The IIAS as International Meeting Point

By Aad Nuis

Before you start to wonder, let me explain why I started my talk with a reference to a typical event in the history of the Low Countries. For although Gomarus and Arminius could hardly be credited with "leading by example" as far as tolerance was concerned, religious arguments such as theirs and, more generally, the upheaval of the Eighty Years' War eventually gave birth in the Netherlands to an atmosphere of freedom of thought, freedom of speech and freedom to act, to a relative degree of tolerance and an egalitarian attitude.

Meeting point
Over the past centuries the Netherlands, as a small country hemmed in by large neighbours, has managed to survive intact. This has largely been due to its curiosity and entrepreneurial spirit: a somewhat precocious midget surrounded by more introspective giants, which owing to its size has always managed to avoid being regarded as threatening or domineering. It is precisely this combination of freedom within a well-ordered space which is not crushed under the national weight of the host country which in this context has made the Netherlands the ideal meeting place for people from all over the world who are keen to get in touch with one another.
There is hardly a better illustration of this distinctive feature of the Netherlands as an international linguistic and cultural meeting point than this very building on Nonnensteeg. Here we find professionals who still command the Buginese language. A few doors down the corridor, some of their colleagues are busy studying the Arabic world, while others are involved in collecting information on Coptic frescoes in order to pass it on to modern-day monks in Egypt. On other floors, people are translating from Sanskrit or Aramaic.
This building represents the realization of every researcher's dream: an environment where one is able to work undisturbed without being cut off from the world. Better still, a safe haven where one can conduct research in the secure knowledge that it will at some point in time make a contribution to the establishment of the communis opinio in society, although one can never be sure when this will happen. This, in short, is the atmosphere of traditional professionalism to which the Vonhoff Report so rightfully refers as something which has all but become extinct among scholars in the Humanities ...
The seminar on the performing arts in Asia and Africa and the performance by the actors from Tamil Nadu in southern India demonstrate how the unity between science and art, between classical and contemporary studies, has been preserved in the studying of the non-Western world. The play entitled "The Five Elements" as performed by these actors has its roots in traditions which are two thousand years old. I have been informed that Hanne de Bruin, who herself lives in Tamil Nadu, is responsible for bringing this theatre company to the Netherlands. Dr. De Bruin has obtained her PhD with a thesis on the contemporary theatre practice of these classically trained actors. Her work provides an insight into the communication strategies used by them to communicate their messages, which are often of a highly practical nature. Such a combination of perceptions derived from a vast range of disciplines deserves a single building where this inter-disciplinary approach is given the opportunity to blossom!

Concentration
You will have noticed my earlier reference to the Vonhoff Report. A literal translation of its Dutch title would read "Cinnamon is weighed by the decagram", an expression which is used in the Netherlands to indicate that precious things are measured in minute quantities. Those who are familiar with recent policy history will doubtless know the work of Mr. Vonhoff's predecessor, Prof. Frits Staal, who in his 1991 report sparked a fundamental debate in the Netherlands on the position of what we call the "Minor Language and Literature". The Minor Language and Literature subjects serve as crucial girders to the image of the Netherlands as an international meeting place. Allow them to sag and the entire structure will eventually come down. Luckily we have been able to prevent this from happening: the "Staal era" heralded the start of the restoration of the foundations.
The system of "budget financing" which the Vonhoff Report recommends for a greater proportion of the Humanities is in fact already being applied to the Minor Language and Literature subjects. In the Higher Education and Research Plan which is scheduled for publication in September, I shall announce my viewpoint on the Vonhoff Report. I can sympathize with the direction in which the report seeks to resolve the problems, for I am keen to prevent a situation in which each "Minor Language and Literature" problem is exacerbated by the next.
Professor Staal pointed in his report to the necessity of concentration as it has now been achieved in this building and the research school which has been established here. He also advocated a strengthening of international facilities for postgraduate students. This resulted in the establishment of IIAS, the International Institute for Asian Studies, which is housed on the top floor of the building on Nonnensteeg - a most appropriate location for a postgra- duate institute, wouldn't you agree?

International facility
Since its inception in 1993, IIAS has presented itself both nationally and internationally in full accordance with the meeting point concept. Connections have been sought and developed with most other major institutes for Asian Studies in Europe as well as with the main Asian countries. The logical next step would be to elevate this interface function to a higher level. In his report, Frits Staal championed a European facility for Asian studies, which has since been set up, with the IIAS acting as its present secretariat. The next step will be the acknow- ledgement by the European Union in Brussels of "Nonnensteeg" as a gateway to the "pool of knowledge" of Asia which is present in the Netherlands. When Peter Tindemans performed the official opening of IIAS on behalf of my predecessor, Job Cohen, he expressed the wish that the Institute would develop into an international facility, a Dutch-based centre with a major international reputation. The application filed by IIAS is currently being vetted by NWO, the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, and it looks as if it will be approved.
The Nonnensteeg facilities also house CNWS, a research school which has also proved its worth as a meeting place, and which has effectively made a substantive and administrative contribution to bolstering Asian, African and Amerindian studies.

Mokusei
In the old days it was sometimes thought that studying a foreign language or culture had something of an exotic ring to it. Not for nothing do our German neighbours refer to what we call the Minor Language and Literature subjects as the Orchideenfächer, or Orchid Subjects. Times have changed, however, and these days an interest in new languages or cultures can be satisfied practically on one's own doorstep! The most daunting challenge facing our domestic cultural policy over the next few years will doubtless be the successful creation of an atmosphere in which an open-minded, unthreatened cultural conversation can take place between the various ethnic groups.

This underlines why it is so important for the Netherlands to have knowledge of other languages and cultures at its disposal, for this will enable us to fine-tune our views of the various world trends and give us an important edge, for example in relation to the assimilation of new fellow countrymen and women or the formulation of our foreign policy, or - conversely - in relation to trade or when savouring different cultures. Such a genuine understanding and appreciation stands or falls with scientists such as yourselves. This reminds me of the novel "Mokusei!" by Cees Nooteboom, which was published in 1982. I have selected the following quotation from one of the dialogues in this book:
"Most Europeans and Americans who come here [to Japan] - and I do not necessarily mean businesspeople, for they tend to wake up to reality before too long - bur rather, let us call them persons of an 'artistic' inclination, have no genuine knowledge of Japan. They know it is different, but then so are Vietnam and the Ivory Coast. Forgive me for saying so, but Japan is different in a different way ... but how does one explain that?"
May the Nonnensteeg facilities continue to act as a permanent meeting point for this type of question!

Drs Aad Nuis is the State Secretary for Education, Culture and Science of the Netherlands.

This is an edited version of his address held on 10 May 1995 in Leiden to mark the opening of the facilities at Nonnensteeg nos. 1 to 3.