Indonesia had been colonized long before Europeans came around. The dominant political dynasties in the region were Hindu, then Buddhist, and then Islamic, all

Indonesia had been colonized long before Europeans came around. The dominant political dynasties in the region were Hindu, then Buddhist, and then Islamic, all of which originated over seas as merchant trading communities, in some cases only a few centuries before Europeans arrived. Persians had been sailing to Indonesia for millennia, and Indonesia was a destination for the Muslim slave trade (of Africans) before the New World was even discovered by Europeans. This is even more starkly evident in its neighbor, Malaysia, where the Islamic dynasty had only been established for about a century before Europeans showed up. Ethnographically, to be "Malay" in Malaysia is to claim descent from overseas colonists from elsewhere in SE Asia, not from the "native" peoples of the peninsula (i.e. those who migrated prior to recorded history). Because of its size and diversity (geographic and cultural), it's entirely unsurprising that Indonesia is politically... complex. Portuguese, Dutch, and British colonial periods blend almost seamlessly into its long history, which perhaps more than any other region in the world is a product of serial colonization by seafaring empires. But similar patterns are seen throughout SE Asia--rich, dynamic, if sometimes contentious, admixture of cultures resulting from millennia of seafaring, both peaceful and in conquest.