ABSTRACT
This book is about an introverted, backwoods, feodal village and its transformation to an administrative unit, just one of 60,000 anonymous desa in Indonesia (Warren 1993:265). It is also a book about a local king and his subjects and their transformation into citizens of a modern nation-state. In this section I want to try to explain the order and stability in New Order Brassika in the arenas generally labelled ‘politics’ and ‘development’ (pembangunan) by social scientists. In this chapter, I explore the ways in which Brassika villagers became depoliticized citizens at the very occasions usually deemed ‘political’: at elections and in village meetings. Indeed, the point was that to be a good citizen was to be apolitical. Later, I examine two local issues that dominated village politics in recent years. In the next chapter, I explore the idea that it was only in the realm of development that citizens could participate as citizens.
