7 - Indonesian Physicians in the Greater East-Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere

Summary

When the Japanese army entered Java, they were greeted by large crowds of jubilant Indonesians. After the Japanese reneged on their promise of independence, and because of the harshness of their rule and the subsequent increase in poverty, many Indonesians were soon disenchanted with the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Japanese imperial forces were accompanied by a cadre of physicians who impressed their Indonesian colleagues with appealing views on the role of medicine in nation building. They urged Indies physicians to abandon the imperialist, Western, and now outdated model of health and medicine, and adopt the superior Asian vision characterised by holism, communitarianism, and a commitment to public health and social medicine. The Indonesian medical elite strengthened its social position. The great majority of Indies physicians embraced the social and political views of their Japanese colleagues, which portrayed medicine as a tool of nation building. Medical students increasingly opposed the Japanese forces.