Communal Violence and Democratization in Indonesia: Small Town Wars (Routledge Contemporary Southeast Asia Series)

Through close scrutiny of empirical materials and interviews, this book uniquely analyzes all the episodes of long-running, widespread communal violence that erupted during Indonesia’s post-New Order transition. Indonesia democratised after the long and authoritarian New Order regime ended in May 1998. But the transition was far less peaceful than is often thought. It claimed about 10,000 lives in communal (ethnic and religious) violence, and nearly as many as that again in separatist violence in Aceh and East Timor. Taking a comprehensive look at the communal violence that arose after the New Order regime, this book will be of interest to students of Southeast Asian studies, social movements, political violence and ethnicity. "By adopting a contentious politics approach that examines the sociological processes of communal violence, the book details six episodes including ethnic fighting in West and Central Kalimantan, and Muslim-Christian violence in Central Sulawesi, Maluku (Ambon) and North Maluku. Drawing on exhaustive empirical material and detailed reports gathered from field visits to all the affected areas, van Klinken argues that there exists enough similarity between these episodes of communal violence to consider them as a single phenomenon. This violence can be linked to the practice of politics in Indonesia's frontiers, namely provincial towns beyond Java where democratization and decentralization has led key figures to compete for control of the local state in 'emergency mode', by mobilizing ethnic and religious crowds. Such occurrences demonstrate how communal violence can erupt in a poor Third World country when the state is weak. By providing an alternative understanding of violent ethnic conflict in Indonesia through new source material and up-to-date field research, Communal Violence and Democratization in Indonesia will be essential reading to students of Southeast Asian studies, social movements, political violence and ethnicity."--BOOK JACKET Why Now? : Temporal Contexts -- Why Here? : The Town Beyond Java -- Indentity Formation In West Kalimantan -- Escalation In Poso -- Mobilization In Ambon -- Polarization In North Maluku -- Actor Constitution In Central Kalimantan -- Concluding Reflections. Gerry Van Klinken. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [147]-175) And Index.