Rampokan by Peter van Dongen

Rampokan is a comic book which relates the story of Dutch soldier Johan Knevel during the Indonesian war of independence. After WWII, the Dutch did not accept the Indonesian proclamation of Independence in 1945 and sent troops to recapture their former colony. The war, also known as the Indonesian National Revolution, lasted until 1949, when the Dutch officially accepted Indonesia’s independence through the transfer of sovereignty.

Rampokan consists of two parts that were published separately: “Java” (1998) and “Celebes” (2004). It has also been translated into French and English. The main character in Rampokan is Dutchman Johan Knevel who grew up on Celebes and went to the Netherlands to study there. The first part, “Java,” focuses on his return to Indonesia in 1946 as a volunteer in the Dutch army to fight against Indonesian guerilla nationalists. On the boat journey there, he accidentally throws a fellow soldier overboard – the communist Erik Verhagen, who is a supporter of Indonesian independence. This highly symbolic event continues to haunt Knevel. On Java, Knevel unwittingly gets involved in an illegal trade between Indonesian nationalists and the Dutchman Burt Dekker, who has joined the Indonesian side. Right after this escalates, Knevel gets lost in the jungle but is found by Dekker. Knevel’s luck is that he carries the passport of the communist Eric Verhagen, the soldier he has killed on the boat, and of whom Dekker believes that he is in the Indonesian resistance.

Rampokan’s second part, “Celebes,” takes place in 1950. The Netherlands had officially accepted the independence of the Indonesian Republic in 1949 but Dutch army factions are still going after dissidents. Knevel, still disguised as Verhagen, and Dekker are looking to join a resistance group on Celebes, whose leader is the spiritual figure The Sanro. The Dutch army is simultaneously on the hunt for Dekker, Knevel and The Sanro, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. This part is a lot more explicit in its portrayal of violence exerted against the Indonesians, as the Dutch army is burning kampongs and executing suspected nationalists.

Rampokan is a historical novel about the question of heritage, memory, and identity. Its title refers to the Javanese tradition of tiger fighting, held at the end of Ramadan, symbolizing the overcoming of evil. The tiger fight (symbolizing the fight for independence) is woven throughout the entire novel. The comic is of interest for perpetrator studies as it deals with Dutch colonial violence and Dutch perpetratorship during the Indonesian war of independence. This is a relevant topic currently in the Dutch cultural arena, as exemplified by the 2020 excuses from the king for Dutch excessive violence during the Indonesian war of independence and the 2022 research report by KITLV, NIMH and NIOD on the same topic. However, limited representations of this period exist in the Netherlands. Rampokan portrays many different, mostly Dutch, characters in the role of perpetrators but also considers topics of betrayal and compliance, as the characters all relate differently to the Indonesian struggle and each other. However, no research has been done on the comics from the angle of perpetrator studies. The comic book did inspire De Oost, a feature film directed by Jim Taihuttu.

Author of this entry: Dewi Kopp

Van Dongen, Peter. Rampokan. Belgium: Dupuis, 2019.