Arguably, many missing persons and missing activists in the era of the Suharto dictatorship have remained buried and silenced. However, this brutal attitude is seemingly hidden without clear responsibilities from Suharto’s or current militarism. To question the responsibility of the Suharto regime and the Indonesian government, this talk discusses how the selected literary texts written by Indonesian Muslimah writers, such as Leila Chudori’s The Sea Speaks His Name (2017) and Okky Madasari’s The Years of the Voiceless (2010) challenge militarism and neocolonialism perpetuated by Suharto’s regime for 33 years (1965-1998). This discussion is essential to challenge neocolonialism and the legacy of colonialism, which is seemingly over but perpetuated by the militarism that oppressed and silenced Indonesian people, especially in the era of Suharto’s Orde Baru (New Era) even though Indonesia is now getting better and developed well under the Reform era, which is a more open political-social environment and grassroots economic improvement since May 1998.

Dr. Hasnul Insani Djohar is a Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence (2023-24) at Southern Utah University and an Associate Professor of English and Head of the English Department (2019-2023) at Syarif Hidayatullah Islamic State University Jakarta. Dr. Djohar is also the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Muslim English Literature Journal. She holds a Ph.D. in English Literature (Global Muslim Literature) from the University of Exeter, the UK. Her book Rewriting Islam: Decolonialism, Justice, and Contemporary Muslimah Literature is being published by the Ohio State University Press in June 2024.

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