The Man for the Faire – Max Havelaar

1. The novel Character

In the 1860 book “Max Havelaar or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company”, Max Havelaar is a humanist colonial official who fights for the rights of the natives on Java and against exploitation by the Dutch.

2. The Author

Eduard Douwes Dekker (1820-1887) wrote under the pseudonym “Multatuli” (roughly: “who has suffered much.”) He was himself a colonial official and became a sharp critic of colonialism in Indonesia.

3. The Injustice

Indonesia was exploited as part of the Dutch colonial empire for 350 years. Peasants were forced to grow coffee and work 66 days a year for the colonial masters. The coffee was sold in the Netherlands with great profit.

4. The Foundation

In 1988, an initiative for fair trade coffee was founded in the Netherlands, which gave itself and its label the name Max Havelaar. Four years later, the Max Havelaar Foundation was established in Switzerland. Coop was one of the first retailers to include coffee with the new label in its product range.

5. The New Max Havelaar

The fact that the foundation is named after the character in the novel has a special reason: around 1990, the price of coffee sank to rock bottom, and small farmers were barely earning any more. Like Havelaar in the novel, the new organizations also aimed at fair payment for producers in countries of the South.

6. Coop and Max Havelaar

Over the past 30 years, Coop of Switzerland, has expanded its food and non-food range to include 1300 products bearing the Max Havelaar label. Coop thus has the largest Fairtrade range in the world.