Edisi Indonesia yang keempat UNFINISHED NATION: Ingatan Revolusi, Aksi Masa dan Sejarah Indonesia akan diluncurkan tanggal 22 Agustus ini di Jakarta. Lihat poster dibawah dan silahkan isi Pendaftaran kalau berminta.

Share

Subscribe now

Sementara itu: Sedikit cerita ketika edisi ketiga terbit

Dengan dicetaknya edisi ketiga bukuku UNFINISHED NATION, kami merubah pemunculan judul buku.
Seperti bisa dilihat dalam versi edisi bahasa Inggeris yang terbit duluan, judulnya ialah: UNFINISHED NATION: Indonesia Before and After Suharto.

Kalau edisi perdana bahasa Indonesia judulnya BANGSA YANG BELUM SELESAI: Indonesia Sebelum dan Sesudah Suharto.

Edisi kedua judulnya UNFINISHED NATION: “Ingatan Revolusi, Aksi Masa dan Sejarah Indonesia”.
Edisi cetakan ketiga ini tag line: “Ingatan Revolusi, Aksi Masa dan Sejarah Indonesia” justeru dibesarkan dan UNFINISHED NATION dibawah.
165624513_10222216198327837_8739417645844282950_n

Seberanya saat aku majukan karya ini ke penerbit Verso tahun 2007 judul yang saya anjurkan ialah “Mass Action, Memory of Revolution and Indonesian History”. Judul ini ditolak oleh VERSO dengan argumentasi kurang jitu dalam menarik perhatian pembaca yang rata-rata akan tidak tahu apa-apa tentang Indonesia. Perlu judul yang lebih menarik dan accessible, kata mereka.

Sesudah banyak ping-pong, yang disepakati ialah “Unfinished Nation: Indonesia Before and After Suharto.” Seingat saya istilah “Unfinished Nation” datang dari orangnya penerbit dan bukan saya. Tetapi bagaimanapun juga saya harus menyetjuinya. Apakah saya memang berpendapat bahwa Indonesia adalah sebuah “unfinished nation”?

Sesudah saya banyak renungkan ternyata pengertian saya tentang nasion/bangsa itu diperkaya. Rujukan utama adalah kesimpulan Sukarno yang dia sering sampaikan termasuk sampai tahun 1965. Menurut Sukarno “nation-building” maupun “character-building” belum selesai, belum tuntas. Rumusan lainnya ialah bahwa revolusi – revolusi nasional – juga belum selesai. Sesudah memikirkan kesimpilan Sukarno ini, harus saya tanya apakah selama Orde Barunya Suharto revolusi nasional jadi selesai, jadi tuntas?

Jawabanku sendiri ialah tidak sama sekali. Justeru Orde Baru menjalankan kontra-revolusi terhadap revolusi nasional dan merupakan rejim anasional. Kedaulatan ekonomi diserahkan. Ingatan sejarah nasional dihapus dan didistorsi. Sastra nasional tidak diajarkan lagi sehingga memperlemah ingatan kebangsaan. Dan kekuatan utama sebuah nasion yang baru merdeka, yaitu rakyatnya, dijadikan ‘floating mass’, massa mengambang yang tak punya kekuatan.
Jadi proses nation-building, character-building dan revolusi nasional masih belum selesai, seperti Sukarno sering menjelaskan sebelum tahun 1965.

Tetapi muncul pertanyaan lagi. Apakah negeri seperti Australia (negeriku sendiri), Amerika, Jepang dan negeri-negeri Eropa lainnya adalah nasion yang “finished” dan tuntas? Ini merangsang banyak pikiran lagi. Sesudah membaca banyak hal, saya teryakinkan akan definisi nasion sebagai sebuah KOMUNITAS yang punya KEHIDUPAN EKONOMI BERSAMA, BAHASA BERSAMA (bahasa yang sedemikian berkembang bisa menjadi landasan buat sebuah sastera nasional), BUDAYA BERSAMA (biarpun berkontradiksi didalamnya) yang hidup dalam sebuah wilayah yang jelas perbatasannya. Komunitas muncul dalam proses sejarah, yaitu ada munculnya dan awalnya, berkembang dan konsolidasinya, dan ada berakhirnya. Saya menjadi berkesimpulan bahwa semua aspek ini sudah betul2 terkonsolidasi di negeri-negeri “Barat” (baca ‘imperialis’) dan belum terkonsolidasi di Indonesia, apalagi sesudah 1965. Di Indonesia masih dalam proses. Kehidupan ekonomi di negeri Indonesia masih terbelah seolah-olah ada dua bangsa – yang kaya dan yang miskin. Bahasa nasional bahasa Indonesia sejarahnya belum menghasilkan situasi dimana rakyat banyak merasa memiliki sebuah sastra nasional yang dinikmati bersama. Budaya nasional – yang Sukarno sebut sebagai kepribadian atau character – masih dalam pertarungan idealisme lawan pragmatisme.

Kemudian apakah itu berarti negeri-negeri imperialis yang sudah “finished/tuntas” lebih superior daripada negeri-negeri dimana revolusi nasionalnya belum tuntas? Memang negeri-negeri imperialis ekonominya jauh-jauh lebih besar (kaya) berkat 200 atau 300 tahun bisa menyedot dari dunia koloni. Infrastruktur budaya – sekolah, sastera, science, industri buku – lebih berlimpah. Tetapi di zaman abad 21 ini kelihatan bahwa tanpa dinamika revolusi nasional dan nation-building dinamika PERADABAN “Barat” (negeri imperialis) justeru mandeg dan mulai merosot.

Terbentuk sebuah nasion tidak lebih daripada proses sejarah akibat munculnya kapitalisme. Bahwa negeri-negeri imperialis sudah selesai proses konsolidasi nasionnya tidak berarti dinamika kemajuan PERADABAN ITU SENDIRI akan lebih maju. BAHKAN karena keberhasilan proses konsolidasi nasion adalah hasil proses kolonial dan imperialis budayanya dan peradabannya mengandung elemen LEMAH yg DAHSYAT: munafik!

Liberty, Fraternity dan Equality untuk dirinya tapi tidak buat dunia yang dijajah, biarpun dunia itu sudah merdeka.

Negeri-negeri dan masyarakat barat/imperialis sekarang menghadapi tantangan: menjadi internasionalis – dan kembalikan hasil perampokan 200 tahun ke Dunia Ketiga dalam rangka membetulkan keadilan global dan bangun bersama dunia yang baru. Kalau tantangan ini tidak dihadapi dengan berhasil negeri imperialis akan mundur jadi barbarian. Tidak mungkin elit negeri imperialis akan pernah sadar hal ini, jadi ini tantangan buat rakyat pekerja di negeri imperialis dan kaum progressipnya sebagai pelaku perubahan kesadaran.

Sementara di negeri seperti Indonesia perjuangan dan pergulatan mentuntaskan revolusi nasional masih menunggu, termasuk kaum muda dan kaum rakyat pekerja harus mulai menganalisa arti dari REVOLUSI NASIONAL zaman sekarang. Dan sekarang perjuangan itu perlu nyambung dengan perjuangan rakyat di negeri imperialis yang dihadapi dengan tantangan bereskan peradaban di negerinya sendiri sekaligus merangkul internasionalisme dan bukan nasionalisme. (Nasionalisme negeri imperialis selalu butuh mangsa.)

Salah satu hal yang menjadi syarat mutlak untuk sebuah gerakan manapun mampu menganalisa langkah-langkah kedepan adalah harus mempelajari sejarahnya. Jangan sekali-sekali lupakan sejarah, kata orang. Saya berharap buku saya ini menyumbang sedikit pada upaya mempelajari sejarah Indonesia. Hanya satu buku, tetapi semoga bermanfaat.

Subscribe now

Share

ENGLISH VERSION BELOW

The fourth Indonesian edition of UNFINISHED NATION: Memory of Revolution, Mass Action and Indonesian History will be launched on August 22nd in Jakarta. See the poster below and please fill in the registration form if you’re interested.

Meanwhile: A little story from when the third edition came out.

With the printing of the third edition of my book UNFINISHED NATION, we changed how the title appeared. As you can see in the English edition that came out first, the title was: UNFINISHED NATION: Indonesia Before and After Suharto.

The first Indonesian edition was titled BANGSA YANG BELUM SELESAI: Indonesia Before and After Suharto.

The second edition was titled UNFINISHED NATION: Memory of Revolution, Mass Action and Indonesian History.

In the third printing, the tag line “Memory of Revolution, Mass Action and Indonesian History” was actually made bigger and UNFINISHED NATION was placed below it.

Actually, when I first submitted this work to Verso publishers in 2007, the title I recommended was “Mass Action, Memory of Revolution and Indonesian History”. This title was rejected by VERSO on the grounds that it wasn’t sharp enough to grab the attention of readers who on average wouldn’t know anything about Indonesia. They said it needed a more interesting and accessible title.

After a lot of back-and-forth, what we agreed on was “Unfinished Nation: Indonesia Before and After Suharto.” As I recall, the term “Unfinished Nation” came from the publisher, not me. But in any case, I had to agree to it. Did I actually think that Indonesia was an “unfinished nation”?

It turned out my understanding of nation was enriched by reflecting on this question. My main reference was Sukarno’s conclusion, which he often stated, including up until 1965. According to Sukarno, “nation-building” and “character-building” were not yet finished, not yet complete in 1965. Another way he put it was that the revolution – the national revolution – was also not yet finished. After thinking about Sukarno’s conclusion, I had to ask: did the New Order under Suharto complete the national revolution?

My own answer was: not at all. In fact, the New Order carried out a counter-revolution against the national revolution and was an anti-national regime. Economic sovereignty was handed over. National historical memory was erased and distorted. National literature was no longer taught, which weakened national memory. And the main strength of a newly independent nation, namely its people, were turned into a ‘floating mass’, a floating mass with no power.

So, the process of nation-building, character-building and the national revolution was still unfinished, just as Sukarno often explained before 1965.

But then another question arises. Are countries like Australia (my own country), America, Japan and other European nations “finished” and complete nations? This sparked a lot more thinking. After reading many things, I became convinced of a definition of nation as a COMMUNITY that shares a COMMON ECONOMIC LIFE, a COMMON LANGUAGE (a language developed enough to serve as the foundation for a national literature), a COMMON CULTURE (even with contradictions within it) living within clearly defined borders. A community emerges in a historical process – there’s an emergence and a beginning, a development and consolidation, and an ending. I came to the conclusion that all these aspects are truly consolidated in the “Western” (read: imperialist) countries and not yet consolidated in Indonesia, especially after 1965. In Indonesia it’s still in process. Economic life in Indonesia is still divided as if there were two nations – the rich and the poor. The national language, Indonesian, hasn’t yet produced a situation in its history where the common people feel they share and enjoy a national literature together. National culture – which Sukarno called personality or character – is still in a struggle between idealism and pragmatism.

Then, does that mean imperialist countries that are already “finished/complete” are superior to countries where the national revolution isn’t yet complete? It’s true that imperialist countries have far larger (richer) economies thanks to being able to suck from the colonial world for 200 or 300 years. Their cultural infrastructure – schools, literature, science, the book industry – is much more abundant. But in the 21st century it seems that without the dynamism of national revolution and nation-building, the dynamic of “Western” (imperialist) CIVILIZATION is actually stagnating and starting to decline.

The formation of a nation is nothing more than a historical process resulting from the rise of capitalism. That imperialist countries have completed the consolidation process of their nations doesn’t mean the dynamic of progress of CIVILIZATION ITSELF will be more advanced. IN FACT, because the success of the nation-consolidation process is a result of colonial and imperialist processes, their culture and civilization contain a TREMENDOUS WEAKNESS: hypocrisy!

Liberty, Fraternity and Equality for themselves but not for the colonized world, even though that world is now independent. European colonialism was the counter-revolution against everything positive from the European Enlightenment.

Western/imperialist nations and societies now face a challenge: to become internationalist – and return the proceeds of 200 years of plunder to the Third World in order to restore global justice and build a new world together. If this challenge is not met successfully, imperialist nations will regress into barbarism. It’s impossible for the elites of imperialist nations to ever realize this, so this is a challenge for working people in imperialist nations and their progressives as agents of change in consciousness.

Meanwhile, in countries like Indonesia, the struggle and battle to complete the national revolution is still waiting, including for young people and the working classes who must begin analysing the meaning of the NATIONAL REVOLUTION in the present era. And now that struggle needs to connect with the struggle of people in imperialist nations who are faced with the challenge of fixing civilization in their own countries while also embracing internationalism, not nationalism. (The nationalism of imperialist nations always needs prey.)

One of the absolute requirements for any movement to be able to analyze steps forward is that it must study its history. Never forget history, as they say. I hope my book contributes a little to the effort of studying Indonesian history. It’s only one book, but hopefully it will be useful.

Subscribe now

Share

Share

On March 31, Prof. Dr. Saiful Mujani of State Islamic University Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta and Director of Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC) created a controversy when he asked at a large gathering of political commentators: “The only way is this: can we consolidate ourselves to bring down Prabowo, that’s all.” The title of the gathering was “Before We Are Brought to Order.” This was a response to a threat by President Prabowo that commentators would be “brought into order.” This was followed by other comments from government officials that Indonesia had a surplus of commentators, provoking a wave of social media satire, with netizens saying there was a surplus of officials. This satire referred back to the size of the president’s cabinet. The current Indonesian government under the Red and White Cabinet (Kabinet Merah Putih) features 48 ministers, 56 deputy ministers, and 10 ministerial-level officials, totalling 114 posts. This is the largest cabinet since a cabinet in 1966 that lasted only one month.

At the gathering of commentators in March, Mujani argued that Prabowo would not listen to any independent advice, so it would be better for the country to get rid of him. It was a matter of “saving Indonesia,” he said. He also argued that a legal process such as impeachment through parliament was impossible. Prabowo’s still-solid governing coalition has a clear majority in parliament.

Saiful Mujani’s primary criticism is that President Prabowo’s flagship policies are merely “pork barrel politics”—specifically designed to mobilize voters for the 2029 election rather than for genuine public welfare. In a direct post on X, Mujani explicitly labeled the following programs as “pork barrel” initiatives: Makan Bergizi Gratis (MBG), Koperasi Desa Merah Putih, Sekolah Rakyat, Danantara, and the expansion of TNI territorial areas.

Beyond his critique of specific policies, Mujani questioned President Prabowo’s leadership legitimacy. He further asserted that President Prabowo is “generally incompetent and lacks authority” and is “not presidential,” arguing that a true presidential leader should be inclusive, accept diverse aspirations, and act beyond partisan politics. Here he returns to the earlier statement that the president won’t listen to independent advice.

Recently also, in response to the falling value of the rupiah, Mujani accused President Prabowo of creating a false social dichotomy—wealthier urban dwellers versus rural—with his statement that villagers don’t use dollars.

Almost immediately after his speech, he was reported by one individual to the police as having violated Article 246 of the Indonesian Criminal Code, which forbids statements agitating for violent action against the government. This was followed by other complaints. Mujani is still being investigated by the police. Many civil rights lawyers and activists have defended him, pointing out that there was no call for violence. It should be noted that President Suharto’s resignation in May 1998 occurred after peaceful demonstrations, thus setting a precedent for mobilization forcing a president out of office. During 1997 and before May 1998, the Suharto government did use violence against the movement for change, with at least 14 activists still missing, presumed murdered.

No doubt Mujani felt able to make his call given that the same kind of criticisms are clearly shared by a significant spectrum of civil society. Public intellectuals, human rights organizations, student leaders, and economic think tanks have been constantly making the same criticisms. The presence of such criticisms has probably never been so great since the 1990s. Prabowo himself has regularly publicly responded to these criticisms, stating, as noted above, “that commentators need to be brought into order.” He has challenged them to put up alternative candidates in 2029.

While these criticisms are so widespread as to elicit this response from Prabowo and his ministers, it also seems to be the case that most polls show the president to have had 70–80% support, at least until this August. There appears to have been a severe divide between what in Indonesia is called “civil society” and the mass of the population. In the 1950s, before the Sukarno era of mass mobilization and then the Suharto era of authoritarianism, one of the pioneers of Indonesian studies, Professor Herbert Feith of Murdoch University in Australia, concluded that the country was divided between what he called the “political public” and the rest of the population. The political public were those who closely followed politics, studying the daily newspapers and weeklies and engaging in political discussion informed by that reading and observation. This group narrowed greatly during the 1960s and up until 1998. It can now be said to partly overlap with what is called today in Indonesia “civil society.” Overwhelmingly but not entirely urban-based, civil society comprises NGOs, trade union leaderships, public intellectuals, think tanks, student leaders, and sections of the media. It is today’s “political public” that follows what the civil society groups do and say, either on social media or on the many TV talk shows.

At the kampung, small-town, and village level, there appears to be less intense following of civil society’s output. Most of the political organizations whose voices are continuously present at the lower level are the political parties and large religious organizations. All of the political parties are either in the current government or were in previous governments, and none have shown serious interest in taking up civil society’s critiques. The large religious organizations have usually worked in tandem with all governments. Meanwhile, with the partial exception of a few unions, two separate worlds of political discourse exist, only weakly attached to each other.

