Indonesian voices on 1965-66 mass violence in Indonesia silenced

For the past 10 months, together with Kate McGregor, my co-coordinator of the edited series 'Translating Accounts of the 1965-66 mass violence in Indonesia', we've worked with the Festival to create a series of panels, launch of our translation series and sponsorship of the AJAR photo exhibition 'The Act of Living'.

The proposal was initially put to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the outbreak of violence, killings, imprisonment and torture of those who were labelled 'communist' in Indonesia.

Late Friday afternoon (23rd October) we finally received confirmation from the UWRF Director that events in the festival program featuring discussion on the 1965-66 mass violence in Indonesia would be cancelled. As the Festival makes clear in its statement, this was as a result of pressure from authorities and threats to close the entire UWRF down.

The book series 'Translating Accounts of the 1965-66 Mass Violence in Indonesia', which was to be launched at UWRF on 27th October, seeks to address the absence still of accounts of the mass violence as told by witnesses, survivors or perpetrators. Since the fall of the New Order, an increasing number of memoirs and short testimony collections are available in Indonesian, very few are yet available in English.

The three books in the series are Forbidden Memories: Women’s experiences of 1965 in Eastern Indonesia, Edited by Mery Kolimon, Liliya Wetangterah and Karen Campbell-Nelson; Breaking the Silence: Survivors Speak about 1965–66 Violence in Indonesia, Edited by Putu Oka Sukanta; Truth Will Out: Indonesian Accounts of the 1965 Mass Violence, Edited by Dr Baskara T Wardaya SJ. They are all translated by Jennifer Lindsay and published by Monash University Press.

These books were all published in Indonesia some years ago (2011-2013) and are available widely in book stores, as well as being reviewed in major publications.

The absence of translations of these voices has prevented a greater understanding outside Indonesia of how this violence continues to impact on Indonesians and of how they now understand this traumatic period in their nation’s history. These translated works are therefore valuable resources for all who seek to understand Indonesia today.

The books in this series are all edited collections with contributions predominantly from victims, their relatives, supporters and also in a rare event, perpetrators of this violence. Together these testimonies provide a deeply complex picture of the conditions, both local and national, personal and political, under which these acts of terror and violence were carried out and their still lasting impacts.

As well as the launch of this book series, we had arranged for the three editors of these books to speak on a panel 'Bearing witness' at which they would have talked about the process of researching and writing these books. No doubt we would have heard about the extreme difficulties they and their contributors encountered getting survivors and perpetrators to share their stories; the immense courage it must have taken for those who have been unable to speak out of fear for many decades. And about the nightmares that may have returned as a consequence of reviving memories better forgotten.

Fifty years on, the silencing of these voices at UWRF this week is a startling setback in the struggle to heal these deep wounds and to seek some form of reconciliation.