Much of the traumatic story of Indonesia since independence has been buried in mass graves, secret military archives and censored reports.

The grand silence imposed on the media about what really happened in the coup led by former general Suharto in 1965 against then president Sukarno and his government, plus the orgy of bloodshed and the purge that followed - wiping out up to a million Sukarnoists, Chinese , socialists and communists in a year of CIA-backed terror - is still far from broken.

In the decade since Suharto was ousted by popular indignation and people power on the streets of Jakarta there has been no official investigation and none of Suharto's generals have been held accountable for the slaughter.

Max Lane, an Indonesia specialist and translator of the famous works of Indonesian author Pramoedya Ananta Toer, brings an essential understanding to events in Unfinished Nation. He portrays how Indonesia today is torn between two legacies: the post-independence era of Sukarno, who led a popular nationalist and anti-imperialist government, and the 33 years of military dictatorship that followed.

Reviewed by Nick Everett,

DIRECT ACTION monthly, August, 2008

Unfinished Nation: Indonesia before and after Suharto
By Max Lane
Verso 2008 312 pages
RRP (Australia) $49.95

In May 1998, Indonesian dictator General Mohammed Suharto was forced out of power when his cabinet ministers and the other generals — faced with escalating mass protests — abandoned him. A second upsurge of protest, drawing in even larger layers of the population in November 1998, forced Suharto’s successor as Indonesian president, Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie, to call elections. These events signalled the end of Indonesia’s New Order dictatorship, which had dominated Indonesian political life throughout most of the archipelago’s post-colonial history.

Unfinished Nation traces the evolution of Indonesia’s political struggle from the stirring of an anti-colonial movement at the beginning of the 20th century through to the post-Suharto era. It tells the story of the real heroes of this struggle: Indonesia’s workers, peasants and urban poor, whose sustained mass action was the determining force in overthrowing the New Order regime.

October 2, Fordham University, Department of English and Comparative Literature, New York - keynote lecture and roundtable discussion on the historical novels of Pramoedya Ananta Toer.

October 10, Brecht Forum, New York: public lecture the novels of Pramoedya Ananta Toer in Indonesia's revolutionary process.

October 29: Brecht Forum, New York: The Left and the struggle against neo-liberalism in Indonesia and comparison's with Venezuela.

Other lectures and talks are being scheduled a the venues below. Final dates and topics will be put un the blog in a week or so.:

Bluestockings Book Shop, East Village, New York
City University of New York, Graduate Centre for Worker Education
Northwestern University, Chicago, Department of Political Science
University of Wisconsin - Madison, Centre for Southeast Asian Studies
University of Michigan, Ann Abor - Centre for Southeast Asian Studies
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill - Centre for Asian Studies
University of California - Berkeley - Centre for Southeast Asian Studies
Modern Times Bookshop, San Francisco

For recent events click "more" below

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10 Years after the Fall of Suharto – Views from the People’s Organisations

Journal of Unity - May 2008

[The following is a translation of the first nine out of a series of 12 interviews with leaders of labour, peasant, fisherpeople, urban and rural poor, environmental, student and social-political organisations in Indonesia around the theme “Ten Years after the Fall of Suharto - Views from the People’s Organisations”, which appeared in the first edition of Jurnal Bersatu (Journal of Unity). Additional interviews will be added to this page as they are translated – James Balowski.]

Labour organisations

1. Sastro, Chairperson Workers Challenge Alliance (ABM)
2. Lqbal, President of the Indonesian Metal Trade Workers Federation (FSPMI)

Peasant Organisations

1. Donny, National Peasants Union (STN)
2. Iwan, Agrarian Reform Consortium (KPA)
3. Rully, Indonesian Farmers Union (SPI)

Fisherpeople’s organisations

Arbani Nikahi, Chairperson Saijaan Fishers Union (INSAN)

Urban and rural poor organisations

Marlo, General Chairperson Indonesian Poor People’s Union (SRMI)

Student organisations

Ken, Indonesian Student Union (SMI)

Environmental organisations

Andreat, General Secretary Green Indonesia Union (SHI)

See 10 Years after the Fall of Suharto – Views from the People’s Organisations for full interviews.

They are entitled:

Left collaboration growing in Indonesia

and

New Indonesian alliance fights fuel price rises

The second article is based upon interviews with Indonesian trade union leaders.

Joesoef autographing his book. There was a LONG queue!

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On Sunday July 13 more than 300 people gathered to honour Joesoef Isak on the occcasion of his 80th year. At a three hour event in the Theatre Kecil at the Jakarta Arts Centre that featured speeches by a range of activists and intellectuals, a 35 minute documentary, music, cutting of a traditional rice cake, the editors of the book, Bonnie Triyana and Max Lane presented it to Joesoef Isak.

Joesoef Isak has been a journalist, publisher and editor since the 1950s.

Bonnie Triyana is a historian and journalist. He has become a prolific writer on the history of the peoples movement and the Left, until recently editing the history pages in the daily Jurnas. He is part of the leadership of Masyarakat Indonesia Sadar Sejarah. In 2003 he co-edited, revolusi Belum Selesai: Kumpulan Pidato Soekarno 30 September 1965 - Pelengkap Nawaksara. he is almost finsihed a new book, Republik Bandit. He was the primary editor of the new book.

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Joesoef presenting copies of the book to some of the contributors
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The several excellent short speeches were from mainly young people, but including the most respected figure from the Indonesian Netherlands exile community.

