Playwright Ikranagara recounts Lekra's terrors

Playwright Ikranagara recounts Lekra's terrors

By Ikranagara

JAKARTA (JP): The communist coup of 1965, or G-30-S, was
preceded by the establishment of an organization of artists
grouped in the Lembaga Kebudayaan Rakyat (Peoples' Culture
Institute), which was better known by the abbreviation Lekra.

This statement was made by a prominent Indonesian communist --
a journalist -- in 1965.

The reign of terror launched by Lekra at the time not only
affected people in major cities where the centers of national
culture were established, as in Jakarta, for instance, or Bogor,
Bandung, Yogyakarta, Solo, Semarang, Surabaya, Malang, Denpasar,
Ujungpandang, Banjarmasin, Medan, Padang and Palembang, but also
in small towns such as Banyuwangi and Negara, as witnessed and
experienced by this writer.

Not only did Lekra target established artists, it also
attacked new and young talent on the verge of progress.

When the Cultural Manifesto (Manikebu) was banned in the days
of Guided Democracy, I was still a teenager just graduated from
senior high school in Banyuwangi, East Java. In that town,
located on East Java's eastern tip, I joined an organization
supporting the Cultural Manifesto. In my opinion, the manifesto
was a testimonial of artists struggling for creative freedom and
universal humanity.

The Cultural Manifesto was banned because of the systematic
and unceasing assault by artists of Marxist leaning, especially
those who were members of Lekra, an affiliate of the Indonesian
Communist Party (PKI). They intended to force the acceptance of
their Stalinist ideas, known as "socialist realism", as a guide
for Indonesian artists in their work.

One of the Lekra members at the forefront of this campaign was
Pramoedya Ananta Toer, who drove supporters of the Cultural
Manifesto into a corner, accusing them of being puppets of banned
parties such as the Indonesian Socialist Party (PSI) and the
Moslem-based Masyumi, not to mention the charges that they were
working for the U.S. intelligence agency, the CIA.

Because of that slander, supporters of the manifesto were
categorized as "counter revolutionaries". Incidentally, when an
Indonesian literary figure won the Magsaysay award at that time,
Pramoedya denounced the Magsaysay Award Foundation as an
instrument of the CIA because it was funded by the United States.

Pramoedya has not changed. When interviewed by Gatra magazine,
he repeated the slander even though he was about to attend a
dinner at the residence of the American ambassador in Jakarta to
celebrate the 1995 Magsaysay Award presentation.

Fatal

In the period of Guided Democracy such accusations could be
fatal. The accused could face imprisonment, or be bludgeoned to
death by members of some powerful organization such as the
People's Youths (Pemuda Rakyat), which was yet another
organization affiliated to the Indonesian Communist Party.

Through their own media, Marxist writers, journalists and
politicians provided education and political guidance colored
with leftist ideas to followers grouped in various organizations.
They also committed "revolutionary" acts such as agitation and
the destruction of opponents in all spheres of life.

Destruction involved more than just setting books on fire. It
also included large-scale dismissals of people in all fields of
employment. The perpetrators held to the principle that the end
justifies the means. This resulted in bloodshed and terror, such
as happened in the village of Kanigoro before the coup was
launched. Not only creative freedom was destroyed but also noble
values, which were trampled upon through a series of violations
of human rights.

These action were undertaken by the Marxist literary vanguard
and journalists in line with Lenin's concept elaborated in his
work Where To Begin (1901), which reads in part: "The role of the
mass media is not restricted to the dissemination of ideas,
political education, or attempts by dint and by stint to assemble
these forces in politics. The media is not just a promotional
tool or agitator to unite all revolutionary forces. The media
should be able to become an organizer of all revolutionary
forces ..."

Lenin then wrote in What Is To Be Done (1902) "... and the
media will become a ferocious storm converging from all
directions, igniting fire in the chaff of the struggle ... to
become a flaming revolutionary movement".

It was in this revolutionary spirit that the communist media
formed an organized force to pursue and strike at anyone they
chose to classify as "counter revolutionary". The same concept
was practiced by Lekra and by journalists with Marxist ideas
during the era of Guided Democracy in Indonesia.

