Searching Indonesia on TikTok once yielded viral videos of an 11-year-old kid racing boats and “aura-farming”. Now, the same search is instead met with clips of burning buildings, demands to the government, and the “Jolly Roger” flag from the 1997 Japanese manga and anime One Piece. These two jarringly different snapshots have one thing in […]
Tag: Indonesia
Is Indonesia’s New President a “Cuddly Grandpa” or Cunning Dictator?
Thousands of young Indonesians cheer as Prabowo Subianto dances up onto the stage in Jakarta. Known by his mononym, Prabowo, the friendly figure has been a popular presidential candidate in the world’s third-largest democracy. Many of these Indonesians are too young to know that Prabowo was not always the dancing grandpa he appears to be […]
Indonesia’s Rainforests: Smothered by Fire and Indifference
While the Amazon forest fires take center stage in environmental reporting, the fires that annually engulf the Southeast Asian rainforest have drawn little attention. As of mid-September this year, more than 320,000 hectares burned primarily in the Kalimantan region of Indonesia. The fires will continue until the wet season, beginning between late October and mid-November. […]
Indonesia in the Democratic Recession
Muslim protesters calling for the imprisonment of incumbent Jakarta governor Basuki Purnama on blasphemy charges On February 15th, millions of Jakarta residents went to vote in their third gubernatorial election since democracy took hold. More than a simple exercise of voting rights, this election represents a referendum on the direction of Indonesian democracy. The […]
The Indonesia Experiment
Analyzing the tension between political popularity and economic growth in Indonesia. Indonesia, as some scholars such as Professor Steven Fish of UC Berkeley and Professor Danielle Lussier of Grinell College have said, should never have been a democracy. After the fall of the country’s dictator Suharto in 1998 following a severe economic crisis, Indonesia was the last […]
The Reformation Conundrum
Why Ayaan Hirsi Ali is wrong. Islam does not need a reformation. The rise of ISIS has created a number of question about the nature of Islam, ranging from the state of the religion today to fundamental theological questions that arise from the justification given by individuals or groups who use the religion of Islam to […]
A Tale of Two Rulers
Over one and half billion people live in India and Indonesia, two immense nations whose histories have long been intertwined. Last year, in a monumental exercise of democracy, nearly six hundred and ninety million voters went to the polls to elect new leaders in the two countries. In both nations, two challengers who were born […]