Translation:

“Who likes to romanticise living in the colonialism era?

You might want to learn the story of Pinah; a 10-year-old native Indonesian girl, taken away to the Netherlands to be a slave and treated cruelly” — Source

This reminds me of a Threads post, saying something along the lines of “a lot of us thinking that we would be part of the upper class whenever we are watching period pieces (“Bridgerton” series and the likes). In reality, most of us would be the lower class, peasants, or even worse. The servants? They were actually lucky and doing good in life.”

… and that stuck with me ever since. Especially with Indonesia’s history.

“We are standing on the top of our ancestors’ bones, blood, and graves”-indeed.

The featured image is a painting by Nicolaas Pieneman, depicting the arrest of Prince Diponegoro, a Javanese prince, by the Dutch. Please note that Nicolaas was a Dutchman and this painting was commissioned by De Kock/De Kock’s family, hence the painting depicted a victorious colonizer and how De Kock, the general who arrested Diponegoro, portrayed as “a loving father who has to send his misguided son (Diponegoro) away”, despite the Dutch was the one who betrayed Diponegoro by luring the prince to a “peace treaty meeting” and arrested him instead.

Do you want to see the one that made by an Indonesian? Here it is: “The Arrest of Pangeran Diponegoro” by Raden Saleh.

He appears to be struggling to control his anger – as would be expected from Javanese gentry – while the Europeans’ eyes are static and avoid the eyes of others