THE NEAR NORTH
| THE BIRTH OF INDONESIA. By David Wehl. Allen and. Unwin. English price, 15/-. HE history of the Dutch in the East Indies has been something like the history of the British in India, It began with a trading company, that gradually acquired political rights for the protection of trade; about a hundred years ago the company was superseded by the government of Holland, which was content to leave many of the old native rulers in their place under Dutch super-
vision; and finally the opportunities provided for higher education have created a fairly numerous class of westernised Indonesians, who have in the western manner grown discontented with alien rule and have organised a movement for Indonesian independence. According to Mr. Wehl, this movement did not take a very deep hold of the great mass of the people-
the peasants-but it was strong in the towns; and its strength was increased by the propaganda of the Japanese, who for three and a-half years used every modern device of propaganda to persuade the people that the Japanese were engaged in recovering Asia for the Asiatics. When the Japanese surrendered, the nationalists stepped into their shoes; and, when, after a long delay, the Dutch reappeared, they had to deal with an organised government that was deeply entrenched at any rate in Java and Sumatra, supported by captured Japanese arms and large numbers of enthusiastic young Indonesians, inspired (in Mr. Wehl’s words) by "a mixture of fear, hatred, idealism, fanaticism, patriotism, a frank delight in shooting and looting and a sincere and indomitable striving for independence." Against this, at any rate in Java and Sumatra, the Dutch made little headway by discussion and compromise. After two years of this they made very great concessions to nationalist demands and agreed to recognise a republican government, governing Java and Madura and Sumatra, as part of a federation of Indonesian states under the Dutch crown; but the republicans demanded the whole of Indonesia, and the Dutch decided to settle the dispute by force. In a brief campaign they had a sweeping success-the peasants giving no general aid to the republicans-which was interrupted by the intervention of the |United Nations, That is as far as Mr.
Wehl takes the matter. He has written a well-informed and fair-minded book which deserves to be widely read.
Harold
Miller
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 521, 17 June 1949, Page 20
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391THE NEAR NORTH New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 521, 17 June 1949, Page 20
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