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2002-07-27 Southeast Asia

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Posted by Fred Pruitt 2002-07-27 07:57 am|| E-Mail|| Front Page|| [11138 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 These last two articles should be regarded together rather than separately. The Acef revolt implies that not all Indonesian Moslems are created equal, and that there are strong regional divergences which undermine the concept of Moslem solidarity, along with Indonesian unity. The second article shows how tenuous the Indonesian polity actually remains after a nominal 2 years of political peace and continuity. Practically speaking, as the distance from Java increases, the control of Jakarta decreases.

How the East Timorese precedent weighs in these other Indonesian situations is hard to say. Neither the Acef nor any other separatist movement in Indonesia has the political history of the Timorese occupation by the Indonesian military. But the entire edifice of the Indonesian polity on the nominal foundation of Dutch East Indies colonial rule is shaky at best, like most of the rest of the decolonialization nation states in Africa whose national statuses were conceived of in similar manners to the way Sukarno took advantage of Dutch incompetence and the advent of WW II.

Posted by Tom Roberts 2002-07-28 08:54:30|| 2002-07-28 08:54:30|| Front Page Top

08:54 Tom Roberts
08:15 Tom Roberts
06:51 Fred
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