Punitive Colonialism: The Dutch and the Indonesian National Integration

It is widely acknowledged that colonial experience has greatly affected the political development of ex-colonial countries. In particular, colonialism has often been regarded as the most important, if not the sole, basis of national integration in many of these countries. At the same time, the literature on political development still lacks a critical evaluation of the impact of colonial rule on these ex-colonies. The following essay is an initial assessment of the contribution of Dutch colonialism to the national political integration of Indonesia. Such an evaluation has not been explicitly made, even though the literature on Indonesia does not lack sweeping judgments by both Indonesian nationalists and the apologists for the Dutch “mission interrupted”.