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National and International Dimensions of Indonesian History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

Justus M. van der Kroef
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Extract

Among the more noteworthy features of the Indonesian government's current efforts to recover and accentuate what is believed to be the nation's “cultural identity” is the encouragement being given to the shift in emphasis in the writing of Indonesian history so as to bring out more fully the uniqueness and greatness of the Indonesian cultural achievement. This new “Indonesia-centric” approach is said to provide a much needed correction of the earlier, colonially oriented and “Western centric” type of historical writing about Indonesia, in which the Indonesian “identity” allegedly was obscured because of Western and Dutch ethnocentric prejudices, arid in which historical events in Indonesia were treated as mere appendages to Dutch or European history generally. As early as December, 1957, a seminar of historians in Djokjakarta, Central Java, was convened “in order to eliminate the colonial historian's presentation and restore the proper emphasis on the indigenous culture, tradition and history” in “the history books of the country”. More than five years later the problem still appeared not to have been resolved as yet, for at another historical seminar held in Medan, North Sumatra, in March, 1963, Indonesia's Deputy First Minister for Information, Ruslan Abdulgani, was reportedly still calling “on Indonesian writers to begin to ‘rewrite’ Indonesian history to cleanse it of what he called ‘West-centrism’”. Indonesian historians, Abdulgani urged, “must dare to rewrite our history so that it will no longer be West-centric but Indonesiacentric”.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian History , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , March 1965 , pp. 17 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1965

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References

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2. Ibid., April 3, 1963.

3. van der Kroef, Justus M., “On the Writing of Indonesian History”, Pacific Affairs, 12, 1958, pp. 352–371.Google Scholar

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6. Of Berg's voluminous writings on this subject I mention here only his essays “De Zin der Tweede Babad-Tanah-Jawi”, Indonesia, vol. 8 (1955), esp. pp. 361–367, 394–395Google Scholar and “Gedachtemvisseling over Javanese Geschiedschrijving”, Indonesië, vol. 9 (1956), pp. 177–216Google Scholar. Berg has his critics, but no one has successfully refuted his tlieorv of the “optative” character of the old Javanese historical writings.

7. See e.g. Alatas, Syed Hussein, “On the Need for an Historical Study of Malaysian Islamization”, Journal of Southeast Asian History vol. 4 (1963), esp. pp. 67–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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26. Political Manifesto, Republic of Indonesia, of 17th August, 1959 (Department of Information, Republic of Indonesia, Djakarta, 1959), p. 62Google Scholar. There is no need to ask who the nation's sesepuh or elder, to which Sukarno referred, is. On March 26, 1963, the Indonesian Governors Conference bestowed on Sukarno the title Sesepuh Agung Pemerintahan Republik Indonesia or “Supreme Elder of the Government of the Indonesian Republic”. Indonesian Observer (Djakarta), 03 27, 1963.Google Scholar

27. Generally representative of this theme is a work like Mohammad Yamin's 6000 Tahun Sang Merah Putih (Djakarta, 1958).Google Scholar

28. Cf. van der Kroef, J.M., Indonesian Social Evolution. Some Psychological Considerations (Amsterdam. 1958).Google Scholar

29. Marlaux, André, “On St. Just”, Partisan Review (New York), Fall, 1955, p. 471.Google Scholar

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32. Sudjatmoko, , An Approach to Indonesian History: Towards an Open Future (Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., 1960), pp. 10–11.Google Scholar

33. Ibid., p. 18.