Talking about Indonesia, Its Distorted History and Its Present Day
We, human, always look back throughout our history. Somehow past events can have such an enormous impact on our present lives. But aren’t you familiar with sayings like “History is written by the victors”? As what Napoleon once said “What is history? but a fable agreed upon”.
We surely cannot generalize that idea, especially in this very age, where technology gave us an ability to connect and share our opinion and realities to each other around the world. But what about the events in history that happened long before this age?
Earlier this month, I finished reading Ariel Heryanto’s Identity and Pleasure, where in this book, he talks about popular culture can have an impact on our social life. In one of its chapters, Prof. Heryanto also uses an Indonesia Government’s Propaganda in the New Order regime as an example which then induced people’s sentiment towards certain groups. The propaganda which is a movie form is well known as Penumpasan Penghianatan G30 S PKI. This motion picture depicts the event known as Gerakan 30 September/ PKI (30 September Movement), then caused the death of six Indonesian army generals. Yet this movie mainly focuses on demonized the Indonesian Communist Party for its alleged coup d’état attempt on that event.
Furthermore, the New Order regime itself last for three decades and the results of such propaganda survive, even after the regime collapse in 1998.
After reading Identity and Pleasure, I also watched two documentaries, The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence. Both are directed by the same director, Joshua Oppenheimer, and also telling the same issue, the communist massacre on 1965–1966 following 30 September Movement. And I guess, these two films also try to unravel the truth of what happened back in 1965–1966 as also opposing the past propaganda by the New Order Regime.
By no means causing a deliberate debate upon this issue (communist and non-communist), in this writing, I’m trying to explore the ideas from those two documentaries and also books I enjoyed. As Prof. Heryanto put in Identity and Pleasure, which I think need to be quoted as a whole.
“Bereft of its complex and undesirable aspects, the nations past in official historiography as well as in literary writings and films, is a caricatured story consisting of a few great heroes (mainly the military and paramilitary leaders) and their defeated villains (mainly the Dutch colonizers or fellow nationals of left-leaning ideological orientation, including followers of Sukarno and members of the Indonesian Communist Party or their sympathizers). During much of the New Order rule, those who challenged the official history risked severe penalties. Such perspective remains largely intact, outliving the dismantling of the New Order regime. As a result, many Indonesians born an raised in the past two generations have been deprived of a basic and balanced education of their own national history.”
By this quote, we ought to consider that the caricatured story, as what has been resulted by the past government’s propaganda, might have an alternative story. In other words, our history (either partially or completely) might be distorted, oversimplified, or even forgotten. What snapped me is that when I started to read Stephen Chan’s The End of Certainty, he discuss earlier on that book about Finland nationalism, as he also quotes Max Jakobson;
“A nation is made not born. Nationhood is a frame of mind. A tribe, or an ethnic identity, is transformed into a nation by the development of a consciousness of a shared past and a common destiny. Such a consciousness can only be created by the historians and poets, artist and composers”
Stephen Chan makes use of the quote to elaborate how nationalism can emerge in the first place. Based on his elaboration, nationalism can be considered as socio-constructed and based on shared reality, in other words ‘frame of mind’. This shared reality is achieved through a consciousness of a shared past (history) and a common destiny.
What struck and concern me is when connecting the idea of those two books, we can consider that part of our history, Indonesian history, might have been distorted and forgotten. It means that we might have a different frame of mind, a different shared past. And how this difference can lead us to have a strong nationhood?
This very idea makes me wonder, is it one of many reasons why our political and social circumstances in Indonesia is so tense lately? As we faced a few years back (and might be in the following year, towards presidential election). Although we frequently heard the famous tagline, “NKRI Harga Mati” (NKRI is an acronym for Negara Kesatuan Republik Indonesia, which means Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia. Harga Mati literally means “fixed price”. So the tagline would refer to the status of Indonesia as a Unitary State is undisputed and unaltered), yet that tagline seems quite insignificant.
As what I previously mentioned, despite talking about these movies and also the massacre of the communist in 1965–1966, it isn’t the intentions of mine to bring this issues back and arguing over communist and non-communist. I also don’t mean to overrule the 1965–1966 mass killings as crimes against humanity as well as any further law and legal process against it.
“History is never black or white but maybe shades of grey is enough. Because the goal of history is not to pick a side, it is to understand what went wrong so that we can make sure it will never happen again.”
But focussing on the future of Indonesia society. It’s a self-reminder for all of us that to have a strong nationhood and tolerance we need to have a shared idea of our past and destiny. Thus, we need the will to reevaluate our history and find the shared past that accepted by all of us. The shared past that less ambiguous than the one we own. For I also believe it is a way to overcome the growing intolerance in our society and to create a peaceful one.
Thank You
