PETITE HISTOIRE DE L’INDONÉSIE ET DU FRANÇAIS
Author: Jean Rocher & Iwan Santoso, Re-write: Arnold Suwignyo
PENGANTAR !
Pendiri kota Depok, Cornelis Chastelein yang berdarah Perancis untuk memerdekakan para budak. Banyak peran serta Prancis dalam proses pembangunan infrastruktur dan aktivitas ekonomi di Indonesia modern. Jejaring hotel hingga produk otomotif Prancis serta pasar swalayan. Sebaliknya, Indonesia turut memberi warna di Prancis dengan adanya bukti bahwa Paul Gauguin dengan seorang perempuan asal Jawa, jejaring pertemanan tidak langsung antara Soemitro Djojohadikoesoemo-Henry Cartier Bresson-Andre Malraux-Edgar du Perron hingga keberadaan pemuda-pemuda Tionghoa dari Jawa dalam Perang Saudara Spanyol, terhubung dengan Prancis.
KAUM HUGUENOT DI KEPULAUAN NUSANTARA !
Awal mulanya ketika terjadi penganiayaan kelompok Prancis penganut agama Katolik Roma terhadap kaum Prancis Protestan aliran Calvinis. Masyarakat Prancis Protestan atau kaum Huguenot adalah kelompok umat Kristen Reformis yang diburu, khususnya ketika masa pemerintahan Louis XIV tahun 1660. Prancis sendiri telah terjadi delapan perang sipil bermotif agama dalam kurun 1562-1598. Kronologis ceritanya adalah ketika Louis XIV mengirim misionaris untuk mengembalikan mereka kepada iman Katolik dan memberi uang insentif bagi yang mau kembali menganut agama Katolik Roma. Karena dampaknya tidak efektif, Louis XIV memberlakukan hukuman dengan menutup sekolah dan memecat orang Huguenot dari pekerjaanya. Tetapi strategi tersebut belum juga berhasil, akhirnya Louis XIV memilih menggunakan kekerasan bersenjata dengan menurunkan dragonnades ( tentara berkuda ) untuk merampas rumah dan memburu kaum Huguenot. Pada tahun 1685, Louis XIV mencabut dekrit Edit de Nantes ( dekrit yang memberi perlindungan bagi kaum Huguenot dengan menjalankan kepercayaannya ) dan menggantinya dengan Edit de Fontainbleu yang menyatakan agama Kristen Protestan sebagai illegal. Tahun 1680-1710 sekitar 200.000 kaum Huguenot meninggalkan Prancis. Tempat tujuan utama migrasi kaum Huguenot tersebut ialah Swiss, Belanda , Inggris , Amerika Serikat , Brasil , Afrika Selatan dan hingga benua Australia. Adapun sedikit yang sampai hingga Nusantara mereka umumnya memiliki relasi kerja dengan VOC.
CORNELIS CHASTELEIN , HUGUENOT PENDIRI KOTA DEPOK !
Cornelis Chastelein adalah orang Huguenot yang berasal dari Belanda. Chastelein lahir dari seorang ayah bernama Anthony Chastelein dan ibu bernama Maria Cruijdenier, putri dari wali kota Dordrecht, Belanda. Cornelis membeli tanah di Gambir, Sringsing ( daerah Lenteng Agung ), Mampang , Depok , Karang Anyer , dan Ciliwung. Chastelein hendak mengembangkan pertanian dan perkebunan dengan budi daya tanaman seperti kopi,tebu,lada,dan sawah. Chastelein teringat akan larangan perbudakan dalam agama Kristen Protestan yang dianutnya. Pada 13 Maret 1714, Chastelein menulis surat wasiat yang berisi pembebasan para budaknya serta membagi seluruh tanah kepada para budaknya. Ketika memilih pemimpin agama inilah peran Chastelein dalam menyebarkan agama Protestan dimulai. Pada tahun 1700, Chastelein mendirikan gereja Protestan di Depok untuk para budak yang beragama Kristen Protestan. Kelompok inilah yang dinamakan Jemaat Masehi dan merupakan jemaat Protestan pertama di Depok. Chastelein selalu bermimpi untuk menciptakan masyarakat Kristen yang sejahtera. Kota Depok modern saat ini menjadi lokasi kampus Universitas Indonesia.
MASA KEKUASAAN NAPOLEON BONAPARTE DI JAWA ( 1808 – 1811 ) !
Pada abad ke 16 Portugis menjadi salah satu bangsa yang pertama kali melintasi Tanjung Harapan di Afrika Selatan semasa Vasco da Gama, mereka mengarungi samudra untuk membeli secara langsung rempah-rempah terkenal dari Maluku , seperti lada , cengkeh , dan pala yang dijual dengan harga selangit di pasar Eropa Barat dan membuat iri bangsa-bangsa Eropa lainnya. Pada waktu itu harga sekantung rempah-rempah lebih mahal dari harga sekantung emas ! Tetapi pada akhir abad ke 18, korupsi telah merusak kinerja perusahaan Kompeni. Banyak karyawan memanfaatkan fasilitas kapal Kompeni untu berjualan komoditas secara pribadi dan menjual pada penawaran tertinggi. VOC pun diejek orang Belanda sebagai “ Vergaan Onder Coruptie “ atau Hancur Karena Korupsi. Bagi Napoleon Bonaparte, Pulau Jawa tidak hanya sebuah koloni yang menjanjikan laba besar, secara strategi pulau itu bisa menjadi pijakan untuk mengusir Inggris dari Samudera Hindia sekaligus dijadikan pusat kantor dagang di Timur Jauh. Maka, Napoleon menekan adiknya Louis ( orang Belanda menyebutnya Lodewijk ) Raja Belanda sejak tahun 1806 supaya pulau ini dijadikan benteng sebagai pangkalan untuk memukul mundur Inggris dan sebuah pangkalan pasukan Prancis-Belanda yang akan memotong rute Angkatan Laut Inggris antara China,India dan Eropa.
DAENDELS MEMBANGUN BENTENG
Lapangan Monas ( Champ de Mars ) menjadi tempat pertahanan pada masa pemerintahan Daendels. Dia telah menjelajahi seluruh pelosok Jawa dari ujung ke ujung untuk melihat setiap pantai dimana tentara Inggris diperkirakan mendarat. Bagian selatan Pulau Jawa tidak mudah untuk didarati karena terjal dan ombaknya yang besar, tapi di pantai utara jauh lebih mungkin untuk didarati tentara inggris. Daendels memutuskan untuk membangun jalan lebar dan panjang yang menghubungkan ujung barat dan ujung timur pulau Jawa. Beberapa bulan setelahnya dengan kerja keras penduduk lokal yang sebagian digaji ada juga yang harus kerja paksa, Jalan Raya Pos ( Grand Route de la Poste ) sejauh 800 km dapat ditempuh 4 hari ( Batavia-Surabaya ). Dia juga membangun sebuah kamp militer yang dibentengi tembok sekitar 10 mil ke selatan kota Batavia. Pasukan Daendels juga diperkuat dengan kehadiran Batalion XII dari Kepulauan Mauritus ( Ile de France et Ile de Bourbon ). Kesulitan yang dihadapi para pedagang pada waktu itu untuk keluar-masuk dengan bebas dan hampir tidak mungkin karena blokade untuk angkatan laut Inggris membuat para pedagang pada waktu tidak mendukung Daendels yang memiliki sifat otoriter. Sehingga pada waktu Daendels dibenci dan bahkan difitnah karena melupakan cita-cita Revolusi Prancis dan melakukan korupsi. Itulah akhir cerita dari Daendels.
PASUKAN JAWA-PRANCIS BENTUKAN NAPOLEON BONAPARTE ( LEGIUN MANGKUNEGARAN )
Pada awal abad ke-19 Gubernur Jendral Prancis herman Willem Daendels berkuasa dia meresmikan Legiun Mangkunegaran sebagai satuan militer berstruktur ala Grande Armee Napoleon pada tahun 1808.
TRAH MANGKUNEGARA ( PERKEMBANGAN PASUKAN MANGKUNEGARA )
Ketika Mangkunegara I memimpin yaitu Raden Mas Said terjadi pembantaian antara Belanda terhadap etnis Tionghoa di Batavia dengan alasan orang Tionghoa dituding sebagai pemberontak dan imigran gelap. Gubernur Jendral VOC Adriaan Valckenier yang khawatir akan hal itu memerintahkan untuk membantai orang Tionghoa selama 3 hari ( 8-10 Oct 1740 ).
Saat itu Mangkunegara I bertemu dengan Kapten Tionghoa Sie Pan Jang dan mereka saling berkolaborasi dengan pasukan Raden Mas Said untuk menyerang VOC yang juga dibantu oleh pasukan Panembahan Cakraningrat IV dari Sumenep, Madura. Dengan bantuan untuk VOC itu maka pasukan Mangkungera berhasil dikalahkan. Tapi walaupun demikian Mangkunegara tidak pantang menyerah , dia bersama ayah mertuanya Pangeran Mangkubumi masih terus melancarkan perlawanan. Tapi keadaan berbalik pada akhir 1752 karena keduanya tidak ada yang mau menjadi nomor 2 di perjanjian yang tertulis setelah perang. Akhirnya setelah perang berlarut-larut Komandan Belanda Van Hohendorff mengirimkan surat ke Mangkunegara I untuk bernegosiasi menghentikan perang dan perjanjian ini ditandatangani pada 17 Maret 1757 di Salatiga.
Mangkunegara II Dinasti Mangkunegara I dilanjutkan kepada keturunannya yakni Ario Praboe Prang Wedono pada masa pemerintahan Mangkunegara I inilah legiun resmi baru didirikan dan dilatih dengan standar Prancis. Legiun Mangkunegaran juga pernah dikirim penguasa Prancis untuk menekan Keraton Yogyakarta yang berniat melawan kekuasaanya. Akhirnya, Kesultanan Yogyakarta berhasil ditalkukkan Inggris dan Hamengku Buwono II dibuang ke Penang, Malaysia. Mangkunegara II diteruskan oleh cucunya KI Bandara Raden Mas Sarengat.
Mangkunegara III yaitu KI Bandara Raden Mas Sarengat.
