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.