Tan Malako
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Tan Malako
@tanmalako.bsky.social
Professional lounger & part-time daydreamer. Expert in scrolling, binge-watching, and perfecting the blanket cocoon. Seeking paid napping opportunities.
Almost every village in South Sulawesi has at least one person bearing this title. Quantitatively, the number is far too large to be called aristocratic.
medium.com/@tanmalako09...
Andi: Aristocratic Title or Missionary Invention?
Andi: Aristocratic Title or Missionary Invention? History is not merely a record of the past, but rather a battlefield of ideologies about who is entitled to write, who is allowed to speak, and who …
medium.com
September 7, 2025 at 2:31 PM
Read “Noble Titles as Colonial Instruments: Feudal Engineering in Bugis and the Indonesian Archipelago“ by Tanmalako on Medium: medium.com/@tanmalako09...
Noble Titles as Colonial Instruments: Feudal Engineering in Bugis and the Indonesian Archipelago
Noble Titles as Colonial Instruments: Feudal Engineering in Bugis and the Indonesian Archipelago History has always been a battlefield between facts and constructions. It cannot be understood merely …
medium.com
September 6, 2025 at 1:37 PM
August 28, 2025 at 4:02 PM
“Try letting your tongue wander just a bit: Majapahit – Majavahit – Majawahit – Jawahit….ma, hold up —Jawa Hitam! Black Java!“

Read “History on a Slip of the Tongue: From Majapahit to Jawa Hitam“ by Tanmalako on Medium: medium.com/@tanmalako09...
History on a Slip of the Tongue: From Majapahit to Jawa Hitam
Wordplay is like original sin—you can’t avoid it, you can only confess it. It doesn’t happen because you plan it, but because the human tongue was made slippery—and sometimes, it’s more honest than…
medium.com
August 27, 2025 at 3:48 PM
Asteric & Obelix
#cat #calico
August 26, 2025 at 2:29 PM
Say “Gajah Mada” out loud with a slightly East Javanese accent: “GA-JAH-MA-DA” — “KA-CA-MA-TA.” And there you have it. The great collapse of official Indonesian history: Gajah Mada wasn’t a historical figure, he was a phonetic disguise, a colonial wordplay, or ...
medium.com/@tanmalako09...
Gajah Mada: The Glasses That Conquered the World
Gajah Mada (Credit: Gembel Ningrat/Pinterest)
medium.com
August 26, 2025 at 2:26 PM
August 25, 2025 at 6:24 PM
Asterix & Obelix
#cat #calico
August 25, 2025 at 6:22 PM
“Could a CCTV camera really be pointed so precisely at the site of an “unforeseen” explosion—without regard for its own building’s security? Was it watching something that hadn’t happened yet—or something already on the scheduled."
medium.com/@tanmalako09...
The Anomalies of the Makassar Suicide Bombing 2021
Screenshot fron video “Seconds Before The Blast”
medium.com
August 25, 2025 at 10:02 AM
“In many cases, even those on the edge of destruction — poor, isolated, humiliated — still look for reasons to endure, to live just one more day.“

Read “Anatomy of an Explosion: The Psychology Behind Suicide Bombings“ by Tanmalako on Medium: medium.com/@tanmalako09...
Anatomy of an Explosion: The Psychology Behind Suicide Bombings
There is no instinct stronger in the human condition than the desire to live. Even when the body is riddled with terminal illness, when medical prognoses count life in mere months, humans cling to…
medium.com
August 25, 2025 at 9:59 AM
“Just look at its anatomy. A half-moon shape, plump on the sides, rising in the center. The top is split open, like a slit purposely left unsealed.“

Read “Pukis: A People’s Snack, an Elite’s Fantasy“ by Tanmalako on Medium: medium.com/@tanmalako09...
Pukis: A People’s Snack, an Elite’s Fantasy
Pukis
medium.com
August 18, 2025 at 12:08 PM
August 18, 2025 at 10:55 AM
“-and today—it stands at Rp 16,450 per USD. If counted from before the 1965 sanering, one US dollar today equals Rp 16,450,000. A number that sounds prestigious—until you realize it only buys you one plate of nasi padang and a ride home.“
medium.com/@tanmalako09...
History of Zero in Rupiah
1 rupiah 1965.
medium.com
August 18, 2025 at 5:44 AM
“The people watch officials dance, and for a moment forget about soaring food prices, mounting national debt, or the rupiah’s staggering collapse—depreciating more than four million times since the first independence ceremony.“
medium.com/@tanmalako09...
Swaying Independence: Comedy of August 17
Every 17 of August, something oddly comic replays itself in Jakarta. The State Palace, usually a stage for stiff ceremonies and sacred rituals of the republic, suddenly transforms into something…
medium.com
August 18, 2025 at 5:14 AM
"Rakyat menonton pejabat menari, dan sejenak lupa pada harga pangan yang melonjak, utang negara yang menumpuk, atau nilai tukar rupiah yang melemah lebih dari empat juta kali lipat sejak upacara kemerdekaan pertama kali diselenggarakan."
www.kompasiana.com/tanmalako071...
Komedi 17 Agustus: Republik dalam Irama Pinggul
Ada yang menggelitik setiap kali bulan Agustus tiba. Halaman Istana Negara, yang biasanya dipenuhi oleh formalisme negara dengan segala liturgi protok
www.kompasiana.com
August 18, 2025 at 4:50 AM
August 16, 2025 at 6:32 AM
“It is naïve to think this scene was accidental. Every shot in a production like this goes through scripting, directing, multiple takes, and editing. If it made it into the final cut, it was intentional. What we are seeing is not a leftover trace of repression, but a deliberate insertion—"
#mairil
The Hidden Curriculum: Decoding the Symbolic Violence of Indonesia’s 1994 Education Campaign
In 1994, the Indonesian government released its Nine-Year Compulsory Education campaign video—an artifact bursting with cheerful colors, smiling faces, and a seemingly wholesome message. It opens…
medium.com
August 15, 2025 at 9:06 AM
---what we are reading may not be historia rerum gestarum—the history of what truly happened—but historia narrata—history as told, assembled, and manipulated by certain powers.
Historiography and Power
Whoever Controls the Past Controls the Future
medium.com
August 14, 2025 at 4:55 PM