Fragile Nation, A: The Indonesian Crisis [Paperback]

Khoon Choy Lee (Author), Lee Khoon Choy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2, 1999

In May 1998, President Suharto stepped down as President of Indonesia. With his fall, the third largest country in Asia has plunged into anarchy and political, economic and social strife. Racial and religious clashes, culminating in riots, burning and chaos, have become the order of the day. Fissures in the social fabric are widening and there is a real danger that this multi-racial, multi-religious and multi-cultural country may disintegrate, just like Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union.Indonesia today is a fragile nation, a country in crisis. It is breaking apart because just as Sukarno had failed in his interplay of strength between Communism and the armed forces, Suharto failed to keep the balance of power between the armed forces and Islam. Moreover, the Indonesian people, by and large, have lost the spirit of tolerance, symbolised in the Indonesian state crest, Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (Unity in Diversity). Without this spirit, so vital to a multi-religious and plural society, Indonesia is becoming economically ravaged, spiritually plundered, politically distraught, and socially incoherent.The author served as Singapore's Ambassador to Indonesia from 1970 to 1974. His interest in Indonesia began many years ago from 1955, when he had gone to Bandung to cover the Afro-Asian conference as a journalist. As Ambassador, he had the opportunity to travel widely across the country and observe the Indonesians at close quarters. Today, his friends range from President Suharto, Indonesia's military leaders, governors, mayors, to ordinary citizens, journalists, musicians and artists.In this book, he portrays the Indonesian people, their history and their cultural traditions. He provides insightful analyses and perspectives of the political collapse of Suharto and describes the danger facing the country. Describing the diversity in the history, traditions, customs and cultures of the various ethnic groups, he understands Indonesia like no other.

Product Details

• Paperback: 500 pages
• Publisher: Wspc (June 2, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9810240031
• ISBN-13: 978-9810240035
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,395,123 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Overview, Subjective, Some Factual Errors, October 7, 2004

By 

Elkha Joe "Elkha Joe" (Bethesda, MD USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fragile Nation, A: The Indonesian Crisis (Paperback)

Lee Khoon Choy was an ambassador to Indonesia during the early seventies, as noted in the introduction. He visited Indonesia before and after his tenure. Due to his special position, he enjoyed special experience travelling throughout Indonesia to compile materials for his book.

This book explains Indonesian sociopolitics condition in 1998, right after Suharto's fall. It's pretty accurate. It starts by explaining why Suharto fell. The reasons are rather subjective and he occasionally mentioned about "previleged secret information from anonymous trusted individuals". Next, it describes the nature of each tribe / culture in Indonesia. Certainly, the description here is very much generalized. For example: He mentioned how Minang people are apt to trading and good at money, or Madurese for being hot-headed people, and so forth. In each of the chapter he also mentioned about the problems of each tribe / culture and how he thinks those contributed to the Indonesian Crises.

The interesting part to me is its description about the Chinese minority, which is in Chapter 9. He eloquently argues why Chinese minority in Indonesia are, at the time of its writing, not being acknowledged, where he puts forth compelling arguments why they should be; like: Ming / Ching emperors considered overseas Chinese as traitor and massacre against them was considered as "fruit of bad karma", Chinese was among the first foreign visitors of Indonesia, Chinese was the one who introduce Indonesia to Islam (not Gujarat people, as previously thought), and so forth.

My major complaint of this book is that many of the compelling arguments do not have proper citation of their sources or are waved out as "personal talk from trusted individuals". In some, he does mention the source. However, literature / article citation is almost completely missing. Given the controversial nature of this book, I think that he should disclose from which book / article he got the arguments and put that in the footnotes, especially for historical citations. Although I don't question much about many of them, many people would easily diss this book as being provocative and baseless. The only "source" listed is in the bibliography, most of which, in my humble opinion, don't help much in tracking down the source.

Another issue is that there are few factual errors, such as the mention of "Gresik is in West Java" as opposed to the fact of "Gresik is in East Java". Things like these could throw much of the book's arguments: If the author can't cite simple facts correctly, how can we trust a much more provocative arguments he sets forth?

The next issue is typo. Around 5 per chapter. It can be quite annoying.

Too bad that flaws like above marred this otherwise very compelling book for Indonesian sociopolitics.