
‘17,000 islands of imagination’: discovering Indonesian literature - lermontov
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/may/28/why-isnt-more-indonesia-literature-translated-english
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contingencies
Scary. Not only have I personally met the organizers of the festival that was
muzzled last year, but I have also filmed in Indonesia which could have
resulted in a nominal 'visa violation'. Of course, the latter example was
clearly politically motivated: it's widely held that the Indonesian military
authorities profit handsomely from and even help to organize piracy. On the
other hand, in my experience Indonesia is pretty decentralized, somewhat like
the 1990s internet. People in many areas hold much more affinity for their
island or regional identity than that of the nation, and significant animosity
is held against the politically dominant Javanese. In fact, people on some
islands even said "we like you guys, you can stay here as long as you like,
fear not central government visa issues". Back on the political side, I once
attended a Wikimedia event at the National University of Jakarta, where it
seemed that the main bureaucratic function was the decision on whether or not
to approve additional 'minority' language Wikipedias. A young man from the
Minangkabau region of Sumatra had endured a ridiculous amount of bureaucracy
to reach this point, and I argued heavily in favor of adding the language
since in my view it cost so little to maintain and Wikipedia has no business
politicizing language availability and should equally support all linguistic
communities who adhere to the general format, regardless of size.
Unfortunately, the Minangkabau Wikipedia seems to have entirely stagnated in
growth over the last three years, which while sad does not devalue its
>220,000 articles:
[https://min.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laman_Utamo](https://min.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laman_Utamo)

