Marieke Bloembergen, De geschiedenis van de politie in Nederlands-Indië. Uit zorg en angst (Amsterdam: Boom, Leiden: KITLV 2009) [The history of the police in the Dutch East Indies. Out of care and fear.]
This book analyses the history of the police in the late colonial state of the Dutch East Indies, from the 1870s until the Japanese Occupation in 1942. It addresses, among other questions, the role of the police and the use of violence in the context of colonial state formation. To what extent could this colonial state be characterized as a police state? And what was colonial about colonial policing?
The modern police in the Dutch East Indies , set up in the heyday of the ‘ethical policy’ that held sway between 1900 and 1920, was the product of fear and care. The fear of Europeans in an indigenous world on the move; the paternalistic care for public security, hygiene and moral affairs. The police was also an answer to a typical colonial problem: the struggle of a colonial state that wanted to be civilized but witnessed its legitimacy crumbling, and was compelled to use force to enforce its authority.
Indonesians hardly played a role in the decisions about the police organisation or police reform; but they had a large part in the task of policing. At the end of the 1930s the Dutch East Indies’ colonial police force consisted for 96 percent of Indonesians. Leadership and senior positions, however, were almost entirely reserved for Europeans or Eurasians.
As the face of the colonial state, this police force became a two-headed beast: in trying to safeguard the state’s authority, it provoked resistance, while in reaching out to fulfill society’s need for security, it needed the cooperation of the local population. Often, the police were target of criticism and mockery. And while performing their task, the police showed not only the strength but also the weakness of the colonial state.