Mangkunegara IV yaitu Raden Mas Sudiro , era Mangkunegara IV bersamaan dengan Restorasi Meiji, Jepang. Beliau juga merupakan filsuf terkenal di dunia dan menulis buku yang berjudul Dictionnaire des Philosophes dan mengajarkan etika bisnis Suku Jawa.
Mangkunegara V yaitu Kanjeng Gusti Pangeran Adipati Arya.
Mangkunegara VI yaitu adik dari Mangkunegara V bernama Raden Mas Suyitno.
Mangkunegara VII tidak diketahui nama aslinya , pada masa beliau bersamaan dengan Perang Dunia 1 di Eropa , dan pada waktu Nazi menyerang Belanda , Legiun Mangkunegara kembali mengaktifkan pasukan dan menambah kekuatan Legiun. Kekuatan Legiun dibutuhkan karena ketakutan Belanda bila Jawa diduduki tentara Jepang. Pada tahun 1942 Jepang berhasil masuk ke wilayah Nusantara dan Jepang lebih memilih Asia Tenggara setelah kekalahan nya dalam memperebutkan Mongolia melawan Uni Soviet. Pada waktu Legiun Mangkunegara harus mengaku kekalahan terhadap pasukan Jepang, kondisi Surakarta semakin kacau balau akibat eksploitasi Jepang dan sentimen anti-Eropa akibatnya pemberontakan masyarakat di Surakarta. Dan pelampiasannya kepada para bangsawan keraton, pamong praja , orang kaya dan orang Tionghoa yang dianggap menari diatas penderitaan rakyat kecil.
ORANG DIDON ( DIS-DONC )
Berawal dari perang pertama antara Prancis dan Jerman pada bulan Agustus 1870 dan berakhir pada bulan September dengan kekalahan di Kota Sedan : tentara Prancis dipaksa menyerah. Kaisar Napoleon III dan keponakan Kaisar Napoleon I ( Napoleon Bonaparte ) ditawan di Jerman. Kekalahan ini dianggap sebagai sesuatu yang memalukan oleh penduduk Paris yang telah menderita kelaparan akibat perang. Pada bulan Maret 1871 , masyarakat Paris memutuskan untuk mengusir semua badan kepemerintahan dan menciptakan semacam pemerintah bebas dan egaliter. Commune de Paris adalah masyarakat Paris yang memberontak dan berusaha menaklukkan kembali ibu kota Paris tapi pada akhirnya mereka dipenjara, pemimpin-pemimpin mereka dibuang ke luar pulau banyak diantaranya yaitu : New Caledonia. Banyak juga orang dari Commune de Paris yang bergabung dengan Belanda sebagai tentara kolonial.
ARTHUR RIMBAUD DI JAWA ( 1876 )
Dilahirkan tanggal 20 Oktober 1854 di Charleville ( Prancis Timur ). Pada tanggal 22 Juli kapal uap yang dinaikki Rimbaud dalam keinginannya untuk berpetualang walaupun harus menjadi tentara relawan tiba di Ibu Kota Batavia. Lalu beberapa harinya lagi kapal lanjut ke kota Semarang yang pada waktu itu merupakan pusat kegiatan atau ekonomi di Jawa terbesar setelah Batavia. Semarang terkenal dengan jaringan jalur kereta api pertama di Hindia Belanda. Pada tanggal 2 Agustus 1876 Rimbaud naik kereta dari Semarang ke Desa Tuntang dan akhirnya masuk kota Salatiga. Penyair besar Prancis ini pernah tinggal di Salatiga dari tanggal 2-15 Agustus 1876 dan sebagai peringatan ditempel permanen di kompleks wali kota Salatiga pada tanggal 6 Mei 1997 oleh seorang Duta Besar Prancis Thierry de Beauce yang juga pengaggum penyair Rimbaud.
ORANG JAWA KALEDONIA
Tidak seperti kebanyakan para orang Jawa yang tinggal dengan kondisi pas-pas an dan menjadi kuli bangunan. Komunitas ribuan keturunan orang Jawa Kaledonia hidup dengan sangat kecukupan yang berawal dari buruh penambang nikel. Sejarah Nouvelle Caledonie semula adalah tempatnya koloni untuk membuang para penjahat di Prancis serta pemberontak asal Magribi yang melawan Prancis. Lambat para penguasa Prancis merasa kebutuhan ekonomi harus terpenuhi dan harus mendatangkan buruh termasuk dari Pulau Jawa. Tahun 1996 masih terdapat 5000 an Jawa Kaledonia yang tinggal disana. Jawa Kaledonia sering disebut oleh orang Eropa sebagai Niaouli yang diambil dari nama sebuah pohon lokal yang sering digunakan oleh perempuan Jawa untuk menggantungkan bayinya saat mereka bekerja.
Gelombang besar migrasi terjadi 5 kali yakni tahun :
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1936 sebanyak 300 orang
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1939 sebanyak 800 oran
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1949 semasa Perang Kemerdekaan Indonesia dan
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1970 semasa bisnis nikel lagi booming
LATAR BELAKANG PENUGASAN HERMAN WILLEM DAENDELS ( GUILLAUME JANSEN DAENDELS ) SEBAGAI GUBERNUR JENDERAL
Awal mula pada tahun 1803, perang kembali berkecamuk di Eropa. Terutama perang antara dua negara imperalis ( modern ) besar pada abad tersebut, Inggris dan Perancis, yang membawa dampak luas pada kondisi di Eropa bahkan di berbagai belahan bumi lain yang menjadi bagian dari wilayah jajahan/koloni kedua negara imperialis tersebut. Inggris yang lebih kuat di laut memang merupakan musuh utama Prancis yang lebih kuat di darat. Kedua negara tersebut mempunyai sejarah rivalitas yang cukup panjang dan saling berlomba untuk menunjukkan superioritas dan prestise sebagai negara imperialis terkuat. Bahkan dalam hal kepemilikan tanah jajahan. Kondisi ini membawa dampak bagi negara2 imperialis Eropa lainnya termasuk Belanda. Pada tahun 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte menjadi kaisar, sedangkan saudaranya, Louis ( Lodewijk ) Napoleon, menjadi raja Belanda. Dengan demikian, Kerajaan Belanda menjadi negara vasal Prancis ( negara jajahan Prancis ). Itu artinya, bahwa semua daerah jajahan Belanda, secara tidak langsung, menjadi milik prancis. Termasuk Hindia-Belanda ( Nusantara ). Dengan demikian, kecamuk parang di Eropa ( rivalitas Prancis-Inggris ) juga akan sampai ke kawasan Asia, khususnya Asia Tenggara, dimana Inggris yang pada itu sudah memiliki koloni di India telah sampai hingga kawasan Semenanjung Malaya ( Malaysia, Singapura ). Secara singkat apa yang terjadi di Eropa turut berdampak pada nasib Nusantara. Penugasan Daendels berawal ketika pihak Belanda & Perancis tidak bisa menjangkau Indonesia karena blokade yang dilakukan Inggris diseluruh wilayah Indonesia , sehingga pemerintah Belanda & Prancis mengalami hambatan dalam melakukan perdagangan. Tugas utama Daendels adalah pembangunan pertahanan Nusantara terhadap Inggris. Disamping itu, ketika menjalankan tugasnya, Daendels juga dihadapkan pada persoalan ekonomi yang tidak mendukung kebijakan-kebijakannya. Dia juga dituntut cepat untuk merealisasikan tugas-tugasnya tersebut, karena faktor tersebut ia menjadi bertangan besi.
Misal dalam memperkuat pertahanan militer :
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Demi menambah jumlah serdadunya yang pada waktu itu tidak lebih dari 2000 personil, lalu Daendels melakukan rekruitmen terhadap kaum pribumi untuk dilatih menjadi militer. Kebanyakan dari Manado, Jawa , dan Madura. Dengan demikian ia berhasil menambah jumlah angkatan bersenjatanya mencapai 18.000 – 20.000. Banyak para petani dipaksa memintal benang dan menenun kain untuk seragam militer. Di semarang , para pembuat gamelan diubah menjadi pandai besi untuk membuat senjata. Di Gresik , para pengrajin peralatan dapur dipaksa menjadi pabrik senjata.
Pembangunan Grote Postweg ( Jalan Raya Pos ) Anyer – Panarukan , jalan yang lebih dari 800 km dibangun untuk mobilitas militer agar menjadi lebih cepat dan mudah. Terutama untuk menjaga pos-pos pertahanan penting di sepanjang pantai utara Jawa. Kerja rodi-pun diberlakukan untuk pembangunan proyek tersebut.
PERSEPSI SALAH MENGENAI HERMAN WILLEM DAENDELS, YANG AKHIRNYA MEMBUAT MASYARAKAT INDONESIA SANGAT MEMBENCINYA ! (SEJARAH JALAN RAYA POS ANYER-PANARUKAN)
Terhadap raja-raja di Jawa, ia bertindak keras, tetapi kurang strategis sehingga mereka menyimpan dendam kepadanya. Di mata Daendels, semua raja pribumi harus mengakui raja Belanda sebagai junjungannya dan minta perlindungan kepadanya. Bertolak dari konsep ini, Daendels mengubah jabatan pejabat Belanda di kraton Solo dan kraton Yogya dari residen menjadi minister. Minister tidak lagi bertindak sebagai pejabat Belanda melainkan sebagai wakil raja Belanda dan juga wakilnya di kraton Jawa. Oleh karena itu Daendels membuat peraturan tentang perlakuan raja-raja Jawa kepada para Minister di kratonnya. Jika pada zaman VOC para residen Belanda diperlakukan sama seperti para penguasa daerah yang menghadap raja-raja Jawa, dengan duduk di lantai dan mempersembahkan sirih sebagai tanda hormat kepada raja Jawa, Minister tidak layak lagi diperlakukan seperti itu. Minister berhak duduk sejajar dengan raja, memakai payung seperti raja, tidak perlu membuka topi atau mempersembahkan sirih kepada raja, dan harus disambut oleh raja dengan berdiri dari tahtanya ketika Minister datang di kraton. Ketika bertemu di tengah jalan dengan raja, Minister tidak perlu turun dari kereta tetapi cukup membuka jendela kereta dan boleh berpapasan dengan kereta raja. Meskipun di Surakarta Sunan Paku Buwono IV menerima ketentuan ini, di Yogyakarta Sultan Hamengku Buwono II tidak mau menerimanya. Daendels harus menggunakan tekanan agar Sultan Yogya bersedia melaksanakan aturan itu. Tetapi dalam hati kedua raja itu tetap tidak terima terhadap perlakuan Daendels ini. Jadi ketika orang-orang Inggris datang, maka mereka bersama-sama dengan para raja "mengkhianati" orang Belanda.
