I'm still here, still have no well-cooked essay to post though. I'll post one when I have some.
by Lidya A.
I'm still here, still have no well-cooked essay to post though. I'll post one when I have some.
Thank you Admin for not erasing my blog yet. I'm not abandoning this blog, I just don't have the energy to read for my planned essays. I promise I'll write stuff someday.
Just wait.
A brief summary about Indonesia: it's a South East Asian country with population of more than 260 million people. It shares a similar history with most countries in the Global South: was colonised by European countries, gained independence, formed a republic, had a socialist leaning leader, said leader was ousted by a right wing coup backed by the USA, lived under authoritarian regime, and eventually was forced into neoliberalism. There's one peculiar thing that exists in Indonesia that I don't really see in other Global South countries: Red Scare. It's been more than 20 years since the end of the Cold War. It's been more than 20 years too since the right wing authoritarian president, Suharto's reign, was over. But even until now, 2020, communism is still banned and even criminalised here.
This Red Scare was originated in an incident called 'The September the 30th Movement', usually shortened to G30S, in 1965. The summary of the incident: a group of soldiers kidnapped and killed 7 high officers of the Army. Another high officer of the Army, General Suharto, blamed the killing to the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI). He said the killings were part of an attempt to a coup to topple the president at the time, Sukarno. By a power 'given' to him by Sukarno, he seized control of the Army and the country, proceeded to kill at least 1.5 million of people accused as communists and arrested, tortured, sanctioned millions more including the descendants of the accused.
Suharto replaced Sukarno as the second president of Indonesia. He governed for 32 years (1966-1998) in an era of terror and human rights violations. It's also said as a stable and economically prosperous era by Suharto's supporters. I thought this myth has already been debunked because the reason that Suharto was kicked from his office was an economic crisis in 1997-98 that attacked Asia Pacific. People knew that the economic stability was a result of huge debt and dependability to the World Bank, they correctly blamed Suharto for this. His family was also known as pretty corrupt but surprisingly the same family still exists in power and wealth until now. This family has tried to explicitly comes back to politics by saying that many Indonesians miss the days of Suharto.
During that 32 years, Suharto made sure communism was depicted as evil as possible. All state apparatuses were used to propagate how evil communism and communists are; the media, schools, universities, art and cultural institutions, etc. Those who were accused as communists but weren't killed were barred of their rights. They couldn't vote or run for office, couldn't join the military or the police, couldn't work in a government's office, couldn't go to public schools etc. They had no freedom of movement because their IDs were marked with special identification, even those who were descendants of these people. Such marking causing them to be cast out by their neighbours too. There's a state-funded film with the title 'The Betrayal of G30S/PKI' with dramatic depiction of the killed generals' heroism and the communists' barbarism. The film was full with blood and it was a mandatory screening for school children every September the 30th. In another words, it's a constant exposure to anti-communist indoctrination for Indonesians since they're young to their deaths.
By the way, Suharto called his reign as the 'New Order' to put it in contrast with what he called Sukarno's 'Old Order'. People think after the 'New Order' is over, at least the Red Scare would go away too. It's so strange that it stays and, arguably, is getting stronger. This stops people from actually having open access and discussion of communist and overall, leftist ideas. It is a taboo topic. It shouldn't though, considering the capitalist hellhole we are living now. So, I've been wondering what is causing this Red Scare to continue to linger on the micro level. We've talked about the macro level, state propaganda yadda, yadda. But what's actually on people's mind.
So I'm making an imaginary dialogue, some based on real arguments I've heard from people in real life, some are what I think would be their rationalisation of their arguments. Here it is.
No way!
Why?
Communism is evil!
Evil? How so?
They were sadists who killed and tortured the generals!
I don't know they're tortured, what the communists did to the generals?
They plucked the eyes of the generals, cut their genitals while the women dancing half naked and having sexual orgy with men. The women also sliced the generals' bodies with razor blades.
This is simply not true. You can check Benedict Anderson's article How Did The Generals Die?. It was based on a copy of autopsy result he found among a stack of Indonesian military court documents. In this article, Anderson cited the autopsy result of the officers' bodies, signed by 5 expert surgeons. Two of them were military doctors, the others were lecturers from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Indonesia. The order to do the autopsy was given by General Suharto himself. The surgeons under oath said the bodies were already decomposed but there were no signs of torture in their bodies. Special attention was given to their genitals because of the rumours, but all the officers still had their balls. Most of them were dead by bullets. One of the officer had his eyes gouged out because he landed head first when his body was thrown into a dry well. Suharto acknowledged this because those doctors should report to him.
He's a white foreigner, he could lie! I don't believe it!
Okay you can visit the 'Monument of the Sanctity of Pancasila' in Jakarta, built by the Indonesian government. There's a museum there showcasing the officers' bloodied uniforms. Just look at the blood, some rarely have blood on it. Maybe these torturers stripped them naked before slicing the officers' bodies? Remember though, the bodies were found with their clothing on. It's kind of courteous for some sadistic maniacs to put the clothing back on before they're throwing the bodies away, right?
Even if they didn't torture the generals, they were still evil because they wanted to do a coup and made Indonesia a communist country!
Why would they do a coup? PKI was a dominant party, it was a close ally to President Sukarno. Sukarno listened to them, for example regarding the Agricultural Reform law. The Communist Party pushed that law and Sukarno signed it, it was literally allowing farmers to seize and expropriate lands from the landlords. Sukarno was a kind of socialist himself. At the time, he ordered a 'Malaysia Confrontation', an order of military offensive against Malaysia which he called an imperialist puppet state. He said to USA 'To hell with your aid!'. He banned Hollywood films and Western music such as The Beatles. He arrested an Indonesian band, Koes Plus, because it copied the imperialist music of The Beatles. He even pulled Indonesian membership from the Olympics because it's imperialist and held his own version of sport event called 'Ganefo', a shortening of 'Games of the New Emerging Forces'. Participants were Sovyet Union, People's Republic of China, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and other communist countries. There were many other instances that shows externally, Sukarno's Indonesia was so close to communist countries while internally PKI was Sukarno's ally. Why would they forcefully take power when they're already in power?
Maybe it's not enough for them, they want to be the president! They were so power hungry they wanted to take power immediately!
... and look what happened to them. Many people don't know this detail but the September The 30th Movement mainly consisted of members of a military group called Cakrabirawa Regiment. Its leader is Lieutenant Colonel Untung, who also was the leader of the regiment. The regiment was intended as President's personal guard. The complete name was like 'Honour Guarding Troops The Cakrabirawa Regiment'. If they want to seize power, why didn't they just kill Sukarno instead of a bunch of generals? They can do that, they're in close proximity with the president anyway. It somehow seems like they're actually protecting the president, don't you think?
Why would they want to protect the president?
