RETURNING STOLEN GOODS HELPS DELETE GUILT

 

THE CURSED STONE RESISTS RETURN       

            

            Picture:  Dr Peter Carey

In an age of logic and evidence-based reasoning, modern research has revealed a thousand-year curse.  It could be stopping the superstitious and spiritually-conscious Javanese from vigorously striving to return a thieved “emblem of Indonesian cultural heritage.”

At first glance it's a ridiculous assertion.  But apart from a sudden surge of greed eroding goodwill, how else to explain rehabilitation failure when all parties have been willing?

In a Scottish cottage garden stands a 3.5-tonne stela, a man-high slab much like a gravestone, though there’s no body buried beneath – only the corpse of government resolve.

Indonesians call it Prasasti (inscription) Sangguran; the West label is prosaic - the Minto Stone.

Set on the southern slopes of Arjuno-Welirang in East Java it was consecrated during a Hindu feast on 2 August 928 AD, long before Islam arrived in the archipelago.  Almost nine centuries later it was ripped from near the equator and replanted in cold Roxburghshire County close to the border with England.

This year three international scholars reported the need for its return as “one of the highest priorities among the artefacts which the Indonesian government hopes to bring home.”

The trio also re-translated the Sanskrit and Old Javanese inscriptions to reveal the violence to befall thieves and vandals:

“If there are evil people who do not obey and do not maintain the curse that has been uttered … then he will be hit by his karma.

“Cut down his snout, split his skull, rip open his belly, stretch out his intestines, draw out his entrails, tear out his liver, eat his flesh, drink his blood, without delay finish off.”

Scottish military engineer Colin Mackenzie who shipped the stone to Britain never got to display the monument to British imperialism.  He perished on the journey, though not through such horrendous villainy.

 The Malang regent who let the stone be taken also died unnaturally.  Stamford Raffles, the British Governor of the Dutch East Indies between 1811 and 1816 and who gave the stone to Mackenzie suffered much misfortune.

His wife Catherine died aged 41 (she’s buried in the Bogor Botanical Gardens) and four of his children were victims of tropical diseases. Raffles was felled by a stroke on his 45^th birthday.

There are now expanding global demands for thieved treasures to be returned to their sources. ABC TV is running a documentary series Stuff the British Stole about plunders by the Crown as it swept the world conquering, colonising and looting along the away.

 Australia is negotiating for the return of culturally sensitive Aboriginal artifacts – mainly paintings, weapons, sculptures and even human remains.  There are almost 40,000 objects held in 70 British and Irish museums as historians push the UK to settle its colonial past.

High Commissioner Stephen Smith has been quoted as saying the deals are “part of the modern relationship” between the two Commonwealth countries.

Indonesia has also called for its antiquities to come home through government-to-government deals. Last year the Netherlands sent back 472 artefacts.

The British rule of the Dutch East Indies was for only five years (1811–1816) but resulted in “a voluminous transfer of Indonesian cultural objects to Britain and India.”

Picture 19^th Century artist unknown

Among them the precious Javanese stela on the land of a British hereditary politician with a mouthful instead of a moniker, the seventh Earl of Minto, Timothy Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound.

He’s hosted philologists studying the writings and has apparently “shown openness to the idea of repatriating the artefact to Indonesia.”

However,  reports from 2015 say that after agreeing to gift the artefact he changed his mind, when told Prasasti Sangguran might fetch US $500,000 on the open market. Earlier there’d been talk of an offer of 50,000 British pounds. There were also suggestions it’s ‘owned’ by a family trust so Earl TEMK can’t do a personal deal.

The Indonesian government has balked at paying for what it believes is its own property instead proposing “an award, as well as accommodation costs in Indonesia if the nobleman wanted to see the place where the inscription was placed.”

The Earl has not replied to requests by this writer to clarify his intentions.

In 2021 the Indonesian Director General of History and Archaeology Hari Untoro Drajat told the media that the stone’s upcoming return had been “facilitated by the Hanyim Djojohadikusumo Foundation” (an Indonesian philanthropic organisation).  He said it would be placed in the National Museum in Jakarta.

Two years later  Khofifah Indar Parawansa, the Governor of East Java visited Scotland;  her office reported she “tried to repatriate or return the Sangguran Inscription”:

 "This inscription is an important source of information for all of us Indonesian people, especially in East Java. Because here is written the history of the transfer of the capital of Ancient Mataram to East Java.”

Khofifah did not reply to questions about her failure to recover the stone.

Last year a Glasgow University conference considered “the history of campaigns for the restitution of artefacts to Indonesia …  and the shifting parameters of national narratives.”  Organiser Dr  Adam Bobbette wrote of the inscription’s value in the study of climate change:

“The stones also have much to tell us about early modern Javanese ideas about environmental disaster and catastrophe.

“We feel that the repatriation of the Sangguran is vital to Indonesia’s postcolonial development … The research and repatriation campaign are ways to address historic legacies.”

British historian and author Dr Peter Carey who lives in Indonesia and has studied the inscription, said "there's no interest or will to send things back at this stage.”   

In the meantime the locals in Ngandat, just below Batu, have built a concrete replica under a spring-fed banyan tree.  It’s flanked by Indonesian national flags and painted with words in Old Javanese. Handfuls of half-burned incense sticks in pottery bowls around the base suggest pre-Islamic beliefs remain strong.

Caretaker Siswanto Galuh Aji said he hoped the site would become a place to teach history. The original Prasasti Sangguran stood about 500 metres away and most likely lies in the foundations of the Buddhist Dhammadipa Arama monastery that was built about 50 years ago.

If government officials get brave and right the wrong by bringing the stone home, that could reverse the curse, stay well and help Indonesia thrive. Doing nothing condemns. George Orwell wrote:

“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”

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