DECOLONISING THE MYTH OF KARTINI
by Saut Situmorang
Poet and critic Saut Situmorang offers an insight into the way in which ‘imperialist feminism’ functions by tracing the ways in which Raden Ajeng Kartini’s legacy was carefully crafted. As journalist and author Fitria Jelyta has stated ‘The Dutch tend to glorify historical figures that are ‘good’. What does that mean, when they are ‘good’? When they are collaborative, when they are like Raden Ajeng Kartini’. But even outside of the mainstream glorification, in the context of ‘decolonising the university’ activists currently urge to rename the colonial VOC-room at the University of Amsterdam to ‘Kartini Room’. What is left of Kartini’s legacy when we examine it critically in the context of the civilising project of the ‘Ethical Policy’?
Saut Situmorang (1966) is a poet, writer of short stories and essayist. He was born in Tebing Tinggi, North Sumatra but was raised in its capital Medan. After living in New Zealand for 11 years, he now lives in Yogyakarta as a full-time writer. His published poetry books are young saut talking to god (2003), subversive notes (2004), autobiography (2007), Les mots cette souffrance (Collection du Banian, Paris, 2012), Drunken Boat (2014), Wounded Land (2020), Tongue In Your Ear (2020) and MOTHER: A Bohemian Blues (2025). His short stories were collected in the book Sunday Sermon (2016) and his essay collections were published under the title Politics
of Literature (2009) and Literature and Film (2022).
DOWNLOAD PDF
COLOPHON
AUTHORS
Marjolein van Asdonck
Raistiwar Pratama
Saut Situmorang
Marjolein van Pagee
Rosa te Velde
READERS
Fitria Jelyta
Lisa Baumgarten
Mark Oomen
EDITING/PROOFREADING
Harriet Foyster
Iris Pissaride
Marjolein van Pagee
IMAGE RESEARCH
Rosa te Velde
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Zuzana KostelanskáCC BY-NC-ND
This project is published under CC BY-NC-ND license, which enables reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.
Some of the texts were published before by the Wereldmuseum (02 ‘Yes, but...’; 03 A Firm Nudge & 06 A Rejuvenation Cure?).
Questions/corrections/suggestions? Contact us at
recallrecalibrate (at) gmail.com
2025
This project was funded by Het Stimuleringsfonds voor de Creatieve Industrie.
INSTAGRAM