‘YES, BUT...’
Occupation as Requirement for ‘Development’ – the Emergence of Dutch 'Ethical Imperialism’ in Indonesia
by Rosa te Velde
How was Dutch imperialism revamped after the much-criticised Cultivation System that forced the Javanese to plant crops for the Dutch? In 1901, Queen Wilhelmina expressed her concern for the Javanese during her yearly throne speech. Meanwhile, the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army was continuously at war. In this text, Rosa te Velde looks at the ways in which we can understand the 'Ethical Policy' as the Dutch white men's burden, with its aim to elevate the native people together with the brutal occupation of the 'outer possessions' during the same period.
Rosa te Velde
is a researcher, designer and teacher. The Decolonial Summer School, led by Rolando Vazquez and Walter Mignolo, which she attended in 2016, has been decisive for her work and thinking. She edited Vazquez’ book Vistas of Modernity: Decolonial Aesthesis and the End of the Contemporary (2020). In 2021 she published Drafting Futures: Remembering a Building, a research into segregation, gentrification and the ëpolitics of forgettingí in Amsterdam Nieuw-West, commissioned by De Appel. From 2022-2024, Rosa was part of the Social Justice and Diversity in the Arts lectorate at the Amsterdam University of the Arts, where she currently still works as a researcher. She is also teaching at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague at the MA Industrial Design.
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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.
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