I told you the Communist Party was Sukarno's close ally. So, the chairman of PKI at that time was D. N. Aidit. He thought the military is also part of the proletariat or working class despite objection from his peers, for example the vice chairman, Njoto. Aidit argued against this objection saying that while it's true the military is mostly reactionary and are full of capitalist-bureaucrats, the Communist Party should radicalise them so they don't merely work for the bourgeoisie. So in his own initiative, he formed a 'shadow' division called the 'Special Bureau'. Because it's not an official division of the Communist Party, the members were unknown and the structure was not clear. At least one thing was clear that this bureau reported directly to Aidit. The bureau was tasked as the party's wing to gain allies inside the military. The September of 30th Movement was said as soldiers who were part of the Special Bureau. That time was the Cold War and Sukarno was so outwardly against the USA and its allies. There was a fear of attempts on Sukarno's life, well there was at least one assassination attempt against Sukarno. Everyone was in a state of high alert. One time, Subandrio, trusted advisor of Sukarno and head of the intelligence, discovered what would be called the 'Gilchrist Telegram'. Andrew Gilchrist was UK ambassador to Indonesia. The telegram was apparently sent by him to his home country talking about a coup with the help of 'our local army friends'. The coup was planned to be held on October the 5th, in the anniversary of the establishment of the Armed Force. This 'local army friends' were said to be the Indonesian Army high officers, dubbed the 'Generals' Council'. Sukarno invited Ahmad Yani, the Chief of the Armed Force at the time to confirm this issue. Yani of course denied it. Ahmad Yani would be one of the victim of The September 30th Movement. This issue was swept under the rug but maybe the Communist Party chairman, Aidit, saw this threat as real and ordered the Special Bureau members in the Army to take decisive action. It's said that the telegram was actually fake, no one knows for sure who forged it.
It doesn't make sense, why would the Army generals, especially Ahmad Yani who was close to Sukarno, wanted to do a coup?
I don't know their personal reason, but we can see what seems to be the motivation from the politics of that era. It's the Cold War, which is not a real open war as in the World War II, but there was tension. People live under the fear of another World War and it will be worse because of the nuclear weapons. After World War II, the world was divided by the victors of World War II; USA, UK and its allies representing liberalism/capitalism against the Soviet Union and its allies representing communism. Capitalist countries were the Western Bloc while communist countries were the Eastern Bloc. There were countries who proclaimed they didn't want to side with any Bloc, calling themselves non-bloc and united under 'Non-Aligned Movement' or NAM. Most members of the NAM were newly independent countries, called the Third World while the Western Bloc were the First World and Eastern Bloc as Second World countries (mostly those which joined under the Sovyet Union). While calling themselves non-alligned, doesn't mean they're not siding with any Bloc in actuality. Cuba was non-bloc but we know how communist it was (and is). Sukarno was one of the pioneer who called for the NAM, so Indonesia was non-alligned too. But look again in practice, Indonesia at the time was so close to the East Bloc. It could be say Indonesia was already acting like a communist country. John Roosa in his book Pretext for Mass Murder: The September 30th Movement and Suharto's Coup d'État in Indonesia wrote that USA had been very worried about Indonesia, that he argued the Vietnam War main purpose was to stop the spread of communism to Indonesia. If Indonesia became fully communist, it wouldn't benefit them geopolitically because there's their ally Australia, just south of Indonesia. Australia would be isolated. Also, Indonesia is a country rich in natural resource and they don't want to lose their grab on it. USA company Freeport had tried to establish a mining contract with the government of Sukarno. They didn't like it because Sukarno demanded the company to be nationalised. So, after Sukarno was moved aside, Freeport got a full contract, signed by Suharto in 1967. By the way, the contract was to allow Freeport to mine gold and other precious metal in Papua, a land that was forcefully seized through a fake referendum in 1969. So Papua wasn't even an Indonesian territory at the time of the contract signing, the audacity, right? Anyway, the end result where Suharto successfully removed Sukarno from power and replaced him, making Indonesia a friendly country for the Western Bloc gives the reason of the plot away. You agree Suharto was an evil dictator, his regime was brutal, right?
Yes, Suharto was evil. But communists were far more evil than him!
Why?
They killed Muslims! They killed the ulemas!
When?
During the Madiun Incident in 1948! Communists are always traitorous, they already tried to betray Indonesia in 1948 so it just makes sense if they would do it again in 1965!
In 1948, Indonesia wasn't like the Indonesia now. Due to Linggajati and Renville Agreement, Republic of Indonesia only consisted of the island Sumatera, Java and Madura. The territory was reduced again by the 'Van Mook Line'. Anyway, Sukarno established himself as the rightful government of the republic. His government is the central government. At the time the military and civilians were divided into factions. Some were Islamists, some were nationalists, some were communists. The Madiun Incident started by fights among these factions in the grassroot. It all climaxed when a paramilitary under the communist declared a government in Madiun and it was seen as an attempt of rebellion by Sukarno's central government. The rebels were killed, it ended there. About the issue of killing of Muslims, I said there was a division among the people into some factions. Many of the landlords were ulemas and if you actually read what communism is about, farmers siding with communists were trying to expropriate land. Maybe to just attack but again, it was a class war, not religiously motivated. If majority of the people in Indonesia are Muslims, it's safe to say these communists farmers who attack the ulemas were Muslims too, right?
How dare you saying that those communists were Muslims! Communists don't believe in God, they're atheist and that's why they want to crush Islam!
You know that the Communist Party started from the Islam Union (Sarekat Islam), don't you? There was a whole story about how the Union was divided into White faction, which was anti communist and Red faction, which was communist. The divide happened in 1920s, you can read about it more in Clifford Geertz's Religion of Java. The conflict even said to manifest into fistfights sometimes. The Islam Union White faction succeeded in kicking out the Red faction, explaining the formation of the Communist Party of Indonesia. One popular figure of the Red faction is Haji Mohamad Misbach, usually shortened to Haji Misbach. Haji is a predicate given to people who had done the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. He was said to propate communism through Quran verses, saying that communism is compatible with Islam, even saying that if a Muslim is not agreeing with communisn, then they're not a real Muslim or doesn't understand the real teaching of Islam yet. Remember, he was not the only one because the number was big enough to cause a rift inside the Islam Union. Haji Misbach would later be exiled to Papua by the colonial Dutch government, accused as the perpetrator of a bombing in Surakarta. Other Indonesian communist figure, who was also the founder of PKI, is Tan Malaka. He is really religious as can be seen in his most famous work Madilog. He also went to Comitern in Moscow proposing a join effort of communist with pan-Islamist movement, which were outright rejected. Then the last chairman of PKI, D. N. Aidit, said the party was not against religion, members are free to practice any religious faith they want. Also just look at most communist Latin American countries, they don't stop being devout Catholic even if they are communists. There is the origin of the Liberation Theology movement, like not only Haji Misbach and a big number of Indonesian Muslims think their religion is compatible with communism because numerous Catholic preachers think so too.
But I heard Marx said that religion is the opium of the masses, that means he's anti religion and communists are following him so they're anti religion too!
The phrase is often taken out from its full sentence, causing this misunderstanding. The complete quote is 'Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.' Followed with 'The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.' It's actually quite sympathetic to religion, dont't you think? Religion is a protest against real suffering and if you want to criticise religion, you should really criticise the condition of suffering first. You can find these sentences in Marx's introduction to 'A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right'.
No way I will ever touch Marx books!
Why?
It's full of falsities and dangerous ideas!
