HUT Indonesia

August 17, 2017

Is invisibility the price of success for Indonesia?

To celebrate Indonesia’s 72nd birthday, I post a talk I gave at TED Global in 2014, musing about why the country was so invisible internationally. I reasoned that successful multi-cultural democracies don’t make the headlines. Would I give the same talk now?

Indonesian declaration of independence, taken from waste-paper basket

August 17, 2015

Indonesia is 70: Many happy Etc.s

Seventy years ago today, Sukarno and Mohmmad Hatta were frog-marched to a radio station by students hungry for independence. There, they declared the formation of the republic of Indonesia. Both the text and its original presentation in Sukarno’s handwriting (pictured above, rescued from the waste-paper basket) tell us much about the country.