Hausman Baboe | |
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Born | Early 1880s Kuala Kapuas, Dutch East Indies |
Died |
Hausman Baboe was a colonial head of the district of Kuala Kapuas in the Dutch East Indies, an early Dayak journalist, and an Indonesian nationalist. Born from an aristocrat family of Dayak Ngaju, he served as head of the district of Kuala Kapuas under the Dutch colonial government before being fired due to his anti-colonial remarks. He became a prominent Dayak political figure, and was accused of being a communist several times due to his close association with Sarekat Rakjat.[a] Despite being a Christian, he was close to the Sarekat Islam due to his Indonesian nationalist ideals.[2]
He started several congresses of native Kalimantan organizations and attempted to invite Oemar Said Tjokroaminoto to his congress, which caused unrest across Kalimantan and a subsequent travel ban by the Dutch East Indies government. He was executed in 1943, on accusations by the occupying Japanese military that he collaborated with former Dutch residents.
Early life
Baboe was born in Hampatong village in the town of Kuala Kapuas, today the capital of Kapuas Regency. There are conflicting sources for his birth year, with possible dates including 1880, 1881, and 1885.[3][4][2] He was born to an Utus Gantung family, an aristocratic class within the Ngaju people.[3][4] The village where he was born was founded as a result of the outbreak of the Banjarmasin War in 1859, causing a mass exodus from villages near the Mangkatip River, a tributary of the Barito River. His village consisted mostly of aristocrat families of the Dayak Ngaju people and was nicknamed by Christian missionaries as kampong adligendrof (lit: village of nobles). As a result of being born as an aristocrat, Baboe and his family enjoyed a relatively privileged life compared to the general population of the region.[2][3]
Baboe's father, Yoesoea Baboe, was married to Soemboel, the daughter of a village chief. The couple had nine children, including Hausman Baboe. Most of Baboe's siblings left the village after their marriage. Baboe himself worked as a colonial administrator and frequently traveled around Kalimantan as a result. He married a girl named Reginae and had eight children.[2] However, other sources mention that he later married a second girl of Banjar ethnicity,[2] who he then divorced, leaving a child named Roeslan Baboe under the care of him and Reginae.[3][5]
Baboe was educated under Christian missionaries. It is unclear if he ever pursued higher education due to a lack of records. He was appointed as head of the district of Kuala Kapuas, despite it being unclear if he fulfilled the requirements to do so, such as receiving a higher education. Heads of district usually needed to be graduates of OSVIA (Opleiding School Voor Inlandsche Ambtenaren), the indigenous civil servant school.[3] Indonesian historians speculated that Baboe was appointed due to his aristocratic status and because his grandfather, Nikodemus Ambo, was also a district chief.[3][6][2] He worked as a district chief between 1919 and 1922. He also started to work as a journalist for the newspaper Sinar Borneo in 1905.[4]
Political career
Baboe was inspired by early contemporary political movements and organizations in Surabaya and argued for the establishment of Pakat Dayak, a Dayak-based political organization similar to those of Sarekat Islam and Indische Party.[7] In February 1922, Baboe was fired from his job as district chief, due to his increasingly anti-colonial remarks and Pakat Dayak support for a Sarekat Islam insurrection in Sampit and Pangkalan Bun.[8]
On 1920, he established a cooperative under Pakat Dayak. He was described by missionary records as "susceptible to communist ideas"[8] and, due to his political activities, was placed under tight government surveillance.[9] Hausman Baboe founded a school for Dayak in 1924, Hollandsche Dajak School, which was used to spread nationalist ideas among Dayak youths.[7] He continued to help Sarekat Islam, spreading its political activities across Kalimantan, in addition to founding another private school in Mentangai.[8] In Java, he became friends with Oemar Said Tjokroaminoto, the chairman of Sarekat Islam.[7] Briefly after Tjokroaminoto's release and his rumoured plan to visit Kalimantan, Baboe mobilized Dayak political organizations such as Serikat Dajak to spread pamphlets regarding the visit to the interior Dayak populations. The goal was to rally political support behind him and spread anti-government ideas.[8] As a result of unrest following his actions, the government banned Tjokroaminoto from visiting Kalimantan and placed a travel ban across Kalimantan to limit the spread of Baboe's pamphlets. However, the travel ban proved to be ineffective.[8]
