Volume 45, Number 13 · August 13, 1998
Indonesia Reborn?
By Margaret Scott
In the days after Suharto's downfall this May, a huge construction pit in the middle of Jakarta, abandoned and filled with mud, was transformed into a remarkable, and illegal, amphitheater. A ragtag group of artists and activists decided they couldn't resist the symbolism of the pit—the very image of boom times gone bust—as the perfect setting for their extravaganza of music and political theater. Down in the slime at the bottom of the pit, they set up a huge stage, and behind it they planted an enormous sign reading 'Bongkar,' which means 'Tear Down' in Indonesian. The idea, one of the organizers told me, is both to celebrate the fact that the old man Pak Harto, King Harto, is gone and to show their defiance since 'Reformasi,' the movement to reform the entire system, has hardly begun.
Feature, 7371 words
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