Fall Of Suharto Research Articles

Indonesian perceptions of the rise of China: dare you, dare you not

ABSTRACTThe fall of Suharto's regime brought substantial changes in relations between Indonesia and China, and unleashed diverse perceptions of China. Reasons for these changes include the changing nature of Indonesian politics, Indonesia's position in between the US and China, and the direct results of China's policy and behaviour. In turn, sectors of Indonesian society, Indonesian business communities and the government have reacted differently and at different times to China and its growing influence. This article explores the inherent variability of Indonesia's relationship with China over the last fifteen years, which has emanated from different perceptions of Indonesian stakeholders toward China's rise.

Chinese Indonesians under Jokowi: Flourishing Yet Unsettling

From the Dutch colonial times until the end of Suharto era, Chinese Indonesians had gone through a series of institutional racism, as well as racial prejudice and discrimination, but Suharto’s New Order period was portrayed by some scholars as the toughest situation most Chinese Indonesians had to deal with at that time. If during the reign of Suharto, they found few accesses to express their Chinese identity, after the fall of Suharto, they were given more alternatives to articulate their Chinese-ness, either through media products or cultural activities. Nonetheless, in the first six years of post-Suharto era, the political and economic conditions were not yet stable, while the residual prejudice against Chinese Indonesians and the shadow of cultural trauma remained. Since previous studies have merely focused on the negative stereotypes towards ethnic Chinese in Indonesia, this research elaborates the identity formation of Chinese Indonesians during the administration of President Joko Widodo (Jokowi), who is popularly known as pluralist figure. By using in-depth interview and participant observation to 30 participants who were mostly fourth generations of Chinese Indonesians, Chinese Indonesians today are still facing identity dilemma, in which they were predisposed to hide their ethnic identity, yet they were inclined to recover the image of Chinese identity in public. The cultural long-distance nationalism observed indicates that the younger generations of Chinese Indonesians nowadays have indeed strong emotional ties to their ancestral homeland.

The Prospects for Public Management Reform in Indonesia

After the fall of Suharto, the government of Indonesia has started to reform its public sector. The reform began with the introduction of Law 22/1999 on Regional Autonomy and Law 25/1999 on Fiscal Equalization between Center and Regions. The laws have created a huge wave of decentralization in almost all aspects of the management of Indonesia’s public sector. Yet, the future of such a reform is debatable. This article discusses the prospects for public management reforms in Indonesia. This author argues that the government needs clear rules for effective implementation of decentralization. The government also needs to reinforce the role of provincial governments as the agents of the central as well as the coordinator of district governments. Furthermore, the government needs to set standard budgeting, auditing, and reporting procedures for all local budgets, and mechanisms in order to monitor sharing of natural resources revenue and transfers. Last but not least, the role of non-government organizations (NGOs) and mass media is highly significant and required for a successful reform of public management.

Ahmadis or Indonesians? The polarization of post-reform public debates on Islam and orthodoxy

ABSTRACTSince the fall of Suharto in 1998, Indonesian public discourse about “mainstream” Muslim identity and practice has polarized sharply into various factions. This article offers a detailed analysis of a subset of this discourse that focuses on the Ahmadiyya in order to grasp how the new normative contours of Islam are being shaped in Indonesia. I make three arguments: First, the discourse is homogenizing what was once a wide spectrum of identitarian positions, and that consequently, Islamic diversity in Indonesia is shrinking. Second, the various internally homogenized sets of arguments for and against the Ahmadiyya mis-engage with each other in a way that produces social fragmentation and further polarization. Third, these arguments produce exclusionary mechanisms that reinforce each other. Both the opponents of the Ahmadiyya and their defenders exclude Ahmadis from conceptions of an Indonesian “majority.” This dynamic in Indonesian public discourse has resulted in the acceleration of the marginalization of the Ahmadiyya within an increasingly fragmented Indonesian society.

