Template talk:History of Indonesia

Dutch East Indies

Why does Dutch East Indies ends at 1945? Japanese defeated the dutch in 1942. Peace. --Nielswik_(talk) 04:54, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

My guess would be that 1945 represents the official end upon proclamation of Indonesian independence. The Japanese occupation was considered illegal (hence the term occupation). Although the legality of the Dutch East Indies could also be questioned, it is a lot more accepted as official (even if not legitimate) than say the Japanese occupation. When did the Japanese relinquishe control of "Indonesia" and who did they relinquish it to? Dutch or Indonesia? Was it on August 15? But, it probably isn't that important. --Merbabu 05:19, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

japan did not relinquish to anyone. Peace. --Nielswik_(talk) 08:18, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

and where is entry about Portuguese occupation? (it should bebefore dutch). Peace. --Nielswik_(talk) 08:18, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

About Kingdoms of Sunda

User:Merbabu wrote in his change history: "Kingdoms of Sunda are actually pretty minor anyway and probably should be removed)". I'm asking what is meant with 'minor' here? As per history books taught in elementary schools in Indonesia, these kingdoms have quite important influence to the history of Indonesia. They produced early texts (in statues and leaves) about early situations. They also involved in the conflicts between Western countries (Portuguese and Netherland) and the new emerging Sultanates (Banten/Demak/Cirebon). They had up- and down relations with eastern Javanese kingdoms like Majapahit. Even the founder of Majapahit, Raden Wijaya, is also a grandchild of a Kingdoms in Sunda. So I don't see why it is not important. DiN (talk) 12:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me the "Kingdoms of Sunda" article is too much of a synthesis. The term doesn't seem to be used in the Indonesian literature : search books.google.com to see. I can't find it used in the Indonesian history books I have. The other links on this infobox are for specific kingdoms, not some collection of kingdoms grouped together. We don't have "Kingsdoms of Sumatra" or "Javanese Kingdoms", why should this be different? Furthermore because its a grouping of "kingdoms" over a very long time period it doesn't belong in the pre-Islam history section. (Caniago (talk) 16:25, 11 February 2008 (UTC))

At first time I saw the term "Kingdoms of Sunda" eases us to enter into articles about kingdoms in this Sundanese/West Javanese area. However, if you want to remove it as a group, in this template we shall mention Tarumanagara (358-723 AD) which provided us with early historical texts. We shall mention also Kingdom of Sunda like it was written by Tome Pires or Thomas Raffles (which available at books.google.com). This kingdom alone has time span 669-1579 AD, from the first till last king, enough to cover Hindu and Islam era. At the end of its existence, it had about 300 years long conflict with the Islamic sultanate of Banten (if we consider the start of Banten). It had controlled important port "Sunda Kalapa" (now Jakarta) although later lost it. It also had allied with Portugese during the conflict. etc.

I'll talk to author of Kingdoms of Sunda to align or split the article. From the time span POV, Kingdom of Sunda lived longer than, e.g. Kingdom of Mataram (Hindu) (752-1045 AD) - DiN (talk) 17:29, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Heading: "Colonial Indonesia" => "European colonialism"

I changed "Colonial Indonesia" to "European colonialism" the other day for a few specific reasons. It got changed back, in good faith, but I strongly believe we should use European colonialism. It's a question of accuracy.

• Firstly, colonialism means different things; by putting the word "European" we are being very specific and thus more accurate and helpful. (No need to write "Indonesia", we know it's Indonesia). There are people who would suggest that Europeans weren't the first colonialists (ie, there was Majapahit, Srivijaya)) and that Europeans weren't the last - many say that Java are colonising the rest of Indonesia, or at least that Indonesian is colonising Western New Guinea, or that the United States and the west are bringing a kind of neo-colonialism. But, even without these controversial POV issues, I still think "European colonialism" is better as it is more specific and helpful. Those pages are specifically talking about Europeans.
• Secondly, Colonial Indonesia implies that Indonesia, and all of Indonesia, was a stable and secure colony during this whole time - that's not the case. Portuguese influence was limited to very specific and small areas of Indonesia. Dutch control inf the 16th and 17th was limited to a minority of the territory. Even in the early 19th century, only half (or less) a minority of Indonesia was under Dutch rule, and much of this was tenuously held. It was only in the early twentieth century that all the territory that is now Indonesia came under Dutch rule.

