Mehmet Özay 23.06.2018
The Dutch colonial administration's invasion and occupation of the territory of the Sultanate of Aceh Darussalam began on March 26, 1873. The war that ravaged Aceh and all the consequences of this invasion deserve to be addressed with its different contexts such as internal and external actors, developments in near and far geographies, early modernization and imperialism. In addition to all these, and perhaps even more than these, the war in Aceh deserves to be analyzed in the context of colonialism and imperialism and the phenomenon of Pan-Islamism, which witnessed different tendencies during the last quarter of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.
Aceh's ancient historical development of nearly a thousand years when the process of Islamization is taken into account and the point it has reached; the borders of a process of almost five hundred years when the colonial period is taken into account; and the manifestation in the geography of the Archipelago of a new but destructive process of constructing a new but destructive 'reason', which is called modernization and development and has its roots in the efforts to 'reform religion' in early modern Europe and the Renaissance, which is alleged to have followed and is referred to as 'enlightenment'.
The war in Aceh is still waiting to be addressed and understood as the place where the understanding that divides and separates the world into 'subject' and 'object'; 'us' and 'others'; 'white' and 'black' emerges in its most succinct form through films and works of literature within the structure called art produced by Western societies. However, the issue of who will carry out this effort of understanding is not only problematic in itself, but also a problem that is still waiting to be solved.
Despite the fact that the lands where Islam emerged were a Peninsular region such as 'Arabia', the fact that every effort is made to establish the perception that the existence and progress of Muslim societies in the historical development process was largely realized through 'terrestrial societies' constitutes perhaps one of the most important obstacles to the understanding of the Archipelago and Aceh, which opened the door to the primary cultural and political development of this region in Islamic history.
With all the features mentioned above and those not mentioned, the history of Aceh is a laboratory. Just as it is a laboratory with the material and social realities that emerged after the tsunami. In fact, this laboratory offers us the opportunity to learn what the cultural, religious, political and economic social structures of the West correspond to. However, this effort to understand does not stop there, on the contrary, it corresponds to a very productive field in terms of revealing the instrumentalized philosophical "equipment" hidden behind these structures.
Another issue that needs to be taken into account in the effort to understand and make sense of the Dutch war is related to the historical relations on which the struggle of the Acehnese is built. The political elite of Aceh and the social reality on which it is based is the fact that this land is known as 'homeland'; that homeland is not only surrounded by material borders that allow for 'traditional' living space, but that it is associated with independence. One of the building blocks of this train of thought, perhaps the most fundamental one, undoubtedly corresponds to the religious sphere.
The relationship between the verbal and political response of the political elite to the Dutch colonial administration and its representatives and the response on the battlefield should be considered as an example of the historical dynamism of the Acehnese. The reason for this is that it is not the first time that the Acehnese have fought this kind of struggle; on the contrary, it is important to remember that they have responded to similar situations in different phases of history.
At this point, for example, the political determination and spirit of struggle against the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean in the early stages of the world colonial history, as well as the effort to connect this struggle to certain roots with political power and social structures and institutionalizations in the homeland, rather than a mere material and rootless reactivity, points to a meaningful stance. It is evident that a similar struggle was waged against the Dutch colonial invasion in the last quarter of the 19th century during the phase of colonialism that evolved into advanced colonialism or imperialism, which was witnessed by a much larger part of the world in contrast to the 16th century.
The above-mentioned attempt to connect the struggles of the Acehnese in the 16th and 19th centuries to their 'roots' should be considered together with the extent to which other Islamic societies, both near and far, were able to participate in this process. Despite the dynamism of the Acehnese state in the conditions of the 16th century, the 'power' structure of the Acehnese state, which by the end of the 19th century seemed to have largely disappeared, did not only spell the end of Aceh as a sovereign society and state. Beyond this, it is as important for its global implications as the reasons for the start and continuation of the Dutch war.
English and Indonesian versions translated with DeepL AI
