by admin | Aug 20, 2025 | English
My mum’s family is traditionally Muhammadiyah, staunchly anti-PKI, the banned Indonesian Communist Party. Each year on Eid all through the 1980s and early 1990s, we used to gather in our hometown Bekonang, a small village on the border of Solo and Sukoharjo. Up until...
by admin | Aug 20, 2025 | English
These two men are my grandfathers. Djauhar Arifin Santosa is my mother’s father, and Boentardjo Amaroen is my father’s father. They knew each other long before my parents got married – maybe since the Independence War. D. A. Santosa was a member of PETA...
by admin | Aug 20, 2025 | English
[…]The hotel room felt too small, too dark and too constricting for me. I walked outside, up to the river Brantas.What scenery! Mountains, hills, a huge wide river!I walked along its banks and, in front of the house where my sister-in-law had lived during the...
by admin | Aug 20, 2025 | English
on september thirty a letter to my granddaughter setia1september thirtypeople still talkpeople still askas if just a storyabout horror and tragedywhat and whatwho and whowhy and whyin this not knowingeveryone talks, still fighting the truthhistory and stories become...
by admin | Aug 20, 2025 | English
What is September?The end of time, ceasing on the thirtiethRotten plans meeting the goodNot speaking, not knowing one anotherWorld police observe and prepare themselvesPoliticians prowl, between hope and fearHigh-ranking army officials scurry, their faces ready to...
by admin | Aug 20, 2025 | English
Another year has passed, and here I am, yet a year further from 1965. The further away I am from 1998 and all those years of losses. The further from the reason I am here, but never further away from the truth.I wish my grandmother hadn’t passed away in 2009. I would...