Margaret Kartomi’s life-long devotion to bringing Sumatran music to the world is revealed in her major contribution to analysing and preserving this musical heritage
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Caught between two happinesses
Young Indonesian lesbians struggle with the pressure to marry
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Strange bedfellows
An unlikely alliance between former rebels and a former New Order tormentor will test the limits of Partai Aceh loyalty
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Photo essay: Positive is negative
HIV/AIDS is posing an ever greater threat to the health and welfare of people in the highlands of Papua
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Lives endangered
Three stories of people with HIV/AIDS in the central highlands of Papua show that both the government and community have a long way to go in confronting this major epidemic
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A little slice of magazine history
A former volunteer shares his memories of the first five years of Inside Indonesia
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More than a fatal attraction
Outsiders see arak consumption as a highly dangerous activity, but arak plays an important role in Balinese society
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Review: Suharto’s guardians and reluctant reformers
A new publication tells the story of the first graduates of the joint Indonesian Armed Forces Military Academy
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Review: Lieutenant General Djaja Suparman tells his story
Editor’s note: For Indonesia-watchers the activities of the military and its leaders remain largely opaque and perhaps even menacing. In recent years the steady stream of memoirs and biographies by and about military leaders has, in some cases, assuaged some of this mystery and in others, added to the intrigue. As the public and judicial gaze has increasingly turned to the actions of military leaders with connections to the New Order, the memoir has been engaged by some as a form of testimony in an effort to ‘clear their name’. Whatever the motivation, with each new addition to this genre, we are offered new insights into the fractious and often treacherous ‘interior’ world of the Indonesian Armed Forces.
Suparman holds the line but reveals some new insights into the transition of power after the fall of the New Order
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Poets against silence
Two young Solo poets believe poetry should serve the people
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More than six decades after being inspired as an undergraduate in Sydney, Ron Witton retraces his Indonesian language teacher's journey back to Suriname