Race, Islam and Power

Reading Mas Andreas' works is always a pleasure and this one is no exception, although saying that reading about violence is pleasurable does sound a little perverse. Let me explain: I started this book with the expectation that this book is going to be like Gourevitch's [b:We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families 11472 We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families Philip Gourevitch https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1442723264l/11472.SY75.jpg 888905] on the Rwanda genocide which I found super grim. Race, Islam, and Power is written more like a travelogue so it reads easy, unburdened with heavy citations that I'm sure shaped this book in the research stage. In this way I find it closer to Pisani's [b:Indonesia, Etc: Exploring the Improbable Nation 23316545 Indonesia, Etc Exploring the Improbable Nation Elizabeth Pisani https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1413749908l/23316545.SX50.jpg 25993810], but you know, grim.But you can't avoid grimness when writing about violence, and of course Mas Andreas had his pick of major violent events. He divided the chapters by islands and focused on a specific site for each: the chapter on Sumatra is on Aceh/GAM, Kalimantan is Sampit, Maluku is Ambon, Nusa Tenggara is Timor Leste, Papua is Merauke, and Sulawesi is Talaud. Some of his choices are intuitive: I like that he chose to write about both Sabang and Merauke. And opening the book with Sabang I think is very shrewd. Having visited Sabang and being in Aceh a couple of times made this opening vivid and it works very well to hook me in. I suspect this will be the case for many casual visitors, too. The chapter offers a thorough investigation of the roots of the conflict that left me with a clear idea of how it started and its impacts to the present day. This sets the standard for the following chapters: Andreas traced out how the violent events in Sampit and elsewhere escalated from a seemingly minor incidents. I admire his writing: he advanced the narrative fluidly in short sections as he stitched his observations and research with direct quotes from multiple interviews. However, there are also oddities with this book: the chapter on Java is more historical with a lot of discussion on pre-independence day with very little on post-Soeharto violence, despite what the cover may have you believe. I thought that the Sulawesi chapter will be on Poso, but we get an investigation from a border island instead. I also expected that this book would cover the violence against the Ahmadiyah, but it did not get the treatment I think it deserved. I was hoping to read his take on those in this book, but I still learn a lot from what Andreas did write in this book (a selection of some interesting passages: https://twitter.com/masyhurh/status/1133504088883306496). I'm going to end this review with a quote:“Too many Indonesians think of Indonesia as an inheritance, not as a challenge nor a common project. Where one has inheritance, one has inheritors, and too often there are bitter quarrels as to who has rights to the inheritance.”This (abridged) quote is by Ben Anderson, and I can think of no better remark to encapsulate this book than that.