Trauma, Implication and the Politics of Victimhood in the Netherlands after War in Indonesia (1945–9)

Former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s 2022 apology for the “extreme violence” of Dutch armed forces during Indonesia’s war of independence (1945–9) was not only extended to the “people of Indonesia”. It was also addressed to Dutch veterans and, euphemistically, to the diverse diaspora community from the former Netherlands East Indies in the Netherlands today. Between the lines of Rutte’s apology lurked a problem that has haunted Dutch politics ever since. Exactly which historical actors were responsible for the “extreme violence on the Dutch side?” This article traces how some veterans’ and Indies-diaspora lobbyists have formed what we call “allied entitlement groups”. We focus on how these groups have mobilised politically to object to the spectre that Rutte’s apology raised of their implication (in the Rothbergian sense) in an unjust war, despite his best efforts to appease them. We argue that concepts of trauma and an interdependent politics of victimhood are central to these political mobilisations, in extra-parliamentary politics as well as by Dutch politicians. Our article critiques the historical and conceptual evasions in these political mobilisations, to mount instead an argument for truth-telling and acknowledging complex forms of implication.