Describing kekerasan; Some observations on writing about violence in Indonesia after the New Order

Abstract

The authoritarian regime and its leader are gone and the structures that main tained his power are weakened, but in post-New Order Indonesia violent conflict has become more frequent and more varied.1 It is no longer sufficient to explain the violence in the terms used by the regime and others during its rule. Scholars, human rights workers, and victims increasingly recognize the plurality of truths about violent conflict (Stoler 2002). State truths, 'media reality', and the 'factual' and 'moral' truths told by human rights organiza tions are all in tension (Sai Siew Min forthcoming; Ignatieff 1996). The contin uing and escalating violence after the end of the New Order indicates that the 'roots' of the violence also lie outside the New Order (Schulte Nordholt 2002). During the New Order, explanations could be located within an authoritarian system that sponsored violence as a problem-solving method. Today, links between the actors involved in the conflicts in Ambon, West Kalimantan, and even Aceh, and the state elite in Jakarta cannot be made so easily. In a