The Origin Of Indigenous Words And The Inlander Mentality

Illustration (Photo: Wikimedia)

JAKARTA - In everyday conversation, the word pribumi is not a new term. Whether it's at the community level to the official level, they often define Indonesians or those who, like the national figures, HOS Tjokroaminoto, call bumiputera, as natives. Automatically, the word pribumi permeates itself like a racist colonial legacy that remains to this day.

In fact, history clearly records the birth of the word indigenous, none other than born from the womb of Dutch colonialism. At that time, the Company confidently created a caste which was the racial classification of the population in the Dutch East Indies. At first glance, its formation is not like the caste system in Hinduism. This is because the Company only divided it into three levels in accordance with the Colonial Law of 1854.

As noted by historian JJ Rizal, the contents of the Law show that the number one citizen of the Netherlands Indies falls in the European circles or white European people. Citizen number two belongs to the Vreemde Oosterlingen –Foreign East – which includes Chinese, Arabs, Indians, and other non-Europeans. And the number three citizens, namely inlanders or natives, which includes local communities, moreover they are Muslims.

Therefore, the class division in the Dutch Law which places Indonesians as third-class citizens, makes the word pribumi without any specialties. That is why the colonial era became the main perpetrator of indigenous or inlander satire "That descriptive racist narrative is what socially and culturally still exists today."

Not surprisingly, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, has recorded the word inlander as a term that has been used since 1610. Based on the dictionary, the term inlander consists of two elements, namely inland and the affix -er which means "people who live in inland." Meanwhile, inland itself is defined as an area which may be a kind of hamlet or village.

Therefore, it is natural that the Big Indonesian Dictionary (KBBI) also absorbs the word inlander as a derogatory term for the natives of Indonesia by the Dutch during the colonial period. The proof, we can look to the early days of the Dutch conquering Jayakarta and changing to Batavia in 1619.

“The Governor-General of the VOC (1619-1623 and 1627-1629), Jan Pieterszoon Coen really liked the Chinese, who were considered diligent, tireless and very skilled. And, he looks down on natives, who he says are lazy, unruly, and unreliable, ”said Alwi Shahab in the book Robinhood Betawi: Kisah Betawi Tempo Doeloe (2002).

Perhaps Coen's opinion regarding the natives is the best known. However, long before Coen, the views which denigrate the Indonesian people began in the first decades of the 17th century. Once upon a time, European people who were always threatened with losing their lives and assets while on the archipelago were the cause. The fruit, they call Indonesians as inlanders.

In the book Nusantara (1961), Bernard HM Vlekke reveals that a British explorer named Edmund Scott is said to have written extensively regarding observations of local residents in Banten in 1603-1665. In his notes, Scott generalizes that Indonesians are lazy. "They are all poor, because they have many slaves who are even more lazy than their masters, and who eat faster than their pepper and rice grows."

Not only that, Scott also revealed that in Banten cases of intrigue, evil planning, and murder were common. So, Scott seems to rush to the conclusion, if the local people are all evil. This assumption then spread to the Dutch merchants who came at the same broadcast time as Scott, those who did not understand the language and customs of the Indonesians, also distrusted and looked down on Indonesians.

An inlander mentality

Even though you understand the term inlander or native, it is a mockery. At that time, strangely some people still considered the Dutch and European nations as classy and great nations than the Indonesians. At the same time, some Indonesians also wanted to work like the Netherlands, schools like the Netherlands, and languages like Dutch.

Not surprisingly, the inlander mentality emerged. Quoting Mustakim in an article entitled Inlander (2019) in Tempo Magazine. The inlader mentality is the right sentence to describe the condition of Indonesians who deify the Dutch too much, so that they want to try to align themselves with European-style life.

“From there, it seems that the seeds of inferiority will emerge, an attitude of inferiority appears, or an inlander mentality emerges, losing self-confidence as a dignified nation. This attitude then penetrated most of the Indonesian people as a colony. Such an inferiority complex has been passed down from generation to generation until now. "

Furthermore, Mustakim who is also the Head of the East Java Language Center emphasized the impact of the inlander mentality, some of whom have lost their sense of confidence in the strength of their own nation's language and culture. To make matters worse, whatever is owned will feel like losing, losing value, and losing prestige compared to Europeans.

"On the other hand, whatever is owned by another nation is considered greater, cooler, and more prestigious than our own. Because we value other nations or foreigners more highly, in almost everything we also value them with a higher" price ". , "He added.

Sadly again, the Dutch took advantage of this momentum to enrich themselves and further impoverish the bumiputera. They confiscate land, take the rights of land owners, they are even forced to pay taxes on their own land.

If readers have difficulty understanding the meaning of the inlander mentality, readers should start reading the book by Pramoedya Ananta Teller in the tetralogy of Buru Island, Bumi Manusia (1980), in that book, there is a character of an Indo-Dutch named Robert Mellema.

It was there that Pram asked Robert as an inlander mentality. In a sense, he always hated everything that smelled of bumiputera, even though he was hereditary. How could it not be, the Dutch position in Robert's heart was actually greater, so that all Indonesians had to submit to it.

It is through Robert's character that the public understands that a lack of understanding of the nation's own culture will actually make a person have an inlander mentality. Inevitably, those who have this mentality seem to be secretly perpetuating the Dutch assumption that the bumiputera are only class three citizens in the Land of the Emerald Khatulistiwa.