Echoes of the Past: Collective Memory of Dutch Colonialism in Three Indonesian Fictions (1990-2023)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1509.29Keywords:
Dutch colonialism, Dutch East Indies Company, collective memory, collective trauma, postmemoryAbstract
The extensive history of Dutch colonialism in Indonesia has resulted in complex traumatic memories. These practices include the deprivation of land rights, forced labour, and excessive taxation, which contribute to this narrative of conquest. The resultant trauma is not solely experienced on an individual level; entire societies can experience similar disruptions to their sociocultural fabric. By analyzing three cross-generational Indonesian fictional works (1990–2023)—Mayon Soetrisno’s Banda Neira (1995), E.S. Ito’s Rahasia Meede: Misteri Harta Karun VOC (2007), and Iksaka Banu’s Rasina (2023)—this study examines how the trauma of Dutch colonialism in Indonesia is preserved in the collective memory of Indonesian society. This research employs a close reading technique within a psycho-historical framework. The findings indicate that all three authors portray Dutch colonialism in Banda as genocidal. This genocide is framed as a systematic process in which colonial powers perpetuated cruel practices to dominate, exploit, and oppress the local population. These novels function as sites of memory, transmitting the legacy of colonial genocide in Indonesia. They symbolically reconstruct and disseminate the memory of the VOC’s centuries of brutality and cunning, enabling comprehension as the trauma is deeply embedded in cultural structures and transmitted across generations. Collectively, these works illustrate the role of literature in mediating past trauma to subsequent generations removed from direct experience of these events.
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