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Indonesia’s Emergence

insidestory.org.au

31–40 of 63 posts

Re: Indonesia’s Emergence

#31
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, Indonesia is hardly alone as a republic to have elected an appalling character for a leader. If anything, they're somewhat late to this past decade's wave.

Late? They were early adopters of appalling character leaders, Suharto was elected in 1968 after seizing power and self appointing in 1967. He was repeatedly elected for thirty years (with varying amounts of opposition and rigging during those decades).

The election was just for show, he held absolute power those days.

Re: Indonesia’s Emergence

#32
post #18
post #4

Modern history of Indonesia is also brutal, strange and very hard to grasp and accept. Just 6 months ago, a new generation choose a murderer, linked with previous coup as their new president because he was looking cute and post dancing videos on tiktok. [I live in Indonesia as an expact]

As an Indonesian, I have to admit that most of our people are susceptible to cheap but clever personal branding. Before running on 2024 presidential election, Prabowo Subianto (the elected president) was imaged as a firm and authoritative former general. But, when he run on the presidential election, he changed his personal image to be a "gemoy" (a slang for chubby and cute kid/baby) and even dancing around with his…

"I have to admit that most of our people are susceptible to cheap but clever personal branding"

Just saw this in Wikipedia: "When a UN delegation arrived in Jakarta on 8 September, they were told by Habibie that reports of bloodshed in East Timor were "fantasies" and "lies". General Wiranto of the Indonesian military insisted that his soldiers had the situation under control, and later expressed his emotion for East Timor by singing the 1975 hit song "Feelings" at an event for military wives."

Re: Indonesia’s Emergence

#33

[flagged]

Do write your side of the story as well. As a SE Asian, the history is fascinating to me, and we all know how a lot of it has been buried and misinterpreted.

My wife's grandma used to tell stories about Japanese wartime. Things like babies being thrown and 'caught' with a blade, about how a rebellious relative was tortured with a firehose but miraculously survived. How the Chinese ethnics would pretend to be Malay for fear of torture.

But she couldn't blog, so these stories all disappeared. Nobody was around to record or verify them either. She could be lying or it could be false memories for all we know. But we need the pieces to connect them and see which make sense or not.

Re: Indonesia’s Emergence

#34
post #6

The US and UN sanctioned the Act of No Choice , a rigged "vote" that saw Indonesia take over West Papua and continue with a largely unreported brutality to this day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_of_Free_Choice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papua_conflict

All this sanctions are only to cover up the real intent and operations of the US: (raw) earth materials.

Re: Indonesia’s Emergence

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The atrocities carried by Indonesians to Indonesians slip through your comments. The religious persecution of non-muslims in Papua and Bali, and the literal genocide in East Timour. Reminder that the "pacification campaigns" genocide carried out by Indonesian military on East Timour _civilians_ only seized in 1999 (25 years ago) after UN peace forces intervention. In 1991, Indonesian soldiers opened fire on a peacefu…

Somehow you misuse/abuse "religion" card. Muslims are minority both in Bali and Papua. And East Timor killing has nothing to do with their religion.

[dead]

Re: Indonesia’s Emergence

#37
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Late? They were early adopters of appalling character leaders, Suharto was elected in 1968 after seizing power and self appointing in 1967. He was repeatedly elected for thirty years (with varying amounts of opposition and rigging during those decades).

I meant specifically the contemporary populist wave since Brexit or so.

I think it's easy to see Brexit and Trump as the start of this in retrospect, but it goes back further; Burlusconi is a particularly glaring example.

Re: Indonesia’s Emergence

#38
post #9
post #6

The US and UN sanctioned the Act of No Choice , a rigged "vote" that saw Indonesia take over West Papua and continue with a largely unreported brutality to this day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_of_Free_Choice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papua_conflict

Indonesia in general is somewhat of a colonial project. Sukarno had large visions of a great Indonesian empire, and what the people who actually lived there thought of that wasn't really his main concern. Arguably the occupation of West-Papua is the worst of that. Also because there's just so little attention to it.

Sukarno was flirting with communist Soviet Russia and China, and had the 3rd biggest communist party in the world. When Suharto took over, USA was just fine with the status quo with a different leader, because it was then a US "colony".

Re: Indonesia’s Emergence

#39

Obligatory plug for The Act of Killing, an absolutely surreal documentary about the Indonesian mass killings and what happened to the PKI after independence. Basically, they get some of the perps of mass murder to re-enact their crimes on camera. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Act_of_Killing

This movie/documentary is about that, but also a very incredible look into how we hide and justify our past actions, involving a lot of lying to ourselves. The "movie" they were supposedly making even had a surreal scene of "victims" dancing with "angels" by a waterfall and giving their killer a medal, thanking him for saving them from communism and godlessness and sending them to heaven: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-ta9To14yw ; which is obviously how the killer prefers how his actions are received.

Re: Indonesia’s Emergence

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow you misuse/abuse "religion" card. Muslims are minority both in Bali and Papua. And East Timor killing has nothing to do with their religion.

[dead]

And I said that the killings in Santa Cruz has nothing with religion.

Abangan Muslim usually means "not practicing", therefore even further from "they were killed because they were not muslim"

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