Thermopylae is a word that tells the story of human courage and resilience, even in defeat. Sekali berarti sudah itu mati (an instance of being meaningful, and then you die).

Marthen Indey met Indonesian activists exiled the Dutch in Digoel. They opened his eyes about fighting against the colonialists.

Silas Papare helped the Allies fight against the Japanese in West Irian. He supported Indonesian independence because of conflict with the Netherlands.

Marthen Indey pursued different educations, traveling to Ambon until Sukabumi. He had a knack for going undercover and negotiation.

Indonesians do not entertain many prejudices. Education will change everything.

News summary from suspects in the cooking oil case and Mahfud Md. admitting the state’s debt to a toll road entrepreneur to Constitutional Court’s verdict on elections and Dutch PM recognizes Indonesia’s 1945 independence date.

Jakarta was no longer Betawi as something imagined by looking backwards. We cannot respond to it with fake nostalgia, for instance by changing street names to become ‘Betawi’. Because, from the start, Betawi was not ‘original’.

Tempo compiled the tales of those who chose different migration paths. From one Chinese Indonesian family who went to the Netherlands and remained there, an Indo-European family who refused to leave, to a former KNIL soldier who left for the Netherlands and decided to return to Indonesia.

More than 300,000 Dutch, Indo Europeans, Chinese, Moluccan, Papuan, and others who used to live—and were even born—in Indonesia, chose to migrate to the Netherlands from 1945 until the early 1960s. Their stories were recorded and exhibited at the Sophiahof Museum in The Hague, the Netherlands, from February until June titled Ons Land: Dekolonisatie, Generaties, Verhalen.

Indonesia needs to follow the example of the Netherlands, which based its policy on a historical investigation of the history of the 1945-1949 War of Independence. There is no need to make a fuss about financial compensation.

A landmark study by three major research institutes on extreme Dutch violence in Indonesia resulted in an apology by Prime Minister Mark Rutte, the first one by a Dutch government head. The country’s rosy self-image is among the reasons this admittance comes so late.

THE grand exhibition Revolusi! Indonesië Onafhankelijk (Revolution! Indonesia Independent) opened in February at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, involving guest curators Amir Sidharta and Bonnie Triyana. A month prior to opening, it already attracted ample attention due to an opinion piece by Bonnie Triyana.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte apologizes for extreme violence in the colonialism period. The ‘extreme violence’ is colonialism itself.