Suharto’s Shadow Still Lingers in Indonesian Museums
“New Order” history is a sensitive topic as Indonesia’s presidential election approaches.
Museums and history books rarely factor into presidential politics. But as Indonesia’s presidential election approaches, they have become sites of political anxiety. All of this is due to the ongoing legacy of the Suharto regime’s 32 years of political manipulation. Two decades into the democratic restoration known as “Reformasi,” the shadow of the dictatorial New Order still darkens public discourse on crucial aspects of Indonesian history.
As a historian researching Southeast Asian Cold War museums, I inadvertently stumbled into this still hotly contested terrain.
Museums and the New Order Narrative
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Michael G. Vann is a Professor of History at California State University, Sacramento. Author of “The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empire, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam,” he is currently a Fulbright Senior Scholar researching Southeast Asian Cold War-era museums.