In the Netherlands, Nobody Believes Me is the fruit of long research by Maarten Hidskes, the biological son of Piet Hidskes, a Dutch special soldier who served under the command of Westerling in 1946-1947 in South Sulawesi.
Department of History, Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Diponegoro University on Wednesday (25/09/2018) welcomed Maarten’s presence. Loud applause from students from the History Department further complemented the academic atmosphere in the room. This book was dissected by military historian, Dr. Indiyanto, M. Hum., from the Department of History Undip.
Vice Dean for Academic and Student Affairs, Professor Dr. Singgih Tri Sulistiyono opened with a sympathetic tone on the completion of the book which was processed for almost a quarter of a century. This lecture is also important because in Indonesian historiography, the topic of Westerling is only connected with the mass massacre that killed around 40,000 people. “Today’s lecturer we will hear about the detail event. One of the most circular events in the revolution era in Indonesia. Mr. Marteen did research very detail, because it is about his father. The Dutch perspective on the Westerling case, the Dutch government sent 150,000 soldiers to Indonesia in five years. One of the soldiers is Piet Hidskes. Maarten Hidskes clearly underlines that the story about his father was potray mainly on Dutch perspective, using eye witness statement, Dutch political journal, intelligence archives.” At least, on this occasion, the events of South Sulawesi in 1946-1947 will be photographed from a Dutch perspective.
As Maarteen put it, “I went to National Archives, Military Institute. I did very limited resources on Indonesian sources, I do have specific Indonesian sources, but this was all translated by the Dutch civil servants in 1946-1947.” The history presented by Maarten only represents one point of view (one-side history). Even so, Maarten does not require the readers to agree with what is argued in his writings, because what is considered “truth” is very dependent on the point of view, he continued, “I do not pretend to tell you anything like the truth, the only thing I would talk about is my personal interpretation of what my father might have been done. Futhermore, as you know in Nederland, there is a really big national project on researching colonial violence, although I have already put contact with many people inside this project, including exchange the data. I am an independent researcher and I am represent only my self and my father.”
The transcription of Maarten’s presentation is at least able to explain the importance of this book:
[My father and me had a vacation in France in 1980, my father love to “mandying (mandi)” himself, every vacation he always did that and he says that this is a typically Indonesian habit. My father was a kind man, was a family man, full of love. It is obviously no secret that my father has been a soldier that he went voluntary to Indonesia. I knew when I was a boy about 7 years old. My father had been a special soldier, and I once asked him, I put the question toward him, “Daddy, did you ever kill a man?” the my father laid his hand on my head, I can feel his hand, it was very warm, and he said, “we will talk about it later, son”
And I immediately felt the enormous of energy, the tension of the statement, “we will talk about it later, son”. The problem is, we never talk about Indonesia. In 1992, he died, he only left some photos, identification with the name side of Westerling, and when I was 25 in 1992, I did not know that Westerling had something to do with special action. And after the funeral, I did realize that I knew nothing about my father. And I start to talk with nine former man of the Westerling troops and nine man of the Sulawesi troops.
I got the information on my first conversations. “I never ever told my wife what it was really like”, “These 12 weeks on Sulawesi were formative for the rest of my life”, “If I will tell them in Holland, no one will believe me”, “It should have never happened.”, “Half a bullet for the enemy does not exist” I put main research questions: what did my father do during the 12 weeks of the Sulawesi military Campaign?
Why did he never talk about it? That was the conversation in Nederland society about 15 years, every body talk about this man, but no body has a conversation with this man.
I use Dutch sources, the main sources that I used is oral history, eye witness statement, people who stood beside my father during the execution, people who went to Sulawesi to do military Campaign, Big expectation, limited mandate. Mostly, the soldiers can not imagine how big Indonesia is. We are a very small country. And the Dutch army is going to re-establish peace and order in Indonesia.
My father volunteered in Depot Speciale Troepen, he is one of the first man to enter the Westerling troops and Westerling troops was very small, consists of 123 men of which
20-30 was Hollands (NL, Scotland, Ceylon), the rest was former KNIL, commander: 1st lt. Westerling, 24 years old, seconded by Jan Baptist Vermeulen.
The training was six months, from June to December 1946. The training was focusing on one element, and the element was crossing any border you have, putting your own limit. They had to jump from 12 meters without any security. December 1946, DST felt ready. According to the Dutch sources, the security situation in Sulawesi in late 1946 was terrible, hundreds of people had been murdered or kidnapped massacre. Big problem for the Dutch was the intelligence in Sulawesi was extremely limited. Wasterling was ruled to clean up the mass in South Sulawesi, “you can do in a way whatever you want, the method is yours to decide”. So, Westerling is completely free to choose the method.
For Piet, after five, ten, twenty executions, all kind of question raised in his head;
At the first evening after the first action, they discussed very fiercely what did they exactly did. And the more important question, is there any important necessity executing this mount of people. When I (Maarteen) heard about this fact, I was really angry to my father for many years who has been died, because I raised a question, what would happened if one of soldier refused to execute the actions, they told me that it was absolutely not a problem at all or will be punished. It is not an obligation to stay. I was angry with my father, and it was important to not excuse my father and not defend it. I want to know which kind of expectation of Westerling Campaign in Sulawesi and why did he quit?
