La " politique éthique " des Pays-Bas à Java (1901-1926)

Abstract

In September 1901, a coalition of Christian parties won the Dutch legislative elections under the leadership of the Anti-Revolutionary Party. Colonial issues were given a strategic dimension by the new government, which strongly advocated the "moral reform" of the Netherlands' colonial policy in the Far East. The "ethical colonial policy" (1901- c.1926), which was defended both by leaders of the conservative Christian parties and by members of the worker-led social-democratic movement, aimed at fulfilling the "moral obligation" of the metropolitan state towards the native population of the East Indies. By focussing on the "moral education" of the native Javanese, this article begins by summarizing the institutional and political developments that gave birth to this "ethical policy". It then examines a number of actions taken by the colonial state in Java concerning educational policy, medical and hygienic modernisation, prison reforms and political "decentralization". The article demonstrates how these public policies were seen as contributing to the "moral reform" of the native Javanese, by introducing them to a capitalist, bureaucratic and Christian "modernity" - a modernity ultimately deemed to be contradictory with political protest and Islamic mobilization. ; En 1901, une coalition de partis chrétiens remporte les élections législatives néerlandaises. La réforme de la politique coloniale figure en tête des priorités du nouveau gouvernement, dirigé par les hommes du parti antirévolutionnaire. Il est alors question de la mise en œuvre, aux Indes orientales, d'une " politique coloniale éthique " : la justification du fait de colonisation s'énonce, en rupture avec les discours économicistes des décennies précédentes, dans les termes d'une " responsabilité morale " de la métropole envers les populations indigènes. Cet article entend restituer l'histoire de la genèse de ce paradigme de la " politique coloniale éthique " et de la mise en œuvre, à Java, de nouvelles politiques publiques axées sur l'" éducation ...