Whose Suffering? National Identity and the Contest to Define Victimhood in Indonesia’s Genocide

ABSTRACT

This article compares the ways in which different groups construct competing visions of Indonesian collective identity, based on their own definitions of victimhood in the mass violence of 1965–1966. The linkages between nationalism and the New Order’s virulent anti-communism have long been acknowledged. However, recent scholarship on the heterogeneity of narratives about the Indonesian genocide has largely overlooked what these ancillary or competing narratives imply about national identity. To fill this gap, this article examines the genealogies of and relationships between three major contemporary trauma narratives: the state’s official history, the Front Pembela Islam’s extension of the official narrative, and civil society discourses based on human rights. Through applying the sociological framework of cultural trauma, I argue that how each group draws the boundaries of victimhood is intricately tied to its particular assumptions about the essential characteristics of Indonesian society and its prescriptions for how to preserve the nation.

KEYWORDS:

• Communism
• 1965
• genocide
• Indonesia
• New Order
• PKI
• cultural trauma
• nationalism
• FPI
• human rights

Acknowledgements

I thank Jeffrey Alexander, Ron Eyerman, Lynda Paul, David Hundt, Robbie Peters, Hanna Yovita Onggano and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. Moreover, this project would not have been possible without the help of numerous interviewees who kindly took time out of their schedules to discuss such sensitive issues. I am especially indebted to Jess Melvin and Ayu Wahyuningroem for their enthusiasm, guidance and referrals throughout the entire project.

Notes

1. All translations from Bahasa Indonesia were made by the author.

2. A collection of publications and videos of sermons is currently housed in the Library of Congress, Washington.

3. The FPI differs from more radical groups such as Jemaah Islamiyah because it does not demand an overhaul of Indonesia’s constitution, but only the incorporation of more of the discarded Jakarta Charter of 1945, which was a compromise between Islamic and secular leaders during Indonesia’s independence struggle (Rizieq, 2011, p. 158).

4. YPKP 65, ELSAM and SekBer ’65 are three major NGOs that have strong programmes specifically oriented towards attending to the needs of survivors and helping them to engage in dialogue. These organisations are also members of the KKPK coalition.

5. Major episodes of violence after 1965 include the imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of political detainees, the mysterious killings of the early 1980s, the Tanjung Priok killings of 1984, and the anti-Chinese pogroms of 1998.

Additional information

Funding

This project was supported by the Lewis P. Curtis Fellowship, the Program in Grand Strategy Fellowship, and the Leitner International Research Fellowship.