Nationalism and the Making of Indonesian Subjects

Abstract

This chapter chronologically highlights the discursive practices of Indonesia’s nation-building. Given the vast amount of existing work on Indonesian political history, it principally aims to provide the context for readers who are less acquainted with Indonesian political history. The chapter is divided into four historical periods. The first is the colonial era as a necessary precursor to the formation of the Indonesian nation-state. Colonialism does not only provide a “model” of the sovereign Indonesian state, but contemporary Indonesian nationalism continues to look back and build on the anti-colonial movement. The second period is the years under Sukarno’s presidency, thus the first twenty-one years of independence during which the search for national identity was most intensive and the foundations of the national identity were formulated. The third period is the thirty-three years of New Order administration, where state discourses were comprehensively enforced in an often-militaristic style. The fourth period is the post-authoritarian era that started in 1998 with the forced resignation of Suharto. It is marked by democratization and decentralization, thus accordingly, more possibility for individuals to disagree with the official narratives of nationhood. The participants of this research were born during the Suharto period but were only seven or six years old when the reformation era started.