On 10 June 2009, I was invited by Ibu Setia, another one of my long-term interlocutors and one of the founding members of the dance group Bali Ayu, to attend the group's dance performance in Nijmegen, the largest city in the eastern part of the Netherlands. The performance was to take place at the Stadsschouwburg, Nijmegen's main theatre, as a prelude to Puputan, Val van Bali (Puputan, The Fall of Bali), to be performed by the choir Colourful City Koor. Established in 2003 at a time when public discourses on failed multiculturalism were just beginning to heat up, the Colourful City Koor consists of some 80 members of various ethnic backgrounds and is directed by Johnny Rahaket, who is of Moluccan descent. The choir specializes in world music with the goal of introducing different musical traditions to Dutch audiences. The event I was invited to attend commemorated the centenary of the 1908 puputan in which the last independent Balinese kingdom of Klungkung was conquered by the Dutch and brought under colonial rule.

I begin this chapter by exploring the context of recent commemorative practices related to the Dutch East Indies that have stemmed not from a Dutch nationalist turn to history but rather from a longstanding battle by people of Indies descent for recognition of historical injustices in Dutch society – a battle that can be contrasted to Balinese people's interpretations of Balinese-Dutch relations. Setting the scene is important, as it helps us to locate the broader socio-political circumstances in which post-colonial memorial work is situated. In the second half of the chapter, I discuss the commemorative performance Puputan, Val van Bali as well as Balinese subaltern citizens’ (non-)participation in it. A detailed analysis of ethnographic material will reveal the complex set of interethnic dynamics that exist in post-colonial commemorative practices as well as divergent interpretations of the common colonial heritage. Overall, the chapter charts further discourses about kebalian in relation to Bali's colonial history and the rise of Balinese debates over the collective ‘we’ in the diaspora in relation to other ethnic groups with Indonesian heritage. The discussion demonstrates that Indies and Moluccan protagonists of the commemorative performance understand and interpret the colonial past differently from my Balinese interlocutors, who, as earlier established, use the past to make claims to proximity and intimacy with the Dutch in the present.