HISTORY is plagued by all kinds of obsessions. For us Indonesians, ‘the West’ is one of them. ‘The West’ makes us anxious, nervous, disturbed. It feels threatening, but also seduces and mobilizes people in the East—if indeed there is something one can clearly call ‘the East’.

Since the birth of the modern world, or since exploration in the name of European kingdoms, ‘the West’ has haunted the