The Nationalist Quest for an Indonesian Past

Abstract

This symposium has constantly reminded us that perceptions of the future and the past are interdependent. Modern nationalisms have been no exception in their synchronic reassessments of history and national destiny. What does surprise is the relative slowness of Indonesian nationalism to develop this reassessment into a complete history. Not until the period of Japanese military rule did a substantial national history by an Indonesian appear in the form of Sanusi Pane's Sedjarah Indonesia, reprinted many times since as a standard textbook. At least one brief history appeared earlier in Padang, Ringkasan Sedjarah Indonesia, produced in 1938 by two little-known young men. The hazards of the undertaking were well brought out by one nationalist reviewer who complained that a reader might reasonably ask whether it was written by a foreigner. Faithfully following the pattern established by the standard Dutch textbook, Eijkman & Stapel, the writers had clearly failed to develop a picture of the past to match Indonesia's growing faith in its national future. 1 A similar reception appears to have greeted the more scholarly Riwajat Indonesia of Poerbatjaraka in 1952.