Imagined Communities in Cyberspace

The growth of new technologies, particularly the internet, has allowed new communities of people to imagine themselves. These communities are linked by emotions, mutual interest and sometimes by a common curiosity to uncover hidden or silenced voices and stories. In this case, I am excited by the possibility of connection, dialogue and interchange offered by Facebook and my 'imagined community' of Dutch-Indonesians/Indos who are travelling a new road together to exchange knowledge about their hybrid family histories in what was once the Dutch East/Netherlands Indies and is now Indonesia. Communities can be distinguished, not by their falsity/genuineness, but by the style in which they are imagined (Anderson 1991, 6). On 17 August 1945, after approximately 350 years of Dutch colonial rule (and several years of the British interregnum 1811-1816), Indonesia was proclaimed merdeka (independent) by Sukarno and Matta, and Indonesia as a nation began its period of struggle and consolidation. During the period known as Bersiap (purge) after the end of World War Il and before the Dutch relinquished their claims to the archipelago, many Europeans, Indo-Europeans and Ambonese were slaughtered or terrorised by pemuda (young men) with the fire of revolution in their bellies. In the words of author Hans Meijer, translated from Dutch by Rob Kramer: In Batavia (now Jakarta), posters called for the extermination of 'Indische parasites' and the slogan 'Death to the Ambonese and Indos' could be read on a building. The radical Indonesian populist leader Soetomo called for a vendetta against Indo-European bloodhounds ... Torture them to death, root out those watchdogs of colonialism ... Brave warriors of Indonesia, countless generations of oppressed ancestors look down upon you. Their immortal spirits demand your revenge! Vendetta!' (Meijer 2004 [1945], n.p., quoted on Facebook, Dutch-Indonesian discussion group, June 2010) Many survivors of Japanese internment camps were forced to go on the run or stay in the camps with their former camp guards acting as protectors, until Allied forces could rescue them. In the twentieth century, Indonesians had suffered greatly through the economic depression of the 1930s and from the colonial repression of nationalist expression (McKay 1976, 136). Sukarno and Matta had been tried and imprisoned. For ordinary people, the hope that the Javanese prophecy of Jabayaya would come to pass must have seemed palpable by the time of the Pacific War (McKay 1976, 136). The Javanese prophecy essentially pictured the 'little yellow chicken' (the Japanese) driving out 'the white buffalo' (the Dutch), to make way for the rule of Ratu Adii (a rightful king) - though Sukarno claimed that he never directly exploited people's superstitions that he was Ratu Adii (McKay 1976, 136). During 1945-1949, while the new 'community' of Indonesia was being established, several hundred thousand people who had called the Dutch East Indies 'home' were now being forced to consider their fate. After 1949, most would have to leave Indonesia, never to return again; many reminisced in the years to come about tempo dulu (times past/paradise lost) in the place they sometimes referred to as 'the Belt of Emerald'. These traumatised migrants to countries such as the Netherlands, USA, Canada, New Zealand and Australia would often not explain more than fragments of their experiences to their children and grandchildren; they were silent for personal reasons or because of societal conditions in their adopted homelands. In my own case, my maternal family lived in what is now Indonesia for approximately 240 years, from the early nineteenth century until 1949. The family were composed primarily of Dutch men who married Dutch or German women and brought them to the colony, or who married or lived with Javanese women (Lutter 1992). I am also descended from Javanese Muslim Raden (royalty): both male and female ancestors who lived mostly in Jawa Tengah (Central Java) and Jawa Timur (East Java). …

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