On 1923, Baboe together with many Dayak activists established the National Borneo Council and held the National Borneo Congress in April 1923 in Banjarmasin. He was referred to in the congress as "advisor for government affairs" for Sarekat Islam and wrote a grievance motion to Governor General of Dutch East Indies, but this did not have the effect he had hoped for. From 1924 to 1930, Dutch colonial residents (colonial administrators) in Kalimantan routinely included mentions of Baboe in their reports, downplaying his influence and trying to assure the colonial government in Batavia that he was not a significant threat.[2] In October 1925, he gave speech before around 200 Christian Dayaks in Kuala Kapuas regarding land rights, women's status, and urging native Kalimantan people to join labour unions. He also argued that villagers should grow vegetables and fruits rather than rubber, arguing for an abolishment of the slaughter tax, and arguing in favour of cooperation between the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) and Sarekat Islam in Java. His meeting was later reported by newspapers in Banjarmasin as a communist activity.[2]
On 1925, both Sarekat Islam and Sarekat Dajak made another attempt to invite Tjokroaminoto to Kalimantan, in addition to inviting Agus Salim. The invitation was formulated by Baboe, as the chairman of Sarekat Dajak, together with Mohamad Arip and Mohamad Horman of Sarekat Islam. As a result, the colonial government again banned the invited figures from Java to enter Kalimantan. Nevertheless, the congress under Sarekat Dajak was still held, mainly focusing on the topics of the land tax and forced labor. In December 1926, Baboe and Sarekat Dajak led another National Borneo Congress. He also started to argue for Dayak representation in the Volksraad, and that the absence of secondary schools in Dayak districts showed that the Dutch administration was discriminating against the Dayaks.
Two months before the 1926 National Borneo Congress, Baboe established Suara Borneo, a newspaper with strong Indonesian nationalist sentiments. However, his newspaper was short-lived, mainly due to lack of funding, but also because the colonial government in Banjarmasin expelled its editor, Achmad, for communist tendencies.[2] Achmad was a teacher and activist from East Java affiliated with Sarekat Rakjat and PKI. He was exiled to Kalimantan in 1925, and befriended by Baboe the next year. Fearing a nationwide communist revolt, Achmad was sent back to Java by the police in November 1926, under pretext of facing trial, to separate him from Baboe. Suara Borneo later wrote that Achmad's detention proved he was doing the right thing.[2]
Suara Borneo mostly attracted readers from among the urban Dayaks and Malays in Banjarmasin, with some readers as far as Makassar. The newspaper was marked by ideas of the Indonesian National Awakening, that all ethnic identities should see all of themselves as part of a whole and that all Indonesian people "were united in the same fate". Baboe named the first edition of his newspaper "Progress" and urged readers to subscribe and submit news to the newspaper as long as it was not about religion or slanderous. His writing moved away from issues of land rights and taxes, mostly relevant only to Dayaks, and towards identity issues, challenging the "savage stereotypes" often used against Indonesian ethnicities such as the Dayaks and Madurese.[2] However, Baboe was criticized by another progressive newspaper based in Banjarmasin, Bingkisan, who wrote that his criticism of colonial governments was often too polite and soft. Gerry van Klinken, researcher on the subject of Dayak political history, argued that Baboe's moderation was due to his age (by that time he was older than most Indonesian nationalist leaders) and the fact that he was relatively wealthy.[2]
