John Coast was 31 when he flew to Bukittinggi in the journey of 1948. His life up to that point had been a youthful idealism when he flirted with fascism when committed with the Rothchild Bank. After the outbreak of the war against Hitler's Germany, he joined the Coldstream Guards who were sent to Singapore in early February 1942. Two weeks later, he was captured by the Japanese invaders, and then spent three coming years and half as a prisoner of war (PoW) working on the "death railway" Japanese in Siam, Thailand was then known.
After the railroad was completed at Dutch side, Eurasian and Indonesian PoWs, Cote was in a camp with time on his hands. The " Malaria yellow " minority were still fit enough to look for "entertainment"; Dutch and Indonesian Coast studied and came to appreciate the Balinese dance so he envisaged a postwar project [
" I wanted to take a really perfect Indonesian dance company in the world to convince all those who saw them as the culture of Indonesia was a thing of excellence ."
the Dutch PoWs were certain they would return to the Dutch East Indies to resume their roles paternalistic once they had been released. So they saw the coast with suspicion, noting its development sympathies anti- colonialists and declared its support for the nascent republican movement he learned about the Indonesians who had never had a country of their own.
the Indonesians asked an international treaty, the Atlantic Charter, as the legal basis for independence. It was a policy statement prepared by the leaders of the United Kingdom and the United States, published August 14, 1941, which defines the objective allies in the world after the war. The main objectives for the Indonesians were: no territorial changes made against the people's will, self-determination; the restoration of autonomy to those deprived of it; and the disarmament of the aggressor countries. The Atlantic Charter, with its signatories, led to the United Nations, which began with a conference in April 1945.
On September 7, 1944, Japanese Prime Minister Koiso promised the independence from Indonesia. August 15, 1945, Emperor Hirohito surrendered his forces and two days later, under pressure from radicals and pemuda (youth) groups, Soekarno Hatta and proclaimed independence. Soon it was known to prisoners of war until their release in August and September 1946, when, according to Coast, British POWs heard " with a mixture of amusement and sympathy, the new Indonesian Republican Government prohibited the return of our Dutch co-prisoners in India where they said they had been so respected and popular . "
It was not until December 27 1949 that the Dutch Queen Juliana signed the document transferring sovereignty to Indonesia states. This follows the Dutch-Indonesian Round Table Conference, held in The Hague from 23 August to 2 November 1949. John Coast was ending up playing a crucial role in the approach of the conference, and that the forms period at the heart of his memory.
How he got there was a matter of chance. As one can easily imagine, returning POWs " are not in phase with the delicious, but rather gray London winter 1945 . ... So we ex-prisoners of the Far East found ourselves continually gathering together and talk about the years behind us . "
to Coast, this meant looking for" European classical ballet because of my prison-camp interest in the classical dances of Indonesia . "Following a performance of Sleeping Beauty , he determined to bring a Javanese dance company in London" to show something of their exoticism to this surprising public spirit dance . "
Needing to practice their Indonesian, in November he sought some Indonesian. The key figure was Dr. Zairin Zain, who was to become the ambassador of Indonesia to the United States in April 1961 when John Kennedy was in the White House. In 1945, he was adviser to the Dutch delegation to the United Nations, then in London, and was able to give Coast an update on the situation. For example, as the Dutch had occupied Batavia, Sukarno and Hatta were transferring to Jogjakarta.
Zain Coast also gave an introduction to Dorothy Woodman, a " is a renowned figure in the leftist politics " orientalists, and the secretary of the Union of Democratic Control. Busy as she was with rallies against Franco, the fascist dictator of Spain, and " ever written articles and pamphlets, she still had time to be the supreme friend and touch manufacturer of all youth countries in Southeast Asia. "These contacts included writers left for the New Statesman magazine and members of parliament in the socialist government of Clement Attlee.
Zain first asked the coast to translate a brochure, Perjuangan Kita (Our Struggle), written by Sutan Sjahrir, who was about to become prime minister of Indonesia, for the meeting of UN delegates in London. And so began the journey from the coast to its image " This brightly colored earth, brown-limbed young and hot bloodied ."
His first step was to join the Foreign Office with the intention of becoming a press officer in the Far East, and September 16, 1946, he started "behind the office of the Indonesian Service information "with a hope for the display of a few months in Jogjakarta, the seat of the first Indonesian government. But first came a display in Thailand, where he became " a typical bachelor around town " and very knowledgeable about the "sisterhood night owls " .? and it is his story that a hodgepodge of information that starts may well boggle players, but is of historical importance.
personal role of emissary and intermediary Coast is the glue link together and you can swipe through the pages, with thirty-six names associated with fairly " compromise, conspiracies and against-tricks, rumors and lies " to boggle all but academic.
Let there be an additional 31 pages of appendices, a bibliography and an index adds to the importance of this book, and many are due to the editor Laura Noszlopy.?For author a non-university, what stands out are descriptions of places and people rather than process. His ideas and ruminations echo still relevant. Chapter 14 These Indonesians , closes with this: There is no doubt that all colonists treat their subjects still as inferior, but the root of the problem may be that those colonized not actually feel themselves to be inferior because they were unable to prevent being submitted.
there was a radical change of national mentality in 64 years that these words were published? Many of us hoped that pre-election mantra Jokowi on the nation's mindset change meant liberate creative thinking, but we do not realize that the "nationalism" and "character education" was what he wanted perpetuate.
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John Coast ( Published by Laura Noszlopy )
revised and updated edition published by NIAS Press 2015.?(First published by Christophers, London, 1952)? 342pp.
ISBN: 978-87-7694-164-2
This book is only available for purchase online through Amazon where you will find the story of his time as a prisoner of war Railroad of Death , a bestseller in 1946. There is a Periplus edition of Dancing Out of Bali , his account of his success in the taking a troupe of Balinese dancers and musicians in Europe.