Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis - Volume 133, Issue 2, 2020

Beyond national history. The Rawagede Massacre told as an entangled history

In a historic first, the ruling of a civil court in The Hague in 2011 obliged the Dutch state to take responsibility for a mass execution perpetrated by Dutch military in the West Javanese village of Rawagede in 1947. Sixty-four years after the end of Indonesia’s struggle for independence (1945-1949) some justice has been served. This article explores several of its unintended historiographical effects. Taking the armed conflict between states as a frame of reference was an inevitable starting point for the court case, but the consequence is that national perspectives (Dutch colonizer / Indonesian colonized) are centered. Consequently, the entanglement of local experiences and transnational dynamics remains invisible. By presenting the so-called ‘Rawagede case’ as a form of entangled history instead of consisting of two antagonistic opposites, we believe that space can be created, within both the Dutch and Indonesian contexts, for multiple positions and perspectives. In doing so, this article offers alternative frames to (Dutch) historians who have argued for writing histories that challenge the still dominant national discourse in postcolonial historiography.

The Thin Coherence of the Enlightenment: Equality, Society, and Religion in Enlightenment Encyclopaedias

One of the key trends in scholarship on the Enlightenment since the early 1980s has been the fragmentation of the movement into numerous strands based variously on national context, religion, or philosophical school, a fragmentation that risks emptying the signifier ‘Enlightenment’ of all meaning. This article argues that analyzing the concepts of ‘equality’ and ‘society’ in Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie and one of its most important successors, the Swiss Encyclopédie d’Yverdon, enables us to see that, in spite of the very real philosophical, religious, and political differences between Enlightenment thinkers, the movement can nonetheless be characterized as possessing thin coherence. Religion became compartmentalized in an inner sphere, ceding ground to the concept of society, which came to describe the fundamental domain of human interdependence. In the new intellectual space created by the Enlightenment, inequality came to be viewed as something artificial and in need of justification, thus demonstrating that the modern concepts of ‘society’ and ‘equality’ hang together in an intellectual movement characterized by thin coherence.

Europe and the rise of Germany, 1830-1871. The German Question in European perspective

A century and a half ago Bismarck’s Reichgründung fundamentally changed Europe’s states system. It marked the end of a quest for German unity that, since the 1830s, had been a central theme of European politics. This era has so far received little attention, and only a few historians appreciate that the rise of Germany in the nineteenth century triggered not only anxiety and fear among its neighbours, but feelings of sympathy and hope as well. This article aims to chart the whole range of reactions and to reintroduce openness to this historical process. It analyses a variety of conceptions of a new European states system in order to understand how Polish, Italian, French, and British politicians and activists anticipated and tried to influence the emergence of a strong and powerful German nation state in Europe’s centre. The conditionality of their support stresses the influence of these neighbouring nations on European-German relations then and now.

Konrad Adenauer’s blueprint for a united Europe. Rescuing the Christian Occident (1949-1963)

In his role as German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer proved to be an important force in the process of European integration. His thinking about European unity was determined by the peculiarly German notion of Abendland (Occident). How did Adenauer’s concept of the Christian Abendland inspire his blueprint for European integration? This article shows that for Adenauer European integration was essential in order to prevent the demise of this Christian Abendland in the face of materialist ideologies such as Communism. Moreover, it evaluates existing interpretations of the Christian Abendland in Adenauer’s Europapolitik (empty rhetoric, ideological weapon, cultural foundation) and adds a fourth interpretation: the Christian Abendland as affective glue in Adenauer’s blueprint for European integration. As such, it integrates the history of ideas with the history of emotions, and shows that the emotional quality of beliefs, such as the Christian Abendland, is critical for our understanding of international politics in general, and European integration in particular.

The origin of the Dutch dairy breeds and its significance for their conservation as living heritage

The three dairy breeds that dominated Dutch dairying in the twentieth century – Black and White, Red and White, and Groningen Whitehead – were first described by agriculturalist Iman van den Bosch on the basis of a quantitative analysis of their bodily dimensions. However, Van den Bosch did not analyse his data statistically, and a reanalysis with modern statistical tools shows that the data do not warrant a division into three distinct breeds. Historically, this is just a side note, yet it is important in light of recent conservation efforts. After the ‘Holsteinisation’ of the Dutch dairy herd in the 1970s, the three breeds declined and were ultimately listed as rare breeds. Currently they are taken to be authentic relics of centuries-old Dutch animal husbandry practices. We show, however, that the three breeds were a product of Van den Bosch and his successors’ efforts to modernize Dutch dairying. Before 1900 breed purity had never been an issue, and crossing of various types had been common practice. We discuss the implications of these findings for modern conservation practices and conclude that breed purity should not be sacrosanct.

Digital Access to the Legal Files of those tried for Nazi collaboration in the Netherlands: Possibilities and Impossibilities

This article reflects on the findings of a pilot project called Triado that digitized a sample of the 4km of legal files created by the Special Jurisdiction for investigating Dutch Nazi collaboration (CABR) in the years after the Second World War. We show that large scale digitization may help to analyze complex historical sources in new ways, thus deepening our understanding of the consequences of war and genocide. However, this can be achieved only if all specialists involved develop ways to deal with ambiguity in the sources: instead of disambiguation we need mixed approaches that allow for data to have multiple meanings and for interpretation of meaning to change over time. This article offers suggestions and gives a brief overview of some of the possibilities for researchers and lay users of digitized historical sources.

The mobilization of the nègres blancs d’Amérique. Shame and political symbolism as a legitimization for revolutionary violence in Québec (1963-1973)

In research on liberation movements, or other social movements, academics tend to look at rational and material motivations – economic, political, social, geographical, and demographic – for revolutionary action. In this article I want to emphasize the leading role of emotions in social action. A vivid example of this is the use of the nègre blanc metaphor in the liberation struggle in Québec in the 1960s and 1970s by the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ). I argue that the devalued political, cultural, economic, and social position of Québec within Canada created a strong feeling of collective shame. To mobilize the Québécois people for its cause, the FLQ tried to address this collective shame by using the nègre blanc metaphor to describe the deplorable position of Québec. This identification led to active and passive support for the FLQ.

Erotic Censorship: The Second Sexual Revolution in Censorship of Pornographic Movie Posters in Belgium (1970-1980)

This article studies the relationship between the second sexual revolution, pornography, and censorship by analyzing censorship of pornographic film posters in Belgium between 1970 and 1980. The prosecution of offences against decency declined in the Belgian courts throughout the seventies, which inspired changes in censorship practices. However, censorship was not only a restrictive power, allowing or prohibiting certain practices, but also led to the production of new content. The creative use of tape in film posters reveals how cinema managers used censorship to create more interest in their movies. Paradoxically, a period of increasing freedom produced a more visible form of censorship. My main conclusion is that censorship played a fundamental role in the eroticization of the public space during the second sexual revolution, thus complicating the apparent contradiction between the second sexual revolution and censorship.