An anarchist history of the 1963-66 Indonesia - Malaysia confrontation in upland central Borneo

Abstract

The Indonesia - Malaysia Confrontation (1963-66) has largely been written from the perspectives of state-centric political history, or personal memoirs from soldiers stationed around various sites of the conflict. The dominant narratives frame the Confrontation (or Konfrontasi) as a low-level Cold War conflict instigated by a rogue left-leaning Indonesian President Sukarno opposed to the inclusion of the Bornean territories of Sarawak and Sabah as part of the formation of Malaysia In upland Central Borneo, however, this 'Cold War' has been experienced as a 'hot war' that profoundly changed the order of socio-economic relations in the region. The local borderland narratives focus on how the conflict had to be dealt with locally, how the Confrontation had to be settled on the communities' own terms, and how the conflict continues to provide a local narrative that highlights the communities' incorporation as loyal national subjects on each side of the border while simultaneously highlighting their continuing defiance against the partitionary effects of state projects.