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Exhibition aims to establish common ground amid fractious debate over violence in post-independence Indonesia

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[-] ksynwa@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 1 year ago

opposing sides have in recent years struggled to agree on who was victim and who was perpetrator

Damn lol

[-] HerbalGamer@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago

Absolutely no one I know has ever taken the stance that we're victims in that scenario.

[-] Amir@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago

"there are good arguments to be made from both sides"

[-] masquenox@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago

What about confronting it's colonial present? Last time I checked, the colonialist world order that underpins the wealth of the Global North hasn't ended.

[-] Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

I think it means losing those colonies

[-] masquenox@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Last time I checked, big foreign corporations are still looting and pillaging all over Africa as if independence never happened... I wonder why?

edit: This includes Shell, a Dutch corporation, btw.

[-] Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

I'm guessing relative weakness of the governments and rampant corruption.

[-] masquenox@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah... tons of bribe money will do that to the governments of weak nations - it's almost like Cuba had the correct idea.

[-] Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Cuba should start bribing those governments to stick it to the West

[-] autotldr@lemmings.world 2 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


But in few European countries is the process of confronting the colonial period proving as fractious and divisive as in the Netherlands, where opposing sides have in recent years struggled to agree on who was victim and who was perpetrator.

This month, an exhibition at Amsterdam’s Nieuwe Kerk gallery space and two new books in a major historical series try to establish common ground over the violence that ensued after Indonesia declared independence from Dutch colonial rule in 1945.

“Every day, we have seen how much of our past related with this former colony is still raw and unworked, denied, fought against or praised, when many others think differently about it,” said Annabelle Birnie, the director of the Nieuwe Kerk, which launches the Big Indonesia show on Saturday.

The current debate in the Netherlands centres on what happened next: after Indonesia’s future president Sukarno declared independence on 17 August 1945, the Dutch fought to prolong colonial rule, often through barbaric means, before ceding on 27 December 1949.

In August, Amsterdam’s mayor, Femke Halsema, withdrew from a commemorative ceremony because of a speech by the apologist daughter of Raymond Westerling, an army officer who led revenge attacks on local people during the war.

Campaigners for the recognition of Indonesians’ losses, such as Jeffry Pondaag, chair of the Dutch Honorary Debts Committee Foundation, advocate compensation for all damage and gains from colonial activity.


The original article contains 1,295 words, the summary contains 231 words. Saved 82%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[-] mctoasterson@reddthat.com 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah but stroopwafel though

[-] Gazumi@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

A little bit of a crappy story. Lets compare the Dutch of today to the rest of Europe today. I'm from the UK with freinds and family in the Netherlands. If it wasn't for elderly parents, I'd have moved there too.

[-] vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zone 30 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I’m not sure what you’re trying to say.

That we shouldn’t try and confront our colonial past because other countries did more colonialism? That’s seems like a very odd take.

[-] Gazumi@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Not that. Most of the Western world has a shocking history that must be used to remind us of what we can be capable of. Some nations however are at different places. The UK is particularly challenging (on average) compared to other places.

[-] vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 1 year ago

How does the UK factor into this story and how is it relevant?

[-] Hyperreality@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

Not the person you're replying to, but I've lived in both the Netherlands and the UK.

My experience is that the UK is far more in denial about the crimes of empire than the Netherlands.

Most European countries have a shameful colonial history. Many haven't fully come to terms with it.

[-] masquenox@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 year ago

Many haven’t fully come to terms with it.

No... they haven't. Colonialism is not the past... it's the present. And the Netherlands still benefit from it to this very day.

[-] vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I’ve been thinking about this, and I think one of the factors is inter-generational wealth transfer.

If you look, here in the Netherlands, many of the families that made out like bandits in the slave trade and colonial exploitation are still very wealthy and influential. That results in an incentive, baked into the economic tissue of the country, to continue to ignore these topics.

I could be wrong, but my impression is that this is also true for England, but to a (much) higher degree than over here.

[-] TammyTobacco@lemmy.ml -4 points 1 year ago

Thanks for letting me know the evils of colonialism, English website.

[-] DessertStorms@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm not generally one to defend a MSM outlet, and I have many issues specifically with the Guardian, but in this case they have been publishing a lot about "how slavery changed the Guardian, Britain and the world"

[-] thedirtyknapkin@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

i mean, that's the audience that needs to hear this message the most...

this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2023
74 points (97.4% liked)

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