*David Van Reybrouck* # Progressive Summary # Definitions # Chapter Notes ## Chapter 1 - The VOC Mentality ### Some astonishing facts showing Indonesia's significance Geography: - World's fourth largest country. - Officially, Indonesia is made up of 13,466 islands. - Of the world's thirteen largest islands, 5 belong to Indonesia: New Guinea, Borneo, Sumatra, Sulawesi and Java. - Java is the most populous island on earth, with 141 million inhabitants (half of Indonesia's population). - The archipelago covers more than forty-five degrees longitude, an eighth of the globe, spanning three time zones and more than 5000 km along the equator. - Compared to Europe, it would span from Ireland to Kazakhstan. - Compared to the US, it would extend almost a thousand kilometres out to sea on either side. - 300 distinct ethnic groups speaking 700 languages live there. - The official Indonesian language is a young one, derived from Malay, with traces of Dutch, English, Portuguese and Arabic. History: - First colonised country to declare independence after WW2. This came less than two days after Japan surrendered. - Dutch presence (1600-1942); Japanese occupation (1942-5). - Revolusi (1945-9) - the Indonesian war of independence that began in 1945; this was a youth movement driven by 15-25 year olds. - A few years after independence, Indonesia hosted the Asian-African Conference, the first summit of world leaders without the West. The "Bandung" conference represented a billion and a half people, more than half the world population at the time. African-American novelist Richard Wright, a participant, called this "a decisive moment in the consciousness of sixty-five per cent of the human race." He said it would "condition the totality of human life on this earth."[^1] - It inspired the American civil rights movement and the unification of Europe. - In 1963, a French study called it "history's second 14 juillet, a 14 juillet on a planetary scale."[^2] > Anyone who believes that young people cannot make a difference in the struggle against global warming and the loss of biodiversity needs to study Indonesian history *now*. The world's third-largest country would never have become independent without the work of people in their teens and early twenties - although I hope today's young climate activists will use less violent tactics. > > But above all, what makes the Revolusi so fascinating is its enormous impact on the rest of humanity. It shaped expectations about the nature of decolonisation: not a gradual, decades-long process of increasing autonomy, but a swift transition to independence. Not limited to one small portion of the colony, but affecting the entire territory. And not restricted to a few specific powers or ministries, but constituting a complete transfer of political sovereignty. Fast, comprehensive, and complete: that was the model forged in Indonesia and actively pursued in many other parts of the world in the decades that followed. Pre-history: - *Homo erectus* arrived in Java about a million years ago. Java Man, the first *Homo erectus* excavated, was found by Dutch naturalist Eugène Dubois in 1891, the first link between humans and other animals. - *Homo erectus* arrived in Europe 500,000 years ago. - Humans arrived in the Americas 12,000 years ago. - Indonesia was part of the first wave of expansion out of Africa. ### The spice trade drove colonisation Spices have been an important part of cuisine ever since Roman times. This continued on through the Medieval era. For much of history, spices had to travel a long chain of intermediaries (East Indies, Ceylon, Arab Peninsula, the Mediterranean) in order to reach their destination in Europe. Marco Polo was the first European to land in Sumatra in 1291, on his way back from China. He had to wait on the island for five months for the monsoon winds to change. He found out that Sumatra was a major market for spices. #### Portuguese went south **How big could Africa be?** In 1430, the Portuguese tried to find a faster route by sailing south and then east around Africa, which they didn't think was that large. But it wasn't until 1498 that Vasco de Gama first rounded the Cape. He eventually reached the west coast of India. He discovered the following sources for the best spices: - Ceylon - cinnamon - Sumatra and Java - pepper - Moluccas - cloves, nutmeg, mace By 1525, the Portuguese had built a trading network that consisted of: - bases in Hormuz (southern tip of Arabian peninsula) - Goa in western India - Colombo in Ceylon - Malacca on the Malay Peninsula - Ambon in the Moluccas (a fort was the first Western settlement in Indonesia) - Macao on the south coast of China #### Spanish went west **How big could the Atlantic be?** Not wanting to lag behind the Portuguese, the Spanish decided to find another route by going west. Columbus arrived in Cuba in 1492 and thought he was in Japan. He concluded that everything beyond had to be India, and called the locals Indians. Later, Magellan would make a large detour south, passing below South America and then west to the Pacific. He found a large group of islands and named them the Philippines, after the Spanish king. #### Dutch went north **How big could Russia be?** From 1594 onwards, Willem Barentsz made 3 attempts to get around Russia. He ended up stranded in a shallow sea that later came to be called the Barents Sea. In 1596, Cornelis de Houtman, following the Portuguese strategy, became the first Dutchman to round the Cape of Africa and reach the west coast of Java, returning to Amsterdam two years later and opening the route for his countrymen. In 1588, the Netherlands had become a Republic without a king, and was an alliance of seven provinces. In 1602, the States General, consisting of representatives from all the provinces, decided to merge all their shipping companies into one, the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, or VOC), granting it monopoly on trade with the East. The VOC lasted for 2 centuries. It was a private company that was authorised to sign international trade treaties, administer justice, build forts and recruit soldiers. It was also the first company to issue shares that could be traded. > The combination of these two unique characteristics was every bit as explosive as you might guess. The VOC was hell-bent on turning a profit for its private investors and was equipped with the entire arsenal of public authority. There was no way this could go well. 5,000 voyages were undertaken between 1595 and 1795. A voyage took a year and a half, and 2 out of 3 sailors never returned home. The VOC had to recruit the most desperate men they could find in Amsterdam's shadiest taverns. In 1605, the VOC took over the Portuguese fort in Ambon. Over 400 years later, the fort is still used by the military and closed to visitors. ## Chapter 2 – Assembling the Jigsaw Puzzle # Quotes # References [Wright 1995 - The color curtain: a report on the Bandung Conference](zotero://select/items/1_IZXQH7B3) [^1]: Wright, Richard, Gunnar Myrdal, and Amritjit Singh. _The Color Curtain: A Report on the Bandung Conference_. Reprint. Banner Books. Univ. Press of Mississippi, 1995. [^2]: Conte, Arthur. Bandoung, tournant de l'histoire (18 avril 1955). France: (Robert Laffont) réédition numérique FeniXX, 1965.