In February 1922, the Indonesian students’ association in the Netherlands changed its name from Indische Vereeniging (Indies’ Association) to Indonesische Vereeniging (Indonesian Association, later translated in Perhimpoenan Indonesia). Two years later, it also renamed its journal Hindia Poetra (Sons of the Indies), which was now called Indonesia Merdeka (Indonesia Free). The new names signalized the advent of a new national imagined community among Indonesians in the Netherlands, and symbolized the political transformation of the organization into the advanced post of the Indonesian national movement in Europe. This chapter will reposition the Indonesian Association in the Netherlands – which has been widely recognized as a trailblazing organization within the Indonesian political landscape – in its European and international context. It will also show how concepts in the work of the late Benedict Anderson, such as imagined communities, long-distance nationalism and homogeneous, empty time, have contributed to our understanding of the political value of expatriate organizations and communities such as the Indonesian Association in the Netherlands.

The first Indonesian students arrived in the Netherlands around the turn of the twentieth century. These young elites had come to the Netherlands for an academic education in disciplines such as medicine, law and economics, and lived in university towns such as Leiden, Utrecht and Amsterdam. The community grew from a few dozen people in the first two decades of the twentieth century, to up to around 175 people in the peak years before the Great Depression.