Cees Fasseur and his critics

Dissenting voices have been underrepresented in the post-war debates on colonialism and its legacy for decades. One of the main reasons for this omission is that the notion of the objective historian…


Rachmad Koesoemobroto: fighting for freedom, a life imprisoned

Stories of Indonesian anti-German resistance fighters in the Netherlands, such as the story of Rachmad Koesoemobroto (1914-1997), have to date not attracted much publicity in the Netherlands.…


Siebe Lijftogt: a critical voice branded a traitor

Former resistance fighter and Indonesian civil servant Siebe Lijftogt (1919-2005) challenged the narrative of a Netherlands that was on the right side of history during the Indonesian independence…


Sutan Sjahrir: Indonesian revolutionary

In 1935 the twenty-six-year-old revolutionary Sutan Sjahrir sailed, together with several other prisoners and some guards, onto a brown-yellow river in the New Guinean jungle. The group was on their…


Research journalism and the need for dissenting sources

Anne-Lot Hoek wrote a personal reflection on becoming involved in the subject of the decolonization of Indonesia and Dutch colonialism as a research journalist. Trained as a historian she started…