In this article Fasisme dan Buku Joss Wibisono
By Rony K. Pratama, originally published in Inside Indonesia
Aug 21, 2026
Read the full article here.
By Rony K. Pratama, originally published in Inside Indonesia
Aug 21, 2026
I laughed when I reached the pages on Franz Magnis-Suseno. Then the laugh died in my throat. There is something frightening beneath the comedy.
Here is the story. In Makassar, in August 2019 police and vigilantes in religious dress seized two books by Magnis-Suseno, Pemikiran Karl Marx (Karl Marx's Thought) and Dalam Bayangan Lenin (In Lenin's Shadow). They took them for communist propaganda. The books are nothing of the kind. They are sustained attacks on Marx and Lenin. Their author, a German-born Catholic priest, had already recorded in his preface that a crowd burned his Marx book back in 2001. He was furious. He had written it, he explained, precisely to refute Marxism and Leninism, since to fight an idea you must first understand it. It is a reasonable defence. It also turned out to be no protection at all.
Joss Wibisono does not let the irony pass. In Fasisme dan Buku (Fascism and the Book), he proposes, with a satirical edge, that Magnis-Suseno himself be enlisted to draw up a list of Indonesian books carrying the teachings of Marx and Lenin, ‘seperti yang dilakukan oleh Wolfgang Herrmann pada zaman Hitler berkuasa di Jerman dulu’ (‘as Wolfgang Herrmann did back when Hitler ruled Germany’). The raiders would then have a reliable index and would never again seize a book by the priest. ‘Moga-moga sang rohaniwan ini bersedia untuk berperan sebagai Wolfgang Herrmann,’ he needles (‘one hopes the reverend will agree to play Wolfgang Herrmann’), since the two men are equally given to denouncing the left.
Here is the story. In Makassar, in August 2019 police and vigilantes in religious dress seized two books by Magnis-Suseno, Pemikiran Karl Marx (Karl Marx's Thought) and Dalam Bayangan Lenin (In Lenin's Shadow). They took them for communist propaganda. The books are nothing of the kind. They are sustained attacks on Marx and Lenin. Their author, a German-born Catholic priest, had already recorded in his preface that a crowd burned his Marx book back in 2001. He was furious. He had written it, he explained, precisely to refute Marxism and Leninism, since to fight an idea you must first understand it. It is a reasonable defence. It also turned out to be no protection at all.
Joss Wibisono does not let the irony pass. In Fasisme dan Buku (Fascism and the Book), he proposes, with a satirical edge, that Magnis-Suseno himself be enlisted to draw up a list of Indonesian books carrying the teachings of Marx and Lenin, ‘seperti yang dilakukan oleh Wolfgang Herrmann pada zaman Hitler berkuasa di Jerman dulu’ (‘as Wolfgang Herrmann did back when Hitler ruled Germany’). The raiders would then have a reliable index and would never again seize a book by the priest. ‘Moga-moga sang rohaniwan ini bersedia untuk berperan sebagai Wolfgang Herrmann,’ he needles (‘one hopes the reverend will agree to play Wolfgang Herrmann’), since the two men are equally given to denouncing the left.
Read the full article here.
Tanda Baca
