A major thesis of Unfinished Nation[1](written between 2007 and 2008), was that the fall of Suharto was not the simple product of objective conditions, such as the 1997 Asian economic crisis, nor of some kind of automatic rot from within the regime due to corrupt “sultanisation”, contradictions within an oligarchy or similar phenomena.[2] The crucial factor in […]
JUST PUBLISHED: Chapter on coming Indonesian elections by Max Lane
Maxwell Lane, “Who will be Indonesian president in 2014?” in Ooi Kee Beng, Selections 2012-2013, Institute for Southeast Asian Studies, 2014.
Poem” The Wretched’s Choir”
Originally posted on MAX LANE ONLINE:
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound That wakes a wretch like me I once was lost, myself now found Was fooled, but now I see. T’was to fight that taught our hearts of fear Yet to fight do fears relieve The wretched’s choir did then arise A new world to…
Poem: Alive against the blue
A brushed sketch against the blue A perfect canvas in plain pure hue Unadorned by green or yellow or red Quiet in its beauty, still but alive not dead
POEM: Big bang in the universe
There was no big bang out there in space Reality always was and will be Never ending distance, never ending time One more orbit by less than a spec around a glowing dot A raised fist by a smiling heart for a future freedom Fills the infinite void, explodes more brilliantly than any big bang […]
POEM: TRAVELLING HOME FROM FLINDERS STREET, MELBOURNE NEW YEARS EVE WITH FAIZA MARDZOEKI
The trains are the chariots of the peopleCarriages ripple with tired tongues of many landsA lonely man sick with nostalgia for fireworks in the darksits across from us and talks intenselyA head on my shoulder whispers new year love talkThe train jerks forwards, happy new year chattily announces the driverHands squeezeYoung people hugWorkers sleepy, gazeStations […]
2013 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 12,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many […]
SHORT COMMENT: On feminism and feminism
Originally posted on MAX LANE ONLINE:
Over the course of the last twelve months, due to developments in the small Australian, British and Indonesian lefts, the issue of the Marxist orientation to feminism has become higher up in the current discussion agenda. Over the last 30 years, I have been part of a tradition that…
Article: Who Will be Indonesian President in 2014? article by Max Lane
Originally posted on MAX LANE ONLINE:
ISEAS, Singapore | 18 Jul 2013 INTRODUCTION The usual path to become a presidential candidate in Indonesia is to be nominated by a political party or combination of parties that have either won 20% of the national vote in the parliamentary elections or control 25% of the seats in the…
ARTICLE: Indonesian labor movement stirs by Max Lane
Widespread strikes and worker protests took place in many Indonesian town and cities on 31 October and 1 November. On the first day of the strike, the Indonesian police stated that they had noted actions in 50 towns and cities in 15 provinces. The protesters had three main demands: a 50 percent increase in […]
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