Indonesia

André Vltchek

Description

This is a fascinating and at times unsettling journey into the world's most populous Muslim nation as it struggles to emerge from decades of dictatorship and the plunder of its natural resources.



Andre Vltchek brings together more than a decade of investigative journalism in and around Indonesia to chart the recent history of the country, from the revolution which overthrew General Suharto's genocidal dictatorship in 1998 to the present day. He covers the full breadth of the country from Islamic Aceh to mostly Catholic East Timor.



Tracing Indonesia's current problems back to Suharto's coup and the genocide of 1965 – and the support given by the West to Suharto – Vltchek provides an intimate and deeply humane insight into the hopes and fears of Indonesia's people.

1. Introduction

2. From Colony to Dictatorship

3. Extreme Capitalism

4. Democracy and Human Rights

5. Jakarta Bleeding the Islands

6. Corruption Kills

7. The environment, plundering of natural resources and consequent natural disasters

8. Collapse of Infrastructure

9. Islam

10. Cultures, Education and Intellectual Life

11. Indonesia and its Neighbours: A big but destitute bully

12. Conclusion

Notes

Index

Sujets

• Human Rights
• Political Science
• Civil Rights
• HISTORY
• Achmed Sukarno
• Timor Oriental
• Tailandia
• Malasia
• East Timor
• Malaysia
• Suharto
• Sukarno
• Civics
• General officer
• Military
• International relations
• Civil and political rights
• Truth and Reconciliation Commission (South Africa)
• Thailand
• Imperialism
• Indonesia
• Citizenship
• Malaisie
• Impérialisme (jeu vidéo)
• Truth and Reconciliation
• General
• Bandung
• Soeharto
• Soekarno
• Sumatra
• Palembang
• Thaïlande
• Indonésie

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 06 août 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781849647410
• Langue: English

Extrait

INDONESIA

First published 2012 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
www.plutobooks.com
Distributed in the United States of America exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
Copyright © Andre Vltchek 2012
The right of Andre Vltchek to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7453 3200 0 Hardback ISBN 978 0 7453 3199 7 Paperback ISBN 978 1 84964 740 3 PDF ISBN 978 1 84964 742 7 Kindle ISBN 978 1 84964 741 0 ePub
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Curran Publishing Services, Norwich. Simultaneously printed digitally by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, UK and Edwards Bros in the United States of America
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Foreword by Noam Chomsky
1 Introduction
2 From colony to dictatorship




Colonialism
Independence
The Sukarno era
Elites in Indonesian history
The coup of 1965
Genocide
The New Order
3 Extreme capitalism, Indonesian style




The illusion of economic success
The collapse of intellectual Indonesia
The aftermath of the Asian financial crisis
A fog of statistics
Poverty in Indonesia
Bali
Jakarta
Living in Jakarta
4 Democracy and human rights




The democracy of generals
How much does their vote really matter?
After Suharto stepped down
Giving in to the Almighty
How information is manipulated via the media
The legal system
Prisons, torture and extra-judicial killings
Women’s rights
5 Jakarta bleeding the islands




Racism on the rise while there is no chance for independence
A neocolonial empire
Chinese exile
Genocide in Papua
Timor-Leste
Aceh
Kalimantan
6 Corruption kills




Suharto – the father of Indonesian corruption
Mud lake – tip of the corruption iceberg?
Some examples of corruption cases
If you are corrupt, go all the way
7 The environment, plundering of natural resources and consequent natural disasters




Filth and pollution
The River Musi and Palembang, Sumatra
North Sumatra
Aceh after the tsunami
Kalimantan
The Norwegian initiative
8 Collapse of infrastructure




Ferries sink
Airplanes crash
Terrible roads
Rotting trains
City transport problems
Inadequate services
9 Islam




Getting away with violence
Getting away with murder: the horror of Cikeusik
Temanggung
Pasuruan
The West, clerics and Indonesian Islam
10 Culture, education and intellectual life




Education
The arts
Artists and intellectuals
Remembering a lost culture
11 Indonesia’s position in Southeast Asia




A big but destitute bully
A regional victim and victimizer
The region is benefiting from the Indonesian collapse
The region benefits from Indonesian corruption
Run if you can, but send money home
Comparing apples and rotten apples
12 Conclusion




