Jekyll2026-05-17T16:48:50+00:00https://deden.id/feed.xmlDeden H.A. AlfathimyA simple, whitespace theme for academics. Based on [*folio](https://github.com/bogoli/-folio) design. My First Post2026-05-15T01:29:00+00:002026-05-15T01:29:00+00:00https://deden.id/blog/2026/first-postHello, world!

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]]>What explains separatist, Islamist and communal conflicts in Indonesia? - LSE Review of Books2025-10-15T00:00:00+00:002025-10-15T00:00:00+00:00https://deden.id/blog/2025/what-explains-separatist-islamist-and-communal-conflicts-in-indonesia---lse-review-of-booksThe latest social science books reviewed by academics and expertsThe latest social science books reviewed by academics and experts 0 comments | 5 shares Estimated reading time: 5 minutesThe latest social science books reviewed by academics and experts 0 comments | 5 shares Estimated reading time: 5 minutesContesting Indonesia by Kirsten E. Schulze proposes a compelling framework of a national imaginary for understanding Islamist, separatist, and communal violence in Indonesia, grounded in interviews and archival research. Despite some disputable omissions from the book’s core framing, its rich empirical grounding and interdisciplinary relevance make it a vital contribution to Indonesian historiography, as well as national conflict and identity studies, writes Deden H. A. Alfathimy.Contesting Indonesia: Islamist, Separatist, and Communal Violence since 1945. Kirsten Schulze. Cornell University Press. 2024Understanding Indonesia by acknowledging the diversity of its stories and interpretations and the violent clashes among them is a difficult subject. Kristen E. Schulze has taken up the challenge in a new book, going even further by seeking to draw its diverse, sometimes violent histories, related to the questions “What is Indonesia?” or “What does it mean to be Indonesian?” (4) into an overarching explanation. Schulze’s book therefore came highly anticipated by scholars across varied disciplines such as politics and anthropology, beyond Schulze’s own historical lens.Schulze puts forward an argument for why violence in Indonesia can be understood in relation to ‘national imaginaries’ and ‘degrees and hierarchies of belonging’This book is perhaps a natural culmination of Schulze’s research into conflicts in Indonesia spanning over two decades. She has been publishing dozens of studies, ranging from separatism in East Timor and Aceh to Islamist extremism in Poso. This book attempts to fulfil a gap she identified “by analysing Islamist, separatist, and communal violence in Indonesia through a single framework, namely that of the national imaginary, and by exploring this violence from a comparative perspective” (20). This book, then, reframes her other varied works into an original coherent understanding of Indonesian history.Drawing from immense primary and secondary sources including over 474 interviews “with religious leaders, politicians, members of the Indonesian security forces, employees of Indonesian and international NGOs, journalists, academics, community leaders, and members of jihadi, separatist, and communally based militant groups” throughout 1998-2023 (20), Schulze puts forward an argument for why violence in some parts of Indonesia can be understood in relation to “national imaginaries” and “degrees and hierarchies of belonging” (234). She establishes three patterns of this violence. Firstly, the violence erupted in “peripheral regions” of the country, both physical and ideational; secondly, violence enacted by nonstate actors in those regions which have strong historical narratives, supporting their own alternative national imaginaries; and thirdly, violence enacted by the state against those alternative imaginaries that had distinct territorial dimensions (5-6). These three formulations are helpful when viewed as interlinked dimensions – peripheral, historical, and territorial – to not only characterise but also perceive both the commonalities and uniqueness of all the cases discussed (232-3). The book is structured in six empirical chapters and one for discussion and concluding remarks. Chapters on Darul Islam (chapter one) and Jamaah Islamiyah (chapter two) focus on Islamist cases, whilst chapters on separatists cover East Timor (chapter three) and Aceh (chapter four). Chapters on Poso (chapter five) and Ambon (chapter six) analyse the communal violences, both of which happened following the fall of Suharto and the dawn of the Reform era in 1998. Unfortunately, the focus on the three categories leads to the exclusion of some notable cases like the 1965-6 state-sponsored anti-communist massacres, an omission noticed and criticized by other reviewers. In fact, Schulze referred to (anti-)communism in nearly all cases, including in the shifts of the centre’s national imaginaries (9), as a backdrop in Islamist cases (56-7), or a pretext behind the annexation of the