Can a religious nation be proud of butchering its own?

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