Saturday, 07-Sep-2002 8:17 PM

REFORMASI and the Royal Family (Part 5)

As previously mentioned, the Selangor Sultanate has its roots in the Bugis Empire. The Bugis, then, was a seafaring race active in barter trading. Selangor, which first was a vassal of Melaka, then Johor, was “no man’s land” - a sort of a Wild West where survival of the fittest was the order of the day. Selangor was a ripe candidate for whoever was strong enough to tame it and fend off the neighbouring “colonialists” empires.

It needed a “band of pirates” to play this role and who better than the Five Bugis Brothers - Daing Perani, Daing Menambun, Daing Merewah, Daing Chelak, and Daing Kemasi. Take note though, “pirates” was how the Western history books describe them. In the East, they are considered warriors just like how the English regard Sir Francis Drake or Sir Walter Raleigh whose full-time occupation was to plunder Spanish and French ships in the name of the Monarch of England.

The five brothers were the sons of Daing Rilaka, the ruler of Riau, one of the more powerful Indonesian kingdoms in that era after the Javanese. When the five brothers were driven into exile for killing a chieftain’s son in a quarrel over a woman, they decided to settle in Selangor and proclaim themselves the rulers.

Eventually, Daing Chelak’s son, Raja Lumu, became the First Sultan of Selangor and the Bugis abandoned their wayward ways and took up the noble occupation of opium trading. And I say this not tongue-in-cheek, for opium trading was a legitimate way to earn a living then. Even governments dealt in opium and they did so to finance their imperialist activities – though at the expense of the native population.

In the 18th century, the Dutch empire in Indonesia, like those of the other colonial powers in Asia, became closely linked with the expansion of the international opium trade. Indeed, opium may be called the fuel of empires, and the Bugis were very much active in this trade, sharing half the spoils the Dutch plundered from the British ships passing through the Straits of Melaka.

Control of the opium trade in this region gave the Dutch rulers of Batavia many advantages. First, trade in the drug supplied them with a ready source of cash. Secondly, the trade was a means by which the Dutch could secure a dominant role in the trade with China. Thirdly, the opium monopoly pioneered the organisation of the colonial administration. Drug profits financed the costs of trade and warfare in the 18th century and later financed the establishment of the colonial administration throughout Java and the other islands.

From the very beginning of European imperialism in Southeast Asia, opium had been seen as a source of profit for traders coming to the region from the West. Arab and Indian merchants, other than introducing Islam to this region, also introduced the drug to eastern Asia as early as the 8th century. It was widely used as a pain killer, cough suppressant and a cure for Diarrhea. In India and among the Malays, there are reports that it was used as a stimulant by soldiers before going into battle.

The Dutch and their Bugis “business partners”, however, must take the credit, or blame, for perfecting the opium trade in Asia. In the 1650s, the Dutch began to buy opium in Bengal, the region of India which soon became the most abundant supplier of opium to Southeast Asia and China. Dutch traders shipped elephants from Sumatra as well as Sri Lanka and the Malay Peninsula to Bengal in exchange for opium.

Java, the Malay states, Sumatra and other parts of Southeast Asia were markets for this opium. The first reports of opium smoking are also from Java. Thus, the Dutch taught Asia a new vice. Before this, opium had only been ingested. Now, people learned how to inhale it. And it was not long before the Chinese too learned how to smoke pure opium.

Opium had been transformed from a medicine, which was occasionally abused, to something quite different - a recreational drug or pleasure-seeking substance. By the 1660s, the habit appears to have spread to the Dutch outpost on Taiwan and, from there, to Fujian and the Chinese mainland.

Thomas Stamford Raffles, who later founded British Singapore, took control of Java from the Dutch in 1812 during the Napoleonic Wars. He then took over the Dutch monopoly of selling opium to the Javanese.

During the pre-industrial era, Europeans had very little to offer Asians in the way of goods to trade. Outside of firearms, there were few European products that Asians found interesting. The Dutch, and before them the Spanish and Portuguese, had come to Indonesia in search of spices and other tropical goods which Europe lacked. The same was true for European trade with China. The Europeans discovered that opium was an easy way to obtain trade commodities in Southeast Asia which had a market in China or the west.

Much of Sumatra's tin, pepper and gold, as well as Java's sugar, coffee and indigo were sold, not for silver or cloth, but for opium. If Europeans wished to trade in Asia, they had to pay cash, which, for them, was an unsatisfactory alternative. They found, however, that an addictive drug was a great substitute for cash.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the Dutch lost control of Java, first to the French under Daendels and then to the British under Raffles. Long before this, however, they had lost control of the opium trade, at its source in India, to the British. Opium, thus, provided leverage for British trade to dominate Asia in the 19th century. It was not just a quick way to pay for their purchases, but it also gave them a measure of control over all the commerce in Asia.

During the 19th century, the Dutch Indies expanded to what is now Indonesia. The Dutch still depended on the British, however, for opium. And, it was from the opium the Dutch sold to the Indies where the colonial government reaped its greatest profits.

So, there you have it, the Selangor Royal Family are the off-springs of fierce opium traders. Even wonder why it is not easy to tame the members of the Selangor Royal Family? And, ever wonder why it is the most Reformasi-minded of all the Royal Families?

In fact, one of the members of the Selangor Royal Family was in the SWAT team that arrested Anwar Ibrahim on the night of 20th September 1998. And the reason he was in that team was to ensure that there would be no hanky-panky and Anwar would be safely brought to the police headquarters with no “accidents” along the way.

But I don’t think I will be allowed to tell this story – at least not while the present government is still in office – or else I will be joining my five comrades in Kamunting.

(To be continued)

RAJA PETRA KAMARUDIN

21 Aug - REFORMASI and the Royal Family (Part 1)

22 Aug - REFORMASI and the Royal Family (Part 2)

26 Aug - REFORMASI and the Royal Family (Part 3)

3 Sep - REFORMASI and the Royal Family (Part 4)