Race, Islam and Power

Jakartabased Andreas Harsono is one of the most knowledgeable, experienced,high-profile and courageous of reporters and commentators on contemporaryIndonesian society. Race, Islam and Power: Ethnic and ReligiousViolence in Post-Suharto Indonesia is the result of Harsono's fifteenyear project to document how, in post-Suharto Indonesia, race and religion havecome to be increasingly prevalent within the nation's politics. From itswesternmost island of Sabang to its easternmost city of Merauke in West Papua,from Miangas Island in the north, near the Philippines border, to Ndana Island,close to the coast of Australia, Harsono reveals the particular culturalidentities and localised political dynamics of this internally complex andriven nation.

This informed personal travelogue is essential reading forIndonesia watchers and anyone seeking a better understanding of contemporaryIndonesia. A passionate seeker of human rights protections, civil liberties,democracy, media freedom, multiculturalism and environmental protection,Harsono reminds us that Indonesians 'still have not found the light at the endof the tunnel'.