Subscribe now

However, a more recent poll shows this “satisfied enough” support has fallen to 51%, a severe drop. So while civil society’s critiques do not make up the daily political diet of the kampung and small-town world, this does not mean that sector does not have its own discontents. Angry demonstrations in small towns around Indonesia in August 2025 protesting local taxes and police abuse of protesters revealed that discontent very clearly. While civil society criticism, such as Mujani’s, is not systematically and widely explained at the grassroots, political satire including through every kind of meme and also music, is increasingly present on social media, and on the platforms more widely used by the kampung and small-town population.

An imbalance is developing in popular discourse and consciousness. Without BOTH critiques of national policy and without national political opposition movements, that discontent explodes spontaneously and often without any strategic outlook. In a political situation like this, when many are asked, “Are you satisfied with the government?” they may ask, “Compared to who else?” and then answer, “Yeah, OK, satisfied enough.” However, a drop from 70% to 51% in “satisfied enough” responses signals that despite the lack of an alternative leadership advocating a strategy for change, the current stability may be coming under threat. If levels of dissatisfaction drop further and discontent deepens, social tensions may overflow even without a clear strategic goal.

If, however, civil society groups were to organize to take their message to the grassroots to connect with the existing discontent there, Indonesia may see a radical change in its political life as more developed opposition is sure to emerge rather than simply overflowing social tensions with no clear goal but which only threaten volatility and ungovernability but no real change.

Postscript:

On 13 August, in the wake of the wide circulation of a critique of policies in the book RESET INDONESIA and the formation by elements of civil society of a Shadow Cabinet as a policy critique mechanism, a meeting of more than 40 intellectuals and academics have published an alternative policy platform and manifesto. More on this in my next SUBSTACK, either directly or via other platforms, such as fulcrum.sg.

Subscribe now

Share

Share

(A version of this article was published in Chinese language on August 6 in Zaobao newspaper in Singapore.)

Over the past three months, a series of controversies in Indonesia’s arts and literary world have once again brought into sharp focus the fundamental tensions that continue to shape the country’s political landscape. From the ARTJOG contemporary art exhibition in Yogyakarta to the banning of documentary screenings to the popularity of novels of dissent, the contradiction is real . They are manifestations of a deeper structural contradiction—one that has defined Indonesian cultural politics since the New Order and shows no sign of resolution under the current political dispensation.

The most illuminating case is the controversy that engulfed ARTJOG 2026. ARTJOG is Yogyakarta’s premier annual contemporary art exhibition. The exhibition accepted strategic sponsorship from a foundation linked to Didit Hediprasetyo, son of President Prabowo Subianto. When artists discovered this, protests erupted. One performer dressed in black scattered flowers while shouting “literature is dead, art is dead” before being detained by security. Other artists displayed installations critical of the president’s policies—including one that depicted President Prabowo with his eyes covered and the words “Soeharto is not a hero” – a reference to attempts to have parliament designate the former President a hero.

What is significant about this episode is not the protest itself—artists have long resisted co-optation by political power—but the admission by ARTJOG director Heri Pemad about the underlying dynamics. He revealed that the festival had faced serious fundraising difficulties after organising a cultural reflection that criticised government cultural policies. In this context, approaching Didit’s foundation was seen as a way to open access to state-owned enterprises for sponsorship. This reveals a fundamental dilemma: in a political economy where state-linked capital dominates cultural patronage, artistic independence comes at a material cost. The ARTJOG controversy echoes an earlier episode ten years ago when artists rejected PT Freeport Indonesia as a sponsor. But the pattern has become more entrenched. The political cartel system that now governs Indonesia extends its reach not through overt repression but through the strategic deployment of patronage and the cultivation of dependency.

This dynamic is not new. Art and literature have historically played a crucial role in challenging political taboos in Indonesia, particularly regarding the mass killings of 1965. Under the authoritarian New Order, figures like Indonesia’s internationally recognised novelist, Pramoedya Ananta Toer used literature to keep alive a suppressed history. The pattern has been consistent: power seeks to control memory, and artists push back.

The recent controversies suggest this tension continues—but the methods have changed. Take the case of the documentary Pesta Babi: Kolonialisme di Zaman Kita (Festival of the Pig: Colonialisme in Our Era), which criticises a National Strategic Project in South Papua that activists say threatens indigenous land rights and the environment. In May 2026, public screenings were forcibly halted at several universities. Coordinating Minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra insisted the government had not issued a central directive, claiming the bans were merely about “administrative procedures”. Yet the screenings were stopped anyway.

Meanwhile, the situation has changed in regard to book publication. Ten years ago in 2016, the Director of the National Library, Dedi Junaidi, publicly declared his support for the censorship of leftist books. “I agree. Because the presence of leftist books has become troubling. In the New Order era, these books were banned for distribution,” he told the press He went further, supporting military and police raids to find books with any hints of leftist ideology, claiming such books were “not in accordance with Pancasila”. However, after public criticism, he was forced to withdraw his comments and guarantee the safety of such books. In that period there were also regular raids on bookshops. However also in 2016, a novel by writer Leila S Chudori, The Sea Speaks His Name (Laut Bercerita), can have book banning as one of the things discussed, with its main character an activist fighting the 1980s ban on the books of Pramoedya Ananta Toer. can become a best-selling novel without suppression or even harassment. By 2026, it was reported to have been reprinted 120 times and is scheduled to be released as a film this year.

At the same time, proposed amendments to the Copyright Law in March-April 2026 included criminal provisions that activists warned could still restrict creative work. The Executive Director of the Legal Aid Institute for the Press, Mustafa Layong, noted that the vaguely worded clauses—covering material deemed contrary to morality, decency, religion, public order, defence, and state security—”potentially silences press freedom, freedom of expression, and also artistic freedom”.

The political cartel governance has shown itself adept at managing dissent through patronage, co-optation, and occasional localised repression. The past three months have demonstrated that the struggle over Indonesia’s cultural politics is far from over. Artists, writers, and filmmakers continue to test the boundaries of what is permissible as they have been since the fall of Suharto in 1998. At the same time, success of a book like Laut Bercerita, indicates that there is still a persistence in filling the democratic space available and expanding it, while there are other pressures to constrict it. What is clear is that the outcome will not depend solely on elite calculations but whether civil society – the social opposition, including its artists and writers – begins to take on a more direct political form to counter restrictive pressures.

Share

(Zaobao version here https://www.zaobao.com.sg/forum/views/story20260805-9474993?)

Subscribe now

Share

Subscribe now

Share

The Struggle of the Naga Tribe was performed by Sydney’s Nimrod Theatre as well as broadcast as a radio play by the ABC.

I will talk a little about Rendra’s works in my memoirs, although I will mostly focus on our interactions. I have a little book out in Indonesian with a selection of essays about him. Below is an article I wrote about him in 2010 remembering him after his passing.

I hope submit the memoirs to the publisher by July.

+++

Rendra knew on whose side he stood

Max Lane

Rendra’s funeral outside Jakarta last year was a crowded, noisy affair. Ramai sekali would be the Indonesian language term used. Noise. People of all social classes. Thousands of people streaming in all day, coming and going. In attendance were a large number of local village people and Rendra’s comrades in arms from the 1970s, Hariman Siregar, Daniel Dhakidae, T. Mulya Lubis and others, as well as, of course, members of Bengkel Teater from that time.

Also at the funeral was a small group from the current generation of activists, who sat on a bench separate from the chaos, watching. Indonesia’s contemporary history is marked by various sharp disjunctures and little continuity, and the erasure of collective memory through the 32 years of the New Order’s systematic transformation of history into rote-learned superstition has drastically weakened the population’s ability to historically remember.

In all countries, the ruling class determines what version of history enters the minds of the population, and in Indonesia this phenomenon is particularly striking. This does not just apply to the false memories implanted in society about the events of 1965; it applies to the whole of the country’s historical experience. As a result, almost nobody among the current generation knows what a transformative period the 1970s was.

It was in the 1970s that the basis for Suharto’s dictatorial system was established but also when people like Rendra laid the basis for the emergence in the 1990s of a radical resistance to that dictatorship. As a result of political censorship, and school education that distorted history and did not teach Indonesian literature as a subject, knowledge of Rendra’s 1970s poems and plays has never become a mass phenomenon, even if arrests, lyrics for pop songs and movies have long made his image as a flamboyant dissident the subject of front page news.

Rendra and his works are themselves a manifestation of a historical disjuncture. Rendra’s political poetry and drama, and his political activism was a bridge between the anti-communist student activism of the late 1960s and the pro-Left student activism in the 1980s and 1990s. However, it was a bridge that Rendra himself was never able to cross, despite taking initial steps onto that bridge, a bridge of his own creation.

A reaction to political excess

The 1965 disjuncture was (counter-) revolutionary. The Indonesia of the 45 Generation, of the revolution, was to be remade in the image of the money-grubbing former sergeant in the Dutch colonial army of repression, Suharto. The poet of the 45 Generation was Chairil Anwar. The spirit of the revolution that he articulated was summed up in the short poem Maju written in 1943 whose last verse ends maju, serbu, serang, terjang (forward, attack, charge, advance) – four different words for going on the offensive. These were appropriately martial sentiments for the Indonesian people at the time under the Japanese Occupation, preparing to claim their independence. After the terror of the mass murder of a million people in 1965-66, under Suharto the people were no longer to advance forward and attack. Instead, they were to be forced into the ‘floating mass’.

No other intellectual or culture figure manifested the contradiction between the two Indonesias more deeply than Rendra. Before 1965, Rendra began to actively side with those literary and cultural figures who opposed the politics and ideas of the rapidly growing Indonesian Left under the ideological leadership of Sukarno and the organisational leadership of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). He was a signatory to the Cultural Manifesto (MANIKEBU), along with other writers, opposing the Left’s campaign for literature and the arts to be weapons for the struggle for socialism.

Soon after that, however, Rendra took a decision that separated him from the activities of his MANIKEBU colleagues even as he continued to identify with them, taking a scholarship to study drama in Grenwich Village, New York. So while Arief Budiman, Goenawan Mohammed and others worked increasingly closer with the Indonesian army as it prepared for its confrontation with Sukarno, Rendra was experiencing the liberties and witnessing the injustices of American society. It was in New York too that Rendra was introduced to the social and political sciences.

Rendra’s experiences in America did not change his orientation towards Indonesian politics. He continued to identify with what became known as the 66 Generation, the coalition of writers and artists who supported the suppression of the Indonesian Left in 1965-66. However, this orientation was primarily based upon his aversion to what he perceived as the cult-like and decadent aspects of Sukarno’s rule and the bullying by the PKI-Sukarno alliance manifested in the banning of some parties and publications before 1965. So while Rendra identified with this generation of activists, their experience of deep collaboration with the military before 1965 was not his experience.

When he returned from New York, it was only a few years before he was the only writer of the 66 Generation to turn completely against Suharto and the New Order. Moreover, both his critiques of the New Order in the 1970s and their artistic form had much more in common with the communist writers of the 1950s and 1960s than anything ever produced against the New Order by the rest of his generation.

A fierce critique

Rendra’s divergence from the mentality of the 66 Generation was signalled first by such theatrical productions as Bip Bop. It was in the 1970s, however, that we saw the explosion of theatrical and poetic creativity integrated into political activism against the dictatorship. It lasted from 1973 until 1978, when he was imprisoned.

During that period he wrote a series of plays that were devastating in their ridicule. In 2010, it is easy to forget that such savage ridicule was against a military dictatorship that had been actively engaged in mass murder only five years earlier. It was an act of deep courage. There was Mastodon and Condors, a story of student rebellion against a military dictatorship; his adaptation of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, a hilarious comic savagery of the impotence of the military character (and, I think, Rendra’s greatest linguistic achievement); The Struggle of the Naga Tribe, a satire, and manifesto against New Order political and economic development; Sekda, a sharp expose of the workings of bureaucracy under a dictatorship-for-profit; and his adaption of Schiller’s Der Rauber, The Robbers. In addition, he wrote over twenty poems, most of which were circulated in a handwritten collection, known as The Poet’s Pamphlets.

For those five years, from 1973 until 1978, Rendra led the opposition against the Suharto dictatorship and its development strategy. He did this through the performances of his plays and his poetry readings. He did it too through a series of public forums and well publicised meetings with political figures, including military rivals, such as General Sumitro, Suharto’s second-in-command, who started to manoeuvre against Suharto. He also collaborated more with student groups and leaders.

The opening salvo of his campaign was Mastodon and the Condors, which attracted thousands to its 1973 performance in Jakarta. Its manifesto was The Struggle of the Naga Tribe, performed in 1975, setting out a comprehensive critique of New Order politics and economic development as well as elucidating the principles he thought could underpin an alternative. The critique can be summed up by listing the cast of characters. On one side was a money-grubbing queen backed by sunglass-wearing corrupt military officers and a yes-men chorus of parliamentarians who used the army to pave the way for foreign businesses to enter the country to exploit the local market and the natural resources, with no interest in the welfare of the people. On the other is a village community who mobilise to defend their land from the encroachment of a mining company. They receive the support of a young, foreign journalist who promises to expose their struggle to the outside world – the world of the Big Boss.

The greed, violence, arrogance and anti-democratic character of the New Order is vividly summed up in the Queen-Army-yes men Parliamentarians’ relationship with Mr Joe (the US Ambassador) and the Big Boss, the owner of the American mining company. The raucous enthusiastic reaction from the audience indicated that his depiction of the New Order was accurate in their eyes. What was interesting in the play was that Rendra also identified this situation as being linked to an underlying system. A chorus of machines speak:

Bum. Bum. Bum.
Jas - Jis - Jos.
Gerak mesin bergedebum.
Gerak orang hongos-hongos.

…

Ketipak. Ketipak. Ketipung.
Gudang penuh jadi luber.
Hasil kami tak tertampung.

Sah - soh - sah.
Ketoprak - gebyar - gebyar.
Hasil kami harga murah.
Kami butuh pasar lebar.

Kerja cepat pasar lebar
barang murah jauh perginya.
Untung nambah modal
Modal nambah untung.
Tambah uang tambah akal
jangan macet, jangan tanggung.

Boom! Boom! Boom!
Jas-Jis-Jos.
Machines moving go gedeboom.
People moving, panting.

...

Ketipak. Ketipak. Ketipung.
The warehouses overflow.
We’ve got nowhere to store our goods.

Sah - soh - sah.
Ketoprak gebyar gebyar.
We sell our products cheaply.
We must have a huge market.

Working fast in a big market.
Cheap goods can be sent far and wide.
Profit increases capital
Capital increases profit.
More money means more schemes,
We can’t be held up, we can’t be interrupted.

It is difficult to imagine pre-65 writers from the Left having any major disputes with this general depiction of the system driving the New Order’s activities. Rendra sums up the principles underpinning his alternative: ‘Land is the basic need of a village society, and therefore, ownership of the land must be organised and controlled by the village.’ Rendra depicts the ownership as being by individual villagers, possessing only the amount of land they can farm.

Ideas as agents for radical change

For many among the literati in Indonesia at the time, Rendra had, as Ikranegara wrote, ‘murdered nuance’ and presented nothing more than ‘indoctrination’. These were the same accusations that the Generation of 66 had made against the communist writers of the period before 1965. Rendra was now in their company – or was he?

Rendra’s plays and poems of this period were indeed the conveyor into post-1965 politics of a revived articulation of class antagonism. In The Naga Tribe a class of rural farmers is pitted against a capitalist class. The play Mastodon and Condors opens with a beautiful and vivid presentation of class difference:

Angin gunung turun merembes ke hutan,
lalu bertiup di atas permukaan kali yang luas,
dan akhirnya berumah di daun-daun tembakau.
Kemudian hatinya pilu
melihat jejak-jejak sedih para petani – buruh
yang terpacak di atas tanah gembur
namun tidak memberi kemakmuran bagi penduduknya.

Para tani – buruh bekerja,
berumah di gubug-gubug tanpa jendela,
menanam bibit di tanah yang subur,
memanen hasil yang berlimpah dan makmur
namun hidup mereka sendiri sengsara.

Mereka memanen untuk tuan tanah
yang mempunyai istana indah.
Keringat mereka menjadi emas
yang diambil oleh cukong-cukong pabrik
cerutu di Eropa.

Dan bila mereka menuntut perataan pendapatan,
para ahli ekonomi membetulkan letak dasi,
dan menjawab dengan mengirim kondom.

The mountain wind moves softly through the forest,
sweeps across the wide river,
and finally comes to rest among the tobacco leaves.
Sadly it watches
the weary pace of the farm labourers
as they are impaled on the rich earth,
which offers them only poverty.

The farm labourers work,
planting seed in the fertile ground,
bringing in the rich, abundant harvest,
and lead lives of misery.

They live in shanties without windows
and harvest for landlords
who live in huge palaces.
Their sweat falls like gold
for the carpetbaggers who run cigar factories in Europe.
When they demand their share of the profits,
the economists straighten their ties,
and send them condoms.

