{"id":926,"date":"2023-01-31T11:42:02","date_gmt":"2023-01-31T11:42:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/?p=926"},"modified":"2023-01-31T11:42:02","modified_gmt":"2023-01-31T11:42:02","slug":"the-rhetoric-of-anti-conquest-in-the-dutchs-island-of-paradise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/2023\/01\/the-rhetoric-of-anti-conquest-in-the-dutchs-island-of-paradise\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rhetoric of Anti-Conquest in the Dutch’s Island of Paradise"},"content":{"rendered":"

This blog post will explore how Mary Pratt\u2019s argument of imperial nations using an \u2018anti conquest\u2019 narrative to disguise their colonial presence is applicable to the Dutch colonial force\u2019s advertisement of Bali as an \u2018island of paradise\u2019. As Pratt explains in the chapter \u2018Narrating the anti-conquest\u2019 within her book Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation, <\/em>\u2018anti-conquest\u2019 refers to the strategies of representation that European bourgeoisie subjects use to secure their innocence whilst simultaneously asserting European hegemony.1<\/a><\/sup>To demonstrate the concept, Pratt explores how naturalists used a rhetoric of \u2018anti-conquest\u2019 within their travel writings of the Cape Colony to legitimise imperial powers\u2019 actions and takeovers of the region.2<\/a><\/sup>As this blog post will show, in the early 20th<\/sup> century, the Dutch government also adopted an \u2018anti-conquest\u2019 rhetoric within their depiction of Bali as a tourist destination through brochures advertising the nation as an \u2018island of paradise\u2019 to disguise and hide their aggressive takeover of the island.3<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

The Dutch conquest of Bali was a lengthy and bloody battle, with the Balinese people proving a tough force to defeat. When Bali was eventually conquered following the death march of the Balinese rajas after the puptans<\/em> of 1906-8, the Dutch invaded Bali and killed off or exiled much of the population, destroying everything. As Adrian Vickers explores in Bali: A Paradise Created<\/em>, the Dutch massacres contrasted significantly to the \u2018liberal imagination of the Netherlands\u2019 thus, in the aftermath the Dutch government was concerned with how their actions would impact their international standing.2<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0As a result, the Netherlands were eager to find a way to present their new colony internationally whilst not exposing the nation\u2019s colonial atrocities. This can be seen through their advertisement of Bali as an international tourist destination which can be analysed as an example of Pratt\u2019s concept of an \u2018anti-conquest\u2019 rhetoric.<\/p>\n

In 1914, only six years after the Klungkung puptan, the first tourist inducements to visit Bali were published. They began with the Dutch steamship, the KPM, issuing the first tourist brochures of Bali. These brochures advertised Bali as the \u2018Garden of Eden\u2019, an island that featured \u2018jungle scenery, \u00a0palm trees and rice fields\u2019 untouched by modernism.4<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0The brochures communicated an image of Bali that did not refer to any violent or imperial expansionist policies. Instead, they portrayed the Dutch colonisers as the \u2018protectors of culture\u2019. The account and \u2018gaze\u2019 of Bali that was transmitted as an official discourse suggested and publicised that the Dutch\u2019s presence was uncontested. As one can see from the brochures (see figure. 1 and figure. 2), they intently focus on landscape and nature descriptions. They use visual imagery to remove both the Dutch as European antagonists from the image of Bali and the presence of any indigenous Balinese settlers that opposed the Dutch\u2019s presence. This depiction aligns with Pratt\u2019s \u2018anti-conquest\u2019 as the examples of travel writing she explores emphasis that the \u2018anti-conquest\u2019 consists of rhetorics that narrate a sequence of sights and seeing that focus on the landscape and minimises the European presence.5<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0Alongside the \u2018anti-conquest\u2019 rhetoric guiding the international \u2018gaze\u2019 away from the possibility of any colonial atrocities, Vickers notes that the advertisements were also seen as a way to ease the Dutch\u2019s consciences. It not only allowed them to control the international narrative and image of the island but within official circles helped secured the nation\u2019s innocence.<\/p>\n

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Figure 1: 1930s travel poster from KPM<\/p><\/div>\n

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Figure 2: 1930s travel poster issued by the Travellers Official Information Bureau of the Netherlands<\/p><\/div>\n

The brochures not only featured natural landscape and scenery, they also included a significant focus on half-naked Balinese women. This further illustrates the tourist brochures aligning with Pratt\u2019s concept of \u2018anti-conquest\u2019. As Pratt explores, the \u2018female figure of the \u201cnurturing native\u201d\u2019 has often been a key in sentimental versions of the anti-conquest.6<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0This figure of the half-baked Balinese woman was so key to the KPM\u2019s tourist advertisements that Bali became known as \u2018a land of Woman\u2019.7<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0Again, this evidences the advertisements promoting a gaze of Bali that depicted the island as a utopia hiding the exploitation or violence that underpinned the Dutch\u2019s presence reinforcing how the advertisements should be seen as an example of Pratt\u2019s concept of \u2018anti-conquest\u2019.<\/p>\n

In conclusion, as Pratt highlights, it is \u2018only through a guilty act of conquest can the innocent act of the anti-conquest be carried out\u2019.8<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0In the Netherlands\u2019 attempts to absolve themselves of the guilt and potential international backlash that existed from their bloody imperialist conquest, they used tourist brochures to promote a gaze of Bali rooted in the rhetoric of \u2018anti-conquest\u2019. Their advertisements of Bali focussed on natural images and the exotic, attractive nature of Balinese women which minimise or avoided the publication of their aggressive European presence and maintained the innocence of Dutch hegemony.<\/p>\n

  1. Mary Louise Pratt,\u00a0Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation<\/i>\u00a0(London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017), 58. [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  2. Ibid. [↩<\/a>]<\/span> [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  3. Adrian Vickers,\u00a0Bali: A Paradise Created<\/i>\u00a0(Victoria: Penguin Books, 1989), 130. [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  4. Ibid., 131. [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  5. Pratt, Imperial Eyes, 60. [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  6. Ibid., 96. [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  7. Vickers,\u00a0Bali: A Paradise Created<\/em>, 132. [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  8. Pratt, Imperial Eyes, 66. [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    This blog post will explore how Mary Pratt\u2019s argument of imperial nations using an \u2018anti conquest\u2019 narrative to disguise their colonial presence is applicable to the Dutch colonial force\u2019s advertisement of Bali as an \u2018island of paradise\u2019. As Pratt explains in the chapter \u2018Narrating the anti-conquest\u2019 within her book Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=926"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":931,"href":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926\/revisions\/931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}