Het Vrije Woord (Dutch; literally "The Free Word", or "Free Expression") was a left-wing newspaper printed in the Dutch East Indies from 1915 to 1922, associated with the Indische Sociaal-Democratische Vereeniging (Dutch: Indies Social Democratic Association) and the Indonesian Communist Party in its early years.
Het Vrije Woord was founded in the fall of 1915 as the party newspaper of the Indische Sociaal-Democratische Vereeniging (Dutch: Indies Social Democratic Association), which itself was initially made up of European members of various Dutch parties, notably the Social Democratic Workers' Party (Netherlands). The editorial board on its launch was Henk Sneevliet, an experienced socialist who had arrived in the Indies in 1913, Adolf Baars, a newly graduated engineer and radical who had only just arrived in the Indies, and D.J.A. Westerveld, a Centrist. [1] [2] In its first year, the paper did not present itself as the mouthpiece of the ISDV, but simply a "general independent semimonthly organ". [3] It was only in June 1916 that it started billing itself as the official ISDV paper. [3]
Because the paper was printed in the Dutch language, a language which by official policy was mainly understood by Europeans and only a tiny minority of Asians with an elite education, the paper was not widely read by Indonesians or Indonesian Chinese. [2] In late 1916 only 10 percent of its readers were estimated to be Indonesians. [3] However, the paper still earned the respect of many nationalistic Indonesians in its early years, first because it denounced the arrest of the radical Mas Marco in 1916, and then because it publicly opposed the Indië Weerbar campaign to establish a 'native' army in the Indies. [2] This was in stark contrast to most Dutch newspapers in the Indies, such as Bataviaasch Nieuwsblad or De Preangerbode, which had a highly racist attitude towards the native population and was contemptuous of any attempt at their advancement, [4] or even liberal papers like De Locomotief which was sympathetic to them at times but still believed in the colonial order. [5]
Recognizing the limitations of only spreading Social Democratic propaganda to Europeans in the Indies, Baars worked hard to learn Malay and Javanese. [2] Thus in April 1917 he helped found a Malay sister paper, Soeara Merdika (Malay: Voice of freedom) with himself and two Indonesian socialists, Semaun and Noto-Widjojo as editors. [3] (This paper is not to be confused with Suara Merdeka, an unrelated paper founded in 1950.) The content and goals of this paper were similar to Het Vrije Woord. [6] 'The paper failed and ceased publication within its first year, but Baars and his allies launched another paper, Soeara Ra'jat (Malay: People's Voice), in March 1918. [7]
In October 1917 Baars was "honorably discharged" him from his teaching job in a technical school in Surabaya, where he had worked since 1915. [8] In August 1917, he had been giving a speech in Malay at an ISDV meeting and called the colonial government busuk (Malay: rotten), and when confronted by his superiors later, did not convince them that he was repentant. [9] The firing was widely covered in the Dutch press of the Indies; the Bataviaasch Nieuwsblad stated that Baars had defied the Government until his dismissal, so there was no need to feel sorry for him, and that he had in addition made "disgraceful" attacks on the education system in Het Vrije Woord. [10]
In 1918, the colonial government deported Het Vrije Woord editor Sneevliet from the Indies for his organizing work among Dutch soldiers and Sailors, and then in early 1919 Baars also left voluntarily and returned to the Netherlands. [8] The government would soon deport most of the other European ISDV members in the Indies, which certainly reduced the potential readership of the paper. [8] However, in 1919 Het Vrije Woord added Pieter Bergsma, another European socialist in the Indies who also edited his own paper Volharding, as a replacement for Baars. [11] Bergsma was born in Friesland but had been in the Indies since 1914, and had served as a Sergeant in the Dutch Indies army before retiring and entering politics and journalism. [11] Baars did not have much employment or political success in the Netherlands and returned to the Indies in early 1920. [12]
In 1920 when the ISDV was refounded as the Indonesian Communist Party, Het Vrije Woord now became the Dutch language organ of the renamed party, with Baars and Bergsma remaining as editors, but due to the expulsion of many European socialists from the Indies, it apparently only had 40 subscribers by this time. [13]
In January 1921, Bergsma was sentenced to 3 months in prison by the local court (Raad van Justitie) in Semarang. [14] Thus Baars was the only active editor, and by March announced he was closing the paper because he simply didn't have time to run a paper by himself on top of his other work. [15] Not long after, the government detained him as well, and then deported him from the Indies on the basis of the destabilizing influence of his communist propaganda work. [16] His recent articles in Het Vrije Woord were also cited as reasons, including one protesting the arrest of a PKI member, another describing the German counter-revolution, [17] and one criticizing the practice of Pretrial detention in the Indies. [18] Semaun, Baars' longtime ally, spoke up in his defence saying that Baars' expulsion had shocked members of the Communist party, because of how diligently he had stayed within the bounds of the law and sought to avoid offense to anyone. [19]
After the end of his prison sentence, around the time of Baars' deportation, Bergsma reappeared and declared he would be resuming publication of Het Vrije Woord on his own, with some written contributions sent in by Baars. [20] [21] He continued to publish the paper until early 1922, when he too was called in by the authorities (along with fellow communist Tan Malaka; both were given a deportation order. [22] It is unclear who edited the final issues, but in May 1922 the paper announced it would not be continuing due to it dwindling readership, and that they would now be putting their efforts into the Malay language sister paper, Soeara Ra'jat. [23]
Semaun, also spelled Semaoen, was the first chairman of the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) and was a leader of the Semarang branch of the Sarekat Islam.
