ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to examine the discourses of violence that emerged locally in the aftermath of the Solo riots in the ‘struggle for control over the meaning of riotous events, for the right to represent them properly’ (Brass 1996: 1). It tells the story of a community of local people, tired by frequent violence in their city, who chose to ensure that the latest example of this violence occupied only a small place in history, rather than a large one. The difference, as they saw it, just as other communities have throughout history, was simply to control the representation of the riot at the local level, which would then filter through nationally and so on.