I don't know, you seem to be an intelligent and rational person. You won't be easily tricked into something just by some silly books, right? Also if you believe in your own faith, you should not doubt yourself because there's no way you will turn atheist, if that's what you're being afraid about. So, maybe, before hating communism further, you can take a peek into some communist works first. If you find it outrageous, you can just burn the book. Or, there are free communist books online in websites such as marxists.org and theanarchistlibrary.org. The latter doesn't sound communist, but I assure you it is. It's different than what Indonesians know about communism, but you know you can use some varieties!
Are you trying to turn me communist!?
No. If you ever become of communist, it's because of your own self. Check the websites though.
I just thought 'Damn, why people in Indonesia still hate communism so much. It sucks. Why the hell they still hate it!?' and trying to answer the question by making a short imaginary Q & A dialogue. It turned into this wall of text, a whole essay.
The incident of G-30-S (30 September 1965 Movement) is one of extraordinary moments in Indonesian modern history. Several terms have been used to call the incident, for example Gestok (October the First Movement) by Sukarno, Gestapu (September the Thirtieth Movement – which is grammatically incorrect in Indonesian) to make it somewhat similar with Gestapo in Nazi Germany, then it has been called G-30-S since 1966. The term G-30-S is used because it is more objective as the perpetrators used this term to call themselves. The effect of that incident is the establishment of an authoritarian regime that had been in power for more than 30 years, the New Order.
Citing John Roosa, from his book Pretext for Mass Murder: The September 30th Movement and Suhartos's Coup d'État in Indonesia:
“When it was early in the morning on October 1st 1965, seven high officers of Indonesian Army including The Minister Commander of The Army, Lieutenant General Ahmad Yani, were killed and their bodies were thrown into an empty well. The force occupied the central office of Republic of Indonesia Radio (RRI) and announced that the purpose of their act is to protect the President from a coup. Their leader was Lieutenant Colonel Untung, the Commander of Battalion I Kawal Kehormatan Cakrabirawa (President's guard). Hundreds of soldiers who supported G-30-S occupied Lapangan Merdeka (which is now Lapangan Monas) at the centre of the city”.
Suharto utilised G-30-S to took over the power from Sukarno. Suharto accused The Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) as the scapegoat which planned the movement. He then arrested one million and five hundred thousand (according to Roosa) people and hundred thousands other were massacred by the Army and civil groups which worked for them. In the state of national emergency, Suharto became the replacement for leader even though he was not officially appointed as president until Supersemar in March 1996.
In their version of G-30-S, The Indonesian Army accused Gerwani (an abbreviation of Indonesian Women's Movement) – which is seen as the member of “communist family” – as the torturers and executors of generals. The term “communist family” was coined by Saskia Wieringa because there were members of PKI being active in other organisations. The example are Njoto in Lekra (a communist artist organisation), Nyono and Tjugito in SOBSI (communist labour union), Asmu in BTI (communist farmer's union), Sukatno in Pemuda Rakjat (communist youth movement), and Mrs. Mugdido, Salawati Daud and Suharti Suwarto in Gerwani. These PKI cadres became members in other organisation because of Musso's New Path concept which says that PKI had to embrace strong mass organisations to expand the party's influence.
The Army immediately accused them of their involvement in G-30-S because they had been in conflict since a long time ago. The Army also had political interest. It started in May 1957 when martial law was enacted and the leaders of the Army got bigger power and regional commander got the chance to apply their political ideas. With the rise of the Army as political power, in 1959 Sukarno saw PKI as an ally which could be a balancing power in the political system.
According to the Army, since the incident in Madiun, 1948, PKI is a traitorous party, anti-nationalist and controlled by foreign countries. PKI was also deemed as a threat because it had a good organisational quality and discipline, where with such commitment they could attract soldiers and weaken the potential of the Army as a united political force. In contrast, PKI called leaders of the Army as “bureaucrat capitalists”. It was because after December the 13th 1957, General Nasution with the martial law seized all Dutch companies and shared them between military officers, placed them as the new bosses. But PKI never faced the Army directly but depended on the “progressive” section in the Army (their allies) and President Sukarno's influence. The party's effort to seek allies in the Army is visible from the formation of Special Bureau by D. N. Aidit (the Chairperson of the party) to attract soldiers because he saw they are also the oppressed class, just like labourers and farmers.
As for the involvement of Gerwani in G-30-s, this is what Saskia Wieringa wrote about it:
“On the day of the incident, around 70 women, most of them were young women from the communist youth organisation while the others were from the labour and farmer's union and members of Gerwani, including soldiers' wives, were gathered in Lubang Buaya for anti-Malaysia campaign. There were those who were assigned to sew insignia on uniforms, maybe for the members of G-30-S, but they did not know why they should do it. The planners of G-30-S were able to use Lubang Buaya because this area was under the control of the Air Force (leftist), the opponent of the Army (right wing). Gerwani as an organisation was not involved in this plan. Near the early morning on October the 1st, the women were awoken by shouting and when they run outside, they saw soldiers were dragging the kidnapped officers, some were already killed. They were scared and run back to Jakarta, most to their own houses, the others to the headquarter of Gerwani where Sudjinah and Sulami, the secretaries of the organisation, usually slept. That was the first time the leader of Gerwani heard about the kidnapping of the generals and coup because none of them were at Lubang Buaya that night”.
The accusation of Gerwani's involvement in G-30-S by the Army was shared through their own mass media, Angkatan Bersendjata and Berita Yudha. The content of the accusation is visible through the stories of the members of Gerwani's arrests which are usually started with accusation as “whore”, “cutters of general's genitals”, or “those who had killed the generals”.
In opposition to that accusation, the result of the autopsy showed different facts. The result from the generals' body autopsy is attached by Benedict Anderson in his work How Did The Generals Die?. He found this autopsy result among photocopies of Extraordinary Military court stenography from Lieutenant Colonel of the Air Force Heru Atmodjo. This autopsy was done by five forensic experts. This team was gathered on Monday, October the 4th in accordance to General Suharto's order as Commander of Strategy of the Army to the chairman of Central Hospital of the Army (RPSAD). The team was composed from two military doctors (including the famous Brigadier General Doctor Roebiono Kertopati) and three civil forensic specialists from the Faculty of Medicine Universitas Indonesia. The most senior of the civilian doctors was Doctor Sutomo Tjokronegoro who was the most expert forensic doctor in Indonesia at the time. Besides Roebiono Kertopati and Sutomo Tjokronegoro, other doctors were Frans Pattiasina, Liauw Yan Siang and Lim Joe Thay (Anderson, 1987:114).
They worked for 8 hours, from 16.30 on October the 4th to 00.30 on October the 5th in surgery room of RSPAD. Each one of the report from seven bodies followed a single format: 1) statement from the instruction of Major General Suharto to the five experts; 2) identification of the body; 3) description of the body, including clothing and ornaments; 4) details of detected wounds; 5) conclusion with consideration of the time and cause of death; 6) statements from the five experts, under oath, that the dissection had been done completely and correctly (Anderson, 1987:109).