Manyama Braya in Banjar Angansari, Bali in Foucault’s Genealogy Perspective

Religious conflict in Indonesia has been escalated since the fall of Suharto from the presidency in 1998. However, there is still a harmonious life among different religious such as in Banjar Angansari, a small village in Bali, which inhabited by Moslem and Hindus. This phenomenon caused by their local wisdom called “manyama braya”which means "good neighborliness". Local wisdom in this research means local values that inherited by the local community which become guidelines to live together. There are lots of studies about manyama braya, nevertheless no one study about the history of this local wisdom in a particular area, such as Banjar Angansari, yet. Banjar Angansari is a traditional society that embraced Hinduism and Islam. This study aimed to explore the history of manyama braya in Banjar Angansari and its function for the harmony of society. This study is qualitative research using Foulcault’s’s genealogy approach. We collected the data trough deep observation in people’s life in Banjar Angansari. We also collected the data from documents, such as ancient inscription, and interviewed numerous local people including the Moslems as well as the Hindus. There are several results of this study. Firstly, the manyama braya has been existed in Banjar Angansari long before they embraced Hinduism and Islam. The Sukawana Inscription (882 AD) proved that there was a harmonious live between Hindus and those who believed in Shiva Budha, long before Islam religion started to come in this region in 1982. Therefore, there’s a continuity of history because Banjar Angansari’s people can preserve the harmonious live between different religions up to now. Secondly, there is a discontinuity of history of Banjar Angansari. The discontinuity due to the difference of religious ideology across the time from animism and dynamism, Hinduism, and Islam. Therefore, it is hoped that this research can be seen as an attempt to reconstruct Foucault’s genealogy especially about the discontinuity in history.

Islam, Politics and Change. The Indonesian Experience after the Fall of Suharto, edited by Kees van Dijk and Nico J.G. Kaptein, 2016

Islam, Politics and Change. The Indonesian Experience after the Fall of Suharto, edited by Kees van Dijk and Nico J.G. Kaptein, 2016

Financing Politics in Indonesia

This paper aims to map out practices of political financing in Indonesia from the political to the socio-historical perspective. Arguing about the party financing and the corruption of politicians and the parties, this paper also proposes about strategies at the individual level for performing financing politics, as well as factors that help to explain their performance. It compares cases in three different periods of Indonesian history: the post-independence, the Suharto (New Order) era, and reformasi after the fall of Suharto in 1998. This paper discusses and analyses the financing politics belonging to the political and socio-historical perspective, the issue of financing politics, the results of mapping students theses from three universities in Java together with relevant papers by LIPI (the Indonesian Sciences Institute), and directly presents three case studies of individual performing financing politics. Two of the case studies concern with politicians from the post-independence and Suharto era, while the third concerns a member of the city of Solo's local parliament. This paper shows how financing politics would be no longer relevant, as the cultural capital, political capital, and social capital also may contribute in supporting one's political career.

Constructing Heritage Through State Architecture in Indonesia’s Riau Islands

Since the implementation of decentralization policies following the fall of Suharto in 1998, Indonesia’s provinces have far greater autonomy, which they have leveraged to enhance aspects of their cultural identity. In the context of Riau Islands Province, a new province created in 2004, the pivot away from a centralized national focus has prompted policies that prioritize the revival of Malay culture in various spheres of life including education, the arts, and the built environment. This paper examines the cultural politics of recent state architectural projects created in the past fifteen years in and around the provincial capital of Tanjung Pinang, all of which are intended to evoke a sense of Malay cultural and religious identity. Recent state architecture seeks to channel and project an “authentic” past, often through a selective amalgamation of various recognizable historical references. In the context of current local political, racial, and religious dynamics, we analyze how versions of Malay identity are appropriated by the state in a variety of ways and manifested in recent state architecture in Riau Islands Province, and examine how this contributes to a variety of social exclusions.

Constructing Heritage Through State Architecture in Indonesia’s Riau Islands

Since the implementation of decentralization policies following the fall of Suharto in 1998, Indonesia’s provinces have far greater autonomy, which they have leveraged to enhance aspects of their cultural identity. In the context of Riau Islands Province, a new province created in 2004, the pivot away from a centralized national focus has prompted policies that prioritize the revival of Malay culture in various spheres of life including education, the arts, and the built environment. This paper examines the cultural politics of recent state architectural projects created in the past fifteen years in and around the provincial capital of Tanjung Pinang, all of which are intended to evoke a sense of Malay cultural and religious identity. Recent state architecture seeks to channel and project an “authentic” past, often through a selective amalgamation of various recognizable historical references. In the context of current local political, racial, and religious dynamics, we analyze how versions of Malay identity are appropriated by the state in a variety of ways and manifested in recent state architecture in Riau Islands Province, and examine how this contributes to a variety of social exclusions.

