EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The policy content in the sharpening rhetorical contestation in Indonesia’s presidential campaign remains shallow. The policy manifestos of both camps contain the usual generic promises of economic and technological progress and social justice. However, the essential difference between Joko Widodo and Prabowo Subianto in the main thrust of their campaign message […]
Reposting: Indonesia: 1965 and the Counter-Revolution against the Nation.
Indonesia: 1965 and the Counter-Revolution against the Nation. By Max Lane +++ “The impact of the counter-revolution was, however, even deeper than the sum of these combined policies – from mass murder and terror to totalitarian imposed ignorance and passivity. The 1965 counter-revolution was a pre-emptive purge aimed at the prevention of the final unfolding […]
Aussie Sketch: Smokey Chilli Politics by Max Lane
It was a big room, as hotel rooms go. That hotel was famous for its large rooms. Big beds also. It was in the centre of Jakarta. On the roof was a very big swimming pool. But no garden surrounds, just concrete. Good for swimmers, but not for those who wanted to muck around in […]
JACOBIN article on Indonesia: THE COUNTRY WITH NO LEFT by Max Lane
JACOBIN article on Indonesia: THE COUNTRY WITH NO LEFT
Humiliated Australian imperialism lashes out: lawyer and intelligence agent with consciences threatened with gaol. by Max Lane
The laying of criminal charges under the Intelligence Services Act 2001 against Witness K and lawyer Bernard Collaery in relation to their exposure of the Australian government’s reprehensible bugging of the East Timorese government’s cabinet room is a case of a defeated and wounded elitist white imperialism lashing out at somebody at home because they […]
AUSSIE SKETCHES FROM NUSANTARA 2: Oyster Omelettes, Hitchhiking, and Pots and Pans
I hitch-hiked from Johor Bahru to Kuala Lumpur in Malayisa, and then on to Ipoh, in 1970. This though wasn’t my first venture into hitch-hiking. I started hitch-hiking when I was in high-school. I was a young boy living in the western suburbs of Sydney who read adventure stories, the best of which were, of […]
Aussie sketches from Nusantara 1: Hamburgers, babi guling, and a map of Bali. by Max Lane
It was a map of Bali. It was one of those cheap topographic maps, made primarily for ornamentation rather than as an actual map. It was hung on the wall. I could see Denpasar, Bali’s capital, and the great volcano, Mount Agung that had erupted seven years before in 1962. Other mountains, rivers, lakes and […]
Max Lane: Kenapa Indonesia Takut Ajarkan Pramoedya di Sekolah?
“Banyak para sarjana, intelektual, maupun kaum muda Indonesia yang fasih berbicara mengenai sejarah pemikiran Yunani kuno hingga Eropa modern. Namun, ketika membicarakan sejarah bangsanya sendiiri, mereka gagap atau cuma mengikuti teks-teks historis maupun sastra arus utama sehingga gagal mengenali negerinya sendiri. Setidaknya, itulah inti kritik yang dilontarkan Max Lane, seorang Indonesianis asal Australia dan sosok yang kali pertama […]
From afar: ideological offensive in the US – liberalism, imperialism
In my June 20 post on the escalation of ideological warfare in the United States, I argued that the propaganda offensive by the Trump alliance in defense of their policy of separation of children from parents crossing into the US without documents was aimed at achieving a “we win, you lose” outcome: a decisive victory. […]
Reflections from afar on the escalation of ideological warfare in the United States. by Max Lane.
The United States, under Trump and likely for the foreseeable future, is on a dominate-the-world-totally (and space) trajectory. This is a consequence of the economic situation where imperialism (as the highest stage of capitalism) is now confronted with intensifying contradictions, whose symptoms are the various crisis on the imperial periphery of Southern Europe and the […]
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