Later life and death
By the 1930s, Baboe's remarks had grown more moderate and the colonial government no longer regarded him as the threat he used to be. He was the first Dayak to own a motor vehicle in Banjarmasin,[2] and he also bought a home and a warehouse in Surabaya for his own family. He later became a relatively successful trader and businessman in Kalimantan.[5] Around this time, the colonial government tried to separate the Malay and Banjarese populations from the Dayaks. As a result, there was a resurgence of traditional identity politics and a weakening of previous nationalist sentiments just before the Japanese invasion of the colony.[2]
During the Japanese occupation, Baboe was executed by the Japanese military on 20 December 1943 together with other 250 people due to accusations of collaboration with former Dutch residents.[2] His three eldest sons were also among the victims of the execution.[2][3]
Legacy
Baboe is regarded as an early figure that brought native Kalimantan, and especially Dayak, participation in the Indonesian nationalist movement. His organizations, such as Sarekat Dajak, later became the foundation of Dayak political movements in Kalimantan and Indonesia as a whole. He was also a pioneer for journalism in Kalimantan.[10] Together with George Obus and Tjilik Riwut, he was regarded as a pioneer of the nationalist movement in what is today Central Kalimantan and he was crucial for the spread of Indonesian nationalism within Kalimantan. His ideas later led to the creation of Central Kalimantan province in 1957.[11]
In November 1938, Dayak political movements again tried to be appointed to the Volksraad under the name "Committee for Dayak Tribal Awareness". Its members were civil servants previously educated as students and teachers at Baboe's schools, led by Mahir Mahar, Baboe's nephew.[2] One of his sons, Ruslan Baboe, would later become a prominent Indonesian diplomat, working as a consul for Indonesia in San Francisco and later Indonesian ambassador to Hungary between 1970 and 1974.[3]
A street in Palangka Raya was named after him.[2][3]
Notes and references
- ^ A left-wing split from the Sarekat Islam party which became a political movement for the Communist Party of the Indies (PKI), later the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI).[1]
- ^ "Sarekat Islām | political party, Indonesia | Britannica". www.britannica.com.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r van Klinken, Gerry (2004). "Dayak Ethnogenesis and Conservative Politics in Indonesia's Outer Islands". Indonesia in Transition: Rethinking Civil Society, Region, and Crisis. pp. 107–128. OCLC 58045788. SSRN 1030241.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Nurcahyani, Lisyawati (2019). Gagasan persatuan etnis Dayak: masa pergerakan nasional dan pembentukan Provinsi Kalimantan Tengah, 1905-1960. Pontianak: CV Media Jaya Abadi.
- ^ a b c M.A, R. Masri Sareb Putra. 101 Tokoh Dayak: Yang Mengukir Sejarah: 1 (in Indonesian). An1mage. ISBN 978-602-6510-33-4.
- ^ a b van Klinken, Gerry (1 April 2006). "Colonizing Borneo: State-Building and Ethnicity in Central Kalimantan". Indonesia. 81: 23–49. SSRN 1876543.
- ^ Marko, Mahin. Hausmann Baboe : tokoh pergerakan rakyat Dayak yang terlupakan. OCLC 893851451.
- ^ a b c Nurcahyani, Lisyawati (2019). Gagasan persatuan etnis Dayak: masa pergerakan nasional dan pembentukan Provinsi Kalimantan Tengah, 1905-1960. Pontianak: CV Media Jaya Abadi.
- ^ a b c d e van Klinken, Gerry (15 November 2007). "Dayak Ethnogenesis and Conservative Politics in Indonesia's Outer Islands". Rochester, NY. SSRN 1030241.
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(help) - ^ M.A, R. Masri Sareb Putra. 101 Tokoh Dayak: Yang Mengukir Sejarah: 1 (in Indonesian). An1mage. ISBN 978-602-6510-33-4.
- ^ Febriyana, Wahyu. "Hausmann Baboe, Perintis Pers Kalimantan asal Kalteng #HPN2018". mmckalteng (in Indonesian). Retrieved 19 May 2022.
- ^ Lisyawati Nurcahyani, Juniar Purba Yusri Darmadi (2019). 1538. Gagasan Persatuan Etnis Dayak masa Pergerakan Nasional Dan Pembentukan Propinsi Kalimantan Tengah ( 1905- 1960) (in Indonesian). CV Media Jaya Abadi. ISBN 978-623-7526-07-0.