Blast from the Past
Even after Suharto’s death, the New Order remains strong in Indonesia.
Indonesia is facing a Communist crisis. Though 50 years have passed since Suharto’s bloody massacre, the Communists did not die. No, they went underground, avoided the light of day, waiting in silence for the day when they would be back. Knowing this, the Suharto administration did all it could to poison an entire generation into accepting the mass murder of millions of innocent Indonesians.
“Communists are bad. They have no god, they don’t like our country. They’re vicious brutes who want to destroy our way of living. They can’t be reasoned with. They’re sly, cunning, and will do anything it takes to push their perverted ideology! We must remain vigilant! Always beware the latent danger that is Communism!”
Of course, Suharto is dead now. Good riddance. Yet his legacy still remains, or should I say, haunts the nation: an entire generation, most of them dinosaurs sitting in positions of power, brainwashed into believing that anything with the colour red and boasting a sickle-hammer logo is automatically associated with Communism.
Now more so than ever. Commie-phobia in Indonesia is not a new thing. It has been that way since the Suharto administration, and it is an irrational fear that continues to permeate in Indonesian society. And it is dangerous to continue to hold on to this irrational fear.
In 2016 alone, several people have been arrested just because the Police thought they were associated with the forbidden Communist Party. A guy wearing a red T-shirt with the sickle-hammer logo (the logo of the Communist Party) was arrested. He allegedly bought the shirt at Blok M, a popular market in the south of Jakarta.
Perhaps the funniest one is the arrest of a guy who wore a T-shirt with the words “PKI”, which turned out to be the acronym of a coffee lovers group (Pecinta Kopi Indonesia). See, it just goes to show that the Police can’t tell between blatant propaganda and witty humour. It also shows that the Police are more concerned about bogeymen rather than actual issues. They should know propaganda, especially when every two days or so, extreme Islamists continue to pose an actual threat to the national ideology.
But the issue that really got on my nerves was the confiscating of books deemed to have “leftist tendencies” or in other words, related to Communism. This was revealed when around a week ago, the Army was shown to be involved in a series of book confiscations (CNN, 2016). The books were critical texts regarding the 1965 coup. Furthermore, the book raids were encouraged by an official for the Indonesian National Library (Tempo, 2016). The official, Dedi Junaedi, asserted that the ideological contents of the book could cause “public unrest” and were “against Pancasila”. Dedi was also in support of censuring and confiscating leftist literature.
Saya setuju. Karena dengan adanya buku-buku aliran kiri ternyata meresahkan. Zaman Orde Baru buku-buku itu dilarang untuk diedarkan … Buku-buku semacam itu tidak sesuai dengan Pancasila … Kalau ada buku itu nanti meresahkan, nanti terprovokasi.
The official later retracted his statement. But this raises an important issue. Since when did the Indonesian government become a medieval church? Despite having undergone almost two decades of Reformasi (Reformation), a period of time where supposedly Indonesians could finally be free of Suharto’s dictatorship, the shackles of the old regime still remains.
After all, the confiscation (and burning) of leftist or critical literature is nothing new in Indonesia. Take for example, the writings of the legendary Pramoedya Ananta Toer. Pramoedya’s Bumi Manusia tetralogy, along with his other works, have been banned by the Suharto government in 1981 based on the flimsy allegation that it contained elements of Communism and Leninism. None of that was mentioned in the tetralogy; it was simply political criticism wrapped in a fancy, down-to-earth narrative that appealed to the common man. It was only in 2010 that the ban was lifted for good. Or, if one were to look back in contemporary Indonesian history, when the Wahid administration wanted to revise history textbooks to take the demonization of the Communist Party down a notch in the early 2000s (Heryanto, Identity and Pleasure: The Politics of Indonesian Screen Culture, 2014). However, in 2007, the revised textbooks were banned by the Attorney General because they did not “conform to New Order propaganda” due to several omissions of the “wrongdoings” of the Communist Party in 1948 and 1965. Censorship of critical literature made a comeback in 2009, when the Attorney General banned more books with the potential to “disturb public order”. One of the books included was Roosa’s Pretext for Mass Murder (which I am currently enjoying; thanks Internet!), a critical examination of the 1965 massacre where Suharto used the Communist Party as a scapegoat.