It's a question of the subtlety of the English language, and we need to be very careful that we leave the correct impression and be specific such that we don't imply something that isn't quite correct. Kind regards --Merbabu (talk) 03:03, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

No, Colonial Indonesia is much more common, because some other national historical periods also use this heading, example Colonial Chad, Colonial Cambodia, Zambia, Zimbabwe. Cambodia is a good example, because although France made the country a protectorate in 1863, but not until 1887 or the early 20th century that the whole country was completely under French control, yet this entire period (1863-1953) still described as colonial. 96.229.179.106 (talk) 04:49, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

That other country articles do it is no reason to do it here - particularly when it is a poorer result. It might work for another country (and it might be wrong for another country), but that is irrelevant. Wikipedia does not have to uniform, particularly if it decreases accuracy and information. Please address my other points instead. thanks. --Merbabu (talk) 04:52, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

How about Colonial Era or Colonial Period? 96.229.179.106 (talk) 06:09, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Why is that an improvement? It has the same problems I described for "Colonial Indonesia" See my first point. The key is "European" --Merbabu (talk) 06:33, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Well then European Colonization. 96.229.179.106 (talk) 03:33, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

That's an improvement, but "colonisation" is subtly different to "colonialism". The first is very specific and implies a fix, official state over the whole period (which was not the case), while the second is a bit more vague and thus fits all the different types, stages, and extents of European colonialism. Again, it boils down to the subtlties of English. I hope you understand. Thanks for your interest. On another issue, I've added to the {{History of East Timor}} template you created. SOme new articles were created including Indonesian occupation of East Timor - although I created it, 99% of it was written by another editor and it is excellent. Thanks for the template. --Merbabu (talk) 03:41, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Mongol invasion

Add Mongol invasion of Java into template, maybe? Kinh Duong Vuong (talk) 06:28, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

No. This template shows major periods of time or events with lasting impact. This meets niether of these criteria. If we did put it in, then there would be dozens (hundreds?) of other items that could also go in. --Merbabu (talk) 07:02, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

The Images

User:Merbabu,User:Caniago: I'm asking you what about consistency come into with this whole articles Creptes (talk) 14:30, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Template talk pages are not the best place for a conversation about such issues - please try the project page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Indonesia - and try to make sure your english is saying what you are trying to say - very clearly SatuSuro 14:33, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

March 2009 change...

Discussion about the changes as part of an apparent consensus to an obligatory(!?!) standardisation of templates is here. --Merbabu (talk) 11:54, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Do "we" need the "quotes"?

First they appeared around "New Order", and later around "Guided Democracy". Anybody know why? Everybody else seems to have referred to these eras by those terms, without expressing agreement with what went on during them. And what about "Reformasi". Surelu italics and quotes is rather overdoing it. How about just italics? Davidelit (Talk) 16:01, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I was probably responsible for that. From memory, my thinking was Guided Democracy, New Order, and Reformasi are all labels applied to a period by partisan participants (ie, Sukarno, Suharto, and democracy advocates along with the media, respectively) – and therefore they inherently contain a degree of bias and POV. Indeed, there were debates over whether “Reformasi” was actually appropriate – the argument was over whether there was significant change after Suharto’s resignation (I know, I know).

