ARI Working Paper Series

In typical Indonesian fashion, when you land at Palembang, the first public name to greet the visitor is that given to the airport: Sultan Mahmud Badaruddin II, the last of the Palembang sultans, the provincial National Hero (Pahlawan Nasional), who resisted Dutch annexation, was subsequently exiled in 1821 and later died in Ternate. As you leave the airport grounds, though, you appear to move into a different world and period altogether and the other facet of Palembang’s schizophrenic identity is soon made obvious. The large motto ont the gates of the airport complex carries you one whole millennium back in time, as it reads: WELCOME TO BUMI SRIWIJAYA, in a plyglot mode well suited to the ancient cosmopolitan polity where parrots, according to one Arab traveller of the 10th century, could speak a variety of languages.