Indonesia: colonialism and decolonisation according to David Van Reybrouck

The Belgian historian, general journalist, and literator, David Van Reybrouck, is best known through his great book on Congo (2010). It was partly written on documentation, but for more than 50% based on interviews with living people: oral history, anecdotes and small personal stories picture the colonial history of the country which began in the 1880s. Van Reybrouck also was the co-author of the two books by Morocco-Belgian Mohamed El Bachiri, whose wife was killed by an attack by Muslim terrorists in Brussels on 22 March 2016 (A Jihad of Love; The Odyssee of Mohamed).
After five years of research he now has published a book of 600 pages which concentrates on the rise and development of the colonialism in Indonesia from 1600-1942 and the difficult process of the revolutionary war between 1945-1949 after which the Netherlands finally gave up its colonial rule. The period 1945-1949 fills about half the book. Reybrouck is quite rude about the Dutch personnel during the VOC period, during the colonial state, and also about the present opinions of Dutch people. Only six percent of the population now is negative about the colonial past and 26% would prefer to 'own' overseas parts in the country. This is much higher than found among citizens of France or the UK, the two largest former colonial states. The Dutch were crude, severe, had a wrong understanding of the Indonesians, especially their wish to follow the national aspirations of Sukarno and his movement since the 1920s. After the Japanese rule there were ample occasions for a smooth transition of power and end a war that cost about 200.000 lives on the side of the Indonesians, but the Dutch were obstinate and only American interventions and threat to stop economic cooperation made an end to their efforts in 1949.

Although the title of the book only refers to the period 1945-1949, it has a much broader picture of Indonesian history. About the subject of revolution, Van Reybrouck stresses that the global role of Indonesia was important, even leading. It was the first Asian country to claim and reach independence, even before India and Pakistan. In 1955 it became the leader (at the Bandung Conference) of the Third World Movement. As to the earlier history it is clear that the Dutch presence in the VOC never was a peaceful trading company: it brought an army with it, and used it. Through the genocide of the population of the Banda Islands and the implementation of the monopoly on spices in the hongi inspections, where all clove trees outside the island of Ambon were cut. After 1700 the cooking in France and many European countries changed: from pepper and other eastern spices to European ones and so the export of food changed to coffee, tea, cacao, sugar, while indigo became important for the colour of clothes. In this way economy and colonial policy changed too. I am still in the first chapters of the book, but this new presentation of colonialism and its end, extremely well written in a lively style, will be important for the general attitude towards Indonesian and Dutch colonial history.