1942, The Year of the Break

Abstract

There is every reason to consider 1942 rather than 1945 as the year of the great break and the beginning of a new period in the history of modern Indonesia.¹ It is true that Indonesia as a new state did not emerge before the end of the Japanese war in the Pacific, and that the birth of the Republic of Indonesia is officially dated August 17, 1945. However, the events of 1945 were a logical and also irrevocable consequence of the events of the preceding years; politically as well as spiritually there is continuity rather than a break in 1945. The Indonesian revolution really started in 1942. The radical change was brought about by the destruction of the Dutch colonial empire, the destruction especially of the image of the strong, invincible white man, the replacement of Western dominance by Asian power, the sudden boom of a national and personal self-confidence and self-awareness and the con-sciousness of being an important part of the largest continent of the world, rather than a mere overseas province of a small country on the North Sea. Japanese warfare and war propaganda purposely as well as unwittingly did everything to strengthen these sentiments and to prepare the Indonesian people for the explosion of freedom and nationalism in 1945; the fuel for this explosion had been accumulated in the previous years.