A ‘re’-writing history project - Grace Leksana

Shortly after taking up his position as the Minister for Culture and Education in the Prabowo government, Fadli Zon announced he was commissioning a reworking of the official Indonesian history textbook.

In early 2025, outlines of the project’s terms of reference started to trickle out, and historians, activists and survivors’ groups grew increasingly concerned. The new version, assembled without broad consultation, contained a raft of significant changes and glaring omissions, including human rights violations carried out by the New Order, and the roles of women at various stages in Indonesia’s pre- and post-independence past. Moreover, Minister Zon was determined to deliver the new book in time for the celebration of Indonesia’s 80th anniversary of independence on 17 August. That deadline has now passed but the project remains in progress.

What and who was behind this ‘rewriting’ history project? What were their motives? What ‘red flags’ most alarmed historians and others, and ultimately what can be done to resist and possibly reverse the course of this project?

In this week's episode Jemma chats with Grace Leksana an Assistant Professor in Indonesian history in the Cultural History section of Utrecht University. Grace is author of Memory culture of the anti Leftist violence in Indonesia: Embedded Remembering (Amsterdam University Press, 2023). She is a member of the Indonesian History Openness Alliance (AKSI).

In 2025, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.