Lyceum & Book Club - Week 16 - Lecture Notes on Violence Against Dutch Colonies Seeking Independence

From abc.net.au

Dutch rule of Indonesia was bloody.

The 1740 Batavia massacre, referred to in Dutch as Chinezenmoord (murder of the Chinese), saw Dutch soldiers massacre up to an estimated 10,000 ethnic Chinese in what is now Jakarta.

In December 1947, Dutch troops killed an estimated 431 people in the village of Rawagede for not revealing the whereabouts of a nationalist leader they were hunting.

2011 was the first time the Dutch state acknowledged colonial-era atrocities by apologising for the Rawagede massacre.

Then in 2013, Mr de Zwaan apologised for all "excesses committed by Dutch forces" between 1945 and 1949 — particularly in Celebes and Rawagede.

In March this year, King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands expressed regret and apologised "for the excessive violence on the part of the Dutch in those years", referring to the 1940s.

"Note that the Dutch king did not apologize for colonialism or even violence, just 'excessive' violence," said Dirk Moses, a professor of genocide history at the University of Sydney.

"So it seems he's not denying the right of the Dutch to reconquer their colonies, just the way they went about it.

"Like the British, the Dutch regarded their rule as enlightened and progressive compared, say, to the Spanish.”

Survey data published by pollster YouGov last month found that Dutch and British respondents were the most likely to see former empire more as a source of pride than shame.