Indonesian History Lesson

 

We’re at sea today. Our lecturer gave us a lesson on Indonesian History. The word comes from Greek meaning “Indian Island”. In 1891, a partial skull, tooth, and leg bone were found here  1 to 1.7 million years old, homo erectus which went extinct about 100,000 years ago. About the 8^th century, wet field rice cultivation was discovered, allowing 2 to 3 harvests per year compare to on harvest of dry field rice. The first kingdoms were established in the 1^st century AD. The most important kingdom was the Majahpahit from 1292 to 1527. Trade with India and China became important. Buddhism came with the trade. This was followed by the introduction of Hinduism, Then in the 13^th century, the Moslem faith became predominant.

In the 16^th century, the Portuguese, Spanish, English, and Dutch came searching for spices to flavor their bland food. The heart of the spice islands was the Maluku islands of Indonesia. The Dutch East India company was established in 1610. The Dutch government took over the company in 1800. They found that to stay profitable, they required 20% of the farm land to be used for export crops like coffee, sugar, tea, and peppers. The Dutch treatment of the natives was cruel and led to starvation. In the early 1900’s movements for independence started to form. But in January 1942, the Japanese invaded making things much worse. The population declined for the first time during those war years. The Japanese sent many Indonesians as forced labor on the “Burma Railway” linking Thailand and Burma.  Eventually after the Japanese understood they were going to lose the war. They began training the Indonesians as an army and as government elite who could run the country. The Dutch expected to take back the country but accepted Indonesian independence in 1949. General Sukarno became its first president with an established parliament. In 1957, he introduced guided democracy, reducing the Parliament’s power. He joined the non-aligned nations trying to balance East and West. But foreign aid from the west was reduced and the economy had super inflation. In 1967, General Suharto toppled Sukarno and ruled for 30 years. During the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997 and 1998, there were massive riots and democracy returned. Indonesia is now the third largest democracy.