The State We're In, 4 December 2010. An Indonesian man survives the extermination of his village by Dutch forces and says why he’s not vengeful; Dutch soldiers talk about their participation in the massacres; and a man blows the whistle on Swiss banks and their shady dealings with Holocaust victims, and pays a huge price for it. Photo: graveyard at Rawagede where victims of the 1947 massacre lie.
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The lone survivor
On December 9, 1947, Dutch soldiers on Java, Indonesia walked into the village of Rawagede and massacred all the male inhabitants. Saih Bin Sakam was supposed to be one of the executed, but the bullet hit his hand. He kept still under a corpse for half an hour. Now, over 60 years later, he’s seeking compensation from the Dutch government. And he wants them to determine the worth of the lives they took.
More on the Indonesian War of Independence - A black page in Dutch history.
Holland's black page
Former Dutch soldiers who served in Indonesia back in the late 1940s reflect on what they saw and what they did and in some cases were forced to do.
What the night watchman saw
Christoph Meili was doing his rounds at a Swiss bank back in 1997 when he noticed something by the paper shredder. They were documents that implicated the bank in taking money from the accounts of Holocaust victims. So he did what he thought was the right thing: he blew the whistle. The result: the banks had to pay compensation to the descendants’ families. Christoph talks about what happened after he blew the whistle: he lost his job, his wife, and eventually returned to Switzerland where he faced public criticism. Yet he’d do it all again.
Erasing David
David Bond lives in the UK - one of the most intrusive surveillance states in the world. He put himself under surveillance and tried to make himself disappear. His chilling journey forced him to contemplate the meaning of privacy - and the loss of it.
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It is absolutely shocking that only a year or two after being liberated from the nazis,
the Dutch returned to Indonesia with the intent of continuing their former repression of the place.
The conduct of the current Dutch state is similar to the conduct of the current Japanese state,
that is a complete refusal to accept responsibility.
Holland perhaps even consciously after 1945 cultivated the happy go lucky image
of swinging Amsterdam, come enjoy our whores and hashish, get stoned,
go to the Rijksmuseum, and stay stoned so as never to ask about Indonesia or
South Africa.
Okay, you put a story on Radio Netherlands, fine, but where's the national
apology, okay that man from Indonesia doesn't care about an apology, he
wants what Holland owes him, reparations.
By the received wisdom, nobody was in the NSB, by the facts maybe
everybody was in the NSB.
Wonderful program! Just last night, i sent an email to a friend about the lengths some people, groups, nations will go to in order to maintain the wealth, benefits, and privileges they have, no matter how gained. Now i've sent her a link to this program so she can understand better. I do fear for the future of our world with those in favor of unmitigated capitalism gaining ascendancy all over the world. The "Me Generation" has grown up -- terribly.
Listened for the first time today.
The story of Swiss "whistle blower" Christof Meili was stunning, unforgettable. Even though I recalled the events, hearing the tale from the man who lived it was better than any news of the day. Thank you.!
Amazing story from Indonesia. The translations in the story were pretty accurate from Indonesian to English. But the language has been modified to meet your style of conversation better. I'm married to an Indonesian and what I've learned from over a decade of being back and forth from the archipelago is these stories about the struggle for independence and what happened seem to be fading from their collective memory.
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