The Ubud Writers and Readers Festival has cancelled events discussing the 1965 Indonesian massacres, after police threatened to revoke the festival permit.
Indonesia’s anti-corruption campaign ‘Jujur itu hebat’ (honesty is great) calls for people to rise as ‘heroes’. But how many of us want to be the nail that sticks out to get hammered?
dzoro/flick
The world’s rainforests are still being slashed and burned at a dizzying rate to make consumer products. But now there are signs of real political will, especially in Asia, to rein in the destruction.
Indonesian literature is in the global spotlight at the world’s largest book festival.
Jack Rice
A brutal anti-communist purge 50 years ago plunged its literature into obscurity. But now, Indonesia is the Guest of Honour of the world’s largest book festival. What do you know about its literature?
The anti-communist pogrom in Indonesia 50 years ago not only destroyed human lives but also significant cultural works made by the country’s left-inspired artists.
Molodec/www.shutterstock.com
Arguably Indonesia’s most significant leftist film director and theorist, Bachtiar Siagian, was among the millions who fell prey to the communist purge carried out between 1965 and 1966.
Back in 1965, bodies of victims of the anti-communist massacre floated along the Brantas River in Kediri East Java.
Wibowo Djatmiko/Wikimedia Commons
In a watershed moment for Indonesia’s history, the deadly 1965 anti-communist purge transformed Indonesia from an independent Asian nation in the midst of Cold War into a pro-Western country.
Indonesia’s Communist Party had been part of the national political fabric since the 1920s and had contributed both major leaders and influential ideas to the nationalist movement.
Wikimedia Commons
The killing of six army generals on October 1, 1965, became a pretext to destroy Indonesia’s communist party.
Why do forests fires rage every year in Indonesia? Some people benefit from the business of fire, enjoying profits and economic rents at the expense of environmental quality.
EPA/Adi Weda
Scientists and policymakers - aware of the extreme dry season of El Nino - have warned of fires in Indonesia months in advance. Why then, do fires continue to blaze and what is being done about it?
Schools in Indonesia need to be a bit more fun.
Beawiharta/Reuters
Australian primary school teachers are involved in a social movement to make schools in Indonesia a fun place to learn.
Australia’s traditional reliance on multilateralism and alliances won’t be enough to negotiate the geopolitical rivalries of the Asian century.
EPA/Barbara Walton
For the past two centuries, Australia got many of the big calls on global engagement right. In our third century, there are worrying signs that we have not fully grasped what the rise of Asia means.
Indonesia has yet to join other South-East Asian countries in creating economic hubs in border areas.
EPA/Agus Suparto
As Southeast Asian countries countries gear up for its ASEAN Economic Community Indonesia should look into setting up special economic zones together with bordering countries.
Diving in Indonesia’s Raja Ampat Marine Park to see these clownfish will cost you more than before – but for good reason.
Boris Bialek/Flickr
Capital punishment is unfairly imposed, innocent people are regularly condemned and it is patently ineffective in deterring crime. So why to states retain the death penalty?
Piton de la Fournaise or “Peak of the Furnace” on Reunion Island is one of the world’s most active volcanoes, shown erupting in August 2015.
AAP/NewZulu/Vincent Dunogué
What happens beneath the surface before a volcano erupts? Can we predict when one will blow? And how can typhoons and melting glaciers contribute to big eruptions?
Julie Bishop recently claimed that the Australia-Indonesia relationship is ‘very strong and very good’.
AAP/Johannes Christo
When it comes to advertising luxury brands, marketers tend to see the world as one homogenous lump. It’s time they wised up.
Producers may have to look for other destinations for cattle they’d been preparing for export to Indonesia, like this herd in a Northern Territory feedlot.
AAP/Dave Hunt