citizenship and roles as “pariah entrepreneurs” in the rapidly industrializing and
expanding economy.60
Under Suharto, avowedly authentic “indigenous” mechanisms of authoritarian control were woven out of the rich cultural and ethnic tapestry of the
archipelago. The state was restyled as protector of diverse cultures and traditions, and as embodying notions of authority deeply rooted in traditional
culture.61 The largely appointed supra-parliamentary body that “(re)elected”
Suharto to the presidency every five years was called the People’s Consultative
Assembly (Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat), with musyawarah—consultation, consensus—celebrated as having a genuine legitimacy among Indonesians that competition between rival candidates, parties, ideologies, and
social forces could not claim. By the 1990s, the regime also began a concerted
effort to celebrate and appropriate the majority faith of the archipelago, Islam.62
Overall, the Indonesian state was repositioned as both authentic embodiment of
the Indonesian nation and as sole guarantor of national integrity in the midst of
potentially fractious cultural, ethnic, regional, and religious diversity.
Yet unlike nationalism in the context of economic stagnation and social
stasis in Burma, in Indonesia the dramatic social transformations accompanying three decades of rapid, sustained industrialization and economic growth
generated new possibilities for “reimagining” the nation. By the 1990s, a
vibrant, increasingly urbanized society was rapidly outgrowing the centralized
authoritarian state. When, in mid-1998, Suharto was forced to resign amidst
economic crisis and popular protests, there was a rapid and decisive reconfiguration of the nation-state, colored by contestation and violent conflict.63
As the shift from centralized authoritarian rule to competitive elections
and decentralization began to take place, Indonesia’s tremendous diversity
seemed to threaten violent disintegration of the nation-state. Large-scale riots
in Jakarta targeted Indonesia’s ethnic-Chinese minority in 1998, inter-ethnic
violence in Kalimantan and inter-religious conflict in Maluku and Sulawesi
caused large-scale hardship and displacement in 1999–2001, and paramilitary
mobilization and terrorist bombings raised the specter of Islamist jihad. A
United Nations-supervised referendum in East Timor in August 1999 led to a
vote overwhelmingly in favor of independence and, despite violent military-led
resistance, forced termination of Indonesia’s long occupation. These events in
East Timor and ongoing democratization across the archipelago encouraged