Violence, Legacies, Silence

Abstract

This chapter draws together the main threads of the story and argument, and suggests some of their broader implications. It does so by returning to the three central questions posed at the outset: How can we explain the violence? What have been its consequences? And why has so little been said or done about it in the past half century? While focusing on the Indonesian story, the chapter also points to some ways in which that experience might inform our general understanding of the logic of mass killing and incarceration, the legacies of such violence, and the ways in which it is dealt with over time.