Sugar Nutmeg

*Note: At 24:00, what Sarnt meant here is a contemporary ethnic segregation amongst Southeast Asians in middle-class milieus, which happens less in the Berlin environment, in comparison to Bangkok. Historically, however, in West/East Germany there had been huge racial segregation imposed by both states, for example, between migrant "contract" workers who weren't allowed to live or interact with regular citizens through out the 1970/80s — another complex topic of another in-depth conversation.

Sarnt Utamachote talks to us about postcoloniality, migrant movements and migrant spaces, internationalism, forms of survival for artists and queer and queer artists, the Diaspora ↔ War ↔ Tourism Complex, and how access to language affects access to archival research. Plus some K-pop, Sundance, Bangkok art scene, and the Berlin club scene.  

Sarnt Utamachote is a queer filmmaker, photographer and curator. He is interested in deconstructing the “surfaces”, what rendered the “humans” behind invisible, by highlighting/curating the fragments; the humane subtleties often overlooked in everyday life - possible sources of social dignity and subject positions.

He researches and collects the archive of Thai migrations and movements in Berlin/Germany, in an attempt to redefine how migrant spaces and micro-histories are relevant to the postcolonial urban discourses. He was one of the selected participants of the Young Curators Workshop for 11th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art 2020, organized by Pip Day.

www.sarntutamachote.com

Born in Denpasar, Cynthia Dewi Oka grew up as an ethnic minority and religious minority in Bali and Java. These experiences pushed her family to migrate to Vancouver, Canada, where Cynthia faced a whole other beast of diasporic experiences. Now a poet with three Pushcart Prize nominations, she lives in Philadelphia, where she partnered with Asian Arts Initiative to offer Sanctuary: A Migrant Poetry Workshop for Philly-based immigrant poets. Cynthia shares with us her journey across many borders, working as an organizer, a poet, a teacher, and a mother. We talk about martabak, motherhood, medok accents, imagination, imperialism, and immigration. 

Cynthia Dewi Oka is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and author Salvage and Nomad of Salt and Hard Water. She is also a recipient of the Leeway Foundation’s Transformation Award; the Tupelo Quarterly Poetry Prize; the Fifth Wednesday Journal Editor’s Prize in Poetry; the Amy Clampitt Residency (2021-2022); and scholarships from Voices of Our Nations (VONA) and Vermont Studio Center. She has performed her poetry in various venues across the US and internationally, including at The New School, The Nuyorican, Poet’s House, the Langston Hughes House, Nick Virgilio Writer’s House, Noyes Art Garage, Woman Made Gallery, the Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia, the Philly Pigeon, the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery, Busboys and Poets, Writers Resist Philadelphia, The Laura Flanders Show, Split This Rock Poetry Festival, Hobart Festival of Women Writers, Festival Internacional de Poesia de la Habana, and the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival. She is a contributor to ESPN’s The Undefeated the anthologies Soul Sister Revue: A Poetry Compilation (Jamii Publishing, 2019) as well as other anthologies.

Cynthia has been a poetry mentor for The Speakeasy Project, taught Foundations of Poetry for the Blue Stoop, and served as a guest poet in universities across the United States. In 2018, she visited Widener University as a featured poet in the English and Creative Writing Departments’ Distinguished Writers Series. As a Dodge Poet, she has visited and worked with young poets in high schools through mini-festivals across New Jersey. She has also facilitated poetry workshops for organizations and initiatives such as Community Building Art Works, FreeWrite Prison Writing Group, Women Writers in Bloom, Women’s Mobile Museum, and Training for Change.

www.cynthiadewioka.com

In the most dangerous part of the world for activists, Mitzi Jonelle Tan continues to mobilize and organize movements for climate justice. She chairs the Youth Advocates for Climate Action Philippines (YACAP) and works with indigenous leaders in most affected areas.

Mitzi talks to us about Duterte's infamous anti-terror bill and war of drugs, the right to freedom of speech and the human rights crisis in the Philippines, the dependency of the country's economy on tourism and export of their natural resources, the interconnectedness of public policy, economics, education and climate change, as well as the feasibility of a sustainable lifestyle in the Philippines.

YACAP.org

Twitter: @mitzijonelle

IG: @mitzijonelle

In his first interview with a Southeast Asian podcast since the launch of his book, Vincent Bevins answers questions about the topics in "The Jakarta Method," which he wrote after extensive research and interviews with survivors throughout Latin America, Southeast Asia, and the U.S. We talk about everything from specific tactics & operations in Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Brazil, and Chile, to why narratives around these events have been so skewed, to the shrinking internationalist exchange between post-colonial countries, to developing a palate for real spicy food.

