Solidarity at sea: Australian labour and the Indonesian Revolution
On Tuesday, October 2, 1945 Melbourne’s Herald newspaper carried a peculiar story about female clerks at Brisbane Trades Hall, who were threatening to walk-out unless “striking Indonesians now camped there leave the building”.[1] The Indonesians referred to were 500 merchant sailors. They had abandoned Dutch ships and were being accommodated in the Hall’s ballroom.[2] There they remained for three weeks.On their eventual removal, 210 were sent to Dutch-operated Camp Columbia. In an ironic denouement to their saga, these then “took possession” of that camp, before ultimately being arrested.[3] These curious episodes were part of a 51 month campaign by an Indonesian and Australian coalition to cruel the Dutch Government’s intent of using Australia as a base to restore Indonesia to the colonial status quo ante bellum.
This telling of that story draws upon a box of archived materials belonging to W.J. Morrison during his tenure as Victorian Secretary of civil liberties group the Australian-Indonesian Association. Such an archive – containing select correspondence and minutes, publications, and newspaper cuttings – has limitations. To borrow David Lowenthal’s phrase, it is not a “reliable repositor[y] of truth … unabridged”.[4] It provides an overview of publicly known events but is thin on the internal deliberations of unions. Nor does it clarify the Chifley Government’s delicate diplomatic and domestic calculations, nor explain pro-Dutch sentiment among the conservative press and parliamentary Opposition. The “fragmentary, partisan” nature of the archive, and limitations of space, mean I can only relay a partial account of this seminal controversy over Australia’s role in Asia.[5] I have therefore supplemented archival information with notable secondary texts.
The Indonesian nationalist movement in 1940s Australia
In January, 1942 Japan invaded the Netherlands East Indies. On March 8 the Dutch surrendered unconditionally and on March 10 a nucleus of their administration decamped to Australia, forming a Government-in-Exile at Camp Columbia, near Brisbane. The evacuees included approximately 5500 native Indonesians, consisting of merchant sailors, soldiers, civil servants, and political prisoners interned for their anti-colonial stances.[6] Nationalist sympathies grew strong among these evacuees and most identified with the Indonesian Republic proclaimed by Soekarno on August 17, 1945.[7] Already by September 1945 they had established a Central Committee for Indonesian Independence (CENKIM). CENKIM called on Indonesians to mutiny and appealed for Australian support, arguing that Indonesia’s nationalists were fighting to implement the 1941 Atlantic Charter which had defined Allied war aims – in particular the ideals of “self-determination” and “self-government” – and that those who supported the Charter should therefore support independent Indonesia. CENKIM was supported by the Indonesian Seamen’s Union; the Australian-Indonesian Association; the Central All-Indonesian Workers Organisation (SOBSI), a trade union federation established in 1946 of which the Seamen’s Union became an affiliate; and by the Australian Communist Party.[8] The Indonesian trade unions’ appeal was directed to “democratic and peaceful peoples everywhere…especially to the working class … to boycott all that is Dutch in all harbours, stores, roadways and other places...”[9] The Australian Communist Party campaigned vigorously on this issue too, for example by distributing a pamphlet entitled Hands Off The Indonesian Republic. This emphasised the necessity of “all democratic people” rallying together to advance the “rights…proclaimed in the Atlantic Charter” because these were in fact “the aims for which the war was fought”.[10]
The Australian and Indonesian activists were well-coordinated. CENKIM and SOBSI leaders were acquainted with personalities like Mick Healy, Secretary of the Brisbane Trades and Labour Council. Healy’s wife, Connie, also worked for the Waterside Workers Federation, and during the 1940s the couple often hosted Indonesian nationalists and unionists at their home.[11] Indeed, among the political prisoners whom the Dutch had evacuated to Queensland was Haryono, who became the immediate post-war President of SOBSI. Haryono was also prominent in CENKIM and a Communist.[12] Therefore, when CENKIM and SOBSI instigated their members to strike in order to inhibit the return of Dutch colonialism, Australian comrades were prepared to join them in solidarity.
