A HISTORY OF POLITICS OF AUSTRALIAN-INDONESIAN SOLIDARITY

From INSIDE INDONESIA to Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor (ASIET):

Understanding Contradictions in People-to-People Politics 1981-1998.

Organised by Indonesian Politics Discussion Forum

Co-Sponsored by Asia Institute, University of Melbourne

Speaker: Dr Max Lane.

Venue Kathleen Syme Library, Carlton

5-7pm April 30.

In the early 1980s, the first Australian attempt to establish a public relationship with Indonesian dissenters emerged with the Publication of INSIDE INDONESIA magazine, which is still going today as a website publication. In December, 2023, INSIDE INDONESIA celebrated its 40th anniversary. The history of INSIDE INDONESIA has also been discussed in writings by Dr Jemma Purdey and Dr Edward Aspinall.

This talk will review the history of INSIDE INDONESIA, including the political bifurcation that took place which created a parallel stream of engagement with Indonesian dissent, but with a different political perspective. This was the formation in 1990/91, of Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor (ASIET), which produced its own publications and video documentaries on Indonesia, and which arguably reached a much bigger audience than INSIDE INDONESIA. This stream has also maintained an unbroken presence on the Internet since the 1990s through www.asia-pacific-solidarity.net and indoleft.org.

There was also the Australia Indonesia collaboration that produced Majalah PROGRES in Indonesia, until it was banned.

How is this political bifurcation to be explained and what are its implications for today?

For some examples of solidarity and non-solidarity publications see the attached photos. Much more on April 30.
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For some readings on this topic, see here:
https://www.archive.asia-pacific-solidarity.net/…/indon…

https://www.archive.asia-pacific-solidarity.net/…/eastt…

https://www.insideindonesia.org/…/edition-154-oct-dec-2023

https://www.insideindonesia.org/…/political-engagement

Read: Jemma Purdey, Inside Indonesia: Taking on Australia’s disinterest, ignorance and isolationism, in Strangers Next Door – https://research.monash.edu/…/inside-indonesia-taking…

Edward Aspinall, “The Politics of Studying Indonesian Politics: Intellectuals, Political Research and Public Debate in Australia” in Knowing Indonesia https://publishing.monash.edu/product/knowing-indonesia/

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Dr Max Lane has been Senior Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies – Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, 2014-2024. In 2024, he is an Academic Visitor affiliated to the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne. As a fellow at ISEAS, he writes on a monthly basis for ISEAS’s commentary platforms as well having written two books and book chapters for ISEAS Publications. He will continue writing on Indonesian politics for ISEAS during 2024. Additionally, his most recent books (2023-2024) are Indonesia Out of Exile (Penguin 2023), Indonesia And Not: Anecdotes Scattered (Djaman Baroe 2023) and Saudara Berdiri di Pihak Yang Mana: Politik Subversif Seni Rendra (Djaman Baroe 2024). While in Melbourne he is completing a book for Melbourne University Press about his 50 years of political engagement with Southeast Asia. He also has an agreement with another publisher to start working on a new history of modern Indonesia.
Dr Lane is also the translator of six works of Pramoedya Ananta Toer, including the Buru Quartet and plays and poems by W.S. Rendra. His earlier books include The Urban Mass Movement in the Philippines, 1983-87 (ANU/ISEAS 1990), Unfinished Nation:
Indonesia Before and After Suharto (Verso 2008), Catastrophe in
Indonesia (Seagull 2010) and An Introduction to the Politics of Indonesian Unions (ISEAS 2019).
Max was the first Editor of INSIDE INDONESIA magazine for a few years in the mid 1980s, having previously been editor of KABAR magazine, published in Sydney. He was later National Coordinator of Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor (ASIET). He has written for the Nation Review, National Times, Canberra Times and Green Left Weekly.