'Gathered on the point of a bayonet' : the Negara Pasundan and the colonial defence of Indonesia, 1946-50'

Published online: 06 Sep 2016The article is a revised version of a chapter [2] of the author’s EUI PhD thesis, 201

'Collaboration is a very delicate concept' : alliance-formation and the colonial defence of Indonesia and Malaysia, 1945-1957

Defence date: 8 May 2017Examining Board: Professor A. Dirk Moses, EUI (Supervisor); Professor L. Riall, EUI; Professor M. Thomas, University of Exeter (external adviser); Professor P. Romijn, NOID Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies'Collaboration is a Very Delicate Concept : Alliance-formation and the Wars of Independence in Indonesia and Malaysia, 1945-1957' is a case study in the interface between late colonial empires and colonized societies. Unlike traditional studies that continue to focus on British or Dutch (military-political) efforts to open specific avenues towards independence, the thesis analyses how local elites, their constituencies or individuals determined and navigated their own course— through violent insurgencies—towards independence. The thesis dispenses with (colonial) notions of ‘loyalty’ and ‘colonizedcolonizer’. Instead, it takes the much more fluid concept of local allianceformation and combines it with theories on territorial control to elucidate why certain individuals or groups co-operated with colonial authorities one moment only to switch to the freedom fighters’ side the next. In showing the complexities and ambiguities of association, the thesis advocates and executes an agenda that transcends the narrow politicaldiplomatic scope of decolonization to restore the agency and motivations of local political parties, communities and individuals. The red thread throughout the thesis, then, is that Indonesians, Chinese and Malays pursued their own, narrow—often violent—interests to survive and secure a (political) future beyond decolonization. Ultimately, the limits of alliance-formation are probed. The search for territorial control by colonial and anti-colonial forces necessitated zero-sum outcomes to pre-empt alliance breakdowns. As such, coercion remained the major motivational force during decolonization: coercion local communities participated in more than has been hitherto acknowledged in relation to the decolonization of Southeast Asia.Chapter 2 ‘Collaboration is a Very Delicate Concept’: The Negara Pasundan and the Malayan Chinese Association' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'Gathered on the Point of a Bayonet': The Negara Pasundan and the Colonial Defence of Indonesia, 1946-50' in the journal ‘International history review

‘Who Wants to Cover Everything, Covers Nothing’: The organization of indigenous security forces in Indonesia, 1945–50

This article analyses the way in which the Dutch colonial authorities, notably the military, tried to organize their defence forces, state-owned and auxiliary, in the teeth of growing Indonesian resistance against re-instituted Dutch domination between 1945 and 1950. It will focus mainly on the indigenous Plantation Guard, a static defence force designed to protect the plantations that were considered vital to a successful Dutch return to Indonesia. Attempts to stifle the resistance came down heavily on the military side: the authorities, with the help of the planters' community in Indonesia, established one security force after another, dominated by the military. They ultimately created a security matrix they could not control as the parties concerned squabbled over who was to ‘own’ the security forces. In the end, the resulting disunity benefited the insurgents, leaving those Indonesians perceived to be collaborating with the Dutch unprotected and vulnerable

Indrukken van de microdynamiek van revolutionair en contrarevolutionair geweld. Bewijs uit laat-koloniaal Zuidoost-Azië en Afrika vergeleken

Based on a comparison of decolonisation conflicts in Southeast Asia and Africa, in this contribution, Roel Frakking and Martin Thomas study the local population’s experience of revolutionary and counter-revolutionary violence. The authors approach the microdynamics of violence based on concepts of political violence developed in the context of research into civil wars. The microdynamics of violence are studied by means of three themes. The first concerns the striking asymmetry in power relationships that typify decolonisation conflicts, dealing with various violence strategies. The second theme is the nature and composition of locally recruited paramilitary groups that were involved in much of the local violence studied here. Making a target of the local population, who were not involved in the acts of war, but whose status as ‘citizens’ acutely exposed them to violence, is the third theme. From these themes, the authors distil the concept of ‘internal border areas’. They argue that these areas were ‘grey areas’, in which the power of the colonial state became fragmented. It was in precisely these areas that the state security forces and their adversaries were involved in the most violent clashes in their attempts to enforce the local population’s cooperation, and hence obtain structural social control.   In deze bijdrage bestuderen Roel Frakking en Martin Thomas de ervaringen van de lokale bevolking met revolutionair en contrarevolutionair geweld aan de hand van een vergelijking tussen dekolonisatieconflicten in Zuidoost-Azië en Afrika. Zij benaderen deze microdynamiek van geweld aan de hand van concepten van politiek geweld die in onderzoek naar burgeroorlogen zijn ontwikkeld. De microdynamiek van geweld wordt door middel van drie thema’s bestudeerd. Het eerste thema handelt over de opvallende asymmetrie in krachtverhoudingen kenmerkend voor dekolonisatieconflicten, waarbij verschillende geweldsstrategieën aan bod komen. Het tweede thema is de aard en de samenstelling van lokaal gerekruteerde paramilitairen die bij veel van het hier bestudeerde lokale geweld betrokken waren. Het tot doelwit maken van de lokale bevolking die niet bij oorlogshandelingen betrokken was, maar wiens status van ‘burger’ haar acuut blootstelde aan geweld, is het derde thema. Vanuit deze thema’s destilleren zij het concept van ‘interne grensgebieden’ of ‘binnengrenzen’. Deze gebieden, zo beargumenteren zij, waren grijze gebieden, waarin de macht van de koloniale staat versnipperde. Het was juist in deze gebieden waar veiligheidstroepen van de staat en diegenen die hen bestreden het hardst botsten in hun pogingen om medewerking van de lokale bevolking, en daarmee structurele sociale controle, af te dwingen

Indrukken van de microdynamiek van revolutionair en contrarevolutionair geweld: Bewijs uit laat-koloniaal Zuidoost-Azië en Afrika vergeleken

Based on a comparison of decolonisation conflicts in Southeast Asia and Africa, in this contribution, Roel Frakking and Martin Thomas study the local population's experience of revolutionary and counter-revolutionary violence. The authors approach the microdynamics of violence based on concepts of political violence developed in the context of research into civil wars. The microdynamics of violence are studied by means of three themes. The first concerns the striking asymmetry in power relationships that typify decolonisation conflicts, dealing with various violence strategies. The second theme is the nature and composition of locally recruited paramilitary groups that were involved in much of the local violence studied here. Making a target of the local population, who were not involved in the acts of war, but whose status as 'citizens' acutely exposed them to violence, is the third theme. From these themes, the authors distil the concept of 'internal border areas'. They argue that these areas were 'grey areas', in which the power of the colonial state became fragmented. It was in precisely these areas that the state security forces and their adversaries were involved in the most violent clashes in their attempts to enforce the local population's cooperation, and hence obtain structural social control