Nickel today is what spices were to the VOC in the past

The Jakarta Post, August 14, 2023, Text: Marjolein van Pagee
Lees hier de Nederlandse vertaling: https://marjoleinvanpagee.nl/nikkel-zaak-the-jakarta-post/

Three years ago, I fiercely opposed the state visit of Dutch king Willem-Alexander to Indonesia. In an opinion article for this newspaper I called him “a colonial wolf in sheep’s clothing”. I argued that the western colonial empire never really collapsed and that old-style colonialism only transformed into new style neo-colonialism. As an example of the ongoing greediness of the west, I referred to Europe’s opposition against the export ban on raw nickel that was just implemented then. A case that has not been settled yet.

Often, colonialism is linked to violence, which is true. Yet, the focus on violence alone can be misleading as it leaves out the cause. European colonists didn’t just commit atrocities out of the blue. They were aiming at something. The source of all that violence was the search for natural resources. Not just that. The Europeans wanted these resources all for themselves, no exchange, no equal profit: a monopoly. Logically, nobody voluntarily agreed with these one-sided and unattractive ‘deals’. Therefore, European colonists had to use force to get what they wanted.

In order to justify and normalize this robbery, presented as ‘trade’, laws and regulations were created. Colonized people, all around the world, were lured to sign treaties so that, in case problems occurred, the colonizer could say: “I have to punish you, because you are not abiding to the rules that we have set.”

This is the sequence: before violence, it begins with the colonizers’ interest in resources, then the attempt to get these resources for extremely low prices, a monopoly, written on paper, and only after they meet resistance, then atrocities are committed. In that order. Hence, violence has always been the result, never the goal. Simply put: the basis of colonialism is the preparedness to use any means necessary, in order to fulfill the selfish greed.

This selfish search has never stopped. Nickel today is what spices were to the VOC in the past. Of course, Indonesia did become independent in 1945. Apart from West-Papua, Dutch soldiers did physically leave the archipelago in 1949. How promising this may have seemed, it wasn’t the fall of empire. From the 1950s onwards Western colonialism ‘old style’ (direct occupation) changed into colonialism ‘new style’ (indirect rule). That is, US imperialism and military interventions, supported by Western European countries such as the Netherlands.

Last year, when the World Trade Organization (WTO) decided in favor of the European Union (EU) in the nickel case, President Joko Widodo remarked: “In the VOC era there was forced labor and forced cultivation, today there is forced export”. He is right.

Currently, the nickel-dispute between the EU and Indonesia just entered a new phase. A trade war is looming. Last July the EU launched a consultation among stakeholders − European businesses affected by the ban − whether they should take countermeasures against Indonesia. The consultation ends in September.

As The Netherlands is part of the EU as well, still very much invested in Indonesia’s economy, I sent an e-mail to the Dutch Foreign Affairs Ministry. I wanted to know their position on this matter, which remained unclear so far. On the Dutch government’s website, or in Dutch media, there is almost no coverage on the nickel-dispute. In the very exceptional cases that Dutch journalists have paid attention to it, Indonesia is framed as being a polluter, profit-driven and power-hungry. Ironically, exactly the image of the colonizer.

It was not that the Dutch-Indonesian relation was not discussed at all. On the contrary. For example, the state visit of the Dutch king in March 2020 received a lot of media attention. Another important press moment was the presentation of the results of the Dutch government-sponsored research on violence, in February 2022 and the subsequent apologies of prime minister Mark Rutte.

In these cases, the impression was made that the relationship between our two countries is fine after all. The dominant message was that we, Dutch people, had changed, we were ready to move on. However, as the nickel case proves, nothing could be further from the truth.

Despite all the beautiful words, my fellow Dutch, and especially the government, are still as colonial as ever. They have shown this again last June when Rutte pretended to have acknowledged 1945. It turned out to be a blatant lie, as the government later added that it was not a legal recognition and that the Netherlands still holds on to 1949.

Meanwhile, everybody remains silent about the nickel issue. Was that because it would reveal that all these apologies, were just empty words? The spokesperson of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs replied my question by saying that the Netherlands was on the same page with the EU regarding the nickel case. The reply basically read: Indonesia is not following the rules. But which rules? The unjust rules of the colonizer? Which included punishment and countermeasures for not serving the interests of the west?

Interestingly, other Asian countries do not seem to have a problem with the nickel ban. For the Indonesian economy the ban had quite the desired effect. Last June, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) published a report on the Indonesian economy, stating that eleven nickel smelters have now been realized and that another nineteen are planned. Foreign companies invested $22 billion in Indonesia’s economy that year, and nickel exports rose from $4.5 billion in 2019 to $19.6 billion in 2022. More than 80 percent of Indonesia’s refined nickel exports went to China. At the end of July, Jokowi returned from a two-day visit to China with billions of dollars in investments.

Many former colonized countries no longer want to supply European and US industries with unprocessed raw materials without earning much themselves. Not only in Southeast Asia but also in Africa and South America. The recent coup in Niger, for example, has been linked to the country’s large reserves of uranium, which the French eagerly want. In April, the Chilean President Gabriel Boric announced the nationalization of the lithium industry of his country. Another important development is that many Asian countries, such as India, South Korea and Indonesia itself, are getting rid of the US dollar as their standard currency and are exchanging it for their own local currency.

Although I believe that the colonial empire never fell, I do think that we might be seeing the beginning of the downfall. Old Europe is losing its grip. The WTO-case shows the frustration of the EU about the new, multipolar world order that is emerging.

We have been at this point in history before. In the 1950’s it was Sukarno who led the anti-imperialist, non-alignment movement that envisioned a multipolar world. For this act of resistance, which harmed the colonial interests, he was ‘punished’ in 1965 with the CIA-supported coup that put him aside. Perhaps this time, things are different. It seems that Europeans no longer are in the position to dictate the rest of the world their ‘rules’.
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