Sex and Sexualities in Contemporary Indonesia: Sexual Politics, Health, Diversity and Representations eds. by Linda Rae Bennett and Sharyn Graham Davies

Reviewed by: Sex and Sexualities in Contemporary Indonesia: Sexual Politics, Health, Diversity and Representations eds. by Linda Rae Bennett and Sharyn Graham Davies Annemarie Samuels (bio) Linda Rae Bennett and Sharyn Graham Davies, eds. Sex and Sexualities in Contemporary Indonesia: Sexual Politics, Health, Diversity and Representations. London and New York: Routledge, 2015. 328 pp. In June 2014 I watched waria dancers perform traditional feminine Acehnese dances on stage in Banda Aceh. It was a splendid performance in which the dancers' techniques, dress, and cosmetics betrayed a high degree of professionalism and many hours of training. It was also a courageous performance. Although the audience consisted mainly of sympathetic students, activists, and NGO workers, a raid by the radical Islamist FPI (Front Pembela Islam, Islamic Defenders Front) and the police was a serious risk. Surveillance of sexuality in general and denunciation of LGBTI in particular has increased in Aceh in the past years, especially in the capital where the government openly joins forces with FPI and related groups. Yet the performance for a crowd of activists took place in a hopeful atmosphere where people embraced diversity, and which may be equally characteristic of the past decade's blooming NGO scene and democratization process. While Aceh cannot be considered representative of the rest of the archipelago, the range of developments taking place in the province resonates with the assessment of the edited volume Sex and Sexualities in Contemporary Indonesia: Sexual Politics, Health, Diversity and Representations. As the editors, Linda Bennett and Sharyn Davies, note in their introduction to the volume, in terms of sexual politics, the post-Suharto era is characterized by "the constant vacillation between diverse voices—some progressive, some conservative and many in between" (10). A decade and a half after the fall of Suharto, the editors asked a highly experienced and multidisciplinary group of researchers to take stock of the dynamics of sex and sexualities in Indonesia. The result is a collection of fifteen insightful and often surprising chapters that address a broad range of topics using data from a wide variety of sources and places. The book is divided into four sections: sexual politics, sexual health, sexual diversity, and sexual representations. An encompassing introduction by the editors and a sparkling afterword in the form of a dialogue with two important gay activists/academics, Dédé Oetomo and Tom Boellstorff, provide general reflections on the volume's central issues and point at new directions for research. The volume's strength lies not only in its timeliness and the high quality of the individual chapters, but also in the broad scope of the compilation that makes several significant contributions to the study of sex and sexualities in Indonesia. It does so in three major ways. First of all, this collection of studies and perspectives offers an assessment of current developments in the field of sex and sexualities. By analyzing discourses, public sentiments, health concerns, and limits and possibilities of diversity, among other topics, the chapters together provide a rich view on (mostly) [End Page 91] recent historical developments and the present state of affairs, forming an important addition to earlier scholarly work in this field.1 A major topic of interest in this respect is the rise of Islamic conservatism and the increasing public presence of radical Islamic groups that influence sexual politics. Tracing relations between Islam and gender politics in Indonesia since the period of the New Order regime, Kathryn Robinson (chapter two) points out that both the New Order ideology and the Islamist discourses that have gained ground in the Reformasi era have promoted a patriarchal, heteronormative gender order. Despite Islamic political parties not being successful during elections, radical Islamic groups have pushed conservative agendas by mobilizing public opinion, such as the mass support for the adoption of 2008's anti-pornography bill, the highly mediatized demonstrations against Lady Gaga's 2012 visit, and the growing public agitation and protests against LGBTI Indonesians.2 Interestingly, as Robinson notes, it is exactly the democratic space opened up by Reformasi that has enabled radical Islamist discourses to thrive. Yet, this same space has also enabled progressive women's activists to be heard, most successfully in 2006's adoption of the...

