Communication Against Capital: Red Enlightenment at the Dawn of Indonesia

Communication against Capital explores the revolutionary communication strategies of the pergerakan merah, the anticolonial ＂red movement＂ in 1920s Indonesia. Rianne Subijanto tells the story of ordinary lower-class women and children and people of diverse races and ethnicities who waged their battles against Dutch colonialism within multiple arenas of communication, including political associations, assemblies, printed matter, schools, and shipping lines. Existing communication technologies were repurposed into mechanisms of struggle and used as weapons in anticolonial and anticapitalist resistance. In this process, communist ideas merged with ideals drawn from the Enlightenment to shape the emancipatory spirit of Indonesians. This red enlightenment motivated the production of revolutionary communication strategies of mobilization.

Subijanto’s innovative work shows that the novel techniques of the pergerakan merah served to shift anticolonial mobilization in Indonesia from warfare to modern forms of communication.

Rianne Subijanto is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Baruch College, The City University of New York.