Compelling Reading | In the Time of Madness: Indonesia on the Edge of Chaos

Engrossing, informative, atmospheric | In the Time of Madness: Indonesia on the Edge of Chaos | Richard Lloyd Parry

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	• In the Time of Madness: Indonesia on the Edge of Chaos Richard Lloyd Parry Grove Press, 2007 - 328 pages average customer review:based on 9 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The Savagery of Modern Politics Dressed up in Primitive Clothes

This book is both scary and important. However, the scary part is unimportant and the important part is unique in how innocent and un-scary it appears. Yet, at least to this reader, this brilliant author has inadvertently (and it seems), unnecessarily inverted the priorities of his topics.

While his preoccupation with carefully documenting (he spent an inordinate 100 pages -- the entire first half of the book doing so), perhaps the last instances of active cannibalism in the 20th Century is laudable, arguably and ultimately it is also unimportant. Because at the end of the day the cannibalism he documents proved to be little more than a symbolic gesture of victorious defiance by one tribe over another. That is to say it was the ultimate denouement; the ultimate flip of the bird by one tribe towards another. All tribes do this, whether primitive or modern.

Yet, somehow, the author has turned his (or our) revulsion to this single act of barbarity among so many, into a transparent attempt to "distance" modern man from the savagery of the warring and primitive tribes of Indonesia. And here, although it goes unstated in the text, it is clear that the author intended for the reader to misplace most of his emphasis on the word primitive. However, after reading the second half of the book, it is equally clear that the real savagery is not in cannibalism per se, but in a new kind of savagery, a kind that is much more subtle and has already infected the modern world. It is the same savagery that Hanna Arendt's has elsewhere coined the banality of evil.

The real savagery in the Indonesian political example of the late sixties revolution, which resulted in a change of power from Sukarno to Suharto is what this new kind of political savagery -- and the ease with which even on the flimsiest of pretexts, it can seamlessly slide into normalized and justifiable barbarity -- means and portents for the future of modern societies and for modern politics more generally.

What one sees in Suharto's rise to power and the way he twisted a previously (admittedly weak) democratic way of life into a paternalistic but brutal totalitarian state (where millions of communists were killed), is the future paradigm for the takeover of modern democratic societies:

The new formula of barbarity is thus that when the sh-t hits the fan, the correct formula for ending threats to democratic rule is to take over the symbols and machinery of the state all in the name of its sacred principles and Constitution, and then end all conflict by ending all dissent, that is all thought, and fashioning in its place, a pseudo-democracy that goes through the motions of a "real" democracy. That is to say, fashion one that outlaws all conflict because all conflict (and thus all thought) has the potential of undermining the state and thus by definition is potentially subversive and thus barbaric. In this way, the ultimate totalitarian state comes into being under the people's guidance, consent, and consensus, and of course, as always, for their own self-protection.

It is shades of our descent into the post-911 madness of: the Patriot act, Abu Ghraib, renditions, tapped telephone lines, shaky intelligence, and wars of convenience, etc., but writ large. To me, this broader scenario, the main outlines of which our leaders have already adopted, is infinitely scarier than cannibalism.

But what an incredibly sophisticated read. Fifty stars.

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Compelling Reading

Compelling reading, albeit it quite unpleasant at times. If you're squeamish, be warned.

Parry paints vivid vignettes from various bloody moments in Indonesia's recent history, wearing his heart on his sleeve. This is not a sober, detached analysis of events - it is a first hand account of what these moments looked like on the ground.

Unique and invaluable, and well-written.

Engrossing, informative, atmospheric

I read this book on a recent trip to Indonesia because it was one of the few of its type available on Kindle. It gave me an engrossing window into some important moments in modern Indonesia. It gives a narrow, rather than broad or complete, account of conflicts on Kalimantan (Borneo), the fall of Suharto, key events on Java, and the situation in East Timor. Although I did not feel I was getting the complete picture, the picture I did get was vivid and engrossing. As a reader you feel like you're there. I thought the author dwelled a little too much on accounts of beheaded bodies, cannibalism, etc., especially in the early parts of the book. I also found it mildly annoying (but bearable) when the author drifted into introspection. But this book was full of fascinating information on situations that aren't well covered in many other sources. I'd recommend the book to anyone interested in its subject matter.

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Great read! Pulls so much information together with verve!

A must read for anyone interested in Indonesia. Superb historical accounts, on the ground descriptions and skillful storytelling. A classic on my bookshelf! Students love it.

In the last years of the twentieth century, foreign correspondent Richard Lloyd Parry found himself in the vast island nation of Indonesia, one of the most alluring, mysterious, and violent countries in the world. For thirty-two years, it had been paralyzed by the grip of the dictator and mystic General Suharto, but now the age of Suharto was coming to an end. Would freedom prevail, or was the time of madness” predicted centuries before now at hand? A book of hair-raising immediacy and a riveting account of a voyage into the abyss, In the Time of Madness is an accomplishment in the great tradition of Conrad, Orwell, and Ryszard Kapuscinski.

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