Can a religious nation be proud of butchering its own?

Harry Bhaskara and Kornelius Purba, The Jakarta Post

If ever they have the opportunity to read it, The New York Times' correspondent C.L. Sulzberger's report from Jakarta on April 13, 1966, might help three young girls understand why, on every Sept. 30, their father locks himself away.

How well they know the grief that overcomes him as he shuffles to his room to shut himself in on the last day of every September.

If they had the chance to read C.L. Sulzberger's report they would probably understand the source of his sorrow.

In the report titled When a nation runs amok, Sulzberger said the Sept. 30 massacre was comparable to the world's worst killings, like Hitler's Jewish genocide. The article was written just seven months after the so-termed G30S tragedy.

"The twentieth century grimly remembers many monstrous slaughters: Turkey's Armenian massacres; Stalin's starvation of the Kulaks; Hitler's Jewish genocide; the Moslem-Hindu killings following India's partition, the enormous purges after China's communization. Indonesia's bloody persecution of its Communist rivals these terrible events in both scale and savagery," Sulzberger wrote from Jakarta.

Today, the girls' father will likely repeat his annual ritual. He has never told his daughters that his father was a victim of the Sept. 30 tragedy. Neither are they aware that their father finished his studies at the prestigious Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) under a name that was not his own. The children suffer from a stigma: They are the children of an Indonesian Communist (PKI) member. The children inherited the "sins" of their father.

"For 33 years until 1998 (Soeharto's fall), I and my other siblings had to hide our real identities. I don't want my daughters to suffer from the same 'disease' although the situation is rather different now," said the man who has a small construction company.

The daughters do not know much about the massacre as, while they watched the same film every Sept. 30 until 1998, they were too young to understand it. It is hard for them to fathom why their father is reluctant to talk about his childhood in Medan, North Sumatra.

Millions of innocent children lost their parents and have never been informed of their whereabouts. The state treated them like pariahs and gave them no protection, though it was their right to receive it. In the scenario that their parents were indeed PKI members and committed crimes, why does the state demand of children that they pay for the sins of their parents?

September was the month when it was compulsory, under the New Order government, to view a film depicting the murders of seven generals in 1965.

This was its view of the events that preceded a year-long program that claimed thousands, perhaps, millions of lives.

The film -- graphic scenes of the cruelness of the communists in the eyes of the New Order -- has not been screened since Soeharto fell from power in 1998. For more than two decades, millions of Indonesians watched it, without being able to question the historical accuracy of it under a dictatorship.

What really happened on Sept. 30, 1965, remains a matter of controversy. Teachers are at a loss to explain the course of events to their students. History books were withdrawn and revised editions published. Only a few facts, however, are revealed in the revised histories, which has left many dissatisfied.

Along with the film's presentation, there was an annual ceremony to remind the people of the murders of the generals and the dangers of communism. It was held at the Lubang Buaya (Crocodile Hole), presumably the site of these horrendous killings. This ceremony has been sporadically held in recent years. Former presidents Habibie and Abdurrahman Wahid skipped it, but not Megawati Soekarnoputri -- although many people hope she will be able to clear her father's name in the alleged coup attempt.

Soeharto brainwashed Indonesians so thoroughly that, until now, many Indonesians believe that the PKI and communists are despised by God. Even as communism has lost its popularity in China, many Indonesians still believe that there is nothing worse in this world than communism.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is scheduled to preside over the ceremony at Lubang Buaya on Saturday, the day that has been called Pancasila Sanctity Day. He has promised the ceremony will reflect more willingness to reveal the historical facts. However as his own father-in-law, the legendary Lt. Gen. (ret) Sarwo Eddie, played a decisive role in the rise of Soeharto to power, it is difficult to imagine he can distance himself from the official version of history.

We proudly call ourselves a religious nation. And apparently, as a nation, we are also proud to have killed hundreds of thousands if not millions of people, whom we regarded as the enemies of God.

The writers can be reached at purba@thejakartapost.com