What has the Left left abroad?

By Aboeprijadi Santoso

AMSTERDAM (JP): Hundreds of Indonesian exiles, scattered across Europe for decades, are no longer "the pariah of the nation" since President Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid invited them to return home eight months ago. While this actually confirms the end of the Indonesian left wing movement abroad, some politicians resist the reconciliation.

In his noble gesture in December, Gus Dur described the exiles as "the wandering independent fighters." That broke the ice and soon the exiles enthusiastically welcomed the President at the Ambassador's residence in Paris and Wassenaar in the Netherlands. For the first time, the problem of exiles was seriously addressed and positively responded to.

The dramatic change was marked by full support for the new president, cherished hopes for change and dreams of home sweet home. Most importantly, it is finally recognized that they had unjustly lost their civil rights since their passports were unlawfully revoked in the 1960s.

"That was clearly reflected when we met with Minister (of Law and Legislation) Yusril (I. Mahendra) in The Hague in January," said exiled Umar Said.

But the euphoria is short-lived. With strong negative reactions to Gus Dur's proposal to lift a ban on communism and to look into the mass purge of 1965, the political beleaguering of the President and the bloody unrest in the regions, many exiles have started to worry about the new opportunities.

Last May, some legislators finally struck back, saying Yusril went "to pick up the communists back home" and as a result the minister postponed further steps.

Political reconciliation is often accompanied by pain in post- dictatorial transitions. For Indonesia, the specter of 1965-1966, with outdated Cold War sentiments, will continue to distort the reconciliation as long as these events have not been fully probed and resolved.

Most of the exiles are former students in Eastern Europe, but many are ex (party) officials and cadres, who came to China in September 1965 to celebrate the anniversary of the Chinese revolution. A greater part had been associated with the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), the radical-nationalist Partindo or the left wing PNI. The 1965 coup attempt caught all by surprise and "hostaged" them abroad.

Disillusioned, they survived the mid-1960s holocaust only to find themselves trapped in the agony of "Cold War" between the Moscow and Beijing factions. Worse, a process of disintegration set in as ongoing feuds continued over the 1965 debacle.

In the end, they left China because under the strict codes of the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" life took on Orwellian tones and became unbearable. Above all, contact with Indonesia was not possible.

Having gone through the painful experience of isolation and internal conflict, being separated or left by their families and losing comrades at home, they moved to Europe in the mid-1970s, relocating mostly to the Netherlands and Germany. Fifteen years later, the Moscow groups followed suit as they lost their privileges with the rise of Gorbachev.

Living in exile is a life "born out of blood, pain, sadness, anger and spirit," according to the poet Sobron Aidit, now in Paris.

Once these communities were disarray, however, most exiles seemed alienated from their historic cause and adapted to the local welfare system in Europe. There was no common political platform left on which to build an organized resistance, nor had they ever succeeded in building one.

About 150 Indonesian exiles are now left in the Netherlands out of some 250 who lived in Beijing in 1967, including independent fighters of the 1940s -- the biggest exile phenomenon in Indonesian history.

Many leaders in the past such as Tjokroaminoto, Soekarno, Hatta, Syahrir and Tan Malaka were at one time "long distance revolutionaries". While in exile, sometimes by choice, they contributed a vocal resistance from outside Java or abroad. In contrast, all post-1965 exiles became exiles purely by fait d'accompli. Despite modern communication, "long distance resistance" never came about.

Many accept their fate. "If Indonesia were the Borobudur (temple) we had become tumbal (the price to be paid) for the sake of progress," reflected a former student in Prague, Siswartono. Others, like Wardjo, a former member of People's Youth (Pemuda Rakyat), take a consistent attitude. "It was my choice, so it's my risk," he said. So, although respecting Gus Dur, many exiles do not intend to go home.

Some have turned to social democracy, religion (Islam) or set up restaurant businesses. Children of exiles, although well aware of their parents' fate, become professionals and generally shy away from politics.

Very few, indeed, followed the lead of Basuki Resobowo, the foreman of the left wing artists' body Lekra, or former Sarbupri union leader Suparna Sastradiredja (both deceased) in actively join anti-New Order protests abroad.

The lack of a broad resistance overseas is often explained by the experiences of deep division and trauma. But Soeryono, a former Harian Rakjat (PKI daily) correspondent in Beijing, offers a different view.

"The PKI leaders are from the priyayi (lower aristocrats turned bureaucrats) class. Not an alternative force. Had PKI won in 1960s, it might have been similar or even worse than Soeharto and Golkar. It was Sudisman (number three in the PKI ranks) who built the structure of intellectually and ideologically bad cadres."

Soeryono, an independent-minded former Pesindo (socialist youth) leader, now residing in Amsterdam, is perhaps the only Indonesian ever falling in disgrace with all three communist giants, PKI, the Chinese CCP and the Soviet CPSU.

The 1965 mass purge, the lack of popular resistance, deep schisms and the changing world conditions dealt a fatal blow to the left wing movement at home and abroad.

The fact that this movement, at least what is left it, now relies completely on President Wahid, a leader from a distinct non-Marxist tradition (Nahdlatul Ulama), underlines the fact that the movement had long been hopelessly disintegrated. Whatever its prospects, if any, future left wing politics could only thrive with a new generation who have no links to the remaining leftist elements of the 1960s.

So, the Indonesian left wing movement has finally come full circle. It has come a long, long way from a respectable tradition of exile -- from the days of Semaoen (in Amsterdam, Moscow, Paris 1920s) to Tan Malaka (who left the Netherlands to travel in Asia 1920-1940s) -- to the end of the PKI in the late 1960s in Indonesia and between mid-1970s and late 1980s in China, Soviet Union and West Europe.

While it all started with unionist activities in Semarang, led by the Dutch Marxist Henk Sneevliet in 1913, and its international role came about thanks partly to the former Dutch communist party CPN (the only Dutch party supporting full independence for Indonesia), its struggle at home could only be transformed into a powerful force because of the mass-based Sarekat Islam.

Ironically, the movement had come to an end as a fin du siecle as Indonesia acquired a Muslim cleric as its first democratically elected president.

In other words, much of the Indonesian left wing movement's failure was due to a political course based on a historical (mis)conception, that grossly ignored the Muslim factor. The movement had in fact been killed three times i.e. by the Soeharto regime, by the "society", and, finally, given the internal schisms, by itself. The late French historian Jacques Leclerc put it slightly differently when he argued that the movement was "killed twice": by the regime and by the historians.

Now, as its remaining elements in exile support Gus Dur, strangely, few discords are heard when the President stops short of calling an international tribunal for crimes against humanity by Soeharto, that caused thousands of their comrades' deaths and their own sufferings abroad.

Meanwhile, the decades of exile also meant a considerable loss of human resources for Indonesia as many of the exiles, particularly those staying in Eastern Europe, were brilliant professionals in fields like nuclear technology, engineering, medicine and so forth.

All exiles deserve to regain their civil rights. Few will probably return but, more importantly, the issue is a test case for reform and reconciliation. It calls all sides involved to redefine their discourse. Instead of condemning compatriots to remain pariahs in a spirit at odds with the Sarekat Islam tradition, some Muslim parties opposing the reconciliation may find them as partners in a fledging democracy.

The writer is a journalist based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.