What insight does the book offer?
My father was some kind voluntary admission, was executing people, he was alienated from himself, he was fighting ideas his head on military necessity on one hand and quiting his job on the other hand. My father really did not understand what was going on in Indonesia by the time.
The conflict, Sulawesi military campaign did not solve any problem in Sulawesi, only loss and sorrow. My father got frustrated and later on completely loss his confidence in Dutch authorities and Dutch military system. The violence in Sulawesi is a kind of representation of the fact that the Dutch had limited concept of what’s going on, limited intelligence of the conflict.
I discover that my father did not worse, did not better than any other soldier and any other colonial conflict. I describe my father for a long time in terms like he joined the troops, he was the witness of the executions, the was the wrong guy, at the wrong moment and the wrong place in the same time. I describe in a very not active verb or word. But, when executions or violence happen, someone has to create this violence, my father conducts the executions, he was not the witness in these situations, he was not involves in. He was making this situation, an active part of the situation. If you want to discover personal stories, you need to keep in open-mind to what happened. I do not judge my father nor defend him, I do not want to attack him, I love my father, but I have a lot of criticism on the way act on South Sulawesi. And I want to keep an open mind, first I get the fact that I made some kind of analysis, perhaps for you to realize as future history teacher to give yourself space to postpone your judgment. If you postpone your judgment you can get into the discussion of other people. And you can get the real insight into history].
When dissecting this book, Dr. Indriyanto opened it with a word of praise. “This book is very interesting, written in an uplifting language style like a historical novel, even more interesting, this book is rich in sources”. Historical romances such as the writings of Pramoedya Ananta Toer can bring readers as if they were living at that time, and it is not uncommon for readers to identify themselves with one of the characters in the story. Usually, romances are full of questions and answers, and the reader can feel the atmosphere the author is expressing. So, this book is a historical romance rich in historical facts. Only the sources used in this book are all in Dutch, Maarteen did not conduct interviews with Indonesians. So it is clear that this book uses a Dutch perspective, especially the “me” perspective as a child.
However, this book is one step further because it has filled the void in the construction of events that currently still needs to be rewritten from a different perspective. Maarten was nervous, wanting to ask about the various controversial stories that took place in South Sulawesi, on the one hand this was a war criminal, a massacre, but on the other hand the Dutch report in 1947 considered the Westerling troops as heroes. They were the heroes who cleaned and secured the territory of the Dutch East Indies to be reoccupied. This book was written more for a ah distrust of the role played by Piet, “Is it true that my father is that cruel?”, “Is it true that my father is as reported?”. Finally, Maarten tried to find the truth, many Dutch children who were the grandchildren of the Dutch soldiers began to rewrite the history of their parents when they were in Indonesia. Thousands of Dutch troops were brought to Indonesia but in vain. But what do they get? Indonesia is still independent.
What happened in South Sulawesi which was done by Westerling was actually carried out in many other wars, in Vietnam, Germany, Bosnia, many killings and massacres took place. Meanwhile, what needs to be seated is, is it a “crime” or a “justification” of the truth? If the point of view is different, then the intermediary is an international convention. In the International Convention, that war may kill each other if enemy forces attack, but if the enemy is completely helpless, weak, surrenders, and there are children, parents and women. All of that has been regulated in the convention, if there is a military operation and then there is an assassination of things regulated by the international convention on war, then that is where a crime or war crime occurs so that it is regulated by military criminal law, people who violate the convention, the rules and norms of war. Westerling while on duty as a special force assigned from Batavia because there were reports that there were extraordinary riots in South Sulawesi, there were many rebellions, it was feared that the situation there would become more chaotic, unsafe, and out of control, so the high-ranking officials in Jakarta answered, one the only way is to send special forces to South Sulawesi.
Furthermore, Dr. Indriyanto appealed that as historians should not only look at black or white perspectives, something must be good or must be bad. Because there is always a justification for why they do that. The Dutch perspective thought that these areas had to be secured from riots, because at that time there was no KMB, so the Dutch thought that it was still their territory, so they had to be secured, especially for the eastern part of Indonesia. In the context of securing it, Dutch officials, the Dutch military leaders who were in power in South Sulawesi, viewed the fighters as “criminals”. They are said to be rioters or troublemakers. As is the case in P. Diponegoro’s view, he was considered a rebel from Java, but considered a hero by the Indonesians.
Maarten did a lot of defense against his father, defense in the sense of interpretation, namely imagining about his father when he was there but according to Maarten’s conscience. So Maarten tried to make interpretations to defend his father, it was considered natural, because in Maarten’s mindset that his father was good. Interpretation is based on an assumption or imagination to judge the father by using the words “if at that time”.
Furthermore, we can see that the research path taken by Maarten can trigger the appearance of an Indonesian perspective, so that an exchange of views on the South Sulawesi incident can be carried out, so that in the future there will be an understanding that war is a bad decision. This book actually, if written using the historical method, with footnotes, is very worthy of being a dissertation research. This book opens the horizon that there are still many historical events that have not been revealed (FS).
