Sukarno essays

Sukarno essays History is always written by the survivors. That ensured that Sukarnos name was erased from the public record for many years by the chroniclers of the man who replaced him. But no Indonesian would ever forget that it was Sukarno who played the key role in winning freedom from the Dutch becoming in 1945, the first president of the newly independent republic. Sukarno was born on the 6th of June 1901 in the city of Surabaya in Eastern Java. He was the only son of Raden Sukemi, a poor Javanese school teacher, and his Balinese wife, Ida Njoman Rai. His original name was Kusnasosro but after a series of illness, he was given a new and, it was hoped, a more promising and fulfilling name, Sukarno. His childhood playmates called him Djago (Cock Champion) for his looks, spirit and prowess. As an adult he was best known as Bung Karno (brother), the revolutionary hero and architect of independence. Despite the humble origins of his family, there was enough money to send Sukarno to various schools set up by the Dutch colonial Administration in the Netherlands East Indies, as Indonesia was then called. His upbringing was privileged. Any one who made it into the Dutch education system was well above the common rank. Young men like Sukarno were brought to be partners of the Dutch in creating a modern East Indies. In 1927 in Bandung where he got his degree in civil engineering he decided that his future lies in oratory and politics not in architecture. Sukarno had been increasingly involve in National Politics since his teen when he was boarded in the house of Tjokroaminoto, a leading nationalists politician. Tjokroaminito treated him as his own son, financed his further education and at the age of 20 married him off to his own 16 year old daughter, Siti Utari. By 1926 Sukarno had been married twice, after divorcing Siti Utari, he married Inggit Garnasih. Though permitte...