1st Edition
Resonance of Violence Bersiap and the Dynamics of Violence in the First Phase of the Indonesian Revolution, 1945-1946
304 Pages
by
Amsterdam University Press
In early 2022, the issue of whether or not to remove the word ‘bersiap’ from an exhibition at Rijksmuseum Amsterdam prompted parliamentary questions, the initiation of legal proceedings against the museum, and an unusually fierce public debate about a word that had hitherto only been known to the Dutch Indies community. This book provides background and depth to this debate. In the first months... Read more
1. Introduction
Prologue – The sound of violence
1. Bersiap in broader context
II. Historical Background
2. Violence from above: the colonial context of violence in Indonesia
3. Rising tensions
III. Confrontations
4. Power constellations
5. The Eastern archipelago: Allied dominance
6. Java and Sumatra: rival international power blocks
7. The organization of Indonesian violence
8. Estimates of casualty numbers
iv. Impact
9. The significance of bersiap in the Indonesian War of Independence (1946-1949)
Prologue – The sound of violence
1. Bersiap in broader context
II. Historical Background
2. Violence from above: the colonial context of violence in Indonesia
3. Rising tensions
III. Confrontations
4. Power constellations
5. The Eastern archipelago: Allied dominance
6. Java and Sumatra: rival international power blocks
7. The organization of Indonesian violence
8. Estimates of casualty numbers
iv. Impact
9. The significance of bersiap in the Indonesian War of Independence (1946-1949)
Biography
Esther Captain is a historian and works as a senior researcher at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (kitlv) in Leiden. She is endowed professor of Intergenerational Impact of Colonialism and Slavery at Utrecht University. She is currently involved in a research programme on the role of the House of Orange-Nassau in Dutch colonial history.
Onno Sinke is a historian and works as a researcher for the Netherlands Institute for Military History in The Hague. During the research for this book he was seconded to the kitlv/Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies in Leiden.
