"The Indonesian Independence" by Simone Pelizza
The Nipponian 1941 aggression involved whole
south-oriental Asia in the Second World Conflict and it constituted a hard hit
to the prestige of the European Colonial Powers, some of which had been defeated
and occupied from Nazi Germany (Holland and France).
At the beginning, the Japanese were welcomed as liberators; well soon, however,
they revealed a colonialist face even more merciless than the Europeans.
After Pearl Harbor and the entrance in war of the United States (December 1941),
the fury of the war invaded whole Asia without sparing belligerents and not. They
were years of war and hunger; illusions and expectations were created that well
soon broken would have implicated the exasperation of the traditional nationalistic
movements and inevitably the birth of new political forces, tightly tied up to
the Soviet or Chinese communism. In some countries violent anti-Japanese guerrillas
were organized; in others, instead, the anti-European collaboration with the Nipponian
occupant was preferred. In every case, this confused and brutal period would have
irremediably marked the history of the whole area: stopped the war, in fact, the
“forces of resistance” and the “forces of collaboration” would
have united against the European colonial return bringing to the birth of new
independent national states.
These “liberation”, however, were not a panacea. The new independent
states received in fact a heavy inheritance in terms of poverty, violence, ethnic
struggles, revolt against the ghost of the colonialist and imperialist Western
Powers. Supported firstly from USSR and then from China, they won't succeed in
expressing alternative formulas or valid programs of social-economic development.
In the whole Asian Southeast, Indonesia constitutes still today the most eloquent
example of this dramatic and incomplete decolonization.
Indonesia toward the independence
The Japanese occupation marked the independence of Indonesia. The local nationalists,
already active before the war, exploited in fact the expansionism of Tokyo to
free of every Dutch influence. Before the Nipponian retreat, the movement of Sukarno
and Hatta got the concession of the independence from the invaders by now defeated.
A presidential Republic was proclaimed and Sukarno succeeded in imposing a strongly
unitary Constitution that enacted the supremacy of Java on all other islands of
the immense archipelago. It immediately began the revolt of Sumatra and Celebes
that, viceversa, in colonial epoch and with the Japanese occupation had enjoyed
of ample inside autonomy. But the reentry of Dutch and English military forces
made impossible the newborn independence.
The “old” European colonizers didn't recognize the Indonesian national
aspirations, and they thought about being able easily to reestablish the pre-war
status quo. But the situation was irremediably changed: the two principal components
of the Indonesian nationalism, that Marxist and that Islamic, rose up bloodily;
it missed whatever type of liberal-western tendency able to mediate between the
two parts in struggle (as instead it will be for all other former British colonies,
starting with the Malay Federation). The two great parties were naturally identified
with the territorial differences. The nationalistic party of Sukarno didn't hide
his Marxist shades and, as already told in precedence, his unitary vocation; but
well soon he was revolved and put in minority from numerous crypto-communist groups.
The Islamic component expressed two parties: the Masjumi and
the Ulema. Both were Islamic integralists and they wanted the institution
of a Moslem state. They were strong above all in Sumatra, for a long time impatient
towards the Javanese predominance (heart, instead, of the political action of
Sukarno and the communists).
In 1947, Holland tried an action of strength without success. It also failed
an attempt of Dutch-Indonesian Union; attempt that found the open hostility of
Great Britain, desirous to safeguard its own political and commercial prominence
in the sector. The Dutch intolerance, aimed to protect the imposing economic affairs
that Den Hag still had in Indonesia, radicalizes the situation: the whole country
was pervaded by violent insurrections with particularly dramatic event in Celebes
and Sumatra. Sukarno succeeded in defeating either the communist opposition either
that military; but latter reveled it as the only force able to keep standing an
unstable and poor country, deprived of an administrative managing class. Therefore,
though Sukarno repressed it, he had also make pacts with it. In the meantime,
the breakup of the negotiations on New Guinea and Irian (1954) brought to the
congelation of the relationships with Holland and to the following repatriation
of officials and western experts. The inside crisis was increased.
At the beginnings of the fifties, therefore, Indonesia was finally free, definitely
independent. The price to pay, however, had been too high. The country was found
under serious conditions on the brick of the ruin.
The Sukarno's presidency: illusions and misdeeds
Economic difficulties were increased from the violent expropriation of the
foreign enterprises provision of clear political inspiration and internal prestige.
Paradoxically, also rich of agricultural and mining resources, Indonesia was to
the economic collapse: they missed experience and ability for raising again the
fates of the country. But, above all it missed necessary political will. Sukarno
in fact, thanks to the accord with the soldiers, was uncontested master of the
inside political scene. But he, prey to a folly of greatness aimed to magnify
his own image in front of the masses, lost quickly every contact with the reality
of the problems to face. He created so immense powers gap.
