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Episode 04 Part 1 of 2

Aku Bukan Mesin

I am not a machine. A song recorded after the Bali and Jakarta bombings, about refusing to be turned into a weapon — and a country's descent into violence divided along religious lines.

Aku Bukan Mesin episode artwork

The episode

The song

The end of the Suharto regime in 1998 opened up the world's third-largest democracy. It also opened up communal conflicts that had been held down by force for decades. Between 1999 and 2005, violence along religious lines in Maluku and Central Sulawesi killed thousands and displaced hundreds of thousands. In 2002, a nightclub in Kuta, Bali was bombed. Two hundred and two people died.

Navicula recorded "Aku Bukan Mesin" — "I am not a machine" — in response. In this episode, security analyst Sidney Jones, who has spent decades studying extremism in Indonesia, walks through how the country got there and what the arc has looked like since. This is part one of two on violent religious extremism.

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Read the transcript. The full episode transcript is available on Google Drive.

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