Posted on 05/29/2006 6:40:25 PM PDT by anymouse
No rice, just ice. :^)
Yes it was a Dutch Colony, but the dramatic results of Krakatao were said to indicate to the large Muslim population the Allah was angry. Simon Winchesters book on Krakatoa talks about this. There were Muslims in Indonesia and they would try to go to the Haj in Mecca at least once in their lifetime. Apparently the most politically religious would travel to Yemen which apparently was a place for training of those interested in aggressive promotion of Islam. People like them returned to Indonesia and set in motion the actions of Muslim politics which eventually ended the Dutch
occupation.
The Wikipedia article below covers the later phase of fighting for independence at the end of WW2. It does not deal with the impact of Krakatao and the early Muslim influence toward independence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_National_Revolution
I searched for more info on Winchester’s explanation, but encountered various forms of blocking. Rather than try to access articles in NY Times and Washington Post, I found the Guardian article below which compares the influence of Krakatoa on later Indonesia politics, and of the San Francisco earthquake on Republican politics a century later.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jan/04/indonesia.naturaldisasters
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