Indonesia has a long way before it became a country as it is today. The story was started at least 5 centuries ago. At this year’s independence celebration, let’s look at the history of Indonesia from the colonial era to the present.
Colonial Era
The Portuguese arrived in Indonesia in the early 16th century in their search for herbs and spices. At the same time, the demand for spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves raised significantly. Seeing this as an opportunity to gain big profits, the Portuguese snatched the Moluccas where herbs and spices were everywhere. In 1511, the Portuguese then seized Melaka since it had an important port.
The early 17th Century marked the defeat of the Portuguese and the Dutch rule in Indonesia. In 1595, led by Cornelis de Houtman, the Dutch fleet voyaged to Indonesia from the Netherlands actually for the same purpose as the Portuguese, namely to dominate the spices commodities in Indonesia. The Dutch established the Dutch East India Company (VOC) for a better-arranged merchant trade in 1602. During this century, the Dutch actually has expanded their power mostly in Java and the Moluccas where people in these areas were obliged to surrender their agricultural products to the VOC. However, other than Java and the Moluccas, they only had little influence. Unfortunately, in 1799 the Dutch government expropriated the VOC’s territories as the VOC fell deeply into debt.
image: indonesia-investments.com
The year 1806 marked the war between the British and the Dutch. Under the leadership of Lord Minto, in 1811 the British voyaged to Batavia and took over the areas in Indonesia which were once possessed by the Dutch. Nevertheless, the British ceded Indonesia to the Dutch in 1816. This time, in order to force their power over Indonesians who resisted their return, the Dutch chose to beat the aforementioned Indonesians.
In 1825, Prince Diponegoro led the Javanese War as part of the rejection of the return of the Dutch yet the defeat was won by the Dutch five years later. From this point, the Dutch were inspired to dominate the rest of Indonesia and they realized this idea by taking control over Palembang in 1825 and started to fight with the Balinese from 1848 until 1906. Moreover, they initiated wars in Aceh in Lombok in 1873 and 1894 respectively and conquered the whole Sulawesi island in 1905.
Once the Dutch felt they had successfully extended their power in the country, they began to implement the cultural system in 1830, in which Indonesians were obliged to grow some commodities which would benefit the Dutch and got the very minimum payment in return. Then, 40 years later, in 1870 to be precise, the Dutch chose to switch the system to a free market to monopoly the commodities.
The Dutch started to introduce the ethical policy in the early 20th century where schools and health care were amongst the concerns. Even though this policy had a very little effect on the welfare of most Indonesians, some of Indonesians turned into more educated human beings and gained the familiarity towards liberalism and socialism in which led to nationalist movements in the country. Upon the establishment of this movement, Indonesians were aware of the need to gain independence.
The struggle experienced by Indonesia did not stop at this point. In 1942, Indonesia was invaded by the Japanese, while the Dutch ceased from occupying the country in the same year. Initially, Indonesians acknowledged the Japanese only as liberators before the Japanese started to exploit Indonesia’s resources. To make a long story short, the Japanese chose to be in favour with the independence of Indonesia as a country and intended to make Indonesia as one of their allies.
Independence
A few days before Indonesians aimed to realize their determination to declare the independence, they somehow could sense that the Dutch could reoccupy the country anytime. Thus, a group of Indonesians kidnapped two nationalist leaders during that time, namely Soekarno and Hatta to secure the mission. On 17th August 1945, Soekarno declared the independence of Indonesia and became the very first President of the Republic of Indonesia, accompanied by Hatta as the Vice-President.
Soekarno declared independence of Indonesia on 17th August 1945
The fear that was once possessed by the Indonesians turned out to be true. The Dutch would not surrender so easily. They returned to Indonesia to intensified their power and fought the British troops who landed earlier. On 15th of November 1946, Indonesians and the Dutch concluded a political record named the Linggadjati Agreement in which the Dutch admitted Indonesia’s independence, but limited to Java and Sumatera only, since the rest of the country was still under the claim of the Dutch. It turned out the agreement failed to satisfy both parties.
Backed by the US who deeply condemned the Dutch’s effort in retaking the whole Indonesia that caused a four-year of guerilla warfare throughout Indonesia, finally the Dutch admitted the independence of Indonesia in November 1949.
Shortly after the independence, Soekarno applied a parliamentary democracy as part of the nation’s political system. Yet it could not be denied that during that time Indonesia experienced difficulty in managing the governance and other nation-building related systems.
In spite of this, the difficult times faced by Indonesia began to reveal the fact that Indonesia had various groups which competed to claim political power in the country. Seeing this issue possessed a potential threat to the country, Soekarno tried to unite the diversity of Indonesia through the concept of Pancasila (the philosophical foundation of Indonesia).
The fall of Soekarno was indicated after the attempted coup arranged by the Communists. The General Suharto took control and successfully quashed the coup. However, he then embarked on a brutal military operation of bloodletting towards millions of Communists. This whole tragedy marked the rise of Suharto. As Soekarno resigned on 11th of March 1966, Suharto started to lead the country as a dictator. Under his leadership, one should admit that the economy of Indonesia began to recover.
The gap between the rich and the poor remained high in Indonesia. The condition got worse in 1997 when financial crises hit Indonesia and the riots that followed afterwards. Suharto then resigned from his status as the President of Indonesia in May 1998. As his era faded, the country re-implemented the democracy into practice by holding elections in 1999.
Today Indonesia is seen as one of the emerging economies in the world, even though social inequality still persists until this second.