Independence Day in Indonesia

 

The people of Indonesia are by and large very patriotic and they cherish their indepedence, freedom and the democratic form of government that operates here. Indonesians understand the value of freedom after having been ruled by europeans for 300 years in many parts of the archipelago. Because of the rich resources found in these fertile tropical islands, trade for things such as spices was contested by Spanish, Portugese, English and Dutch at various times since the late 1500s. In 1619 the island of Java was conquered by the Dutch East India Company and in 1799 the Dutch East Indies was officially claimed as a Dutch colony. The Dutch remained the main ruling power in these islands until the Japanese invaded during WWII. Two days after the surrender of Japan in 1945 Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta issued the Proclamation of Indonesian Independence. Sukarno become the first president of Indonesia and a very amazing thing happened. The many islands scattered throughout this archipelago became united as the new country of Indonesia. This was no small feat seeing that there are 17,000 islands in the archipelago speaking over 400 languages and having over 300 distinct cultures or tribes. That's probably more than you wanted to know about independence day. Oh, by the way it's on the 17th of August. 
When I was here as a young missionary, there were still many of the older generation who spoke fluent dutch, having been schooled in the Dutch system. I had a companion, Elder van der Vlis, who was from Holland and his language came in quite handy because we met many people who spoke Dutch and taught the gospel to some of them. On this mission I have yet to find a single Indonesian who can speak Dutch except those who have lived in Holland. 
On Independence day, celebrations are held in every village and neighborhood. You find red and white decorations everywhere you look, the colors of the Indonesian flag. They have speeches, singing, dancing and games. The wards and branches here all hold festivities for the members. Even our office in Jakarta took a half day to celebrate with food and games in the parking garage. 
I don't have any pictures from the office activities or the ward activities because we were pretty busy on August 17th. Cheri took this picture of me and Elder Furgo at the church on Sunday. You can see that the cultural hall still has decorations from the independence day program.







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