‘A Beautiful Bridge’: Chinese Indonesian Associations, Social Capital and Strategic Identification in a New Era of China–Indonesia Relations

In Indonesia, Chinese voluntary associations took on a new level of importance after the fall of Suharto’s New Order regime in 1998 that ushered in a revival of Chinese identity politics. At the same time, Sino-Indonesian relations are blossoming, and the rise of China as a global power means that Indonesia can only benefit from stronger ties with China in the future. In this new atmosphere of cooperation, I argue that Chinese Indonesian individuals and voluntary organizations play a crucial function as trade and cultural intermediaries. Drawing on both empirical and qualitative fieldwork data, in this paper, I examine how members of Chinese voluntary organizations view their ethnicity, national belonging, and strategic position in the contexts of post-Suharto Chinese identity politics and Sino-Indonesia relations. More broadly, this paper also offers a critical analysis of the internal dynamics of contemporary Overseas Chinese voluntary organizations and the role they play in building trade and sociocultural relationships between China and other countries.

Philanthropy and "Muslim Citizenship" in Post-Suharto Indonesia

IntroductionWelfare provision in a nation-state era has become an interesting issue to investigate. In many developing countries, economic growth is often hindered by an inadequacy of a reliable welfare system to benefit society at large. Indonesia, the largest country in Southeast Asia, which is inhabited by more than 250 million people, seems to have suffered from such an inadequacy. After the fall of Suharto in the late 1990s, Indonesia recovered from the financial and political crises and then started experiencing considerable economic growth and democratization. Nevertheless, an adequate welfare system that can reach all parts of society remains hard to find, despite the increased economic growth in the past 10 years. The public does not easily accept Indonesian government statistics showing a decrease in the number of people living below the poverty line. As such, statistical reports do not stop civic organizations from acting as non-state welfare providers by trying to provide aid for particular segments of society unreachable by state welfare agencies.In this increasingly democratic country, civic organizations with different social, religious, and political orientations have flourished. In post-New Order Indonesia, civil society organizations have appeared publicly in different ways: as NGOs focusing on community development projects (Sinaga 1995; Hadiwinata 2003), as ethnic-based mass organizations supporting political institutions (Aspinall 2011), and as religion-based paramilitary groups focusing on the imposition of religiously inspired public norms (Hasan 2002; Jahroni 2004). Others have appeared as voluntary welfare associations attempting to offer an alternative to the state's role in fulfilling social needs. These types of groups have had a massive presence in the public sphere. One may argue that such a lively civic engagement in the public sphere can lead society to the achievement of democratic values, in a way comparable to what happened in the New Order era. While this assumption may be true in a certain context, the increasing participation of society in Indonesia's political sphere may also lead to other consequences that are not necessarily suitable for democratic values. Corruption, collusion, clientelism, new authoritarian culture, predatory political groupings, social disparity, and economic inequality are examples of how civil society in a democratic era is still burdened by undemocratic behavior (Aspinall and Van Klinken 2011).This paper examines the roles of Muslim volunteer organizations-which are referred to as Islamic philanthropic associations-in shaping the nature of democratic culture in Indonesia and analyzes their contribution to the creation of a just society. Studies suggest that in the past three decades Islamic philanthropic associations in Indonesia have had a vibrant public presence, more than ever before. They have actively engaged in various types of social projects to cater for the poor, as well as had a profound impact on Muslim discourse on welfare issues (Fauzia 2013; Latief 2014; Retsikas 2014). The objectives of Islamic philanthropic organizations, as reflected in their organizational mission, include fostering social justice and bettering the welfare of society. In practice, Islamic philanthropic organizations provide aid for those in need, including low-income families, orphans, disaster victims, and refugees in city slums and disaster-affected areas. Given the wide range of Islamic philanthropic activism in Indonesia, this paper examines Muslims' understanding of citizenship and how they interpret people's rights and the state's responsibility by analyzing two cases. The first case concerns the role of Islamic philanthropic organizations in validating the rights of the poor. The second is about how Islamic philanthropic organizations define the rights of underprivileged minority groups, including Shi'a and Ahmadiyya communities, and whether or not these groups deserve assistance from their fellow Muslims. …

Policy Note: “Ancient Instincts — Implications for Water Policy in the 21st Century”

