Timor-Leste: unlearning in order to be

Abstract

As one of the newest nations in the world, and one that will not be familiar to some readers, a little needs to be said about Timor-Leste’s colonial and more recent past as a backdrop to looking at its present and questions of decoloniality. The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste is a nation that emerged out of 500 years of colonial occupation and is now deeply embedded in the contradictions and complexity of resisting neo-colonial incursions. These as global corporations mobilise their economic power to ‘develop’ the nation’s offshore oil and gas resources. Geographically Timor-Leste is at the southern tip of Indonesia’s Lesser Sunda Archipelago, some 500 kilometres from Northwestern Australia. Its location is regarded by numerous powers as strategically significant in terms of ‘regional security’, its proximity to Indonesia, the value of its offshore gas and oil resources, and its location within an emergent ‘zone of risk’ (marked by the expansion of the Chinese Navy into the Pacific and the increasing USA military presence in Northern Australia).