Abstract
This article provides an examination of ambivalent negotiations of Indonesia in independent Timor-Leste. Post-independence engagements with and longings for Indonesia have rarely been treated in analyses of Timor-Leste. The article takes as its starting point the inscription of difference between Indonesia and what was then known as East Timor during the resistance years, before moving on to analyse how Indonesian discourses and imaginaries of politics and democracy came to acquire new meaning in the context of Timorese democratic politics and political crisis. It is suggested that Indonesia remains an influential but ambivalent reference point in the independent nation. It is the shadow from which Timor-Leste's nascent democracy is constantly required to distance itself and, simultaneously, an object of longing. Hence, Indonesia figures as an ambivalent model of modernity and of potent state power that inspires political visions of improved futures.
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