Born Traitors：Abe Tomoji’s Reconstruction of “The Treason of Pieter Elberveld” and the Image of Eurasians

ANGGRAENI, Dewi

doi:2022.14.1.73

The Journal of Japanese Language Literature Studies > Volume 14(1); 2022 > Article

Article

Border Crossings: The Journal of Japanese-Language Literature Studies 2022;14(1): 73-87.
doi: https://doi.org/10.22628/bcjjl.2022.14.1.73

Born Traitors：Abe Tomoji’s Reconstruction of “The Treason of Pieter Elberveld” and the Image of Eurasians

Dewi ANGGRAENI

Lecturer, Universitas Indonesia

｢生まれつきの裏切り者｣――阿部知二による<ピーテル·エルベルフェルトの反逆事件>と欧亜混血人像

デウィ·アングラエニ

(インドネシア)インドネシア大学人文科学部日本学科講師。広島大学大学院文学研究科博士課程後期単位取得満期退学。日本近代文学、ポストコロニアル理論。

Correspondence Dewi ANGGRAENI ,Email: d.anggraeni@ui.ac.id

Published online: 30 June 2022.

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

ABSTRACT

This article aims to clarify Japanese South-commissioned writers’ perception of Eurasians in 1940s Indonesia on the basis of Abe Tomoji’s retelling of a tale of treachery in his essay “Chi to Tsuchi to Kokoro— Eruberuferuto no koto nado” (1944.7). The treachery in question is that of Pieter Elberfeld, a Eurasian man accused of plotting a rebellion against Dutch East Indies Company authorities with Javanese assistance, who was then brutally executed. In 1930s Japan, this story was symbolically employed by the “anti-Western” movement. Abe portrays Eurasians as people who act without clear reasons because of their mixed-blood nature, and he represents them as “born traitors.” By employing the notion of the “contact zone” as a conceptual framework through which to interpret Abe’s essay, this article argues that this portrayal of Eurasians is related to the Japanese military policy towards enemy aliens in Indonesia. This policy exempted Eurasians from internment in camps alongside Europeans if they could prove their Asian descent. As a result, many Eurasians who once prided themselves on their European ancestry began to identify themselves as Indonesians. This article’s findings fill the void in previous research on Abe as a South-commissioned writer, which primarily focuses on Indonesian scenic beauty and the eroticization of Dutch women there.

Keywords: Abe Tomoji, Contact Zone, Eurasians, Pieter Elberfeld, South-commissioned Writers

キ―ワ―ド: 阿部知二, 接触領域, 欧亜混血人, ピーテル·エルベルフェルト, 南方徴用作家