Survivor of the
concentration camp on Buru Island, Hersri Setiawan, writes in his
"Memoar Pulau Buru" (2016) that the most disastrous legacy
of Suharto regime was the creation of what he calls "kinthel
nation." Kinthel is a small
brown toad which immediately conceals itself when touched;
it blends in with litter. The term was first used by Indonesia's
first president Sukarno.
"Kinthel
nation" is cowardly and insecure. It lacks in courage to
face and evaluate the social reality,
to receive criticizm, to flourish. Sukarno's fear
of Indonesia becoming a kinthel nation were materialized in the
statement of the then Chief Security
Minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan who claimed that Indonesia
is a great nation but at the same time denied the decision of
the International People's Tribunal on 1965 Crimes Against Humanity. The
tribunal saw the Indonesian state responsible for purges in
which more than 800.000 of its citizens were slain.
Pandjaitan's
refusal to follow the tribunal's recommendations shows that the
dominant forces inside President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's government
continue the legacy of his predecessors (except for KH Abdurrahman Wahid) of
burying the truth about the state involvement in 1965 massacres.
The
government's stance is ambivalent; contradictory standpoints are observed
among the cabinet members. can be seen position between two camps approach
inside this regime. The hardliner position is represented by Defense Minister
Ryamizard Ryacudu who refutes all attempts to uncover the truth
behind the 1965 massacres and sees the efforts to discuss
them publicly as maneuvers of neo-communists to destabilize the
country.
The more
moderate faction is represented by Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan who
allowed to open a discussion on these traumatic historical
events. However, his refusal to accept the
tribunal's recommendation and advance the state investigation shows
that commitment was only halfhearted .
From the
political perspective, the government's reluctance to reveal the state
engagement and participation of the right wing social forces in the
purges, as well as no apparent will to prosecute the perpetrators,
cannot be isolated from the calculation of power, interests and social
struggles.
The post-authoritarian
constellation of power and its connections with Suharto regime, explain
the government's reluctance to face the 1965 tragedy and indicate that the
present political configuration in Indonesia is a continuation rather than
cessation of Suharto's New Order.
History and power
The
resistance of the powers that be is unsurprising, reminiscent of the famous
sentence from George Orwell's "1984" — "Who controls the
past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past."
The official
selection of which historical events should be remembered and preserved,
or forgotten and excluded is connected to the matter of legitimation of
power. In the concrete historical social struggle in Indonesia, the
annihilation of leftist and nationalist-populist groups in the '65 pogrom paved
the way for Suharto and his social alliances to seek and preserve their power
by creating socio-political architecture which guarantees the absent of
strong social forces to challenge the authoritarian rule and highly predatory
capitalist state.
The
accusation of a leftist group that tried to betray this nation and Suharto
military forces and its right wing social alliances respond through extreme
violence activities should be narrated in official history as sacred duty to
save the nation from communist threat. The regime hegemonic capacity to control
the past ('65 tragedy) by explaining this moment not as state apparatus
violence against its citizen, but as military and its social alliances
responsible under Suharto leadership to protect this nation by leftist purge
become their crucial legitimation to rule Indonesia.
Furthermore
the fall of Suharto in 1998 did not make a political change in the context of
Indonesia power constellation. The military, politicians, bureaucracy,
businessmen as well as social activist who support Suharto regime also obtained
their power and wealth resources from New Order protection can be able to adapt
the new political circumstance in reform era by creating new politico-business
alliances.
Based on
political economic interests of the recently dominant power in Indonesia, they
still need a historical legitimation of their social roots as protector of this
nation, instead of uncovering the truth that explained their social group's
participation in the '65 massacres as part of human right violation and
manifestation of state crime activity toward its people.
However, the
state's denial to confess what happened in '65 and state the human rights
violation toward its people is not without consequences for
Indonesia's future destiny. The social history of Indonesia from the
Suharto era shows that state violence towards its citizens in order to suppress
the critical voice that refers to '65 annihilation has been replicated as a
power pattern and still continues until this moment, even though the political
institution has been changed from authoritarian toward democracy. Therefore,
this country needs a confession about state failure in order to rehabilitate
social life.
Without a
state commitment to admit its responsibility to violence activity in '65, we
will always be haunted by the spiral of violence by the state apparatus into
our people which occurred in Papua, or the marginalization of minority groups
in some areas. Therefore, we will be cursed as kinthel nation, instead of a
great nation which can evaluate its own failure in the past.
Airlangga
Pribadi Kusman is a lecturer at the Faculty of Social and Political Science,
Airlangga University, Surabaya. He obtained his PhD from the Asia
Research Center, Murdoch University, Perth.
No comments:
Post a Comment