(4 of 6)
Umbrella & Bicycle. Soekarno's career well illustrates how intensely the natives felt about the Dutch. Soekarno rounded up thousands of his countrymen, who later died as Jap slave laborers in Borneo and New Guinea. Half a day after the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, he was still boasting that "thousands of Indonesian youths have entered the ranks of [Japanese] suicide squads." Yet when the Japanese Army proclaimed the Indonesian Republic (on Aug. 17, 1945, two days after Japan surrendered) and appointed Soekarno President, the Indonesians greeted him with acclaim.
Had the Allies landed immediately, Soekarno's career would have been cut short. But in the six weeks that elapsed before British troops, under Lieut. General Sir Philip Christison, arrived in Java, Soekarno had a chance to consolidate his "independent" government. Christison gave Soekarno another break by announcing, "I am not going to Java to return the country to the Dutch." Soekarno used this statement to build up his people's confidence that they could successfully resist the return of imperial rule. For 14 months the Republican Army fought British and Dutch occupation troops. By the time the British withdrew last month their casualties were 600 killed, 1,320 wounded and 320 missing.
The Indies Dutch, many of them jittery after years in Japanese concentration camps, underestimated the nationalist movement. One Dutch matron summed up their tragically mistaken attitude: "All the natives want from this world is three things: an umbrella, a pair of slippers and a bicycle." One conspicuous exception to this complacency was Dr. Hubertus van Mook, the urbane, Java-born diplomat, who returned to Java as Acting Governor General convinced that the Dutch had to make major concessions.
Valedictorian. Because van Mook at first had refused to treat with collaborators, Soekarno induced a rival native leader, Sjahrir, to become his Prime Minister—a move that turned out to be the smartest Soekarno ever made. Smoother and brighter than Soekarno, and with a clean anti-Japanese record, Sjahrir had everything—except the adulation of the Indonesian masses. Sjahrir quickly adjusted himself to the role of Soekarno's front man in Batavia, while Soekarno left Batavia for the cool hill city, Jogjakarta, where he could indulge both his love of comfort and his sense of historic irony. Soekarno luxuriated in the terraced, marble-floored mansion that once belonged to the Dutch Resident. Near the mansion are the ruins of Borobudur, the massive Buddhist temple where Java's kings worshiped eight centuries before the Dutch came to the archipelago.
Sjahrir (whose favorite author is Ernest Hemingway, and who sponsored American dancing parties for Javanese youngsters as a protest against Jap occupation) got along well with Westerners. He played tennis several times a week with British Consul General John MacKereth. When the British troops left last month, Sjahrir delivered a graceful but two-edged valedictory: "You introduced to our country by your personal qualities some attractive traits of Western culture that our people have rarely seen before from the white people they know. I mean your politeness, kindness, dignified self-restraint."
Asked van Mook: "What did you mean by that remark?"