Angkatan Bersendjata and Berita Yudha newspaper published the news about the condition of the bodies on October the 5th 1965 while the doctors were still doing autopsy. Angkatan Bersendjata attached the blurred pictures of the decaying dead bodies, describing their deaths as “barbaric act in the form of inhumane tortures”. Berita Yudha wrote “the wounds all over our heroes bodies are caused by tortures before they were shot”. Major General Suharto himself stated “ It is obvious to us who witness it with our own eyes how cruel the tortures that had been done by the savages of September the 30th Movement”.D. N. Aidit
Far from what the military newspaper has written, the findings of the forensic experts state none of the victims had their eyes plucked, all of their penises are also intact: even it is said that four victims are circumcised and three are not. General Yani, Panjaitan and Harjono died because of shooting at their houses while General Parman, Suprapto, Sutoyo and Lieutenant Tendean were killed after they were brought to Lubang Buaya. Even if they died in Lubang Buaya, all of them are killed by bullet wounds, including fatal shot in the head.
Professor Doctor Arif Budianto (who was using the name Liem Joe Thay before) also said that all of the bodies were wearing complete clothing as when they were alive. The body of General Ahmad Yani has crooked teeth in which there is another tooth or mesio dentist between the incisor and canine and his eyes are gouged because when he was thrown into the well he fell head first. With the rumours regarding the victims' penises, the doctors put more stern observation on the matter. The result shows that the penises of the seven officers are not separated, there is not even a scratch on them.
Even though the autopsy result showed that there was no castration and tortures happening, Angkatan Bersendjata and Berita Yudha still published it. This false story about castration is based on Guy Jean Pauker's idea, a worker of RAND Corporation and agent of the CIA who was inspired by Émile Zola's novel Germinal. The involvement of the United States of America (US) in G-30-S is because in the Cold War, US saw Indonesia under Sukarno had acted like a communist country and even more openly opposed the US compared to communist countries. If Indonesia freed itself from US influence, it is going to be a big lost considering Indonesia is the biggest domino in Southeast Asia, not only because its large population and territory but also its plentiful natural resource.
The accusation towards PKI and Gerwani was used as a justification by the military to take over power, in purpose to control the situation. The Army would then grow into the New Order which continuously propagating the lie about G-30-S and followed it with other crime which is the massacre of 78,000 (according to the fact seeking commission under the State Minister Oei Tjoe Tat), 1 million (according to Operational Command for the Restoration of Security and Order/Kopkamtib) or 3 million (according to Sarwo Edhie Wibowo, ex-Commandant of Regiment Para Commando of the Army) humans who were involved or accused as involved with PKI.
Gerwani has a special place in the Army's narration about G-30-S. Gerwani is accused as the direct perpetrator who tortures and kills the generals. Other assumptions have also grown that Gerwani members are sexually deviant which is reflected on Ine Sukarno's, the Chairperson of National Congress of Indonesian Women/Kowani in April 1999 who says that Gerwani supports lesbianism and intend to establish a brothel.
The news coverage by Angkatan Bersendjata and Berita Yudha is a made up story. The label established about Gerwani can be seen from society's assumption that thinks Gerwani members are prostitutes, cutters of generals' genitals or killer of generals, also as lesbians and brothel makers. The effect of this label was members of Gerwani were arrested, sexually assaulted and tortured and demonised by the people. Until now, this label towards Gerwani prevails, even after more than half-century since G-30-S.
To analyse this case, I use theory of Sexual Politics and theory of Amplification of Deviance as dissection tools. As women, the sexuality of members of Gerwani are attacked and eventually it has a different effect than persecution towards male victims. Thus why to strengthen and deepen the analysis, I use feminist perspective.
Theory of Sexual Politics was founded by Kate Millett in her book Sexual Politics which was published for the first time in 1970. Rosemarie Tong categorises her thinking into libertarian-radical feminist school of thoughts. In the context of “sexual politics”, the term “politics” is used not just to describe things such as meetings, parliamentary members, and political party. The term “politics” means relation which is ordered based on power structure where one group of people is controlled by the other.
The word “politics” is used to talk about sex because this word is useful to show the real form of the ever changing sex status. Ideologically, sexual politics gains acceptance through “socialisation” to both sexes about patriarchal rules regarding temperament, role and status. What is meant as temperament here is the formation of human personality based on sexual category of masculine and feminine which in turn is based on the needs and values of the dominant class, regulated according to what they think is suitable for the lower class: for men those are aggression, intelligence, motivation and effectiveness while for women those are passivity, ignorance, obedience, morality and ineffectiveness.
This aspect is complemented by the second factor, sex roles, which regulates behaviour, gestures and trait for every sex. In the form of activities, sex roles assign domestic servitude and baby rearing to women while the all other human achievements, interests and ambitions are assigned to men. The roles for women make her limited to biological experience. Therefore almost all activities which can be used to describe humans instead of animals (because animals also give birth and rear their children) are assigned to men.
Then of course sex status also follows the same order. If we analyse three categories above, we can divide the status as political component, roles as sociological component and temperament as psychological component. They who can achieve high status tend to adopt the role of masters because the are the first who developed the dominant temperament.
Regarding sexual revolution, Kate Millett writes:
“A sexual revolution would require, perhaps first of all, an end of traditional sexual inhibitions and taboos, particularly those that most threatened patriarchal monogamous marriage: homosexuality, “illegitimacy”, adolescent, pre and extra-marital sexuality. The negative aura with which sexual activity has generally been surrounded would necessarily be eliminated, together with the double standard and prostitution. The goal of revolution would be permissive single standard of sexual freedom, and one uncorrupted by the crass and exploitative bases of traditional sexual alliances.”
The effort that had been done was not ended in revolution but sexual reformation. A completed sexual revolution demands an end to the institution of patriarchy, abolishing both the ideology of male supremacy and the traditional socialisation by which it is upheld in matters of status, role and temperament. As long as patriarchal ideology is only reformed, the essential social order of patriarchy will exist. Because most people do not have other idea, it seems that the alternative of patriarchal ideology is chaos. The social order needs women subordination; but for conservatives what is needed is a family order with women's subservience in it. The head of the family is the extension of the government while other family members are the followers. An authoritarian government prefers this patriarchal system because the atmosphere of a fascist state and dictatorship really depends on a patriarchal society.
The second theory comes from Stanley Cohen. In his book, Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers, he uses Leslie Wilkins' amplification of deviance to explain the relation between mass media and moral panic. In amplification of deviance, mass media is the main source for public knowledge about social deviance and problems.
Amplification of deviance happens in a society that creates symbols which can be used to identify “deviants”. Mass media then operates to publish events that are seen as deviance, causing the spread of a belief that these deviants are evil. The role of the media in creating moral panic are: 1) Setting the agenda – selecting those deviant or socially problematic events deemed as newsworthy, then using finer filters to select which of these events are candidates for moral panic; 2) Transmitting the images – transmitting the claims of claims-makers, by sharpening up or dumbing down the rhetoric of moral panics; 3) Breaking the silence, making the claim.
In amplification of violence, media images or what Cohen calls as inventory about deviance go through distortion. The situation which was initially interpreted and presented by the mass media is the form which most people receive their pictures of both deviance and disasters. Reactions take place on the basis of these processed or coded images: people become indignant or angry, formulate theories and plans, make speeches, write letters to the newspapers. Media inventory is distorted in three ways; exaggeration and distortion, prediction and symbolisation.
Exaggeration of inventory realised in the exaggeration of the seriousness of the events, the number of those involved, the degree of damage and violence, which is showed through sensational headlines, hyperbolic vocabulary and the exaggeration of those elements in news. Next is prediction. Prediction is the implicit assumption that what had happened is inevitably going to happen again. The presence of predictions can be disastrous because if the prediction is not fulfilled, a story would be forged as if the prediction happens.
