Colonial Knowledge and Indigenous Power in the Dutch East Indies

In this passage from Pramoedya Ananta Toer's Child of All Nations, Minke, a budding Indonesian nationalist, is reprimanded by a Dutch journalist for his lack of understanding of his own people, the Javanese. Minke, from an elite aristocratic family, is one of the first Javanese to complete a Dutch high-school education and is enamored with everything European. The accusation of not knowing his own people is stinging, particularly coming from a Dutch gentleman who claims to have a superior knowledge of them. The fact that he cannot refute the accusation makes it all the more troubling for him.