Information Wrap -Glodok

JAVA

A Cargo of Questions 1992

Indonesia

GLODOK

At the beginning of the 17C both Dutch and English merchants had trading posts in Jayakarta. It became a centre of rivalry between these imperial powers, which was further confused by intrigue between local rulers. Late in 1618 the British, backed by the Bantenese and the Jayakartens, besieged the Dutch VOC (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie) fortress. The VOC personnel, holding out in their fortified post, decided to rename the place Batavia after an ancient Germanic tribe of the Netherlands. In 1619 the Dutch, under Jan Pieterzoon Coen, stormed Jayakarta and reduced it to ashes. A stronger shoreline fortress was built and Batavia eventually became the capital of the Dutch East Indies. Chinese merchants were attracted by these new commercial prospects. Following a general massacre of Chinese in October 1740, all Chinese were prohibited from residing within the town walls, or even being there after sundown. In 1741 a tract of land just to the south west of Batavia was allocated as Chinese quarters. The area became Glodok. J. P. Coen's plan was to make Batavia the centre of Asian trade, especially the spice trade, where a monopolistic control over clove and nutmeg production brought huge rewards. Excess clove and nutmeg plantations were destroyed to keep European prices and profits high, but ruining the lives of local producers. Batavia became Jakarta when the Japanese occupied Java in 1942.

Why does a newly independent state reproduce the administrative waste of an exploitative colonial power?
Are the aims and methods of the state the same?
Is the European legacy of colonial administration, so ingrained, so internalised?
Is independence cursed by the ways of the past, or does this state of things suit present interests in and outside the nation?

Information Wrap

Minister of Trade Arifin M. Siregar, accompanied by Minister of Industry Hartarto and BCN (National Clove Board) chief Kumhal Djamil said the government had yet to decide whether or not it would maintain the role of the Clove Marketing and Stock Managing Agency (BPPC) in the country's clove marketing and procurement system. The trade minister defended the BPPC and said that the agency had succeeded in performing its function as a buffer stock manager. "Since the agency's operation, clove prices have not declined to below Rp 2,000 a kilogram, a price level recorded before the introduction of regulations on clove trading. BPPC, however, faced problems in managing its stocks and controlling prices because the production exceeded its target while, at the same time, the demand was very low. BPPC's chairman, Hutomo Mandela Putra, suggested recently that half of this years clove harvest be burned as his agency would not have enough funds to purchase all of it. The controversial suggestion, however, drew strong comments from the public.

THE JAKARTA POST, March 11, 1992.

ABRI not to blame for tragedy in East Timor. Minister of Defence and Security L. B. Moerdani says the armed forces (ABRI) was not involved in the development of East Timor in the run up to the Nov 12 tragedy in Dili. 

"The tragedy was not caused by ABRI, my brothers, but after things got out of hand it was ABRI, again, which was asked to settle the matter. "

THE JAKARTA POST, March 11, 1992

Jayakarta becomes Batavia - Batavia becomes Jakarta! The rise and fall of Empires

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why do Indonesians drive on the left?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cultural diffusion? Did Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam come to Java in the wake of trade and communication?

 

 

 

 

The Seven Seas. Nutmeg & cloves, the spice trade to Europe and silver to China - the origins of the globalization of trade?

 

“If we’re slow we’ll be left behind,” he said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

A Cargo of Questions 2017

 

The LODE project of 1992 and the Re:LODE project of 2017 is about generating questions that begin with places along the LODE-Line.

 

 

To every place there belongs a story . . .

To every story there belongs another . . . 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is capitalism historically inseparable from colonialism?

 

 

 

Do the pogroms of the past still haunt the Chinese Indonesians of today? 

 

 

 

Glodok, a place to go shopping?  Since the Dutch colonial era a majority of traders and residents are of Chinese descent, making Glodok the biggest Chinatown in Indonesia.

Does capitalism function through the expansion of frontiers?

 

 

 

Is Anyone Really 'Pribumi'?

A globalisation of culture?

That sinking feeling . . .
$40bn to save Jakarta: the story of the Great Garuda

To every place there belongs a story . . .














This blog-post is a matrix that originates first in the context of an artistic activity that relates to this place, Glodok, and then connections multiply through processes of association, suggesting links, articulations and juxtapositions that the contemporary information wrap affords us, in a particular and contemporary type of consciousness, where the "loop" or "ricorso" helps the zig zagging necessary to see what is going on.

That's just the way it is . . . but don't you believe them . . .