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rowing up as a teenager in the 1990s was easier than today. You got to listen to high-quality rock bands, pop and other MTV hits that were considered original.

However, I then came to realize, after reading many books and hanging out with friends from different social groups that something was not right about our country.

As a high school graduate I attended a 100-hour class on the state ideology, Pancasila, and its elaboration, Butir-butir P4 (guidelines for the internalization and manifestation of Pancasila). That was my first official engagement with statehood following school ceremonies and weekly flag salutations.

In my first semester at university I asked a lecturer, why do we need those lengthy lessons on Pancasila? He said, “we need to arm ourselves against dangerous ideologies infiltrating [the country], i.e. communism.”

Hence, every Oct. 1 the Pancasila Sanctity Day, Hari Kesaktian Pancasila, is celebrated as a totem to remind Indonesians of the ideology’s might against communism. What is so sakti (sacred) about Pancasila?

Only after reading the famed novels of Pramoedya Ananta Toer, I discovered huge diversions from the official version about the 1965 failed coup attempt. The 1989 arrest of activist Bonar Tigor Naipospos, aka Coki, of Gadjah Mada University was a story retold among activists. Why was the state fearful of a student distributing copies of books?

We used to live in constant, if not orchestrated, fear. Fear that our culture will be infiltrated by a latent danger. Rene Descartes once said, “If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.”

So, I wondered about many things — such as why the 1965 past was not openly talked about, but only among particular groups of students, activists and senior citizens.

My first real encounter with the 1965 issue was during a project I was involved with, documenting stories from survivors of the violence. Initiated by the literary Lontar Foundation in 2000, it collected stories from interviews with senior citizens.

Oral history was the method used to dig into their accounts about the years of 1965 to 1970s, which my team and I learned beforehand in a two-day class in Yogyakarta.

The experience was fascinating. I managed to interview 15 survivors living around South Jakarta. A book of the accounts was published and I was happy to get two copies. Unfortunately, I no longer have the original files, which included my interview with former political prisoner Tedjabayu Sudjojono, the son of the late painter Sudjojono. He was a young student when arrested in Yogyakarta.

Another encounter with the 1965 events came when I joined discussions on a book by the researcher Hermawan Sulistyo, Palu Arit di Ladang Tebu (Hammer and Sickle in the Sugar Cane Field), originally his dissertation from Ohio State University. I learned again that history is not a mono narrative. It involved different actors in particular sequences of time and place, involving various point of views.

I was deeply sympathetic to stories of those families who were torn apart, not knowing the precise cause of why it all happened the way it did.

The stories of misery that I read in these books or heard directly from survivors were real. Their experience of being dehumanized reflected a loss of civilization.

Thus when a friend invited me to help facilitate a workshop with a national coalition to stop violence, the KKPK, with the noted activist Galuh Wandita, of course I agreed. It was an honor. The forum was an initial effort after many trial years to formulate recommendations to the government on how to settle the 1965 issues.

So my appreciation for the National Symposium 1965 of April 18-19 is personal. It was a release, being there as a citizen in a new era of democracy and openness. Freedom of expression was visible. Different views did not matter.

I could not imagine this happening after the long period of secrecy, where opening your mouth about Marxist teachings could send you to a lifetime of exile on Buru Island. It was a happy feeling. I appreciated the hard work of the committee. Of course to expect a concrete follow up from the government after the controversial two-day symposium is unrealistic.

Especially when the new government is still in its early days of consolidation on the one hand, while on the other hand not all parties agreed to the reopening of the 1965 cases — perhaps because of their particular interests, among other reasons.

Indonesia’s younger generation need to live their life with a clearer knowledge of their past. Where else can we find the truth if not from our own history?

Disputing parties can reconcile when truth is told, followed by acceptance and letting go of the past.

Recognition that once not too long ago a massacre took place in this country can give one better understanding on why the youth today still need to understand the Pancasila, but for a different reason. No longer is it to merely memorize magical “anticommunist” creeds — but to uphold, as the
Pancasila’s second point says, “kemanusiaan yang adil dan beradab”, a just and civilized humanity.