So Weak, So Seventeenth Century

Carol Anderson

doi:10.1017/CBO9781139032544.005

4 - So Weak, So Seventeenth Century

Indonesia and the Domestic Jurisdiction of Dutch Colonialism

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2014

Carol Anderson

Show author details

Carol Anderson: Affiliation:
Emory University, Atlanta

Book contents

Get access

Summary

“In the case of the ... Dutch ... colonies” any plans for eventual equality “cannot be carried out if these areas ... continue to be regarded as territory for trade, industry and investment to be carried on primarily for the benefit of non-resident Europeans without making the economic and social interests of the inhabitants of the colonies of first and continuous importance.”

– NAACP Colonial Conference, 1945

At the same time that the NAACP was helping with the battle against colonialism on the African continent – not to mention fighting Jim Crow at home – the Association’s attention was drawn to the Indonesians’ epic struggle for freedom, which was taking place more than 10,000 miles away in Southeast Asia. Because this battle played out primarily in the Security Council, which was less amenable to the suasion of appointed representatives and the lobbying of other delegations in the halls, the NAACP did not and could not play as direct a role.

Nonetheless, this did not signal impotency. On the contrary, the Association adopted a strategy that was an essential component in the campaign for Indonesian independence. Working closely with an interlocked network of NGOs, such as the Post-War World Council, the ILRM, and the India League, the NAACP identified the key weakness in Holland’s colonial argument (domestic jurisdiction) and the necessary levers (the Marshall Plan and public opinion) to knock the imperial power off its stride. Of course, the confluence of interests – major pillars of U.S. foreign policy threatened, a seemingly viable nationalist alternative to indigenous Communists, and the Netherlands’ uncanny ability to anger allies and enemies alike – was incredibly fortuitous and necessary. But without the mobilization of an enraged public that vented its disbelief when U.S. funds intended for rebuilding Nazi-ravaged democracies were actually being used in the destruction of a viable Republic, the State Department would have had neither the leverage nor probably the will to take the tough stand that eventually broke the Dutch refusal to negotiate.

Type: Chapter
Information: Bourgeois Radicals
The NAACP and the Struggle for Colonial Liberation, 1941–1960
, pp. 204 - 267

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139032544.005 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Foster, Anne L., “Avoiding the ‘Rank of Denmark’: Dutch Fears about Loss of Empire in Southeast Asia,” Connecting Histories: Decolonization and the Cold War in Southeast Asia, 1945–1962, eds. Goscha, Christopher E and Ostermann, Christian F, Cold War International History Project (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press; Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009), 76Google Scholar

Tanaka, Toshiyuki, Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II, foreword by Dower, John W. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996), 11–78Google Scholar

Jordan, David, “‘A Particularly Exacting Operation’: British Forces and the Battle of Surabaya, November 1945,” Small Wars and Insurgencies, 11, no. 3 (Winter 2000), 90CrossRef Google Scholar

Van Der Eng, Pierre, “Marshall Aid as a Catalyst in the Decolonization of Indonesia, 1947–49,” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 19, no. 2 (September 1988), 336.CrossRef Google Scholar

Gouda, Frances, American Visions of the Netherlands East Indies/Indonesia: US Foreign Policy and Indonesia Nationalism, 1920–1949, with Thijs Brocades Zaalberg (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2002), 124–125

Wiebes, Cees and Zeeman, Bert, “United States’ ‘Big Stick’ Diplomacy: The Netherlands between Decolonization and Alignment, 1945–1949,” International History Review, 14, no. 1 (February 1992), 47CrossRef Google Scholar

Newsinger, John, “A Forgotten War: British Intervention in Indonesia, 1945–46,” Race and Class, 3, no. 4 (1989), 51CrossRef Google Scholar

Grant, Philip A. Jr., “President Harry S. Truman and the British Loan Act of 1946,” Presidential Studies Quarterly, 25, no. 3, Civil Rights and Presidential Leadership (Summer 1995), 490–491Google Scholar

Polk, Judd and Patterson, Gardner, “The British Loan,” Foreign Affairs, 24, no. 3 (April 1946), 431CrossRef Google Scholar

Leffler, Melvyn P., A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War, Stanford Nuclear Age Series, ed. Sherwin, Martin (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992), 62–63Google Scholar

Guinier, Lani and Torres, Gerald, The Miner’s Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002)Google Scholar

Hogan, Michael J., The Marshall Plan: America, Britain, and the Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947–1952 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 26–53CrossRef Google Scholar

Hogan, , A Cross of Iron: Harry S. Truman and the Origins of the National Security State, 1945–1954 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 89–95CrossRef Google Scholar

Jessup, Philip C., The Birth of Nations (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974), 44Google Scholar

Leffler, Melvyn P., For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War (New York: Hill & Wang, 2007), 11–83Google Scholar

De La Fuente, Alejandro, “The New Afro-Cuban Cultural Movement and the Debate on Race in Contemporary Cuba,” Journal of Latin American Studies, 40, no. 4, (2008), 697–720CrossRef Google Scholar

Beato, Lucila Bandeira, “Inequality and Human Rights of African Descendants in Brazil,” Journal of Black Studies, 34, no. 6 (July 2004), 766–786CrossRef Google Scholar

Harrison, Faye V., “The Persistent Power of ‘Race’ in the Cultural and Political Economy of Racism,” Annual Review of Anthropology, 24 (1995), 47–74CrossRef Google Scholar

Homan, Gerlof D., “The Netherlands, the United States and the Indonesian Question, 1948,” Journal of Contemporary History 25, no. 1 (January 1990), 127CrossRef Google Scholar

Bell, Derrick A. Jr., “Brown v. Board of Education and the Interest-Convergence Dilemma,” Harvard Law Review, 93, no. 3 (January 1980), 518–533CrossRef Google Scholar

Hatta, Mohammad, “Indonesia’s Foreign Policy,” Foreign Affairs, 31, no. 3 (April 1953), 441–452CrossRef Google Scholar

Crosby, Emilye, A Little Taste of Freedom: The Black Freedom Struggle in Claiborne County, Mississippi (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 199CrossRef Google Scholar

Book contents

4 - So Weak, So Seventeenth Century

Summary

Access options

References

Save book to Kindle

Save book to Dropbox

Save book to Google Drive