Engineers and Political Dreams

Abstract

In 1976 Indonesia became the first country in the developing world to have its own satellite system. From the start, the satellite was celebrated as an exemplary national achievement with the capacity to unite the archipelago nation. This paper describes the contours of the satellite discourse and explains its historical genealogy. It focuses on a small group of mediators, including engineers, entrepreneurs, and officials, who were instrumental in building the satellite system and giving it a political meaning. Drawing on oral and textual historical documentation, the paper describes the complex local, national, and global contexts in which the satellite discourse emerged. These included such global circumstances as the space race and such local circumstances as antiChinese riots on the campus of the Bandung Institute of Technology, where some of the engineers were based. It then traces the manner in which the entrepreneurial ambitions of these engineers helped spread the satellite discourse beyond the confines of the national elite and how this ended up affecting the way the satellite system was built. Finally, the paper explores some of the limits of the nationalist discourse.