Richard Lloyd Parry

Indonesia on the Edge of Chaos

In the Time of Madness

As an independent republic Indonesia was fifty years old, but it sounded more like an unwieldy empire than a modern nation state.

'In the eyes of Dayaks," a Dayak teacher said, ‘when people do not respect our adat, they become enemies, and we don’t consider our enemies to be human any more. They become animals in our eyes. And the Dayaks eat animals.’

The well-being of a society is (often) dependent on the stability of its leadership. 

The Age of Gold gave way to the Time of Madness. And so the fall of a king became a general catastrophe.

'Nothing the Dutch imperialists had done in 350 years of depredations in the archipelago,' wrote Benedict Anderson, 'matched the speed, scale, and ferocity of Suharto's matanza against his own people.'

'Indonesia is a republic,' Vinny said, 'but really it's more like a kingdom, with Suharto as the king, and his children as the princes and the princesses. If you are a friend of Suharto, you can have any position in the government. If you are his child, you can have any business contract you like. The corruption is so high. But here in the countryside, the people are still poor.'

In the Time of Madness quotes

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