Author: SAREKAT ISLAM -
Title: Bescheiden betreffende de Vereeniging Sarekat Islam. Orig [and restricted] edn.
Description: Batavia, Landsdrukkerij, 1913. Folio. recent cloth. (iv), 77pp. Report, marked Secret, For Internal Use only, submitted to dutch colonial indonesian administration, department of political information, describing the structure and organization of the Sarekat Islam, with recommendations for further close watching. Very rare. (right margin damaged by insects, no text-loss however). In 1909 an organization called Sarekat Dagang Islamiyah (Islamic Commercial Union, (S.D.I.) was founded amongst Indonesian traders in Batavia upon initiative of R.M.Tirtoadisuryo, a journalist from Surakarta. In 1911 he also established a similar kind of origanization in Bogor with the name of Sarekat Dagang Islam (Islamic Commercial Union). Those two organizations were a kind of trade-cooperative. The members were Indonesian traders, who joined together in order to compete with, and to free themselves from the grip of the Chinese traders, who dominated the middle-class trade. The founder also succeeded in convincing H. Samanhudi, a big batik-entrepreneur from the kampong of Lawiyan of the need to establish a trade-organization such as in Batavia and Bogor. At the end of 1913 H. Samanhudi succeeded in bringing together the batik-entrepreneurs of Surakarta to form an organization called Sarekat Dagang Islam. This organization also took the form of a batik trade-cooperative, whose members aimed at breaking the monopoly of the Chinese traders who supplied the raw materials for the batik-industry. The Sarekat Islam was closely watched by dutch colonial administration for any indications of politicizing, that could cause unrest amongst the indigenous, e.g. javanese population, incl. the possible rise of Muslim 'fanatics', which eventually happened.

Keywords: sarekat islam politics information secret colonialism indonesia southeast asia