Word: merdeka
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...three years, merdeka (freedom) was the battle cry, the greeting and the promise of the young Indonesian republic. Strangers saluted each other with the word, children chanted it in the street. Many of the republic's hotels were renamed "Merdeka." But when the Dutch seized Jogjakarta, they took black paint and blotted out the word on the fagade of the hotel in the capital's heart. They have put no other name in its place...
...Mister Merdeka." At the end of each speech he punches out, with clenched fists, three thunderous cheers: "Merdeka [Freedom]! Merdeka! Merdeka!" His followers roar the word, plaster it on billboards, use it as the Nazis used Heil Hitler in telephone greetings. Affectionately, they call their leader "Mister Merdeka...
...Dutch as a most dangerous enemy. Soetomo's chief lieutenant was a pint-sized woman, about 50 years old, who said she was born on the Isle of Man, claimed U.S. citizenship through one of her marriages, and was variously known as Miss Tantri, Miss Daventry, Miss Merdeka (freedom), and Surabaya Sue (for her "freedom" broadcasts over the secret Indonesian radio...