In Indonesia, the colonial past has a conspicuously low profile in public consciousness and political debate, but the national revolution—”Revolusi” in Bahasa Indonesia—that threw off colonial rule once and for all nonetheless remains the single most defining moment in the country’s history. Countless murals, quirky dioramas, annual Independence Day celebrations, place names, monuments, official and unofficial histories celebrate this struggle. Meanwhile, interest in decolonization has grown exponentially, but Indonesia has figured much less in international discussions than cases such as Algeria or India.
Revolusi: Indonesia and the Birth of the Modern World—the recent English translation of David van Reybrouck’s history of the Indonesian revolution both puts Indonesia on the map of global debates on the decolonization era and offers a new narrative of the road to independence that could revitalize Indonesian debates (the Indonesian translation is yet forthcoming). This adds a global dimension to the impact that the Dutch original (2020) has already had on discussions of the colonial past in the Netherlands. Van Reybrouck gained recognition with his history of the Congo and Belgian colonialism (Congo: The Epic History of a People, Dutch 2010 / English 2014). As a Flemish writer, van Reybrouck has all the language skills necessary and insights into the cultures of historical memory in both Belgium and the Netherlands. In addition, he learned Indonesian to conduct the interviews for Revolusi. The two books share a similar perspective and approach: Both examine the colonial pasts of two smaller European nations, both were well-placed to stir up debate there, both bring episodes of extreme violence back into the public consciousness, and both are works that showcase van Reybrouck’s distinctive brand of literary non-fiction, which relies heavily on oral history and the author’s storytelling. This approach gives van Reybrouck a unique place in the writing of the history of the decolonizing era.
Violence is probably the most prominent recurring theme in Revolusi’s narrative.
Assuming little prior knowledge of Indonesia, Van Reybrouck begins with the prehistory of the archipelago. He then takes the reader through centuries of Hindu-Buddhist syncretism, regional empire-building, Islamization, the arrival of European powers, and, finally, the consolidation of Dutch rule via spice trading outposts to full territorial control. In some of the book’s most compelling chapters, he then sets the scene with a portrait of life during the last decades of Dutch colonial rule and a description of the early nationalist movements’ emergence.
When the rapidly-established Japanese occupation ends without an Allied advance on the archipelago, the nationalists seize the day (and much of the Japanese weaponry). Soon the Dutch were back, trying to reclaim what is still a colony to them, but—to the newly-minted Indonesians—a newborn country declared independent by nationalist leader and first president Sukarno in mid-August 1945. Skirmishes break out, the reluctant British get involved, various settlements under Dutch supremacy fail, and eventually, the US will force the Dutch to accept full independence in late 1949. The bulk of the book is devoted to these successive engagements of foreign powers and their struggles with defiant nationalists and unruly, violent youth groups in a vivid and engaging narrative.
Violence is probably the most prominent recurring theme in Revolusi’s narrative. Van Reybrouck never tires of pointing out the pervasive and indiscriminate nature of the violence between all the warring parties. Nor does he shy away from the gruesome details of how certain weapons killed the enemy. Revolusi‘s narrative makes the path to violence tangible, and it is easy to put oneself in the shoes of a Pemuda youth vigilante. The most illustrious figure on the Dutch side is Captain Raymond Westerling, whom the narrative follows to the island of Sulawesi, where a villager recounts the story of her cousin being shot by Westerling himself as he pillaged the local area in search of Pemuda rebels.
Van Reybrouck recasts the history of the Indonesian revolution through the voices of his interviewees.
Revolusi is brilliant as a work of narrative history that can reach a broad audience beyond the academic world. Van Reybrouck recasts the history of the Indonesian revolution through the voices of his interviewees. These personal accounts of the participants drive the narrative forward, jumping back and forth between the events and memories of the past and our present, where van Reybrouck takes the reader on his journeys to track down the last surviving participants in Dutch retirement homes, Nepalese mountain valleys, and Indonesian cities. All of his characters are introduced with their names and life stories, giving a human depth to the events narrated. The crucial contribution of Revolusi is in this immersive, empathetic storytelling stemming from the lived experience of individuals on all sides.
While Van Reybrouck’s brand of narrative history writing may be imperfectly suited to bring about many new analytical insights, it achieves an impressively visceral understanding of events by conveying the spontaneity and dynamism of situations, personal experience in times of drastic change, and the impact of individual agency. It transports a sense of contemporaneousness in the voice of living witnesses and in the cuts to the present. At times it also doubles as a moral tale for today’s world (most explicitly in the concluding remarks on the “colonization of the future” due to environmental destruction and in van Reybrouck’s remarks on colonial amnesia in the Netherlands).
Only the final chapter zooms out to the “birth of the modern world” with remarks on the Bandung Conference, the non-alignment movement, and anti-colonial solidarity. These issues have received a great deal of attention in recent years and Indonesia’s contribution to them is fairly well known. The Indonesian national revolution did indeed make world history—but so did others: while Vietnam’s declaration of independence followed Indonesia’s by only two weeks and clashes with the returning French erupted soon after, the returning British soon granted independence to Burma and a decade of struggle ensued in Malaysia. Introducing comparison and cross-references to parallel developments in the region into the narrative would have helped not only to understand why and where violence erupted but also would have made a stronger case for van Reybrouck’s argument of Indonesian midwifery to the modern, postcolonial world: It did so in concert with other nationalists all over Asia and Africa thus making it the powerful wave it turned out to be.
The Netherlands has long clung to the idea that its colonialism was more benign than others but has since come a long way towards a more direct confrontation with the colonial past.
The violent separation of Indonesia and the Netherlands is remembered today in the selective forgetting and reframing that always underpins public memory. The Netherlands has long clung to the idea that its colonialism was more benign than others but has since come a long way towards a more direct confrontation with the colonial past. Indonesia, on the other hand, seems to be much less embroiled in its colonial past. Relations with the former metropolis are cordial, and bitterness towards the Dutch is rarely expressed in public discourse. This is probably mitigated by the marginal role the Netherlands plays in contemporary Indonesia.
Today’s Indonesia, having abandoned its ambitious global postcolonial agenda with the fall of Sukarno in the mid-1960s, still pursues a much more inward-looking, developmentalist model that limits official interest in the colonial era to a few aspects. As the country navigates the US-China-India triangle and slowly emerges as a major global economic player, many Indonesians also feel that they have far more pressing issues to deal with. With this in mind, it will be most fascinating to see how Revolusi is received in Indonesia once a translation is published there.