But it is also in his depiction of the village population that the disjuncture between the 1970s and the decades that followed can best be seen. This is clearest in The Naga Tribe where Rendra actually shows two sets of villagers, the Naga and the Kariman. The depiction of the Naga is clearly meant to be positive: they are a democratic, socially egalitarian community in harmony with nature. The Kariman have lost their land to town dwellers and have become impoverished, exploiting labourers in their own village.

It is in the juxtaposition of these two communities that a set of contradictions is revealed. First, the humane and democratic Naga people show not the slightest sense of solidarity with the Kariman people, adopting a stance which would easily be classified as ‘blaming the victim’. Second, as a framework for proposing social struggle it separates the goal, the ideal – the Naga kind of society – from the potential force that could struggle for change in Indonesia’s reality – the Kariman. In Indonesia by the 1970s (indeed as early as the eighteenth century on Java), there were no villages like the Naga’s – if, in fact, there ever were. The situation of the vast majority of village Indonesians, especially in Java, resembled that of the Kariman. The real struggle that Indonesia faced was not the Naga struggle to defend a socially just society but Kariman’s to actually achieve one.

The struggle that was to actually unfold in the late 1980s and into the 1990s was one of maju, serbu, serang, terjang (forward, attack, charge, advance) by Indonesia’s Kariman, albeit if many of them had, in the meantime, been forced to move to the cities. The 1990s generation of activists adopted, in one form or other, moderate or revolutionary, a class struggle approach. Their ideological reference was Marxism and socialism. The literary icon was more Pramoedya Ananta Toer and other LEKRA writers, rather than Rendra. The poet of the radical activists themselves was Wiji Thukul.

But while Rendra separated the Kariman reality from the Naga ideal, it might be argued however that it was Rendra who saved the Kariman from oblivion in his writing. The beauty and vividness of his depictions of the ordinary people, their suffering and their contempt for the elites, forced the ‘floating mass’ mentality into a retreat. Moreover, while his preference was to view ideas rather than people as the agents of radical social and political change, he always knew that there were two sides and that it was correct to take sides. To quote ‘Sajak Pertemuan Mahasiswa’, ‘The Student Meeting Poem’:

ya!
ada yang jaya, ada yang terhina
ada yang bersenjata, ada yang terluka
ada yang duduk, ada yang diduduki

ada yang berlimpah, ada yang terkuras
dan kita di sini bertanya:
“maksud baik saudara untuk siapa?
saudara berdiri di pihak yang mana?

yes!
there are the triumphant, there are the humiliated
there are those with weapons, there are those with wounds
there are those who sit, there are those who are sat upon
there are those with abundance, those who have been robbed of all
and we gathered here ask:
‘for whom, are your good intentions?
on whose side do you stand?’

There can be little doubt that Rendra’s poems and plays will be part of the repertoire of the movement as the Kariman resume their struggles against the injustices of underdevelopment.

The translations provided are by Max Lane, except for the translation of ‘Song of the Condors’ which is from State of Emergency by Harry Aveling. Inside Indonesia 101: Jul-Sep 2010

Subscribe now

Share

*”UNFINISHED NATION: Memory of Revolution, Mass Action and Indonesian History”

(UNFINISHED NATION: Ingatan Revolusi, Aksi Masa dan Sejarah Indonesia.)

Published by GDN and Penerbit Djaman Baroe.

Subscribe now

Share

This book tries to tell the story of the rise and fall of the Suharto New Order dictatorship and the vanguard role of the activists who organised to build mass action protests (aksi) that eventually forced Suharto from power. However the book’s title UNFINISHED NATION provoked reflections on the nature of nations themselves and the history of Indonesia as a nation.

Here is a Little Bit of a Story About those Reflections.

With the printing of the fourth edition of my book UNFINISHED NATION, we changed the appearance of the book’s title. It has returned to: “UNFINISHED NATION: Memory of Revolution, Mass Action and Indonesian History”

As can be seen in the English language edition that was published first, the title is: UNFINISHED NATION: Indonesia Before and After Suharto.

The first Indonesian language edition was titled BANGSA YANG BELUM SELESAI: Indonesia Sebelum dan Sesudah Suharto – a direct translation of the original English.

The second Indonesian edition was just titled UNFINISHED NATION.

In the third printing, the tag line “Memory of Revolution, Mass Action and Indonesian History” was actually enlarged, with UNFINISHED NATION placed below.

Actually, when I submitted this work to Verso Publishing in 2007, the title I proposed was “Mass Action, Memory of Revolution and Indonesian History”. This title was rejected by VERSO on the grounds that it was not effective enough in attracting the attention of readers who would generally know nothing about Indonesia. They said a more attractive and accessible title was needed.

After much back-and-forth, what was agreed upon was “Unfinished Nation: Indonesia Before and After Suharto.” As I recall, the term “Unfinished Nation” came from the publisher, not from me. But nonetheless, I had to agree to it. Did I truly believe that Indonesia is an “unfinished nation”?

After much reflection, it turned out that my understanding of the nation was enriched. My main reference is Sukarno’s conclusion, which he often expressed, including up until 1965. According to Sukarno, “nation-building” and “character-building” were not yet finished, not yet complete. Another formulation was that the revolution – the national revolution – was also unfinished. After considering Sukarno’s conclusion, I had to ask whether, during Suharto’s New Order, the national revolution became finished, became complete?

My own answer is: not at all. In fact, the New Order carried out a counter-revolution against the national revolution and was an anti-national regime. Economic sovereignty was surrendered. National historical memory was erased and distorted. National literature was no longer taught, thus weakening national memory. And the main strength of a newly independent nation, its people, were turned into a ‘floating mass’, a floating mass with no power.

So, the process of nation-building, character-building and the national revolution is still unfinished, as Sukarno often explained before 1965.

But another question arises. Are countries like Australia (my own country), America, Japan and other European nations “finished” and complete nations? This provokes much more thought. After reading many things, I became convinced of the definition of a nation as a COMMUNITY that shares a COMMON ECONOMIC LIFE, a COMMON LANGUAGE (a language developed enough to become the foundation for a national literature), a COMMON CULTURE (even with contradictions within it) that lives within a clearly defined territory. The community emerges from a historical process – there is an emergence and a beginning, a development and consolidation, and an ending. I came to the conclusion that all these aspects are already well consolidated in “Western” (read: imperialist) countries and are not yet consolidated in Indonesia, especially after 1965. In Indonesia, it is still in process. The economic life of the Indonesian nation is still divided as if there were two nations – the rich and the poor. The history of the national language, Bahasa Indonesia, has not yet produced a situation where the common people feel they own a national literature that is enjoyed together. The national culture – which Sukarno called personality or character – is still in a struggle between idealism and pragmatism.

Then, does that mean that the imperialist countries, which are “finished/complete”, are superior to those countries where the national revolution is not yet complete? Indeed, the imperialist countries have far larger (richer) economies because over 200 or 300 years they were able to extract wealth from the colonial world. Their cultural infrastructure – schools, literature, science, the book industry – is much more stronger. But in the 21st century, it appears that without the dynamic of national revolution and nation-building, the dynamic of “Western” (imperialist country) CIVILIZATION is actually stagnant and degrading. The negative side of all its contradictions taking complete hold of civilisational processes.

The formation of a nation is nothing more than a historical process resulting from the emergence of capitalism. That the imperialist countries have completed their nation-building consolidation process does not mean the dynamic of progress of CIVILIZATION ITSELF will advance further. IN FACT, because the success of the nation-building consolidation process is the result of a colonial and imperialist process, its culture and civilization contain a TERRIBLE WEAKNESS: hypocrisy!

Liberty, fraternity and equality for itself but not for the colonized world, even though that world is now independent.

The Western/imperialist countries and societies now face a challenge: to become internationalist – and return the plunder from 200 years to the Third World in order to rectify global injustice and together build a new world. If they fail to meet this challenge, the imperialist countries will regress into barbarism. It is impossible for the elites of imperialist countries to ever realize this, so this is a challenge for the working people in the imperialist countries and their progressives as agents of change in consciousness.

Meanwhile, in countries like Indonesia, the struggle and efforts to complete the national revolution are still waiting. The youth and the working people must begin to analyse the meaning of the NATIONAL REVOLUTION in the present era. And now this struggle must connect with the struggle of the people in the imperialist countries who are faced with the challenge of fixing the civilization in their own country while embracing internationalism, not nationalism. (The nationalism of imperialist countries always needs victims.)

One of the absolute requirements for any movement to be able to analyse the steps ahead is that it must study its history. Never forget history, as the saying goes. I hope my book makes a small contribution to the effort of studying Indonesian history. Just one book, but I hope it is useful.

(Adapted slightly from a note on March 28, 2021 at https://maxlaneonline.com/.../sedikit-cerita-ingatan.../)

Subscribe now

Share

Of all my experiences with Comrade Pramoedya, the most memorable was visiting the grave of R.M. Tirto Adhisoeryo, in Bogor at that time. Attached is a piece I wrote back then. This piece was first published in Progres magazine. As I recall, that magazine was banned by the Suharto regime in 1992.

Comrade Pramoedya once also rebuked me, asking whether I was truly leftist. He said to me, “How is it that a leftist doesn’t strive to build a party?” So it was no surprise when Comrade Pram himself was publicly made a member of the PRD in March 1999. Since returning to Australia in 1981, I was also sworn in as a member of a party there.

I will always miss Pramoedya and his comrades.

+++

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the passing of Pramoedya Ananta Toer. I received the news of Comrade Pram’s death when I was in San Francisco in 2006. Shocked and saddened. Today, as I reflect, I still feel sorrow.

Of all my experiences with Comrade Pramoedya, the most memorable was visiting the grave of R.M. Tirto Adhisoeryo, in Bogor at that time. Attached is a piece I wrote back then. This piece was first published in Progres magazine. As I recall, that magazine was banned by the Suharto regime in 1982.

Comrade Pramoedya once also rebuked me, asking whether I was truly leftist. He said to me, “How is it that a leftist doesn’t strive to build a party?” So it was no surprise when Comrade Pram himself was publicly made a member of the PRD in March 1999. Since returning to Australia in 1981, I was also sworn in as a member of a party there.

I will always miss Pramoedya and his comrades.

Subscribe now

Share

+++++

A Visit to the Grave Site of Minke Tirto Adhi Soerjo with comrade Pram and Friends

Progres, March 1, 1992, by Max Lane

I have not visited many cemeteries. I am not able to make many comparisons. Even so, I feel I can say that the cemetery in Blender, Bogor, West Java is an appropriate location as a place of final rest on this earth. It was cool under scores of frangipani trees shading the hundreds at rest here. There was no chance for the sun to even peep through the canopy to bake the earth and dry up the atmosphere. Cool, quiet, peace.

But like so many places in Indonesia, even this cemetery was busy with human activity. The call to prayer echoed across the cemetery from a nearby mosque reminding the faithful of their duties on earth. The local villagers also used the cemetery for their household activities, for example hanging out their laundry on the cemetery fence.

There were many children playing there. There were people selling flowers that would be placed on loved one’s graves. There were the workers looking after the cleanliness of the cemetery, whose duty it was to fight off the ever forward-creeping grass and. (Indeed, here and there, weeds had conquered some graves, making them their little fiefdom.)

There were five of us there that day: Pramoedya Ananta Toer, the publisher Hasyim Rachman, the editor of Pram’s books, Joesoef Isak, and the documentary film-maker, Gil Scrine, and myself.

“Where is the grave of Tirto Adhi Soerjo?”, asked Joesoef addressing one of the crowd of children that was following us, their curiosity aroused by the presence of two foreigners.

Hasyim Rachman and I bought five little packets of fresh flowers that would be scattered over the grave. “Ya, where is his grave, the grave of this famous person?”, Hasyim also asked the children.

“Djokomono Tirto Adhi Soerjo?” added Joesoef.

Pramoedya Ananta Toer was silently observing the goings-on, gathering a sense of the atmosphere and keeping tabs on how our efforts were progressing.

“This way, pak”, spoke a child. So our whole group obediently followed behind the little guide, ourselves in turn followed by a growing entourage of other children. On the way we met an old man, a gardener at the cemetery. He had actually retired from this job, but decided to continue to work because there were not enough people hired to do the work.

“They are looking for the grave of Djokomono Tirto Adhi Soerjo?”, asked a teenage boy who had joined the now even larger entourage of children. “If I am not mistaken, it is over there”, spoke the gardener pointing towards the edge of the cemetery.

Our entourage swelled as we headed in that direction. Hasyim and Joesoef grew more confident as they started to remember their visit here a few years earlier. At that time, they were researching for Pramoedya’s non-fiction biography of Adhisoeryo, entitled “The Pioneer”. Pramoedya, my friend Gil and I walked along quietly, only occasionally whispering to each other – it was a cemetery after all.

“Here, pak, here”. We had arrived, it seemed.

We walked passed a grassy patch, not very well maintained. There was a fenced off area with seven graves inside. The grass and weeds had taken over. Without being given any orders, the horde of children started to tear out all the weeds, inside and outside the area of the seven graves. Some also started to sweep the area, including the graves themselves.

So this was the resting place of The Pioneer, Sang Pemula, “Minke”. This family grave site was quite presentable, tiled, although not with expensive tiles. The graves were in a row, with the exception of two, which were next to each other but slightly separated. The oldest grave was that of The Pioneer, “Minke”.

Djokomono Tirto Adhi Soerjo died in 1918 and was buried in Jakarta, and only later in 1971 disinterred and moved to Bogorto be with his family.

“Which is Minke’s grave?” Joesoef, Pramoedya, and Hasyim examined each of the seven headstones. They seemed to know the family tree of that family buried here. Indonesians seem to know these things. And, there it was:

“R.M. DJOKOMONO TIRTO ADHI SOERJO

PIONEER OF INDEPENDENCE

PIONEER OF THE INDONESIAN PRESS

DJAKARTA

PASSED AWAY 1918 – DJAKARTA

RE-INTERRED 30-12 1973 – BOGOR”

I was moved at that moment. It’s true, yes, my friends say I am a bit sentimental. However, I knew the man buried there quite well as a result of Pram’s creativity. I had translated the four volumes Pram had written in the Buru Island prison camp which were novels telling the story of the life and times of Raden Mass Tirto Adhsisoeryo – the character Minke. I realized, of course, that Pramoedya had taken some poetic license and that they are novels and not histories. But still, the real Tirto Adhisoeryo does come alive for us. There is also the book, The Pioneer, edited by Pramoedya, which contained some original writings by Tirto, short stories, that also help get to the man resting here. The Pioneerwas published by Hasta Mitra, founded by the three men paying their respects now at this graveside.

Did I really know him all that well, the boy Minke and the man, T.A.S.? Hmm, well, I certainly felt I knew him, and as a friend. And this was where he was resting now.

“Bung Pram, why has his name faded on the headstone?”

Pramoedya looked closely and compared with the others. “Yes, why?”

The writing on the other headstones were clear and easy to read, painted in black. The paint had faded on Tirto’s headstone, with some of the letters having disappeared altogether. If the letters had not been etched into the stone, his name would be illegible altogether

“Pak, can you find some charcoal”, Hasyim asked for help from among the throng that had gathered to watch us. Somebody head off to find some charcoal to write with.

“Does somebody have a ballpoint?”, Pramoedya asked. I gave him my pen, which happened to be a black ink pen, very suitable for rehabilitating the disappeared letters.

Pramoedya squatted and began tracing in the letters. One by one the letters re-appeared spelling out the name of The Pioneer. Pramoedya’s countenance was tense with concentration; his lips pulled tight as he focused.

The four of us stood watching. Hasyim turned to examine the audience that had gathered. There were maybe 15-20 people now, mostly children, but a few adults, including the two gardeners who looked after the cemetery.

“You are also honored to be able to look after and guard the grave site of such a great man as this, a great man in Indonesian history. Tirto Adhi Soerjo. Don’t forget that name. Yes, he has been forgotten by history, by the Indonesian nation. But we have not forgotten. Look there are foreigners too who have come here to pay their respects.” Thus Hasyim opened his speech.

Pram was still carefully finishing his work. The vanished name was indeed long, and the ballpoint was not the most suitable tool for the task. Joesoef and I chatted with the gardener. Gil took photos. Hasyim was still addressing his audience.

“This is new”, said Joesoef pointing to the headstone, “Pioneer of Independence. When we were here last that was not there. . It just said a “pioneer of the press”. We had suggested such a change to one of his descendants, a general. It seems they have added that.” That general, a great grandson of Tirto, now also rested here.

The charcoal was handed to us, but it had turned out that the ballpoint was up to the job.

“Here, Max”, Hasyim called out to me, inviting me to scatter some flowers over the grave. I drew close and scattered the handful of petals over it.

Was I just performing, I thought? Was thus just a photo opportunity? No, the answer came swiftly. I was proud to have known the man buried here and proud too to be here with people as dedicated at Pram, Joesoef and Hasyim.

What an amazing person was Tirto Adhi Soerjo. He could sense that a nation would be formed by history even before the nation itself could become aware of this trajectory. And he just didn’t sit by and watch, this Tirto, the pioneer. He worked and struggled to bring his vision to reality. He was a founder of the Islamiyah Traders Union, and the first native of the Indies to publish a newspaper with a future perspective for his people.

