A Pedagogue's Progress

Saturday, April 12, 2008

The Indonesian Revolution

Sneak preview of my lecture notes on decolonisation in Indonesia:

Sukarno and the Republican leadership were responsible for holding the nationalist movement together, exerting both diplomatic and military pressure on the Dutch, and convincing the international community of their authority over the archipelago, as well as their anti-Communist credentials.

In other words, the nationalists, strengthened by World War II, were able to overcome the problem of disunity and, in doing so, limit the obstructive influence of the Dutch and win over the US (which, as we know, initially favoured a more gradualist approach to decolonisation).

Nonetheless, the nationalists were not solely responsible for decolonisation. The emerging conflict between the US and the Communist bloc lent greater weight to the nationalists’ crushing of the Madiun uprising. Also, the Dutch shot themselves in the foot by not acting decisively against the PKI, and instead looking to exploit the Madiun uprising to their own advantage. Dutch miscalculation, as much as nationalist assertion, weakened US perceptions of them.

The US’ intervention was also important in determining the timing of independence. With the Dutch dependent on the US for financial support, the US’s threat to cut off all Marshall Plan aid in March 1949 forced the Dutch to back down immediately. Thus, although the nationalists had gained an advantage over the Dutch by then, the US accelerated the decolonisation process, which would otherwise probably have dragged on for much longer.

Posted by kungfuzi at 9:12 pm |

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Your author graduated from Dartmouth College in 2004 having majored in History and English. From June 2007, he will be teaching contemporary Southeast Asian history at another of his former schools.

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