Lastly, it is symbolisation. Mass communication relies on the symbolic power of words and images. In symbolisation there are three processes: a word (e.g. “Mod”) becomes a symbolic of a certain status (deviant); objects (hairstyle and clothing) symbolise the word; and finally the objects symbolise status. Another effective technique of symbolisation is the use of dramatised and ritualistic interviews with “representative members” of the deviant group. Through symbolisation and other methods of distortion, images is deemed as the real thing and people deny reality.
In amplification of deviance, it needs a huge amount of communication to spread issues. Mass media publish news with stereotypes about how deviants act based on symbols that the society creates. Sensationalisation is one of the mechanism of amplification. Controlling agents (such as the police) decide which acts can be given the label as deviant. Control tactics they are using are influenced by sensationalisation and symbolisation by the mass media so people who are not causing any harm but fit with the symbols of deviants (such as punk hairstyle and clothing) would be detained. Cohen then cites Becker who says someone is given the label deviant not because they have been violating the rules but because of disrespect to law enforcement.
The data I use in this writing is secondary data. Secondary data source I use are articles from Berita Yudha and Angkatan Bersendjata newspapers and fragments of them cited in books and journals. I use Saskia Wieringa's book Sexual Politics in Indonesia and Benedict Anderson's article How Did the Generals Die?. The technique used to analyse data is feminist text analysis. Sara Mills in Feminist Stylistics (1995) writes that text analysis can be done in three levels: analysis in the level of words, in the level of sentences and in the level of discourse.
With the stated technique above, I analyse this case this way: patriarchy is a social structure system and practices where men dominate, oppress and exploit women. This system manifests in the form of the state and cultural institutions such as the media. The state is a patriarchal structure where patriarchy is inherent in the procedures and ways to operate. Therefore, patriarchy is always involved in every step or policy taken by a state.
The United States of America produced efforts to keep Indonesia away from communism. According to David Easter's (2005) writing, not only the US involved in anti-communist campaign in Indonesia but also the United Kingdom, Australia and Malaysia. They saw Sukarno as a threat. Information Research Department of Foreign Office, a UK body that specialised in covert propaganda established South East Monitoring Unit in Singapore with the purpose to propagate that PKI and the communist China are threats. The US used CIA to depict PKI as the enemy of Sukarno and instrument of the Chinese government who wanted to take control of Indonesia.
Angkatan Bersendjata and Berita Yudha newspapers wrote about the Army officials who experienced tortures and castration. This could happen because the Army occupied media by banning newspapers which were seen as supporters of G-30-S. The Army also took control of the national news agency Antara. Gerwani members were depicted as killers and castrators of the high officers, femme fatale, witches and sexual deviants. These depictions are a manifestation of misogynistic media which has the purpose to amplify the deviance of Gerwani members and label them as sluts.
The fear towards strong women is a form of sexual politics in action. Power as a dominant temperament should had been owned by men because this temperament is needed to reach a high status. This high status is reserved by patriarchy only for men. Thus why according to the theory of Sexual Politics, women are demanded to have passive and obedient temperament then limited in their role to give birth and rear children. This is in accordance with the ideas of radical criminology feminism which see crime as the act of men to dominate women, forcing women to become mothers and sex slaves.
Wieringa (2003) writes that this fear was also triggered by the depiction of castration by members of Gerwani to high officers of the Army. This metaphorical castration drived conservative section of the society, especially conservative men, scared. This fear seems to become real when the metaphorical castration was “realised” in the writings of Angkatan Bersendjata and Berita Yudha. Ni Wayan Ariati P. (2010) also says that this whole construction is similar with the legend of Goddess Durga. Strong women are portrayed negatively as Durga-Uma in the story of Sudamala or Rangda in the story of Calon Arang where they have to be overpowered by a powerful man.
Society's fear was furthermore manifested in the label of “slut” assigned to Gerwani. The result was a moral panic. A news coverage full of hate speech then caused hate crimes in the form of tortures and sexual violence to members of Gerwani. This hate crime was not seen as crime by most of Indonesian society because it was based on militarism and patriarchy.
Construction as sluts towards Gerwani was built through gendered language, which is language using social construction of gender. Members of Gerwani were “sukmawati” (it means warrior but the “-wati” suffix makes it feminine), “whores”, “beautiful”, “devil women”, “providing sexual service”, all of these terms were born from social construction of gender. Men would never be written as sukmawati or beautiful because in a patriarchal society, men and women are treated different in all aspects, including different gender in language (the Indonesian language is gender neutral except a few instances such as “sukmawati” above but what I mean here is the choice of words). Men are “sukmawan” (in Indonesian, the suffix “-wan” is the masculine form of “-wati”), not beautiful but “handsome”, also not givers of sexual service because according to social construction of gender, men are expected to want and pursue sex, so their position are “receiver of sexual service”.
Language was utilised to build a construction that members of Gerwani had failed in performing femininity demanded in social construction of gender. The judgment whether someone has succeeded or failed in performing femininity is based on men interests. If women fail to fulfill the demands of femininity such as in what Gerwani had done, then they have to be punished with the label “sluts”. The label “sluts” is used to maintain the dominance of men and subordination of women. It is clear that the use of such language and construction is intentional.
According to Lanier and Henry's (2004) the prism of crime, the labeling as sluts towards Gerwani is a hidden crime. Even if it is hidden, it is still a crime which indirectly has caused heavy damage. Besides this construction is also a crime because according to feminist criminology, this construction is based on male domination and gender based violence is a mean to maintain that domination. Male domination is realised in political domination while women's political agency is eliminated. The conclusion is the construction as sluts towards members of Gerwani in the publication of Angkatan Bersendjata and Berita Yudha is gender based violence.
To sum it all, The September the 30th Movement in 1965 had caused Gerwani or the Indonesian Women's Movement, one of the largest women's organisation in Indonesia with their programmes such as education and advocation for the welfare of the people, being labeled as a outlawed organisation filled with prostitutes. They were attacked sexually, jailed, and killed by state apparatus and also the people who they were advocating before. This sudden reversal of Gerwani's position was caused by Angkatan Bersendjata and Berita Yudha newspapers which purposefully neglected their journalistic responsibilities by sharing fake news about G-30-S and Gerwani. This fake news coverage was done by amplification of deviance to build a construction of Gerwani as an organisation of sluts. This amplification had caused moral panic and an extraordinary hate from the people. The patriarchal society attacked Gerwani members as those who defied their “natural roles” as women.
The construction as sluts is no other than an effort to place women back to subordination, because Gerwani as a women's movement had threatened male dominance and the interest of patriarchal institutions such as the state and the military. After analysis, this act was a gender based violence against Gerwani because from the motivation to the means were all based on patriarchal social construct of gender to punish women who failed to fulfill femininity.
My suggestion to society is to always be critical in watching over the media and to reprimand them if they ever post unverified news and hate speech. Mass media is also responsible in watching over the quality of their journalists and forbidding the use of sexist words and stereotypes which humiliate and hurt women. The press also has the responsibility to take the side of truth and the interest of the public without the influence of any political interest. The state has obligation to guarantee the freedom of the press without using media as its political wagon.
