Colonialism, violence and Muslims in Southeast Asia: The Maria Hertogh controversy and its aftermath

Excerpt

Writing about episodes dealing with minority issues and violence in the recent history of Singapore can be a contentious issue, as is shown by the way the latest publication of Syed Muhd Khairudin Aljunied on the Maria Hertogh controversy (1950–53) came about. This concerns the sad case of a girl separated from her Dutch-Eurasian parents during the war years in the Dutch East Indies. She was then raised as a Muslim by a Malay acquaintance in Kelantan and subsequently married at age thirteen to a scion of a wealthy land-owning family. When British and Dutch government officials arranged for her to be returned to her natural parents in 1950, these interventions caused wide uproar in Muslim circles throughout Southeast Asia, leading to unprecedented violent riots in Singapore where her case went to court. …