The Jakarta Method

The hidden story of the wanton slaughter — in Indonesia, Latin America, and around the world — backed by the United States.

In 1965, the U.S. government helped the Indonesian military kill approximately one million innocent civilians. This was one of the most important turning points of the twentieth century, eliminating the largest communist party outside China and the Soviet Union and inspiring copycat terror programs in faraway countries like Brazil and Chile. But these events remain widely overlooked, precisely because the CIA’s secret interventions were so successful.

In this bold and comprehensive new history, Vincent Bevins builds on his incisive reporting for the Washington Post, using recently declassified documents, archival research and eye-witness testimony collected across twelve countries to reveal a shocking legacy that spans the globe. For decades, it’s been believed that parts of the developing world passed peacefully into the U.S.-led capitalist system. The Jakarta Method demonstrates that the brutal extermination of unarmed leftists was a fundamental part of Washington’s final triumph in the Cold War.

Vincent Bevins is a journalist and the author of The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder That Shaped Our World (Hachette). Previously, he covered the UK for the Financial Times, Brazil for The Los Angeles Times, and Southeast Asia for The Washington Post. His articles can be found on his website.

@Vinncent

www.vincentbevins.com

www.bookshop.org/shop/vincent-bevins

Papua. A secret heaven of natural beauty. And a secret haven of natural resources. Gold. Copper. Uranium. Silver. Oil. Gas. How are these treasures related to the Wamena massacre, Biak massacre, Wasior massacre, or Paniai massacre? How did it all start? Which countries are involved?

We unpack some of these with Wensi Fatubun, a filmmaker, photographer, and indigenous rights advisor to numerous international organizations. Wensi is also a part of Papuan Archives and Papuan Voices, two initiatives dedicated to telling stories from Papua by Papuans.

Wensislaus "Wensi" Fatubun is a filmmaker, photographer and human rights defender from Yodom Village, Edera District in Mappi Regency, Papua Province. Wensi works in Papua using the medium of videography to advocate for human rights in Papua at the United Nations (UN). He has been writing investigative reports and making films since 2006.

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From 2008 to 2015, he worked as a Papuan Voices Program Manager at the Jakarta-based Catholic Church group Justice Peace Integrity and Creation (JPIC MSC). He was also the Director of the JPIC MSC Program from 2009 to 2013. In 2017 and 2019, he was a lecturer at Universitas Terbuka in Mappi Regency, Papua.

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Since 2019, Wensi has been an advisor at the Papuan People's Assembly, where he provides documentation, testimony and analysis on human rights issues in West Papua. Previously, Wensi worked as the Monitoring, Investigation and Research Officer for the Secretariat for Justice and Peace (SKP) in Merauke, West Papua. He also serves as Representative for the Papuan Customary Council, as well as advocacy advisor for GABAH Papua legal aid forum.

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He graduated with a degree in Philosophy from the College of Philosophy at Pineleng Seminary. He is also an alumnus of the Diplomacy Program at New South Wales University in Sydney, Australia. In 2012, he participated in the 22nd Annual Human Rights and People's Diplomacy Training Program in Timor Leste. He is also a current member and alumnus of Geneva for Human Rights - Genève pour les Droits de l'Homme, where he studied Diplomacy, International Relations, International Law and International Humanitarian Law in 2013 in Geneva, Switzerland.

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His essays about about film as resistance and the ethnographic study of film were published in the book Cinémas autochtones: Des représentations en mouvements published by De la Plume à l'Ecran, CICADA-DIALOG & GITPA, France. Due to an increase in human rights violations in Papua recently, as well as increased international advocacy on issues of self-determination and human rights, Wensi became a member of the Geneva for Human Rights association - Genève pour les Droits de l'Homme in Geneva, Switzerland. Currently, he is studying Visual Anthropology and the ethnography of Papuan films.

A travelogue exploring the dynamics of ethnic and religious tension throughout the many islands in the Indonesian archipelago, "Race, Islam and Power: Ethnic and Religious Violence in Post-Suharto Indonesia" is a book by Andreas Harsono that summarizes the reality of Indonesia. He talks to us about why this country is so complex to comprehend and so obscure to the rest of the world, despite being the 4th most populous country and one of the top economies in the world.

Andreas Harsono is an international human rights activist, journalist, and book author. He has covered Indonesia for Human Rights Watch since 2008. Before joining Human Rights Watch, he helped found the Jakarta-based Institute for the Studies on Free Flow of Information in 1995, and in 2003 he helped create the Pantau Foundation, a journalist training organization also based in Jakarta. A staunch backer of the free press, Harsono also helped establish Jakarta’s Alliance of Independent Journalists in 1994 and Bangkok’s South East Asia Press Alliance in 1998. In 1999-2000, he was recipient of the Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University. He is a member of the International Consortium for Investigative Journalists (Washington, DC).

