Nationalist movements are typically total movements characterized by affectively charged values and demands of full commitment. Due to the spread of information they have become patterned reactions to stereotyped situations. They derive their dynamic psychological strength largely from a collective concern about the status of the group. Among the Ambonese mass demonstrations, the merging of religious and nationalistic ideologies and also rivalry and mutual accusations tended to keep attention focussed on the values of the movement. Impracticability of the aim caused its rapid decline. The primary problem: compensation for loss of status has to be solved now by realistic adjustments on a more individual basis, the success of which is to a large extent dependent on the general economic situation in the Netherlands. N ~ _ ATIONALIST movements in the modern world, while differing in specific details, exhibit similar patterns of thought and action. All place paramount importance on the ideology of national freedom; all are organized to achieve the objective of national sovereignty; and all are sustained by a set of myths which emphasize the sins of the enemy and the glories of the promised land. The ideological and organizational superstructures of such movements rest on an underpinning of social unrest whose causes may be legion but which, in general, appears to derive from concern about status insecurity. The Ambonese Nationalist Movement, here considered, has conformed to the patterning processes' distinctive of other nationalist movements. Like them, it has also been expressive of converging dissatisfactions, deriving its elan from an appeal to basic values embedded in the primary group. Some of the values revolve around and have continuous association with status imagery, both individual and collective. These values are affectively charged, particularly so because there was a recognized or imagined threat to the status of the group, which also became a threat to the individuals identifying with that collectivity. Reactions to past, present, and future events were manifest as intense preoccupation with status threats, deprivations, and aspirations, as evidenced by the behavior, expressions, and symbols involved in the movement. In this analysis we shall view the Ambonese Nationalist movement through the conceptual frame of reference of status deprivation, examining the proposition that collective concern about this deprivation, whether real or fancied, has provided the movement with a dynamic psychological strength sufficient to carry it along. BACKGROUND: TUE AMBONESE IN TUIE INDONESIAN