Restaurant Garuda in The Hague closing: what about Indonesian heritage in The Netherlands?

 In Utrecht restaurant Paradise was for many years the most famous place for Indonesian food. It closed down two years ago to make place for a vegetarian rival. Now the iconic restaurant Garuda in The Hague has financial and managerial problems. Peter 't Mannetje, the owner of the last forty years is 73 years and looking for a successor, he can't find. He has financial problems as well. Garuda was a prominent place to be: ministers, ambassadors were eating here. But in general the Indonesian rstaurants, the most visible remnant of Indonesian connections in the Netherlands are lossing public. indeed there are some new places: in Utrecht we have since a few years Blauw, excellent food in a small building. Spekuk is another one, small, narrow seats with good food. But no longer so popular as Turkish Kebab of Japanese sushi.

It is not all in decline in the Netherlands. In my town of Utrecht the Moluccan Historical Museum was closed some ten years ago, but there is since last year another Indonesian Cultural Centre in The Hague Indonesische Herinneringscentrum, Sophiaweg 10. It is mostly a quite nostalgique 'Memorial Centre'! Still, I consider the closing down of restaurants with Indonesian food an example of the diminishing attenton for the colonial connections that the country had for a very long period. In fact, we can consider it as part of the cultural debate that is now very negative: debate on slavery, on cruelties and oppression from the time of Jan Pieterszoon Coen up to the last colonial war of 1945-1949. 

In the first chapter of my books on Catholics in Indonesia,  I wrote a comment, that can be repeated now also for the return impact on the Netherlands:

A popular novel about the effect of the colonial past for present Indo­nesia by the famous Dutch author Hella Haasse has as its title Krassen op een Rots, (Scratches on a Rock). It states that the effects of the 350 years of Dutch colonialism did not last long, because colonialism never touched the heart of Indonesian society. Perhaps one of the most lasting effects of the colonial presence are the lively Christian communities of Indonesia, now totalling about 10% of a population of more than 200 million.