Overdracht panelen january 6 ,2009 den Haag. ( Hand over of the Panels january 6th in den Haag.) The name of the exhibition: The Bridge to the future.

To His Excellence Mr F.E. Habibi at the Indonesian Embassy in den Haag .

Excellency. It is a great honor to be able to prensent the Indonesian people with this exhibition about the Linggajati Conference. An exhibition destined for the Gedung Perundingan ( the museum) at Linggarjati.

In all humbleness, is it really possible for us Dutch people to understand what the struggle for Independance, the fight of your Founding Fathers, really meant to the Indonesian People?

This exibition is just a modest token of shining another light on our colonial past. In particular for the Dutch, an effort to try to understand why it took us so long to digest our colonial past.

To throw a light on the past not so much to assign blame, but to learn from the shadows and pitchfalls of the past to be able to make that bridge to the future.

This year it will be sixthy year since the Dutch officially handed over souvereignty to the Indonesians. By doing that the Dutch government implicitly acknowledged the value of the concept Linggajati agreement, reached at in november 1946 by Dutch and Indonesian negotiators at Linggajati. There the negotiators aimed at conflict prevention and conflict resolution by diplomatic means. Despite transformation of the agreement text by the Dutch, followed by three years of armed conflict, in the end the negotiation process at Linggajati appeared a succes story of conflict resolution by diplomacy.

Looking at the World today, we discover many potential "Linggajati's"

Lessons learned from historic Linggajati are therefore extremely relevant in the course of conflict resolution by mediation and diplomacy.

The story of the birth and independence of your proud nation as presented on these panels is a remarkable story. It is a lesson and can be a guide for all the young men on our planet who are fighting for their ideals.

The panels portray part of the history of your nation; they tell the story of the awakening of Indonesia in the first half of the 20th century.

It is about three statesmen, Soekarno, Hatta and Sjahrir. In the thirties of the former century each of them was not yet 30 years old, but vastly determined to build his nation..

With this in mind, what would happen to our world today, if all young men and women would decide to give the best of themselves, ready to sacrifice, and undergo hardships to rebuild our world.

The story of your Founding Fathers should be told to the teeming millions of young men and women in Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

But the exhibition is also about Dutch statesmen who had a vision far ahead of their time. What is needed for statesmen to get that insight in these changing times?

We have tried to do our little part in creating this exhibition. I am sure that in Indonesia, in this year of the 100th anniversary of your First Prime Minister Sutan Sjahrir, many Indonesians can tell his story much better then we did.

But accept this token from us, the Dutch Friends of the Gedung Perundingan as a token of our contribution to the great lifes of your Founding Fathers.

Joty ter Kulve, Wassenaar january 6, 2009

Foundation "Friends of Linggajati"