From Colony to Republic

Photo exhibition "From Colony to Republic: Indonesia in Photographs by Cees Taillie 1946-1949"

Eighty per cent of the photography collection of the KIT Museum of the Tropics consists of photographs from the former Netherlands Indies. It is a rich and extremely varied collection which gives an impression of life and work in the colony from 1865 to the eve of the Second World War. Understandably, the Second World War and the Japanese Occupation mark an abrupt end. Now, a recent gift has extended the collection with some post-war photographs. These present images which, even though taken in the same place within a time span of five years, show a totally different country.

Camp Doeri, equipment base for the Engineering Corps. Jakarta, November 1946.

On 2 October 1949, having spent three years as a soldier in Indonesia, Cees Taillie once again set foot on Dutch soil. In his luggage he had more than 4500 negatives, the visual report of his experiences in Indonesia in the period September 1946 to October 1949. It is a collection which stretches out from Jakarta to Hollandia in New Guinea, and covers both the weal and woe of Dutch soldiers and the daily life of the Indonesians.

Soemba, 27 February 1949.

Jakarta, November 1946.

During the last year of the war, Cees Taillie (Zierikzee 1920) was a member of the internal armed forces operating in the top part of the province of North Holland. After the war he volunteered for active service, partly out of gratitude for what the Allied Armies had done, partly because of a zest for freedom and adventure. He received his army training in England. The original idea was that this group of volunteers would be deployed with the Allied Army in Asia which at that time, the middle of 1945, was still fighting a war there with Japan. But then the war in Asia took an unexpected turn and after the Japanese had capitulated Taillie and his fellow soldiers returned to the Netherlands. Here they received extra training so that they could be deployed in Indonesia.

He was posted to the 7 December Division as a sergeant in the engineers and sailed to Indonesia as quartermaster on the MS Klipfontein on 2 September 1946. Accommodation had to be organized for the thousands of Dutch soldiers who on their way there to restore law and order. This was colonial regime of law and order which had been thoroughly disturbed by the Japanese occupation and the recent proclamation of Independence by Soekarno and Hatta, directly after the capitulation of Japan.

Batavia, March 1947.

Having organized quarters for the men, among the jobs assigned to Taillie was keeping the convoy road from Batavia to Bandung open during the First Military Action and repairing roads and bridges in the wake of the clearing away of obstructions set up by the Republicans.

Right from the moment of his arrival in Indonesia, Taillie took photographs, because, as he himself says: “To show people at home later what I had experienced and for the boys who had no camera”.

After an year with the engineers, Taillie was transferred to the Public Relations Section/Liaison Corps??? (DCL), specifically to the ‘pictorial’ section of this service. He was able to make his hobby his profession, he became of photographer. For a short period he worked as a photographer in Java, where one of his jobs was recording the operations of the Good Works Commission???. But it was not long before he was posted to the Federal State of Eastern Indonesia, with Makassar (in Celebes/Sulawesi) as his base. From here he journeyed far and wide throughout the eastern part of the Indonesia Archipelago. His most important commission was to take passport photos of the soldiers in the Colonial Army (KNIL) and to set down the ups and downs in the lives of the soldiers for posterity.

Soldiers in the reserve corps of the Colonial Army (KNIL) in Morotai, January 1949.

As the Liaison Department photographer Taillie was expected to send his negatives furnished with captions to the head office in Batavia every week. In Batavia a decision was made about which were suitable for publication, which should be sent on to the Netherlands. In Netherlands they were scrutinized again to judge whether the images were in accordance with the ‘humane’ character of the Dutch military presence. Shocking images of armed combat, the wounded, or of the enemy were not appreciated.

Batavia, Sunda Kelapa, January 1947.

Taillie did his best to work as much as possible with two cameras: one for the LS and one with which he took his own private shots.

If the military elite tended to predominate in the beginning up to around April 1948, later such images disappeared into the background and much more attention was paid to the lives of the local people and to the luxuriant natural scenery. Right at the beginning it was the sappers who were portrayed in great depth in all their activities.

As a soldier with a commission to take photographs, he had a wide-ranging interest which extended far beyond the bounds of military life. His photographs bring to life the situation which prevailed in the period of transition, in which the European citizen disappeared almost completely from the picture.

Makassar, Chinese quarter, 31 August 1948.

Whereas ever since the 1930s the European woman had been emphatically present in photographs, is virtually invisible. It is the same story with the children. There are also photographs which bear witness to the fact that the old colonial rituals were clung on to almost like grim death. One example is the celebration of the birth of Princess Marijke/Christina with the appropriate homage of the local people who are no longer received by the Resident, but by an ill-at-ease, high-ranking military officer, surrounded by other army people. The festivities remained the same but the entourage, the people are different.

Tjipanas, festivities to celebrate the birth of Princess Marijke, 19 February 1947.

Makassar , 31 August 1948.

The President of the Federal State of Eastern Indonesia, Anak Agung Gede Agung Soekawati, takes his place on an improvised dais alongside Colonel Scheffelaar to take the salute at the celebrations to mark the birthday of Queen Wilhelmina. And how long would the Dutch boundary marker/escutcheon continue to hang on the veranda of the Raja of Temboeka in the Sangihe Archipelago?

The altered image, the plethora of questions, the subtle details, are all to be found in this collection of photographs taken by Cees Taillie in the period 1946-1949.

Soerabaja(?), May 1948.

Makassar, entrance to the parliament building of the Federal State of Eastern Indonesia, August 1948.

Menado, preparations for the Feast of Saint Nicholas, 5 December 1948.

*KIT Museum of the Tropics, October 2004 - 17 April 2005