A. Junaidi, Jakarta – Two books on the unforgivable issue of violence against women, Kembang-Kembang Genjer and Dendam Perempuan dan Cerita Lain, were launched in the same building, the H.B. Jassin Literary Documentation Center at Taman Ismail Marzuki arts center in different weeks in December.
The first title, written by Sinar Harapan daily journalist Fransisca Ria Susanti, divulges the physical and sexual violence suffered by 13 women members of Gerakan Wanita Indonesia (Indonesian women's movement/Gerwani) from the 1970s-1980s.
Gerwani, a progressive women's organization, was accused of being a branch of the banned Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). The PKI was held responsible by the regime of former president Soeharto for the failed coup and the murders of seven army generals and a lieutenant in September 1965.
The 13 women reveal how they were arrested, detained for years, mostly without being tried and tortured after the failed coup.
The women, including Gerwani secretary-general Kartinah, have not been given any explanations as to why they were imprisoned, and deny any involvement in the coup. "Gerwani is not under PKI. It's a sovereign organization," Kartinah said at the book launch.
In the book, Kartinah and several of the women claim to have met two young women prisoners who were forced by the military to testify that they had disfigured the army officers' corpses in the Lubang Buaya area of East Jakarta.
According to two military-controlled newspapers, Gerwani members danced naked and sang a folk song, Kembang-Kembang Genjer, while carrying out the abuse.
Many scholarly books on the incident as well as historians have said that the army officers were shot and killed by elements of the army, who then dumped the bodies in a well in Lubang Buaya. Soeharto blamed the killings on the PKI and, supported by civilian militias, hunted down, "disappeared" or killed hundreds of thousands members and sympathizers of the party, including individuals erroneously accused of being PKI.
Thousands of alleged members of the PKI and its associated organizations were also imprisoned for years, mostly without trial.
The second title – while it is a fiction anthology – also focuses on women's sufferings against a variety of settings, including the 1965 tragedy.
"I want to reveal women's sufferings at that time through my short stories," said author Martin Aleida, a former journalist of Tempo magazine.
One of the nine stories, titled Dendang Perempuan Pendendam (Song of a woman with a grudge) tells about a woman whose father was killed for his being an alleged follower of the PKI.
The woman's uncle had revealed her father's hiding place to the military, and in doing so, subsequently acquired her family's farmland. For this, the woman hates her uncle to his dying day.
In Tanpa Pelayat dan Mawar Duka (No mourners nor flowers), Martin describes the funeral of a spy who had sent hundreds of suspected PKI sympathizers to the military. Nobody, not even his adopted son, mourn him nor visit the graveyard, and the grave diggers refuse to bury the man.
Aside from the mass persecution of 1965, Martin also sets his stories in Aceh, and death is clearly a major theme of the collection.
Despite the tasteless cover with its image of a rose, like popular paperbacks, Martin's stories present interesting angles and read like real-life news in a literary style.