Tuesday, Aug 14, 2012

Join us on Tuesday August 14th at 6pm for the Canberra launch of Professor Merle Ricklefs's latest book Islamisation and its Opponents in Java: A Political, Social, Cultural and Religious history, c. 1930 to the present by Professor the Honourable Gareth Evans.

Following the launch by Professor Evans, Professor Ricklefs will talk about his ground breaking work.

Although not yet published a reader has already said of this book ‘No one interested in Indonesian Islam will be able to ignore this book. … The range of sources is astonishingly extensive. … This is ... an extraordinary feat of scholarship. It sustains a complex argument throughout, and masters an astonishing breadth and depth of data. It will become an indispensable source and guide for anyone interested in the history of social change in Java, and more specifically of Islam’s place in Javanese history. The writing is crisp, assured and compelling.’

More about the Book
In this work, Professor Ricklefs analyses an extraordinary example of the rising religiosity of our modern age. The Javanese – one of the largest ethnic groups in the Islamic world – were once mostly "nominal Muslims", with pious believers a minority and the majority seemingly resistant to calls for greater piety. Over the tumultuous period analysed here that society changed profoundly.

This study opens with an analysis of the social, political, cultural and religious settings c. 1930 in Java, and proceeds to the impacts of the Depression and Japanese occupation. Thereafter, the chaos of the Revolution confirmed patterns of conflict that influenced the subsequent periods of parliamentary democracy and ‘Guided Democracy’. The bitter polarisation of these years led to the massive slaughters of 1965-6 – the worst domestic killing in Indonesian’s history. Soeharto’s aspirant totalitarian regime (1966-98) is studied in detail over two chapters, showing how it pursued an integration of the state with religion in the interest of its anti-Communist and social-control agendas. The legacies of that integration, along with other domestic and international developments, continue to influence the most recent stage of Islamisation among the Javanese, which is explored in seven detailed chapters.

About the Author
M. C. Ricklefs is Professor Emeritus of the Australian National University and a recognised authority on the history and current affairs of Indonesia. He was formerly Professor of History at the National University of Singapore and Monash University, and Director of the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at the Australian National University. He has also held appointments at the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London) and All Souls College (Oxford). He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and has been studying the history of Indonesia, particularly of the Javanese, for nearly 50 years.

When: 6pm Tuesday 14th August, 2012

Where: Asia Bookroom, Unit 2, 1 - 3 Lawry Place, Macquarie. ACT

RSVP: By 13th of August by phoning 6251 5191 or Email Us

Admission by gold coin donation to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation

Don't miss this event, but, if you can't join us on the 14th of August and would like to buy a signed copy let us know and it will be arranged.