The historical incident that happened in the early hours of 1 October 1965 was devastating for the entire Muslim community of Indonesia. A small group of conspirators in the Indonesian Army abducted and murdered six high-ranking generals and a lieutenant, then buried the bodies in a dried-up well near Halim Perdanakusuma Air Force Base, on the outskirts of Jakarta. The national radio station had broadcast an announcement, prepared by the conspirators, that a self-proclaimed September 30th Movement, led by Lieutenant Colonel Untung, had acted to safeguard President Sukarno from a coup planned by a CIA-backed Council of Generals. Listeners were asked to remain calm and forewarned that further actions would follow.
The article “Times are Different” now narrates the incidents and the history of the narrator named Suherjanto. The main focus is on the account of the 1965 tragedy. It is an interview that had been conducted by Mohammad Subki Ridho, a young Muhammadiyah activist and alumni of the Masters Program in Religious and Cultural Studies at Sanata Dharma University, Yogyakarta. From the findings of the interview, it had been concluded that the narrator Suherjanto was working at the Muhammadiyah Health Clinic during the tragedy. He belonged to a family that had actively participated in the Muhammadiyah Movement and made an active response to the G30S incident. Before 1965, there were often scraps between people in Muhammadiyah and the Communist Party (Wardaya, 2013). These were primarily scraps between youth. On the Communist Party side, the youths were represented by the Pemuda Rakyat (People’s Youth), whereas the Muhammadiyah side was represented by Pemuda Muhammadiyah (Muhammadiyah Youth). This article is related to the “Contours of Mass Violence in Indonesia 1965-68), because the book seeks to enrich our understanding of the processes and key players involved in the destruction of the Indonesian Communist Party and the Indonesian Left. It argues the need to treat the all forms of violence that was happening in Indonesia in the time period of 1965-68 ((Kammen, & McGregor,2012)
Suherjanto, had told to the interviewer his experiences from the then tragedy. He had said that there was a time when he had heard directly from the broadcast, but didn’t know who was broadcasting. According to the broadcast, the Communist Party was going to carry out a coup d’etat and overturn the government. Therefore the people had to be on their guard. They had to guard their homes. He now says that the present that he sees is different to the past. Nowadays, if someone follows a certain ideology or joins a certain group, this is all done with awareness.
The other article “We must remain vigilant” deals with the interview of another person named Asnawi, who was born in Kotagedea Yogyakarta Indonesia in the year 1944. He was also born in a Muhammadiyah family just like Suherjanto in the article “Times and Different”. When the tragedy had taken place, she was of the age 20 or 21, and was a student of the Economics Faculty of the Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta. She told the interviewer that there was indeed tension that was prevalent before the tragedy of 1965, but the actual tension that started building was when the Muslims had started holding prayer events. The information about the Gestapu Incident that she had received was of an incident that was carried out by the Communist Party. She had received the information from a family member of hers who happened to work with the intelligence. He had told her that the perpetrator of Gestapu was the Communist Party. The most important factor according to her is the poverty of the people that has turned the Muslims to pray, and believe in superstitions. She feels that these kinds of the situations could be removed with the help of sermons, as well by improving the economic conditions of the people. If the people’s lives turn out to be prosperous, there would be less of these kinds of activities happening. According to her the most dangerous thing that prevailed in the past was ideological differences. The most important change that has happened in the recent years is the change in the rational thinking of the people. But we have to remain on the alert, so that the latent danger does not emerge. However according to Asnawi as long as Russia or other countries do not bring these ideas into the open communism, and then there is a very bleak chance of emergence of such a tragedy. She also feels that one of the best methods to banish these kinds of superstitious beliefs is by arranging the community programs. The people should be told that the kinds of spells and the superstitions are wrong (Kammen, & McGregor,2012). This is not something that the religion supports. Community education programs would help the people to understand the fact that all the religions are the same. Also economic approach is another method. The eradication of poverty is the best possible mean to remove the religious problems. The people should be earning the minimum wages and should be working. The poverty still prevails and is similar to the past. Many factory owners are extremely rich, but the workers are dirt poor. This needs to be eradicated to prevent such tragedies.
On the other hand, the book of Katharine McGregor brings the story of counter-revolutionary mass violence up to the present by assessing the extent to which attitudes to such violence have shifted since the fall of Suharto in 1998. As Indonesia has democratised, the government and society have placed a stronger emphasis on human rights. Drawing on this new emphasis and on international precedents, survivors of the violence as well as non-governmental organisations have begun to collect evidence of the crimes of 1965 -for example, by documenting mass graves. Analysing the violent attack in 2001 on an attempted reburial of the remains of victims and the continuing controversy over mass grave documentation and exhumation, McGregor probes some of the specific barriers to addressing the past in post-Suharto Indonesia.
References:
Kammen, D., & McGregor, K. E. (2012). The contours of mass violence in Indonesia, 1965-1968. NUS Press.
Times are different now- The 1965 tragedy in the eyes of a Muslim
Wardaya, B. T. (Ed.). (2013). Truth Will Out: Indonesian Accounts of the 1965 Mass Violence. Monash University Publishing.
We must remain vigilant – The 1965 tragedy in the eyes of a Muslim
