Fall of The Colonial State
On 10 January 1942, during the Dutch East Indies Campaign, Japanese forces invaded the Dutch East Indies as part of the Pacific War. The rubber plantations and oil fields of the Dutch East Indies were considered crucial for the Japanese war effort. Allied forces were quickly overwhelmed by the Japanese and on 8 March 1942 the Royal Dutch East Indies Army surrendered in Java.
Fuelled by the Japanese Light of Asia war propaganda and the Indonesian National Awakening, a vast majority of the indigenous Dutch East Indies population first welcomed the Japanese as liberators from the colonial Dutch empire, but this sentiment quickly changed as the occupation turned out to be the most oppressive and ruinous colonial regime in Indonesian history. The Japanese occupation during World War II brought about the fall of the colonial state in Indonesia, as the Japanese removed as much of the Dutch government structure as they could, replacing it with their own regime. Although the top positions were held by the Japanese, the internment of all Dutch citizens meant that Indonesians filled many leadership and administrative positions. In contrast to Dutch repression of Indonesian nationalism, the Japanese allowed indigenous leaders to forge links amongst the masses, and they trained and armed the younger generations.
Following the Japanese surrender in August 1945, nationalist leaders Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta declared Indonesian independence. A four and a half-year struggle followed as the Dutch tried to re-establish their colony; although Dutch forces re-occupied most of Indonesia's territory a guerilla struggle ensued, and the majority of Indonesians, and ultimately international opinion, favoured Indonesian independence. In December 1949, the Netherlands formally recognised Indonesian sovereignty with the exception of the Netherlands New Guinea (Western New Guinea). Sukarno's government campaigned for Indonesian control of the territory, and with pressure from the United States, the Netherlands agreed to the New York Agreement which ceded the territory to Indonesian administration in May 1963.
Read more about this topic: Dutch East Indies
Famous quotes containing the words fall of, fall, colonial and/or state:
“To slip upon a pavement is better than to slip with the tongue: so the fall of the wicked shall come speedily.”
—Apocrypha. Ecclesiasticus 20:18.
“The habits of our whole species fall into three great classes—useful labour, useless labour, and idleness. Of these the first only is meritorious; and to it all the products of labor rightfully belong; but the two latter, while they exist, are heavy pensioners upon the first, robbing it of a large portion of its just rights. The only remedy for this is to, as far as possible, drive useless labour and idleness out of existence.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“Are you there, Africa with the bulging chest and oblong thigh? Sulking Africa, wrought of iron, in the fire, Africa of the millions of royal slaves, deported Africa, drifting continent, are you there? Slowly you vanish, you withdraw into the past, into the tales of castaways, colonial museums, the works of scholars.”
—Jean Genet (1910–1986)
“Beluthahatchee is a country where all unpleasant doings and sayings are forgotten, a land of forgiveness and forgetfulness. When a woman accusingly reminds her man of something in the past, he replies, ‘I thought that was in Beluthahatchee.’ Or a person may say to another, to dismiss some matter, “Oh, that’s in Beluthahatchee.’”
—For the State of Florida, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)