George Junus Aditjondro, Yogyakarta – As if commanded from one center, two anticommunist actions in Surabaya on Wednesday, Dec. 13, and in Bandung the next day, reminded us of the Soeharto-style witch-hunts against leftist activists that used to be so common in Indonesia.
In Surabaya, hundreds of self-proclaimed anticommunist activists demonstrated at the East Java provincial legislative council. They were protesting against the sale of books on communism, which they said were still banned under Indonesian law. They also stated that communists were the main terrorists in this country.
In contrast to the peaceful Surabaya demonstration, a discussion on the international Marxist movement, featuring a guest speaker from Canada, held at the Ultimus bookshop on Jl. Lengkong Besar No. 127, Bandung, was unceremoniously broken up by hundreds of young men claiming to represent a group calling itself the Anticommunist Community Forum (FORMAK, or Forum Masyarakat Anti Komunis), and the pro-Golkar youth organization PPM (Pemuda Panca Marga). The seminar organizer, Sadikin, the guest speaker, Marhaen Soeprapto, and many of the participants were forced to flee to the campus of Pasundan University in front of the bookshop.
Cornered by the thugs, Sadikin and Marhaen were then taken to the Intelligence Unit at Bandung Police Headquarters. Nine other persons, including an elderly couple, who were merely browsing for books, were also taken to the same police unit by the thugs. Eventually, after lawyers from the Bandung legal aid office (LBH Bandung) came to their rescue, they were released without charge after 20 hours of detention. The attackers from FORMAK and the PPM, however, were not questioned by the Bandung Police. Meanwhile, the Ultimus bookshop was closed and has until today been cordoned off behind a police line.
The bookshop owners reported the case to the National Commission on Human Rights on Tuesday.
It is interesting to note that the anticommunist activists in Surabaya and the police in Bandung are of the opinion that studying communism is against Law No. 27/1999, signed by President B.J. Habibie on 19 May 1999, which introduced a major change to the Criminal Code (KUHP). This law, based on People's Consultative Assembly Decree No. XXV/MPRS/1965 on communism, forbids the dissemination of Communism or Marxist-Leninism, and carries sanctions varying in severity from 12 to 20 years in jail. When Habibie's successor, Abdurrahman Wahid, suggested the revocation of this draconian decree, he lost his presidency following a concerted campaign by various political factions that were not ready for reconciliation with the victims of the 1965-1966 anticommunist purge.
The incidents in Surabaya and Bandung should be deplored, not only for the sake of reconciliation with the "Old Left", but also because they endanger freedom of thought and critical thinking in society at large. The legacy of Marx and Engels is certainly not limited to the variant that became the founding dogma of the Soviet Union and its allies. Their brilliant thoughts have not only influenced politics, economics and political economy, where they laid the foundation of anticapitalist economics, especially the dependency theory, but also other disciplines.
Marx's cultural theory, developed further by Antonio Gramsci in Italy and by Raymond Williams in the UK, has provided the foundation for cultural studies worldwide. Here in Yogyakarta, Marxism is taught at the Religious and Cultural Studies Department of the Sanata Dharma University, and will also be taught at the School for Critical Ideology, a summer program run by the Pancasila Study Center at Gadjah Mada University.
Hence, prohibiting Marxism from been studied and discussed in public centers, such as the Ultimus bookstore in Bandung, seems to be a deliberate policy designed to curtail critical thinking among the "ordinary masses", the working people for whom Marx and Engels dedicated their lives.
It seems to be a deliberate policy designed to maintain a passive work force, ready to serve domestic and foreign investors, and thereby maintain Indonesia's position as a "neo-liberal paradise". No wonder that the security forces, whom so often side with capitalists in worker-manager conflicts, supported the attack on the Ultimus bookshop.
[The author is a guest lecturer in Marxism at the Religious and Cultural Studies Program at the Sanata Dharma University, and has been invited to teach the same subject at the School for Critical Ideology at Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta. He can be reached at pesutkahayan@yahoo.com.]