How we remember history and the violence within it is one of the great challenges of our age. From the Holocaust to Cambodia and Rwanda to Palestine, we are all haunted by holding power to account. Last night I watched one of the most remarkable documentaries I’ve ever seen, Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing:…
Showing all posts tagged Indonesia
Tony Abbott’s foreign policy would be as clueless as George W. Bush
My following article appears today in the Guardian: In April 2010, as the war in Afghanistan was raging and US president Barack Obama… “surged” 30,000 more troops… into the country, Australian opposition leader Tony Abbott suggested that under his leadership, a Coalition government would have considered increasing involvement. “The government should explain why it’s apparently right that…
Remembering what Chomsky does to help people in countless places
As Noam Chomsky prepares to arrive in Australia later in the year to receive the Sydney Peace Prize, haters routinely forget the tireless work by the American intellectual behind the scenes on behalf of those persecuted by governments. This campaigning is rarely acknowledged and it often comes at some personal cost. Below is one case…
Before you cry for the death of Richard Holbrooke
Jeremy Scahill: Holbrooke backed Indonesian genocide in East Timor, killing of journos in Serbia and supported 2003 Iraq invasion. Johann Hari: I’m more inclined to grieve for victims of Indonesian genocide in East Timor than Richard Holbrooke, who armed & supported that genocide. Read this.
What’s hundreds of thousands dead to a Murdoch columnist?
Earlier this week we were reminded of the Australian Foreign Editor Greg Sheridan years ago dismissing the Burmese “dissident” Aung San Suu Kyi. Sheridan is back at it today (thanks to Scott Burchill): For nearly 20 years, good hearted Indonesians have been telling the Burmese to study the New Order regime that prevailed in Indonesia…
When an Indonesian started talking to a Westerner
Inspiration, provocations, discussions and politics all meld here at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival. Take a look here, here and here. Perhaps the most encouraging part of the events in Bali is the involvement of local writers and participants. If the West and East melded a little more, the world would be in a…
My writing thoughts here in Indonesia
This was filmed yesterday in Bali at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival:
