History - Indonesia at Melbourne

Talking Indonesia: the people versus Fadli Zon

In June 2025, Minister of Culture Fadli Zon went on the record questioning if sexual assaults and rapes had taken place during the May 1998 riots. A few months later, a group of advocates, including some of those directly involved in the fact-finding investigation and who provided support to victims at the time, filed a case against the minister in the Jakarta Administrative Court. What was the nature of their case against Minister Zon? How did the court respond? And what implications might this case have for the broader struggle for human rights protections and democracy in Indonesia right now?

Of heroes and villains: Prabowo’s playbook for power and historical revisionism

Analysis, History, Politics

By elevating figures like Soeharto, the government legitimises past authoritarian rule and normalises such practices in the present, thereby strengthening the current president’s grip on power. This strategy allows the government to consolidate authority while sidestepping accountability.

Naming Soeharto a national hero undermines democratic reforms

Analysis, History

10 November is Indonesia's Heroes’ Day, and President Prabowo Subianto is a few steps closer to declaring his former father-in-law, the late autocrat president Soeharto, a national hero. It seems the government’s Council for Titles, Medals, and Honours, chaired by Minister of Culture Fadli Zon, may reframe Soeharto’s legacy as a corrupt, autocratic ruler with a more positive image by awarding him the hero title.

From Polerouter to Rolex: the thin line between appreciation and favouritism in Indonesian sport

History, Sports

Back in 1958, Indonesia’s successful Thomas Cup badminton squad also received luxury watches — Polerouter Universal Genève timepieces. At the time, this caused no controversy whatsoever because the gifts were entirely paid for by donations from the Indonesian public.

Indonesia’s new history project: the bleak future of the nation's past

Analysis, History

The project is essentially a revival of the old format of the Sejarah Nasional Indonesia (SNI, Indonesian National History). Developed under the New Order regime, the SNI was an effort to shape a hegemonic narrative of Indonesian history.

Talking Indonesia: revitalising Dutch colonial spaces

History, Interview, Society, Talking Indonesia

In this episode, Tito Ambyo speaks with Remco Vermeulen, a PhD candidate at Erasmus University Rotterdam and coordinator of international cooperation in collection management at the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands.

Indonesia’s vinyl frontier

Arts, History, Media

Vinyl records have never been the primary format by which Indonesian consumers get enjoyment from musical recordings. Even when wax was the format of choice in the global music industry, vinyl records in Indonesia were, at best, a curiosity item among Indonesia’s affluent class.

Majapahit: the most powerful empire in Asia that most people have never heard of

History, Society

There are signs that modern Indonesian is replicating some of the triumphs of the past. After a blood-soaked first encounter, the Majapahit empire found a way to come to an accommodation with the mighty emperors who ruled China.

Is Mohammad Hatta’s cooperative economic vision still relevant today?

Economy, Environment, History

Muhammad Hatta was a forward-thinking intellectual whose ideas regarding collaborative economics prefigured today's degrowth movement. His economic ideas present a viable and fair alternative to the capitalist paradigms driving social inequality and environmental degradation.

Posted in: History