This chapter contextualizes how ethical values drawn from Pancasila and Islam are mutually reinforcing in the formulation of human dignity. By using a genealogical approach, I argue that the pursuit of human dignity in Indonesia is debated in terms of the inviolability of human beings and the fulfilment of rights by the state. First, I show how the discourses surrounding human dignity by secular and Muslim nationalists in the colonial contexts coalesced with the pursuit of progress and the need for a sovereign nation. I also trace how secular and Muslim nationalists came to an agreement on the formulation of Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia. Second, I draw values from Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution, in orienting the nation’s development and promotion of human dignity during the New Order regime. I also discusses the drawbacks of politicizing Pancasila and its impacts on the debates of human dignity and the way Islamic values were used as a framework for ethical and political considerations. I end the chapter by examining how Pancasila and Islam intersect as ethical frameworks in shaping human dignity as the fulfilment of rights.

This chapter discusses the specific relationships between Golkar’s entrenchment, the exclusion of local ethnic elites, and the mobilization of riots in two high-conflict Indonesian provinces, Central Sulawesi and Maluku. By comparing two pairs of districts – Ambon and Maluku Tenggara in Maluku province, and Banggai and Poso in Central Sulawesi province – I demonstrate the importance of local elites’ framing, mobilization, and organization of violence. Although the four districts are relatively similar in their religious and ethnic composition, level of economic development, and dependence on the state, Ambon and Poso experienced some of the most protracted and intense ethnocommunal violence in Indonesia’s recent history, while their two neighboring districts, Maluku Tenggara and Banggai, respectively, were relatively peaceful by comparison. Relying on interviews with bureaucrats, community leaders, and former combatants, I show that these diverging outcomes can be attributed to local elites’ initial political configuration at the onset of the democratic transition, and to their actions and responses to trigger events.

This chapter shows how the loosely regulated night of the eighteenth century, that had accommodated orthodox and antinomian ritual, order, and its transgression, gradually turned into a battleground between the palace elite and the janissaries, the unofficial rulers of the night. When at conflict with the palace, the janissaries used the night not only for licentious pleasures and business, but also for conspiracy and sabotage, as a crucial facet in their “protocols of rebellion.” Once activated, the janissaries’ networks would organize quickly under the cover of darkness and march out of the shadows to confront the sultan in broad daylight. Ottoman sultans, on their part, occasionally tried to dislodge these networks, significantly in this context, by eradicating the nightlife scene which they considered the breeding ground of janissary revolts. These efforts, however, were thwarted by the dependency of the authorities on, and the ambivalence toward these very networks and activities. The drama is narrated below in three acts of major upheavals: the 1730 rebellion, the nizam-i cedid reforms and the 1807 uprising that undid them, and the destruction of the janissaries in 1826, which opened the way to significant changes in Ottoman nocturnal realities.

The introduction lays out the basic arguments, and also explains the emphasis on grand strategy and operations. The Axis powers declared their aim as a ‘new order of things’, notably in their 1940 Tripartite Pact. This contrasted with the ‘old’ order created by the Allies after World War I, exemplified by the Paris peace treaties of 1919 and Washington Treaty of 1922. These treaties dealt with Europe and Asia respectively, and they demonstrate that the causes and course of the next struggle would be global. World War II began in China in July 1937, rather than in Europe in 1939; the Asia-Pacific war was as important as the war in Europe. The book’s focus on grand strategy and military operation is warranted, partly for reasons of space and partly because this is the history of a war, and the outcome was victory or defeat.