REVIEW: How Indonesia’s political system has ‘failed’ minorities like Papuans

Abstract

Race, Islam and Power: Ethnic and Religious Violence in Post-Suharto Indonesia, by Andreas Harsono. Melbourne: Monash University Publishing. 2019. 288 pages. ISSN 978-1-925835-09-0. THIS PASSIONATE book is something of a cross between an inspired political travelogue, journalistic catalogue of insights into suffering and a cathartic defence of human rights. Published on the eve of the Indonesian national elections on 17 April 2019 and barely a month after the Christchurch mosque massacre, from a Pacific perspective Race, Islam and Power is also an impeccably timed analysis of how the centralised political system has failed many of the country’s 264 million people – especially minorities and those at the margins, such as in West Papua.

Keywords

• human rights
• Indonesia
• journalism
• reviews
• West Papua