In 1960 the formula of “driven democracy” on the base of a national-communist
front was launched. Sukarno became the charismatic leader of the crowds, and he
succeeded in imposing his prestige and his personal ascendancy. But he was deprived
of any real power: the army, only force still able to assure a minimum of order
and internal equilibrium, had practically dismissed him and assumed power in his
place. From such situation a politics of real adventure was born: in economy,
no plan was expressed to raise up the country; Indonesia was enslaved to the foreign
capitals (Soviet and Chinese). To the outside, they were launched resounding (and
ruinous) military ventures, aimed to dissuade the popular attention from the serious
problems of inside order.
The annexation of the Irian, problem still open with Holland, was resolved
only thanks to the intervention of UN (1963); but the attempt of conquest of the
British Borneo, federate to the Malaysia, brought to the war with Great Britain
and to 1966 military disaster. Pushed by the communist pressures, Sukarno showed
himself as supreme liberator of the Asian Southeast from old and new colonialism;
he declared the secession from the United Nations and he tried the way, together
with China, of a “international counter-organization of the emergent forces.”
The Chinese communism was more and more imposed in south oriental Asia. The power
of Sukarno, eliminated the Islamic opposition, was balanced by two forces: the
communist party and, as said above, the armed forces. These had a more and more
prominent role. In the meantime, the instability of the country was complete:
it was a sequence of insurrections, hits of hand and massacres.
The end of Sukarno: the ascent of the soldiers
At this point, Indonesia was on the brick of the complete downfall: economic
bankruptcy, outside military disasters and inside repression had literally bled
the country . The students rose up, while Islamic forces were returning to let
bossily hear their own voice . The army decided to liquidate Sukarno, by now uncomfortable.
In 1965 a first putsch formally delivered power in the hands of the soldiers.
The communists were massacred, in an impressive bath of blood. Sukarno succeeded
in preserving the presidency, but his Era could be considered ended . In 1966
a second putsch definitely estranged him from the political scene. In 1968 Suharto,
skilled and intelligent official of the army, was named new president.
He, though immediately showing a fierce personal authoritarianism and a criminal
economic rapacity, succeeded also in bringing Indonesia on the correct platforms.
Every velleity of Indonesian “third” was abandoned; the reentry in the
UN was decided and the useless and bloody war with Malay Federation and Great
Britain for the Borneo was concluded. The adhesion to the ASEAN and a suitable
economic planning, often demagogic however, saved the country from the financial
crack. The inside political regime, nevertheless, was more coercive than ever:
the student and Islamic protests were repressed and crushed with violence. The
communists, at least that little part remained after the 1965 appalling massacre,
were set outlaw and harshly persecuted. The soldiers tied their own power to the
Christian-nationalists and the more moderate Moslem parties.
It began the era Suharto that would have lasted uninterruptedly for almost
thirty years. The new regime would have been unfit and merciless even more than
the precedent one, skilled only in exploiting to its own advantage the international
interested consent and the inside ethnic-religious divisions. For some years there
was the illusion of the stability and the economic development. Indonesia was
inserted in the group of the “Asian Tigers” and it was adopted as model
for the other Countries in the way of development. It was a deception, destined
to fall quickly. The 1997 economic-financial crisis has brought the country to
the bankruptcy, and demolished the avid dictatorship of Suharto.
Today, Indonesia is a country rich in natural and human resources but prey
of the chaos and the violent disorder. Incapable to resolve the problems left
from its troubled incomplete independence.
Simone Pelizza
[email protected]
Sources: “Processes of decolonization in Asia and in Africa”,
publications of the ISU (Catholic University in Milan), edited by prof. Valeria
Fiorani Piacentini; Borsa G., “The extreme east between the two worlds”,
Bari, Laterza 1961; Ghersi E., “The European expansion and the national movements
of the Moslem world”, Florence, Carlo Cya, 1943; Romein J.M., “The century
of Asia Western Imperialism and Asian revolution in the XX century”, Turin,
Einaudi 1969
Bibliography in English (signaled in the aforesaid texts): Martin G., “Recent
History Atlas: 1870 to the Present Day”, London, Windenfield and Nicolson,
1967; Emerson R., “From Empire to NationThe rise to self-assertion of Asian
and African Peoples, Boston, Beacon Press, 1978
Bibliography in French: Renouvin P., “The question of Extreme-Orient
(1840-1940)”, Paris, 1946
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