Hidskes’ book and a comparable publication by Anton Stolwijk, both published in 2016, are remarkably effective examples of this. In the Netherlands, the renewed focus on the colonial era is educating a new generation about the nation’s dark imperial past. Public interest in these colonial era killings in both countries has been revived by the successful court cases brought by victims of the West Java Rawagede village and South Sulawesi atrocities committed by Dutch forces, and subsequent Dutch government apologies in relation to them. The major research project and publications emerging from it, involves both Dutch and Indonesian researchers, and was itself triggered by a series of Indonesian initiated court cases. In the past decade there has been a flow of publications reviewing Dutch imperial rule in Indonesia emanating from a major Dutch government funded research project into the 1945 – 1949 Indonesian War of Independence. In this Indonesian context, Hidskes’ very personal account of the ‘South Sulawesi Affair’, as it has come to be known, came to look more like a painful personal confession of national guilt. It was an emotional experience for both author and audience. In late 2018, Maarten Hidskes launched the Indonesian translation of his Dutch language book, Thuis geloofd niemand mij ( At home no one will believe me), at Makassar’s Hasanu’ddin University.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |