Fwd (GLW): Indonesia articles.

["Alan Bradley" <abradley1@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>From Green Left Weekly, June 26, 2002.

INDONESIA: Squalls before the storm
BY MAX LANE

JAKARTA - Natalia Scholastika was a student activist in Bandung, West Java,
when the first arrest warrant against her was issued in 2001. A member of
the Peoples Democratic Party (PRD), she had helped organise a protest by
thousands of workers in Bandung and there were clashes with the police.
Several activists were arrested and put on trial. Natalia was not captured.
A new police chief was appointed and the arrest warrant was forgotten.
Scholastika kept organising. In November 2001, she was elected
secretary-general of the PRD.

I met Scholastika in the PRD national office in Jakarta. It is a small house
in the crowded residential area of Tebet. It serves as both the office for
the Central Leadership Council, which coordinates the PRD's campaigning
work, as well as being a place where activists can sleep at night.

"We have a political contradiction here", Scholastika said. "Especially on
the campuses, everybody follows politics. There is no apathy. But at the
same time, the student movement has declined and is in disarray."

< The remainder of the article can be found at:
http://www.greenleft.org.au/current/497p18.htm >

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INDONESIA: When `national unity' is no longer voluntary
BY MAX LANE
[This article appeared in June 11 Jakarta Post. Max Lane is a visiting
fellow at the Centre for Asia Pacific Social Transformation Studies,
University of Wollongong. Lane is also national chairperson of Action in
Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific. Visit
<http://www.asia-pacific-action.org>.]

JAKARTA - The persistence of the movement for a self-determination
referendum in Aceh, the emergence of the Papuan People's Council and the
troubles in Ambon have all raised concerns about whether Indonesian unity
can be maintained.

Indonesia's process of achieving national unity during the first six
decades, and especially the first four decades, of the 20th century is
somewhat unique. There are indeed very few countries where the national
unification of a multi-ethnic territory has occurred without war.

Of course, the territorial boundaries and basic economic structure - taxes,
treasury, customs, a single currency - were created by the Dutch
colonialists. But the fundamental components of a national language, a
national culture and a common perspective for an independent Indonesia were
created in the face of extreme hostility from the Dutch authorities.

Dutch policy fostered local tradition over any new national political or
general Indonesian culture. Dutch policy suppressed the main instruments of
national unification: the political movements and political parties.
Finally, when the Dutch realised in 1949 that independence was inevitable,
they insisted on a federal structure and tried to carry out a divide and
rule policy.

A unitary state, reflecting a process aimed at the creation of a single
Indonesian nation, was voluntarily accepted by the vast majority within the
independence movement.

< The remainder of the article can be found at:
http://www.greenleft.org.au/current/497p19.htm >


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