellent school of government” for the officers who served under him long enough.
See Also
- Aceh War
- Bandoeng
- Koninklijk Nederlandsch-Indisch Leger
- Pastoor H. C. Verbraak
- Pastoor Verbraak-Stichting
- Pater van Hoof
- Vierhonderd jaren missie in Nederlandsch Indië (1934)
- 1908
- 1922
- 27 January
- H. N. A. Swart
- Maurice Henri du Croo
- General Swart, Pacifier of Atjeh (1943)
- W. B. J. A. Scheepens
- H. J. Schmidt
- Pidië
- Sigli
- Non-interventiepolitiek
- Joannes Benedictus van Heutsz
Source
Vierhonderd jaren missie in Nederlandsch-Indië, 1593–1934 (Batavia: Algemeen Comité van Voorbereiding tot de Feestelijke Herdenking van 400 jaar Missie in Ned.-Indië, [1934]), p. 133, after S. Kalff, “Een trits Indische Pastoors,” in Koloniaal Missie Tijdschrift, Jaargang XII.
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), Foreword, pp. IX–X; Chapter XI, p. 106; Chapter XIV, p. 139.