Description
Book SynopsisBeyond Borders: Indians, Australians and the Indonesian Revolution, 1939 to 1950 rediscovers an intense internationalism — and charts its loss — in the Indonesian Revolution. Momentous far beyond Indonesia itself, and not just for elites, generals, or diplomats, the Indonesian anti-colonial struggle from 1945 to 1949 also became a powerful symbol of hope at the most grassroots levels in India and Australia. As the news flashed across crumbling colonial borders by cable, radio, and photograph, ordinary men and women became caught up in in the struggle. Whether seamen, soldiers, journalists, activists, and merchants, Indonesian independence inspired all of them to challenge colonialism and racism. And the outcomes were made into myths in each country through films, memoirs, and civic commemorations. But as heroes were remembered, or invented, this 1940s internationalism was buried behind the hardening borders of new nations and hostile Cold War blocs, only to reemerge as the basis for the globalisation of later years.
Table of ContentsPreface Glossary Abbreviations Part I: Seeing the Region 1 Everybody's Revolution 2 Connections and Mobility Part II: An Asian War 3 Dangerous Oceans: Merchant Seamen and War 4 Home and Away: Invaded, Under Arms or Exiled 5 Sharing the Home Front: Wartime Australia as Transnational Space Part III: The Boycott of Dutch Shipping 6 Boycotting Colonialism: Supporting Indonesian Independence in Australia 7 Seeing the Boycott in the Australian Press 8 Indian Perspectives: The Boycott as Anti-Colonialism Part IV: Fighting Two Empires 9 'Surabaya Burns': Assault on a Republican city 10 Frenzied Fanatics: Seeing Surabaya in Australia 11 The Acid Test: Seeing Surabaya in India Part V: Aftermath 12 Breaking the Boycott 13 Trading for Freedom 14 Transnational Visions Part VI: Reflections 15 Remembering Heroes Bibliography Index
