Sinyo: Mixed Blood, Nan Racist

Photo illustration (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

JAKARTA - In the early phase of Dutch colonialism, the Europeans who came to Indonesia were mostly men. As a result, the absence of European women became a problem. They have difficulty perpetuating superiority as Europeans. So, most Dutch people chose to marry a nyai who had the role of managing the household as well as sleeping companions (concubines).

Through the practice of concubinage, their children became known as Indo descendants, or commonly referred to as "sinyo" and "noni". Based on the Big Indonesian Dictionary (KBBI), sinyo is defined as an unmarried boy from a European or a European peranakan. Meanwhile, noni is a little girl of European descent.

The birth of a child as a result of romance was born with a typical European character adopting it in general. They work like the Netherlands, schools like the Netherlands, to languages like Dutch. However, the same does not apply to the way they see the bumiputra who is the identity of their mother.

Most of the Dutch sinyo-sinyo looked down on the natives with lazy and stupid stereotypes. In fact, they themselves had quite a giddy side in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). On the one hand, they are looked down upon by Europeans because they are not really Dutch. On the other hand, they are not accepted by the native people who consider their children to have low degrees of concubinage.

The racist image of the Dutch sinyo-sinyo has actually been shown by Pramoedya Ananta Toer through the tetralogy of Buru Island: Earth Man (1980). In the book, there are two Indo-Dutch characters (sinyo) who are racist towards the native people. They are Robert Mellema and Robert Suurhorf.

Both are described by Pram as being forgetful about the land. In which case, things that smelled like the motherland were always hated by them, so they considered the position of the Dutch subordinates to be greater.

In line with that, Pram tried to insert a message to the reader regarding the racist attitude of an Indo-Dutch who did not want to acknowledge his Indonesian side, making the native people more complete as third-class citizens in the Dutch East Indies.

The reason the sinyo-sinyo that existed at that time felt great was none other than because their skin color resembled European people. It was for this skin color, as expressed by L. Ayu Saraswati in the book White: Skin Color, Race and Beauty in Transnational Indonesia (2013), that they considered themselves superior in the Dutch East Indies.

“What hasn't changed drastically in the Indies is how skin color continues to differentiate social categories. During the late 9th and early 10th centuries in pre-colonial Java, beauty ideals greatly exalted light skin tone. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, European-European testimony records stereotyped the dark-skinned Indies natives as lazy, stupid and prostitute, ”he wrote.

Photo illustration of the sinyo (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Often clashes with bumiputra

Along with the racist treatment of the Dutch sinyo-sinyo to the native people, not a few of them ended up in fights. Quoted from Irna HM Hadi Soewito in Soewardi Soerjaningrat's book in Pengasingan (1985), it reveals that Ki Hajar Dewantara, who was a Javanese prince, often burned with anger when he saw his friends insulted by sinyo-sinyo and Dutch children.

"Together with his friends, he often fought against Dutch children in Yogyakarta. One time, when he came home from school, Soetartinaj was harassed by Karel, a Dutch boy who often provoked arguments, ”he wrote.

"Seeing this, Soewardi (Ki Hajar Dewantara) and his friends did not remain silent. They intercepted the sinyos at the corner of the road. When they faced each other, the Karel and Soewardi gang cursed and berated each other. With fluent Dutch, Soewardi cursed. Fighting was inevitable, ”he added.

Not only Ki Hajar Dewantara, Sri Sultan Hamengkubuwana IX or Gusti Raden Mas Dorodjatun also often fought with Dutch sinyos because they often underestimated the native people. This has been done since the third grade of elementary school.

"In 1921, when Dorodiatun was in the third grade of elementary school, his father was appointed Sultan Hamengkubuwono VI. Even though his father has become king, Dorodjatun remains boarding in the Cock family and every day bikes to school. In fact, he was often punished by his teacher because he liked to fight or antagonistic. His opponents are generally Dutch and Chinese sinyo, ”added a piece of writing in Tempo Magazine entitled From Bintaran Kidul to Leiden (2015).

Unfortunately, not all native people could fight against the Dutch sinyo and win. Some of them have felt torn apart by the Dutch sinyo. one of them is like the story of the songwriter Indonesia Raya who is also a national hero, Wage Rudolf Soepratman.

“WR Soepratman still remembers how sick he felt, when he was insulted and expelled from the Dutch ELS school first. He still imagines when he was beaten up by Dutch sinyo-sinyo, beaten, ridiculed by "uuile Inlander" (rotten native) and many more. All of this inspired him to criticize more severely in the newspapers, ”wrote Anthony C. Hutabarat in Correcting History and Life History of Wage Rudolf Soepratman (2001).

In its journey, the arrogant and arrogant treatment of sinyo-sinyo in the colonial period made most of the native people hold a grudge against them. Starting from that grudge, the bumiputra who felt angry then turned to hate the previous Dutch Sinyo racist group.

The momentum of the entry of Japan until the period after the proclamation of independence was their way of taking revenge. This is because during the Japanese colonial era, the sinyo-sinyo, who were once proud to be born as a Eurasian race, who tended to cover up their Indonesian origins, rushed to save themselves by leaving their attachment to their European ancestry.

The well-known researcher who reviewed Southeast Asia Benedict Anderson in the book Living outside the Shell (2016) also took note of this. He revealed that the Japanese colonial era in Indonesia was indeed relatively short, 1942-1945, but it was very decisive.

“Japan not only overthrew all colonial regimes in the region (Indonesia), humiliated and imprisoned 'white' colonialists, and promoted joint identification as Asian nations. The Japanese also, for their own reasons, mobilized the local population for their war effort, trained and armed indigenous auxiliaries, and largely damaged the pre-Japanese economy, "he concluded.