The people of Indonesia & their culture, politics, economy and environment - Inside Indonesia: The peoples and cultures of Indonesia

Communal Violence

Gambling with truth

Two Acehnese young women hold up colourful protest signs demanding justice for past human rights violations.

Aceh’s Commission for Truth and Reconciliation has an important, though delicate, mission ahead

‘We are natural-born children, you are adopted’

A small wooden boat is docked on the shore, with two others in the background, in Malifut, North Halmahera. (Yefta Christiono)

Locals contest national citizenship rights in North Maluku

When ‘home’ is not home

The worn-down, wooden-plank exterior of a house, bare but for a mural of a bull on a red background - PDI-P's symbol. (Laila Kholid Alfirdaus)

Locals react coolly to ex-transmigrants who return to Java after fleeing violence elsewhere

The forgotten killings

Monumen Bambu Runcing (Bamboo Spear Monument), Surabaya Credit: Lidya Mewengkang

The slaughter of Indonesians by young nationalists has been hidden by romantic narratives of the independence struggle

Book Review: Inventing Imam Samudra

Book Review: Imam Samudra’s Revenge, by Angus McIntyre

Imagining a nation divided

A mosque in Sidikalang, a town in North Sumatra just across the border from Aceh Singkil - Daniel Andrew Birchok

Aceh Singkil’s recent church burning may reflect common ways Indonesians have linked religion and region

Football, violence and politics

Yogyakarta’s notorious Brajamusti elects a president

Enduring impunity

The reality for women survivors of conflict-related violence in Indonesia does not match the rhetoric

Review: 'Enduring impunity': Women surviving atrocities in the absence of justice

Ongoing impunity for perpetrators continues to impact on the lives of women survivors

Stories that bridge time

Young researchers discover that the victims of history hold a secret every Indonesian should know

Remembering May 1998

Almost sixteen years on, Jakarta's first ethnic Chinese governor joins in efforts to keep the memory of the events of May 1998 from fading

Lessons learned from Indonesia’s conflicts: Aceh, Poso and Papua

Herb Feith Annual Memorial Lecture 2014

Indonesia’s new anarchists

Insurrectionary anarchists, with international connections, nihilist values and a penchant for arson, are moving to fill the vacuum on the left

'Truth takes a while, justice even longer'

In 2012 significant new information exposed critical truths about the 1965 massacres in Indonesia, but there remain major obstacles to recovery and reconciliation

Living without a state

People in rural Papua are more interested in basic services than grand political struggles

Time bomb in Bali

A culture that suppresses conflict disguises decades-long tensions in Balinese communities

Public works and ethnic conflict

Tarakan’s riots illustrate the risks of collusive public contracting and the continued weakness of local security responses

Trapped in the legacy of the past

Conflict between Timorese youth gangs and martial arts groups hark back to the Indonesian occupation

Ahmadiyah dispute intensifies

Violence at the National Monument in Jakarta almost caused a conflict between Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah in Lamongan

Keeping Bali strong?

Hindu-Muslim tensions have mounted, but not to boiling point

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Lontar Modern Indonesia

A selection of stories from the Indonesian classics and modern writers, periodically published free for Inside Indonesia readers, courtesy of Lontar.