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Podded

In February, I spent a happy few days as a guest of 'Words and Ideas', the writers' and readers' segment of the Perth International Arts Festival, sponsored by Curtin University. One of my contributions, a conversation with the journalist, David Cohen, followed by questions and answers, can be downloaded as a Podcast here. (I hope that this link works - if not download it from this page.)

It last about an hour and consists mostly of a discussion of my book, In the Time of Madness: Indonesia on the Edge of Chaos (click on the image above for enlargement), although at one point, for no very good reason, I also start talking about my career as a teenage UFOlogist. A bit cringe-making in parts, but it could be worse. Interestingly, my voice becomes lower in pitch towards the end of the hour than it is in the beginning. Not smooth and cholcolatey exactly but less ... piping.

Ten minutes from the end, it goes completely silent for a while but that's because some damn fool member of the audience failed to speak into the microphone. The other effect of this is that the reaction of the audience is almost inaudible. You'll just have to take it from me that they were almost constantly applauding or issuing forth chortles of appreciation.

US Amazon link for the book is here, Japanese Amazon (for the English language edition) here. It's also been translated into Dutch as Indonesia: Tijden van waanzin.

Here's a smattering of reviews from The Times, TIME magazine, The Observer, San Francisco Chronicle, The Guardian and a long and well informed one from the Columbia Journalism Review.

Your Christmas present problems, solved at a stroke! Buy, buy, buy . . .

Conspiracy mongering in Dili

Like everyone else, I've been dismayed and baffled by the chaotic, scrappy violence and the protracted political crisis in East Timor. I spent a lot of time there, before, during and after the referendum on independence in 1999, but it's more than six years since I've been back. (Partly for practical reasons, partly for the more personal ones described at length here.) So I have found it hard to form a view about the causes of the violence, triggered after 600 soldiers of the tiny East Timorese army deserted in March.

This week, though, came a breakthrough - the resignation of East Timor's prime minister, Mari Alkatiri, who has been blamed for much of the trouble. Not only is he accused of incompetence in dealing with the deserting soldiers and their grievances, an Australian TV documentary has also presented evidence that he had armed hit squads to assassinate his political enemies. Now Alkatiri's gone, a new prime minister will be apppointed by President Xanana Gusmao - and all will finally be well.

That's the gist of much of the foreign coverage over the past few days . But is it that simple? A number of reporters, with long experience of Timor and whose judgement I respect, suggest a much more complicated version in which Mr Alkatiri may himself be a victim of prejudice and conspiracy.