The Indonesian journal Prisma just published several translated essays from the special issue of Indonesia that Michele Ford and I coedited. The full-text doesn’t seem to be available online anywhere, at least not yet. Here is the preprint vesion of my (translated) contribution.

In the print version, they have put a delicious little cartoon at the end of my essay.

The sign says “reformation” and the dopey grin of the guy holding it likely represents the perceived naïveté of those who champion the reforms at the end of the New Order regime known as reformasi. (It’s probably not a representation of hypocrisy, or they would have made the dopey guy look more menacing.) The other guy is saying “Neo New Order!” in true “J’accuse…!” style. The accusation is that all of the changes of reformasi amount to nothing than a reconfiguration of the New Order in new garb.