In the Time of Madness: Indonesia on the Edge of Chaos

Written by a foreign correspondent in the middle of the conflict the events are disturbing and enlightening. It is a description of events I was unaware of and am glad to now have a better idea of the struggles of the people of Indonesia.

This book is both scary and important. However, the scary part is unimportant and the important part is unique in how innocent and un-scary it appears. Yet, at least to this reader, this brilliant author has inadvertently (and it seems), unnecessarily inverted the priorities of his topics. While his preoccupation with carefully documenting (he spent an inordinate 100 pages -- the entire first half of the book doing so), perhaps the last instances of active cannibalism in the 20th Century is laudable, arguably and ultimately it is also unimportant. Because at the end of the day the cannibalism he documents proved to be little more than a symbolic gesture of victorious defiance by one tribe over another. That is to say it was the ultimate denouement; the ultimate flip of the bird by one tribe towards another. All tribes do this, whether primitive or modern. Yet, somehow, the author has turned his (or our) revulsion to this single act of barbarity among so many, into a transparent attempt to "distance" modern man from the savagery of the warring and primitive tribes of Indonesia. And here, although it goes unstated in the text, it is clear that the author intended for the reader to misplace most of his emphasis on the word primitive. However, after reading the second half of the book, it is equally clear that the real savagery is not in cannibalism per se, but in a new kind of savagery, a kind that is much more subtle and has already infected the modern world. It is the same savagery that Hanna Arendt's has elsewhere coined the banality of evil. The real savagery in the Indonesian political example of the late sixties revolution, which resulted in a change of power from Sukarno to Suharto is what this new kind of political savagery -- and the ease with which even on the flimsiest of pretexts, it can seamlessly slide into normalized and justifiable barbarity -- means and portents for the future of modern societies and for modern politics more generally. What one sees in Suharto's rise to power and the way he twisted a previously (admittedly weak) democratic way of life into a paternalistic but brutal totalitarian state (where millions of communists were killed), is the future paradigm for the takeover of modern democratic societies: The new formula of barbarity is thus that when the sh-t hits the fan, the correct formula for ending threats to democratic rule is to take over the symbols and machinery of the state all in the name of its sacred principles and Constitution, and then end all conflict by ending all dissent, that is all thought, and fashioning in its place, a pseudo-democracy that goes through the motions of a "real" democracy. That is to say, fashion one that outlaws all conflict because all conflict (and thus all thought) has the potential of undermining the state and thus by definition is potentially subversive and thus barbaric. In this way, the ultimate totalitarian state comes into being under the people's guidance, consent, a

A must read for anyone interested in Indonesia. Superb historical accounts, on the ground descriptions and skillful storytelling. A classic on my bookshelf! Students love it.

This is a terrific book. The author was in Indonesia at the end of the 1990's, in what was obviously a very tumultuous time for that country. The book is divided into three sections, each of which deals with a different event. The first section deals with two trips that Parry made to the island of Borneo, which witnessed several episodes of ethnic conflict during the 1990s. The author was specifically drawn to the island because of reports that members of a particular ethnic group were not only being killed, but that they were being slaughtered in brutal, ritualistic fashion. Parry not only manages to find people who confirm these stories, but on his second trip to the island he actually sees more direct evidence of these atrocities. The second section of the book deals with the student protests that led to the downfall of Suharto. This was probably my favorite part of the book, because Parry provides such an outstanding analysis of the ideological underpinnings of Suharto's regime. I only wish that he would have discussed in greater detail the financial crash as well as the ensuing involvement of the IMF, as well as the anti-Chinese riots that took place throughout the country. The final section of the book details the author's stay in East Timor, including his meeting with an elusive pro-independence guerilla fighter and his harrowing stay in the UN compound after the independence referendum, when the pro-Indonesian militias were committing reprisal attacks with the blessing of the Indonesian military. Throughout the book Parry manages to infuse the narrative with an impressive sense of drama, such that it often reads like a novel. Parry realizes that he witnessed history in the making, and he does a good job of conveying to his readers the historical import of the events that he relates.

As an Indonesian that lived through the tumultous period covered in the book, I found Richard Parry's work to be very authoritative. He digs deep, more than just facts and statistics. Though not a picture that I want my homeland to be remembered by, I found this to be a must read.

Richard Lloyd Parry's account of Indonesia at the end of the 20th century is riveting. Ranks with Aidan Hartley's "The Zanibar Chest" as one of the finest summaries of field journalism around. If you are at all interested in Indonesia this fine book belongs on your bookshelf.