Berbeda dengan apa yang dipercaya orang selama ini, Daendels selama masa pemerintahannya memang memerintahkan pembangunan jalan di Jawa tetapi tidak dilakukan dari Anyer hingga Panarukan. Jalan antara Anyer dan Batavia sudah ada ketika Daendels tiba. Oleh karena itu menurut het Plakaatboek van Nederlandsch Indie jilid 14, Daendels mulai membangun jalan dari Buitenzorg menuju Cisarua dan seterusnya sampai ke Sumedang.Pembangunan dimulai bulan Mei 1808. Di Sumedang, proyek pembangunan jalan ini terbentur pada kondisi alam yang sulit karena terdiri atas batuan cadas, akibatnya para pekerja menolak melakukan proyek tersebut dan akhirnya pembangunan jalan macet. Akhirnya Pangeran Kornel turun tangan dan langsung menghadap Daendels untuk meminta pengertian atas penolakan para pekerja. Ketika mengetahui hal ini, Daendels memerintahkan komandan pasukan zeni Brigadir Jenderal von Lutzow untuk mengatasinya. Berkat tembakan artileri, bukit padas berhasil diratakan dan pembangunan diteruskan hingga Karangsambung. Sampai Karangsambung, proyek pembangunan itu dilakukan dengan kerja upah. Para bupati pribumi diperintahkan menyiapkan tenaga kerja dalam jumlah tertentu dan masing-masing setiap hari dibayar 10 sen per orang dan ditambah dengan beras serta jatah garam setiap minggu.
Setibanya di Karangsambung pada bulan Juni 1808, dana tiga puluh ribu gulden yang disediakan Daendels untuk membayar tenaga kerja ini habis dan di luar dugaannya, tidak ada lagi dana untuk membiayai proyek pembangunan jalan tersebut. Ketika Daendels berkunjung ke Semarang pada pertengahan Juli 1808, ia mengundang semua bupati di pantai utara Jawa. Dalam pertemuan itu Daendels menyampaikan bahwa proyek pembangunan jalan harus diteruskan karena kepentingan mensejahterakan rakyat (H.W. Daendels, Staat van Nederlandsch Indische Bezittingen onder bestuur van Gouverneur Generaal en Marschalk H.W. Daendels 1808-1811, 's Gravenhage, 1814). Para bupati diperintahkan menyediakan tenaga kerja dengan konsekuensi para pekerja ini dibebaskan dari kewajiban kerja bagi para bupati tetapi mencurahkan tenaganya untuk membangun jalan. Sementara itu para bupati harus menyediakan kebutuhan pangan bagi mereka. Semua proyek ini akan diawasi oleh para prefect yang merupakan kepala daerah pengganti residen VOC. Dari hasil kesepakatan itu, proyek pembangunan jalan diteruskan dari Karangsambung ke Cirebon. Pada bulan Agustus 1808 jalan telah sampai di Pekalongan. Sebenarnya jalan yang menghubungkan Pekalongan hingga Surabaya telah ada, karena pada tahun 1806 Gubernur Pantai Timur Laut Jawa Nicolaas Engelhard telah menggunakannya untuk membawa pasukan Madura dalam rangka menumpas pemberontakan Bagus Rangin di Cirebon (Indische Tijdschrift, 1850). Jadi Daendels hanya melebarkannya. Tetapi ia memang memerintahkan pembukaan jalan dari Surabaya sampai Panarukan sebagai pelabuhan ekspor paling ujung di Jawa Timur saat itu.
Kontroversi terjadi tentang pembangunan jalan ini. Pada masa Daendels banyak pejabat Belanda yang dalam hatinya tidak menyukai Perancis tetapi tetap setia kepada dinasti Oranje yang melarikan diri ke Inggris. Namun mereka tidak bisa berbuat banyak karena penentangan terhadap Daendels berarti pemecatan dan penahanan dirinya. Hal itu menerima beberapa orang pejabat seperti Prediger (Residen Manado), Nicolaas Engelhard (Gubernur Pantai Timur Laut Jawa) dan Nederburgh (bekas pimpinan Hooge Regeering). Mereka yang dipecat ini kemudian kembali ke Eropa dan melalui informasi yang dikirim dari para pejabat lain yang diam-diam menentang Daendels (seperti Peter Engelhard Minister Yogya, F. Waterloo Prefect Cirebon, F. Rothenbuhler, Gubernur Ujung Timur Jawa), mereka menulis keburukan Daendels. Di antara tulisan mereka terdapat proyek pembangunan jalan raya yang dilakukan dengan kerja rodi dan meminta banyak korban jiwa. Sebenarnya mereka sendiri tidak berada di Jawa ketika proyek pembangunan jalan ini dibuat. Ini terbukti dari penyebutan pembangunan jalan antara Anyer dan Panarukan, padahal Daendels membuatnya dimulai dari Buitenzorg. Sayang sekali arsip-arsip mereka lebih banyak ditemukan dan disimpan di arsip Belanda, sementara data-data yang dilaporkan oleh Daendels atau para pejabat yang setia kepadanya (seperti J.A. van Braam, Minister Surakarta) tidak ditemukan kecuali tersimpan di Perancis karena Daendels melaporkan semua pelaksanaan tugasnya kepada Napoleon setelah penghapusan Kerajaan Belanda pada tahun 1810. Sejarawan Indonesia yang banyak mengandalkan informasi dari arsip Belanda ikut berbuat kesalahan dengan menerima kenyataan pembangunan jalan antara Anyer-Panarukan melalui kerja rodi.
Kontroversi lain yang menyangkut pembangunan jalan ini adalah tidak pernah disebutkannya manfaat yang diperoleh dari jalan tersebut oleh para sejarawan dan lawan-lawan Daendels. Setelah proyek pembuatan jalan itu selesai, hasil produk kopi dari pedalaman Priangan semakin banyak yang diangkut ke pelabuhan Cirebon dan Indramayu padahal sebelumnya tidak terjadi dan produk itu membusuk di gudang-gudang kopi Sumedang, Limbangan, Cisarua dan Sukabumi. Begitu juga dengan adanya jalan ini, jarak antara Surabaya-Batavia yang sebelumnya ditempuh 40 hari bisa disingkat menjadi 7 hari. Ini sangat bermanfaat bagi pengiriman surat yang oleh Daendels kemudian dikelola dalam dinas pos.
Di sisi lain dikatakan bahwa Daendels mebuat birokrasi menjadi lebih efisien dan mengurangi korupsi. Tetapi ia sendiri dituduh korupsi dan memperkaya diri sendiri. Akhirnya ia dipanggil pulang oleh Perancis dan kekuasaan harus diserahkan kepada Jan Willem Janssens, seperti diputuskan oleh Napoleon Bonaparte. Pemanggilan pulang ini dipertimbangkan oleh Napoleon sendiri.
AWAL MULA BAGAIMANA BANGSA EROPA MENGETAHUI BAHWA DI INDONESIA ADALAH NEGARA YANG SANGAT KAYA AKAN REMPAH-REMPAH NYA !
Bangsa eropa yang pertama kali datang di indonesia adalah bangsa portugis pada awal abad ke 15 dipimpin oleh Vasco da Gama, keahlian dalam bidang navigasi dan pembuatan kapal membuat bangsa portugis ingin melakukan pelayaran ke seluruh dunia. Dan pada tahun 1512 Vasco da Gama tiba di Malaka ,tepatnya di Ternate , Maluku. Namun , masa pelayaran portugis di Indonesia tidaklah lama karena pada tahun 1575 portugis kalah di tangan bangsa Ternate dan kegagalan dalam mengendalikan perdagangan di kawasan tersebut.
BANGSA BELANDA
Pada awalnya, bangsa Portugis berusaha merahasiakan rute perdagangan ke Benua Asia. Namun, rute itu dibocorkan seorang Belanda yang ikut dalam pelayaran perdagangan yaitu Jan Huygen Van Linschoten. Ia menerbitkan catatan perjalanannya berjudul “Catatan Perjalanan ke Timur atau Hindia Portugis” (Itinerario neat Oost ofte Portugaels Indien). Buku itu dilengkapi peta-peta, gambaran wilayah dan jenis barang yang diperdagangkan. Berdasarkan buku itulah pelayaran dagang Belanda menuju Asia tahun 1595 dilakukan.
Pelayaran ini terdiri dari 4 kapal yang dipimpin oleh Cornelis de Houtman berhasil mengangkut rempah-rempah menyebar dengan cepat ke seluruh negeri Belanda. Sejak itulah pelayaran dagang bangsa Belanda berdatangan ke Indonesia.
BANGSA INGGRIS
Tahun 1600, Ratu Elizabeth I dari Inggris merintis pelayaran dagang ke dunia timur. Untuk itu, Ratu Elizabeth I memberi hak kepada Maskapai Hindia Timur (The East India Company atau EIC) berpusat di India untuk berlayar ke timur. Armada pelayaran dagang tersebut dipimpin oleh Sir James Lancaster. Mereka berhasil pulang ke Inggris dengan membawa banyak rempah-rempah.
Pelayaran dagang berikutnya dipimpin oleh Sir Henri Middleton tahun 1604 dan berhasil mendarat di Ternate, Tidore, Ambon dan Banda, di Maluku. Namun, Inggris mendapat saingan dari Portugis yang terlebih dahulu ada di sana. Untuk menghindari persaingan itu, pelayaran dagang Inggris berusaha mencari rempah-rempah di pelabuhan lain seperti Sukadana (Kalimantan Barat), Makasar, Jayakarta, Jepara, Pariaman, Jambi dan Aceh.
Tahun 1811, pasukan Inggris menyerang wilayah yang dikuasai Belanda. Belanda tidak dapat berbuat banyak dan menyerahkan wilayah-wilayah yang dikuasainya. Thomas Stamford Raffles pun diangkat sebagai gubernur jendral di Hindia Belanda. Namun berdasarkan Perjanjian London tahun 1815, Inggris harus mengembalikan Hindia Belanda ke Pemerintahan Belanda tahun 1816.
