The Revolution Will (Not?) Be Colourised: Photographs from the Indonesian National Revolution (1945–49) on Social Media

Abstract

This article critically reflects on the practice of colourisation in present-day recirculations of photographs originally made during the armed Indonesian struggle for independence from Dutch colonial rule (1945–49). The article focuses on digital colour manipulations of photographs disseminated on social media platforms to address ethical and methodological debates dividing academic and amateur historians on the modification of historic photographs. I compare the notable lack of controversy around colourised photographs that show the violence of the Indonesian National Revolution to the heated debates kindled by manipulated images of victims of the Holocaust and the Khmer Rouge regime. ‘Genocide’ arguably remains a special category for determining whether conflict photographs can be modified. I show how Indonesian colourisers fail to interrogate the propaganda origins of the Dutch-made photographs they circulate on social media. For Indonesian social media users, however, deep context and detailed metadata for such photographs are less relevant for generating meaning than debates about how such photographs connect to the unfinished projects of decolonisation in the Netherlands and Indonesia.