Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Indonesia

An exploration of religious and ethnic conflict in a complex and often misunderstood part of the world.

Jacques Bertrand (Author)

9780521818896, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 19 December 2003

304 pages
23.8 x 16 x 2.4 cm, 0.603 kg

'… excellent and thoroughly researched … This is a very well written book that should be read not only by Indonesianists … Bertrand's exploration of the links between an increasingly politicized Muslim community, the state and emerging conceptions of nationhood is particularly timely … This is an important and valuable book, made more so by its implict comparativist perspective and it could be read with profit as much in the Balkans as in Southeast Asia.' Ethnic & Racial Studies

Since 1998, which marked the end of the thirty-three-year New Order regime under President Suharto, there has been a dramatic increase in ethnic conflict and violence in Indonesia. In his innovative and persuasive account, Jacques Bertrand argues that conflicts in Maluku, Kalimantan, Aceh, Papua, and East Timur were a result of the New Order's narrow and constraining reinterpretation of Indonesia's 'national model'. The author shows how, at the end of the 1990s, this national model came under intense pressure at the prospect of institutional transformation, a reconfiguration of ethnic relations, and an increase in the role of Islam in Indonesia's political institutions. It was within the context of these challenges, that the very definition of the Indonesian nation and what it meant to be Indonesian came under scrutiny. The book sheds light on the roots of religious and ethnic conflict at a turning point in Indonesia's history.

List of figures and tables
Preface
Maps
1. Introduction
2. Critical junctures, nationalism and ethnic violence
3. The national model and its institutional history
4. Exclusion, marginality and the nation
5. Islam and nation: the Muslim-Christian dimension
6. The escalation of religious conflict
7. Conflict in Maluku
8. Late integration into the nation: East Timor
9. Aceh's ethnonationalist conflict
10. Autonomy as a solution to ethnic conflict
11. Unity in diversity
Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Armed conflict [JPWS], Political structures: totalitarianism & dictatorship [JPHX], Nationalism [JPFN], Politics & government [JP], Ethnic studies [JFSL]