Nationalists in the global south and academic leftists in the West are never done criticizing imperialism for its flaws. However, not many people list the Soviet Union as a villain. This is strange: the Soviet empire encompassed eleven time zones and subjected its satellite states to such severe oppression that every one of them immediately proclaimed independence, once it was possible.
A new book has been recently published about colonization in land later renamed to Indonaisa. The author of “Revolusi” is a historian. David Van Reybrouck has located eyewitnesses to Indonesia’s colonial past, from isolated Asian islands to Dutch nursing homes, and he has produced the authoritative narrative of a neglected era.
This book dismantles the oversimplified viewpoints that sway discussions on social media these days. Imperialism was not, as some on the left argue, simply a Western sin. But, contrary to the splutterings of the nostalgic right, it was a grave one!
The archipelago that is now Indonesia has a complicated colonial past. Part of it was dominated by the Portuguese starting in the 1500s, followed by the Dutch, France, Britain, and the Dutch once more. Japan “liberated” its colony in the Netherlands when the Nazis invaded the country, then proceeded to enslave, starve, and behead the inhabitants. The Dutch thought they would regain power after Japan submitted, but their former subjects had different ideas. Indonesia was the first of several former colonies to declare independence worldwide in August 1945.
But some people still have pride for that age of colonization. Dutch pride in the imperial past is still strong. As recently as 2006 a conservative Dutch prime minister urged a revival of the can-do “mentality” of the Dutch East India Company, a slave- and spice-trading outfit. In a YouGov poll of eight ex-colonial powers in 2019, the Dutch were the most likely to say that their former empire was “more something to be proud of than ashamed”, with 50% agreeing and only 6% expressing the opposite view.
Mr. Van Reybrouck provides proof that this kind of arrogance is unwarranted. He describes the early 20th century racial caste system, the 19th century forced labor, and the 17th century’s ruthless pillage. He finds the offenders, including Goos Blok, a conscript who tells of having to abuse teenagers with electric shocks. Indonesians describe how, after first welcoming the Japanese, they became aware that their behavior was even more cruel than that of the Dutch. “Colonialism is colonialism,” came to one of their conclusions!
Source: Economist