The encyclopedia of the chinese overseas (indonesia)
Author: Wang Gungwu, Re-write: Arnold Suwignyo
DEMOGRAPHY
Indonesia’s Chinese minority is one of the largest in Southeast Asia. Figures from the Indonesian census of 2000 lead to an estimate of at least three to four million people. Nevertheless, this population count shows that, proportionately, they are a small part of the total population, about 1.5 to, at most, 2.0 per cent of all Indonesians. Observes also believe that this census underestimated the numbers of ethnic Chinese, either because some, when asked their ethnic group, no longer identified themselves as “ Chinese “ or because some feared to do so, but more exact figures are not available.
Why, then, did some people estimate the Chinese to be five million or more ? To begin with, Chinese are a highly visible minority. They live mostly in urban areas, often in business or residential districts that are almost exclusively Chinese. They engage in activities in the public view: shop owning, trading, industry, banking, real estate development, the professions. They appear to have a controlling position in the modern economy. Most large corporations are in ethnic Chinese hands. Ethnic Indonesians sometimes fear that illegal immigration or high birth rates are enabling the Chinese to increase faster than the indigeneous or pribumi population. Immigration, however, is not more than a trickle and the growth rate of the Chinese minority, given access to birth control and some emigration, is probably less than that of pribumi Indonesians.
The 1930 colonial census counted 1.233.000 Chinese in the Dutch East Indies, slightly less than half of them on the island of Java, the rest in the so called Outer Islands. Many of the Chinese outside Java, perhaps 77.000 of them in 1930, were contract “coolie” labourers and transients; others were short-term migrants. The decade prior to 1930 was a time of rapid economic growth and high demand for labour, and the Chinese population grew by the unusually high figure of 4.3 per cent per annum between 1920 and 1930. Lacking more recent figures some extrapolated from these but, in fact, they are misleading. Population increase among the Chinese slowed dramatically after that, and many areas experienced net emigration because of the depression. Import of contract laboureres from China never resumed, and, although some immigration of Chinese continued during the 1940s, since the 1950s Indonesia has not admitted Chinese immigrants; consequently the growth rate has fallen. In 1960, some 100.000 people of Chinese origin left Indonesia for China, and unknown numbers have departed since then, some to China, but the majority to North America, Australia, New Zealand or Europe.
Indonesia is a huge nation and the geographic dispersal of the Chinese is very uneven. Chinese range from nearly one-fourth of the population of the island of Bangka, to well under 2 per cent in the eastern part of the Archipelago. In Jakarta , they may be about 10 per cent of the city’s population; in Medan ( Sumatera ), they are less than 13 per cent ( in 1930 they were nearly 36 per cent ); Pontianak at most 30 per cent.
In addition, Indonesian traditions and beliefs exercises a strong influence over those who resided for generations in the Archipelago, especially in Java, but also in some parts of other islands like Sulawesi or West Sumatera. As a result, many local communities have become culturally bifurcated between the long-resident Peranakans ( in the past, they were also known as “ Baba “, as were the Chinese of the Straits Settlements, who spoke Indonesian or a local language in daily life, and the more “pure” Chinese, called “ Totoks “ ( which means “pure” in Indonesian ), who were usually immigrants or their children, and who usually used a Chinese language. Since both geographical and historical experiences differed greatly because of Indonesia’s diversity, the three major groups of Indonesia’s Chinese will be discussed separately here : the Peranakans, who live mostly in Java; the Totoks of Java, especially its business community; and the Outer Islands communities, where Chinese languages also persist, but which underwent a different historical development, resulting un special kinds of accommodation to the local socities.
EARLY HISTORY OF CHINESE SETTLEMENT
Hundreds of years ago, Chinese visitors already used the Indonesian Archipelago as a way station for their trade with India and the Middle East. Later they began collecting its exotic products for their medicine chestsand their kitchens; aromatic resins, marine products, bird’s nests and rare items form the animal world. Gradually, small settlements built up at major ports and groups of traders and craftsmen – and sometimes nests of pirates- took root. Chinese visitors also provided the earliest written accounts of the Archipelago.
By the time Europeans reached the Indies in the 16th century, substantial settlements existed in many local port cities, and there were even some rural communities of Chinese in areas surrounding these towns, In native harbor cities, resident Chinese often took the role of syahbandar , master of the port, collecting dues and supervising traffic in the name of the ruler. Some were close to the rulers, becoming Muslims, acquiring official titles, and intermarrying with the local elite.
The sultanate of Banten, for example, which dominated western Java in the 16th century, had a substantial pacinan or Chinese quarter, which was its market centre, separate from the politicio-religious centre with the sultan’s court and mosque. Banten’s Chinese merchants, together with others from India, the Malay Peninsula or the Archipelago, traded in pepper and other goods, as well as exchanging products brought from elsewhere in Asia, and were already well established when the Dutch arrived. In time, it would be Dutch policy towards the Chinese which would shape the minority in important cultural, economic and political ways.
BATAVIA : A CHINESE CITY
If Chinese were important figures in native-dominated ports like Banten, they became essential to the operation of Batavia, now the capital city known as Jakarta. When Jan Pieterszoon Coen of the Dutch East India Company ( Verenigde Oost Indische Compagnie, VOC ) selected the location in 1619, on the site of a native settlement called Jakarta (or Jayakerta), he planned to develop this new harbor, which was strategically located between the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean, to gain a dominant position in the valuable Indies trade. He soon recognized that his grand plan would need Chinese labour and commerce to make it work.
Batavia soon became the major entrepot for the China trade in the Archipelago, with the VOC offering wares from India and spices and tin from the Archipelago in exchange for Chinese goods, which it traded to Europe and elsewhere. The port was not really an administrative city or a colonial capital, nor was it an emporium for products from Java. These roles would come only in the 19th century.
Chinese quickly provided much of the human infrastructure for the town. In fact, it was – and is – the largest Chinese community in the islands. They were the various merchants, the provisioners to the Dutch, and shopkeepers. A colony of Chinese agriculturalists in the nearby countryside, outside the walls, provided fresh foods for the town; in the 18th century they also planted sugar in the environs of Batavia, distilling it into rum or arrack. Harbour coolies, virtually all Chinese, moved the freight; many artisans were Chinese. Chinese contractors and their labourers dug Batavia’s famous canals and built most of its houses, and for a time even minted its coins. Soon Chinese were half of the civilian population of the multi-ethnic town.
Chinese settlements, whether under native rulers of under the VOC, were organized (as were other settlements of foreigners) in groups under their own headmen, a policy which continued into the 20th century. The headmen was responsible to the VOC for the behavior of his group of Chinese, and often for collecting its taxes; otherwise the community managed its own affairs. Usually these early headmen or officers were called Kapitan (or in Dutch, kapitein ); such Chinese of ficers were the richest and most influential men in their own community, but they had to get along with the Dutch as well.
Another colonial policy which began in early Batavia was a system of farming out revenue. The farmer would collect taxes or tolls, turning over the proceeds to the government. What he collected over and above the sum he paid to the government was his profit. From the earliest times, Chinese dominated these so-called revenue farms (discussed below).
The Chinese population of Batavia continued to grow rapidly in the following years, Chinese junks came annually to the harbor, and Chinese settlers increasingly spilled over into the countryside of Java, out of the control of the few Europeans living in the walled town, and largely free of the influence of the Chinese Kapitan. The sugar boom was partly responsible for uncontrolled immigration, but when economic difficulties resulted in the closing of the mills, unemployed Chinese from the countryside, unregistered , and uncontrollable, revolted against VOC authority, attacking the town.
The Europeans of Batavia, outnumbered by the immigrant Chinese in a larger, for the most part hostile, Javanese environment, responded in their panic with an orgy of killing. Most of the Chinese within the city paid with their lives, nearly all of them paid with their property, in the 1740 massacre. One estimate is that two thirds of the 15.000 Chinese inhabitants of the environs of Batavia died. The ensuing conflict spread to involve the local rulers of neighbouring territories, resulting finally in an extension of Dutch power along the entire northern coast of Java. In china, the Qianlong emperor, informed by a repentant Dutch governor general of the massacre of his subjects, blamed the victims; the Chinese of Batavia were law breakers who should never have settled away from the homeland. Dutch relations with the Chinese empire remained unaffected by what the Dutch called the “Chinese Murder”.
Yet the Chinese community showed, as it would time and again in late years, remarkable resilience. Almost at once VOC officials, almost helpless without a Chinese population, began encouraging immigration again, and the Chinese emperor’s subjects responded gladly to the invitation. By the end of the 18th century, the Chinese were again the largest group in the city; their economic role was indispensable.
CHINESE IN THE OUTER ISLANDS
Most of the Indonesian islands outside Java came under colonial rule later than Java did, some only at the beginning of the 20th century. Native rule persisted and, in the absence of Europeans, the Chinese often formed alliances with local rulers, finding niches in both the pre-colonial and later in the colonial economy. Furthermore, Chinese in these areas display greater diversity than those in Java, as their accomodations to local conditions differed widely. Unlike those in densely populated Java, who often acted as middlemen for the colonial economy, Chinese elsewhere were labourers and small farmers, traders and artisans, filling a variety of functions and having a variety of class statuses. Above all, a high proportion immigrated during the 20th century; in 1930 , only about one-fifth of the Chinese in Java were born in China, but over half of those in the Outer Islands were.
Some areas of the Outer Islands do have Peranakan concentrations. Where Chinese settled in the Indies over a long time, where large numbers of immigrants did not arrive prior to the 1870s, where intermarriage with native women was common and immigrant Chinese women are few, Chinese usually began to use the local language or Malay in preference to a Chinese language. Such was the case in Chinese concentrations in West Sumatra, North and South Sulawesi, south and east Borneo and in some of the small communities farther east. The majority of Chinese in the Outer Islands, however, tended to retain their Chinese language, and before 1942, in the largest settlements, the foreign-born had a dominant influence.
The four major concentrations of Chinese in the Outer Islands, in 1930, were along the eastern coast of Sumatra, on the islands of Bangka and Belitung , in the Riau Archipelago and in West Kalimantan. These settlements are grouped around Singapore, which was the hub of much of their economic activity and, with the exception of eastern Sumatra, they existed long before Singapore was founded in 1819. In fact, they go back to the mid-18th century. In these four concentrations, Chinese were a substantial proportion of the total population : 44 per cent in Bangka-Belitung, 14 per cent in West Kalimantan and 11 per cent in Riau and in eastern Sumatra. In 1920, in all these areas, over 90 per cent of the ethnic Chinese claimed they spoke some kind of Chinese as their daily language. A substantial part of these Chinese lived in rural areas, in contrast to Java’s almost exclusively urban Chinese minority. Unlike the Chinese of Java, who were concentrated in commercial activities, those of the four settlements engaged primarily, in one way or another, in the production of raw materials.
