Asian History Commons^™

Explaining Suharto's Rise And Fall: International And Domestic Variables, Julia Batanghari

Undergraduate Honors Theses

For three decades (1968-1998), Indonesia was led by President Suharto, whose authoritarian military regime is remembered for its corruption and brutality. This paper offers an analysis of Suharto’s rule through the lens of two events: his 1965 purge of local ‘communists’ and the riots of May 1998. Drawing comparisons between the two, I delve into systemic causes by considering the influence of domestic and international variables. Exploring links between intergroup accommodation and democracy reveals that Suharto’s lack of ethnic, socioeconomic, and religious inclusivity paved the way not only for the anti-Chinese sentiment which pervaded Indonesian society during his presidency, but …

Developing Identity: Exploring The History Of Indonesian Nationalism, Thomas Joseph Butcher

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This thesis examines the history of Indonesian nationalism over the course of the twentieth century. In this thesis, I argue that the country’s two main political leaders of the twentieth century, Presidents Sukarno (1945-1967) and Suharto (1967-1998) manipulated nationalist ideology to enhance and extend their executive powers. The thesis begins by looking at the ways that the nationalist movement originated during the final years of the Dutch East Indies colonial period. The first section highlights how the nationalist movement was disunified in its attempts to gain political autonomy from Dutch colonial control. It moves on to talk about the impact …

The Batavia Massacre: The Tragic End To A Century Of Cooperation, Kimberly Wilhelmina Wells

MSU Graduate Theses

From its establishment in 1602, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) was an extensive and powerful trading company that sought to gain a monopoly over the spice trade in Southeast Asia, often using coercion to do so. In 1619 the VOC established its central base of operations in Batavia on the Indonesian island of Java. From the start, the VOC pursued a relationship of cooperation with the Chinese merchants in Batavia, which eschewed the use of violence in favor of other means of control, such as taxation and requirements to register with the authorities. For one hundred and twenty-one years, …

Comfort Women: The Unrelenting Oppression During And After Wwii, Alexandrea J. Riddell

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Comfort women is a term used to describe approximately two-hundred thousand young women that were forced into sexual slavery. While the physical torture of the women ended after the war, the conflict over the government’s role in recognition and restitution of comfort women between the Japanese and the comfort women continues to be heated on both sides with little end in sight. By analyzing the testimonies, I explore the horrendous torture of the women by the Japanese army. Furthermore, the paper reveals the present-day struggles of these women for recognition and compensation. The plight of the comfort women will continue …

A Year Of Truth And The Possibilities For Reconciliation In Indonesia, Annie E. Pohlman

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Since the end of the New Order military regime in 1998, successive Indonesian administrations have yet deal with crimes against humanity perpetrated by the old regime, particularly the 1965–1966 massacres. Attempts for reconciliation have mainly come from grass-roots organizations which employ oral historical methods to both document these crimes and to serve as the basis for claims of truth-telling about the past. In this paper, I examine the work of some of these grass-roots organizations and, in particular, the ‘Year of Truth’ initiative. I outline the ‘Hearing Testimony’ forum held in November 2013 and contrast this work with the failed …

Identity, Heritage And Memorialization: The Toraja Tongkonan Of Indonesia, Kathleen M. Adams

Kathleen M. Adams

No abstract provided.

Film Review: The Act Of Killing, Annie E. Pohlman

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Three years after the release of Joshua Oppenheimer's The Act of Killing (2012), which explores the 1965-1966 massacres from the perspective of the killers, I review the impact of the documentary on national and international audiences. I argue that the victims themselves, and the pervasive forms of sexualized forms of violence during the massacres, are felt through their absence in the film.

The Indonesia Report: National Landscape, Current Challenges And Opportunities For Growth, Institute For Societal Leadership, John W. Ellington

Institute of Societal Leadership Research Collection

A maritime analogue to the silk road running through Central Asia, the Indonesian archipelago was a key ancient trade route linking Chinese goods to markets in India and farther west into the Mediterranean. Its cosmopolitan ports attracted significant numbers of Arab, Indian and Chinese merchants and holy men and fostered the exchange of goods as well as cultural and religious ideas. Cultural appropriation had a clear Indian bias. Starting in the early eighth century, the various islands saw the rise and fall of several Indianised Buddhist and Hindu kingdoms, including Mataram, Singhasari and Majapahit in east Java and Srivijaya in …

Revisiting A Struggle: Port Kembla, 1938, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

A review and discussion of the 2015 documentary film 'Pig Iron Bob' (Producer/Director Sandra Pires). The focus of this film is the dramatic 2-month long boycott by Australian waterside workers in Port Kembla (NSW), 1938/39, of a cargo of Australian pig-iron bound for Japan. The workers took their action in protest against Japanese militarism and the Sino-Japanese War. The boycott enraged the conservative Australian government of the day which pulled out all stops to maintain its policy of appeasement towards Japan.

