From the Ramparts of Fort Victoria: Knowing Indonesia through a Distant Mirror

This paper arises from my longstanding attempt to understand Indonesia from an unusual standpoint. Many historians have sought to write regional histories, but explicitly or otherwise, such histories have usually been sympathetic to, or even part of, the Indonesian nationalist enterprise, even when based on colonial sources. Using examples from Ambon and Papua, this paper will argue that regional histories not only provide insights into particular regional societies, but also, by peering over the shoulders of the Papuan and Ambonese elites, facilitate more complex understanding about the making of independent Indonesia and the processes through which peoples throughout the Netherlands Indies came to think of themselves as Indonesians. It will examine the debates among Ambonese and Papuans about whether and in what ways they thought of themselves as Indonesians and whether they wanted their homelands to be part of Indonesia.