History of the Arabs in East Timor

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A member of the Arab population: Prime Minister Marí Bin Amude Alkatiri

The history of the Arabs in East Timor goes back to pre-colonial times . Besides Malay and Chinese merchants also traveled to Arab traders Timor to sandalwood , slaves and honey to buy, which she Java and Sulawesi exported to China and India.

The Portuguese colonial era

Ramadan at the Annur Mosque

Arab traders visited the islands of Southeast Asia as early as the Middle Ages. Yemeni Arabs from the Hadramaut (Hadhramis) formed trade networks from the east coast of Africa to the Malay Archipelago . When the political order collapsed in Hadramaut, many Arabs emigrated from there and settled around the Indian Ocean in those places where they had traded for centuries. Here they founded schools for religious and secular instruction and had influence not only in trade but also in the Islam of Southeast Asia.

At the end of the 19th century, Hadhramis, who had already partially mixed with the Southeast Asian population, also settled in the Portuguese Timor colony . But their number remained small. In 1949 the Arab community in the colony numbered 146. There were close ties to the Arab community on the neighboring island of Alor . Even some Alor converts to Islam were part of the community. Possibly the name of the Arab quarter in Dili derives from this: Kampung Alor (Alor village) . Alternative names were Kampong Arab or Campo Mouro . Today East Timor's largest mosque, the Annur Mosque, stands here . In 1940 the Arab minority began building the first mosque building in Dili. The apostolic administrator of Dili , Jaime Garcia Goulart , donated bricks for it and later, like his successors, visited the mosque on Muslim holidays. Since governor Filomeno da Câmara de Melo Cabral (1911–1913), the head of the Arab community, like that of the Chinese, was a representative of the municipal commission of Dili. Some Arabs got posts in the colonial administration or became Chefe de Suco .

Until the 1970s, the Timorese Arabs in Kampung Alor planted rice, processed copra , and engaged in fishing and trading. In addition to the mosque, there was also a Koran school where Arabic was taught. They spoke Malay in everyday life and had largely adopted Malay culture in other ways.

During the Japanese occupation (1942 to 1945), some members of the Arab community of Dili accepted administrative posts or employment with the Japanese military police ( Kempeitai ) , for which reason they are accused of collaboration. After the war, parts of the Arab community had sympathy for the new, predominantly Muslim neighboring state and the cry of “merdeka bersama Indonesia” (independence with Indonesia ) was loud among them. In 1957, many Arabs applied for Indonesian citizenship at the Indonesian consulate in Dili, to which Portugal responded by offering them Portuguese citizenship. During this time, Indonesia began to look specifically for support among the Arabs in Portuguese Timor.

During the decolonization phase and before the Indonesian invasion of 1975, the pro-Indonesian APODETI party found a lot of support among the Arabs of East Timor, but there were also leading members of the left-wing independence party FRETILIN , such as Hamis Bassarewan and Marí Bin Amude Alkatiri . Bassarewan presumably died in 1979 fighting the Indonesians, while Alkatiri worked from his exile in Mozambique for the independence of East Timor.

Independent East Timor

Today the Arabs, along with immigrant Indonesians, form the small Muslim minority in East Timor (around 0.2% nationwide).

After independence in 2002, Marí Alkatiri became East Timor's first Prime Minister (2002–2006, 2017–2018). In 2002 his home and the Annur Mosque were set on fire by demonstrators. Dilis Bishop Basílio do Nascimento apologized to the Muslims for this. Other members of the Alkatiri family also play important roles in independent East Timor.

See also

supporting documents

  • Geoffrey C. Gunn: History of Timor , available from Centro de Estudos sobre África, Ásia e América Latina , CEsA of the TU Lisbon (PDF file; 805 kB).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Melissa Johnston: A 'Muslim'Leader of a' Catholic'Nation? Mari Alkatiri's Arab-Islamic Identity and its (Inter-) National Contestations , 2012.
  2. ↑ a b Gunn, p. 133.
  3. ↑ a b c Gunn, p. 134.
  4. ↑ Asiaweek: A home away from home , September 8, 2000, accessed May 3, 2013.
  5. ^ John Hajek: Towards a Language History of East Timor ( Memento of December 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) in: Quaderni del Dipartimento di Linguistica - Università di Firenze 10 (2000): pp. 213-227.
  6. ^ Gunn, p. 123.
  7. ^ Gunn, p. 145.
  8. ↑ Geoffrey C. Gunn: Revisiting the Viqueque Rebellion of 1959 (PDF; 170 kB), accessed on December 8, 2012.
  9. ↑ Gunn, pp. 147/148.
  10. ^ Antero Benedito da Silva: Popular Socialist Democracy of the RDTL 1 1975-1978 , accessed September 11, 2016.
  11. ↑ Direcção-Geral de Estatística : Results of the 2015 census , accessed on November 23, 2016.
  12. ^ ETAN, December 31, 2002, CNS: East Timor bishop apologizes for rioting, attack on mosque
  13. ^ The Free Library: Bishop apologizes for riot, attack on mosque. , accessed May 3, 2013.