The state also has to impose sanction on media which spread hate speech and propaganda. Then the state also officially has to admit the existence of the 1965 Incident, give justice and clear the names of victims, especially members of Gerwani. The state also has to admit the manipulation of history by the New Order and revise the story according the most truthful version so this crime will not be repeated again.
The incident of G-30-S (30 September 1965 Movement) is one of extraordinary occurrence in Indonesian modern history. Several terms have been used to call the incident, for example Gestok (October the First Movement) by Sukarno, Gestapu (September the Thirtieth Movement – which is grammatically incorrect in Indonesian) to make it somewhat similar with Gestapo in Nazi Germany, then it has been called G-30-S since 1966. The term G-30-S is used because it is more objective as the perpetrators used this term to call themselves. The effect of that incident is the establishment of an authoritarian regime that had been in power for more than 30 years, the New Order.
Citing John Roosa, from his book Pretext for Mass Murder: The September 30th Movement and Suhartos's Coup d'État in Indonesia:
“When it was early in the morning on October 1st 1965, seven high officers of Indonesian Army including The Minister Commander of The Army, Lieutenant General Ahmad Yani, were killed and their bodies were thrown into an empty well. The force occupied the central office of Republic of Indonesia Radio (RRI) and announced that the purpose of their act is to protect the President from a coup. Their leader was Lieutenant Colonel Untung, the Commander of Battalion I Kawal Kehormatan Cakrabirawa (President's guard). Hundreds of soldiers who supported G-30-S occupied Lapangan Merdeka (which is now Lapangan Monas) at the centre of the city”.
Suharto utilised G-30-S to took over the power from Sukarno. Suharto accused The Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) as the scapegoat which planned the movement. He then arrested one million and five hundred thousand (according to Roosa) people and hundred thousands other were massacred by the Army and civil groups which worked for them. In the state of national emergency, Suharto became the replacement for leader even though he was not officially appointed as president until Supersemar in March 1996.
In their version od G-30-S, The Indonesian Army accused Gerwani (an abbreviation of Indonesian Women's Movement) – which is seen as the member of “communist family” – as the torturers and executors of generals. The term “communist family” was coined by Saskia Wieringa because there were members of PKI in other organisations. The example are Njoto in Lekra (a communist artist organisation), Nyono and Tjugito in SOBSI (communist labour union), Asmu in BTI (communist farmer's union), Sukatno in Pemuda Rakjat (communist youth movement), and Mrs. Mugdido, Salawati Daud and Suharti Suwarto in Gerwani. These PKI cadres became members in other organisation because Musso's New Path concept which says that PKI had to embrace strong mass organisations to expand the party's influence.
The Army immediately accused them as involved in G-30-S because they had been in conflict since a long time ago. The Army also had political interest. It started in May 1957 when martial law was enacted and the leaders of the Army got bigger power and regional commander got the chance to apply their political ideas. With the rise of the Army as political power, in 1959 Sukarno saw PKI as an ally which could be a balancing power in the political system.
According to the Army, since the incident in Madiun, 1948, PKI is a traitorous party, anti-nationalist and controlled by foreign countries. PKI was also deemed as a threat because it had a good organisational quality and discipline so with such commitment they could attract soldiers and weaken the potential of the Army as a united political force. In contrast, PKI called leaders of the Army as “bureaucrat capitalists”. It was because after December the 13th 1957, General Nasution with the martial law seized all Dutch companies and shared them between military officers, placed them as the new bosses. But PKI never faced the Army directly but depended on the “progressive” section in the Army (their allies) and President Sukarno's influence. The party's effort to seek allies in the Army is visible from the formation of Special Bureau by D. N. Aidit (the Chairperson of the party) to attract soldiers because he saw they are also the oppressed class, just like labourers and farmers.
As for the involvement of Gerwani in G-30-s, this is what Saskia Wieringa writes:
“On the day of the incident, around 70 women, most of them were young women from the communist youth organisation while the others were from the labour and farmer's union and members of Gerwani, including soldiers' wives, were gathered in Lubang Buaya for anti-Malaysia campaign. There were those who were assigned to sew insignia on uniforms, maybe for the members of G-30-S, but they did not know why they should do it. The planners of G-30-S could use Lubang Buaya because this area was under the control of the Air Force (leftist), the opponent of the Army (right wing). Gerwani as an organisation was not involved in this plan. Near the early morning on October the 1st, the women were awake by shoutings and when they run outside, they saw soldiers were dragging the kidnapped officers, some were already killed. They were scared and run back to Jakarta, most to their own houses, the others to the headquarter of Gerwani where Sudjinah and Sulami, the secretaries of the organisation usually sleep. That was the first time the leader of Gerwani heard about the kidnapping of the generals and coup because none of them were at Lubang Buaya that night”.
The accusation of Gerwani's involvement in G-30-S by the Army was shared through their own mass media which were Angkatan Bersendjata and Berita Yudha. The content of the accusation is visible from the stories of the members of Gerwani's arrests which are usually started with accusation as “whore”, “cutters of general's genitals”, or “those who had killed the generals”.
In opposition of that accusation, the result of the autopsy showed different facts. The result from the generals' body autopsy is attached by Benedict Anderson in his work How Did The Generals Die?. He found this autopsy result among photocopies of Extraordinary Military court stenography from Lieutenant Colonel of the Air Force Heru Atmodjo. This autopsy was done by five forensic experts. This team was gathered on Monday, October the 4th in accordance to General Suharto's order as Commander of Strategy of the Army to the chairman of Central Hospital of the Army (RPSAD). The team was composed from two military doctors (including the famous Brigadier General Doctor Roebiono Kertopati) and three civil forensic specialists from the Faculty of Medicine Universitas Indonesia. The most senior of the civilian doctors was Doctor Sutomo Tjokronegoro who was the most expert forensic doctor in Indonesia at the time. Besides Roebiono Kertopati and Sutomo Tjokronegoro, other doctors were Frans Pattiasina, Liauw Yan Siang and Lim Joe Thay (Anderson, 1987:114).
They worked for 8 hours, from 16.30 on October the 4th to 00.30 on October the 5th in surgery room of RSPAD. Each one of the report from seven bodies followed a single format: 1) statement from the instruction of Major General Suharto to the five experts; 2) identification of the body; 3) description of the body, including clothing and ornaments; 4) details of detected wounds; 5) conclusion with consideration of the time and cause of death; 6) statements from the five experts, under oath, that the dissection had been done completely and correctly (Anderson, 1987:109).
Angkatan Bersendjata and Berita Yudha newspaper published the news about the condition of the bodies on October the 5th 1965 while the doctors were still doing autopsy. Angkatan Bersendjata attached the blurred pictures of the decaying dead bodies, describing their deaths as “barbaric act in the form of inhumane tortures”. Berita Yudha wrote “the wounds all over our heroes bodies are caused by tortures before they were shot”. Major General Suharto himself stated “ It is obvious to us who witness it with our own eyes how cruel the tortures that had been done by the savages of September the 30th Movement”.D. N. Aidit
Far from what the military newspaper has written, the findings of the forensic experts state none of the victims had their eyes plucked, all of their penises are also intact: even it is said that four victims are circumcised and three are not. General Yani, Panjaitan and Harjono died because of shooting at their houses while General Parman, Suprapto, Sutoyo and Lieutenant Tendean were killed after they were brought to Lubang Buaya. Even if they died in Lubang Buaya, all of them are killed by bullet wounds, including fatal shot in the head. Professor Doctor Arif Budianto (who was using the name Liem Joe Thay before) also said that all of the bodies were wearing complete clothing as when they were alive. The body of General Ahmad Yani has crooked teeth in which there is another tooth or mesio dentist between the incisor and canine and his eyes are gouged because when he was thrown into the well he fell D. N. Aidithead first. With the rumours regarding the victims' penises, the doctors put more stern observation on the matter. The result shows that the penises of the seven officers are not separated, there is not even a scratch on them.
