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Minister kicks off public discussion on controversial new history books

Dio Suhenda (The Jakarta Post)
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Mon, July 28, 2025 Published on Jul. 27, 2025 Published on 2025-07-27T17:14:44+07:00

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Project under fire: Culture Minister Fadli Zon (center), accompanied by his deputy Giring Ganesha (top), delivers a presentation on May 26 during a working meeting with House of Representatives Commission X in Senayan, Jakarta. The meeting was centered on the ministry’s plan to rewrite the nation's history. Project under fire: Culture Minister Fadli Zon (center), accompanied by his deputy Giring Ganesha (top), delivers a presentation on May 26 during a working meeting with House of Representatives Commission X in Senayan, Jakarta. The meeting was centered on the ministry’s plan to rewrite the nation's history. (Antara/Dhemas Reviyanto)

C

ulture Minister Fadli Zon has reassured the public that the forthcoming history books “are not hiding anything” as he launched a public campaign on the project despite concerns past human rights abuses may be whitewashed.

Fadli held the first round of discussion on Friday at the University of Indonesia’s (UI) main campus in Depok, West Java, and said in his remarks there that the new history books were aimed at taking an “Indonesia-centric” perspective in updating the country’s history.

"This forum is a kickoff for public discussions to show that we are not hiding anything in our history. We can debate it, but we cannot simply leave our history unwritten,” he said in the livestream event.

Deflecting concerns of being a rushed project, the minister said the ongoing efforts to rewrite the country’s history is “26 years too late”. He noted that the last state-sanctioned revision took place at the start of the Reform era in 1999.

The upcoming 10-volume publication will include everything from the latest archaeological findings on early civilizations in the archipelago up to the end of former president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s second term in October of last year.

The project involves 112 historians from 34 state universities across Indonesia, whom Fadli described as the “maestros” of their respective fields.

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“History cannot be written carelessly. If it is written by an activist, the result will be different. If it is written by a politician, it will also reflect differing political interests. That is why history must be written by qualified historians,” he said.

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