After the results of the major decolonization inquiry and the short-lived but intense discussion about the use of the term ‘Bersiap’, Monsoon (‘the Indisch monthly magazine’) exactly what it had to do: make a special about the bloody hunt by Indonesian nationalists for the Dutch, Indo-Dutch and Chinese in the autumn of 1945.
What preceded: following the exhibition Revolution! in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, one of the guest curators, the Indonesian historian Bonnie Triyana, argued in favor of no longer using the word Bersiap. The term is said to have acquired a racist connotation because it conjures up an image of what he described as ‘primitive, uncivilized Indonesians as perpetrators’ – after which the Indonesian community in the Netherlands went into great anger.
Nobody expected anything else, but just to be sure, write Monsoon-editor-in-chief Vivian Boon just mentioned it in the foreword to the special: ‘Yes, we call that horrific period in our history the Bersiap period and will always continue to do so’.
The perspective of Triyana and the war of words are discussed in a nuanced piece by Peter van Dongen. In 2005, he completed a two-part historical (and highly regarded) cartoon, Rampokan, set during the colonial war that the Netherlands waged in Indonesia between 1945 and 1949. As happens elsewhere in the magazine, Van Dongen notes that the word is hardly known in Indonesia.
He concludes optimistically: ‘You can say that Bonnie Triyana has also done something good. Thanks to his effort, the term and the exhibition have only grown in meaning and prominence, now that it has been discussed all over the media’.
Elsewhere, the atrocities of the Indonesian nationalists are described extensively and sometimes in detail – and without effect. Victims and relatives of victims have their say, for example in a historical overview that Monsooneditor Ricci Scheldwacht turned old testimonies.
A random quote: ‘A relative of ours was also killed by pelopors (anti-colonial fighters) slaughtered with machetes after his daughter was raped and murdered in front of him.’
The tone is also conciliatory, for example in a memory of politician Mei Li Vos, who went to Indonesia with her mother in 2006 and saw old fears flare up at her. When Vos made it clear to a taxi driver not to drop them off, her mother panicked. ‘He’s going in a minute catastrophehe becomes mataglap and cut off your head.’
It turned out well, they (re)discovered the country together. “She’s got all those new friends there now. She feels at home there.’