Van Rees changed the request in pencil above the original phrase. Be- tween pencil and print were hundreds and thousands of people at issue: a “meeting” versus a call for multiple demonstrations across Java, a con- tained demand versus a racially transgressive call to protest slipped be- tween those amended words. When Van Rees opined to Cantervisscher in a conciliatory gesture that the former printed words were “a slip of the pen” (schrijffout), Cantervisscher stiffened and denounced the sham. He drew from his pocket a printed convocation flyer with the uncorrected phrase. He had hundreds of copies of it on his person. In addition, he re- fused to sign the amended document.

Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ E…, loc. 512