The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam was sued by Indonesians for using the racist term bersiap in a recent exhibition. It is through court cases that Indonesian rights activists have changed the debate over the Dutch colonial past and exposed colonial crimes. And it is in court again that lasting colonial ideas are being fought, tells scholar Marjolein van Pagee, despite last Thursday January 5 decision of the Amsterdam’s Court of Appeal that “the term bersiap does not automatically contain negative conclusions about Indonesians”.