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

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.