One important area of settlement was the gold mining area to the north of Pontianak in the present Indonesian province of West Kalimantan. There, in the mid 18th century, local sultans invited the Chinese to work the deposits of gold on their account. Living in relatively isolated and self-sufficient settlements, the Chinese miners formed kongsi to share their work and profits. Originally these kongsi were probably shareholding groups of gold miners; in time they grew larger and more powerful, several kongsi combining and becoming completely independent of the Sultans authority, taking on the attributes of states. The Dutch, welcomed by the sultans, gradually extended their power in the area after 1819. In stages, as gold sites were exhausted and the kongsi fell into debt or mutual fighting, they forced the kongsi to surrender and disband. By 1885, all Chinese living on the west coast of Kalimantan were under the direct rule of the colonial power, supported by a corps of Chinese officers who were, however, little more than tax collectors.
During the 20th century , this important settlement, which may have had 400.000 Chinese in 1990, continued to grow even though the gold mines were played out. Kalimantan had large expanses of land, some of it well-suited for sedentary agriculture, and the Chinese took advantage of its availability. Chinese early introduced wet-rice farming to the area, as well as engaging in cultivation of vegetables and fruits. When cash crops like coconut and especially rubber opened up, Chinese migration to the area surpassed that of gold rush times, and the population grew rapidly, reaching almost 108.000 in 1930. Many Chinese engaged in trade; they spread rubber cultivation to the interior, awakening the interest of other ethnic groups in planting rubber. The Hakkas especially were intrepid unpland traders, giving credit, selling consumer goods, and buying up rubber and jungle produce. The town of Pontianak, dominated by Teochius, became a centre for processing and exporting rubber and copra; later it also became a centre of the timber industry.
Chinese came first to Bangka in the early 18th century, responding to the desire of the sultan of Palembang to have them work his tin mines there. Thanks to their technology, an improvement on native methods, and to their ability to assemble and control large numbers of workers, keeping them constantly at work in the mines, they greatly improved tin production for the sultan. He then sold the metal to the Dutch East India Company, which in turn traded much of the tin via Batavia to China. Mining on Bangka thus began long before colonial rule took over on the island and, in the course of time, it underwent a transition from native to Chinese to Western methods, although Chinese continued to dominate the labour force up to World War II. Chinese labourers, who initially organized themselves in shareholding kongsi, smaller and less powerful than those of Kalimantan, gradually lost control of the entreprises as the Dutch extended their influence, and by the second half of the 19th century, they were little more than powerless coolies.
By the time the Dutch took control of Bangka and its mines in 1816, Chinese were so firmly in control of the industry that the Dutch contented themselves with the sultan’s previous role of supervisor, creditor and purchaser. Chinese bosses controlled not only production of the tin but the crucial supply of labourers, most of whom came from China under a system which bound them to work to repay their passage money and then allowed them, once debt-free, to become shareholders in their mine. By the mid 19th century, however, advances in mining technology in Europe, shortages of replacement coolies, and the threat of declining supplies of tin led the colonial authorities to assume more and more responsibility for the day to day operation of the mines. During the 20th century, Bangka Tin became a fully state owned enterprise. The Depression of the 1930s hit Bangka hard, and many coolies returned to China. Only after World War II, however, did Chinese coolies become superfluous, their physical labour being replaced by machines with native operators.
By nature coolies were a transient population, but in Bangka some stayed on as settlers. The island proved well-suited for production of pepper, which Chinese planters cultivated intensively, turning the product into the aromatic white pepper for which Bangka became known. To a lesser extent, some miners also settled more permanently in Belitung, where a private company had begun mining in earnest in 1860. Bangka still shows Chinese influence in many aspects of its culture, but that influence is declining. Coolies no longer arrive; instead, many Chinese have left Bangka for Java and abroad. Bangka and Belitung together counted 103.736 Chinese in 2000, 11,5 per cent of the population, but the highest proportion of any Indonesian province. This decline is less a decline in absolute numbers than in proportions. It results from selective emigration, higher birth rates among native Indonesians and especially from the internal migration of ethnic Indonesians from elsewhere in the country.
The character of the concentrations in Kalimantan and Bangka was nevertheless quite different from that of Java. For one thing, most of the Chinese in Bangka, Belitung and West Kalimantan were of Hakka origin, and Hokkiens were a small minority, mostly engaged (as far as Bangka and Belitung are concerned) in the pepper trade. The hakkas seem to have associated easily with the native peoples and adjusted to the tropical rhythm of agriculture, but they stubbornly retained their language and many of their customs, even though these areas already had a high proportion of third-generation residents in 1930. These long-term residents were, in G.William Skinner’s words (1996), more “locally rooted” than “Peranakan”, but they were not quite Totoks either, and a difference from the new arrivals from China remained noticeable.
Riau, with its predominantly Hokkien and Teochiu Chinese population, seems at times to have been a door-step to Singapore. But this area, too, was settled before Singapore’s founding, when Chinese began planting gambier and pepper on the islands during the 18th century. As in the mines, the Chinese were able to import groups of labourers and keep them working in the gambier plantations, tending the crops and preparing them laboriously for market. Only the exhaustion of the natural base, including the essential wood supply, forced the gambier producers to move onward. Many Chinese remained in Riau as smallholders, fisherman and petty traders. Here, too, the proportion of Chinese has declined in recent decades, and the development of some parts of the Riau Archipelago as an industrial zone in connection with Singapore and Johor is changing the basis of the local economy.
In these three areas, it was Chinese entrepreneurship which brought changes to the local economy, although European capital later took over capital-intensive mining. Eastern Sumatra was an area of dominance of Western Capital, and the Chinese only migrated there, at first mostly as coolies, when Europeans began to open up the area after the 1860s and the European-owned tobacco plantations became desperate for unskilled labour. Over the next decades, thousands of Chinese coolies arrived in this frontier area, living and working in barely human conditions. But imported Chinese labour became too costly for the plantation owners, who later expanded to rubber and oil palm as well as the special cigar wrappers for which the Deli area near Medan was famous. As a result, unskilled contract labourers from Java- including women for the finer work – began to replace Chinese coolies and in 1932 labour recruitment in China for Sumatra completely ceased.
The coolies were of mixed origins. One source mentions Hakkas from the hinterlands of Swatow ( Shantou ), a mostly Teochiu-speaking area, as preferred labourers, but many were Hokkiens. Medan, a city which grew up with the plantations, has a hokkien majority (and close links with Penang in Malaysia, also a Hokkien concentration). As elsewhere, the influence of Chinese, numerically and otherwise, has fallen. In 1930, at nearly 36 per cent of Medan’s ethnically heterogeneous population, Chinese were a dominant group in the city; 1981, the proportion had fallen, in spite of a growth in their absolute numbers, to less than 13 per cent.
In spite of this evidence of decline in numerical influence, and replacement of Chinese by indigenes in the field of labour, Chinese still dominate the market economy of the Major Outer Islands. Chinese also pre-dominate as urban businessmen and artisans. They play a major role in industry, trade and banking. Although since the 1960s, the have ceased to collect export crops in the interior, most exports like rubber, copra and pepper still pass through the hands of Chinese in the cities, who are ultimately responsible for processing and putting them on the world market. One notable change , however, is that the economies of these areas (except perhaps Riau) are increasingly focused on Jakarta and not, as in the past, on Singapore as entrepot for raw material exports.
DIASPORA CHINESE MAPPING OVER THE WORLD
RELIGION
Scholars often describe traditional Chinese religion as a mixture of Buddhism , Confucianism and Daoism. Peranakans, for the most part, perpetuated popular Chinese beliefs in their new homeland, constructing tempeles and celebrating the festivals they knew in China, although over the years, some of these beliefs became mixed with local devotions and practices. Three impulses brought about a reconsideration of Chineseness and Chinese religion in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The first was the greater influx of immigrants Peranakans, on the one hand, felt they were “Chinese”, because that was what the colonial government insisted they were : they still bore Chinese names before the 20th century, they wore Chinese dress (in the case of the women a form of Indonesian dress which was peculiarly “Chinese”), even down to pigtails for Chinese men, and they lived for the most part in Chinese quarters or Chinatowns. The new arrivals confronted the Peranakans with a different kind of Chinese culture; they spoke Hokkien or other Chinese languages, some could read and write Chinese; some Totok women, who wore drab trouser suits, even had bound feet! Where, then, was the essence of “Chineseness” to be sought? Would Peranakans have to become like these people?
A second impetus came from Dutch Protestant missionaries, who were – in small numbers – active in Java from the 1850s on. Because European schools were closed to most Chinese, some children attended schools run by Christian missionaries, only to find their teachers scornful of Chinese “superstitious beliefs”. In time, some influential Peranakan authors began to assert Confucianism as a rational, intellectually honourable form of Chinese religion.
Finally, colonial policy, beginning with new laws in 1854, began to separate the Chinese (or Foreign Orientals) more and more consistently from the natives. Consciousness of ethnicity grew, and among the influential Peranakans a fear arose that their community had already gone too far in adopting the local culture; conversions to Islam threatened its continued existence and syncrestistic religious practices were widespread.
Early signs of a Confucian revival were the temples built for venerating ancestors, in particular those dedicated to a particular surname of group of names. A number of collective temples for ancestor veneration date from the second half of the 19th century, as do some associations for the “purification” of wedding and funeral practices from supposedly non-Chinese elements. The Boen Bio ( Wen Miao ) of Surabaya is an interesting relic of this movement; founded on the site of an earlier temple to the God of literature ( Boen Tjiang Soe , Wenchang Ci ), it was dedicated to Confucius himself in 1899, the only such house in all of Southeast Asia.