Notes
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank Pluto editors David Castle, Robert Webb, Will Viney – in fact the entire Pluto crew – for their help, patience and great professionalism.
I am grateful for the help and information I received from my Indonesian friends and colleagues, particularly from the historians Hilmar Farid and Baskara T. Wardaya, brave defenders of human rights, Kontras Usman Hamid and Haris Azhar, human rights lawyer Hendardi from Setara, Greenpeace campaigner Bustar Maitar, and Hermayani Putra from WWF.
I am thankful to several Indonesian opposition politicians, Eva Kusuma Sundari from the PDIP (Indonesian Democratic Party – Struggle), Nursyahbani Katjasungkana from the PKB (Nation Awakening Party), and Ryaas Rasyid from the PDK (Democratic Nationhood Party). They inspired me and opened new angles on how to analyse the Indonesian present and the past, while discussing topics that could still be defined as open wounds haunting the Indonesian society.
I am thankful to many universities worldwide, including Cambridge University, Sydney University, Auckland University, Columbia University and Cornell University for inviting me to speak on Indonesian history and the present. I am especially grateful to Benedict Anderson for offering his support and speaking side by side with me at Columbia University. And heartfelt thanks to my friend Professor Mark Selden for editing and publishing my work on Indonesia and the rest of Asia in his excellent magazine Asia Pacific Journal , formerly known as Japan Focus. Heartfelt thanks to a brilliant British anthropologist, Andrew Beatty from Brunel University. We met at Cambridge and since then have corresponded vividly, exchanging ideas on our mutual obsession – the Indonesian archipelago.
I would like to thank Noam Chomsky for writing a wonderful Foreword for this book and for encouraging my work for many long and turbulent years.
Two Indonesians who had an enormous impact on my work are the former president and progressive Muslim cleric Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur) and the greatest novelist of Southeast Asia, Pramoedya Ananta Toer. They have both passed away, but I am sure that one day their thoughts will be essential to the resurrection of the nation. I had long discussions with both of them, and their ideas greatly influenced this book.
I am also grateful to several professors and alumni from ITB: to Djoko Sujarto and Heru Poerbo who shared their analyses of Indonesia with me, to the artist Arahmaiani Feisal for her healthy doze of sarcasm and wit, to writer Linda Christanty for her determined striving for justice, and to the great painter Djokopekik from Yogyakarta, a man who was once described as being somewhere in between Pablo Picasso and Diego Rivera (he had heard about Picasso, but not Rivera). ‘Djo’ managed to depict the horrors of the Suharto years and the hopelessness of the present era, so deceivingly called ‘ reformasi ’.
Many other people greatly contributed to this book, including Scott Murray, a leading statistician; psychologist Grace Leksana; economists Umar Juoro and Hilda Rossieta; independent presidential candidate Fadjroel Rachman; architect Anton Himawan; Srisetiowati Seiful, executive director of Surya Institute; Noor Huda Ismail, a leading expert on Islamic extremism in Indonesia; Isna Wijayani, a lecturer from the University of Baturaja; human rights activists Zely Ariane and Paulus Suryanta Ginting; Saleh Abdullah from Insist; Erry Riyana Hardjapamekas, former vice chairman of KPK (the Corruption Eradication Commission); Regina Frey, a Swiss zoologist from the Bohorok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center; leading Acehnese politician Shadia Marhaban; Salma Waty, a lecturer at Syiah Kuala University; civil coordinator Muhajir from Aceh; Anton P. Wijaya from WALHI (the Indonesian Forum for the Environment); Sony Ambudi, a doctor presently residing in New Zealand; Ms Indrayani, a dentist; left-wing politician Ditasari; Yusny Saby, a lecturer at Islamic University (IAIN) Ar-Raniry; traditional theatre ( ketoprak ) actor Bondan Nusantara; former student activist Harry Wibowo; Hari Sungkari, general secretary of the Indonesian Society for Digital Creative Industries; Imamsyah Roesli of PT Palyja; Susilo H. Sumarsono, former president director of PT Elektrindo Nusantara; and Rafdian Rasyid, vice president of PT. Infokom Elektrindo.
I would like to say thank you to the common Indonesian people, to literally thousands of villagers, farmers, manual workers, slum dwellers, beggars, housewives, maids and the unemployed who shared their grievances and thoughts with me. They form the great majority in Indonesia. This book is mainly written about them and for them. They are the true Indonesia, and the horror of their conditions is the horror of their nation.
I would like to thank the people from progressive movements. Their organizations are still in their infant stages, and some have already been infiltrated by the security forces. But they have to prevail because if they fail, there will be nobody qualified to defend the majority.
Above all, I would like to thank Rossie Indira. This is not the first time we have worked together, and frankly speaking, if it were not for her unwavering help and her ability to communicate with and understand the people of all social and intellectual groups and the months of her hard work, this book would never even have come close to completion.

Andre Vltchek
FOREWORD
Andre Vltchek has compiled a stunning record in evoking the reality of the contemporary world, not as perceived through the distorting prisms of power and privilege, but as lived by the myriad victims. He has also not failed to trace the painful – and particularly for the West, shameful – realities to their historical roots. The remarkable scope of his inquiries is illustrated even by the titles of some of his major books: Western Terror: From Potosi to Baghdad, a vast range of topics that he explores with rare insight and understanding; and Exile , his interviews with Indonesia’s great novelist Pramoedya, who spent a large part of his life in internal exile, imprisoned by the murderous and vicious Suharto government in Indonesia, which was greatly admired by the West, and enthusiastically supported in its shocking crimes, after it won approval by carrying out a mass slaughter that the CIA compared to the crimes of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, and opened up the rich resources of the country to Western exploitation.
In the present work, Vltchek brings together decades of research o