Having said that, I’m personally happy with the three terms remaining in the template, and for them not to have quotation. The only one I question is while “Reformasi” can suffice for now, I wonder whether we can find a better term for post 1998 Indonesia? --Merbabu (talk) 23:04, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Periodization restructuring

Recently I have thought of rearranging the periodization in this template to better reflect current academic consensus. The current one (more or less) follows the rather outdated periodization in the Indonesian national history textbooks, especially in dividing the premodern era into "Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms" and "Islamic sultanates" period. My biggest objection with these terms is that they don't apply to most of Indonesia (let alone the whole area) during the periods they are supposed to represent. For example, the islands east of Borneo and Sumbawa never had any Indianized polities whatsoever. Pasai had entered the Islamic period in late 1200s, while Gowa only entered it in early 1600s. On the other hand, Bali retained Hindu culture up until now. In addition, a good chunk of population in inland Sumatra and Borneo as well as several parts of Eastern Indonesia never entered "Islamic sultanates" period at all. The usage of hyphenated term "Hindu-Buddhist" is also not uncontroversial, and while many Indonesian Islamic states were sultanates, not all of them were (hence calling the period of their emergence as an era of "Islamic sultanates" is rather misleading). The addition of a "Christian kingdom" category (which is completely unattested as a periodization of Indonesian history) only make it worse. All in all, it seems to me that we better abandon these religion-based periodizations and use more neutral terms.

What I have in mind is to restructure the periods up to Indonesian independence into the following:

• Prehistory (up to 400 CE)
• (Emergence of) early states (400s–700s)
• Classical period (700s–1400s)
• (not sure what name fits best here, but Reid's "Age of Commerce" came to mind) (1400s–1600s)
• Early modern period (1600s–1800s)
• Imperial colonization (1800s–1945)

I use "early states" for polities supported by archaeological evidence and contemporary historical records (Salakanagara won't fit into this category btw, because it is more of a legendary kingdom, only appearing in a much later manuscript of dubious provenance). The usage of the term "classical" for the period between 7th/8th to 15th/16th century is quite well-attested among historians of Indonesia, with some dividing it further into early (600s–900s), middle (900s–1200s) and late (1200s–1500s) classical periods. The transitional period between the 15th and 17th century is important in that Indonesian and Southeast Asian polities during this time became increasingly connected to the Eurasian world. Islam also started to gain foothold across the Archipelago, and regular contacts with Europe established. In the early modern period one can see a decline in native commerce and an increasing encroachment of European traders and colonizers. However, it wasn't until 1800s that the "real" colonization of most part of Indonesia began. Colonization was a gradual process, and as late as early 1900s, there were still Indonesian polities that are (at least nominally) independent from European colonization.

Alternatively, we can ignore the 1400–1600 transitional period and put the boundary between the classical and early modern periods at 1500, following the popular division, but to me there are too many continuation between 1400s and 1500s that putting a hard boundary between them is rather misleading. But that's my personal opinion anyway. Pinging @Austronesier @Gunkarta @Merbabu @HaEr48

Masjawad99^💬 08:47, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

I'll defer to others, and I note that the template does not necessarily imply that those headings are periodization. It is just saying, here are some articles about the history of Indonesia grouped by some topical headings. But sure it could be taken that way. I have no strong opinion either way. HaEr48 (talk) 20:22, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

@HaEr48: The reason why I think that the headings were intended to be period-based instead of exclusively topic-based is because the most stable version of the headings (used since 2007[1]) had used "early kingdoms" and "rise of Muslim states" before they were renamed to "Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms" in late 2016[2] and "Islamic sultanates" in early 2020[3], respectively. Masjawad99^💬 06:50, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

This template doesn't have many watchers, so I have notified other potentially interested users in the Project page. Still thinking what to with it... –Austronesier (talk) 11:56, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

The big problem with the indonesia project is that for the first 5 years or so we had an eclectic mix of editors who in their own way created what exists - the big problem was we then had a range of Indonesian editors provide some useful orientations where their 'kingdoms' and regional polities might not fit into accepted current scholarship - nevertheless - there are quite a few issues that probably need some considered discussion... The project as is has very few watchers, and also very few participants - there is some responsibility required to have a well thought out improvement... JarrahTree 12:35, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Caption

Can anyone add something to the template so it can generate captions for the image? Mhatopzz (talk) 09:03, 30 August 2021 (UTC)