Red Scare in Indonesia
Background
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.
The Dialogue
- We should talk about communism.
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.
Afterwords
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.