B L O G
Ruminations by John McGlynn: A Tale of Three Historians
Indonesia is not alone in the countries where “history” has been written to conform to notions of the powers that be. At Saint Anthony’s grade school I was taught that God Himself had charted the course of U.S. history. By His guiding hand Christopher Columbus had...
Greetings from the Executive Director: February 2021
International Mother-Language Day on February 21 might have gone unnoticed and unreported in Indonesia had it not been for President Joko Widodo who greeted his Facebook followers that day with “Pripun kabare?”—the Javanese (his mother tongue) for “How are you?” He...
Greetings from the Executive Director: January 2021
As if the unsettling pandemic wasn’t enough of a burden, a series of floods, landslides, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions across the country seemed to signal yet another inauspicious new year—one that had initially begun with a nascent sense of optimism. As...
Greetings from the Executive Director: May 2020
The current pandemic reinforces our belief that you can never take anything for granted. Who would have thought that in our lifetime we would be experiencing such a global-wide tragedy or that we would be staying under restricted house-bound conditions for months on...
Greetings from the Executive Director: April 2020
It would not be an exaggeration to say that our way of life has, in many ways, been irrevocably upended by the Covid-19 pandemic. From now on, in addition to the already-routine metal detectors and bag and body searches when boarding trains and airplanes (that were...
Greetings from the Executive Director: March 2020
We sincerely hope this message finds you safe and well-protected from the scourge of Covid-19 that is befalling countries around the world. As a result of this unwelcome development, most public activities in Indonesia have come to a sudden halt. In an effort to...