The level of trauma following mass persecution and killings in the aftermath of the abduction and murders of six generals and a low-ranking military member on Sept. 30, 1965, will lead to further manipulation by those among
the political elite whenever they see fit.

By October last year, amid heated debates regarding the “communist revival”, the National Resilience Institute (Lemhanas) released a statement that communist sympathy had never been proven and was always used by the political elite in election years — a strong claim from a government institute.

But communism, regardless of its textbook definition, has always been successfully and creatively reproduced in Indonesian politics. Summoning up the darkest memories of the past — when many said they were told they had to kill or be killed by suspected leftists — remains the most effective political tool.

After the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) was disbanded and banned by Soeharto’s government, the trauma, including the need under the past regime to constantly have to prove that oneself and one’s family is “clean” from leftist associations, for instance in job applications, keeps being injected into Indonesia’s political discourse.

In September 2017 and again in 2018, before commemorating the anniversary of the Sept. 30 coup attempt that was blamed on the PKI, Indonesian Military commanders at the time gave instructions to all military members and strongly recommended that all citizens watch (again) Pengkhianatan Gerakan 30 September/PKI (The Treachery of the Sept. 30 Movement/PKI), a propaganda film released in 1984.

A New Order memento for all citizens, it is the definitive portrayal of the historic massacre in 1965, according to the regime.

Ahead of the 2019 general election, in January civilian groups raided several bookstores to seize “leftist books”. This was carried out in several cities by the military and organizations claiming to be Islamic, and Ryamizard Ryacudu, a retired Army general and defense minister, condoned the raids and agreed to recommendations of the attorney general to ban the “dangerous” books.

Was this a pathetic effort by the regime to create a convincing and legitimate image of being anticommunist? Was this a strong indication of how well-prepared the elite was for a repeated debate about communism in the 2019 election?

If the answer is yes, this is a symptom of how there is only one way of managing the issue of 1965: not to resolve the related human rights violations, but to exploit collective memory. The presidential election was the exact political moment for such fabrication of trauma politics.

In the guise of democratic elections, instead of bringing in a new political elite committed to avoiding a repetition of past violence, the creative manipulation of past terror was crafted for constituents through publications and news stories that were often difficult to examine and verify.

We must shine the spotlight on this old Soeharto-ist tactic of using communism to reinforce the ruling elite’s power, to undermine any perceived threat to their rule by repressing any critical movement. This “red scare” syndrome has always been a winning formula on every available occasion amid a very uncritical public.

Elites themselves always claim to be anticommunist, purifying themselves so they can dodge the deadly weapon of being accused of having communist sympathies.

In the fourth round of the 2019 presidential debate, the main theme of which was Pancasila as the state ideology, Jokowi again clearly rejected associations with the PKI. This statement was simply a total rejection of the accusations, without any intention to clear the air regarding the government’s role in the 1965 mass killings.

This stood in ironic contrast to Jokowi’s earlier image as a revolutionary and true nationalist when pledging in the 2014 presidential campaign to resolve and never repeat past human rights violations, including the massacre of the 1960s. This promise was outstanding because it was stated amid his rivals’ accusations that he and his extended family had been part of the PKI, though he was a toddler in 1965.

At the end of the day, it is all about numbers. After declaring his candidacy for the 2019 presidential election in December 2018, Jokowi publicly announced his worries about 9 million (according to his internal surveys) people who believed he was associated with the PKI, and that those numbers could undermine his electoral performance.

Research on Indonesia’s political parties by Diego Fossati and Eve Warburton, published last year, found that 43 percent of provincial legislators believed the PKI was undergoing a revival.

The rush among elites to cleanse themselves of any association with communism is one important sign of how the trauma of 1965 may be used in the future. Instead of being weakened or even disappearing, the specter of 1965 will intensify depending on national political momentum.

This is the tragic paradox: The government’s unwillingness and inability to address and resolve the many questions surrounding the 1965-1966 tragedy contrasts with the intense competition of our politicians in profiting from their manipulation of the trauma, while survivors, including former political prisoners, have not gained justice from decades of mistreatment and stigma against them and their families.

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Lecturer at School of Social and Political Sciences, Airlangga University (Unair) in Surabaya, East Java; PhD student of University of Leeds, writing thesis on communism as political discourse in Indonesia’s election.

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