In another important development, the writings of Lie Kim Hok (himself a former pupil of missionaries) and other initiatives led, in 1900, to the founding of the Tiong Hoa Hwee Koan ( Zhong Hua Huiguan, Chinese Association ) in Batavia. The primary purpose of the new association was to purge local – that is, Peranakan – Chinese customs of what it saw as unorthodox elements. Among its goals were; “to improve the customs of the Chinese, insofar as possible in keeping with those principles of the prophet Confucius so necessary to civilized conduct, and to broaden the knowledge of the Chinese in language and literature. That Confucius was a “prophet” or nabi shows how strong the influence of the Islamic environment on the founders of the association was. On the other hand, ideas of mainland Chinese reformers like Kang Youwei had begun to reach the Indies and interest in the Confucian classics (in Malay translation) grew.
Challenged to suggest appropriate funeral arrangements for a deceased father, a Tiong Hoa Hwee Koan committee compiled a list of practices, both Southeast Asian and Chinese in origin, condemned by the sage, some undesirable because he did not mention them, and others thought impractical, unhealthy or otherwise inappropriate, such as gambling. Those who tried to introduce the simplified ceremony, however, were accused of being unfilial, filiality being one Confucian virtue known to virtually all Peranakans. Thus, although “modernists” welcomed the suggestions, they were only partly successful. The association soon turned its attention from the purification of rites to its second goal, that of improving knowledge, and soon it established the first of hundreds of modern Chinese schools, opening branches throughout Java and on other islands.
With the association now concentrating on education, Confucianism gradually began to take on some of the characteristics of an organized religion. Confucian societies grew up throughout Java, propagating their beliefs through publication and proselytizing. Confucianism is today represented in Indonesia by a council called MATAKIN ( Majelis Tertinggi Agama Konghucu Indonesia, Supreme Council of Confucian Religion in Indonesia ). Its religious hierarchy includes priests, lay preachers and elders, and it has a repertoire of liturgies, a creed and, of course, holy books in the form of the Classics. Most adherents are Peranakans, probably because it now represents a conservative, restorationist movement, a reaction against Western influences. MATAKIN professes monotheism, uses the Indonesian language in its meetings, and is concerned to attract non-Chinese believers. Confucianism in Indonesia today is thus an organized, doctrinal, monotheistic religion in the pattern of Christianity or Islam, not the Confucianism of China, but that of Indonesia.
Partly an outcome of the early Confucianists reaction to Christianity, these developments are also a response to Indonesia’s recent policy on religion. The Indonesian government wanted all citizens to have a religion; anyone who did not was suspected of being pro-Communist and disloyal to Indonesia. The government of Suharto and the Ministry of Religion stubbornly recognized only five religions: Islam, Protestant Christianity , Catholicism , Hindhuism, and Buddhism. They were to fulfill the criteria of monotheism, having a scripture and a prophet, and not to be limited to asingle ethnic group. Confucianism, while not persecuted, was called a “belief” and its status was ambigious. Officially, therefore, most Chinese who were not convinced Confucianists, Muslimsor members of a Christian church, identified themselves as Buddhist, and followed Buddhist ceremonies for their weddins and funerals. Since 2000 and the presidency of Abdurahman Wahid, such “accrediting” of religious has been greatly relaxed.
Despite the importance of Buddhism among Chinese in contempory Indonesia, little literature exists about either history or practice. The movement is, of course, not new: in the 1930s, the Peranakan writer Kwee Tek Hoay (Guo Dehuai) published a ten-colume work on Buddhism and Buddhist revival of sorts followed. Most Chinese temples contain Buddhist and other figures; some juxtapose, for example, Guandi, a historical figure who could be called Daoist, and Guanyin, a Boddhisattva. Kwee himself promoted a mixture of the three Chinese strands of belief, Sam Kauw (san jiao, three religions) or, as it is now called, Tri Dharma. The Tri Dharma organization is affiliated with the Indonesia Buddhist Council, so it qualifies as one branch of Buddhism, but other Buddhist organizations are influential among Chinese as well. There has been a tendency to press Buddhism to a Theravadan mould, although Chinese Buddhism is of the Mahayana variety; and to insist that Buddhist practices conform to the officially sanctioned monotheism.
Such strictures on religious choice under the Suharto regime also led to limitations on public form of worship, especially the celebration of such Chinese festivals as the New Year, the Hungry Ghosts Festival (called Rebutan in Indonesia) or the Dragon Boat Festival. Once public festivities, drawing onlookers and revelers from all communities to their processions, dispensing of favours and open pageantry, they were castigated as too Chinese and not really Buddhist, inhibiting cultural assimilation. For years, Chinese religious events were supposed to take place within the temple precincts or family dwellings. In Singkawang, famous for its showy commemoration of Tjap Go Meh (the 15th day of the New Year), the celebration was prohibited for years, until it resumed in the mid-1990s. Here and elsewhere, official prohibitions were relaxed at local levels, and after the collapse of the New Order, the celebrations returned, with prominent Indonesian leaders readily participating.
The reserved and even hostile attitude of New Order authorities would seem to have given Chinese religion little room for propagation but, in fact, hundreds (if not thousands) of Chinese temples continued to exist throughout the Archipelago, some with Sanskrit names like vihara , others openly displaying Chinese characters. With the prosperity of the early 1990s, many were lavishly renovated, demonstrating that Chinese beliefs, whether Buddhist, Taoist, or Confucian, were still being practiced. Similarly, although in the large cities many Chinese have been resorting to cremation because of shortage of burial places, in less-crowded aras, large Chinese cemeteries – and showy funerals – still exist. Christianity, in its Catholic and Protestant forms, has appealed greatly to the Chinese because of its modern schools. Even today, many parents who are not Christians try to send their children to religious-run schools, which they believe offer the best education. Some of the children finally adopt Christianity, but Chinese parents are usually prepared to tolerate religious deviation within the family, especially because many Christian Chinese will still join in traditional Chinese rituals like ancestorveneration, some churches tolerating the practice. In general, because of their history , many Protestant churches were exclusively Chinese, and some still hold services using the Chinese language, but they are members of the Union of Protestant Churches in Indonesia. Christianity does not seem to be an alien religion; in some areas, Chinese Christians were converted by other Chinese. For a time, some Catholic and Protestant missionaries were Chinese mainlanders, although none have been admitted to work in Indonesia since the 1960s, and their number was small compared to that of Western Missionaries.
The Catholic church has strongly supported Indonesianization since the 1960s and discouraged exclusively Chinese activities. Although, some parishes are, by reason of their location, still largely Chinese, the church does not desire ethnic separation, and the liturgy is in Indonesian or a regional language.
For most ethnic Indonesians, the most important religion is Islam, to which well over 80 per cent claim allegiance. In the past, some ethnic Chinese who came to the Archipelago were already Muslims, others converted to Islam , and the Islamic art and architecture of the Pasisir show strong evidence of Chinese influences. Especially in the Outer Islands, Chinese closely involved with native courts tended to adopt Islam and to marry local women; in Java , conversion was also a path to high office and noble titles. In Malay-influenced areas of Sumatra , Bangka and Kalimantan, a Chinese family might give a daughter in adoption to a native family, and the girl would be raised as a Muslim, completely assimilated to native society, a practice still known in recent times.
Conversion might, thus, mean assimilation to native society, or it might remain in a Chinese cultural context. Although colonial policy discouraged conversion to Islam, a few Chinese were prominent Muslims, and Chinese-Islamic organizations were formed in various places. Some Muslims, like the family of Tjan Tjoe Som, a Sinologist, and his brother Tjan Tjoe Siem, a Javanologist, viewed their religion as completely compatible with their Chinese identity.
More recently, the active leadership of Haji Junus Jahja, a Dutch educated economist (formerly Lauw Chuan Tho), who converted to Islam in 1979, gave a new impetus to propagation of Islam among Chinese. While the number who have adopted Islam is a small percentage of all Chinese, some prominent converts see, as does Junus, their conversion as a final step in the process of assimilating to Indonesian society and losing their Chinese identity. Although some observes have been skeptical about the process, certainly some converts are now accepted as both true believers and true Indonesians.
MODERN SCHOOLS
If religion was an area for skirmishing about Chinese identity, modern schools were a battleground. At the end of the 19th century, there were, on the one hand some 200 old-fashioned Chinese schools in Java (and over 150 outside Java), and on the other a few mission schools, with a handful of children of the mist wealthy and prominent athnic Chinese being admitted to publicly supported Western schools. To this unsatisfactory state of affairs, the Tiong Hoa Hwee Koan schools, unquestionably Chinese. Unquestionably modern, and open to all, offered a dynamic alternative.
These schools, the first of which opened in Jakarta 1901, broke with tradition in three ways; within a few years, the language of instruction was Mandarin and not Hokkien or another southern Chinese language second, they derived their curriculum from modern Western education as it was taught in modern Chinese and Japanese schools, and not the classics and the Chinese imperial examination system; third, classes for girls soon opened and, in 1928, the Batavia school went educational. They also broke, a few years later, with Confucianism, when Chinese secular nationalism condemned the teachings – and the influence – of the sage. By 1908 there were 75 modern Chinese schools in the Indies (not all of them officially affiliated with the Tiong Hoa Hwee Koan), with an estimated 5.500 pupils. As the nationalistic content of their instruction became evident (the schools even taught English in preference to Dutch), the colonial government reacted by finally opening Western education to ethnic Chinese children with the founding of the HCS or Dutch-Chinese Schools (Hollands-Chinese School).
The Tiong Hoa Hwee Koan schools, which had no monopoly of Chinese-language education, many schools being run by native-place associations or other private bodies, had drawn Totok and Peranakan children. With the opening of the HCS, which were Chinese in student body but completely Dutch in curriculum, Peranakan children whose parents could afford it streamed to the new schools. In general the poorer Peranakans tended to remain in the Chinese-language schools, to attend native schools, in the late 1930s, to go to a few schools for Chinese taught in Malay. The Peranakan elite, for all its conservatism, responded enthusiastically to the opening of Dutch education; in a short time, Dutch became the language of the upper classes of Peranakans. The most successful graduates of the schools went for secondary education to Dutch schools and some had the opportunity to study in the Netherlands, becoming doctors, lawyers, pharmacists and engineers or, when higher education became available in the colony, to attend the university there. As a result, leadership of the Peranakan community passed to the Western-educated.
