Indonesia, Vol. 102, October 2016
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Item John Legge (1921-2016): AO, FASSA, FAHA: Historian, Southeast Asianist, Institutions BuilderMilner, Anthony (Cornell University Southeast Asia Program, 2016-10)This memorial essay pays tribute to John Legge's academic career as a student and educator (especially his time at Monash and including a sabbatical at Cornell). It also touches on his interests, personal life, political and civic positions, and writings. Legge's two best known works on Indonesia are a biography of Indonesia's founding statesman, Sukarno (Sukarno: A Political Biography, first published in 1972); and a highly innovative general history (Indonesia, first published in 1964). The general history is remarkable in bringing together Legge's desire to understand Indonesia, especially the historical processes that shaped the country, with his commitment to making theoretical advances in the discipline of history. Indonesia is an achievement in interdisciplinary collaboration, with the historian Legge reaching out to a range of social scientists. A bibliography of his major works is included as well as a list of publications about Legge.Item Renegotiating the Postcolonial Workplace: Indonesian Dockworkers in 1950Ingleson, John (Cornell University Southeast Asia Program, 2016-10)This article analyzes labor unrest in Indonesian harbors in the crucial first year of independence. It concludes with the Indonesian government's decision in February 1951 to ban strikes in vital industries and establish a formal arbitration system. The focus is on conflicts in the Java harbors of Jakarta, Semarang, and Surabaya, and Sumatra's east coast harbor of Belawan. Conflict in the harbors illustrates both the agency of workers and the strategic and tactical astuteness of unions. The impetus for industrial action emerged from the workers themselves, not from outside agitators as often stated. Unions were managers of worker discontent, mobilizing it into industrial campaigns that forced employers to enter into collective agreements. By the end of the year, unions' strategy of campaigning in one harbor at a time in a form of pattern bargaining had significantly improved dockworkers' wages and conditions and created greater uniformity across companies and harbors. By the end of the year, unions had forced employers to sign collective agreements that included much greater standardization of wages and conditions. The minimum wage for day-wage laborers increased between 2.5 and 3 times—more than compensating for inflation—and there was substantially increased in-kind benefits, too, including a larger rice allowance, free medical care, and at least two free meals daily. Moreover, the collective agreements included clauses on overtime rates, maximum hours of required work each day, and wages paid for work on Sundays. Unions were formally recognized and employers' rights to dismiss workers were constrained. These legally enforceable collective agreements, unheard of in the colonial era, combined with new labor laws promulgated during the year to greatly improve the dockworkers' lot.Item Inside Papua: The Police Force as Counterinsurgents in Post-Reformasi IndonesiaSyailendra, Emirza Adi (Cornell University Southeast Asia Program, 2016-10)Following Indonesia's democratic transition in 1998, the nation's counterinsurgency strategy shifted from enemy-centric operations led by the military to population-centric operations led by police forces. This was an important move by the Indonesian government to signal that it intended to include democratic principles in its fight to maintain its sovereignty against the threat of insurgency. In West Papua, the Indonesian police have been empowered to lead the counterinsurgency operation against the Free Papuan Movement (OPM). Nonetheless, the Indonesian police's deficiencies in battling OPM requires that the police maintain a strong partnership with the Indonesian military. This study examines the complex interplay between the Indonesian military and police in post-Reformasi Indonesia with regard to their counterinsurgency approaches. The article explores the contemporary dynamics between the Indonesian military and police, both tension and cooperation, when conducting operations. It does so by examining a single case study of Indonesia's counterinsurgency operation in one of the high-risk regions in Indonesia—the Aman Matoa operation against the OPM in West Papua region—which emphasizes law enforcement and building support among local inhabitants. The essay provides a detailed description of the police–military's joint collaboration in responding to insurgents in West Papua region. (Despite the competition between military and police, the two have been able to work together in West Papua region, especially to extract information about insurgents and to sever the links between guerrillas and their support base.) Further, this study provides a description of the contemporary anatomy of the Free Papua Movement with its current strategy of both violent and nonviolent tactics, from the point of view of counterinsurgency agencies. This empirical study deploys qualitative analyses with data collected through interviews and discussions with relevant stakeholders in West Papua.Item I Am a Singer: A Conversation with Johan Silas, Architect and Urban Planner in Surabaya, IndonesiaColombijin, Freek (Cornell University Southeast Asia Program, 2016-10)Professor Johan Silas is an architect and urban planner whose name is closely linked to the development of the city of Surabaya. In this interview, he talks about the close cooperation between the Institut Teknologi Surabaya Sepuluh Nopember (ITS), where he established an architecture department, and the city government. Through the entry point of urban planning and kampung improvement, Silas shares his insights about social inequality, the precarious relationship between government and the real-estate sector, patronage in the government, and the way the army took over city government in the aftermath of the failed 1965 coup. After the coup attempt, the newly appointed mayor, an army officer, asked Silas to develop a master plan for Surabaya, and ever since ITS's Department of Architecture has maintained an exceptionally close collaboration with the city government. Apart from Silas's architectural designs and contributions to town plans, he has also published many books and articles, including those for an international audience and columns in the Surabaya Post. Silas is the recipient of a variety of awards, and the importance of his work has been acknowledged by Indonesian and foreign scholars alike.Item Review of Gongs and Pop Songs: Sounding Minangkabau in IndonesiaWallach, Jeremy (Cornell University Southeast Asia Program, 2016-10)Item Genre Publics: Aktuil Magazine and Middle-class Youth in 1970s IndonesiaBaulch, Emma (Cornell University Southeast Asia Program, 2016-10)This article attempts to change our thinking about the formation, development, and growth of the middle class(es) in Indonesia during the early Suharto regime. In the dominant story about the formation of the Indonesian middle classes, a particular configuration of economics and politics caused the formation of the middle class, and shaped identities, values, and behaviors. According to analysts, these middle classes were heavily dependent on the state, and politically ineffectual. To challenge that notion, this essay studies how the pop music magazine Aktuil (1967–84) addressed its readers, and shows how this treatment allowed certain people to feel as if they were part of a tangible social entity that inhabited a middle social space, between the state and the masses. This is an important and necessary intervention that recognizes the significance of media and popular culture in the construction of identities. The author positions Aktuil in the context of the radical reorganization of the press and of popular music, which enabled the quiet evolution of the Indonesian middle class—a cohort constituted not only by musical taste, but also by the practice of reading. Aktuil gave rise to a virtual social entity heralded into being by overlapping modes of address, that is, those that touched not only on a rhetoric of print, but also on discourses of popular music genres. By proposing that the middle class was a virtual entity, the imagination of which was enabled by the reorganization of the press and of popular music, this essay departs from a dominant perspective that attributes to the state a pivotal role in the tangible growth of the middle class in the 1970s.Item Review of Economic Change in Modern Indonesian: Colonial and Post-Colonial ComparisonsDick, Howard (Cornell University Southeast Asia Program, 2016-10)Item Review of The Invasion of the Dutch East IndiesJenkins, David (Cornell University Southeast Asia Program, 2016-10)Item Review of Rebranding Islam: Piety, Prosperity, and a Self-help GuruRobinson, Kathryn (Cornell University Southeast Asia Program, 2016-10)Item Review of Indonesian Notebook -- A Sourcebook on Richard Wright and the Bandung ConferenceFederspiel, Howard (Cornell University Southeast Asia Program, 2016-10)