Conservative corporatist: Nationalist thoughts of aristocrats

Javanese aristocrats represented an anomaly in the history of the Indonesian nationalist movement. Javanese nationalism was one of the earliest nationalisms thought to have arisen in the colony. In fact, Indonesia’s first national organization, the Boedi Oetomo, was a Javanese aristocratic organization. This would later bifurcate into an Indisch and a Javanese strain (Shiraishi 1981:93-108). While the leftist-inspired Indisch movement would gradually rise to become an important pillar of present day Indonesian nationalism, the conservative-culturalist side would lose its legitimacy in the nationalist pantheon. Many nationalists, including Soekarno, considered Javanese nationalists to be tainted with the blemish of feudalism and pro-colonialism. This contradicted the modern, leftist-inspired thoughts that became the bedrock of much of Indonesian nationalism.