Flowers in the Wall

Truth and Reconciliation in Timor-Leste, Indonesia, and Melanesia

Edited by David Webster
Series: Global Indigenous Issues
Publisher: University of Calgary Press
Paperback : 9781552389546, 376 pages, January 2018
View Table of Contents

Table of contents

 

Illustrations
Abbreviations
Acknowledgements

Introduction: Memory, Truth, and Reconciliation in Timor–Leste, Indonesia, and Melanesia
David WebsterIncomplete Truth, Incomplete Reconciliation: Towards a Scholarly Verdict on Truth and Reconciliation Comissions
Sarah Zwierzchowski

Section I: Memory, Truth and Reconciliation in Timor–Leste

East Timor: Legacies of Violence
Geoffrey Robinson

Shining Chega!?s Light Into the Cracks
Pat Walsh

Politika Taka Malu, Censorship, and Silencing: Virtuosos of Clandestinity and One?s Relationship to Truth and Memory
Jacqueline Aquino Siapno

Development and Foreign Aid in Timor–Leste after Independence
Laurentina "Mica" Barreto Soares

Reconciliation, Church, and Peacebuilding
Jess Agustin

Human Rights and Truth
Fernanda Borges

Chega! for Us: Socializing a Living Document
Maria Manuela Leong Pereira

Section II: Memory, Truth–seeking, and the 1965 Mass Killings in Indonesia

Cracks in the Wall: Indonesia and Narratives in the 1965 Mass Violence
Baskara T. Wardaya

The Touchy Historiography of Indonesia?s 1965 Mass Killings: Intractable Blockades?
Bernd Schaefer

Writings of an Indonesian Political Prisoner
Gatot Lestario

Section III: Local Truth and Reconciliation in Indonesia

Gambling with Truth: Hopes and Challenges for Aceh?s Commission for Truth and Reconciliation
Lia Kent and Rizki Affiat

All about the Poor: an Alternative Explanation of the Violence in Poso
Arianto Sangadji

Section IV: Where Indonesia meets Melanesia: Memory, Truth, and Reconciliation in Tanah Paupa

Facts, Feasts, and Forests: Considering Approaches to Truth and Reconciliation an Tanah Paupa
Todd Biderman and Jenny Munro

The Living Symbol of Song in West Paupa: A Soul Force to be Recknoed With
Julian Smythe

Time for a New US Approach towards Indonesia and West Paupa
Edmund McWilliams

Section V: Memory, Truth, and Reconciliation in Solomon Islands

The Solomon Islands "Ethnic Tension" Conflict and the Solomon Islands Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Terry M. Brown

Women and Reconciliation in Solomon Islands
Betty Lina Gigisi

Section VI: Bringing it Home

Reflecting on Reconciliation
Maggie Helwig

Conclusion: Seeking Truth about Truth–seeking
David Webster

Bibliography
Index
Contributors

Description

Truth and reconciliation is complex, complicated, and ongoing. Although the operational phases of truth commissions have been well examined, the efforts to establish these commissions and the struggle to put their recommendations into effect are often overlooked. Flowers in the Wall explores the experience of truth and reconciliation in Timor-Leste, Indonesia, and the Solomon Islands. It examines the pre- and post-truth commission phases, providing a diversity of interconnected scholarship.

Well-researched and balanced, this book examines the effectiveness of the truth commission in transnational justice. It offers valuable lessons to Canadians and all others trying to attain truth and reconciliation.

Reviews

This book is extremely useful to scholars, activists, and local communities.

—Hipolitus Yolisandry Ringgi Wangge, Pacific Affairs

 

Very readable . . . A highly valuable book that does an admirable job of broadening the voices we hear about truth and reconciliation.

—Rebecca Gidley, The Journal of Pacific History