Indonesian and Australian unionists strike against colonial reconquest
The initial strike fell on Sunday night, September 23, 1945, when the Indonesian crew of Dutch ship Karsik declared their allegiance to the Republic and staged a sit-in, thereby preventing the ship from departing Melbourne for Java. Following meetings, Melbourne’s wharfies determined not the service the Karsik. The same dynamic was realised on the Brisbane wharf the following Tuesday, September 25. This time the ship was Van Heutsz and she was transporting Dutch Army personnel. Again, the ship’s Indonesian crew declared a strike and the Brisbane branch of the waterside workers followed suit, refusing to load Van Heutsz or to guide her out of port.[13]
This brewing anti-colonial movement swiftly gained national momentum. By September 25, one ship in Melbourne (Karsik), three in Brisbane (including Van Heutsz) and four in Sydney were immobilised.[14] By September 26, the federal council of the Waterside Workers’ Union had declared “black” all ships whose Indonesian crews were on strike and all Dutch ships suspected of carrying war materials or troops intended to suppress the Indonesian Republic.[15] Other unions replicated the wharfies’ stance. By August 1947, a complete ban on the movement of Dutch goods in Australia had been imposed by seventeen federal unions, and members of a further fourteen unions participated.[16] The Australian Council of Trade Unions declared their “complete opposition to Dutch imperialist aims”.[17] The Waterside Workers’ Union exhibited a genuinely fraternal attitudetowards the Indonesians; they insisted that the condition for ending their ban would be a “Dutch guarantee satisfactory to the Indonesian people in Australia”.[18] And of course, they offered accommodation to striking Indonesians.
Canberra’s stance and the end result
During 1945-6, the Australian Government tacitly permitted unions to boycott Dutch imperialism. From mid-1947, Canberra assumed a partisan, activist stance.[19] When the Dutch initiated a major offensive, Operatie Product, to conquer the Republic, Australia and India lead an abrupt response. Australia referred the conflict to the United Nations Security Council, naming the Netherlands as the principal aggressor.[20] Indonesia then designated Australia as Her representative to the three-member Committee of Good Officesestablished to resolve the war.[21] Australian unions’ “black ban” on the so-called “black armada” supplying the colonial reconquest of Indonesia lasted until November 1949.[22] It affected a total of 27 naval vessels, 36 merchant ships, 37 oil vessels, and at least 450 small boats. The waterfront boycott therefore proved materially significant to preventing Dutch reconquest of Indonesia.[23]
Written by Michael Anderson
Footnotes:
[1]“Strike Threat By Brisbane Girls,” The Herald, October 2, 1945, page 3, Australian-Indonesian Association, Victorian Branch, 1967.0013, Unit 2, University of Melbourne Archives.
[2]Connie Healy, “Recollections of ‘The Black Armada’ in Brisbane,” Queensland Journal of Labour History, no.2 (Mar 2006): 18.
[3]“Govt. plans to arrest Indonesians,” The Daily Telegraph, October 5, 1945, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/248024819?searchTerm=%22a%20resolution%20supporting%20the%20Indonesians%22&searchLimits=l-australian=y.
[4]David Lowenthal, “Archives, Heritage, and History,” in Archives, Documentation, and Institutions of Social Memory, eds. Francis X. Blouin and William G. Rosenberg (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006), 193.
[6]Jan Lingard, Refugees and Rebels, Indonesian Exiles in Wartime Australia(North Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2008), 1.
[7]Lingard, Refugees and Rebels, 7.
[8]Rupert Lockwood, Black Armada(Sydney: Australasian Book Society, 1975),92-94.
[9]Minutes of the Federal Council of Waterside Workers’ Federal Minutes for July 24, 1947, quoted in: Margo Beasley, Wharfies, A History of the Waterside Workers’ Federation of Australia(Rushcutters Bay, NSW: Halstead Press, 1996), 128.
[10]Hands Off The Indonesian Republic(Sydney: Central Committee, Australian Communist Party, circa. 1945), 1, 4.
[11]Healy, “Recollections of ‘The Black Armada’ in Brisbane,” 19-21.
[12]Healy, “Recollections of ‘The Black Armada’ in Brisbane,” 20-1.