I knew that if we looked at things objectively it wasn’t always a healthy attitude to be so proud about one’s country’s past. One could become lost in the past and become blind to the present and future. And too, the achievements of those that have gone before us are not our achievements. But as I scattered those lovely petals over his grave, I could not stop myself from thinking that if I was an Indonesian I would be proud that my country had had a pioneer, such as Tirto.

Hasyim and Joesoef took turns in scattering the flowers, and then Gil. Hasyim had some of the talents of an ustadzso he then recited a Moslem prayer in Arabic. We bowed our heads; nobody spoke a word.

Pram completed inking in the full name: R.M. Djokomono Tirto Adhi Soerjo. Hasyim took a turn then to ink in the epitaph.

“We have a new audience”, Pram joked to Gil who was taking photographs. Pram pointed to a small herd of goats that was feeding on grass nearby. We all smiled at the scene.

Pram scattered some petals. His face was silent. What was he thinking?

It was time to leave. There was no point in drawing out this moment, no matter how moving. Pram and Hasyim reminded the caretakers to look after the grave of this very important man. We turned and started to make our way to the cemetery entrance but we all glanced back at least once, drawn to Minke’s resting place for another moment. The little gang of teenagers and children still watched our every move as we left.

“This man has been forgotten by history any by his own nation and people,” Hasyim complained to them one more time.

“Read the headstone. Died in 1918. Soekarno was still a boy at that time. Just imagine: this man was already fighting for freedom when Sukarno was still just a boy. This man is just as great a person as Sukarno, maybe even greater.”

They followed us to the entrance, both the children and the few adults, listening to Hasyim. Hasyim’s exuberance startled them. He was a handsome, imposing man and when he was excited it was a serious matter.

Hasyim lagged behind. “Who here is at high school?” A boy – they were all boys – put up his hand.

“So, then ask your teacher: who was Tirto Adhi Soerjo. And ask him why nothing about Tirto is taught to the students at school. And tell your teacher that this great man is buried here in Bogor.”

Hasyim finally exited the cemetery. Even as he hurried to catch up with us, he still needed to stop and turn and repeat what he had been saying. He wanted to make sure he left behind a message they would not forget: that here in Blender Cemetery, Bogor their laid in eternal rest a great Indonesia, a pioneer in the struggle for freedom and of the press.

A few days later, I received a message from Pramoedya. “What Hasyim told them all at the cemetery – somebody should write about Tirto. National Press Day just passed and we were the only ones who visited his grave.”

Subscribe now

This decision was met with criticism from a broad spectrum of social and political elements in Indonesia. These included former ambassadors, academics, and religious organisations, including the semi-official Indonesian Assembly of Ulamas (MUI). The 98 member Civil Society Coalition of NGOs, social organizations, trade unions and others also demanded that Indonesia withdraw from the BoP. Some Islamic organisations, such as Nahdatul Ulama (NU), did support BoP membership, although this generated internal controversy in the NU with more than 100 prominent NU members issuing statement in opposition to the leadership’s position.

Following the controversy President Prabowo called major Islamic organisations to a meeting where he promised that Indonesia would withdraw from the BoP if the cause of Palestinian statehood was not advanced. After this meeting, both the MUI and another mass organisation, Muhammidiyah, moderated their position to one of conditional support. At the same meeting these organisations were promised a new building in the centre of Jakarta.

The controversy escalated again after Israel and the United States started bombing Iran. Most significantly the MUI, despite its post meeting moderation, issued a strong statement condemning the attacks and once again urged the government to “immediately withdraw Indonesia’s membership from the Peace Council”. There was a wide round of similar calls from other public figures and civil society. After some hesitation, the government announced it has suspended its participation in BoP, though not fully withdrawing. Later the government also said it would not be sending soldiers to Gaza under while the current conditions continued.

The decision to join BoP was preceded by a speech from president Prabowo in 2025 where he strongly praised President Trump’s political leadership. The President later repeated similar sentiments in Washington at the February meeting formally establishing the BoP stating “”under President Trump’s leadership, this vision of real peace will be achieved.” Prabowo’s clearly stated position on the Palestine question at that time was that peace can only be ensured if Israel’s security can be assured as part of achieving a two-state solution where Palestinian sovereignty would also be recognised. The very explicit statement regarding Israel’s security, circulated on social media in a clipped form, also generated controversy when it was made.

With the starting of the US and Israeli attacks on Iran, there was further wave of criticism because of Indonesia’s muted response on February 28, 2026. In it, Indonesia expressed “deep regret” over the failure of negotiations but no condemnation or a call to a halt to the bombing. There was also criticism of a lack of any immediate statement of condolences after the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khameni. The President did deliver such a letter on March 4. He also offered to mediate between Iran and the United States, but the offer has not been taken up. Criticism continued and already on March 3 the Chairperson of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP), Megawati Sukarnoputri, both stated her condolences on the killing of Khameni. She also stated “Indonesian nation stands with the people of Iran in rejecting and strongly condemning all forms of unilateral military aggression that violate state sovereignty”. On March 9, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs explicitly called on the US and Israel to cease their attacks against Iran.

The back and forth of criticism and response n this issue reflects a debate in the country over whether Indonesia is in the process of abandoning a policy of “free and active” non-alignment which has been how the country’s foreign policy has been official described over the last several decades. The President has regularly re-affirmed this policy and also Indonesia’s ongoing decision not to join any military pacts.

In recent history, there have been some ambiguities in this policy. Unlike Malaysia, Indonesia did not close its airspace to the United States war planes bombing Iraq in 2001. More recently, when the United States was campaigning to win recognition of for Juan Guaidó as Venezuelan President, unlike other Global South members of the UN Security Council who voted against a US resolution, Indonesia abstained. When the United States attacked Venezuela this year and took President Maduro and his wife to the US, Indonesia made no strong condemnation expressing concern at the level of principle and urging de-escalation by both sides, even in a situation of a one-sided attack.

However, the most recent decision to join the BoP, the praise of President Trump’s leadership and the hesitancy over taking a strong position against the US and Israeli action against Iran has led to a definite a view among many in Indonesia that a more substantial change in orientation has taken place, although the government rejects this. Closely connected to this is also strong and very broad criticism from civil society and others, viral on social media, of the recent Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART), officially signed on February 19–20, 2026, in Washington, D.C. The criticisms claim that Indonesia basically surrendered to the United States giving the US tariff free entry to the Indonesian market and many other concessions. Connected to the sense of increasing political alignment with the US was the agreement’s provisions pressuring Indonesia to align with any US sanctions on Third countries. Indonesia is not required to automatically copy every U.S. sanction verbatim or break existing diplomatic/trade ties, so the government emphasises there is an “escape clause”, but the agreement creates a binding mechanism for the U.S. to notify Indonesia and expect “equivalent restrictive effect” measures. This effectively pressures Indonesia to restrict trade, investment, or transactions with countries/entities sanctioned by the US for political reasons (e.g., certain Chinese, Russian, Iranian, or Venezuelan-linked persons or firms).

Link to original article in Chinese: https://www.zaobao.com.sg/forum/views/story20260326-8788055

Share

Subscribe now

For full article go here: Indonesia’s Party Cartel System and the New ‘People’s Movement Party’

Share

Subscribe now

Below is a (machine translated) English translation of the interview.

Max Lane talks about Prabowo and the legacy of colonialism and its relationship with poverty in Indonesia.

· The average third world country is aware of the causes of poverty due to colonialism.

· People feel that Indonesia is a rich country when in fact it is poor.

· Open debate is needed to find an economic strategy like in other third world countries.

FOR Maxwell Ronald Lane, Indonesia was the second universe in his life. Almost most of his close friends are from Indonesia. The analyst at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore, is friends with many cross-generational figures, from Pramoedya Ananta Toer, W.S. Rendra, Hariman Siregar, Daniel Dhakidae, Todung Mulya Lubis, to former President of Indonesia, Abdurrahman Wahid or Gus Dur.

He got to know Indonesia when he was in high school in Sydney, Australia, in 1967. At that time, Max Lane took Indonesian subjects. Two years later, he studied at the Department of Indonesian and Malayan Studies at the University of Sydney. He is also married to Indonesian, Faiza Mardzoeki, a playwright, director, and gender equality activist.

For decades, Max Lane researched the history and politics of Indonesia. He poured his research and thoughts into more than seven books. In July 2025, the doctoral graduate of the University of Wollongong, Australia, wrote a column entitled “Why Indonesia is Poor and the Way Out”.

According to Max Lane, colonialism made Indonesia poor after independence. Similar conditions are experienced throughout the Global South or third world countries that have been colonized. “Third world countries must unite to break this problem,” said Max Lane, Monday, February 2, 2026.

Before leaving for Yogyakarta, Max Lane served an interview with Tempo journalists, Yosea Arga, Friski Riana, and Iwan Kurniawan, at the Mercure Cikini Hotel, Central Jakarta. For three hours, he explained why Indonesia remains poor even after independence. Max Lane also spoke about the essence of opposition in a democratic country.

At the age of 75, he is still actively writing. The Indonesian from Australia is now chasing a deadline. He must complete a book of political memoirs before June 2026. The political memoir, Lane said, was written based on his experiences while working on issues about Indonesia. “It’s also hard to write it,” he said with a laugh.

Subscribe now

Share

***

Indonesia’s biggest problem is that this nation forgets history. Why?

Not only Indonesians. Many people in Australia have forgotten history, too. They forget history because the ruler always serves up a version that suits its needs. Indonesia, a very new country, the concept of Indonesi did not exist before the 1920s. Indonesia is a nation, both in concept and reality, perhaps the newest in the world, and a big country as well. History is important because Indonesia is still in the process of creating and consolidating its nation. If you are disconnected from the process, it can cause many problems.

A country has to know its origins, the problem?

Later you will be stuck to treating symptoms, not looking for a real solution to the problem. One of my impressions, because I often go back and forth to Indonesia, there is one thing that I think is somewhat unique in Indonesia.

What is it?

Indonesia, like most other third world countries, has experienced colonial colonialism. Indonesia is just like India, the Philippines, African countries, and China—it has never been colonized directly, but has been exploited to the fullest by the West. All third world countries or in the current term called the Global South that were colonized when they became independent were left economically very poor. Its economic development was backward due to colonialism.

Why is it that countries that were once colonized remain poor even after independence?

The average person in a third world country is aware that poverty is the result of colonialism. In Indonesia, I find that most people do not have appreciation or awareness that the country is poor. The growing discourse of Indonesia is a rich country. In 2045 it will become a Golden Indonesia. Indeed, Indonesia in terms of natural resources is very rich, but the capital to create or buy technology that can process natural resources does not exist.

Can it be elaborated further?

Capital wealth does not exist because of colonialism. It is not President Prabowo Subianto’s fault. Is it because of Suharto’s fault that he was in power for 32 years? His poverty was also not caused by Suharto. Perhaps we can analyze that Suharto’s development program to deal with the poverty left by colonialism was inadequate. This can be analyzed or debated. I feel that in Indonesia there is minimal debate about it.

What is needed?

Debate about the solutions needed by this nation. Without it, it will create a culture of complaining. This means that this nation will always complain and protest. But don’t think: what do you want as the altrenative? In my opinion, it is not enough to reduce corruption or improve the performance of each individual in government. Because, it is the same as accepting what exists as a response to the poverty of the legacy of colonialism.

Do you see Prabowo’s policies leading to efforts to overcome poverty?

Prabowo’s administration has only been in office for one year. I can’t measure it yet because it’s still a bit early. I guess the outline is to continue the previous one. More centralistic. With Danantara, for example. I’m not an economist. However, in my opinion, in another year or two, it remains to be seen whether Danantara will succeed in doing something useful.

I can’t provide a solution. In the field of economics, I think it would be useful to make a big conference. All parties who have views on the economy must be debated in the forum. Indeed, it will not solve the problem. But maybe it can be clearer and there is a solution. This country needs a more open debate about future economic strategies. Whether it succeeds in finding a better way or not is another matter.

Other countries hold open debates?

Many countries often hold open debate events. This is because its history gave birth to parties with different visions. In Brazil, for example, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s party is facing a party with a different economic vision, so inevitably there will be a debate. In Indonesia, almost all party visions are more or less the same. I’m not assuming, but it’s a fact. In the House of Representatives, there is almost never a vote with a different result.

Is there a need for opposition in Indonesia?

Opposition is necessary and will arise when there is a part of society that has a different opinion from the ruler. Naturally, there will be opposition. If there is an opposition, then it gets repression, it is called anti-democracy. If there is no different view, don’t go in this direction.

Do you disagree with the attitude that there should be opposition?

There is no need for opposition if people agree. The Prabowo government—as well as Joko Widodo and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono—did not ban the party. Your media, Tempo, always criticizes and is not closed, right? sometimes people say that Indonesia does not know the opposition. Indonesian culture does not know opposition because the system is deliberation and consensus. It is up to Indonesians to judge whether it is true or not.

Indonesia once adhered to a multiparty system in 1955. Does it reflect the debate on the situation of the state?

People say, we have to be fair from the point of view, ha-ha-ha. The reading of Indonesia’s proclamation was in 1945, but its independence was achieved five years later with the signature of the Dutch. In the 1920s, people began to imagine that they wanted to have their own country. Then it was named Indonesia. Fighting for independence really requires commitment, courage, and willingness to sacrifice. As a people who have struggled, they clearly have aspirations, which is what kind of country do they want to have? Some want communist, socialist, Islamic, and other countries. This desire became the basis of their respective parties at that time. A kind of dialectical or difference between parties is very sharp. What unites all the competing streams? Love for Indonesia.

That is, there is a debate?

Indeed, conflicts arise. We can of course assess the quality of the content of the conflict in terms of policies. Five years after independence, Indonesia was still facing the reality that the country was very poor, almost all sectors of the modern economy were still in the hands of the Dutch.

Many believe that improving Indonesia should not be half-hearted, but must reset from the beginning...

You asked me about the fate of your own people, ha-ha-ha. In my opinion, the whole world should be reset. Look at what is happening in Gaza or the United States or in my own country, Australia. I read that since the past week, polls show that supporters of the highly racist party, called One Nation, have jumped to over 20 percent. A lot has to be reset in this world. It’s about how to reset it here, it’s none of my business. Except, if I become an Indonesian citizen.

One of the ways that Indonesian people are upgraded is cooperation with other countries. What is your response?

The opinion on that is the same as my opinion on finding the right economic strategy. Economic cooperation among Global South countries, one of which is BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). So, what cooperation can be done? And, with whom? Sorry, I don’t have an answer myself. But, it should be discussed openly.

Indonesian politicians these days tend to avoid such open debates...

Don’t expect it from them. It has to be from you, ha-ha-ha. You have to have a big discussion about economics because none of the problems can be solved locally, only nationally and international;ly. Problems can only be solved collectively. You can’t solve any problem down to even the smallest village in Indonesia. It cannot be solved without the support of the government.

When did you start coming into contact with Indonesia?

When I was in high school, I learned Indonesian. In 1967-1968, for the first time, Indonesian was provided in my school. I have close Malaysian friends. He introduced me to some Malay. In the entire school there is only one Asian. But what was taught at my school was not Malay, but Indonesian.

Since then, he has started to get to know many Indonesians?

When I took the first year of Indonesian classes, the school still provided its teachers. In the second year, the teacher was transferred to another school. How do I learn Indonesian? I was told by the school that the Indonesian consulate holds Indonesian language classes every week. So I was given permission by the principal to learn Indonesian there. Since then, I have got to know many Indonesians.

Subscribe now

Share

What about your latest book?

I must finish writing before June 2026. This book will be my political memoirs.

Related to your experience during the Indonesian issue?

Yes, the Malari activists, namely Hariman Siregar and Mulya Lubis. In addition, Hasta Mitra—an independent Indonesian book publisher founded in April 1980 by Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Joesoef Isak, Hasjim Rachman, and others. So I’ve written about them with an angle that doesn’t exist yet. Then about the period of the 1990s and my experiences in the Philippines and Timor Leste. I also tried to campaign about Indonesia in Australia. It’s also hard to write, ha-ha-ha.

Did you do your research to write a book of political memoirs?

I write books based on experience. I obtained my doctorate at the age of 59. I learned about Indonesia under the guidance of W.S. Rendra, Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Hariman Siregar, and Joesoef Isak for 30 years. I also chatted a lot with Gus Dur, Todung Mulya Lubis, Yopie lasut, and others. I feel lucky to have known them, including the People’s Democratic Party (PRD) people.

Subscribe now

Subscribe now

“I’m not a citizen of the Global South. This realization hit me when I sat in the conference room of the University of Indonesia on June 11. The room was filled with delegates from the People’s Republic of China and almost all of Southeast Asia - certainly including Indonesia itself. As the only Caucasian from the Global North in attendance (genetically mixed Scottish-Viking), my position felt odd.”

