Category Archives: Social Sciences

In August of 2021, while I was looking for an apartment in New York after three disastrous years in New England, I read Vincent Bevins’ excellent book, The Jakarta Method (New York: Public Affairs, 2020). The book chronicles the United States’ policy, executed by way of the Central Intelligence Agency, of abetting anti-communist mass killings during the Cold War. Jakarta, of course, is the capital of Indonesia.

You’ve probably already guessed that Jakarta, and Indonesia, were in fact the site of mass killings; some 500,000 people lost their lives in anti-communist violence aroused by Suharto in 1965. Until Suharto deposed him, Sukarno lead Indonesia. He was an internationalist, and anti-imperialist, and as such one of the progenitors of the Non-Aligned Movement. This was a group of nations that rejected Cold War bipolarity and refused, as the name of their movement implies, to align themselves with the Cold War superpowers, i.e. the Soviet Union and the United States.

So, finally, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Sukarno. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of one sentence and one comprehension question. I think this is woefully inadequate, which is why you have been compelled (or impelled, depending on how interesting you find all of this) to slog through those first two paragraphs.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.