Water Economics and PolicyVol. 02, No. 02, 1671002 (2016) Policy NookNo AccessPolicy Note: “Ancient Instincts — Implications for Water Policy in the 21st Century”Dale WhittingtonDale WhittingtonDepartments of Environmental Sciences & Engineering and City & Regional Planning, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USAManchester Business School, UKLee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, Singaporehttps://doi.org/10.1142/S2382624X16710028Cited by:7 PreviousNext AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsRecommend to Library ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail References Appleton, J [1996] The Experience of Landscape.. Chichester, New York: Wiley, pp. 282. Google Scholar Barraque, B [2012] Return of drinking water supply in paris to public control, Water Policy 14, 903–914. Crossref, Google Scholar Chomsky, N [2016] What Kind of Creatures Are We? New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 107. 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Hall, Edith Zagona and Dale Whittington16 October 2020 | Nature Communications, Vol. 11, No. 1An Overview of the Water Sector in MENA RegionSlim Zekri and Aaisha Al-Maamari21 January 2020Exploring the sanitation success, sanitation technology and diarrhoeal mortality nexus in Sub-Saharan AfricaMuchaneta Munamati, Innocent Nhapi and Shepherd Misi1 Dec 2019 | Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, Parts A/B/C, Vol. 114Living in a Post-Water WorldDavid Zetland1 Jan 2019 | SSRN Electronic Journal, Vol. 33 Recommended Vol. 02, No. 02 Metrics History Published: 24 June 2016 PDF download

Ariel Heryanto. Identity and Pleasure: The Politics of Indonesian Screen Culture

Identity and Pleasure: The Politics of Indonesian Screen CultureAriel HeryantoSingapore: NUS Press in association with Kyoto: Kyoto University Press, 2014, xiv+246p.At the risk of rehashing the old orientalist cliches we must acknowledge that contemporary Indonesia can be a bewildering place. This holds true both for outside observers and for engaged in fashioning the practice of daily life. During my daily motorcycle commute to Universitas Gadjah Mada in Yogyakarta (Jogja) in 2012-13, the massive billboards at major intersections never ceased to fascinate me and make me question what I thought I knew about Indonesia. Advertisements for self-help seminars by Muslim televangelists competed with images of Korean boy bands; Coca-Cola offered itself as the perfect drink for breaking the Ramadan fast; an appliance store suggested buying a refrigerator to celebrate Kartini Day (a national holiday honoring a Javanese princess who promoted education for women); and portraits of political candidates in stock poses blocked the view of Monjali, a massive monument left-over from Suharto's authoritarian New Order which now housed a nightly display of Hello-Kitty-themed paper lanterns. In March 2013, after a bar fight led to the murder of an off duty solider and a commando squad broke into the prison and executed the suspects, banners applauding Kopassus (the elite army special forces) and denouncing preman (street thugs) mysteriously appeared at these intersections. I was constantly amazed by what one saw on the street of Jogja. Fortunately, Ariel Heryanto's latest book offers wide-ranging and insightful analysis into Indonesian political culture and cultural politics since the fall of Suharto in 1998. Identity and Pleasure: The Politics of Indonesian Screen Culture is a brilliant study of the diverse and seemingly contradictory forces at play in the world's fourth largest nationBook state. This ethnography of urban Indonesian youth and mid-career professionals explains that what I witnessed in the streets of Jogja were public manifestations over the struggle for identity. Heryanto delves into the ways in which his subjects actively negotiate consumerism, Islamicization, social media, and the violent legacy of authoritarianism.While an important book, Identity and Pleasure: The Politics of Indonesian Screen Culture will frustrate some readers. Despite the title, Heryanto is very clear that the book is not a history of Indonesian cinema. Nor is it an encyclopedic account of Indonesian television and film. Rather, the book uses screen culture (television, film, and social media) as a prism to explore post-New Order identity politics. Heryanto analyzes films, televisions shows, and aspects of social media to understand the ways in which are actively engaged in the construction of their own identity. That his study discusses certain Indonesians is seen in his clear focus on urban middle-class young people and mid-career professionals (what Americans used to call Yuppies: young upwardly mobile urban professionals) in several Javanese cites, including Jakarta, Surabaya, Semarang, Bandung, and Malang. Thus, this is not a study of all elements of Indonesian society, only of a privileged subset. Heryanto states that his analysis is narrowly qualitative rather then broadly quantitative. But the author's admittedly tight focus does not diminish the work's larger significance. Indeed, this may be one of the most useful contributions to the understanding contemporary Indonesia, comparable to John Pemberton's history of the present, On the Subject of Java, which probed the New Order in the mid-1980s (Pemberton 1994). Perhaps the most striking feature of Identity and Pleasure is Heryanto's ability to find meaning in seemingly trivial and mundane aspects of popular culture.At times Heryanto's description of Indonesian cultural politics can seem pessimistic. Cynical politicians use Islam to garner support from pious voters and Muslim televangelists seem more preoccupied with promoting a path to material wealth than spiritual salvation. …