One of the channels for this slander was the cultural column
Lentera in the daily newspaper Bintang Timur, under the
supervision of Pramoedya. It was, therefore, not surprising when
Naibaho, the chief editor of the communist daily Harian Rakyat,
in a 1965 circular supporting the G-30-S terror, praised Lekra. I
quote the words, which I used in the opening paragraph of this
article: "The terror of G-30-S was preceded by the actions of
artists grouped in the Peoples' Culture Institute (Lekra)."

Even though it is a long way from Banyuwangi, East Java, and
Negara, Bali, to Jakarta, this did not deter Pramoedya, whose arm
seemed to reach out from Jakarta into the most distant regions.
My support for the Cultural Manifesto was known to the Lekra
members in Banyuwangi and Negara. Apparently, they also knew that
the group that produced it was banned and its supporters all
suspect, so Pramoedya and his associates decided to destroy the
"counter revolutionary" group.

And what were the Lekra artists doing in distant Negara and
Banyuwangi? What I myself experienced in Negara was that Lekra
members, together with members of the Pemuda Rakyat terrorized me
by ransacking my room in my parents' house. They took books from
the racks and a collection of music records as well.

The books which were taken away included Doctor Zhivago, by
Boris Pasternak, Demokrasi Kita (Our Democracy) and Filsafat
Yunani (Greek Philosophy) by Mohammad Hatta, Road Without End by
Mochtar Lubis, The Flowered Screen by Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana,
Di Bawah Lindungan Ka'bah (Under the Protection of the Ka'bah),
Tenggelamnya Kapal Van der Wijk (The Sinking of the Van der Wijk)
and Ayahku (My Father) by Hamka. The books and records were
heaped in front of my parents' house, then burned to the
accompaniment of revolutionary yells.

They could do that because the pro-communist police were on
their side. In those days the left had access to authority. So,
when I later wanted to stage the drama Domba-domba Revolusi
(Sheep of the Revolution) by B. Soelarto -- also a supporter of
the Cultural Manifesto -- in Banyuwangi, permission was denied by
the police. The Marxist groups, including Lekra, had access to
all organs of power in those days, this did not end with the
police alone.

Physical acts

It was very clear that creative freedom for independent
artists outside of the Lekra membership was suppressed by that
organization in cooperation with the authorities of that time.
Their terrorist tactics extended to physical acts, which caused
my family and myself to fear for our lives..

Without ever having read Lenin's entire writings, passages of
which I have cited above, the gripping experience of terror and
what little I knew of Stalin's terror tactics in the Soviet Union
were enough to instill anger in my heart. I blame not only the
local Lekra members for terrorizing me. I also blame their
leaders and activists in Denpasar and in Jakarta, including
Pramoedya, for resorting to the terrorist tactics personified in
Stalin's ideology.

I never met Pramoedya in person when I was a teenager, and as
far as I know, he never visited Negara or Banyuwangi. But with
all the fear and coercion that I experienced during my teenage
years, in my mind, Pramoedya personified "the invisible hand of
terror". The same is true for my family, or perhaps any other
person who was ever singled out as a "counter revolutionary", or
accused of being an enemy of the Marxist ideology.

After having now read some of Lenin's words, my conclusion
about Pramoedya, arrived at during my teenage days, seems best
left unchanged. All the more so after I read his statement in
Media Indonesia (Aug. 6, 1995), in which he implicitly admitted
the wrongs he committed and stressed that he had no regrets about
them.

In the end, Pramoedya's wrongdoings, together with those of
the other members of Lekra, remind me of the actions of Madame
Mao Zedong and the "Gang Of Four", who pioneered the Cultural
Revolution in China. As recorded by movie director Chen Kaige in
his work Farewell My Concubine, that episode in Chinese history
was truly appalling.

When will our novelists and screenwriters write about the
wrongdoings of Pramoedya and Lekra? Arifin C. Noer's semi-
documentary film Pengkhianatan G-30-S (The G-30-S Betrayal)
admittedly included early acts of terror by the communists before
the coup event, but the film did not feature any terrorist
activities by Lekra artists. It is clear that in all of Asia, to
my knowledge, such terrorist activities have taken place only in
China during the period of the Cultural Revolution, and in
Indonesia in the days of Guided Democracy.

The writer is a highly respected playwright and actor.