| This dissertation examines the evolution, scope, and significance of the colonial discourse in the German-occupied Netherlands, as advanced by Dutch resisters writing in the country's extensive and influential clandestine press during the years of 1940-1945. In a testament to popular perceptions of empire, resisters and collaborators alike spent the first two years of the war lauding the nation's imperial past; as long as the Dutch East Indies remained intact, the Netherlands remained a great nation. Japan's invasion and subsequent occupation of the East Indies in early 1942 decisively changed the tenor of this colonial discourse. Henceforth, politically-leftist editors and writers in particular began to turn a more critical eye towards the Netherlands' imperial past, present, and future. Informed by their own experiences under foreign occupation, they prepared concrete colonial reforms, which they expected would be readily adopted after the war. The preferred arrangement of the leftist and centrist resisters was the creation of a Dutch commonwealth, based upon the British model; this commonwealth would facilitate a gradual, peaceful transition to Indonesian autonomy but preserve the international position of the Netherlands. Staunchly opposed to even minor colonial reforms were leading conservative Calvinist resisters, who would accept nothing less than the return of the pre-war status quo.; As the war drew to a close, leading clandestine organizations, working both individually and under the auspices of dedicated inter-resistance groups, launched extensive campaigns aimed at fostering a new imperial consciousness in the Netherlands. Their efforts were focused as much upon short-term concerns, such as the military liberation of the Indies, as they were upon more substantive aspects of this "Indies Question." Specifically, they aimed to convince the public of either the unequivocal necessity or folly of post-war colonial reform, which, in their view, was contingent upon whether the Indonesians were ready for self-rule. Ultimately, however, as explored in this dissertation, neither these resistance organizations nor their many plans, studies, and surveys would play a decisive role after liberation, and the process of decolonization in the Indies would prove far more violent and sudden than even the most prescient wartime resisters had expected. |
