Bekasi and the British

On 23 November, a Dakota transport plane carrying 20 troops of the 2nd Battalion, 19th Hyderabad Regiment crashed near the then-town of Bekasi (pop. around 10,000), east of Jakarta. The passengers and crew of the aircraft initially survived the crash, but when British recovery forces of the 5th Mahratta Light Infantry reached the crash site the day after, they found the aircraft burned […]

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Time and Mr. Bubbles

In the aftermath of the surrender of Japan and the proclamation of Indonesian independence in August 1945, nationalist-aligned militias began to form in the countryside around Jakarta in the forming power vacuum, and these militias often effectively controlled the areas they operated in. Two of these groups were the Hizbullah and the Barisan Banteng Hitam (Black Bull Front). Despite ragtag leadership (often led

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stomach ache

Fine lines Zhang Jingsheng (20 February 1888 – 18 June 1970) was a Chinese philosopher and sexologist. Born to merchants in rural Guangdong, he was a militant supporter of the Tongmenghui revolutionaries. After being expelled from school, Zhang entered Peking University and became an advocate for European ideas of social Darwinism, scientific racism, and eugenics. He changed his personal name to Jingsheng, meaning ‘competition for survival’. After the 1911

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