May 05, 2024 Last Updated 6:40 AM, May 3, 2024

Fiction & Essays Fiction & Essays Fiction & Essays Social & Political Unrest Maluku

Surviving conflict

Aceh’s performing arts have blossomed despite the conflict and the tsunami

We miss you wali nanggroe

Hasan di Tiro returns to an Aceh in transition

Arnold Ap and Theys Eluay

Political assassinations targeted West Papua’s culture and political identity

Torture in Papua

Human rights groups report on abuses

West Papua: Inside Indonesia?

This edition of Inside Indonesia marks an important anniversary, and explores the multiple faces of Indonesian Papua today

The name game

Or, the years of living with no one to blame

A sibling rivalry

Since their institutional separation, the relationship between the police and the military has been troubled

Teaching and remembering

The legacy of the Suharto era lingers in school history books

Jungle Schools

Volunteers bring alternative education to marginalised communities

Un-natural disaster

An unstoppable flow of mud from an explosion in a gas well in Sidoarjo, East Java, has unleashed a plethora of political issues.

Shifting faultlines

In the aftermath of religious conflict, ethnic difference is becoming more prominent in Ambon

Outbreak of rioting: Tinder-box or conspiracy?

Is Indonesia a 'tinder-box'? A potential Bosnia in Southeast Asia? Or is it essentially peaceful, but someone is stirring the pot, perhaps to make a point before the 1997 elections? GERRY VAN KLINKEN visits the sites of three riots.

The fear and the fury

FRANZ MAGNIS-SUSENO believes that riots happen because people feel threatened by change.

Political gangsters

The riot that engulfed Jakarta on 27 July 1996 started after army-backed gangsters invaded Megawati's PDI headquarters. JESSE RANDALL traces the strange relationship between government and criminality.

Jakarta money stirs Ujungpandang riot

VEDI HADIZ sent this eyewitness account from South Sulawesi.

We want a new government!

There are plenty of capable Indonesians who can take over from Suharto, says the activist group PIJAR.

Friend or foe?

In this snapshot of politics at the end of January, ARIEF BUDIMAN worries that the embryonic alliance between Amien Rais and Megawati remains vulnerable to government attack.

No nightmares in Aceh

Acehnese have no word for nightmare, but the trauma of the conflict years is nightly visited upon many survivors through their dreams.

The aftermath of civil war

Fighting has stopped in North Maluku, but mistrust lingers

We are all one

How custom overcame religious rivalry in Southeast Maluku

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