Even though the autopsy result showed that there was no castration and tortures happening, Angkatan Bersendjata and Berita Yudha still published it. This false story about castration is based on Guy Jean Pauker's idea, a worker of RAND Corporation and agent of the CIA who was inspired by Émile Zola's novel Germinal. The involvement of the United States of America (US) in G-30-S is because in the Cold War, US saw Indonesia under Sukarno had acted like a communist country and even more openly opposed the US compared to communist countries. If Indonesia freed itself from US influence, it is going to be a big lost considering Indonesia is the biggest domino in Southeast Asia, not only because its large population and territory but also its plentiful natural resource.
The accusation towards PKI and Gerwani was used as a justification by the military to take over power, in purpose to control the situation. The Army would then grow into the New Order which continuously propagating the lie about G-30-S and followed it with other crime which is the massacre of 78,000 (according to the fact seeking commission under the State Minister Oei Tjoe Tat), 1 million (according to Operational Command for the Restoration of Security and Order/Kopkamtib) or 3 million (according to Sarwo Edhie Wibowo, ex-Commandant of Regiment Para Commando of the Army) humans who were involved or accused as involved with PKI.
Gerwani has a special place in the Army's narration about G-30-S. Gerwani is accused as the direct perpetrator who tortures and kills the generals. Other assumptions have also grown that Gerwani members are sexually deviant which is reflected on Ine Sukarno's, the Chairperson of National Congress of Indonesian Women/Kowani in April 1999 who says that Gerwani supports lesbianism and intend to establish a brothel.
The news coverage by Angkatan Bersendjata and Berita Yudha is a made up story. The label established about Gerwani can be seen from society's assumption that thinks Gerwani members are prostitutes, cutters of generals' genitals or killer of generals, also as lesbians and brothel makers. The effect of this label was members of Gerwani were arrested, sexually assaulted and tortured and demonised by the people. Until now, this label towards Gerwani prevails, even after more than half-century since G-30-S.
To analyse this case, I use theory of Sexual Politics and theory of Amplification of Deviance as dissection tools. As women, the sexuality of members of Gerwani are attacked and eventually it has a different effect than persecution towards male victims. Thus why to strengthen and deepen the analysis, I use feminist perspective.
Theory of Sexual Politics was founded by Kate Millett in her book Sexual Politics which was published for the first time in 1970. Rosemarie Tong categorises her thinking into libertarian-radical feminist school of thoughts. In the context of “sexual politics”, the term “politics” is used not just to describe things such as meetings, parliamentary members, and political party. The term “politics” means relation which is ordered based on power structure where one group of people is controlled by the other. The word “politics” is used to talk about sex because this word is useful to show the real form of the ever changing sex status. Ideologically, sexual politics gains agreement through “socialisation” to both sexes about patriarchal rules regarding temperament, role and status. What is meant as temperament here is the formation of human personality based on sexual category of masculine and feminine which in turn is based on the needs and values of the dominant class, regulated according to what they think is suitable for the lower class: for men those are aggression, intelligence, motivation and effectiveness while for women those are passivity, ignorance, obedience, morality and ineffectiveness. This aspect is complemented by the second factor, sex roles, which regulates behaviour, gestures and trait for every sex. In the form of activities, sex roles assign domestic servitude and baby rearing to women while the all other human achievements, interests and ambitions are assigned to men. The roles for women make her limited to biological experience. Therefore almost all activities which can be used to describe humans instead of animals (because animals also give birth and rear their children) are assigned to men. Then of course sex status also follows the same order. If we analyse three categories above, we can divide the status as political component, roles as sociological component and temperament as psychological component. They who can achieve high status tend to adopt the role of masters because the are the first who developed the dominant temperament.
Regarding sexual revolution, Kate Millett writes:
“A sexual revolution would require, perhaps first of all, an end of traditional sexual inhibitions and taboos, particularly those that most threatened patriarchal monogamous marriage: homosexuality, “illegitimacy”, adolescent, pre and extra-marital sexuality. The negative aura with which sexual activity has generally been surrounded would necessarily be eliminated, together with the double standard and prostitution. The goal of revolution would be permissive single standard of sexual freedom, and one uncorrupted by the crass and exploitative bases of traditional sexual alliances.”
The effort that had been done was not ended in revolution but sexual reformation. A completed sexual revolution demands an end to the institution of patriarchy, abolishing both the ideology of male supremacy and the traditional socialisation by which it is upheld in matters of status, role and temperament. As long as patriarchal ideology is only reformed, the essential social order of patriarchy will exist. Because most people do not have other idea, it seems that the alternative of patriarchal ideology is chaos. The social order needs women subordination; but for conservatives what is needed is a family order with women's subservience in it. The head of the family is the extension of the government while other family members are the followers. An authoritarian government prefers this patriarchal system because the atmosphere of a fascist state and dictatorship really depends on a patriarchal society.
The second theory comes from Stanley Cohen. In his book, Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers, he uses Leslie Wilkins' amplification of deviance to explain the relation between mass media and moral panic. In amplification of deviance, mass media is the main source for public knowledge about social deviance and problems. Amplification of deviance happens with society that creates symbols which can be used to identify “deviants”. Mass media then operates to publish events that are seen as deviance, causing the spread of a belief that these deviants are evil. The role of the media in creating moral panic are: 1) Setting the agenda – selecting those deviant or socially problematic events deemed as newsworthy, then using finer filters to select which of these events are candidates for moral panic; 2) Transmitting the images – transmitting the claims of claims-makers, by sharpening up or dumbing down the rhetoric of moral panics; 3) Breaking the silence, making the claim.
In amplification of violence, media images or what Cohen calls as inventory about deviance go through distortion. The situation which was initially interpreted and presented by the mass media is the form which most people receive their pictures of both deviance and disasters. Reactions take place on the basis of these processed or coded images: people become indignant or angry, formulate theories and plans, make speeches, write letters to the newspapers. Media inventory is distorted in three ways; exaggeration and distortion, prediction and symbolisation.
Exaggeration of inventory realised in the exaggeration of the seriousness of the events, the number of those involved, the degree of damage and violence, which is showed through sensational headlines, hyperbolic vocabulary and the exaggeration of those elements in news. Next is prediction. Prediction is the implicit assumption that what had happened is inevitably going to happen again. The presence of predictions can be disastrous because if the prediction is not fulfilled, a story would be forged as if the prediction happens. Lastly, it is symbolisation. Mass communication relies on the symbolic power of words and images. In symbolisation there are three processes, a word (e.g. “Mod”) becomes a symbolic of a certain status (deviant); objects (hairstyle and clothing) symbolise the word; and finally the objects symbolise status. Another effective technique of symbolisation is the use of dramatised and ritualistic interviews with “representative members” of the deviant group. Through symbolisation and other methods of distortion, images is deemed as the real thing and people deny reality.