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Harsono began his career as a reporter for the Bangkok-based Nation and the Kuala Lumpur-based Star newspapers. In Indonesian, his published books in Indonesian include Jurnalisme Sastrawi: Antologi Liputan Mendalam dan Memikat (with Budi Setiyono) and “Agama” Saya Adalah Jurnalisme. In English, his newest book Race, Islam and Power: Ethnic and Religious Violence in Post-Suharto Indonesia is available for purchase.

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www.andreasharsono.net

@andreasharsono

Most people from Nusantara know the competition between Indonesia and Malaysia, but how many know how this competition even came to be? Maryam Lee breaks it down for us in this episode! With her wisdom, she unpacks the complexities of ethnicity and religion in Malaysian national identity, how political structures today are inherited from colonial ways, and the many layers of liberalism. Plus, we talk ghost stories, folk tales, and spiritual healing.

Maryam Lee is a program manager at various non-profit organisations. She looks at political and economic policies that affect people’s lives, from a historical and cultural standpoint, particuparly providing a decolonial approach to any subject matter. Currently, she is developing conversations around technology and society. She is the author of “Unveiling Choice” (2019), a multi-disciplinary scholar, community organiser, and all-around curious being.

She can be contacted at [email protected].

Abdul Samad Haidari is a Hazara-Afghan journalist turned refugee poet, currently in Indonesia waiting for resettlement. Besides volunteering as a humanitarian-aid worker and teacher, Abdul is the author of the poetry collection “The Red Ribbon,” which is the 3rd best-selling book in Indonesia.

Abdul talks to us about his background, his family, his book, his activities with the refugee community as well as the literary circles in Indonesia, coping with trauma, religion and censorship in Indonesia versus Afghanistan, and his views on life in Indonesia as a refugee.

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Abdul fled his home country at the age of seven and grew up wandering in Pakistan and Iran as a child refugee, and was separated from his family for the majority of his childhood. For two years, at the age of eight and nine, he was forced into child labour in the construction industry in Iran. In contrast, Pakistan offered refugees like him the opportunity to study and work. This education and work experience culminated in Abdul teaching computer studies and English language courses at the Intel Computer Center and Pak Oxford Professionals.

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Abdul can be reached at: [email protected]

In this special bilingual episode, Ruth Ogetay gets candid about the history of West Papua, the current plight of Papuans and other ethnic minorities in Indonesia, multilateral relations with other countries, as well as how and why a series of events involving transnational corporate deals led to the current situation concerning West Papua.

Originally from Paniai, Ruth Ogetay attended university in Yogyakarta, then moved to the capital city to work as a nurse in a major Jakarta hospital, and is currently at Pantau Foundation, focusing specifically on political prisoners.

Eugenio "Ego" Lemos talks to us about permaculture practices, legacies of occupation, reconciliation and resilience, the dilemma of post-conflict countries, common problems with aid and charity, Indonesian influence versus Australian presence in Timor, East Timor then versus West Papua now, ricenization as a form of cultural destruction, and how sociopolitical events at large affect personal lives on the micro scale through food during the Portuguese colonization, Indonesian occupation and in present day.

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Ego Lemos is the founder of the Sustainable Agriculture Network and Organic Agriculture Movement in Timor-Leste. He is also the Founder of Permaculture Timor-Leste (Permatil), as well as the founder-counselor of the PermaScout and Perma-Youth movements.

He currently serves as the Executive Director of Permatil. Previously, he was the National Adviser for the Ministry of Education of Timor-Leste.  He is also a lecturer in Sustainable Agriculture and Public Arts & Culture at the University of Timor-Leste.  In 2019, Ego was selected by Earth Company as 1 of 5 Impact Hero finalists.

As a singer-songwriter, Ego sings and writes original music in his native tongue, Tetun. His song "Balibo" (featured in the 2009 film Balibo) was awarded Best Original Song at the 2009 Screen Music Awards and the 2009 APRA Award for best song in a film.

Ego also co-authored ‘Permaculture Gardens for Kids’, as well as both editions of the Tropical Permaculture Guidebook.  He is sole author of the ‘Training Manual for Agro-biodiversity in Timor-Leste (GIZ-AMBERO) and the Arts and Culture section of the National Curriculum for Basic Education Grad 1 – 6 (Ministry of Education).

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Ego Lemos on Spotify

www.permatilglobal.org