Anger at Rijksmuseum as colonial term is dropped from exhibition

The Rijksmuseum’s decision to drop the term ‘Bersiap’ from an exhibition on the Indonesian uprising after the Second World War because of its ‘strong racist connotations’ has sparked a backlash from veterans of the colonial period. Bonnie Triyana, an Indonesian historian who was invited by the museum to curate the exhibition, said the term was used in Dutch to describe ‘primitive uncivilised Indonesians as perpetrators of violent acts’ and was ‘not completely free of racial hatred’. The exhibition, ‘Revolusi!’, which...