Read on here:

BCR’s Substack

Indonesia’s Colonial Legacy and Challenges for the Global South

Beijing Cultural Review, Special Issue: “Intellectual Awakening of the lobal South,” 2025, pp. 113-120…

Read more

7 months ago · Beijing Cultural Review

Share

Subscribe now

Share

Subscribe now

To elevate Suharto, a president who was forced out of government by popular protest, was always going to be a controversial decision. In fact, opposition to the proposal for a 2025 elevation started as soon as word leaked out early in the year. This nomination followed prior rejections in 2010 and 2015, deemed “too soon” after his 2008 death. From June, 2025, criticism of the nomination escalated with human rights organisations and a very wide range of civil society figures, including academics and prominent religious figures, spoke out against it. Among the mainstream media, publications like Tempo magazine and the Jakarta Post also strongly opposed with the idea.

Fundamental to the opposition was the accusation of large-scale human rights violations, including even ordering mass killings, as Suharto came to power in 1965, crushing all support for President Sukarno, lost of which came from the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and the Indonesian National Party (PNI). Estimates of the massing killings of PKI and Sukarno supporters ranges between 500,000 to 3 million. Three million was the number provided by Lt Gen Sarwo Edhie, a key military leader of the smashing of the PKI. He was also made a National Hero, this November 10. In addition, to the mass killings, the opposition also focused on the allegations of corruption under Suharto, including that of his own family and the level of political repression.

The opposition to Suharto being proclaimed a National Hero from across almost the whole of civil society has now taken the form for many demands for the repeal of the decision.

A very important part of this opposition has come from the PDIP itself. Given that the coming to power of Suharto involved placing President Sukarno under house arrest until his death, a huge black propaganda campaign against him and his followers, the PDIP, which describes itself as a party that follows Sukarno, was bound to be unhappy. Furthermore, later between 1996-1998 an all-out effort by the Suharto government to remove Megawati Sukarnoputri as Chairperson of the PDI after she was elected at the party’s congress was another major grievance. And, as stated above, this involved a physical attack on Megawati’s headquarters and the kidnapping of some of her supporters. To elevate Suharto to “National Hero” status could only have the effect of a provocation.

There can be little doubt that the government was aware of the level of controversy. Criticism had begun early in the year. The government seemed to adopt a tactic of trying to balance the decision by also announcing as National Heroes, two figures associated with criticism, opposition and victimhood during the Suharto period. Former President Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur), a consistent critic of Suharto from within the Indonesian elite and seen as a symbol of democracy, was also made a National Hero. Indeed, so also was the worker activist, Marsinah, who was detained, raped and tortured by military personnel during the Suharto period. Some trade unions had called for her selection. If the government thought such appointments would satisfy critics that all sides were being recognised, it seems such an assessment was wrong as opposition has been sustained.

In fact, the provocation to the PDIP and all supporters of Sukarno has reignited polemics, on a viral level, centred around the question of the politics of the two figures – Sukarno and Suharto. Of course, such comparisons have always been circulating in Indonesia, but they have not been so nationally prominent since the 1960s, more than a half a century ago. It is not clear whether the provocation was deliberate in the hope of re-launching old polemics or was more an unintended consequence. If the polemic does not die down, the whole of Indonesia’s ideological life may be transformed.

While scholars, journalists and human rights activists have all been outspoken, it has been PDIP figures that have answered most militantly. The PDIP’s chief spokesperson on health, Dr Ribka Tjiptaning, attached Suharto for orchestrating the murder of millions while also proclaiming the she was a proud child of PKI parents. The party’s Secretary General, Hasto XXXX, has repeatedly attacked the decision making it clear that Suharto was no hero in his eyes. PDIP Intellectuals like MP Bonnie Triyana and Director of the Megawati Institute, Hilmar Farid also strongly expressed the same sentiments.

Megawati herself, while showing restraint not to mention Suharto by name, said on November 1, “But be careful if you want to make someone a hero. Don’t be hasty. If it’s Bung Karno, yes, a hero. “ The PDIP’s opposition, including this and other statements by Megawati, have attracted the most strident counter-attacks, ranging from personal attacks on Megawati for not being grateful to Suharto for his alleged ‘good treatment’ of her father to both direct and indirect accusations of being “communist”, still a deadly dark word in Indonesian official ideology. The back and forth is viral on social media and, so far, there are no signs of stopping.

Such a viral polemical atmosphere, around such a crucial issue as Suharto versus Sukarno, the two opposing visions for Indonesia, with such a wide range of civil society intellectuals also involved, may mean that the ideological terrain will change. With such a high social media profile, it will also be closely followed by the youth. In the days immediately after November 10, there over 4 million views on relevant social media posts, divided pro and contra. Perhaps the polemics will die away, but given the student demonstrations of the past few years, the greater outspokenness of dissident intellectuals and the PDIP having the foundations of its public identity attacked, it is more likely that the government’s decision has relaunched a transformation, even if gradual, of Indonesia’s ideological terrain. Sukarno’s ideas have also been boosted by significant discussions of his role in the Asia Africa 1955 Bandung Conference, during 2025, the 70^th anniversary of the Conference, which the government itself mainly ignored.

Subscribe now

Share

[Above a cover from the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN]

Prior to the scientific revolution that started in the 17th century and for some time afterwards, the inability of humankind to understand all the behaviours of the natural world led to the predominance of conspiracy theories. What happened to humanity was the result of conspiracies plotted by gods and devils. Such superstitions waned (though have not disappeared) as the understanding of the incredible mysterious complexities of the natural world advanced. Today it is the social world, now networked and integrated globally even if disastrously unevenly, that is characterised by mysterious, incredibly destructive complexities. Everything is now super complex and complicated in its day-today, week-to-week intricacies, and also more crazily irrational than in the natural world. It is impossible for an individual person, working and surviving alone, to even begin to understand what is happening. Thus, we are one again in the era of conspiracies. Not so much conspiracies by gods and devils, but godlike and devilish, human (and sometimes even alien) agencies. Also facilitating spread of the new conspiracy theories is the reality that it is indeed human agency (the imperialist capitalist class and is factions and cliques) that maintains and preserves this status quo s**t show and not nature. Only a collective, team approach to analysis, understanding, spreading of understanding and acting upon it can begin to answer these conspiracies. Of course, the analysis must be fundamentally accurate to be useful.

Subscribe now

Share

Subscribe now

Share

Timor Leste is a tiny country with a population of 1.34 million, 58% of whom are under the age of 25. Having suffered Portugeuse colonial domination for almost 500 years, and 24 years of hostile military occupation between 1975-1999 in 2002 was a poor and grossly underdeveloped economy. However, its ocean territory in the Timor Sea was, by the 1970s, known to hold vast oil and gas reserves. These valuable reserves were located in a territory with no capacity to defend itself, either through the Portugeuse colonial power of when it proclaimed Independence in 1975. It found itself sandwiched between two states that desired access to that oil and gas: Australia and Indonesia.

Being caught as a tiny defenceless power between these two states did not just remain a theoretical danger. In 1975, Indonesia invaded Timor with the full support, indeed encouragement, of the Australian government, both under Labour and Liberal National Party governments. During the course of the Indonesian occupation of Timor Leste, Australian provided arms and military training to Indonesia. Australia was one of the most aggressive diplomatic defenders of the Indonesian annexation of Timor Leste. On February 14, 1979, Australia became the only country in the world to give de jure recognition of Indonesia’s annexation. Other countries may have given de facto recognition in the form of ongoing cooperation with Indonesia but only Australia recognised the annexation formally. Australia’s recognition was necessary for it to negotiate favourable access to Timorese oil and gas, which was embodied in a treaty signed in 1989. The United Nations never recognized the annexation, continuing to regard Portugal as the administering power until independence in 2002.

Caught between these two major players, Australia and Indonesia, Timorese leaders sought support in Southeast Asia. However, during the 1975-1999 period no ASEAN state supported Timorese independence, although sections of ASEAN country society did so. On some occasions, Timorese international spokesperson was banned entry into some ASEAN countries. Community supporters of Timor were also harassed. It was only after, Indonesia’s President B.J. Habibie accepted the results of a referendum where people chose independence and ordered the withdrawal of Indonesian forces, that ASEAN under Thailand’s chairmanship, participated in international support for independence.

Timor Leste remains caught between Indonesia and Australia both of whom, under earlier governments but the same elites, had disregarded the rights and welfare of the Timorese people for almost 25 years. Even after independence, Australia retained an aggressive stance deploying government spy networks against the new Timorese governments during new negotiations over the Timor Sea oil and gap. In 2004 Australia’s spy agency, using its Overseas Aid arm, planted listening devices in key Timorese government offices during the negotiations. Timor Leste had to take Australia to the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague and the International Court of Justice. Timor-Leste did not get a final ruling on the merits from the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA). Instead, the threat of the case and the resulting legal and diplomatic pressure forced Australia back to the negotiating table. This led to the 2018 Maritime Boundary Treaty, which was a massive victory for Timor-Leste, granting it a much larger share (70-80%) of the revenues from the Greater Sunrise gas field.

In this context it is very understandable the Timor Leste has sought a recognition as a state with equal standing throughout Southeast Asia and internationally. ASEAN’s unanimous vote, including from Indonesia, to accept Timor as a member not simply reaffirms the country’s status as an independent nation, but confirms that is neither a marginalised, nor pariah nor a less than equal member of the Southeast Asian community. ASEAN’s Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, for example, provides mechanisms for dispute settlement that it could utilise in future problem with Indonesia, a mechanism that would draw in all members.

The ASEAN membership vote was also taken at a meeting when the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Australia were also in Kuala Lumpur. PM Albanese welcomed Timor’s membership and the White House later issued a read-out expressing the same sentiments. All Timorese governments since 2002 have pursued policies of friendly reconciliation with both Indonesia and Australia. No major disputes have occurred with Indonesia, only minor ones related to the precise location of the border. There are no signs that any significant element in the Indonesian polity does not accept Timorese Independence. However, Timorese society and its leaders are unlikely to forget the bitter quarter of century of oppression and exploitation they experienced between 1975 and 1999. ASEAN membership is a form of insurance, but even more fundamentally it is an affirmation of equality.

There have also been economic arguments put in favour of Timor Leste’s membership of ASEAN. Two of the most argued potential benefits are the right to negotiate a phased entry into the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), which means an export like coffee, for example, may eventually be able to enter the ASEAN market free of tariffs. ASEAN companies will be able to invest in Timor with increased security and free of any privileges being granted to national companies. AFTA, of course, also means tariff free entry for imports into Timor Leste. However, at the moment at least, Timorese domestic production of goods is minimal and not a sector facing threat. Indeed, Timor is already hugely import dependent. Eventual elimination of tariffs at some point might be a negative for government revenues.

Timor has no serious manufacturing sector, consisting only of a limited number of light processing plants and factories focused primarily on beverages, construction materials, and agro-processing for the domestic market. While it has solid revenues from oil and gas for several years into the future, managing economic integration into ASEAN will be a complex task.

A Column based on this article was published in the Chinese language Zaobao Daily (Singapore) here: https://www.zaobao.com.sg/forum/views/story20251117-7824876

President Subianto, in his speech, “To close, I would like to reiterate again Indonesia’s complete support for the Two-State Solution in Palestine. We must have an independent Palestine, but we must also recognize and guarantee the safety and security of Israel. Only then can we have real peace: peace without hate, peace without suspicion..” All of these SEAsian Maritime states stated the same position.

Share

Subscribe now

While they shared this position, there are different positions as regards which of the proposed two states – Israel and Palestine – they recognise today. The Philippines, which has supported Israel since its foundation, has recognised Israel. The same applies for Singapore. Neither The Philippines nor Singapore yet recognise Palestine as a state, while Malaysa, Indonesia and Timor Leste recognise Palestine as a state. During the UNGA, when Israeli Prime Minister Netanhayu spoke delegates from Timor Leste, Indonesia and Malaysa joined a walk-out, while The Philippines and Singapore did not.

In the current situation of conflict, all states are being challenged to take positions in relation to what will happen next. Within this framework, there are also different positions. Singapore’s position was articulated as Singapore will recognize Palestine only when it has a “credible, effective government” that categorically renounces terrorism and accepts Israel’s existence. However Foreign Minister Balakrishnan warned: “If the situation continues to deteriorate, or if Israel takes further steps to extinguish a two-state solution, we will then have to reconsider our position on when to recognise a Palestinian State.”

Many of the Western states, including Southeast Asia’s neighbour, Australia, previously held positions similar to Singapore’s but have reacted to the hard-line Israeli continuation and expansion of its occupation of Gaza and the West Bank by accelerating their recognition of a Palestinian state and announcing it at the UNGA. However, their recognition is conditional on HAMAS being excluded from governance and disarmed.

On the other hand, President Subianto said that Indonesia would recognise Israel if Israel recognised Palestine. In a speech to the UN High Level Conference on the Two State Solution, President Subianti stated: ““We must guarantee statehood for Palestine, but Indonesia also declares that once Israel recognizes the independence and statehood of Palestine, Indonesia will immediately recognize the state of Israel. We will support all guarantees for the security of Israel.”

All of the maritime Southeast Asian nations called for a ceasefire and end to violence, for full access for humanitarian aid, the release of hostages held by HAMAS in Gaza, although none mention the thousands of prisoners held Israel without trial. They all also agree with the 2 state solution.

The differences relate to the extent they are willing to apply diplomatic pressure on Israel. Malaysia has the strongest position with, at one point, it considering pushing for the expulsion of Israel from the United Nations. Malaysia joined a “core group” of countries on October 31, 2024, to prepare this draft resolution, which seeks an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on Israel’s obligations to allow UN operations. Anwar announced this effort in parliament on November 4, 2024.

He further pushed the initiative at the Extraordinary Arab and Islamic Summit in Riyadh on November 11, 2024, calling for global consensus on suspending or expelling Israel from the UN to deter its “barbarism”. Anwar drew parallels to the UN’s past suspension of South Africa over apartheid, and urged actions like arms embargoes.

Singapore has indicated that it may reconsider its timing of the recognition of Israel if Israel keeps blocking moves towards a Two State Solution.

It is Indonesia, with the world’s largest Moslem population, that has taken the most complicated position. When President Subianto emphasised the Israel’s security must be guaranteed, this was immediately coopted by President Netanhayu as supporting Israel. Digital billboards were displayed in Tel Aviv, Israel, as part of a campaign launched by the Israeli Coalition for Regional Security—a non-partisan group of over 120 senior Israeli figures in security, policy, and economics. The billboards promoted U.S. President Donald Trump’s initiative to end the Gaza war and expand the Abraham Accords (a series of normalization agreements between Israel and Arab states). They featured images of Prabowo Subianto alongside other world leaders, including Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

The billboards were quickly criticised in Indonesia, both from among pro-Palestine civil society groups but also from within parliament. The Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs disassociated itself from the billboards emphasising that Indonesia would not recognise Israel until it recognises Palestine. However, even at the last UNGA, PM Netanhayu emphasised that there was complete opposition to any Palestinian state. His speech stated: “Last year, there was a vote in the Knesset, our parliament, whether or not to oppose the imposition of a Palestinian state. You want to guess what the results were? Out of the 120 members of our parliament, 99 voted against. And only 9 supported. That’s over 90%.” In this speech he rejected working not only with HAMAS, but also the Palestinian Authority, which has stated its recognition of Israel and its right to exist, but which Netanhayu described as supporting the killing of Jews.

After the recent announcements of a new “Peace Plan” by President Trump, with PM Netanhayu beside him, all of the SEAsian governments will face the necessity of further elaborating their positions towards a plan the effectively negates the idea of a sovereign Palestinian state in the near future.

A Column based on this article was published in the Chinese language Zaobao Daily (Singapore) here: https://www.zaobao.com.sg/forum/views/story20251013-7654054?\

Subscribe now

Share

Indonesian Civil Society is made up of scores of NGOs, human rights organisations, trade unions, public intellectuals among the academia and the independent non-profit media. Their criticisms of the Prabowo government, and government before now, are well known. They focus on allegations of human rights abuses, environmental injustice, gender discrimination, corruption and other issues. Until today, this sector of Indonesian society has not won any representation in the national parliament. Within the national parliament, President Subianto has the active support of the majority of parties and the acquiescence of those outside the government. Parliament is unanimous on most, if not all, issues.

Share

Subscribe now

Outside the civil society organisations, the main critical sources of assessment of the government comes from within the corporate establishment through the major print media. It is to these media outlets, that we must look to get a sense of the range of perspectives that reflect Establishment outlooks.

This spectrum is reflected in the major print media outlets of The Jakarta Post, Kompas, and Tempo. All these are dailies, except for Tempo which has a weekly magazine as well as a daily. Their websites are their main outlets today. The perspectives among television news channels may be different, as they can reflect the person opinions of major conglomerate owners, with specific political-business interests. In the case of the print media, which have longer histories, ownership is more connected with long newspaper histories.

The Jakarta Post is owned by a range of people, including staff, but the biggest player is the Setya family, with Dahlan Iksan, as a key player. The Setya family are key also in the Jawa Pos group, who own over 150 local newspapers as well as radio stations, TV and digital platforms. Dahlan Iksan was the Minister for State Owned Enterprises during the Yudhoyono Presidency. This factor links The Jakarta Post, an English language daily, closely with the Establishment. Shares are also held by the original founding families and senior staff, also cementing its position as a liberal newspaper.

For The Jakarta Post, which writes for an international audience of diplomats and investors, Prabowo’s first year has been cautiously positive. The newspaper highlights Prabowo’s assertiveness in representing Indonesia internationally. It reports on his efforts to maintain good relations with all major powers, especially noting balanced policies towards China and the United States. This stability and active diplomacy are seen as good for business and for Indonesia’s international reputation.

The Post also gives significant attention to the government’s massive plan to provide free lunches and milk to school children. While acknowledging the huge challenge of paying for and organizing such a program, the newspaper often frames it as a potentially transformative project that could improve children’s health and boost local economies. The overall message from The Jakarta Post is one of cautious optimism, although also noting that the details of implementation of many policies still need to be worked out.

Kompas newspaper’s most significant personalities are the daughter and son of the founding families, who were Catholic intellectuals. Foundations have been established to manage the assets and guide the editorial line. Began primarily as a newspaper operation, the Gramedia Group now has broad business interests, including over 20 national magazines, book publishing (Gramedia, Indonesia’s largest bookstore chain), television stations (Kompas TV), and radio. universities and schools as well as hotels and resorts and real estate development.

As Indonesia’s most widely-read newspaper, Kompas cautiously reports on the government’s ambitious plans while also noting the growing concerns. On the positive side, Kompas extensively covers the push for economic growth, especially the policy of “down streaming.” This policy, which involves processing raw materials like nickel into more valuable products like batteries within Indonesia, is seen as a smart way to create jobs and increase national wealth.

However, Kompas does not ignore the critics. It regularly features experts who question how the government will pay for its free lunch program without taking on too much debt. The newspaper also reports on worries about the state of Indonesia’s democracy. It highlights concerns that the anti-corruption agency has been weakened and that the president’s cabinet is filled with political allies and powerful business figures, which could lead to decisions that benefit a few rather than the many. For Kompas, the first year is a mix of promising economic plans and serious questions about governance.

Kompas also published Kontan daily, a business-oriented newspaper, which carries a similar perspective.

Tempo newspaper, magazine and website is a publicly listed company with a range of shareholders. But the Tempo Jaya Persada Foundation, in the hands of its founding intellectuals and journalists, has a dominant role. There are no conglomerate or large family interests in the business, reflecting its history of as a liberal intellectual and journalist project.

Tempo offers the sharpest criticism of the new government. Known for its investigative reporting, Tempo has raised alarms about what it sees as a threat to democratic freedoms. It has published stories questioning the fairness of the last election, pointing to the Prabowo campaign’s overwhelming advantage and use of social media. For Tempo, the very foundation of the government’s power is questionable.

Tempo is also deeply sceptical of Prabowo’s “government of national unity” cabinet. It portrays it not as a unifying team, but as a collection of political and business elites who may put their own interests first. Furthermore, Tempo’s reporters on the ground document the human cost of big development projects, like the new capital city Nusantara (IKN), where local communities have lost their land. While the government talks of progress, Tempo tells the stories of those left behind. Its assessment is that the first year has seen a worrying concentration of power and a disregard for the rights of ordinary citizens.

A Column based on this article was published in Zaobao Daily (Singapore) here: https://zb.sg/g/7ySZ

Share

Subscribe now

In memory of the millions who suffered death, torture or imprisonment, or all three and in memory of the Indonesia created by Kartini, Tirto Adhisuryo, Cokroaminoto, Tan Malaka, Sukarno, Hatta, Sjahrir, Natsir, Pramoedya Ananta Toer, and thousands of other activists, and the millions who peacefully campaigned between 1950-65 for the social changes they desired.

(The article below is an old draft not yet revised - but anyway here it is.)

Subscribe now

+++

Indonesia: 1965 and the Counter-Revolution against the Nation.

Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world, of immense geopolitical strategic importance straddling the sea and air lanes between the Indian and Pacific oceans, and with substantial mineral resources. Yet today, and for the last 50 years, its international political presence has been almost zero, including on the Left. The primary reason for this is the 1965 counter-revolution in Indonesia and the consequent radical remaking-cum-unmaking of the country, the nation. On the one hand this counter-revolution produced an Indonesian state and economy that posed no threat to either western or Japanese imperial economic or geo-political interests, and on the other a society whose new post-counter-revolutionary experience would emasculate any progressive class fightback for decades, even until now, and thus also its intellectual and cultural life.

The counter-revolution is easy to describe – on the surface. A wing of the Armed Forces officer corps, under the leadership of General Suharto, in alliance with the politically organised landlords, merchants and parts of officialdom, physically purged the Indonesian polity of all left-of-centre political forces. At least one million people were systematically killed and tens of thousands arrested and tortured terrorising the millions of members of progressive organisations, perhaps half the adult population. The Left forces were unarmed, their leadership killed or neutralised very quickly and, at the grass-roots, they were faced with a scenario they did not at all expect. They had felt safe from such an outcome due to the support they received from the president, Sukarno, who seemed in an unassailable position. He had become president on independence in 1945 and had enormous popularity. They had no time or resources to organise a serious fight-back, with small groups and individuals doing the best they could where the opportunities existed.

The physical elimination and terror was accompanied by formal bans on all the left organisations, on left ideologies, including Sukarnoist socialism as well as ‘marxism-leninism’, bans on the circulation of the writings of all the country’s progressive writers and thinkers, and on all mass organisation activity, including of some traditional conservative Islamic organisations. There was a massive, and uncontested, tsunami of black propaganda against Sukarno and the Left, especially the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), depicting them as evil, degenerate and barbarian. There were no shades of grey in this totally black propaganda and absolutely zero alternative voices, even on the margins.

Within a few years, the new government’s official doctrine was that the masses should be a “floating mass”. They should simply focus on their appropriate functions, i.e. working and producing, and be kept away from politics. The regime’s ideologues took the term “floating mass”, which they used in English from 1950s American political science which celebrated the public passivity of the 1950s. The passivity which such political science claimed had been achieved in the U.S. in the 1950s through co-option and mechanisms of ideological hegemony would be achieved by violence in Indonesia. For almost two decades after 1965 people living in villages and small towns were banned from joining political parties. Only three political parties were allowed and all were supervised by the military staffed state apparatus.

Even with this brief description, the totalitarian nature of the counter-revolution will be starkly obvious. With such extensive ideological suppression and deep ‘de-politicisation’, almost all aspects of intellectual and political life came under formal state supervision together with the enforcement, through a massive national propaganda mechanism, of the most banal, anti-critical and obedience-oriented official ideology one can envisage, taught from high-school to university and beyond. Indonesian history was rewritten into an official history which eliminated all political agency by popular forces and all sense of rebellion. Rebellions against Dutch colonial power, when they had been led by communists, were taught as examples of treason against Indonesia. High schools stopped teaching Indonesian literary texts. With the physical elimination of all left of centre forces and the associated terror as well as the very effective and total suppression of alternatives, tens of millions of Indonesians have grown up knowing only the official history of their country. Almost none have had any exposure to the literature of the country, even of the writings of the country’s declared national heroes[2]. At the same time, most have had no serious experience of political activity, except during the sudden burst of resistance during the few years, 1996-1998.

The impact of the counter-revolution was, however, even deeper than the sum of these combined policies – from mass murder and terror to totalitarian imposed ignorance and passivity. The 1965 counter-revolution was a pre-emptive purge aimed at the prevention of the final unfolding and completion of the revolutions that were brewing: a national revolution as well as a social revolution. The driving momentum of the revolutionary processes was the further unfolding of a gruelling and long-drawn out national revolution, whose first stirrings were in the writings of the young feminist, Kartini, in the 1890s. Kartini, writing envisaging progress into a new future and not a return to a traditional feudal past, elaborated ideas originating from the Enlightenment and hoped that they would be applied to “my people”. However precisely she applied that term “my people” at the time, it was the beginning of a future oriented identification of a community that later was the Indonesian nation.

As with all revolutions, the national revolution was doing at least two things. First, it was over-turning and turning upside-down the pre-existing power structure. A colonial capitalist class and its state, aided by a politically domesticated and nicely salaried local state apparatus recruited from the aristocracy and allowed to maintain many remnants of despotic culture, had dominated the life of the local inhabitants for three hundred years, ruling directly over many areas for up to a hundred years. The winning of political independence from the Dutch during 1945-49, and the expulsion of their economic interests in 1956-57, overturned the colonial power structure, including abolishing, in most places, the privileged status of the remnant aristocracies. Indonesia was probably the only large colony that expelled or nationalised all the former colonizer’s businesses after Independence but without a socialist revolution.

At the same time, this revolutionising process, of everybody involved and of so many things was an act of “creating something that did not exist before”[3]. “The revolutionising of themselves and things” that was taking place was indeed creating something totally new: a phenomena that came to be called “Indonesia”. It was new generically: the nation was a new post-feudal and post despotic form of community coming into being only in the capitalist era[4]. They were totally new forms of community. And it was new in its specificity: Indonesia. Before Indonesia came into existence during the 20^th century, no such thing existed, nor were there any Indonesians. There were Javanese, Batak, Malays, Dayaks, Minangkabaus, Bugis and many more: but not a single Indonesian existed.

The national revolution both overturned and turned upside down central and key existing power relations (although not all power relations). It also started to create something that did not exist before.

The creation of a nation, however, is not instantaneous. It is a long and mostly gruelling process. There is the struggle to defeat the existing power, whether feudal or colonial. This mostly has required wars: death, blood, destruction, turmoil and dislocation. The process has a history.

As a product of the development of capitalism, a shared capitalist economic life within a specific territory develops. In Indonesia’s case, it was violently forged within and across the territory of the Netherlands East Indies out of and through externally generated convulsions of many pre-existing productive systems, the most developed of which, such as in Java and some parts of Sumatra, shared the characteristics of what Marx called the Asiatic mode of production[5]. These were highly centralised systems, based on the control of water, with hardened hierarchies of social and productive functions ideologised in a caste system. In the case of the Malay Archipelago, they produced a limited range of goods and services and operated over relatively small territories, even when they were rich enough to finance armies that exacted tribute irregularly from other territories.

Then the Dutch arrived. The production of spices for export increased massively. Princes and Sultans became the defeated agents of Dutch mercantilism. Then new export crops were introduced and spread: sugar, tobacco, rubber, indigo, tea, coffee, cacao and more. Mining for tin and other metals and minerals started. Through the 19^th century the whole archipelago underwent economic transformation with modern shipping, rail and the telegraph giving a start to a territory wide economic life. Local currency, banking, excise rules and territory wide taxation helped knit it all together. Dutch capital was investing and expropriating. The archipelago, from the Malay Peninsula to the eastern islands of the archipelago had previously been a singular “natural” space where products and ideas interchanged rapidly, borne over the seas by thousands of locally made ships. Hinduism, Buddhism and then Islam were able to spread, taking turns, to almost every port across the archipelago, even to the coast of western Papua. With colonialism, it was divided up among the Dutch, English, Spanish and Portugeuse forging new separate spaces – colonies mimicking countries.

It was a colony but its economic life mimicked that of a national economy, except that it was deprived of the technological revolution. Like all capitalist economies (and the economies that existed in most places before nations), evolved around contradictions, including class contradictions. National bourgeois and national proletarian classes develop, and perhaps even national peasantries. International relations become possible between the ruling classes of nations – oppressor and oppressed nations both – and, potentially, between the oppressed classes also.

The economic transformation created urban centres: Batavia (Jakarta) and Surabaya, on the island of Java, and Medan in Sumatra, were the largest, but there are more spread around the islands. Banks and business offices, ports and workshops proliferated. Of course, these centres are still a tiny portion of the total population. But their population grows enough to support the emergence of a new, cosmopolitan environment. Life changes. Stories change and require a new language with which to relate them. In the East Indies, the first to write these stories – short stories and novelettes – are Chinese and Eurasian town dwellers. They tell the stories of people no longer bound by strict traditions: of murder and detectives, of Dutch, Chinese, Eurasians and “native”, officials and dandies and prostitutes: of stories made up of real life causes and effects, and no longer the whims of gods or fate[6]. And they tell these stories in their version of Malay, up until then a language used mainly for local commerce and the colonial administration of the “natives”. They turn it into a language of a society changing, moving, and intense with dynamic cause and effect. They lay the foundation of it being adopted as the language for talking about cause and effect across the territory, that is, for talking about the future.

In 1928 colonial youth around the territory declared they will struggle for a new country, Indonesia, and that its national language will be Indonesian: the Malay that has started to evolve in the hands of the storytellers of the turn of the century. Then it spreads as the vernacular, the language of a particular time and place, of the territory’s future. Its spread between the 1920s and the 1960s is driven by the ignited fires of political discussion – and struggle – for the future of the new being being created: Indonesia. The struggle for the national language, and with it a national literature – poems, songs, stories – recording the experience of the process is a central part of the national revolution. Indonesian language and literature was a part of that created which never existed before.

Most incredible of all – though probably we take it for granted now – is that this never-before-existing nation also will develop – did start to develop – its own, distinctive new culture, reflecting a common psychological outlook, including sharing that culture’s contradictions. Music and song, poetry and story (novel, short story, film, and theatre), paintings and sculpture are one set of embodiments of such a culture: the arts. The evolution of a new Indonesian art and literature began at the turn of the century, at first experimenting in Dutch, and then Malay, as it became enlivened as the vernacular of a newly emerging location. Artists came from all classes and across the ideological spectrum. By 1945, when Sukarno and Hatta proclaimed Independence, the voices of a nation poets, songsters and story-tellers could assert the reality of the nation’s existence: Chairil Anwar, Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Ismail Marzuki and many more. During the following twenty years, the arts flowered even more, freed of colonial suppression and challenged by the need to describe and lead the new experience of living in and through the newly liberated but not yet completed nation community. Mass organisations of the arts and culture grew, especially on the left among socialists and radical nationalists. This new culture, was not Javanese or Acehnese or Bugis or Dayak or Balinese, neither was it some kind of conglomeration of elements from these earlier cultures. It was something newly created on the earth. To the extent it did draw on pre-existing ideas, it was in fact a child of all nations.

Arts and stories were, however, just the tip of the iceberg. The cultural changes that were integrated into the national revolution – the nation creation process – went deeper than that. There were many cultural changes but two stand out as pre-eminent. These were the emergence of a culture of conscious, purposeful organisation with the goal of changing society, and the mobilisation of people on a large scale to achieve it. The breakdown and dissolution of traditional forms of organisation, that is from the pre-capitalist social formations is not unique to Indonesia. “Traditional” organisation that evolved to allow the implementation of the collective duties of different parts of society, especially at the village level, dissolve or retreat as new organisations, established with a conscious goal in mind, replace them. These new organisations have constitutions and members, more-or-less agreed upon methods and aims. This is a revolutionary cultural change: obligation (a duty imposed under a particular class hegemony) is overthrown by its opposite: acting voluntarily. This came with the shift from being a subject of either feudal despotic or colonial power, accepting a passivity embodied in the Javanese word nerimo (to accept), whose elongated, subdued pronunciation even sounds somehow abject. Popular organisation and mobilisation overturned and turned upside down the most fundamental cultural values.

In the case of the East Indies-to-be-Indonesia, this revolutionary organisation and mobilisation eventually drew in hundreds of thousands, indeed millions of people across the archipelago. Anti-colonial organisations like the Sarekat Islam, and later the Sarekat Rakyat, the Indonesian Communist Party, the Indonesian National Party (founded by Sukarno) mobilised hundreds of thousands during the 1920s and 1930s. The first of the mass organisations, Sarekat Islam, which campaigned against colonialism and not for religion, is reported to have had between 350,000 t0 800,000 members and itself claimed a membership of two million and had branches on most islands in the Indies. Then there were periods of explosions of trade union activity and peasant movements, with contemporary rather than traditional goals. Moreover, the form of mobilisations, such as mass meetings (vergadering), strikes, active boycotts and demonstrations involved many more people who may not have been formal members. The whole process developed as class contradictions sharpened. The first big split in the mass organisations, within Sarekat Islam, was over the question of opposition to capitalism and the advocacy of socialism as the form an independent Indonesia should take. Embryonic as they were, a national bourgeoisie and a national proletariat were being formed.

The cultural revolution whereby what has been called “modernity”, the consciousness produced out of the experiences of capitalist developments, overturns “tradition”, that is the consciousness that prevailed under European feudal or Asian despotic modes of production is not unique to Indonesia. What is perhaps unique, or at least very pronounced, was how that revolution was defined by the overturning of a consciousness based on acceptance of obligation and passivity to one based on purpose and the seizing of agency (organisation and mobilisation), and how that revolutionary overturning was the fundamental creator of an embryonic new national culture. This new culture, given agency polarised around class perspectives, was cleaved by contradictions. The clash between contradictory perspectives – capitalism or socialism – was the basis for a deep fragility on the one hand but, while the question was unanswered as to what kind of Indonesia a free Indonesia would be, this unresolved contradiction worked to fuse opposites into a unity. The struggle to resolve the question in real life of what kind of Indonesia would be created, united opposed perspectives, based on more-or-less opposed class interests, in the one project of a national revolution to create Indonesia.

“All hitherto history is the history of class struggle,’ wrote Marx and Engels. So stating that there were such class contradictions in the East Indies-to-be-Indonesia may seem nothing special. And just left at that, it isn’t. But it can’t be left just at that. The creative side of the revolutionary process, the creating of Indonesia and Indonesians, was defined by this process. The culture of organisation and mobilisation was embodied in central ideas that took hold within the majority of the movement for a nation, in addition to their activities. Central to these were the ideas of the young nationalist Sukarno for whom motion, movement and popular agency in that motion, the agency of the rakyat (common people) imbued with semangat (spirit). At the same time, his nemesis, Mohammed Hatta, counterposed Sukarno’s motion and popular energy against his concepts of expertise and steadiness. Sukarno established the mass party, the PNI, in 1927 and constantly debated with Mohammad Hatta on these issues. After the Dutch arrested Sukarno and the PNI dissolved, in 1931 Hatta established the Indonesian National Education Party, also the PNI, a group advocating the spread of education, i.e. expertise, as the first priority of the moment rather than mass mobilisation. After the defeat of Japan, which had occupied the Indies for three years, on 17^th August 1945, the two men proclaimed Independence together, after being kidnapped and pressured into doing it by very semangat-filled nationalist youth. They became President and Vice-President of Indonesia until Hatta resigned in 1956. The two men proclaimed Indonesian independence together and were president and Vice-president together for 11 years. They were called the “Dwitunggal” – the two united in one. If there was a unity for a while it was the unity of opposites:

Soekarno:

“The Peoples Awareness demands that every unjust situation or relationship be torn down and changed … changed fast and in a revolutionary way.”

Hatta:

“A thorough-going social analysis would show that all our rebellions and our splits, our political anarchy and adventurism, and all the steps taken in the economic field which have created chaos, are a result of the fact that our national Revolution was not dammed up at the appropriate time.”[7]

The Sarekat Islam had split to form the left-wing and secular Sarekat Rakyat which in turn gave birth to the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). After the Dutch smashed the PKI in 1926-27, Sukarno emerged as the voice of revolutionary nationalism, with Hatta as his nemesis. The same contradiction exercised itself all through the war of national liberation between 1945 and 1949, and on until 1965. Indonesians commitment to Indonesia was a passionate commitment to the new nation, and their hopes for it: that it be Islamic or social democratic versus socialist or communist: conservative or revolutionary. The contradiction was the energy that pushed along the creation of the nation.

Territory, language and literature, a territory wide shared economic life and a new Indonesian culture were forged out of a messy process, in which the struggle against colonial rule was a key part, but only a part of the process[8]. These four aspects each developed unevenly, in fits and starts, in response to a variety of factors, and in most cases their development and consolidation was still ongoing up until 1965. The contradictions whose demand to be resolved were driving the process were still yet to find its resolution. By 1956-7, when all Dutch enterprises were nationalised, after being occupied by their workers and trade unions, the overturning of the colonial power structure was completed. Dutch colonial power had been completely eliminated. The manifestation of Indonesia now asserting its place above and over Dutch colonial power, in an overturned power structure, was the enforced exiting of all Dutch business personnel, the ending of any legitimacy of the Dutch language and the nationalisation of all Dutch capital. That aspect of the contradiction was resolved in a very final way. There is less presence of the former colonial power in Indonesia than in any other former colony anywhere in the world.

However the deep contradiction in culture – organisation and mobilisation versus passivity and obedience – which mirrored the contradiction between the desire for socialism or capitalism remained unresolved[9]. Between 1959 and 1965 the struggle over culture deepened. Levels of mass mobilisation and organisation deepened spectacularly. The clearest manifestations of this were the spectacular growth of the PKI and its associated organisations and also the impressive growth of the Indonesian National Party (PNI), as its majority moved in a more left-wing direction. By 1965, their combined membership reached at least 20 million people, almost half of the adult population who would have had the right to vote, if there had ever been elections. Mobilisations in support of socialism and of Sukarno’s radical, anti-imperialist policies grew larger and larger. Mass meetings and marches in support of the nationalisation of British, Belgian and British firms escalated. Rallies and actions demanding land reform were endemic. There were huge rallies in support of the Vietnamese revolution and for solidarity of the Asian, African and Latin American spheres of the world, and the non-capitalist world generally.

This growth of this side of the contradiction did not result in its resolution. Two things happened.

First, the original dynamic of the contradiction – agency versus passivity – began to be subverted from within the movement for organisation and mobilisation.

Second, and with considerable finality already lasting more than 50 years, exploiting this subversion of the prior dynamic, forces wanting passivity (and capitalism) suppressed the contradiction. Instead of being resolved, it was buried, left unresolved. Indonesia’s historical materialist genius, Pramoedya Ananta Toer, explained the writers’ block he experienced after finishing the historical novels he wrote covering the period from the 11^th century until the early twentieth century by giving the excuse that he couldn’t write about the Suharto period of Indonesia’s history because the contradictions that existed had not yet been resolved. Thesis and anti-thesis had not produced the new synthesis, he said. So he could not write, as there was no way the process could be summed up[10]. He never published anything major after his brilliant six historical novels, which he wrote in prison camp, while he waited for a resolution that would be a long time coming because the very process of resolving had been quashed with such severe violence and comprehensiveness. Quashing that process meant not finishing the nation creation of Indonesia through the resolution of the contradiction in a certain way, but rather pushing along (backwards) an umaking process.

Subversion of the original progressive dynamic paved the way for the suppression of the whole process. Of course, the consciousness associated with the mass movement against colonialism and for socialism was always marked by legacies of the past as well as the “conjuring up of the spirits of the past to its service”. There is no pure and instantaneous explosion of revolutionary consciousness. It evolves unevenly, and in fits and starts, and is distorted even by the forces that are developing it. The subversion, however, was not simply an evolution of such legacies and distortions. It was tied up with the extraordinary role that Sukarno continued to play. In interviews with Pramoedya in 1993, he stated:

Soekarno, for me, was the only person in Indonesia who had developed a national subjectivity. No one came close to him in that respect, even until now.

What do you mean by national subjectivity? I asked him.

It means he saw Indonesia from the perspective of Indonesians, of what our interests are. Indonesia itself was a new concept. People had strong ethnic loyalty, but they didn’t really care about a united Indonesia. People in the cities supported the idea of Indonesia. But, Soekarno went far beyond the cities, he got all the ethnic leaders to support this idea of Indonesia. He saw that Indonesia had the resources and ability to do things ourselves, for ourselves, not to be dictated by outside forces. He tried to do it, even to the extent of planning to set up a rival United Nations, and other things as well. That was extraordinary. He was far ahead of his times, too far. He was the only leader Indonesia had. He united Indonesia, the thousands of islands in this country, just with his speeches, without bloodshed. Without bloodshed. That has never happened anywhere else in the world, uniting a country without bloodshed. What he did was an extraordinary achievement in the history of mankind, not just in the history of Indonesia. Of course, a lot of lives were lost trying to defend that idea of a united Indonesia. But Soekarno managed to promote that idea of unity, to get people from all corners of Indonesia to believe in it, without shedding any blood, just with his speeches

Pramoedya was right. Soekarno was able to sum up an “Indonesian perspective” and easily more than half of the population enthusiastically supported his ideas. There were those who opposed him, of course. This included a significant section of the officer corps, intellectuals trained in the “Western” social democratic tradition (such as Hatta), religious political groups that wanted an Islamic state or a strongly Islamic polity. Their opposition was intense. There were seven assassination attempts on Soekarno, not to mention coup attempts and armed resistance in some small pockets. Still, as Pramoedya said, he was able to unite and mobilise enormous enthusiasm among over 20 million people who all joined one or other party or organisation backing his political direction. And in many ways he did do this “just with his speeches”. He had no political party of his own, nor a militia or any other weapon that he could utilise. Much of the armed wing of the state apparatus was opposed to him, and that ruled it out as his weapon.

The “national subjectivity” he embodied saw him come to be called the Penyambung Lidah Rakyat (literally the Extension of the Tongue of the People). To the extent Soekarno was able to capture and articulate national hopes among so many people for so long -10-20 years, he was the Penyambung Lidah Rakyat. It was precisely here, however, that the subversion of the organisation and mobilisation culture, so revolutionary in its overturning of what had been hegemonic before, began. The powerful presence of a Penyambung Lidah Rakyat subsumed the need for the rakyat to have their own voice, despite Sukarno being able to capture and articulate their sentiments and hopes. The movement for which he was spokesperson, almost of the whole 20 million plus masses who were supporting moving towards “Socialism ala Indonesia”, were joining the Indonesian Communist Party or the Indonesian National Party or one of the mass organisations affiliated to them, as well as other smaller organisations. With the pre-eminent role of his charismatic articulation of a national perspective came also an accommodation to a political strategy for winning state power that made Sukarno himself, as an individual actor, the lynchpin to any victory.

The psychology of substitution strengthened. Paulo Freirie argued, based on the experience in Brazil and Latin America, that it was possible to identify different levels of consciousness in mass politics, depending on the quality of the subjectivity of mass agency as well as the transitiveness of the activity process. A full critical consciousness, where people can begin to see the causes of problems and reject simplistic solutions, require a problem-solving dialogue between political leadership and movement. Sukarno’s charismatic form of leadership, his Penyambungness, negated the possibility of dialogue, especially during that intense period of 1960-65. Back in the 1920s, in the era of vergadering and mass meetings, dialogue was intense. Indeed, Sukarno often related his discovery of the massive semi-proletarian layer among the rural population, which he called the marhaen, after the name of an impoverished farmer, as a product of a dialogue. By the 1960s, however, there was only one “lidah” (tongue) working an hegemony. The movement was stuck, to use Freire’s term, in a semi-transitive consciousness[11]. Agency had been inadvertently surrendered to Sukarno even as organisation expanded and mobilisation increased: even as the quantitative strength of the pro-socialist forces increased.

Culturally, the crucial manifestation was the adoption of Sukarno’s vocabulary as the hegemonic, uncontested vocabulary for discussing all politics, especially at the level of the formulation of ideas amongst the masses. Individual intellectuals, especially writers and artists, including Pramoedya, still developed their own vocabularies, but at the mass level political expression fused with Sukarno’s. In fact, even the right-wing opposition knew that it had to explain its opposition to him using his own vocabulary. For several months after September 30, 1965 when Major-GenerL Suharto seized power, he still defended his actions using the vocabulary of Sukarno’s revolution.

Strategically also, the Left as a movement had accepted a perspective for winning power that made Sukarno the lynchpin. In the 1950s, the PKI’s perspective, as the largest left party, was to win eventually a majority in elections and the parliament. Open advocacy of insurrection was impossible given that the new national Armed Forces had shown itself to be implacably opposed to the left as early as 1948, including to the extent of carrying out mass executions of communists in 1948, after a local PKI “mutiny”. However by the early 1960s, the PKI had given up on the parliamentary road and had accommodated to a strategy whereby as popular support for Sukarno’s Socialism ala Indonesia increased and became the overwhelming majority, Sukarno would remove right-wing officials in the state apparatus, from the Cabinet down, and replace them with revolutionaries. This was called “retooling” and a Supreme Command for Retooling the Tools of the Revolution was established, headed by President Sukarno. Both culturally and politically, the agency for revolutionary organisation and mobilisation was subverted, becoming semi-transitive. It was a movement aimed at acting upon reality to transform it radically, of that there is no doubt. However, as the subject of that process, the people’s sovereignty as agency was weakened.

The other side of the contradiction, the class forces desperate for obedience and passivity and integration into international capitalism, waited to be provided with a pretext to launch a suppression. That happened in the late evening of 30^th September, 1965 and into October 1, when the “Thirtieth of September Movement” launched what became a botched mutiny against the national leadership of the Army, involving the clumsy kidnapping (where one child was also shot dead) of key generals. The plan was to present these generals to President Sukarno with proof they were plotting a coup in the hope that he would dismiss them and appoint replacements less hostile to the PKI and the Left. With the plotters unable to locate Sukarno, and in the midst of other of their mismanagement, Major-General Suharto, head of the Strategic Army Command had time to move against the mutineers. In the meantime, the generals and one captain were detained at an airforce base. As the mutiny crumbled, somebody gave the order to shoot the detainees. They were executed and thrown down a well. On finally hearing this news, Sukarno ordered the 30^th September Movement to cease its actions, headed, it appeared, by an army officer. Instead, it escalated its statement declaring the decommissioning of Sukarno’s cabinet and the appointment of a Revolutionary Council. The mutiny had become a coup, but by the time these later statements were issued the whole midnight conspiracy had collapsed. While the dust was still settling, on October 2 the PKI’s daily newspaper, Harian Rakyat, published an editorial easily interpreted as defending the mutiny. Suharto and the anti-Left wing of the officer corps had the pretext they needed to move against the PKI, Sukarno and whole left, which were violently crushed.

The struggle between contradictory goals for Indonesia that had been the unifying polarisation that had defined the nation creating process was, in the same repression, also violently and comprehensively suppressed.

A new contradiction replaced it: that between the reality of its suppression and the fact that the contradiction had not been resolved. This was, and still is, a more difficult contradiction to manifest itself through struggle. The agency doing the suppression was clear, and in power. But how does an agency emerge that is consciously for the revival of the earlier polarisation: so that there can be a struggle for resolution. To challenge the new hegemony of a triumphant pro-capitalist elite and militarised state, backed by the full range of states and ruling classes across the capitalist world, including in the United States, Western Europe, Japan and Australia, such a rebellious agency would need to be large and strong and have a clear idea of its goal. The nature of the new contradiction, between a suppression of a contradiction and its lack of resolution, combined with the extent of the repression, eliminating the material basis for the resurgence of agency, explains the long time it is taking for any new agency to form. When a contradiction is between antagonistic class forces with rival future goals, the actors or agency favouring revolutionary change – class forces and their leaderships – has a basis out of which it can try to forge more clarity and a path forward. As we know, that is by no means an easy task, but history has shown that it is possible, to one degree or another. But when the contradiction is not between two futures, but between a terroristically oppressed present and the option to struggle over the future; when indeed “the future” itself in mass consciousness has been erased, revolutionary agency must find it more difficult to emerge.

A successful massive pre-emptive counter-revolutionary strike as that which was unleashed in 1965 creates a society whose consciousness lacks both past tense and future tense[12]. The Suharto regime’s programme of re-writing history, reducing history teaching in schools, not teaching literature[13] (where nationally memory is stored) and the resources it put into inculcating its rewritten history throughout society was well resourced and easily effective, given the physical elimination and terrorised subjugation of those who might offer an alternative[14].

But what happens when a yet to be completed national revolution, an unfinished nation-creation process, is brought to an end through suppression, and where the contradiction that defined its process is suppressed, and, in the process, past and future are lost? Or, to put it another way: what happens to the unfinished nation itself? If Pramoedya was right and Sukarno did embody a “national subjectivity” how did Sukarno see the nation creation process in 1965? His vocabulary didn’t contain “nation creation” but he repeatedly and emphatically associated what he called the Indonesian revolution with “nation-building”, but also “character-building”, both of which he insisted were not yet finished even in 1965. These two terms, if understood as a single process, are, I think, indeed referring to a nation creation process, including the creation of a new national culture: that is, its character.

Does the suppression of the nation-forming contradiction mean the end of that nation forming process? Does the unmaking of the nation start? Has or is Indonesia being “unmade”? It is in the answer to these questions that the meaning of 1965 and what has happened since can start to be understood.

Of course, Indonesia is still there. The territory as it was envisaged originally is still intact. There is a national economy, poor and undeveloped, fragile and riddled with contradictions, and with strengthening localism, but almost everybody within those borders now survives by being part of a common national economic life. Everything has become more interconnected; tens of millions of people seek livelihood by moving around the country.

The national economy though is divided between rich and poor so deeply and in such a way that there are big cultural consequences, especially given the suppression of the contradiction that generated the new national culture in the first place. As time goes on, Benjamin Disreali’s nineteenth century description of two nations in one country takes on a renewed meaning:

Two nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other’s habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets; who are formed by a different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws.” “You speak of — ”said Egremont, hesitantly. “ THE RICH AND THE POOR.[15]

The development of nations and national cultures subsumes this difference, never totally but for much of the time successfully enough to dam up class contradictions, or distort consciousness with by scapegoating “enemies of the nation”. In the imperialist countries the contradiction whose resolution was the bourgeouis nation, was a contradiction, put simply although didn’t happen simply, between feudalism and nascent capitalism. That contradiction wasn’t suppressed, it was resolved. Feudalism is gone. In Indonesia, while the country is still capitalist, it is not developing even capitalistically, and the need for socialism remains, as an answer to an undeveloping, stagnating capitalism. In the imperialist countries, the resolution of the contradiction did finish the nation creation process and did finish “character-building”. They created societies that were bourgeois in their character. Their revolutions, resolving the contradiction unchained and established modern bourgeois society. Bourgeois ideology and character also infected the class it oppressed, the proletariat, meaning that any movement towards resolution of the new contradiction will require a new “character-building” process, something regularly seen when the proletariat is moved into revolutionary activity.

But was the Indonesian national revolution, against colonialism, able to establish a bourgeois society, in the same sense as in Europe, before it was suppressed? Well, unlikely, as most of the energies of the 20 million or more people constituting the agency of mobilisation and organisation as the new national character, even while semi-transitive and dependent on Sukarno as it was in the 1960s, were actively doing the opposite. Bourgeois society is just as much an enemy of popular organisation and mobilisation as whatever it is that now exists in Indonesia. It requires cultural and political passivity confining the majority of the population to working, consuming (where they have enough money) and carrying out that regular act of slipping a piece of paper into a box (or pressing some buttons) where they choose who will repress and exploit them.

Moreover, the specific policies of the Dutch, meant that there was no serious national bourgeoisie in Indonesia when it became independent. Export crops and mines, and the big services that they demanded such as banking and shipping, were the profitable businesses and they were all in the hands of Dutch and other foreign capital. The aristocratic elites had become the “pemakan gaji’ (eaters of salary) working for the Dutch and lacked interest in business. The merchant sector remained active but was confined to petty commodity production and distribution. They could never accumulate enough capital to develop any larger productive enterprise. In his longest and empirically strongest article in 1932, in comparing British colonialism in India where a national bourgeoisie emerged, Sukarno described a situation which he saw as the result of Dutch finance capitalism’s impact in the Indies which crushed any local effort that started to have scale:

All we are left is nothing more than small-scale trade, small-scale shipping, small scale workshops, small scale agriculture, and millions of workers with no enterprise of their own. Indonesian society can be labelled an “everything is small” society, the society of the Kromo, of the Marhaen. Where everything is small. [16]

Although today Indonesia can boast less than a hundred billionaires (in a country with a population almost the size of the US), Sukarno’s picture remains true for today. Seventy to eight percent of all enterprises have less than 10 workers, and this is also where the great mass of people work, or don’t. Only 3 or 4 million out of more than 150 million strong workforce, at most, work in medium or large enterprises[17].

In other words, the vast majority of “bourgeois” in Indonesia have commercial horizons that hardly go beyond their own or neighbouring districts. Big capital’s orientation – big in Indonesian terms only – is to its potential foreign partners – or is to the state, but in its role of decider of projects not as the manager of a national economy. Indonesia had and has a numerically huge domestic capitalist class, but not a big national capitalist class. The bourgeois society that the unfinished and damned up Indonesian national revolution has produced still has the characteristics of the “everything is small” society that Sukarno described. Without the energies and creativity of the organised and mobilised rakyat and marhaen which constituted the forces of the Left before 1965, this domestic capitalist class, lacking national perspectives of any depth, and also subordinated to a militarised state apparatus whose rentier horizons were “open the donor to global capital” horizons, have not been able to finish the creation of a new national character. That process stalled and having stalled on an uphill incline, has probably also rolled back down the incline somewhat.

There is one area though, where Sukarno’s “smallness” description probably no longer applies. The cities have grown, and their middle and upper class. The suddenly grown big city middle classes also possess territory (their special suburbs and malls and overseas haven cities, like Singapore and Melbourne), a common language (English, at least for their children), a common economy, the one who’s vocabulary is expressed in dollars and not rupiahs, and even a common culture, cosmopolitan and “ngehek”. They can be defined as the social layer, including capitalists, who have a disposable income enabling them to have levels of consumption equivalent to a well-off worker or “middle class” person in an imperialist country, which means a thousand times more than a worker. It is even fuelling a very visible expansion in literary output, the “best” of which will also fit the tastes of the “discerning” global reader.

Such levels of consumption, including of education and travel as well as of all the normal edifications of food, clothing, housing and entertainment, starkly distinguishes them culturally, “character-building wise”, from the two hundred million impoverished working massses as well as the few million kabupaten capitalists.

“Ngehek” is a hard word to translate so that it captures the sense of self-assured, uppity contempt of this layer for the “unwashed”. But this layer, maybe a few million people now or soon, with its own territory, common language and economy, as well as culture is indeed almost as Disraeli described:

Two nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other’s habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were inhabitants of different planets; who are formed by a different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same law.

The prosperous class almost becomes a class-nation, while the two hundred millions outside of this disposable income social layer share a cultural life, less resourced, fragmented and without national purpose, now that the purpose of transforming the society they inherited into a nation, a non-bourgeois nation, is stalled.

A contradiction between the suppression of a contradiction and the fact that it remains unresolved is still a contradiction whose internal tension will, and has, produced, new energies, even if slowly and in a kind of ragged way. The 33 year old counter-revolutionary military backed regime of Suharto was forced to concede a major re-opening of democratic space. Suharto had to resign. Repressive laws were quickly repealed. Labour rights were formally restored. The organised agency that spearheaded the escalation of the process was tiny – the Peoples Democratic Party (PRD) and other activist groups. By persisting with a strategy on insisting that there must be aksi – street mobilising – which then was a direct defiance of floating mass, these groups undermined the basis of the enforced passivity, which was the ideology of the Suharto regime as far as the political status of the people was concerned. In the kind of dual economy that had been created, and with poverty endemic, the movement grew and grew, reaching a first peak in May 1997 during elections when hundreds of thousands mobilised against the government parties, then to be catapulted to a higher level of defiance in 1998, threatening ungovernability or worse. Suharto stepped down as his cronies abandoned him.

While the protest movement organisations, especially the PRD, had set out a programme of reform, it was neither the PRD’s nor other group’s ideologies that was the actual ideology of movement for change. Reformasi total (total reformation) was the slogan of the most advanced elements. As a manifestation of the first rupture of the suppression of a contradiction, the unleashed energy represented a mighty thrusting away of the pillow that has been suffocating society. The suffocation has ended.

But what was that future which was once envisaged? That vision is still buried in a hidden past even though it is desperately needed now. As Indonesia’s trailblazing magazine of popular history, HISTORIA, has as its catch cry “the past is always actual”[18]. It is true everywhere, but nowhere more than where there has been a suppressed national revolution. Some of the past is already resurfacing. Those wanting an Islamic state or a strongly Islamic polity have started to make their mark with a massive 200,000 plus “Defend Islam” mobilisation in Jakarta in December 2016 demanding the arrest of the current Chinese Christian Governor of Jakarta on charges of insulting Islam. They fuse their agitation with anti-communism, despite there being no nationally visible Left in Indonesia, let alone a Communist movement. They point their finger at a watermark on the new Indonesian currency that, they say, looks like a secret hammer and sickle symbol. They are now demanding the withdrawal of the currency. There may be no large organised Left in Indonesia, but the contradiction that provided the energy for the creation of Indonesia has been suppressed, not resolved. We are waiting for the agency that will push the contradiction towards resolution and the new synthesis that the late Pramoedya Ananta Toer said he needed to see before he could write the historical novel of his own era.

Share

Subscribe now

[1]

[2] Ruling classes always seize control over the presentation of history. The level of control over history in Indonesia during the Suharto era was that of a totalitarian polity. There was no Howard Zinn nor a Renato Constantino Sr until Pramoedya Ananta Toer published his This Earth of Mankind tetralogy, and that only covered the period at the turn of the 20^th century.

[3] Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, 1852, Chapter 1.

[4] V.I. Lenin, “Critical Remarks on the National Question,” Questions of National Policy and Proletarian Internationalism (Moscow, 1977), p. 38. “Capitalism’s broad and rapid development of the productive forces calls for large, politically compact and united territories, since only here can the bourgeois class – together with its inevitable antipode, the proletarian class – unite and sweep away all the old, medieval, caste, parochial, petty-national, religious and other barriers.”

[5] Frijtof Tichelman, The social evolution of Indonesia: the Asiatic mode of Production and its legacy, The Hague, etc: Martinus Nijhoff, 1980.

[6] One early writer of such ‘melodramas’ was Raden Mas Tirto Adhi Soeryo (1880-1918), the inspiration for the character Minke, in Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s novels This Earth of Mankind, Child of All Nations, Footsteps and Glass House. Some of Adhisuryo’s short stories were republished in Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Sang Pemula, Hastra Mitra, Jakarta, 1985. Pramoedya also edited other anthologies of stories from this period.

[7] Quoted in Herb Feith, The Decline of Constitutional Democracy in Indonesia, Cornell University Press,1962 ., pp. 607-608.

[8] These characteritics identified as persistent features of the community, the nation, were identified by the Bolsheviks before 1913. They were codified in Marxism and the National Question, by Josef Stalin, in 1913. This codification and its elaboration remains useful. Its authorship, by a figure who later became a murderous thug undoing the gains of the October revolution, and its codification style of composition has probably resulted in it being underutilised in theoretical work around the nation. Shortly after it was published, Lenin wrote: “that the “fundamentals of a national programme for [Russian] Social-Democracy have recently been dealt with in Marxist theoretical literature (the most prominent place being taken by Stalin’s article)” [V.I. Lenin, “The National Programme of the R.S.D.L.P.”, Collected Works, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1964, Vol. 19, p. 539.]. The text was published in the Indonesian language and widely read before 1965.

[9] One arena where revolutionary Indonesianness was blunted even before 1965 by reference to pre-Indonesian hegemonic cultural values was that of the position of women, of gender. Women were both called upon to be revolutionary (actually Indonesian, as creating Indonesia was a revolutionary process) and to be “truly Indonesian”, i.e. traditional, not overly modern, that is to say un-Indonesian. The latter dominated official and establishment discourse on women after 1965.

[10] Pramoedya related this perspective to me in many different conversations.

[11] Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York, Continuum, 1970; Paulo Freire, Cultural action for freedom, 1970.

[12] It is arguable that the countries of North America and Western Europe, as well as settler society Australia, have also been losing their sense of historical tense, if by another path. If Indonesian society has lost most of its memory of its origins, the “Enlightenment” societies have probably lost their memory of the Enlightenment. In both cases, a loss of the “origins-tense” blocks future tense. The present tense comes to seem eternal.

[13] State schools require students to know by rote a list of literary texts, however there is no separate subject of Indonesian literature in schools and no tradition, since the early 1970s, of students being asked to read novels short stories, plays, essays and poems for study and discussion.

[14] Even Pramoedya had very little to say about the future, despite his brilliant insights into the origins of the Indonesian nation. In fact, Pramoedya’s reluctance to attempt writing a summing-up of the Suharto era – the “anti-thesis”, in his eyes, to the “thesis” that was represented by the Sukarno era amounts to a failure in being able to present a critique of his own generation’s history. In fact, his generation – the few survivors of the physical purges – have not presented such a critique, neither has a younger generation of the Left. This strengthen’s the dynamic towards the absence of a future tense in political discourse in general. Of course, Pramoedya and several thousand other Leftists from before 1965 were isolated from the Indonesia-being-unmade for over a decade while they were imprisoned on an isolated island. Some of these issues will be further discussed in my upcoming book Indonesia Tidak Hadir di Bumi Manusia [Indonesia is Not Present on This Earth of Mankind] to be published in Indonesia in April, 2016.

[15] Dialogue from Benjamin Disraeli’s 1845 novel, Sybil

[16] Soekarno, “Swadeshi dan Massa Aksi di Indonesia” in Dibawah Bendera Revolusi, Jakarta, 1964, p 152 “Kromo” and “Marhaen” are names like “Joe” and “Bob” in English speaking countries: names conbeying being members of the community of common folk.

[17] Check decentralisation and/or power point.

[18] Historia founded by young, critical journalist-historians is a substantial monthly popular history magazine in the spirit of both Pramoedya Ananta Toer and Howard Zinn.

It is an initial summing up of the events that took place from August 25 lasting a week or so in Indonesia. My own view is that these events are a symptom of Indonesia entering a new conjuncture in its political and economic journey - what I might term a dead-end phase. This dead-end is the consequence of economic, and especially politico-cultural decisions taken throughout the six decades since 1965, the year that political contestation of Indonesia’s future was ended through mass violent suppression.

Subscribe now

Share

Analysing the dynamics of this new conjuncture requires caution and precision. The accumulation of the consequences of colonialism, six decades of politico-cultural suppression and dead-end economic policy decisions have produced a complex mix of processes that have only just begun to take the country into a new conjuncture. The article below merely attempt to report on some aspects of the initial, more vivid, manifestations of this process. As things unfold, I will attempt more extended analysis. Some of the will, I hope, be published in the platforms of the ISEAS - Yusof Isak Institute, others here on my Substack. Readers may also be interested in reading my article “Indonesia’s Colonial Legacy and the Challenges for the Global South” published in the Beijing Cultural Review this month.

Anyway here is my Zaobao column. (https://zb.sg/g/btNc)

Protests and riots highlight growing frustration across Indonesia

By Max Lane

Jakarta police released 156 high school students detained during an August 25 protest outside the House of Representatives (DPR) complex in Senayan. Platform motor bike drivers (ojol), a growing segment of Jakarta’s urban poor, also demonstrated. The demonstration flared in a number of sites around Jakarta but focused finally at the Indonesian parliament. Rocks and Molotov cocktails were thrown by demonstrators during the course of the day. The police used water cannons and tear gas against the protesters.

A second demonstration followed on August 28. In the morning, it was unions affiliated to the Labor Party, who actually support the government. In the afternoon and into the evening, more high school students, platform drivers and some tertiary students came. In the attempt to disperse the crowd, a platform motor bike driver delivering food was run over by a police armoured car and died. His death, widely publicised on social media, sparked demonstrations around the country over the following days, some resulting in physical clashes with the police and the burning of cars and buildings.

The demonstrations were called for by viral social media posts. These posts struck a chord given the deepening anger that has been long simmering but has accelerated during 2025. It’s crucial to note the major demands that were identified as being voiced from among the protesters, in Jakarta and elsewhere:

Anger at the large income of members of parliament and police violence was the focus of much social media commentary, as well as the protests. Demands for abolition of parliamentary allowances and ending onerous taxes on the ordinary people also had a high profile. Amongst thousands of people mobilising on the streets of more than 30 cities, most not members of any organisation, there were no doubts other demands raised.

All through the last several years there have been protests of various kinds around different issues. The most recent dramatic demonstrations occurred over August 13–14 in the Regent's office against Regent Sudewo's 250% Rural and Urban Land and Building Tax (PBB-P2) increase and demanding his resignation. The regent's refusal to meet protesters led to confrontation: police used water cannons and tear gas; protesters burned a police vehicle and breached gates. Similar tax protests erupted in Central Java and Sulawesi. Soon after the protests, the government conceded ordering the tax increases to be repealed.

Just as these demonstrations are being discussed virally through the social media, the elite political class has exhibited an extraordinary tone-deafness reflecting the embedded sense of impunity flowing from twenty years of party cartel state rule. While slogans like “Indonesia is Darkness” and “Let’s Get Out of Here Now!” and “Indonesia is Not OK” remain viral, alongside the raising of the pirate “One Piece” flag, politicians gave each other pay rises, praised the good state of the country, claim Indonesia is “in the Light” and is “baik-baik saja”(all ok), criticise the common people for being greedy, raise taxes and fees that ordinary people pay, give the impression that they think “teachers are a burden on the state” (even if they don’t say that exactly) and award the highest state awards to rich businessmen who have been convicted of high level corruption or cabinet Ministers who haven’t even served a year in the Cabinet.

Without political leadership or ideology, the wave of mobilisations died away quickly. Starting on August 25, they had dwindled by August 30. On August 31, when President Prabowo authorised the police and army to take firm action against riots, Jakarta was relatively quiet, with just small sporadic protests in other locations. During the week of protests, at least 6 people died in confrontations with the police, and 4 because of fires set by those on the streets. There are hundreds till detained and some whose location has not been found yet. The government has made its first arrests of NGO figures. They are alleged to have shared postings explaining how to make Molotov cocktails and urging the burning of police stations. However, there is deep suspicion among the broad civil society about such allegations and an associated suspicion of both elite, police and army intelligence provocations and involvement. Many in civil society fear intensifying repression.

However, in desperate search for an economic surge to reach Prabowo’s 8% GDP, the government, and the elite as a whole, cannot afford to see investors scared away by repeated waves of protests and riots. The stock exchange fell during those five days. A conspicuous and very new feature of both the government and elite response to the protests has been a string of much highlighted concessions: rescinding of the big income increases for members of parliaments, many statements by elite figures “minta maaf” (saying sorry) to the country, demotion of the most tone-deaf MPs, promises for a reform of parliament and the dishonourable discharge of a police officer and demotion of the armoured car driver who ran over the platform driver. This was topped off on September 8 by the replacement of Finance Minister Sri Mulyani, whose morose face reproduced virally on social media has been a symbol of the government's tax and austerity policies.

The new Finance Minister, Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa, first statement, began his tenure with his own tone-deaf statement, lampooned virally in social media, saying that the recent protests were the voices of just a small segment of the people facing difficulties and that that discontent will disappear and people will makan enak (eat well) soon when he achieves a 6% or 7% growth rate. Already, within 24 hours of appointment, University of Indonesia students have demonstrated calling for his dismissal. There can be little doubt Indonesia is entering a period more pregnant with the possibility of unpredictable protests, which will challenge the organisations of civil society to provide solutions to answer the discontent.

Share

Subscribe now