Representing The Japanese Occupation Of Indonesia

Rather than a history of the war and occupation of Indonesia during the years 1942-1945, Representing the Japanese Occupation of Indonesia offers a survey of the way in which Indonesia, Japan, and the Netherlands have shaped the memory of that episode. Comparison of the memories in the three countries brings out the national patterns of memory. This volume gives an impression of the layered and pluriform nature of memory, and of the different forms of expression of memory, from the most personal level of oral testimony to the most public representation in monuments and films.

Following their invasion of Java on March 1, 1942, the Japanese began a process of Japanization of the archipelago, banning every remnant of Dutch rule. Over the next three years, more than 100,000 Dutch citizens were shipped to Japanese internment camps and more than four million romushas, forced Indonesian laborers, were enlisted in the Japanese war effort. The Japanese occupation stimulated the development of Indonesian independence movements. Headed by Sukarno, a longtime admirer of Japan, nationalist forces declared their independence on August 17, 1945. For Dutch citizens, Dutch-Indonesians or "Indos," and pro-Dutch Indonesians, Sukarno's declaration marked the beginning of a new wave of terror. These powerful and often poignant stories from survivors of the Japanese occupation and subsequent turmoil surrounding Indonesian independence provide one with a vivid portrait of the hardships faced during the period.

This collection of memoirs by the Japanese military police (the Kenpeitai) of World War II is often infuriating and frustrating (these disciplined and fanatical former officers freely terrorized and repressed the native populations of Southeast Asia for such crimes as Marxism, Islam, and nationalism). Yet they are documents of great historical significance. The men are self-deceiving and self-glorifying rather than apologetic or self-critical, but the reader is allowed a rare glimpse of what a mind or mind-set justifies to itself during a state of war. These memoirs (only certain Indonesian sections are published here) clarify obscure motives and historical moments of the events during the Pacific War and the Japanese occupation.

Written by an international team of researchers the Encyclopedia of Indonesia in the Pacific War presents a well-balanced view on the political, socio-economic and cultural developments in Indonesia in and around the complex period of Second World War. Choice’s Outstanding Academic Title 2010.

"Japan's Occupation of Java in the Second World War draws upon written and oral Japanese, Indonesian, Dutch and English-language sources to narrate the Japanese occupation of Java as a transnational intersection between two complex Asian societies, placing this narrative in a larger wartime context of domestic, regional, and global crisis. Japan's occupation of Java is here revealed in a radically new and nuanced light, as an ambiguous encounter revolutionary in the degree of mutual interests that drew the two sides together, fascinating and tragic in its evolution, and profound in the legacies left behind. Mark structures his study around a diverse group of Japanese and Indonesians captivated by the wartime vision of a 'Greater Asia.' The book is not only the first transnational study of Japan's wartime occupation of Java, but the first to focus on the Second World War experience in transnational terms 'on the ground' anywhere in Asia. Breaking new ground interpretatively, thematically and narratively, Mark's monumental study is of vital significance for students and scholars of modern Asian and global history."--Bloomsbury Publishing