The Genesis of Konfrontasi: Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia, 1945–1965 by Greg Poulgrain (review)

It is appropriate to state at the onset that the present paperback version of The Genesis of Konfrontasi is a reprint of Greg Poulgrain’s famous work on the origins of Confrontation, and the involvement of relevant players in the formation of Malaysia: the British colonial authorities; Brunei and A.M. Azahari; Indonesia and President Sukarno; and, to a lesser degree, Malaysia and Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra and the US and the American Intelligence Agency. The book was first published in 1998 in both hard copy (Crawford House publishers) and the paperback versions (C. Hurst & Co publishers). The volume under review is published in Malaysia by SIRD (an independent publishing house set up in 2000), apparently in response to the public demand as the book has been out of print for a considerable period. In spite of being a reprint, it is clear that the Genesis of Konfrontasi retains its academic freshness and relevance to an understanding of the Malaysian– Indonesian Confrontation.

In The Genesis of Konfrontasi, Greg Poulgrain has produced an updated research and exciting discussion on a somewhat jaded topic that is commonly referred to as the Malaysian–Indonesian Confrontation. Simply the fact that one of the most renowned and respected literary and political figures of the Southeast Asian region, Pramoedya Ananta Toer (1927–2006), penned the foreword to the book must surely add both socio-political charm and irresistibility among scholars and the reading public alike. The work is to be highly commended not only because of the novel approaches and intriguing analysis adopted / concluded by the author, but also because the sources and data marshalled in the book are up-to-date and not available nor referred to by other earlier works on the same topic.

The Genesis of Konfrontasi looks for the origins of Malaysia and the Indonesian–Malaysian confrontation in Britain’s decolonization policy in Southeast Asia and the British attitude towards Indonesia, the most outspoken Southeast Asian nation against colonialism. As far as the Genesis of Konfrontasi is concerned, British decolonization policy that principally and naturally aimed to preserve British socio-economic and political prestige of the post-independence era in its former colonies—in this particular study, Southeast Asia—was the principal cause of the Konfrontasi. This British overarching objective, the author systematically and convincingly argues, led to the formation of Malaysia as mapped out by London and its agencies in the Southeast Asian region. To them, Malaysia was the best conduit through which the British post-decolonization prestige and interests in the Malay Archipelago could be maintained, and Indonesian policy of anti-colonialism—read. in this particular case, anti-British presence—under President Sukarno be contained or effectively discredited and weakened.

According to Dr Poulgrain, British colonial authorities deliberately and calculatingly provoked confrontation with Indonesia in order to facilitate British interests in the formation of their planned Malaysia; this premeditated provocation also targeted to seriously weaken or, if possible, bring down President Sukarno from his supreme position. The confrontation is in this context the ultimate success of British political manoeuvre. Step by step Dr Poulgrain demonstrates through the socio-political labyrinth of the postwar Malay Archipelago how British authorities, at times with the assistance of American Intelligence, succeeded in stage-managing the correlation and inter-connected events in Brunei, Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak in order to present Indonesia and President Sukarno as aggressors who initiated the confrontation, presumably out of Sukarno’s expansionist and grandeur designs to become the supreme regional leader and the leading voice of the New Emerging Forces. Conversely, the Genesis of Konfrontasi’s positive aims are mainly to put right the history of this crucial event by academic-ally righting the socio-political inaccurate historical facts presented by the British and associates concerning President Sukarno in the context of the confrontation. The work also aims to vindicate the...