Graduates of Chinese schools, by contrast, travelled different paths. If they did not attend the few secondary schools in the colony, the children had to look to China for continuing education. And for tertiary education, although a handful of successful graduates were admitted to universities in the English-speaking world, for others, the only possibility for most was to go to China, sometimes a dangerous alternative during times of discovered that their knowledge of Mandarin was not good enough for continuing education in China; they had to attend special schools for Chinese from overseas. Although Peranakans and Totoks served on the school boards of Chinese schools, some of these same peranakans sent their children to the HCS ! Furthermore, the Chinese schools tended to be strongly nationalistic, drawing the disapproval of the colonial regime. After the HCS caught on the Chinese community of Java was not one but two. Although the press in the 1920s and early 1930s frequently reiterated the necessity for Chinese to form one single society and to stick together, the reality was otherwise.
Since the Islamic-inspired batik boycotts, Indonesian nationalism had spread from Islamic to ethnic and secular nationalists. The idea of an independent Indonesia, however, still seemed remote when Japanese forces occupied the Archipelago in March 1942. The new masters outlawed Dutch education and language, and many Peranakans found they had to learn, however labouriously, to write Chinese- at least their names – while Peranakan children who continued to attend school now went to Chinese schools. The net effect of the war years was, politically and culturally, a certain level of resinicization, dividing the Chinese from the ethnic Indonesians. Now a few welcomed the return of the Dutch in 1945 and when, during the Indonesian revolution, Chinese were victims of violence in various parts of the Archipelago, many began to view the Dutch as guarantors of their security. Many Chinese left rural areas at this time to reside in cities, which were, until 1949, controlled by Dutch forces.
INDEPENDENT INDONESIA
During the revolution, some political leaders made efforts to gain the support of minority communities like the Chinese for the Indonesian Republic. At the same time, they were sometimes ambivalent about the loyalty of the Chinese and were unable to restrain irregular forces responsible for most of the anti-Chinese violence. A Peranakan Chinese, Siauw Giok Tjhan (Xiao Yucan) became Minister without portofolio in one of the revolutionary cabinets. When the Dutch recognized Indonesian independence at the end of 1949, the euphoria over the new status of China as a power after 1945 and the widespread sympathy for the People’s Republic of China after its proclamation in October 1949 complicated the question of the minority’s allegiance.
The effect of colonial and post-colonial legislation was to make the majority of ethnic Chinese aliens, and Indonesian authorities seemed reluctant, for the most part, to see this group enjoy the status of citizens. In addition, Indonesian citizens of Chinese descent were citizens of China by Chinese law, thus they were ‘dual nationals’. When the People’s Republic of China indicated an interest in remedying this situation by an act of choice, the Indonesians limited the act to those already holding Indonesian citizenship. There was a small loophole allowing people who had been minors in 1949-51, and whose parents had rejected their Indonesian citizenship, to acquire Indonesian citizenship by choice when they came of age. When the choice was carried out, in 1960-62, the majority elected to be Indonesian citizens, but about one-third opted for Chinese citizenship, thus raising the numbers of aliens. Only a few individuals were ever naturalized as citizens, so over 60 per cent of the ethnic Chinese in Indonesia remained aliens up to the 1980s. There was some emigration of this group to China, but most found themselves permanent residents of a land that did not appear to want them.
From the 1950s onward, the Indonesian government adopted various measures to limit the economic role of non-citizens and of dual nationals, or it simply continued colonial policies to restrict the role of ethnic Chinese in, for example, landholding. It used a restrictive citizenship policy to keep the Chinese minority from enjoying equal rights with native Indonesians.
Yet having such a large population of aliens was not desirable either. China maintained a large embassy in the former home of a Chinese officer in Jakarta’s Chinatown and opened a number of consulates. Its diplomats actively sought contacts with residents of Chinese origin, Chinese literature from China circulated freely, and Chinese schools, which mushroomed after 1945, closely followed China’s curricula, again promoting resinicization and, it was thought, alien loyalties. A steady stream of young people moved to China to continue their education. Still, most alien Chinese expected to continue to live in Indonesia and the Indonesian government became aware that it could not expect to expel hundreds of thousands of people, not least because China (and also Taiwan) was not willing to take them in. In 1957, Indonesian citizens were required to attend Indonesian schools, while schools sympathetic to the Kuomintang were closed outright, and several hundred thousand pupils left the Chinese-language schools. Their number declined from 1.800 to about 510, but this still left some 120.000 pupils in Chinese schools.
The anti-Communist violence surrounding the purported coup of September 30, 1965 took a strong anti-Chinese turn by late 1966. Chinese were driven from areas like Aceh, in north Sumatra, or the rural areas of west Kalimantan. Diplomatic relations with China were frozen. Chinese schools were closed, all children had to move to instruction in Indonesian, Chinese newspapers were prohibited, except for one produced by the government. Public display of Chinese characters, even on Chinese temples, was curtailed or forbidden; printed material in Chinese could not normally be imported. This harassment has led some commentators to perceive the violence and killings of hundreds of thousands of people as an anti-Chinese pogrom. While it is true that some thousands of Chinese lost their lives, the number killed was proportionately less than the number of ethnic Indonesians. The violence of 1965-67 was directed against Communists or suspected Communists, not against ethnic Chinese.
Concurrently, the Indonesian government began to adopt assimilation as the appropriate policy for dealing with the minority. In addition to curtailing the influence of Chinese culture, the government encouraged, sometimes with more than gentle pressure, Chinese to adopt Indonesian-sounding names, something which had been illegal, under a colonial law, until the 1960s. Peculiarly Chinese organizations were disbanded, whether those of Totoks like the place-of-origin societies, or those of Peranakans like Baperki, an organization to promote Indonesian citizenship and defend minority interests (it was both too left-wing and too Chinese), or even non-political associations. In time, however, Chinese temples, at first hard hit by the prevailing atmosphere, recovered their position, and with growing prosperity after 1970s, many were remodeled and refurbished. Other Chinese associations survived in the form of clan or burial societies.
President Suharto, preparing the way for defrosting relations with China in the late 1970s, finally opened the way for most aliens to acquire Indonesian citizenship without going through a costly and difficult process of naturalization. Ethnic Chinese who gave evidence of having adjusted to an Indonesian lifestyle, either by local birth, by their occupation (farmer and fisherman, for example), by having assumed Indonesian names, or in other ways, could qualify for this simplified procedure, and apparently many did. The thorny question of Indonesian citizenship of the ethnic Chinese seems to be practically settled. For obvious practical reasons, if not for sentimental ones, the Chinese have become Indonesian nationals. As official statistics indicate, only a small percentage of ethnic Chinese are aliens, probably less than 10 per cent. Many of these are older people born in China, so the proportion will surely continue to decline. Unfortunately, ethnic Chinese, in defiance of official promises, are still often asked to produce proofs of citizenship.
RELATIONS WITH NON-CHINESE, ANTI-CHINESE SENTIMENTS
Many pressures on Indonesian citizens of Chinese descent result from the feeling that they are ‘economically strong’ while pribumis are’weak,’ that they profited from the colonial period or from more recent corrupt activities to establish superior wealth, and that they are not really loyal to Indonesia as their homeland, not only cherishing ties to China, but being ready to emigrate to any land that offers them a chance for economic gain. All these sentiments contain a grain of truth, but are, in the end, distortions of reality. More and more pribumis have access to wealth, while many Chinese have little income, not the old families of revenue farmers and Chinese officers are dominant among the wealthy, but those who have made their fortunes since the 1960s. Although ethnic Chinese show more readiness to emigrate than do ethnic Indonesians, many young Chinese feel as loyal to Indonesia as do their fellow citizens. Such preconceptions do, however, provide rationalizations for official and non-official measures ranging from petty corruption someone who looks Chinese or has a Chinese name can expect to pay a higher bribe than does a native – to massive government intervention.
As in citizenship – extending rights to Chinese, but still limiting them – the Indonesian government limits the opportunities of most ethnic Chinese in the economy at the same time as it extends them for certain large entrepreneurs of Chinese origin. Government and the military service are the prerogatives of pribumis. Pribumis have taken over jobs in the unskilled and semi-skilled labour force, and cooperatives or individual pribumi traders have displaced the Chinese intermediate traders in rural areas. Authorities constantly urge Chinese businessman to employ pribumi. In 1990, President Suharto announced a scheme to encourage large businesses which had recently gone public to turn over part of their shares to cooperatives, especially in rural areas. On another occasion, prominent businessman – most but not all of Chinese origin – were called to Bali to initiate a project to divert some of their profits to support small and medium enterprises. In December 1996, the president reiterated his demand that the major taxpayers contribute 2 per cent of their profits to the poor through semi-official charitable foundations. The method thus chosen by the Indonesian authorities to achieve a better distribution of wealth – pressuring large entrepreneurs for ‘ voluntary ‘ contributions – probably aroused consciousness of the unequal distribution of wealth more than remedied it.
Many observes believe that the government’s drawing attention to such inequalities also contributed to the violence that has shaped Indonesia’s relations with its Chinese minority to a shocking degree. Trivial disputes sometimes set off large-scale and sustained rioting against Chinese, resulting in destruction of property, injuries and deaths. Revolutionary violence and that of 1965-67 has been mentioned. Political, religious, and local tensions have led to other outbreaks, more frequent since the 1960s. In 1998, sustained anti-Chinese violence contributed to the downfall of Suharto and the discriminatory structures his regime cultivated.
BLOODY HISTORY : PARIS
Author: Ben Hubbard, Re-write: Arnold Suwignyo
PARIS KUNO
Sekitar tahun 250 SM, orang-orang Parisii menyembah dewa sungai, melakukan persembahan berupa pengorbanan manusia, dan percaya kalau mereka dikutuk oleh dewa saat mayat-mayat muncul ke permukaan sungai yang berlumpur itu. Arus sungai Seine secara rutin mendatangkan penyakit-penyakit akibat air dan wabah kepada orang-orang Parisii.
