The basic ingredients are there: rising prices, worsening unemployment, protests in the streets, impatience and demoralization, the spread of smut as social anesthesia, corruption in high places, cronies without accountability, a Cabinet without power, a President without insight. To top it all, a sense of helplessness born of the awareness that presidential elections are more … Read more
I had the good fortune of meeting him for the first time on my very first visit to Indonesia in 1979. A group of young men orbited around the figure of Soedjatmoko, the erudite diplomat who became the first rector of the UN University. I met Abdurrahman Wahid through this exceptional circuit of Indonesian intellectuals, … Read more
One would think that in a world where dictatorships are being toppled one after the other, a military coup is the last thing a nation needs. But a coup is what took place in Pakistan last Oct. 12. And what a coup it has been. The public welcomed it almost with a sigh of relief. … Read more
“Things fall apart,” Yeats famous poem goes, “the center cannot hold.” It is an apt description of Indonesia today, a graphic portrayal of the bleak future of this beleaguered nation. The world’s eyes are on East Timor, but larger questions of national survival frame the Timor question. The Indonesian economy remains the shakiest in the … Read more
Mention Australia’s Northern Territory, and people will think of Darwin, its capital city. Mention Darwin today, and people can only think of Dili, the ravaged Timorese capital just across the narrow Timor sea. In the wake of the mass killings in Dili, Darwin has become the jumpoff point for foreign journalists, peacekeeping forces, and humanitarian … Read more