From Jail to Jail. Tan Malaka

the Japanese occupation of 1942-1945 this labor force was almost completely wiped out.² It is probable that some four to five million workers and peasants were killed during the Japanese occupation.³

      In any period of conflict, where there is good for a given group or class from one aspect, there is bad from another and vice versa, as we shall see below. When the economy was at its peak (1926-1927) it was relatively easy to make a living, workers could get employment easily, and some of the younger generation had the opportunity to learn to speak Dutch and to get rather soft jobs as clerks. Furthermore, there were all kinds of light diversions like cinemas, soccer, and hula-dancing.

      In the time of our “older brothers” from the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, the people had their rice and their stock taken from them; workers and peasants were kidnapped and forced to work in the heat and the rain building roads, airfields, and forts for the Japanese; they were given two hundred grams of corn or rice a day, sheds to sleep in, and gunny sacks to wear (if they were available); and they were beaten, left out in the sun, or held under water if accused of being lazy. The youth were taught “Nippon go,”⁴ to bow towards Tokyo, and to join the Keibodan, Seinendan, Suisintai, Heiho, and Peta.⁵ The young women were trained to be “hostesses.” The whole of the Indonesian people were thought of as genjumin bakaro.⁶