The Discourse Of Souls In Tana Toraja (Indonesia): Indigenous Notions And Christian Conceptions, Kathleen M. Adams

Kathleen M. Adams

No abstract provided.

Identity, Heritage And Memorialization: The Toraja Tongkonan Of Indonesia, Kathleen M. Adams

Anthropology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

Mandala And Charisma: The Federalist Potentials In Traditional Indonesian Political Culture, Yuhao Wen

Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at The University of Tennessee

This research explores the federalist elements in the mandala (a graphic art pattern in Southeast Asia) and political charisma to discuss their constructive roles as traditional Indonesian political culture in federalizing Indonesia. Since August 17, 1945 when Sukarno declared the independence of the country in Jakarta, the newly–born Indonesia was also finalized as a centralized presidential republic. However, till today, societal diversities in Indonesian society are continuously increasing, the tendency of federalization, therefore, has never entirely faded away. Both the mandala and political charisma de facto have spontaneously generated their own initiatives for federalization since ancient times. Upon illustration of …

The Act Of Killing - Review, Robert Cribb

Robert Cribb

Critically reviews Joshua Oppenheimer's celebrated film The Act of Killing. Suggests that the film appears to have been staged in sigificant places and that it gives a misleading impression of the character of the 1965-66 killings, especially by downplaying the role of the military in order to emphasise the psychopathic character of Anwar Congo and his friends.

The Incredible Shrinking Pancasila: Nationalist Propaganda And The Missing Ideological Legacy Of Suharto, Robert Cribb

Robert Cribb

Although President Suharto dominated Indonesian politics for more than three decades, and although Indonesians spent millions of hours under his regime mastering the principles of the national ideology, Pancasila, remarkable little remains of his ideological legacy.

Genocide In Indonesia, 1965-1966, Robert Cribb

Robert Cribb

No abstract provided.

Nature Conservation And Cultural Preservation In Convergence: Orang Pendek And Papuans In Colonial Indonesia, Robert Cribb

Robert Cribb

No abstract provided.

A Genocide That Never Was: Explaining The Myth Of Anti-Chinese Massacres In Indonesia, 1965–66, Robert Cribb

Robert Cribb

Many publications refer incorrectly to extensive massacres of Chinese in Indonesia in 1965–66. Approximately half a million people were killed in this period, but the victims wereoverwhelmingly members and associates of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). Chinese Indonesians experienced serious harassment but relatively few were killed. The persistence of this myth is attributed to a trope dating back to the seventeenth century which equates the social position of Chinese in Indonesia with that of Jews in Europe and which thus predicts periodic pogroms and attempts at genocide. The myth has survived partly because it inspires a sense of urgency in …

Indonesia As An Archipelago: Managing Islands, Managing The Seas, Robert Cribb, Michele Ford

Robert Cribb

Indonesia's archipelagic character shapes its identity.

Unresolved Problems In The Indonesian Killings Of 1965-1966, Robert Cribb

Robert Cribb

No abstract provided.

Democracy, Self-Determination And The Indonesian Revolution, Robert Cribb

Robert Cribb

No abstract provided.

Distant Encounters: Travel Literature And The Shifting Image Of The Toraja Of South Sulawesi, Indonesia, Kathleen M. Adams

Kathleen M. Adams

Problems In The Historiography Of The Killings In Indonesia, Robert Cribb

Robert Cribb

No abstract provided.

Jakarta: Cooperation And Resistance In An Occupied City, Robert Cribb

Robert Cribb

Jakarta became Indonesia's capital upon the declaration of independence in August 1945, but the city was soon occupied by British forces, who permitted a gradual re-establishment of Dutch control. The city remained formally the capital, but the most administration moved to Yogyakarta. The Republican city hall, Balai Agung, attempted to maintain the Republic's presence. After the Dutch military action of July 1947, the Balai Agung was removed, but nationalists in Jakarta contrinued to make life difficult for Dutch authorities.

Elections In Jakarta, Robert Cribb

Robert Cribb

No abstract provided.