The film was a very effective 35 min documentary with a great spirit done on a shoestring budget by Daniel Indrakusuma. The film ws produced by Wilson bin Nurtias, who - along with Irina Dyarsih and many others - also played a key role in organising the Sunday event.

There was a wonderful singing group of 60 year old tapol women or from tapol families, who had everybody on their feet singing the Internationale as well as other songs; and funny and moving comments from Joesoef and a good atmosphere when we presented the book to him.

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Bonnie Triyana and Max Lane presenting the new book to Joesoef.
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More autograph signing

MORE PHOTOS

http://singaporestory.spaces.live.com/

Fight!

I just finished reading Max Lane's Unfinished Nation -
a fairly concise recollection of Indonesia's political
events including that of President Suharto who was
pushed out of power. Suharto was abandoned by
his close aides and generals at a time when he was
faced with unrests and demostrations by radicals,
students and workers under the banner of aksi and
reformasi.

While not reflecting the full spectrum of peopkle involved at one time or another in the past, the JB collaboration continues. While formally separate from the National Liberation Front (FPN), many of the groups keeping the project going are now playing active roles in the FPN.

One of the interesting sections of the first issue is a series of 13 interviews with different progressive organisations. I think most of these were carried out in later 2007 or early 2008. They include organisations that have gone on to be active in FPN, as well as a few outside the FPN today.

English language translations of these interviews are progressively being put up on the Asia Pacific Solidarity Network website. Thgey can be found under the heading 10 Years after the Fall of Suharto – Views from the People’s Organisations . At the moment seven translations are on the website.ore will be posted as ASPN Website Editor and translator, James Balowski, completes them.

Semsar, who also studied Marxist ideas while in Australia in the early 1990s, was an integral part of the anti-dictatorship and pro-people movement of the 1990s, often the victim of direct violence. He was a personality sensitive to the ugliness of capitalism and the pain suffered by the people. His paintings are infused with pain and they invert the ugliness and shattered ugliness of capitalist reality into a seering, moving kind of beauty. He absorbed that pain into himself too which shows through into his self-portratits, I think. See the example below.

A self-portrait

Below is one of Semsar's later paintings where he moves to floral colours. Still the pain shows.

Below is an example of one of Semsar's earlier black and white works entitled, "Head", taken from Edi Cahyono's Semsar Gallery website.

For some more examples of Semsar's earlier black and white work see the example's on Edi Cahyono's Semsar Gallery site, such as burjuisi or buruh bangunan("construction worker)" or Perkawinan (Marriage)

For more on Semsar see INSIDE INDONESIA, also see a second INSIDE INDONESIA article

Main placard reads:
NATIONAL LIBERATION FRONT
TAKE OVER THE OIL AND GAS INDUSTRIES UNDER THE CONTROL OF THE PEOPLE!
A 50% CUT TO THE ALLOWANCES AND WAGES OF THE POLITICAL ELITE!

On the way to the World Bank

EXPEL THE WORLD BANK FROM INDONESIA!
GET RID OF SBY and JK and the parties of the political elite,
the causes of the fuel price increase!
NATIONAL LIBERATION FRONT!
(Photo source: Politik Rakyat Miskin and http://kprm-prd.blogspot.com/)

For detailed reports, it is best to check the APSN website, where reports are usually a put up 1 or 2 days after the action.

A part of the dismantling of the welfare state has involved the slashing of budget for staffing and research at universities. It has also seen the introduction of student fees and government enforcement of a policy to make universities also generate somC of their own income through commercially profitable activities.

Ideologically, even in the early 1980s, the pressure was on for all sections of the universities to prove their usefulness to the political, economic, social and cultural agenda set within the framework of economic rationalism and the dismantling of the welfare state. In the field of Asian Studies, there was much talk of presenting Asian Studies as something useful to the private sector. Universities almost competed to set up research centres that depicted themselves as being useful to understanding the region in the context of the needs of the private sector. A result of this more-or-less systematic accommodation of a philosophical or strategic orientation set by the government’s new agenda has been the decline in government resources being made available to Asian Studies in universities.

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EXCERPT from "Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Racialism and Socialism".

In the 1960s, Indonesian politics was characterised by a deep and fundamental battle around the question: what kind of country should independent Indonesia become? Political integration of the Chinese Indonesians was viewed by Toer, and by a large number of Chinese Indonesian leaders, as something that would be achieved by Chinese Indonesians, like all Indonesians, joining the struggle to finishing the Indonesian national revolution and consolidating Indonesian socialism. The largest active Chinese Indonesian organisation during the sixties was BAPERKI (Badan Permusyawaratan Kewarganegaraan
Indonesia – Consultative Body of Indonesian Citizens) which adopted this perspective. It was banned and its leaders also arrested in 1965, at the same time as Toer and hundreds of thousands of others.

FPN demo May 29 - presidential palace in the background.

More photos FPN action May 29 - 2nd Jakarta aksi Photos by Admo

For some translations of Jakarta news reports of this action, click HERE - and scroll down to Latest from INDOLEFT.

May 21 aksi photo

Standing on the left: FNP and KPRM-PRD activist, Danial Indrakusuma.

JAKARTA - main action over; some protesters attending open air cultural event organised by Indonesian Street Buskers Union (SPI-PRM)

GOVERNMENT says 28% increase in fuel pirces is definitely on.