Indonesië

With a radiant smile on his upturned face, a young Indonesian boy walks past a veranda with children watching him. In his left hand he is carrying a rolled-up map. The map has partially unrolled to reveal part of the Indonesian archipelago and a smaller map of Asia. This photograph adorns the cover of Een Staat in Wording (A Nascent State), a detailed report, published as a book, which left-wing photographer Cas Oorthuys made about the new Indonesia in the period preceding the Linggadjati agreement in 1947. Een Staat in Wording presents a complex picture of a country marked by war and its colonial history, as it attempts to find a new balance. The book, with its subtle political message, was remaindered soon after publication. Linggadjati proved a failure and the Netherlands commenced police action against the republican forces in Indonesia, which gained its full independence two years later, under pressure from the United Nations.