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DEMOKRASI by Hamish McDonald

DEMOKRASI

Indonesia in the 21st Century

by Hamish McDonald

Pub Date: Jan. 6th, 2015
ISBN: 978-1863956611
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

An exploration of Indonesia’s shaky but resolute move into democracy.

Former Sydney Morning Herald Asia-Pacific editor McDonald (Mahabharata in Polyester: The Making of the World's Richest Brothers and Their Feud, 2010, etc.) has been covering the developments in Indonesia since the waning of Suharto’s long authoritarian rule (1966-1998). The author begins with a brief sketch of the populous archipelago’s early history, encompassing glorious Javanese empires thriving from its strategic location within the east-west navigation routes. He then looks at the dispersal of the Malay language and spotty conversion to Islam in the early 15th century, leaving (still) many pockets of Hindu and Buddhist adherents. The legacy of the colonial era centered on exploitation of its trade rather than the uplift of its people: By 1905, 37 million people were ruled by an armed force of 16,000 Europeans. Indonesian national consciousness would ignite in the 1920s, giving rise to the country’s first liberator, Sukarno, whose collaboration with the Japanese occupiers during World War II helped galvanize support for independence. McDonald then moves through convulsive periods to Indonesia’s coming-of-age: the country’s first election in 1955; the coup of 1965 by Suharto, which left a wave of slaughter and ushered in a “new order” marked by American-trained technocrats directing the economy; rigged elections; widespread patronage; eruption of independence movements in East Timor, Papua and elsewhere; the rise of fundamentalist Islamic groups; and the “octopus-like hold” by the military on all institutions. Yet reforms began to infiltrate through the short terms of an array of subsequent civilian presidents and what McDonald sees as fierce public support for the “civilianization of politics.” Along with signs of modernity are a growing awareness of environmental despoilment, appreciation of the immigrant Chinese entrepreneurial spirit and a growing call for religious toleration.

While there is new hope in the election of populist Joko Widodo, this new chapter has yet to be written. A trenchant, well-researched book.