Author: Edward Aspinall, ANU

For more than a decade, Indonesia has had a reputation for being afflicted by serious ethnic and other forms of communal conflict. In the early years of the transition to democracy after President Suharto resigned in 1998, there were indeed serious episodes of ethnic violence in many provinces. In parts of Kalimantan, ethnic Madurese settlers were killed and driven from their homes, there were bitter communal wars in Maluku, North Maluku and Central Sulawesi, as well as serious violence associated with ethnonationalist mobilisation in Aceh and Papua. Anti-Chinese riots in several towns and cities accompanied the protests that helped bring down Suharto.

But now, more than twelve years after democratisation began, there is remarkably little organised ethnic conflict in Indonesia, and ethnicity rests only lightly on national politics. Read more…