If anyone ever asked what it must have been like to live through those heady days directly before, during and after the fall of Soeharto, you could do no better than to recommend "Jakarta Jive". Having lived in Indonesia for over twenty years, the author Jeremy Allan has gained the kind of in-depth understanding of Indonesian culture and society that is rarely seen in foreigners. Combined with a sharp wit and an eye for the absurd, Allan has a knack for explaining what are essentially very complex aspects of the Indonesian psyche, social machinations and political manoeuvres. Allan's grass roots observations are combined with broader explanations of the social and political context in which they occurred to give the reader a complete picture of the events that led up to and culminated in the popular movement to oust Indonesia's second President, and thirty-year dictator, Soeharto.
Referred to as the jaman edan Javanese for a time of chaos and upheaval where the evil are rewarded and the good punished, this book chronicles one of the most tumultuous, eventful and heart-rending periods in Indonesia's history. Like the tragic character of Monica, an ethnic Chinese girl caught up in the vortex of the student reform movement and inter racial violence who turns to photography to record and express her painful emotions, Allan's own observations are photographic in nature. True to the smallest detail they are sometimes comical, sometimes poetic and at other times damning in the extreme -- like the photographic evidence which exposes a hideous crime or conspiracy. These are the writings of someone who was "there" when it all happened. While the shopping malls were being looted and burnt down and other expatriates were scrambling onto jets bound for safe havens like Singapore, Allan was out there on the back of an ojek (motorcycle taxi) scribbling down the notes that would later form the basis of the book.
Swept up in the tide of the student reform movement Allan finds himself at oddly opposed extremes -- at times to be found amongst a sea of angry students in a showdown with government forces, at other times to be found relaxing with a cool drink on the terrace of an enormous South Jakarta mansion where he was acting as caretaker for a rich friend who had fled the scene. Through his friendships and relationships, those who become the supporting cast of the novel, Allan is able to explore the many different mindsets of the people who together make up a terrifically diverse nation -- "Uncle" Liem the rich Chinese business man representing racist exploitative attitudes of the Chinese ethnic elite, Pak Tatang the gardener who represents the modesty and dignity of a simple, honest, hard-working man from rural Java, Pak Ade the tragically dispirited bureaucrat caught between corruption, conscience and a dead-end career, and Pak Trisno the staid, unflappable, sage-like Javanese businessman and former dissident. Heri the luxury-car-driving Indoyup, clueless Siti, and torn Chinese student Monica, represent the emerging ranks of the young educated middle classes -- more liberal, business minded and 'western' they may represent the best chance for Indonesia's rocky road towards becoming a modern pluralistic democratic state.
–Adam Fenton Garuda Magazine February 2002