REVIEW: How Indonesia’s political system has ‘failed’ minorities like Papuans

• Main Author: David Robie
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Pacific Media Centre 2019-07-01
• Series: Pacific Journalism Review
• Subjects: human rights; Indonesia; journalism; reviews; West Papua
• Online Access: https://ojs.aut.ac.nz/pacific-journalism-review/article/view/492

Race, Islam and Power: Ethnic and Religious Violence in Post-Suharto Indonesia, by Andreas Harsono. Melbourne: Monash University Publishing. 2019. 288 pages. ISSN 978-1-925835-09-0. THIS PASSIONATE book is something of a cross between an inspired political travelogue, journalistic catalogue of insights into suffering and a cathartic defence of human rights. Published on the eve of the Indonesian national elections on 17 April 2019 and barely a month after the Christchurch mosque massacre, from a Pacific perspective Race, Islam and Power is also an impeccably timed analysis of how the centralised political system has failed many of the country’s 264 million people – especially minorities and those at the margins, such as in West Papua.