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Reader riposte: The Guardian's Indonesia quiz

Reader riposte: The Guardian's Indonesia quiz
Published 3 Oct 2013 

Canberra Times columnist and regular Interpreter contributor Nicholas Stuart responds to Sam Roggeveen, who got 8 out of 15 on the Guardian's Indonesia quiz:

Don't worry about only scoring eight in the Guardian Quiz, I reckon they got some answers very wrong! How can they assert, for example, that "Britain has never colonised or occupied Indonesia"? Allied forces (including Australians) were invited to occupy the islands by the Dutch in 1942. Far more significantly, however, in October 1945 British forces were again used extensively (alongside the Japanese) to repress anti-Dutch nationalist forces. 

The composition of this one simple question reveals that although I know far less about Indonesia than I should (only eight correct answers, although three of these were complete guesses) the Guardian needs to get out a bit more too!

The Guardian has now updated its original quiz to no longer record Britain as a country that has not occupied or colonised Indonesia.



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