Books in English on the Indonesian Revolution are all too rare, so the re-appearance of John Coast's memoir is to be welcomed. John Coast (1916-1989), who spent most of his career as a theatrical agent, first came into contact with Indonesian culture as a prisoner of war, working on the infamous Burma railway. He was drawn to the music and dance performed by Indonesian prisoners as a form of camp entertainment. He also formed an extremely unfavourable impression of his fellow Dutch internees. As a result of this, he resolved that he would somehow make himself useful to the cause of Indonesian freedom once the war was over. On returning to the United Kingdom after the war's end, he based himself in London and made contact with any Indonesians he could. At this time, he produced a memoir of his experiences as a prisoner of war of the Japanese. He then managed to contrive his return to South East Asia, working for the British Embassy in Bangkok. He soon threw over his official role in favour of serving the beleaguered Indonesian Republic, organising flights into Republican-held territory and broadcasting on behalf of the Republic.
It is all too tempting to regard Coast's account of his time working for the Republic with scepticism in the light of Laurens van der Post's somewhat elaborate and unsubstantiated account of his own role during an earlier phase of the Indonesian independence struggle. This would be a mistake. For one thing, Coast's role is supported by a fair amount of documentary evidence, and the tone he adopts is altogether more modest and unassuming.
The memoir is suffused with a strong moral indignation at post-war Dutch policy in Indonesia. Coast was based in Republican territory between the first and second Dutch ‘police actions’ – military campaigns unleashed by the Dutch in 1947 and 1948. The first ‘police action’ saw the Dutch break out of the enclaves on Java and Sumatra which they had taken over from the British in 1946. The effect of this on Java was to box the Republic in to the area around Jogjakarta. In territory they held, the Dutch set about creating ‘federal states’ which would become component parts, they hoped, of a ‘United States of Indonesia’ which would effectively be under their control. In this they were ruthlessly exploiting ethnic differences such as those between Sundanese and Javanese on Java. There is a real sense in the book of the stranglehold imposed by the Dutch in the hope of extinguishing all opposition to their return to Indonesia. There are also fascinating pen-portraits of all the key figures in the Indonesian independence movement – Sukarno, Hatta, Sjahrir, Haji Agoes Salim, General Soedirman and many others. All ring true.
Another interesting feature of Coast's account is the way that a figure such as Anak Agung Gdé Agung, leader of the Dutch-sponsored State of East Indonesia, seemingly lost his nerve after the second Dutch ‘police action’, which saw the occupation of Jogjakarta and the incarceration of Sukarno and Hatta on Bangka Island, off Sumatra. For Agung, it would seem, this was a step too far. Although he was the leader of a state dubbed by nationalists ‘Negara Itoek Tuan’ (‘state which follows the leader’, i.e. the Dutch, a play on ‘Negara Indonesia Timoer’, or ‘State of East Indonesia’), he was not prepared to countenance the complete extinction of the Republic. Dutch soldiers and politicians, needless to say, emerge as dour, humourless and unbending.
There are a number of interesting appendices, the last of which being an essay broadcast in the 1950s in which Coast advocates the need for a new and better understanding between East and West in the wake of the failed colonial experiment. His argument that cultural exchanges are the best way to bring this about is hard to refute.
There are throughout the text helpful footnotes provided by the editor, Laura Noszlopy of Royal Holloway. These explain literary references which, sadly, may be less than familiar to modern readers, or provide the wider political context for the events Coast is describing, though whether Sir Stafford Cripps “laid the foundations of Britain's post-war economic prosperity” or whether Ernest Bevin “played an important role in Britain's gradual divestment of its empire” is open to interpretation.
In all, this is a lively and engaging narrative of a key phase in the Indonesian independence struggle by someone who was undoubtedly close to the key players. As such, it deserves to be read and enjoyed both by specialists and general readers.
