ABSTRACT
In 1945, as war came closer to an end in Europe, there was widespread Dutch support for reestablishing colonial sovereignty in the East Indies. In the process, according to Duco A. Hellema, “a more clearly nationalist self-awareness” had arisen in the Netherlands, along with “a certain political-cultural chauvinism” that validated and publicized expansion of Dutch colonial rule as a moral pursuit. By August 1949, a cultural sub-committee of the Committee for Indonesian Affairs had drafted a cultural agreement that covered the division of property and future cooperation. The 1949 draft cultural agreement faded away in further negotiations, and the Indonesian government rescinded it altogether—with the exception of Article 19, which stipulated the return of cultural property—in a 1954 protocol. Dutch negotiators felt pressured by the international system to make a gesture that would demonstrate goodwill not only to Indonesian officials, but to their allies and the wider international community as well.
