Noer Nahar Marzuki: Wirawati Tidak Didendangkan dalam Pendidikan Zaman Kolonial Belanda di Jawa, 1932-1942 (Noer Nahar Marzuki: Unsung Hero of Education During The Dutch Colonial Period In Java, 1932 – 1942)

Abstract

This article discusses an Indonesian woman named Noer Nahar who struggled and sacrificed time and money to help her husband, Natsir achieve his ambition of developing a modern religious school known as the Pendis School (1932-1942) during the Dutch colonial era, specifically in Java. The article examines the role and character of a modern woman in the struggle to shape awareness in children and women in terms of education, nationalism and the emancipation of Indonesian women. According to Noer Nahar, the Indonesians were not only weak in general knowledge of the world, their religious knowledge too was not properly developed in the modern education system. Based on these problems, the main objective of this study is to analyze the role of Noer Nahar’s struggles in establishing a modern religious school, known as the Pendis School in West Java. The question now is, did Noer Nahar’s struggles to form such a school, succeed? The discussion in this paper is based on the analysis of various resources spanning from private letters, work papers and interviews, to the archival research method based study that analysed Dutch documents. This research employed materials and data from the National Archives of Indonesia, the National Library of Indonesia and the Dewan Dakwah Islamiyah of Indonesia. This paper traces Noer Nahar’s struggle in developing a modern religious school despite not getting any support from the Dutch colonial regime. As a female teacher, she also fostered education through Indonesian nationalism to her students for the ultimate purpose of obtaining Indonesian independence. This writing highlights Indonesian women figures in the folds of history for public knowledge and awareness.