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Sukarno

1st President of Indonesia

Years: 1901 - 1970

Sukarno, born Kusno Sosrodihardjo (6 June 1901 – 21 June 1970) is the first President of Indonesia.

Sukarno is the leader of his country's struggle for independence from the Netherlands and is Indonesia's first president from 1945 to 1967.

He is a prominent leader of Indonesia's nationalist movement during the Dutch colonial period, and spends over a decade under Dutch detention until released by the invading Japanese forces.

Sukarno and his fellow nationalists collaborate to garner support for the Japanese war effort from the population, in exchange for Japanese aid in spreading nationalist ideas.

Upon Japanese surrender, Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta declare Indonesian independence on August 17, 1945, whereby Sukarno is appointed as first president.

Sukarno leads Indonesians in resisting Dutch re-colonization efforts via diplomatic and military means until the Dutch acknowledgment of Indonesian independence in 1949.

After a chaotic period of parliamentary democracy, Sukarno establishes an autocratic system called "Guided Democracy" in 1959 which successfully ends instability and rebellions that were threatening the survival of the diverse and fractious country.

The early 1960s sees Sukarno veering Indonesia to the left by providing support and protection to the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) at the expense of the military and Islamists.

He also embarks on a series of aggressive foreign policies under the rubric of anti-imperialism, with aid from Soviet Union and China.

The 30 September Movement leads to the destruction of PKI and his replacement by one of his generals, Suharto, and he remains under house arrest until his death.

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Southeast Asia (1828–1971 CE) Colonial Grids, …

Southeast Asia (1828–1971 CE)

Colonial Grids, Island Arcs, and the Long March to Independence

Geography & Environmental Context

Southeast Asia in this framework comprises two fixed subregions:

Southeastern Asia: the Indochinese peninsula (Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam), the Malay Peninsula, and the great archipelagos of Sumatra–Java–Borneo–Sulawesi and the Philippines.
Andamanasia: the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal and the outer-island arc off Sumatra—Aceh, Simeulue, Nias, the Batu and Mentawai Islands (excluding the Mergui Archipelago and Thailand’s west coast).

Volcanic chains, folded highlands, alluvial deltas (Irrawaddy, Chao Phraya, Mekong, Red), mangrove coasts, and reef-fringed islands create one of the world’s most diverse human ecologies.

Climate & Environmental Shifts

Monsoons dictated seasons; ENSO cycles brought episodic droughts and floods. Cyclones battered the Bay of Bengal and South China Sea littorals; great rivers shifted with silt loads from hillside logging and war-time disruption. Along the Sunda trench, earthquakes and tsunamis periodically struck Aceh–Nias–Mentawai; volcanic eruptions (e.g., Krakatoa, 1883) altered coastlines, fisheries, and global climate. Colonial plantations cleared forest belts; 20th-century damming and irrigation reworked paddies and dry fields.

Subsistence & Settlement

Rice heartlands in Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, and Java intensified wet-rice (irrigated) and rain-fed systems; canals and dikes extended deltas.
Plantations & mines reoriented landscapes: rubber and tin in Malaya; coffee, tea, sugar, tobacco in the Dutch archipelago; sugar, hemp in the Philippines; nickel, coal, oil in parts of Indonesia.
Andamanasia balanced copra, sago, cloves, and pepper with fishing; the Andaman & Nicobar served the British Raj as a penal settlement (Port Blair), while Aceh’s uplands and coasts supported pepper gardens and Islamic scholarly towns.
Urban hubs—Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Bangkok, Rangoon/Yangon, Singapore, Batavia/Jakarta, Manila—grew on port and railway grids; Banda Aceh, Padang, Medan, and Port Blair tied Andamanasia into colonial networks.

