武田麟太郎と南進論著作

During the Asia Pacific war, Takeda Rintaro published Java Sarasa (1944) which became the most prominet work about Indonesia. Takeda Rintaro is a Japanese writer who had been assigned and ordered by the Japanese army as a member of propaganda unit in Java. He quoted several important references such as Nangokuki (Chronicles of Southern Countries) (1910), Kanemoke no Jawa (Making Money in Java) (1911) and Nanyo wo Mokuteki ni (1911) (Southern of Destination) to depict the romantic relationship between Japanese merchants and native people of Indonesia. The references quoted by Takeda mention the discourses of the Southern Expansion at the end of the Meiji era. Java was identified as a part of “Southern Area” (Nanpo or Nanyo), which had similarities to other pacific islands such as Hawaii. Discourses of the Southern Expansion were associated with images of the primitive southern islander (tomin or dojin), in which Takeda asserted that the racial discrimination and stereotyping of Indonesians as the results of westerners perspectives. This paper observes the relation between the Southern Expansion references with Takeda Rintaro’s writing about Indonesia during Japanese occupation. The result of the analysis shows that Takeda Rintaro’s writing on the image of native Indonesian was also constructed based on the theory of Japan’s Southern Origin, which was usually applied on the Southern Expansion discourses. The similarity of anthropological identity laid the base for arguments to depict the relationship between Japanese and Indonesian.