“Indonesia has been asking for the documents of the Javanese since 1951,” says Professor Ismunandar, who works at the ministry. He speaks of a special day. “It is also a very important collection for us that is returning to our country. So this is very emotional for us.”
Some historians doubt Indonesia’s ability to store so many important pieces. They are also skeptical about the knowledge among museum professionals about how to deal with it and about the costs of this operation. This is still separate from safety concerns, after previous thefts of art and a major fire at the National Museum in Jakarta.
The Indonesian-Dutch historian Sadiah Boonstra in Jakarta has on the one hand understanding for those doubts. “From experience, I know it’s a huge operation to store a collection of 28,000 pieces. It’s very hard work. But not impossible.”
But as far as Boonstra is concerned, the way of sending can be a solution. “You can transfer it in one go, or in stages.” “Repatriation is not just about the transfer of objects. But also about the knowledge that is associated with it.” It is not just about knowledge that the Netherlands can transfer based on the years that the collection was in the Leiden museum Naturalis. “Conversely, the Netherlands can also learn a lot from the scientific, the common and spiritual value of the pieces for the Indonesians.”
But the most important thing, according to Boonstra, is that the Dutch should not interfere with that at all. The transfer is also unconditional, according to the G2G mechanism, or a transfer from one sovereign government to another. “That is intended to destroy colonial and historical injustice. To reconcile. So I trust that Indonesia will do everything it can to give the fossils a place.”
‘I think this is a dangerous precedent’, says professor of paleontology Jelle Reumer, himself former director of the Natural History Museum in Rotterdam to the Volkskrant. “When you open this box of Pandora, you can ask questions about all the butterflies, beetles, rocks and plants ever collected in colonial territories.” Until now, the return of colonial objects was usually about stolen art. ‘If those countries want everything back, the Netherlands will empty,’ says Reumer. ‘And that also applies to the natural history museums of London and Paris.’
The Indonesian government filed a renewed request for return in 2022, after previous attempts failed. The fossils are also invaluable for Indonesia, say supporters of restitution. Reumer ‘of course’ understands that. ‘But we are very busy trying to do well. The Dubois collection is not stolen like colonial looting art, but collected.’
But the fossils have in all likelihood been unearthed against the will of the population, the colonial collections committee now judges, after no less than three years of research. For example, the researchers point out abuses surrounding the excavation, such as forced laborers who became ill and thefts of fossils – according to the commission, an indication that the population did not want to lose the fossils.
