State terrorism and political identity in Indonesia : fatally belonging / Ariel Heryanto.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Heryanto, Ariel.

Series:

Politics in Asia series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

State-sponsored terrorism.

Political atrocities.

Indonesia--Politics and government--1966-1998.

Indonesia.

Politics and government.

Political atrocities--Indonesia.

State-sponsored terrorism--Indonesia.

Physical Description:

xii, 242 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Routledge, 2006.

Summary:

Approximately one million innocent Indonesians were killed by their fellow nationals, neighbours and kin at the height of an anti-communist campaign in the mid-1960s. This book investigates the profound political consequences of these mass killings in Indonesia upon public life in the subsequent decades, highlighting the historical Specificities of the violence and comparable incidents of identity politics in more recent times.

Weaving a balance of theory with an empirically based analysis, the book examines how the spectre of communism and the trauma experienced in the latter half of the 1960s remain critical in understanding the dynamics of terror, coercion and consent today. Heryanto challenges the general belief that the periodic anti-communist witch-hunts of recent Indonesian history are largely political tool used by a powerful military elite and authoritarian government. The book investigates what drove otherwise apolitical subjects to be complicit in the engulfing cycles of witch-hunts. It argues that elements of what began as an anti-communist campaign took on a life of their own, increasingly operating independently of the violence and individual subjects who appeared to be manipulating the campaigns in the 1980s and 1990s. Despite the profound importance of the 1965-6 events it remains one of the most difficult and sensitive topics for public discussion in Indonesia today. State Terrorism and Political Identity in Indonesia is one of the first books to fully discuss the problematic representation and impacts of a crucial moment of Indonesia's history that until recently has been largely unspoken.

Contents:

1 Remembered signs, dismembered bodies 1

2 The implosion of stigmas 33

3 The Yogyakarta case 62

4 Law and state terrorism 106

5 Hyper-obedience as subversion 135

6 Identity, power, and history 159.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [224]-236) and index.

ISBN:

041537152X

OCLC:

57676006