Toward reconciliation in Indonesia<\/p>\n
By Willem Oltmans<\/p>\n
AMSTERDAM (JP): Rimbaud once wrote that love should be
\nreinvented. Psychohistorians in America feel history should be
\nreinvented. In studying the emotional life of nations they decode
\nhistory by using psychoanalytical methods to unravel and
\ncarefully examine what happened and why it happened.<\/p>\n
The psychohistorian probes the dynamic interaction of
\ncharacter, society, human thought and action. Forces of passion
\nand irrationality which are all about us, wherever we are, in
\nAmerica, in Holland, in Indonesia or in China, are often
\noverwhelming in history. They must not be denied or overlooked.<\/p>\n
As Marc Bloch has said, \"Historical facts are, in essence,
\npsychological facts.\" In his study Decoding the Past, Peter
\nLoewenberg of the University of California wrote,
\n\"Psychohistorians pursue visible traces of the unconscious and
\nits defenses.\" Psychohistory follows Freudian teaching in
\nstudying neurotic and normal processes and how they interact.
\nNobody will deny that at the turn of this century Indonesia seems
\nto hover between a nervous breakdown and manic depression. A
\npersonality oscillating between overactivity and inability to
\nsummon up energy or make decisions suffers from manic-depression.<\/p>\n
The day Megawati Soekarnoputri was shamefully prevented from
\ncashing in on her victory in the 1999 general election, her
\nfollowers went on a wild rampage. The very next day, the same
\nfollowers danced in the streets because their idol had been
\nthrown a leftover to keep her from becoming the leader of the
\nopposition.<\/p>\n
Terry McCarthy described these events in Time as manic-
\ndepressive behavior. October 21, 1999, is not, as President
\nAbdurrahman Wahid would have us believe, a second declaration of
\nindependence. Indonesia has been standing on its own feet since
\n1945. What now needs to be done is this: Indonesia needs to be
\nreinvented.<\/p>\n
But prior to Abdurrahman and Megawati being able to launch a
\nsecond stage of nation-building, a clean break with the past is a
\nmust, an essential prerequisite. After 1986, this writer lived
\nfor six years in South Africa and witnessed the march to freedom
\nby Nelson Mandela.<\/p>\n
Blacks and whites had been at each other's throats for
\ndecades, but they agreed that in order to proceed in a peaceful
\nway, they had to come to terms with their past: history had to be
\ndecoded in a psychoanalytic manner, namely through all parties
\nconcerned telling their stories, reliving the past and for once
\nbeing honest about it.<\/p>\n
A Truth Commission was set up in South Africa which perhaps
\nwill go down in history not only as a near perfect tool for
\nconflict solving and reinventing the emotional life of the South
\nAfrican nation, but also as an example for nations elsewhere to
\ntake a cue from Mandela and F.W. de Klerk.<\/p>\n
Together they received the Nobel Prize for the way in which
\nthey taught mankind how to solve in harmony their political and
\nemotional problems.<\/p>\n
The CIA initiated the bloodbath in Indonesia in 1965 and the
\nfollowing years of military terror against the people. Nobody can
\nor should forget the island of Buru, where tens of thousands of
\npeople lingered for many years. And when they finally got out,
\ntheir identification papers were stamped, like Hitler made Jews
\nwear a yellow star.<\/p>\n
These crimes against humanity committed by former president
\nSoeharto and his American criminal friends must be cleared up for
\nthe collective sanity of the Indonesian people. The whole purpose
\nof psychoanalysis is the return to normality through confession
\nand reconstructing the truth. No one advocated in South Africa a
\nwitch-hunt to punish the guilty and send mass murderers of the
\nwhite regime in Pretoria to the gallows. No. Blacks also
\ncommitted hideous crimes in the process of their struggle for
\nliberation.<\/p>\n
South Africa turned a page in its history by clearing
\neverybody's mind about what happened in the past by instituting a
\nTruth Commission chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. One can
\nimagine a similar venture and development in Indonesia.<\/p>\n
Because it is particularly bad business to enter a new
\nmillennium and act as if nothing happened, to shove mass murder
\nand treason committed in collaboration with the CIA and all the
\nrest under the rug. When Henry Kissinger approved on behalf of
\nRichard Nixon the murder and overthrow of democratically elected
\npresident Salvador Allende of Chile, Gen. August Pinochet was
\nhanded by Washington a list of 3,000 Chileans that needed \"to
\ndisappear\".<\/p>\n
Pinochet obliged willingly, the same way Reich Commissar A.