Islam, Politics and Change. The Indonesian Experience after the Fall of Suharto, edited by Kees van Dijk and Nico J.G. Kaptein

Islam, Politics and Change. The Indonesian Experience after the Fall of Suharto, edited by Kees van Dijk and Nico J.G. Kaptein

Ian Douglas Wilson. The Politics of Protection Rackets in Post-New Order Indonesia: Coercive Capital, Authority and Street Politics. Oxon, NY: Routledge, 2015, xxii+198p.

The Politics of Protection Rackets in Post-New Order Indonesia: Coercive Capital, Authority and Street PoliticsIAN DOUGLAS WILSONOxon, NY: Routledge, 2015, xxii+198p.Seventeen years have passed since fall of Suharto's New Order regime. Indonesia's reformasi has since been lauded successful case of democratization. Despite consolidation of institutional democracy, however, some critics have argued that conventional system of power relations established by end of New Order still persists, while others have argued that distribution of power and material resources is still under strong influence of small number of very wealthy individuals (Ford and Pepinsky 2014). By giving clear account of changing condition regarding politics of and mass organizations in Jakarta, this book illustrates that principle of local politics fundamentally altered after end of authoritarian regime.The originality of this study is twofold: it sees Jakarta site of local politics rather than center of national politics; it also sheds lights on positive side of mass mobilization. Studies on mass mobilization in decentralizing Indonesia have been predominantly about local politics of regions outside Jakarta, if not about politics at national level. More importantly, they have disregarded potential for mass organizations to be advocates on issues of immediate consequence to their members and neighborhoods in which they live (p. 94).In Chapter 1, Protection, Violence and State, author sets up theoretical framework for his study. Following Charles Tilly, author starts by denying state's complete monopoly over control of coercive force within its territory. However, while Tilly identifies state an entity controlling principle means of coercion within given territory (Tilly 1975, 62), Wilson sees state, with Joel Migdal, field of power marked by use and threat of violence (Migdal 2001, 15) and aim of his study identifying dynamics and contradictions of practices and strategies of parts making up this 'field of power' (ibid., 16). Thus, boundary between state and non-state actors is essentially blurred. Furthermore, Wilson cites criminologist Alfredo Schulte-Bockholt, who differs from Tilly in seeing state as product of particular historical period and stage of state-formation (p. 10) in order to conceptualize relation between regimes and of rackets protection racket regimes. These regimes are formed by state and/or non-state elites in order to preserve their through violent exclusion of large groups in society that experience condition of substantial social disparities (Schulte-Bockholt 2006, 35). But unlike Schulte-Bockholt, who presumes that power elites would simply subsume sub-hegemonic groups into dominating class across conventional class lines both systematically and ideologically (pp. 8-9), Wilson draws different picture. For mass organizations in post-New Order Jakarta are largely untethered from direct control of military or police, where the racket relationship of domination operates in peculiar brand of populist racketeering (p. 172).In Chapter 2, Reconfigured Rackets: Continuity, Change and Consolidation, author outlines how gangs and mass organizations adapted to post-New Order social environment and how they transformed themselves from racketeers into professional providers. Demographic of poor due to massive immigration and their spatial segregation from upper-middle class due to growing number of enclave residences characterize urban space of Jakarta. These conditions gave rise to insecurity and feeling of deprivation among lower middle-class population in city, including Betawi. On top of this situation was nation-wide political trend of democratization and decentralization, which gave rise to a particular kind of populist political agency of urban poor, who claim to have grass-roots relations with urban underclass and to represent such people (p. …

Gender Harmony and the Happy Family: Islam, Gender and Sexuality in Post-Reformasi Indonesia

