Modernity in the Malay Archipelago

At the turn of the twentieth century, the British and Dutch colonized extensive parts of the Malay Archipelago. They justified imperial expansion by a belief in their supposed responsibility, as Europeans, to disseminate “modernity.” In this article, I compare two key colonial novels set in the region: Hugh Clifford’s Sally (1904) and Louis Couperus’ De stille kracht (1900). Both depict similar practices of colonial rule, but where Sally ends with the breakdown of its Malay protagonist, De stille kracht charts the downfall of its Dutch main character. Drawing on Ann Laura Stoler and Frederick Cooper’s work on the relationship between colony, metropole, and modernity, I argue that analysing Clifford’s and Couperus’ texts reveals fundamental differences between British and Dutch conceptions of empire. Conversely, by examining diverging British and Dutch literary representations of colonialism, we can gain new insights into how these neighboring nations developed different understandings of themselves as Europeans.