[13]“Indonesians Strike In Three Ports: Arms Cargo Alleged,” The Sun, September 25, 1945, page 20, Australian-Indonesian Association, Victorian Branch, 1967.0013, Unit 2, University of Melbourne Archives.
[14]“Indonesians Strike In Three Ports: Arms Cargo Alleged,” The Sun, September 25, 1945, page 20, Australian-Indonesian Association, Victorian Branch, 1967.0013, Unit 2, University of Melbourne Archives.
[15]“Wharf Ban On Dutch Arms Ships,” The Argus, September 27, 1945, page 4, Australian-Indonesian Association, Victorian Branch, 1967.0013, Unit 2, University of Melbourne Archives.
[16]Hilman Adil, “Australia’s Relations with Indonesia 1945-1962” (Doctoral dissertation, Leiden University, 1973), 45; Lockwood, Black Armada, 318-19.
[18]“Dutch Seeking Ships To Rush Troops To Indies,” The Herald, September 25, 1945, page 1, Australian-Indonesian Association, Victorian Branch, 1967.0013, Unit 2, University of Melbourne Archives.
[19]Adil, “Australia’s Relations with Indonesia 1945-1962,” 45.
[22]Lockwood,Black Armada, 289.
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Bibliography
Primary sources
Illustrations
Inside Story of Indonesia. “Australian Trade Unions Boycott Dutch Militarism.” Sydney: Current Book Distributors, circa. 1947.
Newspapers
The Argus. “Australia-NEI Relations Mr Menzies Critical.” June 15, 1946. Australian-Indonesian Association, Victorian Branch, 1967.0013, Unit 2, University of Melbourne Archives
The Argus. “Wharf Ban On Dutch Arms Ships.” September 27, 1945. Australian-Indonesian Association, Victorian Branch, 1967.0013, Unit 2, University of Melbourne Archives.
The Courier-Mail. “Scabbing On The Dutch.” September 26, 1945. Australian-Indonesian Association, Victorian Branch, 1967.0013, Unit 2, University of Melbourne Archives.
The Daily Telegraph. “Govt. plans to arrest Indonesians.” October 5, 1945. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/248024819?searchTerm=%22a%20resolution%20supporting%20the%20Indonesians%22&searchLimits=l-australian=y.
The Herald. “Dutch Seeking Ships To Rush Troops To Indies.” September 25, 1945. Australian-Indonesian Association, Victorian Branch, 1967.0013, Unit 2, University of Melbourne Archives.
The Herald. “Strike Threat By Brisbane Girls.” October 2, 1945. Australian-Indonesian Association, Victorian Branch, 1967.0013, Unit 2, University of Melbourne Archives.
The Sun. “Indonesians Strike In Three Ports: Arms Cargo Alleged.” September 25, 1945. Australian-Indonesian Association, Victorian Branch, 1967.0013, Unit 2, University of Melbourne Archives.
Pamphlets
Hands Off The Indonesian Republic.Sydney: Central Committee, Australian Communist Party, circa. 1945.
Photographs
Unknown newspaper.“Won’t Sail in Dutch Ship.” September 24, 1945. Australian-Indonesian Association, Victorian Branch, 1967.0013, Unit 2, University of Melbourne Archives.
Secondary sources
Articles
Healy, Connie. “Recollections of ‘The Black Armada’ in Brisbane,” Queensland Journal of Labour History, no. 2 (Mar 2006): 15-27.
Books
Beasley, Margo. Wharfies, A History of the Waterside Workers’ Federation of Australia. Rushcutters Bay, NSW: Halstead Press, 1996.
Lingard, Jan. Refugees and Rebels, Indonesian Exiles in Wartime Australia.North Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2008.
Lockwood, Rupert. Black Armada. Sydney: Australasian Book Society, 1975.
Lowenthal, David. “Archives, Heritage, and History.” In Archives, Documentation, and Institutions of Social Memory, edited by Francis X. Blouin and William G. Rosenberg, 193-206. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006.
Dissertations
Adil, Hilman. “Australia’s Relations with Indonesia 1945-1962.” Doctoral dissertation, Leiden University, 1973.