“Konfrontasi” in retrospect
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THE SARAWAK MUSEUM JOURNAL |
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Title :
“Konfrontasi” in retrospect |
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Author :
David Phillips |
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Abstract:
The Confrontation' conflict that took place largely in the jungles of Borneo during the mid-1960s risks fading from historical consciousness. Much recent academic work on the critically important Cold War period either misunderstands its significance or ignores it completely. There continues to be an excrescence of populist literature, invariably representing the conflict in superficial and partisan terms. Most has been of dubious quality. The release of official British records in the 1990's and recently the 'migrated archives' prompted more serious study but focused on British, American and Australian government strategy and policy-making. Consequently western historians have remained largely embedded in traditional colonial records history. Malaysian historical accounts have tended to elide this crucial episode in nation-building. Indonesian scholars are only now exploring this previously sensitive residue of the Sukarno era. A reappraisal of 'Konfrontasi' and the associated communist insurgency in Borneo is long overdue. There is a wealth of anthropological, sociological, environmental and cultural studies on Borneo to underpin such a reappraisal. This paper argues that (i) insurgency and conflict in Borneo during the Cold War period, invariably attributed to communist, Indonesian or even British conspiracy, had deep economic and social roots; (ii) these underlying causes were exacerbated by the developmental and political failure of colonialism in Borneo; (iii) the clash of 'Konfrontasi', commonly claimed as a British and Commonwealth military victory, was an attritional impasse that in its culminating stages threatened the break-up of Malaysia; (iv) the signally successful resolution of the draining insurgency bequeathed by British colonial rule, usually ignored in conventional accounts of global terrorism, depended on political foresight and initiative within the Borneo states. The longer term significance of 'Konfrontasi also needs to be reviewed. On the one hand it marked the effective end of European colonialism in Southeast Asia. On the other hand its outcome determined the political and economic configuration of the region over the next fifty years. It may well be argued that this epoch in its turn has now come to an end as new strategic uncertainties come to the fore.
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| DOI: https://doi.org/10.61507/smj22-2017-MM17-07 |
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How to cite:
David Phillips (2017). “Konfrontasi” in retrospect. Sarawak Museum Journal, LXXVIII (99): 157-176. https://doi.org/10.61507/smj22-2017-MM17-07 |
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References
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