On genocide and mass violence in colonial Indonesia

Abstract

This article discusses many topics that appear in this issue of the Journal of Genocide Research. It concentrates on the issues of colonial violence, the killings during the decolonization war and on the memories of violence in Indonesia and the Netherlands. It emphasizes the genocidal quality of colonial murderousness. It is argued that many colonial wars had strong genocidal overtones. The colonial situation was favourable to the deployment of extreme violence against indigenous people. Despite emerging humanitarian concerns in Western societies, colonial violence remained by and large free of their influence. This stretched as far as the war of decolonization, an extremely violent episode that defies clear characterization, but which fomented genocidal and other kinds of extreme violence from various contenders. Lastly, the article argues that the neglect of colonial violence in postwar memories in Indonesia and the Netherlands was stimulated by the special character of colonial cultural memory.