Burning books

A SPECTRE has long haunted Indonesia: anti-communism. But its recent re-emergence is arousing puzzlement as well as fear. Spontaneity is a rare commodity in Indonesian politics, where even seemingly random events are believed to be “engineered”. So it has been with the formation in April of an “anti-communist alliance” (AKA) of more than 30 right-wing and Muslim groups. Its activities in recent weeks in Jakarta and other cities have included purges of bookshops' shelves, burning of suspect books and attacks on left-wing politicians and their offices. On May 20th alliance supporters marked one of the anniversaries of Indonesia's nationalist movement with a menacing “sweep” of Jakarta's bookshops.