A Super Quick History of Indonesia

hello everyone and welcome to [Music] this is asia and here's indonesia now let's go shall we indonesia is a hulking tropical archipelago brimming with volcanoes and rainforest and marvelous creatures a land of typhoons and monsoons and over 17 000 islands and islets the most populated being java that's sumatra that's sulawesi that's bali and as you see indonesia shares borneo new guinea and timor with other states now this gargantuan assortment of equatorial isles was never unified into a single sovereign state until fairly recently before that its variegated segments were as separated as its hundreds of different languages indonesia's pre-history is a fossilized conundrum but things get more discernible with the arrival many millennia ago of the melanesians who hunted and hand-printed their way through the jungle their descendants today dwell in the nation's east but the country's ethnic majorities spring from the austronesians who set sail from taiwan and arrived first in sulawesi and then around the time the egyptians were assembling the great pyramid disembarked on java sumatra borneo and timor bringing rice and pigs and pottery though originally animists who worshipped their ancestors the islands of indonesia eagerly absorbed the culture and spirituality of india including hinduism and buddhism one of the earliest indonesian kingdoms was a hindu one the 7th century saw the rise of the srivijaya kingdom on sumatra which gained considerable wealth and power from trade via its grip on the naval routes linking india to china as you see the srivijaya artists were highly skilled of course the presence of plenty always lures predators and the state was handicapped by the invasion of rajindra chola and slowly declined thereafter meanwhile on java we spot the ascent of the madang kingdom whose mysterious seylendra dynasty constructed the extraordinary borobudur the world's biggest buddhist temple in the early 9th century the hindu sanjaya dynasty followed and built indonesia's biggest hindu temple the prambanan the javanese were apparently so pleased with these architectural wonders that they built some more a lot more then mr marapi here erupted in the early 900s and put a stop to it all our focus now shifts to eastern java where the power subsequently concentrated in the late 1200s the mongol emperor of china sent emissaries to the island to demand tribute but the javanese disfigured the envoys and sent them packing and i suspect they may have shouted this as java before kicking them out naturally the emperor was outraged and ordered a huge invasion enter raden vijaya he cleverly allied with the invading mongols to defeat a rival for the throne after which he turned against the mongols who while almost invincible on open plains were more than a little inconvenienced in the thick hot dripping climate of java after two months of guerrilla warfare the weary mongols retreated and vijaya went on to establish the mighty majapahit empire a majestic maritime mercantile power like a sort of tropical venice it reached its apex under the king hayam and his talented prime minister gaja madha and while the hindu faith was currently very strong muslim merchants had consistently made sure to preach of allah and his prophet muhammad and they did quite a job for today islam is the majority religion of indonesia so by the 1500s there were sultans and everything but the islands of indonesia with their valued spices caught the attention of europe the portuguese were the first from that continent to settle in the islands and nuzzle into the trade but their ambition to acquire the monopoly of commerce suffered a setback with the entrance of the dutch who by the early 1600s were already muscling the portuguese out of ports and forts though they couldn't expel them from eastern timor the first permanent dutch settlement was bantam in western java and they meant business in the fullest sense of the term seen with the conquest of the bandar islands by the merciless jon piteshon when the sultan of central java agung of mataram set out and successfully conquered surrounding regions he turned his attentions to the dutch and besieged them twice but without success the dutch elbowed the portuguese out even more and invited chinese workers to batavia present-day jakarta but relations became uneasy and when in 1740 chinese sugar mill workers revolted and killed 50 dutch soldiers whispers circulated among the multi-ethnic citizens that the chinese planned to kill them all chinese homes were burned and it escalated into massacre and some ten thousand chinese were butchered under the eyes of governor adrian falconier who was later arrested and died in prison now while the dutch east india company had entrenched itself in the area the cost of maintenance and administration and rebellion quashing drained away resources furthermore corruption and competition from other powers like the british in india meant the company ended up bankrupt and was taken over by the dutch government after a brief time of french and british command the dutch regained control crushed a rebellion led by prince de bonacoro and the governor johannes fondon boss instituted a forced labor system to increase revenue there was war in bali and in borneo and the achaea region of sumatra prompting the achanese to declare jihad against the invaders but to no avail and the dutch east indies expanded and as if to vent the region's frustrations krakatoa exploded in one of history's biggest and loudest volcanic eruptions the dutch continued to snap up more land till 1920 with the taking of northwest new guinea and thus the dutch east indies attained its greatest extent though the hollanders were introducing reforms and trinkets of modernity and extending education to the indigenous inhabitants the future indonesians never stopped fighting for freedom and activists began promoting their ideas to the people whilst forming political parties ranging from communist to islamic based still it was pretty clear that something very big would be needed to drive the dutch out and then something very big happened world war ii the japanese invaded indonesia in 1942 and swiftly took control and though indonesians welcomed them as liberators it soon became clear that the japanese simply saw indonesia as a good place to get stuff and supply their troops the japanese subjugated millions of indonesians to force to labor and millions ended up dead however the japanese interim gave the independence movement its needed boost and after the japanese surrender in 1945 indonesia declared its independence with socialist sukharino as first president the dutch were like what and there was a one guess whoa that's right it was an ugly messy affair but in 1949 the netherlands finally agreed to relinquish its colonial claims and indonesia was free but not free from trouble the country was a muddle of mixed ambitions some pushing for secularism others for an islamic state socarno struggled to instill a sense of unity but as the economy faltered and as his sympathies veered closer to communism the army in 1965 undertook a vicious purge of communists slaughtering over half a million and then sukarno himself was ousted and in 1967 general suharto assumed power as a military dictator however since he was anti-communist the west supported him during the cold war and indonesia's economic standing improved though corruption was rampant in 1975 portugal renounced its colony of east timor and indonesia invaded and took over much to the discontent of the east timorese indonesian forces were accused of multiple human rights abuses but still retained the political support of countries like the us uk japan and australia that is until 1991 when the santa cruz massacre shocked to the world and when 1997's asian financial crisis struck suharto's remaining legitimacy dissipated and he resigned east timor gained independence in 2002 the same year as the horrific bali bombings where islamists killed 202 people mostly tourists the country was then pounded by earthquake and tsunami leaving over a hundred thousand people dead in the years after indonesia enjoyed steady financial growth and today has achieved a high level of human development and the world's 16th biggest economy a fascinating country crammed with culture and delicious dishes and brilliant badminton players that's indonesia and that's all from me for now bye