History of Dutch East Indies Heritage Is Dutch History

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Dutch government has formed a commission which will overlook disbursement of over €20 million to boost public awareness of Dutch East Indies heritage. Most will be focused on education, as colonial history is hardly mentioned in Dutch classrooms.

The Dutch Ministry for Health, Welfare and Sport VWS introduced the formation of the commission ‘Strengthening Historical Knowledge of the Former Dutch East Indies’ (Versterking kennis geschiedenis voormalig Nederlands-Indië) on Monday, October 25, in The Hague. “There won’t just be one story told about the former Dutch East Indies, let alone one version that everyone agrees on,” said State Secretary for Health, Welfare and Sport Paul Blokhuis during the presentation. “It would already be a great advantage if Dutch people realize that the history of people from the Dutch East Indies is also our history.”

Those present during the presentation at the Sophiahof Museum - a museum focused on the Dutch East Indies – echoed what has already been lamented for years amidst communities related to Indonesia, a former colony of the Netherlands: that shockingly little about Dutch colonial history is known among the general Dutch public. “My school textbooks had nothing about the Dutch East Indies history,” said former Dutch Minister for Education and Culture Jet Bussemaker, who will head the new commission.

The Dutch government announced in October last year that it would set aside €20.4 million between 2021 and 2024 for the Dutch East Indies communities. The formation of the commission this week “will advise in the coming years how educational material of this history can be improved, both in the educational spheres and beyond,” the VWS Ministry said in a statement on Monday. “The Commission will also tackle the questions of how knowledge on the former Dutch East Indies can be enhanced.”

Paul Blokhuis estimated that some two million out of the Dutch population of 17 million people have heritage ties to Indonesia. This include Indo (Eurasian), Moluccan, Papuan, and Chinese-Indonesian communities – and Dutch people who lived and worked in the Dutch East Indies. The Dutch arrived in the early 1600s to the archipelago, and gradually colonized the region until the end of World War II. After Indonesia declared its independence in August 1945, the two countries fought a military and diplomatic war for almost five years, until the Dutch officially recognized its former colony’s independence in December 1949.

In addition to education, the Commission will also encompass heritage, health care, and other initiatives within the Dutch East Indies communities. From 2023, €1.7 million will be set aside annually for activities within the “collective recognition” of these communities.

Those with ties to Indonesia form a rainbow of communities in the Netherlands, with a variety of voices and viewpoints, though most of them agree that the Dutch government and public awareness of these communities is still woefully lacking.  Some were present at Monday’s presentation and expressed hope that their plight will be more widely recognized. Others, however, remain skeptical and continue to demand concrete actions, like the Indo foundation Indisch Platform 2.0. “The community demands apologies, recognition, war compensation, and wage backpays,” it said in a statement following the Committee’s formation.

Linawati Sidarto