The Indonesian 'New Order' as New Sovereign Space: Its Creation and Narrative of Self-concealment

Abstract

This paper introduces and clarifies Carl Schmitt's analytical insights on emergencies and outlines their relevance in considerations of the creation of new sovereign spaces and polities. It then argues that Schmitt's analytical perspective may be used to understand recent and ongoing attempts by collective political actors to resolve circumstances of political and spatial unfamiliarity in East Asia. The tragic events of 30 September-1 October 1965 are examined in Indonesia's case. When perceived as an emergency, their resolution led to outcomes that were both anticipated by and beyond Schmitt's theoretical expectations. The most significant (and theoretically expected) outcomes of this historic moment - de facto sovereignty and a secure space - were so novel in the Indonesian context that their military creators were constrained to hide this fact. They did so by authoring a self-concealing narrative of both the moment itself and the political nature of the resulting 'New Order' polity. While the phenomenon of the self-concealing historical narrative was not anticipated in Schmitt's thinking, its appearance in the Indonesian case is, paradoxically, the clearest evidence of the occurrence of an emergency. Moreover, the creation and perpetuation of the new space by the emergency-ending actor, as well as the sovereign power to decide matters of identity and substance for this polity, matter more than the historical accuracy or longevity of the narrative designed to obscure their essence.