former Portuguese Timor (87). However, Schulze’s selection of cases reflects her expertise, demonstrated by her prior publications, which is a strong point in guaranteeing the authority of, and empirical basis for, the book’s argument. It is safe to say that the framework she proposes was not intended to cover all violent conflicts in Indonesia, especially outside the three categories. This notable exclusion exemplifies the limits of Schulze’s focus on “center-periphery relations” (124; 230). The analysis tends to pass over the centre (Jakarta or Java Island, geographically; the dominant “national imaginaries” of Indonesia, ideologically) as a contested realm which is also a site of violence. This is apparent in her remarks that, to a limited degree, attribute anticommunism with the political identity of Suharto’s Indonesia under the “New Order” regime (1966-1998) (228), the East Timor case (234), and the invalidation of supreme belonging of Javanese (235). She might identify such contestation as “ideologically” peripheral and non-territorial, but this poses a challenge to her third argument on the territoriality of state’s violence. It would have been beneficial if Schulze had elaborated on how communism (via “NASAKOM,” 9) and Islamism (via the Jakarta Charter, 8 and 28) were decentred or peripheralised, highlighting the distinct centre-periphery dynamics. The focus on domestic centre-periphery dynamics sidelines Indonesia’s place in the centre-periphery structure of world politics, which merits a dimension of enquiry on its ownIndonesians who occupied the centre realm were also on the receiving end of state violence by non-physical means. In the New Order era, there was not only “an extensive propaganda campaign” towards the peripheral people in the former Portuguese Timor to portray the “good” of Indonesia and the “bad” of communists (90), but also the publication of “official Indonesian histories” (15) that rendered central Indonesians oblivious to or silenced about the of violence done by their government. The monopoly of satellite-supported telecommunication infrastructures and mass media control made the government’s narrative hardly challenged. Subsequently, the misinformed popular ignorance at the centre led to continuation, if not legitimation, of such violence in peripheral regions. These epistemic violences got little Schulze’s attention in this book.  Adopting a more global scope was another missed opportunity. Despite acknowledging the significance of the Cold War (89; 142) and the perceptions of transnational solidarities of Christians (68; 136) (in communal violence cases, those between communities of different faiths or ethnicities) or Muslims (in Islamist violence cases), Schulze does not seem interested in problematising the agency of Indonesia in an international context. The focus on domestic centre-periphery dynamics sidelines Indonesia’s place in the centre-periphery structure of world politics, which merits a dimension of enquiry on its own. It could have been worthwhile to assess whether foreign entities were equal participants in contesting “national imaginaries” of Indonesia.  The book makes a major contribution to the scholarship on Indonesia’s history, conflicts and national identity [and] offers a promising bridge for interdisciplinary dialogues That said, these missed opportunities come to light because of the rich empirical findings of the book, even though Schulze decides to rule them out of her core argument. The framework she sets out has its own clear scope, and is persuasive, even if it leaves itself open to criticism; the book as a whole makes a major contribution to the scholarship on Indonesia’s history, conflicts and national identity. It offers a promising bridge for interdisciplinary dialogues which can trigger more systematic and comparative studies involving similar cases of violence in Indonesia and beyond. With its staggering 58 pages of endnotes and compelling narrative, Contesting Indonesia is also one of the most reliable historiographies on the subject for all sorts of readers. All in all, this book is a must-read for anyone who pursues a better understanding of the making of Indonesia.Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.Main image: saryanto yanto on Shutterstock.Enjoyed this post? Subscribe to our newsletter for a round-up of the latest reviews sent straight to your inbox every other Tuesday.Deden H. A. Alfathimy is a PhD candidate in Politics and International Relations at the University of Leicester. He was granted a Future 100 PhD studentship from the University’s Space Park Leicester, studying Indonesian space policy in the Global Space Age. He works at the Indonesia’s National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN; formerly the National Institute of Aeronautics and Space/ LAPAN).Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

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