Remembering, forgetting and commemorating

As the national commemoration of WWII in the Netherlands on 4 and 5 May approaches, it is always important to remember that the war still lasted until 15 August 1945 in Indonesia, then ta Dutch colony that had been occupied by Japanese forces from March 1942.  As the interest and attention for WWII developed and more stories came to the surface,  we can distinguish different responses within the various sections of society. There are those that welcome new stories as being valuable additions, nuances and even corrections to existing narratives. One might call these reacties in line with the concept of multidirectional memory, put forward by professor Michael Rothberg. Others, however, seem to think more from a zero sum perspective where new stories are endangering the position of the same existing narratives.

But even when it we talk about WWII in the Indonesian archipelago, a process of decolonization is still unfinished. As stories and experiences of Europeans - white and those of mixed descent - have dominated the narrative and image for a long time, more space is now demanded (and to be fair: increasingly given) for stories of non-Western inhabitants of the colony. In this respect, the project aimed to locate and gather WWII heritage of Maluku and Papua, two regions in the eastern part of the archipelago, aims to contribute to this widening of the view. So check out the website: https://malukupapua1942-1945.nl