Communism's long shadow
The sharp debate that is currently going on both inside and outside the People's Consultative Assembly about the possibility of repealing a 38-year-old ban on communism once again illustrates the effectiveness of the past New Order regime's smear campaign against anything leftist.
Although not quite unexpected, the withdrawal by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) over the weekend of its proposal to scrap the old legislative decree -- purportedly to avoid voting and smooth the way toward decision- making by consensus in the preferred Indonesian way -- the party's change of stance nevertheless provoked some bitter comments from dyed-in-the-wool reformists. This party with the biggest faction in the legislature, after all, had been just about the only faction in the Assembly seemingly willing, for whatever reason, to argue for the rights of those hundreds of thousands of relatives and associates of communists and suspected communist who have been oppressed by the New Order regime ever since the 1965 attempted coup.
One poignant example of how that system of oppression worked -- and most likely still works in many places -- was illustrated in a news report about a 62-year-old classical Sundanese ballad singer called Nani Nurani. In her younger years, Nani used to be the favorite traditional Sundanese singer and dancer of Indonesia's first president, Sukarno. Consequently, she was often invited to sing and dance at palace functions hosted by the president. The last such function she performed at was held at the Cipanas presidential summer palace to mark the anniversary of the Indonesian Communist Party.
It turned out to be a fateful event, and also the last she was to perform in as a palace singer and dancer. In 1968 she was arrested and put in prison for seven years, though she was never tried. After her release from Bukit Duri Women's Penitentiary in 1976, Nani applied for an ID card, which all Indonesian citizens are required to carry. Under the law, all Indonesians over 60 years old are entitled to a lifelong ID card issued by the person's local village and neighborhood authorities. Nani received one that identified her as an ex-political prisoner, which prevented her from being politically active or taking any kind of job that would allow her close contact with people with any influence in society, such as school teachers. Former political prisoners are shunned as outcasts by their own communities and are often unable to marry or befriend the people of their choice.
In Nani's case, however, history and courage interfered. After president B.J. Habibie came to power in 1998, a new policy to remove the political prisoner tag was put in place. Nani sued her local authorities for denying her a lifelong ID card, and won. In January 2000, president Abdurrahman Wahid attempted to bring about a reconciliation with Indonesian communists residing abroad. He also proposed that the Consultative People's Assembly repeal the ban on communism and the Communist Party -- which was rejected.
In the following years, more such efforts followed, but to no avail. A survey conducted by Kompas newspaper shows that even to this day, the stigma continues, even among the younger generation of Indonesians. It seems at present that the choice for those hundreds of thousands of people who still share Nani's fate is either to fight for their rights, like Nani did, or to wait until who knows when. It seems that communism, enfeebled though it is on a global scale, still manages to cast a long dark shadow over this nation.