Very readable . . . A highly valuable book that does an admirable job of broadening the voices we hear about truth and reconciliation. Rebecca Gidley, The Journal of Pacific History
This book is extremely useful to scholars, activists, and local communities. Hipolitus Yolisandry Ringgi Wangge, Pacific Affairs
Flowers in the Wall explores the experience of truth and reconciliation Southeast Asia and the Southwest Pacific, with and without a formal truth commission. Although much has been written about the operational phases of truth commissions, the efforts to establish these commissions and the struggle to put their recommendations into effect are often overlooked. Examining both the pre- and post-truth commission phases, this volume explores a diversity of interconnected scholarship with each chapter forming part of a concise narrative.
Well-researched and balanced, this book explores the effectiveness of the truth commission as transnational justice, highlighting its limitations and offering valuable lessons Canadians, and all others, facing similar issues of truth and reconciliation.
- illustrations
- Abbreviations
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Memory, Truth, and Reconciliation in Timor-Leste, Indonesia, and Melanesia
- David WebsterIncomplete Truth, Incomplete Reconciliation: Towards a Scholarly Verdict on Truth and Reconciliation Comissions
- Sarah Zwierzchowski
- Section I: Memory, Truth and Reconciliation in Timor-Leste
- East Timor: Legacies of Violence
- Geoffrey Robinson
- Shining Chega!'s Light Into the Cracks
- Pat Walsh
- Politika Taka Malu, Censorship, and Silencing: Virtuosos of Clandestinity and One's Relationship to Truth and Memory
- Jacqueline Aquino Siapno
- Development and Foreign Aid in Timor-Leste after Independence
- Laurentina "Mica" Barreto Soares
- Reconciliation, Church, and Peacebuilding
- Jess Agustin
- Human Rights and Truth
- Fernanda Borges
- Chega! for Us: Socializing a Living Document
- Maria Manuela Leong Pereira
- Section II: Memory, Truth-seeking, and the 1965 Mass Killings in Indonesia
- Cracks in the Wall: Indonesia and Narratives in the 1965 Mass Violence
- Baskara T. Wardaya
- The Touchy Historiography of Indonesia's 1965 Mass Killings: Intractable Blockades?
- Bernd Schaefer
- Writings of an Indonesian Political Prisoner
- Gatot Lestario
- Section III: Local Truth and Reconciliation in Indonesia
- Gambling with Truth: Hopes and Challenges for Aceh's Commission for Truth and Reconciliation
- Lia Kent and Rizki Affiat
- All about the Poor: an Alternative Explanation of the Violence in Poso
- Arianto Sangadji
- Section IV: Where Indonesia meets Melanesia: Memory, Truth, and Reconciliation in Tanah Paupa
- Facts, Feasts, and Forests: Considering Approaches to Truth and Reconciliation an Tanah Paupa
- Todd Biderman and Jenny Munro
- The Living Symbol of Song in West Paupa: A Soul Force to be Recknoed With
- Julian Smythe
- Time for a New US Approach towards Indonesia and West Paupa
- Edmund McWilliams
- Section V: Memory, Truth, and Reconciliation in Solomon Islands
- The Solomon Islands "Ethnic Tension" Conflict and the Solomon Islands Truth and Reconciliation Commission
- Terry M. Brown
- Women and Reconciliation in Solomon Islands
- Betty Lina Gigisi
- Section VI: Bringing it Home
- Reflecting on Reconciliation
- Maggie Helwig
- Conclusion: Seeking Truth about Truth-seeking
- David Webster
- Bibliography
- Index
- Contributors