\nSeyss-Inquart rounded up Jews and Dutchmen alike on behalf of
\nHitler during World War II. He had them shot or disappear in
\nconcentration camps. Pinochet -- just like Soeharto 10 years
\nearlier -- sent 200,000 of his countrymen to concentration camps
\nand asked Kissinger to help them set up and dispatch the neces
\nsary Yankee experts to Chile. This was all documented only last
\nyear from Washington archives, and hence, Mr. Pinochet is now
\nbeing held in London for possible trial in Spain of all places.<\/p>\n
Perhaps this is not a solution that will be helpful to either
\nChile, the United Kingdom or Spain. Those who suffered under
\nPinochet's coup and military regime -- which, and let us not
\nforget this, was an invention of American minds -- would be
\nbetter served by following the South African psychoanalytical
\nsolution of clearing the collective mind of the entire country.<\/p>\n
Because the forceful ejection from consciousness of impulses,
\nmemories or experiences that are painful or shameful will
\ngenerate high levels of anxiety. Millions and millions of
\nIndonesians today suffer repressed anger and the only way the
\nnation can return to normalcy is by calmly reexamining the past,
\nwithout revenge, without continued hatred, in a peaceful way. In
\nother words: the example of Nelson Mandela should be studied, and
\nin my opinion followed to the letter in Indonesia.<\/p>\n
Which brings me to Indonesia's founding president Sukarno,
\nknown as Bung Karno. When I met him in Rome and suddenly stood
\nface to face with him in the garden of the Indonesian Embassy on
\nJune 12, 1956, I was nervous. Why? Because I was Dutch and in
\nsome ways I felt guilty. We had imprisoned this man for more than
\n11 years, while all he ever wanted was freedom for his people.<\/p>\n
I had an idea how this felt, because I lived through the five
\nyears of Nazi occupation of my country, between the ages of 14
\nand 19. Bung Karno stretched out his hand in friendship, and even
\ninvited me on the spot to join him on the presidential train on
\nhis visit to different parts of Italy, ending in Venice.<\/p>\n
He ordered his adjutant Sugandhi to make the proper
\narrangements. Here I was, having parachuted into Indonesia as a
\nDutch journalist, in the presidential party having lunch in the
\nrestaurant-car with his entourage, including Col. Warrouw, Wim
\nLatumeten, A.M. Hanafih, Maj. Sabur, even his son Guntur
\nSoekarnoputra, who was 12, and being accepted by them as a
\nfriend.<\/p>\n
My father was born in Semarang. My grandfather was born in
\nSemarang. My great-grandfather, Alexander Oltmans, was president
\nof the Netherlands East Indies Railways (1864-1889) in Semarang.
\nI was born and raised in Holland, but nevertheless the descendent
\nof a typical colonial family being raised at the dinner table
\nwith lots of sambalan.<\/p>\n
My father would tell us how he, at our age, would go crocodile
\nhunting on Sumatra. However, I was also a product of Holland and
\nwas totally amazed at the warmth of Bung Karno's reception during
\nthat trip through Italy. Looking back to 1956 and all those years
\nof living and loving in Indonesia, I am nevertheless reminded of
\nRudyard Kipling's dictum in his famous Ballad of 1889: \"East is
\nEast, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.\"<\/p>\n
In this day and age of globalization and of creating a global
\nvillage, unless the West learns from the East, from the Mahatma
\nGandhis, the Sukarnos and the Mandelas that we are in this world
\nto forgive and not to hate or seek revenge, there will be no
\npeace.<\/p>\n
Ibu Hartini Sukarno told me in 1995, \"Soeharto is een lieve
\nman\" (Soeharto is a likeable man), to which I exploded, \"But he
\nkilled your husband!\" What I, as a Dutchman was forgetting, was
\nthat Afro-Asians base human rights on forgiveness, while the West
\naims at revenge. For the West and the East to come together it is
\nessential the we in Europe and America begin to understand the
\nmeaning of the South African Truth Commission. When Bung Karno
\nextended a hand of friendship in Rome was when I began to learn
\nfrom the East.<\/p>\n
The writer is a journalist based in the Netherlands.<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/toward-reconciliation-in-indonesia-1447893297", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }