Indonesia remains as fascinating as ever: poor, vibrant, diverse, and poor. Not everywhere as poor as it used to be, as Jason Price shows. Yet on average poor enough. Lea Jellinek no longer hears Jakarta's constantly evicted kampung dwellers say 'everything is OK', but only that they are 'frustrasi'. Inside Indonesia's view from below remains the view of most Indonesians. We discover street kids in Yogyakarta carving out an identity for themselves, little girls in Bali who become the playthings of foreign 'tourists', sea cucumber divers who go down to 35m (have they never heard of the bends?) with minimal equipment, and migrant workers in Malaysia making a living under taunts that they are a social evil.
To govern such a vibrant, poor nation can be no easy task. The false rumours preceding so many violent riots recently are part of a mix of anger as well as bigotry perhaps beyond the powers of any to satisfy fully. Indeed, government success stories certainly deserve commendation. Wiryono Sastrohandojo's role in promoting a negotiated peace in the Southern Philippines shows what governments can do if they want to.
Yet at other times the present government seems to know no other way to deal with its own people than by force, thus creating the web of violence that Agung Kurniawan examines in his art. Why can't parliament be a place where the people decide their own destiny? Why, instead, are several parliamentarians now facing long gaol sentences simply for doing their job? One of them is Aberson Marle Sihaloho, who speaks with us.
Aberson is one of a couple of dozen political leaders - all of them peaceful - being paraded through the courts on charges ranging from insulting the president through to subversion. The aim of these show trials may be to impress the world with the dangers of democracy. The effect on their audience, as our correspondent in Jakarta shows, is the reverse.
Of course a properly functioning parliament is dangerous - to an elite in power. The no doubt well-intentioned presidential instruction for the wealthy to pay 2% of their gains into a private fund for the poor may be a case in point, as David Bourchier and Ian Chalmers point out.
We hope that all these authors, and our book reviewers, help recreate a view from below too often missing in other reportage. They all, incidentally, did their work voluntarily!
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