ABSTRACT
The fallen of the many ‘great’, ‘patriotic’ and ‘world’ wars in Europe and in Northern America have been subject to scholarly investigation for a long time. Other scholars pointed out spatial representations of the collective memory as visualised in war memorials, monuments and cemeteries, stressing their importance for national assertion and identity. The peoples of Indonesia endured one of the bloodiest independence struggles in Southeast Asia. In December 1949 the Netherlands agreed to accept the sovereignty of her former colony, only after four years of fierce fighting. Independence fighters of informal militias and regular army units who fell during the war years were often buried only very hastily on or near the spot where they met their death. One of the first of these funerals took place in Surabaya in October 1945. The principal political goal is the creation of national unity. It is achieved through popular participation which in turn is a result of the implementation of state authority.