Gagak Item is a 1939 bandit film from the Dutch East Indies directed by Joshua and Othniel Wong for Tan's Film. Starring Rd Mochtar, Roekiah, and Eddy T. Effendi, it follows a masked man known only as "Gagak Item". The black-and-white film, which featured the cast and crew from the 1937 hit Terang Boelan, was a commercial success and received positive reviews upon release. It is likely lost.
Union Films was a film production company located in Batavia, Dutch East Indies. Established by ethnic Chinese businessmen Ang Hock Liem and Tjoa Ma Tjoen in 1940, it produced seven black-and-white films before it was dissolved in 1942; all are thought to be lost. The company's films were directed by four men, mostly ethnic Chinese, and launched the careers of actors such as Rendra Karno and Djoewariah.
Sin Po was a Peranakan Chinese Malay-language newspaper published in the Dutch East Indies and later Indonesia. It expressed the viewpoint of Chinese nationalism and defended the interests of Chinese Indonesians and was for several decades one of the most widely read Malay newspapers in the Indies. It existed under various names until 1965.
Djawa Tengah was a major Malay-language peranakan Chinese daily newspaper in Semarang, Dutch East Indies from 1909 to 1938. It is said to have been the first Chinese newspaper in Semarang.
Tjhoen Tjhioe was a Malay language Peranakan Chinese newspaper from Surabaya, Dutch East Indies catering mainly to the Chinese population. The full title of the paper was Tjhoen Tjhioe: Soerat kabar dagang bahasa Melajoe jang moeat roepa kabar penting bagi bangsa Tionghoa. Although the paper only existed for a short time, during that time it was recognized as one of the top Chinese newspapers in the Indies, alongside Sin Po and Perniagaan.
Tjahaja Timoer was a Malay-language Peranakan newspaper printed in Malang, Dutch East Indies, from 1907 to 1942.
Neratja, later Hindia Baroe, was a Malay language newspaper printed from 1917 to 1926 in Weltevreden, Dutch East Indies. Although originally founded with government support to be a Malay voice for the Dutch Ethical Policy, before long it became associated with the Sarekat Islam and the Indonesian National Awakening. Among its editors were important figures of the Indonesian national movement such as Abdul Muis and Agus Salim.
Djawi-Hisworo was a newspaper printed in Surakarta, Dutch East Indies from 1909 to 1919 in Malay and Javanese. It was considered the mouthpiece of the early Javanese self-improvement organization Boedi Oetomo.
Raden Darsono Notosudirdjo, more commonly known simply as Darsono, was a journalist and editor of Sinar Hindia, an activist in the Sarekat Islam and chairman of the Indonesian Communist Party from 1920 to 1925.
Algemeen handelsblad voor Nederlandsch-Indië was a Dutch language newspaper which was published in Semarang, Dutch East Indies from 1924 to 1942.
Adolf Baars was a Dutch-Jewish Communist, engineer, and writer who is largely remembered today for his early role in the Indische Sociaal-Democratische Vereeniging and the Indonesian Communist Party.
Warna Warta was a Malay language Peranakan Chinese newspaper published in Semarang, Dutch East Indies from 1902 to 1933. Alongside its more popular rival Djawa Tengah, it was highly influential among the Chinese Indonesian population of Semarang during this time.
Selompret Melajoe was one of the first Malay language newspapers to publish in the Dutch East Indies. It was printed in Semarang, Central Java from 1860 to 1920.
The Koningin Emmaschool voor technisch onderwijs, often referred to as the Koningin Emmaschool or KES, was an intermediate-level (MULO) technical school in Surabaya, Dutch East Indies which operated from 1913 to 1941.
Aliarcham (c.1901-1933) was a Sarekat Islam and Indonesian Communist Party party leader, activist and theoretician in the Dutch East Indies. He was a major figure behind the PKI's turn to more radical policies in the mid-1920s. He was arrested by Dutch authorities in 1925 and exiled to the Boven-Digoel concentration camp, where he died in 1933. He became a well-known Martyr, especially among Communists and Indonesian nationalists.
Yap Goan Ho was a Chinese Indonesian translator, businessman, bookseller, and publisher based in Batavia, Dutch East Indies. In the 1880s and 1890s, he was one of the first Chinese Indonesians to own a printing press and the first to publish Chinese language novels in Malay language translations.
Soekaesih was a Communist Party of Indonesia activist known for being one of only a handful of female political prisoners exiled by the Netherlands government to Boven-Digoel concentration camp. After being released she traveled to the Netherlands in the late 1930s and campaigned for the camp to be shut down.
Pewarta Deli was a Malay language newspaper published in Medan, Dutch East Indies from 1910 until 1941, and again from 1945–6. During its run the paper became a strident anti-colonial voice, sympathetic to the Sarekat Islam and Indonesian nationalism and critical of the cruelty of big business in Medan's tobacco and plantation industries. It also gave space in its pages to Communism and Islamic modernism. The paper had a wide readership in its time, with an influence not only in the Indies, but also among Malays in British Malaya.
Censorship in the Dutch East Indies was significantly stricter than in the Netherlands, as the freedom of the press guaranteed in the Constitution of the Netherlands did not apply in the country's overseas colonies. Before the twentieth century, official censorship focused mainly on Dutch-language materials, aiming at protecting the trade and business interests of the colony and the reputation of colonial officials. In the early twentieth century, with the rise of Indonesian nationalism, censorship also encompassed materials printed in local languages such as Malay and Javanese, and enacted a repressive system of arrests, surveillance and deportations to combat anti-colonial sentiment.
All issues of Het Vrije Woord readable on Delpher