Indonesian history - The truth behind the 30th September Movement

[travellingchez]

I sure as some of you know that 30th September was the start of some of the Indonesia's bloodiest history.
Here is an summary below.

[COLOR=#333333][FONT=lucida grande]'HOW GENOCIDE BEGINS[/FONT][/COLOR]

[COLOR=#333333][FONT=lucida grande]Forty-seven years ago tonight, an event took place that changed the course of the history of Indonesia. In the middle of the night of September 30-October 1, seven military officers, six members of the general staff along with a lieutenant, were pulled from their houses in Jakarta, taken to an airforce base outside the city. Three had died in the fighting at their houses, the others were killed, shot to death, and all the bodies were buried in an old well at a place called Lubang Buaya, or the Crocodile Hole. In the title of a superb book by [/FONT][/COLOR]John Roosa[COLOR=#333333][FONT=lucida grande], this became a "pretext for mass murder," a series of pogroms and summary executions and in which approximately 500,000 Indonesian communists and suspected leftists (and others just caught in the way) were killed, largely at the instigation of conservative factions of the military who then took control of Indonesia for the next 33 years.[/FONT][/COLOR]

[COLOR=#333333][FONT=lucida grande]An important part of why the Indonesian military was able to do this was because of a story they created about the events at Lubang Buaya. In the official version, members of the Communist Party women's movement, known as Gerwani, were said to have formed an unruly hypersexualized mob, which danced nakedly and indecently in front of the captured generals before descending on them in an orgy of torture, cutting off the general's penises and testicles with razor blades and gouging out their eyes. The military roled this story out in the press beginning later that week, and through a series of "confessions" by Gerwani activists in the next several months.[/FONT][/COLOR]

[COLOR=#333333][FONT=lucida grande]'The story they told was a powerful one. It was also a complete fabrication. But because it lay at the very center of the new regime's authority, it became extended and amplified over the next several decades, eventually being made into a film that Indonesians were shown repeatedly on the anniversary of the events, then referred to as G-30-S, for Gerakan 30 September, or the 30th of September Movement, often with the letters PKI (Partai Komunis Indonesia) attached to underscore the official story that the communists were not only at fault (which can and is a debated topic) but also were uncivilized, inhuman, inhumane, Godless barbarians (which is clearly not the case) who needed to be exterminated in order for civilization and order to be restored to Indonesia.[/FONT][/COLOR]

[COLOR=#333333][FONT=lucida grande]This is how genocide works. You tell stories that demonize and dehumanize the people you are afraid of and opposed to, and you use their subhuman status not only to justify their killing, but to necessitate it.[/FONT][/COLOR]

[COLOR=#333333][FONT=lucida grande]And in this case, (as in others as well,) the story that was told revolves around "evil" women and the base sexuality ascribed to them. It is an old story.[/FONT][/COLOR]

[COLOR=#333333][FONT=lucida grande]Few people have gone back and really traced the development of this story. But, lucky for you, I have.' Posted by Charley Sullivan [/FONT][/COLOR]https://www.facebook.com/rowcoach/po...51112051294107

For those of you that are interested to find out more there are some interesting articles about it in this week's Tempo. Here are the links to the Indonesian version.
[COLOR=#333333]http://www.tempo.co/edsus/konten-ber...anda-Orde-Baru
http://www.tempo.co/edsus/konten-ber...itik-Film-G30S[/COLOR]

The film 'The year of living dangerously' also focuses on some of the issues surrounding this day.

[Abook looty]

Perspective is the issue here....
We still dont know how the actual real story is....

[travellingchez]

No but you can almost 100% guaranty that it wasn't anything like the propaganda that the Indonesian government subjected the nation to for so long in order to cover up the horror of what they did.

As they say 'history is written by the victors'.

[waarmstrong]

We certainly know who benefited. The truth has been masterfully expunged, but it is still not impossible to connect the dots.

[Nimbus]

The story of Lubang Buaya is compelling, but it is naive to think one incident was enough to trigger widespread killing. Most of the military, the nationalists (PNI), and religious organizations were all against the communists well before September 30, 1965. In my opinion conflict was bound to happen one way or another, because Indonesia was in a terrible shape with widespread shortage of basic necessities. I think the only question was who gets to die for this, and I'm not sorry that my family was not on the wrong side of history.

[waarmstrong]

The political backdrop of the cold war gave the perpetrators cover, but what happened was an internal affair with the army destroying all vestiges of its left-wing rivals, in fact all of its rivals and potential rivals.

[Hombre de Maiz]

Perspective is the issue here....
We still dont know how the actual real story is....

The principal reason why the real story, that is, the full story is unknown to this day is that the Indonesian government has sought to repress, bury and distort information around it. Another reason is that an entire regime was built upon and legitimated on the myths created from this episode. Yet another reason is that the official story of laying the blame squarely and fully at the feet of godless communists dovetails quite neatly with societal prejudices and religious intolerance against atheism. It doesn't help any that most Indonesians are in ignorance or denial about the whole thing.