It’s not just literature. Discussion of leftist and critical ideas are also under attack… again. As Heryanto notes, attacks on discussions have been happening since 2006, when a bookstore was raided by Permak (Anti-Communist Society) for holding a discussion on Marxism. Permak was not held guilty. Instead, the hosts of the discussion were arrested by the Police for “spreading banned ideas”. In more recent news, in 2015, the prestigious Ubud Writers and Readers Festival had to cancel a discussion panel on the 1965 coup and a screening of Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Look of Silence, a sequel to The Act of Killing. Both documentaries investigate the truth behind Suharto’s pogrom. In February 2016, a festival called Belok Kiri Festival which was supposedly an event that fostered discussion of leftist ideas, had to be cancelled by the Police due to security reasons. The reasons being that a group of Islamist hardliners (most likely the Islamic Defenders Front) were poised to raid the event. What baffles me is the blatant blame-shifting here. Why are the Police siding with violent birdbrains, not with the people’s freedom of expression that is protected by Article 28 of the Constitution?
There are three reasons why I think this Commie witch hunt is dangerous. It is not only dangerous to freedom of thought and expression, but may also set the stage for a far greater danger in the near future.
First, the crackdown on perceived Commie attributes indicates that the laws are not in the favour of the people, rather, crafted as a means to curb the development of unwanted ideologies for the interests of the elite. Communism as an ideology is banned in Indonesia, as stipulated by TAP MPRS no. 25/1966, which is further renewed in Law no. 27/1999. What I’ll be discussing here is the latter.
According to PELITA, this particular law is one of those “state secrets” that not many people know of. The Law mentions hefty punishments for the act of “spreading and/or developing the teachings of Communism/Marxism-Leninism in spoken or written form” (Art. 107a) and “expressing an intention to substitute and/or eliminate Pancasila as the sole state philosophy, leading to public unrest which causes casualties” (Art. 107b).
Emphasis should be put on Art. 107a. The term “spreading and/or developing” should be interpreted with caution, as it implies that any form of disseminating Marxist teachings would be punishable by law. Using this ambiguous Law as a pretext, authorities would have the right to arrest anyone involved in academic discussions on Communism, lectures about Communism, and even speaking about Communism on the evening train. This is clearly a threat to freedom of expression and thought, especially in the realm of academia and private life, which should be free of any political influences.
If one were to take this Law further, it would also imply that discussions surrounding the truth about the 1965 coup would also be off-limits, since it is unfortunately chronicled as the year when Commies tried to strip the wings of the Garuda.
Second, not talking about it increases paranoia, which increases the probability of idiots doing dangerous things. Just like the saying “people fear the unfamiliar”, curbing discussions on Communism and the 1965 massacre only serves to increase the fears already implanted by the Suharto regime. More open discussions and research on the truth behind 1965 and Communism as an ideology should be endorsed and welcomed with open arms; not literally beat to death by birdbrains in white robes or in orange camo suits. People need to know the truth, both behind the 1965 massacre and what Communism is and is not, not be force-fed indoctrination from an early age.
Luckily, the Internet is a saviour for many. There are many books and publications that critically discuss Indonesia’s dark past. So, even with censorship, the Internet can still provide Indonesians with the means they need to understand their irrational fears.
Finally, the crackdown on Communist attributes and discussions of leftist ideology may well be a distraction from the real issue at hand. It is one of the many sophisticated attempts to distract the Indonesian public from focusing their political will to actually do anything. One of those issues is the increasingly violent tendencies of extreme Muslims, which enjoy a “free pass” to carry around ISIS flags, push for the formation of a caliphate, and destroy churches whenever they want; and the ineptitude of law enforcement agencies to put these people away.
Perhaps a more fitting title for this sudden Commie witch hunt is not the reincarnation or the resurrection of Communism in Indonesia, rather, the resurrection of Suharto. Yes, Suharto is still pulling strings from beyond the grave and he might just figuratively rise from the grave if this suppression of the freedom of expression continues. Perhaps a full reconciliation with the dark past is still miles away. But repressing the voices of people that want amends to be made is like taking two steps backwards.
