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Jakarta Expat 28-11 October 2011
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Indonesia’s Largest Expatriate Readership | 53rd Edition | 28 Sep – 11 Oct 2011 |
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Treading in Jogja's Ancient History By Antony Sutton
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nyone with but the flimsiest knowledge of Indonesia will know the pivotal role Jogjakarta has played. In culture, in rebellion, in battling invaders the Kraton has been at the heart of the Javanese story. And Stamford Raffles is a man forever linked with Singapore despite the fact he spent much longer on Java than he did on the fledgling island state. He also spent five years on Penang and from there he cast envious glances at the long narrow island that lay beneath the equator, seeing it as vital to British interests in the East. He formulated a plan to bring the island under British control, kicking out the French in the process and sailed to Calcutta to convince the great and good,
his paymasters there. His enthusiasm got them on board and in 1810 he sailed for Melaka to assemble the forces needed for such an operation as well as develop the human intelligence vital to the success of the mission. That he spoke the language and was sympathetic to the locals was in his favour and for several months he intrigued from the historic port on the Malay peninsular. When the conditions were deemed correct, both at sea and in Java, the force set sail, heading south past the island of Singapore and across to the great isle of Borneo before turning south and heading for a spot just west of the port of Batavia. Here, the British invaded and pushed the French
south to the great castle of Cornelius which was besieged before finally falling. Now it was time to spread out across the island, develop the contacts Raffles had developed from afar but in Jogjakarta the welcome was not so warm. He had been warmly greeted in Solo, but things were not going well further south so it was with some trepidation that he entered the Kraton with a mere 900 troops as support. He gained entrance to the Sultan’s inner sanctum where some hundreds of armed men looked on with ill-disguised loathing at these new intruders.
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