A renewed global emphasis on ‘traditional culture’ threatens progress in women's and sexual rights. This article focuses on Indonesia, where concepts such as ‘gender harmony’ and ‘the happy (Muslim) family’ have become state policy and where neo-Salafism is gaining ground. Indonesia's first President, Sukarno, who managed to balance the army, Communism and Islam, was swept away during the period of mass murder in 1965–67 in which the Communist Party was destroyed. The struggle for women's rights, as represented by the Communist-affiliated mass women's organization Gerwani, became associated with sexual licentiousness through the slander campaign waged against the organization by the army. During the military dictatorship of Suharto, political Islam was allowed to grow. After the fall of Suharto, which introduced the so-called Reformasi period (from 1998), conservative Muslim forces gained control over important institutions. They strengthened a backward interpretation of women's position in society. While a discourse of women's rights prevailed after 1998, this has since been replaced by a heteronormative discourse on the ‘harmonious family’, in which women are assigned a subordinate position. The Ministry of Women's Empowerment and Children's Protection actively promotes this concept (at the global level too), asserting that it aims to reduce domestic violence. With the help of a discourse analysis of some key official documents, the passionate aesthetics underlying this emphasis on the reintroduction of patriarchal heteronormativity in Indonesia are exposed. Regrettably, the United Nations Population Fund supports the Indonesian Ministry on this path.

Perceptions of Justice in the Making: Rescaling of Customary Law in Post-Suharto Maluku, Indonesia

This article questions how successful neo-traditional law has been in providing access to justice to Kei Islanders of Maluku, Eastern Indonesia during recent political transitions. It describes the prevailing model of justice in which traditional law draws some of its authority from the state but provides its own normative framework for addressing community disputes. After the fall of Suharto's New Order regime, people began to apply neo-traditional law to ethnic and resource conflicts, arguing that it took precedence over state law in these emerging domains. Although the neo-traditionalist revival affirmed the autonomy of traditional legal institutions, actual legal procedures and outcomes depended on the response of state authorities and national publics to newly activated traditional normative frameworks. The politics of legality in post-Suharto Indonesia have produced increasingly state-oriented models of justice, but legal outcomes still determine the choice between different normative frameworks.

Debating Indonesia’s Reformasi: Bridging “Parallel Universes”

Fifteen years after the fall of Suharto in Indonesia, scholars still continue to disagree over why he fell and what the subsequent process of political transition has actually entailed. A review of the literature reveals two competing interpretations. In the liberal camp, scholars draw on transition theories and argue that the fall of Suharto was caused by a “people power” mobilisation. Other scholars in the oligarchy literature who adopt theories of political economy, however, question this interpretation and argue that the fall of Suharto entailed a reorganisation of patrimonialism. The latter has been criticised by liberals for underestimating the significance of changes in post-Suharto Indonesia, though little engagement has taken place between these camps, which now constitute two “parallel universes.” This article argues that while the oligarchy camp tends to emphasise continuity, it still provides us with important insights into changes in post-Suharto Indonesia which are not adequately recognised by liberals. This is largely because their different theoretical roots prevent meaningful conversations. By reframing the oligarchy literature using the language of transition theories, this article clarifies the difference in the nature of change these two camps are respectively concerned with in the hopes of stimulating more constructive engagements between them.

Hating the Ahmadiyya: the place of “heretics” in contemporary Indonesian Muslim society

Religious diversity and pluralism is commonly understood within the context of the relation between various religious traditions, not within a single religious tradition. This limitation of the boundary of religious pluralism could overlook the fact that conflict within a single tradition can be bitterer and more disastrous than conflict with other religions. In the last decade, for instance, the Ahmadis in Indonesia have become victims of constant attacks. This article, therefore, intends to study the place of the Ahmadiyya in the context of religious pluralism in Indonesia by answering the following questions: Why was the treatment of the Ahmadis in recent years by Muslims more vitriolic than their treatment of non-Muslims? What is the nature and quality of life for people who have been excluded from a ‘normal’ religious identity in a time when religious attachment is a necessary fact for that society? Why did the attacks on the Ahmadiyya occur in the present regime, not during the past authoritarian one? This article argues that the charge of heresy issued by Muslim institutions put the Ahmadiyya in liminal status; they are in the zone of indistinction between Muslims and non-Muslims. This makes them vulnerable to persecution since they have been deprived of their rights as Muslims, while their rights as non-Muslims are still suspended. Non-Muslims, particularly ahl al-kitāb (People of the Book), have been accepted theologically in Muslim society, but there is no place of tolerance for heretics. The rise of intolerance in Indonesia parallels the rise of religious conservatism after the fall of Suharto in 1998.