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wave of hope for reconciliation, and controversy, surged as the first government-sponsored national symposium dealing with the 1965 violence, was held on April 18-19 in Jakarta. Historians, experts, 1965 survivors and their advocates spoke of the 1965 events and the importance of national reconciliation.

Expectations for reconciliation after a humanitarian tragedy of such magnitude are very closely related to history and our collective memory. What is the public memory of that political struggle and ensuing bloodshed, and what kind of political convictions shape the way it is seen today?

Collective memory and belief are a vital basis on which to build reconciliation, because individual memory is very closely connected with the collective memory of the community in which a person lives, and is also constructed by history.

What about the 1965 events in the memory of history teachers in senior high schools? The tragedy is not recorded in senior high school history textbooks. There’s only information that six generals and a lieutenant were snatched from their homes late Sept. 30, 1965, tortured and murdered. The Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and its supporters were blamed for the coup attempt and subsequent bloodshed.

The official narrative carries no further details, let alone information about the arrest, detention without trial, homicide, rape, forced disappearances and forced labor that alleged PKI members and supporters were subjected to for years in the aftermath of the event known as G30S/PKI. Everything else is blacked out and non-existent in the school narrative that millions of Indonesians grew up with.

Therefore, the symposium was an important moment to witness the relationship between its objective, which organizers said was “to make recommendations for the government to comprehensively settle the serious rights violations cases in the 1965 humanitarian tragedy (covering the concept of victim rehabilitation etc.)” — and the perceptions of the incident among senior high school teachers of the Pancasila state ideology and civics as well as history.

It’s important to understand the relation between recommendations of settling the 1965 human rights violations with the teachers’ perception, because the basis of reconciliation and settlement of past rights violations is truth telling, based on both the voices of victims and historical construction.

To settle the 1965 events, our society’s historical awareness plays a very crucial role, especially the awareness of the younger generation.

Therefore listening to the perceptions of history teachers regarding the 1965 tragedy is a must. To get a glimpse into these views I managed to work with teachers to watch the live streaming of the symposium.

As a volunteer teacher of history at a few schools in South Tangerang, Banten in the past year, I had earlier encouraged teachers to re-learn history including that of “1965”.

Eventually following our monthly discussions a few revealed their relatives were among the victims. One person’s grandfather had disappeared; another, a Koran reading teacher, was still stigmatized as “PKI”.

To watch the live stream of the symposium, for which organizers facilitated live streaming, 10, then 27, teachers registered for the screening at a school — the name of which the principal does not wish to disclose for fear of reprisal.

In response to the screening, teachers brought up five main issues.

First, that the 1965 tragedy was a PKI rebellion.

Second, PKI members are heretics and atheists.

Third, the PKI was anti-Islam and forbidden by religion.

Fourth, teachers’ fear of being detained was palpable.

Fifth, if the PKI had survived, Muslims would have been killed.

The fear of even uttering the name PKI was noticeable and many question were raised. Why did the government organize a symposium discussing the 1965 tragedy? Hasn’t the government banned teachers from teaching the history of the event because it amounts to disseminating communism? What was the government’s purpose of holding this symposium?

Teachers were confused. Organizers and speakers had referred to a “humanitarian tragedy” — while all they have known is that 1965 was a “PKI rebellion.”

Teachers don’t want to take the risk of dissenting from and opposing what has so far been the accepted version of history. They are afraid to differ and be stigmatized as siding with the PKI and opposing religion, which will cause them to be ostracized and lose their jobs.

Nevertheless, despite their deep anxiety, they proposed holding regular discussions on 1965 and of other past severe human rights violations.

The indoctrination and dominance of the bygone New Order have remained very strong and internalized in the minds of history teachers.

This should be the target of change toward the settlement of rights violations in the 1965 tragedy. The symposium will not achieve its objective of contributing to settlement of severe human rights violations without a mass movement to build awareness of historical truth based on the voices and experiences of victims.

We should undo the New Order’s historical indoctrination, which is still strongly internalized in our way of thinking. The unfair version of history, which socially and politically discriminates against victims, has become the nation’s collective memory. The victims beyond the army officers are hardly mentioned; when they are, they are “PKI”.

It is urgent to compose national history on the basis of the experiences and accounts of victims through the rewriting of school history books, history recording by communities and establishing museums focusing on victims’ accounts to form a new collective memory, as well as arranging courses on alternative history writing.
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The writer, a former member of the National Commission on Violence against Women, is coordinator of MusiumBergerak movement on mobile museums, and a researcher at Mbrosot School, Yogyakarta.