An American director working in Indonesia with survivors of the bloodshed relating to the 1965 purge gained trust and stories from first hand sources – killers of thousands of fellow Indonesians during the 1960s upheaval.
They opened up easily, even boasting about their acts. One even danced on the site where he murdered suspected communists, and he became the central actor of the chilling documentary titled The Act of Killing, a recipient of numerous awards.
The producer recently announced that the film directed by Joshua Oppenheimer can be downloaded for free as of Sept. 30, the date when we fly the national flag half-mast to commemorate the failed 1965 coup by the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and their victims, as the official version goes.
The next day, Oct. 1, is still Sacred Pancasila Day, when the red-and-white flutters at full-mast, symbolizing how good triumphed against evil through the crushing of the coup and all the unmentioned measures to purge that evil – while more survivors and their descendants demand their rehabilitation from links with the PKI.
Even while other accounts are exposed apart from the New Order version, the annual flag rituals continue – while President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the son-in-law of an officer known for his heroic role in the 1965 purge, will unlikely meet demands of a state apology to former political prisoners detained for years without trial, the descendants and those victims of forced disappearances and killings.
Today's more painful fact, following new documentaries and reports highlighting the testimonies of the perpetrators, is that not many seem moved over the boasting and justifying of the killings. This also reflects general apathy over 1965, as attempts to expose other experiences beyond official history have been met with resistance.
This is unsurprising as those linked to the 1960s witch-hunt are still influential. When the National Commission on Human Rights issued its report last year over the bloodshed, they protested its recommendation of state apology and further investigation, saying that many of the killings were retaliation against terror and murder by communists – who had targeted "capitalist bureaucrats", among others.
The period before and after September 1965 became known for one of the world's worst killings against at least 500,000 people, which historians have shown to involve the military, civilians, and foreign parties eager to curb communist power. It took the Dutch 60 years to officially apologize to families over a single incident of the killing of their colonial subjects. If Indonesians want the best for the new generation, we should accept that hundreds of thousands of citizens and their descendants were subject to injustice that remains largely unaddressed.
Dismissing the 1965 issue has contributed to repeated violence, similarly justified by causes that whip up public sympathy, retaining impunity among the perpetrators. Thanks to creative and concerned people, and technology which forces open untold stories, more Indonesians question decades-old propaganda. But without state action to face our past, our legacy is our silence which protects murderers for life.