Communism's long shadow

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.