Era Romawi
Pada saat itu walaupun ada dekret dari Kaisar Constantine pada 313 SM yang mendekriminalisasi ajaran Kristen dan mendukung ibadahnya. Namun masih ada usaha persekusi atas orang-orang Kristen hingga abad kelima, termasuk di wilayah Galia. Ampiteater Paris, Arènes de Lutèce, dapat menampung 15.000 penonton untuk menyaksikan satu hari penuh hiburan yang di dalamnya termasuk perburuan hewan, kontes gladiator, dan eksekusi orang-orang Kristen di depan publik. Tingkat kesadisan tertinggi di bawah pemerintahan Kaisar Nero, yang membantai ratusan orang Kristen dalam satu kesempatan di Colosseum. Paris memiliki satu martir Kristen yang menjadi Santo Pelindung kota ini yaitu Santo Denis. Ia merupakan seorang misionaris berusia 90 tahun dari Italia. Denis menghabiskan waktunya mengubah orang-orang kafir menjadi Kristen dan menghancurkan patung-patung pagan, sampai ia akhirnya ditangkap bersama dua pendetanya. Ketiganya lalu dipenjara di Île de la cité dan divonis mati dengan cara dipenggal. Ketiganya digiring di sepanjang tepi Montmartre, namun tubuh Denis yang tanpa kepala memungut kepalanya dan membawanya sejauh 10 km (6 mil) ke arah tenggara, sambil membawakan kotbah selama perjalanannya. Akhirnya Denis jatuh di tempat biara Benediktin Santo Denis didirikan.
Pemimpin Carolingian yang paling terkenal adalah Charlemagne, yang dinobatkan sebagai Kaisar Kekaisaran Suci Romawi pada tahun 800 oleh Paus Leo III. Charlemagne adalah seorang yang pendek dan gemuk, tidak mirip dengan patung dirinya yang didirikan di luar Katedral Notre Dame saat ini.
KEJAHATAN DAN HUKUMAN BANGSA FRANK
Hukum Sali (Salic Law) adalah undang-undang bangsa Franka berdasarkan hukum Jermanik tua dan disusun oleh Clovis sekitar tahun 500 M. Undang-undang itu melarang wanita memiliki harta atau meneruskan taktha. Ia juga menerapkan agar kerajaan-kerajaan dipecah di antara semua pewaris laki-laki yang masih hidup, sebuah hukum yang akhirnya menimbulkan pertumpahan darah. Hukum Sali juga mengatur secara detail hukuman-hukuman atas banyak tindak kejahatan. Mereka yang dituduh melakukan kejahatan terkadang diberi kesempatan diadili dengan ujian (trial by ordeal) untuk membuktikan bahwa mereka tidak bersalah. Biasanya ini termasuk memasukkan tangan tertuduh ke dalam sebuah pot berisi air mendidih untuk mengambil sebuah batu. Kedalaman airnya ditentukan oleh jumlah tuduhan: sampai pergelangan tangan untuk satu tuduhan: sampai siku untuk tiga tuduhan. Ujian ini dilakukan di dalam sebuah gereja dan semua yang hadir diminta berdoa memohon agar Tuhan mengungkap kebenarannya. Tangan itu lalu dibalut selama tiga hari dan diperiksa kembali. Jika tidak ada bekas luka bakar, maka sang tertuduh dianggap telah disembuhkan oleh Tuhan, dan berarti ia tidak bersalah.
Abad Pertengahan
Dinasti yang menguasai Paris pada abad kedelapan adalah dinasti Capetian yang dalam tradisi lamanya mengadopsi dari dinasti Merovingian, tampaknya tidak tertarik dengan Paris. Sebaliknya, setelah meletakkan ibu kota mereka di Orleans, wangsa Capetian meninggalkan tanggung jawab membangun dan menghuni Paris, setelah dihancurkan oleh bangsa Viking, kepada Gereja. pada saat itu Gereja mulai menjadi sebuah kekuatan besar dalam peta politik Prancis: Gereja memiliki tanah, uang, dan yang penting, dukungan Paus di Roma. Satu raja yang memilih untuk tidak melakukan perang salib adalah Philippe Auguste dari wangsa Capetian. Philippe menghindari perang salib pada 1209 melawan orang-orang Cathar dengan menjelaskan kepada Paus Innocent III bahwa ia punya terlalu banyak masalah di dalam negeri dan tidak bisa mengambil resiko meninggalkan negara itu.
Pada abad ke-XIII, Paris telah menjadi sebuah kota penuh kontradiksi. Di bawah raja barunya, Louis IX, Prancis dan Paris menjadi makmur: bangunan-bangunan besar yang mengagumkan dibangun di ibukota, seperti Sainte-Chapelle di Île de la Cité. Setelah raju baru yaitu Philippe IV naik takhta pada 1284, bagi banyak penduduk penjahat paling besar adalah raja mereka sendiri yang juga dijuluki dengan nama Philippe le Bel, "Sang Tampan" (The Fair). Di bawah Philippe, institusi-institusi politik Prancis tergabung ke dalam tiga kategori: kaum Bangsawan, kaum Pendeta, dan Third Estate (Tingkat Ketiga/rakyat jelata) - kelas yang tidak memiliki hak istimewa. Philippe juga menggambar rencana-rencana besar untuk membangun ulang Palais de la Cité yang dibangun Philippe Auguste menjadi "tempat paling indah yang pernah ada di Prancis". Untuk mengisi peti hartanya yang menipis, Philippe menerapkan pajak-pajak baru, termasuk pajak 'untuk melindungi kerajaan', menyita tanah-tanah dan harta pemilik tanah yang kaya, meningkatkan inflasi dengan menurunkan nilai mata uang. Ia juga memerintahkan semua orang Yahudi diusir dari Prancis. Selain itu Philippe juga merampas semua harta para Templar yang pada waktu itu mendapatkan hasil jarahan dari Perang Salib, Philippe menyerbu istana Templar dan menyuruh para Inkuisitor mengeksekusi dengan cara menjepit kaki-kaki mereka, melumuri dengan mentega dan memanggangnya diatas api terbuka. Pemimpin Templar, Jacques de Molay mengutuk Paus Clement dan Philippe yang saat itu memerintah. Hanya satu bulan setelah itu, Clement meninggal akibat kanker Usus, dan Philippe terbunuuh dalam sebuah kecelakaan berburu tahun itu.
Kutukan Templar
Setelah kematian Philippe kekuasaan dilanjutkan oleh Louis X putranya yang penuh kekacauan hanya berlangsung selama dua tahun, dan mengakhiri kekuasaan dinasti Capetian. Isabella, adik Louis X, adalah anak Philippe terakhir yang masih hidup, tetapi hukum Sali yang diterapkan Clovis melarang keturunan wanita untuk naik takhta. Raja Edward III dari Inggris adalah cucu Philippe dan merupakan pewaris takhta yang sah, tetapi mengizinkan seorang Inggris untuk naik takhta Prancis adalah suatu hal yang tidak terbayangkan. maka, mahkota pun diberikan kepada keponakan Philippe, Philippe de Valois, yang pertama dari sebuah dinasti baru di Prancis. Walaupun Edward memberi penghormatan kepada Philippe, hubungan mereka berdua memburuk setelah Philippe menyita wilayah milik Duke of Aquitane, karena takut Edward berencana untuk melawannya. Edward lalu menolak hak Philippe atas takhta, dan Hundred Years War (Perang Seratus Tahun) pun dimulai.
Sejak William the Conqueror menginvasi Inggris pada 1066, raja-raja Inggris memiliki beberapa kepemilikan di Prancis dan ini adalah penyebab utama perang. Oleh karena Edward didukung oleh kerajaan-kerajaan kecil sekitar Perancis, menjadikan konflik ini semacam perang sipil. Efek perang yang paling cepat terasa adalah para pengungsi berjumlah besar yang datang memenuhi Paris untuk menghindar dari kekejaman pasukan Inggris.
Menemukan Paris
Paris dan Prancis akhirnya bangkit sebagai sebuah negara bersatu di bawah pemerintahan Charles VII, yang dinobatkan pada 1429 dan mengusir Inggris dari benteng terakhir mereka di Calais pada 1453. Namun pada abad ke-XVI, idealisme individual sekali lagi dikalahkan oleh mentalitas massa. Kota itu, seperti banyak kota lain di seluruh Eropa di masanya, menjadi tempat subur para ekstremis berdasar agama, tempat para fundamentalis Katolik menyerang orang-orang Protestan Prancis yang dikenal dengan sebutan Huguenot. Konflik selama 37 tahun, yang menewaskan jutaan orang lewat perang, kelaparan, dan wabah, menjadi terkenal dalam sejarah dengan sebutan French Wars of Religion (Perang Agama di Prancis).
PERANG AGAMA
Bagi penganut Katolik, Protestanisme adalah kesesatan baru yang sulit dibunuh. Protestanisme berawal tahun 1520 saat Marthin Luther diekskomunikasi karena memaku 95 pernyataan di pintu sebuah gereja di Wittenberg yang menyerang kebusukan Gereja Katolik. Bagi François I, Protestanisme mewakili sebuah agama yang segar dan berpikir bebas, sama seperti Italia yang memberi contoh tentang kehidupan tanpa batasan-batasan. Seorang pendatang baru di istananya adalah Catherine de Médicis, seorang Italia yang eksotis, yang diundang François ke Paris untuk menikahi putranya Henri, dan mendapat julukan 'pelacur sang raja'. Namun Catherine tidak tertarik pada suaminya, Henri, yang menjadi Raja Henri II setelah kematian François pada 1547. Henri menghujani selirnya hadiah, duduk di lututnya, serta meraba dada wanita itu di depan Catherine. Catherine menganggap sebagian masalah itu karena ketidakmampuannya menghasilkan seorang pewaris takhta. Ia telah mencoba segala cara untuk memperbaiki hal ini, termasuk meminum air seni mule (hasil persilangan keledai dan kuda) dan mengolesi alat kelaminnya dengan kotoran sapi; semua tindakan ini tidak berefek banyak. Setelah 10 tahun mencoba akhirnya Catherine hamil dan terus menerus melahirkan 10 orang dari anak-anak Henri. Tiga dari anak ini kelak menjadi raja Prancis.
Masa Catherine dimulai ketika Henri tewas dalam sebuah kecelakaan joust (adu tombak) pada 1559. Catherine mengawasi salah satu periode paling keras dan kacau dalam sejarah penduduk Prancis. Perang Agama yang terjadi antara kelompok Protestan Huguenot dan kelompok Katolik, sebuah konflik yang memecah penduduknya menjadi dua kelompok dan menghancurkan negara itu selama lebih dari tiga dekade.
Perang-perang Dimulai
François I adalah seorang Raja Prancis yang mengubah agamanya sesuai dengan tujuannya; dan ia bukan yang terakhir. Sang raja Protestan berpindah menjadi Katolik di bawah tekanan