Di Balik Bendera Persatuan – Behind the Banner of Unity
Roaming Parisian streets in the 1920s they were still young and inexperienced, but they would form the core of a new generation of Indonesian activists that would eventually wrest Indonesia’s national independence from Dutch colonial hands.
In Di Balik Bendera Persatuan, which is translated and introduced by Joss Wibisono, NIOD-researcher Klaas Stutje describes the student years of Mohammad Hatta, Sutan Syahrir and other renowned students of the Perhimpoenan Indonesia in the Netherlands. They used their stay in interwar Europe to establish contacts with anticolonial movements and activists in several European cities. Following the adventures of a few Indonesian students, this book explores their encounters with organisations like the Indian National Congress, the Chinese Guomindang Party and the League against Imperialism. It demonstrates that the political awakening of Indonesian elites in the interwar period should be understood in a global context of anticolonial struggles.
