max lane

Letter from Jakarta 2011/1: Amin’s Death

by Max Lane.

(Max Lane is 2011 ASIALINK Writer-in-Residence with Majalah Historia and will be visiting Indonesia and Timor Leste several times during 2011.)

Really, in hindsight, there was a great deal of beauty in the scene. There was a kaleidoscope of wonderful colours: dark blues and greens, the red and white of the national soccer team, as well as fading browns and greys and dirty whites.  T-shirts and dresses, trousers and singlets, chequered green and brown sarongs, black pecis on black heads of hair, all coloured the scene. There was glistening silver from the sun’s steaming rays bouncing of the zinc and tin rooftops and the myriads of blacks, browns and greys among the timbers, tiles, packing cases, corrugated iron, tarpaulins and plastics that were the constructions materials for these peoples’ place of rest and life. And there was the sky, grey and brooding and dirty, with clouds of feint blue among the puffy curtains that forebode coming rain. There were the greens of scattered trees and the occasional pot plant. There were the browns of people’s eyes and skins and the whites or yellows of their smiles. Read more…

Below is the reference to the latest review of UNFINISHED NATION: Indonesia before and after Suharto

Book review: Max Lane Unfinished Nation: Indonesia Before and After Suharto, Verso: London 2008; 288 pp.: 9781844672370, £16.99 (pbk)
by Nathaniel Mehr

in
Capital & Class 2010, 34: pp 281-283.

Also:

FOR A BRIEF COMMENT on THE ECONOMIST website see: http://www.economist.com/user/KatherineMurray/comments

May 4: Radicalism and the labour movement 10 years after Suharto, seminar presentation, School of Social Sciences and Psychology, Victoria University Melbourne.

More May-June events in Melbourne and Amsterdam: Read more…

Sajak peringatan diri si pengamat

Pantat bersatu dengan kursi

Mata ngelem pada monitor

Jari dengan keyboard berfusi

Cyber realitas mulai menentukan T.O.R.

Melbourne, April, 2010

CATASTROPHE IN INDONESIA

Max Lane

Cloth US$15.00 ISBN: 9781906497675   Pre-order now. Will publish October 2010. Distributed by University of Chicago Press for Seagull Books. Also available through internet booksellers.

Date

15 April 2010, 6.30pm

Seats are limited, so please register to attend: email renelson@unimelb.edu.au

Title

“The crisis to come: Indonesia and the politics of 21st century underdevelopment”

Location:

Elisabeth Murdoch Building, Theatre A, The University of Melbourne, Parkville

Speaker Dr Max Lane

Special Edition of INSIDE INDONESIA edited by Max Lane

Description

Honorary Fellow Dr Max Lane will speak on The crisis to come: Indonesia and the politics of 21st century underdevelopment in a free public lecture presented by the Asia Institute.

Launching the Indonesian language edition of UNFINISHED NATION, 2007

Seats are limited, so please register to attend: email renelson@unimelb.edu.au

NETHERLANDS PERFORMANCES OF: THEY CALL ME NYAI ONTOSOROH

The performances will be in Indonesian with English sub-titling.

Van onrechtvaardigheid naar onafhankelijkheid

In dit toneelstuk, gebaseerd op Bumi Manusia (Aarde der mensen) van Pramoedja Ananta Toer, volgen we de levens van Nyai Ontosoroh, haar dochter Annelies (een halfbloed) en haar ‘inlandse’ schoonzoon Minke. Tragische levens, want in Nederlands-Indië was sociale status afhankelijk van de hoeveelheid Europees bloed die door de aderen vloeide. Vier acteurs tonen hoe de onrechtvaardigheid van het koloniale systeem de basis legt voor het Indonesische streven naar onafhankelijkheid.

Regie: Wawan Sofwan \ Tekst: Faiza Mardzoekie\ Bahasa gesproken, Engels boventiteld

Click HERE for more.

“The crisis to come: Indonesia and the politics of 21st century underdevelopment”.

 ASIA INSTITUTE Public Lecture – Speaker: Max Lane

University of Melbourne

Thursday 15 April, 6.30pm -  Theatre A, Elisabeth Murdoch Building

Admission is free. Bookings are required. Seating is limited.

For further information or to register: click here

This schedule will be updated regularly and can be accessed by clicking “Where Max is Speaking” just under the banner of this blog, on the far right.

FEBRUARY

Indonesia in 2010: what kind of neighbourhood?

18 Feb, 6.30pm  GLEEBOOKS, Glebe Point Rd., Glebe

ALL WELCOME at above time and place. You can help by RSVPing to: morgan@gleebooks.com.au

An “In Conversation” discussion flowing from Max Lane’s book: UNFINISHED NATION: Indonesia before and after Suharto, (Verso, 2008). Max Lane has just returned to Australia after being based in Singapore and Jakarta for three years.
 
Ten years after Suharto, the Indonesian government is still banning political films, such as Balibo. The police, prosecutor’s office and the courts are revealed as implicated in plots to frame rivals, including in the anti-corruption agencies, but nobody is arrested and tried. Books are still banned and even burned in public.Ministers claim that natural disasters are God’s response to moral decadence.Raising a flag in Papua still means gaol.
 
Are these anomalies in a new democratising Indonesia, ot the results of unfinished business in an unfinished nation.
 
What is going to happen politically in Australia’s largest Asian neighbour, Indonesia – the fourth most populous nation in the world.
 
The “In Panel” discussion will ne started off by an exchange between author, Max Lane, and the University of Sydney’s professor of Southeast Asian Studies, Dr Adrian Vickers

APRIL

The crisis to come: Indonesia and the politics of 21st century underdevelopment

ASIA INSTITUTE Public Lecture, University of Melbourne

15 April, Thursday 6.30pm