Front Page Discussion
FEBRUARY 10, 2010
12:00 Noon / WSCC in Old Chemistry Building Room 118
Lunch will be provided
"East Timor: A United Nation’s Poster Boy or Whipping Boy?"
with David Hicks, Professor of Anthropology
The post-colony of East Timor or “Timor-Leste” is generally little known in the United States but for a time it was regarded by the United Nations as something of a “poster boy” for the world body’s aspiration to nation-build. Since then various events and underlying problems have brought about serious re-evaluation of this claim. East Timor was for more than three hundred and fifty years a colony of Portugal’s before being invaded by the army of the Republic of Indonesia in 1975 and incorporated into the republic the following year. Twenty-four years of savage repression defined the Indonesian occupation before Indonesia terminated its presence there and responsibility for East Timor was assumed by the United Nations. The country was granted independence as a new nation state on May 20, 2002. East Timor is a country with problems sufficiently dangerous for some observers to regard it as ‘a failed nation’; others, however, have seen a potential for the country to emerge as a viable nation-state. The argument for each perspective is considered in this talk. David Hicks’ initial research in what was then known as “Portuguese Timor” began 1966 and since then he has returned to the country on six occasions, most recently last summer.
*UUP FRONT PAGE DISCUSSIONS
a series of lunch-time chapter discussions with authors of new books and experts on important topics of the times. Meet people from other departments in conversation throughout the coming year. All members welcome.
Please feel free to contact via email chapter Vice President Daniel.Kinney@stonybrook.edu.