Don’t ever abandon history
—Bung Karno, 17 August 1966

JAKARTA abandons history, sometimes deliberately, sometimes not. Maybe all cities are like that. At least all cities where revolution comes and goes.

Tranquil Weltevreden and trees, laid out in the taste of the well-to-do (tevreden means ‘satisfied’), the government buildings with their high white walls as though impermeable to dust and the ravages of time—we know that all this