ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book discusses a long history of murderous conquest and repression by the Dutch, and a particularly vicious colonial retreat. It explores intrinsic violence of the colonial endeavour, and the ugliness of its disentanglement. The book offers both a correction and a confirmation of the situation of relative neglect of the violent and even genocidal character of Dutch colonialism. Indonesia has a long history of bloodshed, following a global trend of increasing interest in patterns of mass violence, has it been at the centre of intense historiographical attention. To reduce the violence to seemingly clear-cut categories such as ‘anticolonial’, ‘subaltern’ or ‘brief’ genocides misses the point. Dutch reports of colonial violence have always been muted, and large numbers of casualties among the Indonesians were always legitimized by the effort to pacify and develop the country.
