Child Of All Nations Summary

From the novel Child of All Nations, Pramoedya Ananta Toer has depicted a great story that gives the readers a clear picture of the European imperialism period in Asia particularly Indonesia. According to the Oxford dictionary, imperialism means "a policy of extending a country’s power and influence through colonization, use of military force, or other means". The main purpose for imperialism in the twentieth century was to exploit the raw materials and natural resources for industries. This is because in the late 18th century, the economy in Europe and America changed drastically due to the Industrial Revolution in Britain where the operations of the market had been modernised. Due to the superiority that the European and American felt of

Child of All Nations also is a reflection on the oppressive Dutch colonial policies of supremacy that restrict the freedom of speech and disgrace the local culture by labelling them as 'inferior' in the Dutch travel books and ethnographies (Gert and Bert, 1998). Consequently, instead of revealing the true story, Pramoedya Ananta Toer was imprisoned for about 10 years in Buru Island being accused of spreading the communism or Marxist elements in his writings. The analogous of the story depicted in Child of All Nations is the contemporary journalism in Southeast Asia where journalists have to face almost the same dilemma as Minke does. Therefore, Minke's decolonisation process as described in Toer's Child of All Nations is relevant to journalism in the 21st century in Southeast

"...where two people are accused... the Native is in the wrong place and the Pure is in the right," meaning the one with Dutch "pure blood" or "mixed blood" were seen to have higher reputation in the community (Toer, 143). During imperialism period the Dutch let the caste system continue as to them the racial caste system appeared to be a useful tool to maintain their power over the native people. For example, in order to retain Dutch domination in the Java land, the "pure blood" and "mixed blood" receive a better education in school that segregate them from the natives. During this modern day, people are categorised into three different social classes; upper, middle and lower class. Sociologist distinguish social class as socio-economic class because the differences between these groups are occupations and education level. On the subject of class structure, media and publications in Indonesia are mostly owned by the wealthy conglomerates and influential individuals such as Suharto family members in order to maintain their interest over the economy and political power (William and Robert, 2011: p. 287). Consequently, "the large media corporations increasingly control the media, and are seen to weaken the role and rights of society" (Ida,