In amplification of deviance, it needs a huge amount of communication to spread issues. Mass media publish news with stereotypes about how deviants act based on symbols that the society creates. Sensationalisation is one of the mechanism of amplification. Controlling agents (such as the police) decide which acts can be given the label as deviant. Control tactics they are using are influenced by sensationalisation and symbolisation by the mass media so people who are not causing any harm but fit with the symbols of deviants (such as punk hairstyle and clothing) would be detained. Cohen then cites Becker who says someone is given the label deviant not because they have been violating the rules but because of disrespect to law enforcement.
The data I use in this writing is secondary data. Secondary data source I use are articles from Berita Yudha and Angkatan Bersendjata newspapers and fragments of them cited in books and journals. I use Saskia Wieringa's book Sexual Politics in Indonesia and Benedict Anderson's article How Did the Generals Die?. The technique used to analyse data is feminist text analysis. Sara Mills in Feminist Stylistics (1995) writes that text analysis can be done in three levels: analysis in the level of words, in the level of sentences and in the level of discourse.
With the stated technique above, I analyse this case this way: patriarchy is a social structure system and practices where men dominate, oppress and exploit women. This system manifests in the form of the state and cultural institutions such as the media. The state is a patriarchal structure where patriarchy is inherent in the procedures and ways to operate. Therefore, patriarchy is always involved in every step or policy taken by a state.
The United States of America produced efforts to keep Indonesia away from communism. According to David Easter's (2005) writing, not only the US involved in anti-communist campaign in Indonesia but also the United Kingdom, Australia and Malaysia. They saw Sukarno as a threat. Information Research Department of Foreign Office, a UK body that specialised in covert propaganda established South East Monitoring Unit in Singapore with the purpose to propagate that PKI and the communist China are threats. The US used CIA to depict PKI as the enemy of Sukarno and instrument of the Chinese government who wanted to take control of Indonesia.
Angkatan Bersendjata and Berita Yudha newspapers wrote about the Army officials who experienced tortures and castration. This could happen because the Army occupied media by banning newspapers which were seen as supporters of G-30-S. The Army also took control of the national news agency Antara. Gerwani members were depicted as killers and castrators of the high officers, femme fatale, witches and sexual deviants. These depictions are a manifestation of misogynistic media which has the purpose to amplify the deviance of Gerwani members and label them as sluts.
The fear towards strong women is a form of sexual politics in action. Power as a dominant temperament should had been owned by men because this temperament is needed to reach a high status. This high status is reserved by patriarchy only for men. Thus why according to the theory of Sexual Politics, women are demanded to have passive and obedient temperament then limited in their role to give birth and rear children. This is in accordance with the ideas of radical criminology feminism which see crime as the act of men to dominate women, forcing women to become mothers and sex slaves.
Wieringa (2003) writes that this fear was also triggered by the depiction of castration by members of Gerwani to high officers of the Army. This metaphorical castration drived conservative section of the society, especially conservative men, scared. This fear seems to become real when the metaphorical castration was “realised” in the writings of Angkatan Bersendjata and Berita Yudha. Ni Wayan Ariati P. (2010) also says that this whole construction is similar with the legend of Goddess Durga. Strong women are portrayed negatively as Durga-Uma in the story of Sudamala or Rangda in the story of Calon Arang where they have to be overpowered by a powerful man. Society's fear was furthermore manifested in the label of “slut” assigned to Gerwani. The result was a moral panic. A news coverage full of hate speech then caused hate crimes in the form of tortures and sexual violence to members of Gerwani. This hate crime was not seen as crime by most of Indonesian society because it was based on militarism and patriarchy.
Construction as sluts towards Gerwani was built through gendered language, which is language using social construction of gender. Members of Gerwani were “sukmawati” (it means warrior but the “-wati” suffix makes it feminine), “whores”, “beautiful”, “devil women”, “providing sexual service”, all of these terms were born from social construction of gender. Men would never be written as sukmawati or beautiful because in a patriarchal society, men and women are treated different in all aspects, including different gender in language (the Indonesian language is gender neutral except a few instances such as “sukmawati” above but what I mean here is the choice of words). Men are “sukmawan” (in Indonesian, the suffix “-wan” is the masculine form of “-wati”), not beautiful but “handsome”, also not givers of sexual service because according to social construction of gender, men are expected to want and pursue sex, so their position are “receiver of sexual service”.
Language was utilised to build a construct that members of Gerwani had failed in performing femininity demanded in social construction of gender. The judgment whether someone has succeeded or failed in performing femininity is based on men interests. If women fail to fulfill the demands of femininity such as in what Gerwani had done, then they have to be punished with the label “sluts”. The label “sluts” is used to maintain the dominance of men and subordination of women. It is clear that the use of such language and construction is intentional.
According to Lanier and Henry's (2004) the prism of crime, the labeling as sluts towards Gerwani is a hidden crime. Even if it is hidden, it is still a crime which indirectly has caused heavy damage. Besides this construction is also a crime because according to feminist criminology, this construction is based on male domination and gender based violence is a mean to maintain that domination. Male domination is realised in political domination while women's political agency is eliminated. The conclusion is the construction as sluts towards members of Gerwani in the publication of Angkatan Bersendjata and Berita Yudha is gender based violence.
To sum it all, The September the 30th Movement in 1965 had caused Gerwani or the Indonesian Women's Movement, one of the largest women's organisation in Indonesia with their programmes such as education and advocation for the welfare of the people, being labeled as a outlawed organisation filled with prostitutes. They were attacked sexually, jailed, and killed by state apparatus and also the people who they were advocating before. This sudden reversal of Gerwani's position was caused by Angkatan Bersendjata and Berita Yudha newspapers which purposefully neglected their journalistic responsibilities by sharing fake news about G-30-S and Gerwani. This fake news coverage was done by amplification of deviance to build a construction of Gerwani as an organisation of sluts. This amplification had caused moral panic and an extraordinary hate from the people. The patriarchal society attacked Gerwani members as those who defied their “natural roles” as women.
The construction as sluts is no other than an effort to place women back to subordination, because Gerwani as a women's movement had threatened male dominance and the interest of patriarchal institutions such as the state and the military. After analysis, this act was a gender based violence against Gerwani because from the motivation to the means were all based on patriarchal social construct of gender to punish women who failed to fulfill femininity.
My suggestion to society is to always be critical in watching over the media and to reprimand them if they ever post unverified news and hate speech. Mass media is also responsible in watching over the quality of their journalists and forbidding the use of sexist words and stereotypes which humiliate and hurt women. The press also has the responsibility to take the side of truth and the interest of the public without the influence of any political interest. The state has obligation to guarantee the freedom of the press without using media as its political wagon. The state also has to impose sanction to media which spread hate speech and propaganda. Then the state also officially has to admit the existence of the 1965 Incident, give justice and clear the names of victims, especially members of Gerwani. The state also has to admit the manipulation of history by the New Order and revise the story according the most truthful version so this crime will not repeated again.