Indonesia and Netherland had a very long history which connected one to another. Indonesia was one of the dutch colony so-called Dutch East Indies beside Antilles islands, Aruba and Suriname. I remembered when i was in the school, my teachers taught the student that Dutch occupied Indonesia for about 350 years (but that period of time is now became debatable, some historian said it less than 350 years). Then Indonesia declare its independence on 17th august 1945. To got recognition from Netherland, Indonesia have to had long way negotiation and diplomacy such as Linggarjati agreement, Renville agreement, Roem-van Roijen agreement, and Dutch-Indonesian round table conference. Finally, Netherland recognize Indonesia sovereignity on 27th december 1949.
No one country in this world wants to colonized by other country. No one people in this world wants to become slave for other country. But, lets look it in a positive way. Having colonized by dutch for a long time, Indonesia got impact in so many aspect. Dutch influence exist at all over Indonesia. We can see some of them until now. So, here it is.
1. Some Indonesian law adopted from Dutch law.
Burgerlijk wetboek, wetboek van koophandel, wetboek van strafrecht, het herziene Indonesisch reglemet are regulation made by the Dutch and it is still exist with some modification depend on Indonesian needs.
2. Old building.
Most of Indonesian old buildings are the rest of dutch colonial such as gedung sate, istana bogor, istana merdeka, lawang sewu, gedung merdeka bandung, fatahillah museum and etc.
3. Dutch technology.
Dutch is very famous for its hi-tech construction. In Indonesia we can see katoelampa dam, pacal dam, daendels road, saka lima belas (sakalibel bridge), sugar factory and etc.
4. Plantation In the Dutch colonial era, they implemented Cultivation system or culturstelsel for the indigenous people. At that time, Dutch bring some plantation and sell its product in the Europe market such as coffee, tobacco, tea, orange, sugar cane and etc.
5. Foods Some Indonesian foods originally comes from Netherland such as parkedel (fracadel), lapis legit (spekkoek), kue batang keju (kaastengels), and klappertaart.
Experience is the best teacher. We can learn from our history and we should remember our history. Indonesian founding father, Ir. Soekarno said that Never leave history (Jas Merah).
