Mar 25, 2023 Last Updated 2:07 AM, Mar 22, 2023

Politics

A matter of life or death for the Indonesian nation?

Hunger remains a problem in many Indonesian households

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

Ari’s audacity

How can you be a straight cop when people just give you money?

Strange bedfellows

An unlikely alliance between former rebels and a former New Order tormentor will test the limits of Partai Aceh loyalty

More than a fatal attraction

Outsiders see arak consumption as a highly dangerous activity, but arak plays an important role in Balinese society

Review: Suharto’s guardians and reluctant reformers

A new publication tells the story of the first graduates of the joint Indonesian Armed Forces Military Academy

Review: Lieutenant General Djaja Suparman tells his story

Editor’s note: For Indonesia-watchers the activities of the military and its leaders remain largely opaque and perhaps even menacing. In recent years the steady stream of memoirs and biographies by and about military leaders has, in some cases, assuaged some of this mystery and in others, added to the intrigue. As the public and judicial gaze has increasingly turned to the actions of military leaders with connections to the New Order, the memoir has been engaged by some as a form of testimony in an effort to ‘clear their name’. Whatever the motivation, with each new addition to this genre, we are offered new insights into the fractious and often treacherous ‘interior’ world of the Indonesian Armed Forces. Suparman holds the line but reveals some new insights into the transition of power after the fall of the New Order

Big prison, little prison

Stories from Papua’s political prisoners show life at the edge of freedom

On the struggle for press freedom

Former political prisoner Eko Maryadi speaks to Nikki Edwards about his incarceration during the New Order

Turning away from terror

Prison can be a place of radicalisation or rehabilitation

Married with children

The second round of direct elections for governors and district heads shows that democratisation is allowing powerful families to entrench themselves in local politics

Haunted house, haunted history

Visitors to Semarang’s Lawang Sewu find competing narratives of history, memory and popular culture

Review: My name is Khan

This Indian film’s popularity reveals a popular critique of the US

Land of ghosts

Papua’s rural lowlands are being transformed by an encroaching global economy, but what happens to the people there is an open question

Review: From the dark side

Jusuf Wanandi’s memoir allows glimpses into the mindset of Suharto-era officialdom

Review: When perpetrators speak

Joshua Oppenheimer’s groundbreaking new film raises disturbing questions about why perpetrators of the 1965-66 mass killings still enjoy impunity for their actions

'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

Art and the city

Indonesian artists are using new media to rethink urban space

Soft diplomacy in heavy metal

Indonesia’s liberal art scene attracts adventurous Australian artists

What gives rise to moral outrage?

Rather than being merely the result of religious extremism, recent cases of moral outrage point to a wide range of current political and social problems

Latest Articles

‘Tricked by a hoax’

Mar 22, 2023 - JENNY MUNRO

Truth and irrational violence in West Papua

Photo essay: Welcoming Ramadan in Yogyakarta

Mar 15, 2023 - MARK WOODWARD

In the month before the fasting period, Javanese Muslims perform a diversity of sacred rituals

Accountability missing in action

Feb 07, 2023 - SRI LESTARI WAHYUNINGROEM

Joko Widodo’s acknowledgement of past gross human rights abuses falls short

Local shari'a or human rights?

Jan 31, 2023 - NANAK HIKMATULLAH

The debate about school uniforms is an ongoing struggle between those supporting the implementation of certain moral and religious standards and those who see such a choice as a basic...

Subscribe to Inside Indonesia

Receive Inside Indonesia's latest articles and quarterly editions in your inbox.

 


Lontar Modern Indonesia

Lontar-Logo-Ok

 

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