Technology & Material Culture

Steamships, lighthouses, and telegraph cables stitched coasts to metropoles. The 19th century laid roads, rails, canals, and irrigation schemes (e.g., Cochinchina’s canal grids; Java’s irrigation works). Rubber tapping, tin dredging, and oil rigs transformed work rhythms; mission and vernacular presses fostered literacy. After WWII, airfields and highways expanded; small engines and outboard motors changed coastal livelihoods. Tiled mosques, wats, and churches stood beside longhouses, kampong stilt houses, and shophouse streets.

Movement & Interaction Corridors

Diasporas reshaped society: Chinese and Indian migrants fueled plantations, mines, and trade in Malaya, Burma, Thailand, and the Indies; Javanese and Chinese migrated intra-archipelago.
Pilgrimage & scholarship flowed through Aceh—the “Verandah of Mecca”—and port cities; Andaman & Nicobar saw convict, guard, and trader circuits of the Raj.
War corridors: Japanese occupation (1941–45) militarized ports, rails, and airstrips; Allied return routes cross-cut deltas and hill country; postwar insurgencies made jungles and mountains strategic spaces.

Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

Theravāda Buddhism (Thailand, Burma/Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia), Islam (Malaya, Sumatra/Aceh, parts of Borneo), Catholicism (Philippines, Vietnam enclaves), and Confucian and indigenous traditions intertwined. Reformist presses and schools incubated national literatures: Vietnamese quốc ngữ journalism, Indonesian and Malay novels, Filipino propagandists, Burmese and Thai reformers. In Andamanasia, Acehnese ulama sustained Islamic learning and resistance; Nicobarese and Andamanese kept island cosmologies even as penal and mission regimes pressed in.

Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

Intensive rice ecologies (terraces, bunds, dikes) buffered monsoon swings; swidden–wet rice mosaics in uplands spread risk. Island communities hedged with copra gardens, lagoon fisheries, breadfruit, sago, and inter-island reciprocity. After cyclones or war, kin networks and temple or mosque charities organized rebuilding; post-1960s “Green Revolution” seeds and fertilizers began to alter village agronomy.

Political & Military Shocks

Colonial consolidation (19th–early 20th c.):
- British in Burma and Malaya/Singapore; French in Indochina; Dutch in the East Indies; U.S. in the Philippines; Siam/Thailand remained formally independent but ceded buffer territories.
- Aceh War (1873–1904): a long anti-Dutch jihad reshaped Sumatra’s northwest; Mentawai and Nias folded into Dutch rule with missionization and pax colonia.
- Andaman & Nicobar penal settlement entrenched British control in the Bay of Bengal.
Japanese occupation (1941–45): dismantled colonial rule, mobilized labor, and built military infrastructure; famine and atrocities scarred Indochina and Burma.
Independence waves:
- Indonesia proclaimed 1945 (recognized 1949); Burma 1948; Philippines 1946; Malaya 1957 (Malaysia 1963; Singapore independent 1965); Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam 1953–54 (with Vietnam’s partition).
- Konfrontasi (1963–66) rattled new Malaysia; Sukarno → Suharto (1965–66) upheaval reordered Indonesia.
- Vietnam War escalation (1960s), Laotian/Cambodian conflicts, Malayan Emergency (1948–60), and Burmese coups (1962) defined the Cold War map.

Transition

Between 1828 and 1971, Southeastern Asia moved from plantation grids and concessionary mines under European flags to a mosaic of independent states and Cold War battlegrounds. Japanese occupation shattered imperial prestige; postwar governments asserted sovereignty but faced insurgency, partition, and economic rebuilding. In Andamanasia, the Aceh War and penal colony years epitomized the arc from coercion to contested autonomy; in the wider region, rice fields, rubber estates, and ports fed a global economy even as revolutions and wars redrew borders. By 1971, Bangkok, Jakarta, Manila, Saigon, Rangoon, Singapore, and Kuala Lumpur anchored a transformed region—its monsoon ecologies and island arcs still the stage on which new nations balanced tradition, development, and geopolitical pressure.

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