A wave of religious and cultural revivalist movementshas swept through Indonesia since the fall of theSuharto regime in 1998. A desire to revive moralvalues perceived to be under threat by the advent ofa late modern consumer society can now be observedacross the full spectrum of the archipelago's manydifferent religious, ethnic and regional identities,and not just among Muslims. In part, this revivalreflects a new freedom of expression and politicalorganization that arose in the subsequent Reformasi period and hasallowed Indonesians to voice revivalist sentimentsand associated political aspirations openly for thefirst time in three decades. However, the currentproliferation of religious revivalist movements isnot simply an Indonesian or even a Southeast Asianphenomenon, but has been a dominant feature ofglobal politics and numerous conflicts throughoutthe post-Cold War period. This phenomenon makes amockery of the so-called secularization theory ofreligion, which foretold that religion would vanishfrom the public sphere under the impact ofmodernization. Late modern societies, however, arenow displaying a resurgence of religion and a returnof religion to the public sphere. Does this meanthat the magic of modernity has failed to captivatethem? Or is this the magic that makes life underconditions of late modernity liveable?

My aim in this chapter is thus to consider what makesethnic or religious revivalism so attractive to latemodern Indonesians, to others in the wider SoutheastAsian region, and throughout the world, and what maybe the defining features of the late modern way oflife and the new world order that it seeks toaddress. The search for an explanation for thisphenomenon must necessarily begin with an analysisof the present moment in Indonesian national historyand politics to answer to the specificities of thisparticular empirical study, given that there is morethan one way of being modern or late modern.However, because the wider phenomenon of religiousrevival is a global one, I will also take intoconsideration the broader context of contemporarygeopolitics, which reflects global processes ofchange in this present era of late modernity.