That a good half a million Indonesians were slaughtered, with the acquiescence if not the tacit approval of the state, is relatively well established and beyond question. You can also determine who was the effective head of state and who were in charge of the security forces during those crucial years of 1965-1967. That we do not know everything does not mean that we do not know quite a lot. This discourse of "we don't know the real story" is part and parcel of the greater discourse of distortion, denial and supression that have characterized these unfortunate events since day one.

[ponyexpress]

The obsession with the 'real story' is in fact impeding any genuine effort to comprehend the event from a different perspective based on the ultimate value of humanity. In other words, this obsession can easily deny any alternative narrative of the event.

Particularly striking is that the demonisation of communism during the New Order was so effective in that people are not willing to acknowledge what survivors had been through. Yes, the party did some mistakes in the past, but the summary executions of more than 500.000 people were a disproportionate reaction. Some Islamic groups such as DI/TII did a mistake as well but people acknowledge all survivors of Priok. Arguably, the Indonesian military during the Suharto killed more people than the Indonesian Communist Party ever did, yet people might be more willing to forgive them. On the other hand, a former communist member will have no sympathy from society at all.

[Hombre de Maiz]

What do you make, Pony, of these suggestions that these events, while bad, were not as bad as those of the colonial order because they were Indonesian-on-Indonesian rather than European-on-Indonesian?

[ponyexpress]

What do you make, Pony, of these suggestions that these events, while bad, were not as bad as those of the colonial order because they were Indonesian-on-Indonesian rather than European-on-Indonesian?

A comparative question such as this might not be helpful, I reckon. I can however understand if this suggestion is widely used to justify any repression committed by the state. This issue brings us to the important point on nationalism in Indonesia. As nationalism in Indonesia is dogged by anti-colonial sentiment, it unfortunately leads to an inward looking attitude. They despise anything foreign and continuously employ the 'othering process' as a means to beef up their nationalism.

[ponyexpress]

The political backdrop of the cold war gave the perpetrators cover, but what happened was an internal affair with the army destroying all vestiges of its left-wing rivals, in fact all of its rivals and potential rivals.

That's pretty much John Roosa's reappraisal of the event; a coup is a pretext to wipe out left-leaning supporters and Soekarnoists. Later on, they turned on Islam.

[Hombre de Maiz]

It's been nearly a decade since I last read M.C. Ricklef's general survey, but a sentence at the end of the chapter covering this episode stays with me. Ricklefs ends that chapter by noting that on that date the conflicting forces underlying Guided Democracy came crashing down, taking down with it the regime of extravagant hypocrisy and corruption built by Sukarno.

The Year of Living Dangerously often feels like the love story of two expats set against the background of 1965. At the end, however, Mel Gibson's photographer commits suicide in protest, after having seen that Sukarno gave not a rat's ass about the people, and was only concerned about accumulating power, teenage virgins and feeding his already enormous ego. Here we had the Father of the Nation who less than two decades after fighting the Dutch was ready to pimp out the country to the Communists and the Chinese.

[wombat]

Are there any books you folks recommend that can best describe this historic event? A book that is not too academic nor too novel like.

[ponyexpress]

Are there any books you folks recommend that can best describe this historic event? A book that is not too academic nor too novel like.

John Roosa's Pretext for Mass Murder is easy to read and very insightful. His is perhaps one of the great sources on the subject.
Harold Crouch, The Army and Politics in Indonesia is rather dense. It might be because of his background in political science.
Robert Cribb, The Indonesian Killings of 1965 is a compilation of writings on the event. An apt general survey, I must say.
Geoffrey Robinson, The Dark Side of Paradise: Political Views in Bali, has a good account on the killings in Bali.

[ponyexpress]

It's been nearly a decade since I last read M.C. Ricklef's general survey, but a sentence at the end of the chapter covering this episode stays with me. Ricklefs ends that chapter by noting that on that date the conflicting forces underlying Guided Democracy came crashing down, taking down with it the regime of extravagant hypocrisy and corruption built by Sukarno.

The Year of Living Dangerously often feels like the love story of two expats set against the background of 1965. At the end, however, Mel Gibson's photographer commits suicide in protest, after having seen that Sukarno gave not a rat's ass about the people, and was only concerned about accumulating power, teenage virgins and feeding his already enormous ego. Here we had the Father of the Nation who less than two decades after fighting the Dutch was ready to pimp out the country to the Communists and the Chinese.

I haven't read Ricklef in ages too. I agree that Sukarno's political ambition cost him a disastrous economic situation and his charisma failed to unite all the conflicting forces. However, the killings of alleged and supporters of the Indonesian communist party and left-leaning activists should not be seen as his punishment for all mistakes he's made.