Contacts and Conflicts, 1596-1950
This book tells the story of the contacts and conflicts between muslims and christians in Southeast Asia during the Dutch colonial history from 1596 until 1950. The author draws from a great variety of sources to shed light on this period: the letters of the colonial pioneer Jan Pietersz. Coen, the writings of 17th century Dutch theologians, the minutes of the Batavia church council, the contracts of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) with the sultans in the Indies, documents from the files of colonial civil servants from the 19th and 20th centuries, to mention just a few. The colonial situation was not a good starting-point for a religious dialogue. With Dutch power on the increase there was even less understanding for the religion of the muslims . In 1620 J.P. Coen, the strait-laced calvinist, had actually a better understanding and respect for the muslims than the liberal colonial leaders from the early 20th century, convinced as they were of western supremacy.
When this book was first published in a Dutch edition in 1991, post-colonial
Indonesia was seen as an example of a harmonious and peaceful cohabitation of
a minority of some 9% Christians amidst the world's largest Muslim majority
country (in 2005 Muslims counted 87%, or some 205 million, out of 220 million
citizens. At that time I had just finished seven years of teaching at the State
Academy of Islamic Studies in Jakarta and Yogyakarta. In Jakarta I had lived with
my family on the ...
