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span class="inline inline-left">Linawarti Sidarto In his soothing voice, writer Ahmad Tohari sliced open two of Indonesia’s most sensitive subjects — the killings of 1965 and religious extremism — in front of a rapt audience of some 150 people in The Hague recently.

“Never again. This should never happen again. People have to learn about this tragedy,” Ahmad said shortly after reading a fragment from Ronggeng Dukuh Paruk, a novel that describes the suffering of ordinary civilians in the aftermath of Indonesia’s political turmoil in the 1960s.

Ahmad, 64, was one of the main speakers at the annual Dutch literary event Writers Unlimited. When Writers Unlimited began two decades ago, it mainly focused on writers from countries with historical ties to the Netherlands. In later years it expanded to include authors from Latin America, Asia and the Middle East.

Big Indonesian names like Rendra, Goenawan Mohamad and Leila S. Chudori were speakers in past years.

Ahmad started writing Ronggeng Dukuh Paruk in the early 1980s, it was only in 2003 — 15 years after the fall of former president Soeharto — that the trilogy was published uncensored in Indonesia.

Gen. Soeharto came to power after a failed coup in September 1965, blamed on the country’s Communist Party or PKI. The killings and arbitrary arrests of over a million people in the aftermath of the coup was a taboo subject during Soeharto’s three-decade rule.

The author said he wrote the book because “it was my responsibility as an eyewitness”, although he knew that writing it during Soeharto’s time was risky. This, however, did not mean that he wasn’t scared. “While I wrote the book I felt like there was a pistol pointed to my head.”

Ronggeng Dukuh Paruk reached a wider audience when it was brought to the big screen in 2011. Nevertheless, Ahmad has no illusions that his book is being read by many people beyond a small circle of students, teachers and intellectuals.  

Noted Dutch writer and documentary-maker Adriaan van Dis, who accompanied Ahmad on stage, said the book engulfed him. “I read it for five days straight. I was in another world.”

“My book makes people think, and not just feel good. Maybe not many of my people like to think,” Ahmad said, chuckling sadly.

Michel Maas, a Jakarta-based Dutch journalist who moderated the talk, pointed out that young Indonesian audiences were “shocked” after watching the US-made documentary The Act of Killing, in which perpetrators of 1965 killings detailed how they carried out the murders. “It was an eye-opener for many of these young Indonesians, who had no idea what happened during that time.”

In a low voice, Ahmad added that no matter how graphically the documentary described the murders, “it can never be as cruel as the things I’ve seen in my village.”

Asked after the talk what he meant by his statement, he hesitantly said, “Like this man who was the headmaster at my school. His son was only in junior high school, and they were, but enough about that.” His voice broke and he abruptly stopped, making it clear he did not want to relive that memory.

It was not just the military that gave him the jitters when he wrote his book. “Some ulema were also not happy with me.” This, Ahmad explained, was very close to home as he comes from a religious family. Srintil, the main character of his book, was a village dancer who many deem sinful. My family asked “‘Why write about a prostitute?’. ‘That’s not proper as a good Muslim,’ they said.”

“I quoted a Koran verse which says that everything under the sky belongs to God. This means a ronggeng also belongs to God, so why not write about her?”

Asked whether the man, who still lives in his native village in Central Java’s Banyumas area, was worried that a more extreme form of Islam is expanding its influence in Indonesia, he answered: “I was born in Central Java, and I live amongst water buffaloes, not camels. I am Muslim in Indonesia, not in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan.”

He trusts that most Muslims in Indonesia share his conviction. “Islam means peace, love and justice, and not just praying, fasting, or going on the haj.”

Ahmad, looking frail in a brown batik shirt and woollen cap, gently urged that big issues should never be viewed in black and white.

“When discussing 1965, please look at the political and social conditions which led to it,” pointing to the mounting hostility among Indonesia’s many factions in the years prior to the coup.

He recalls that his father, who owned 1.5 hectares of land and had 12 children, was dubbed a “capitalist agent and the village devil” by the local chapter of the leftist Farmers Association or BTI.

“If we don’t scrutinize these different aspects, we will never learn from history,” he said, questioning coyly whether the Dutch had learned anything from the colonial era in Indonesia.

The same, he continues, goes for so-called Muslim fanaticism. “For example, look at the FPI [Islam Defenders Front]. Who are they? Who is behind them?”

The root of the problem here, he said, is poverty and inequality. “Do you think most of those young men would use violence if they were going to school and had hope for a bright future?”

As he is skeptical that those responsible for the 1965 killings would ever be brought to justice, he believes that a reconciliation effort, similar to that in South Africa, would be a more realistic path for Indonesia.

The majority of the audience was graying, such as Barbara Brouwer, the wife of poet Sitor Situmorang.

But some were younger, like consultant Flip Kuypers, 32, whose parents were born in Indonesia. “It was really interesting to hear about the events of 1965, which very few Dutch people are aware of.”