The most extensive and insightful discussions of the Netherlands’ colonial future occurred during the final phase of the war, a period beginning in approximately mid-1943 and continuing until May 1945, when the underground “opinion makers” charged themselves with preparing their fellow citizens for the transition to peacetime. Confident that they served as the nation’s leading political analysts in this time of need, the leftist resisters explored such topics as the future of the country’s traditional political parties and the relative merits of various supranational organizations. Their discussions to these ends centered on the notion of “renewal,” which conceptualized a thorough revision of Dutch politics and society coupled with an extensive reevaluation of colonial policy. Relying on the blueprint they believed Queen Wilhelmina to have provided in the form of her December 7, 1942, speech, the resisters of Het Parool, Vrij Nederland, and De Waarheid fixated on the notions of “equality,” “mutuality,” and “voluntary acceptance.” Such concepts, they argued, would constitute the foundations for a new – and stronger – Dutch-Indonesian relationship. Yet theirs were not the only voices to weigh in on these subjects. During these final two years of the war, the underground activists on the political left contended with new arrivals to the clandestine political scene, and the chorus singing the praises of colonial reform began to sound more like a cacophony. The leaders of two new leading organizations resolved to leave their own mark on these well-established clandestine discussions of empire, discussions that they felt had failed to take stock of existing and expected realities.

Je Maintiendrai, whose editorial board included prominent prewar politicians, intellectuals, and former Nederlandse Unie leaders, argued from a moderate, centrist position. For these resisters, the queen’s speech represented the most recent expression of a colonial policy initiated years before the outbreak of war; it did not reveal a radical new policy. Similarly, the last of the five major publications to make its debut, the politically conservative and orthodox Protestant Trouw, saw the contents of the speech as neither revolutionary nor natural; the queen, this group argued, was acting in the moment and looking to placate the anti-imperialist Americans. For these resisters, most of whom were members and leaders of the now-underground Calvinist Anti-Revolutionary Party, colonial reform remained out of the question. Convinced that the fate of the Netherlands hung in the balance, these more conservative resisters would spend the next two years refuting the dangerous notions put in circulation by their fellow resisters. The battle for the future of the Indies had begun.