History and Hatred
When the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict erupted, leading to the loss of more than 25,000 lives, many people saw it as an excess of the weakening Soviet Union. Groups existing under Soviet Union rule began to be daring in demanding their autonomy. The Soviet authorities were slow in responding to the political instability. As a result, conflicts with other ethnicities were inevitable.
However, upon a closer look, what truly triggered the Nagorno-Karabakh war was the imagined history filled with hatred and fear. As the clash with Azerbaijani people erupted and many Armenians lost their lives, this made them recall the genocide against their ethnicity in the early 20th century.
At the time, 1.5 million Armenians were estimated to have lost their lives due to the Ottoman Empire’s systematic cleansing of their ethnicity. What was left of them spread to various places and became diaspora.
Memory through violence
This suddenly-revived trauma triggered the Armenians to retaliate against the Azerbaijanis with everything they had. Despite having been neighbors for decades, the Armenians saw the Azerbaijanis as the Turks of the past. Both were predominately Muslim peoples. Consequently, the Armenians saw both as their ontological enemies who gained pleasure from eradicating them.
Furthermore, as retaliation for the clash in Sumgait, where many Armenian lives were lost on February 25, 1988, the Armenian military burnt down the Khojali village on the same date four years later. To retaliate against the Azerbaijanis, soldiers burnt down the village in which (ironically) many Armenians resided, looted the homes and shot the powerless civilians.
Despite not being a comforting story to tell, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict perfectly illustrates how people see their history. Memory is a form of historical record prone to biases and deviations. This is clear. However, the spiral of violence that gripped the Armenians showed us how we choose to remember through the violence that occurs to us.
It is a mistake to say that such tendencies are found merely in one or two cases. Colossal myths and fictions, such as the Iliad, the Mahabharata and even Game of Thrones, portray how history almost moves from one war to another. How come? Because wars are more easily ingrained into people’s minds as a form of climax.
Until today, there is no end in sight in the portrayal of Auschwitz in novels and films. Why? It is the sorrow that people see in the place that invites them to be continuously empathetic. Among the complex narrative of a national independence struggle, how come people mostly remember the wars? The answer is still the same: the dramatic violence between groups of people are the things people remember most easily.
Researchers on the relationship between violence and memory have confirmed what Nietzsche once said: “Only that which hurts incessantly is remembered.”
Nevertheless, such tendencies also hint at a number of contemporary problems. Therefore, history is often nothing more than a series of vengeances. This happens not only between the Armenians and the Azerbaijanis. In many places in Indonesia, ethnoreligious conflicts easily escalate as it is easier for people to remember the violence that their group experienced rather than the details of the events that took place.
When they see people from their religion getting killed, they will not remember the struggles over lands or positions that triggered the conflict in the first place. The first things that they will remember are the burnt or trampled-upon religious symbols, the dead victims’ religious identities or the tortured and murdered religious leaders.
The state-sponsored systematic persecution against the Rohingya people in Myanmar? It is normalized through the remembrance of violence carried out by the Rohingya people against the Myanmar Buddhist in the past. When they have no evidence to prove that the violence occurred, proof is made up.
During BBC journalist Jonathan Head’s investigation of the Rohingya plight, he reported that the Myanmar authorities tried to convince him that the Rohingya people were threats. The local authorities then showed him photographs of the Rohingya, instead of the Myanmar military burning down local villages. However, upon further investigation, Head found that the photographs had been faked.
How to remember history?
This point brings us to the main question I wish to visit through this writing. How should we remember our history?
These days, we are facing demands to remember history through films or narratives that normalize old grudges against certain groups deemed as “others.” Is this wise? Should we even do this?
Trust me that this is not wise. Regardless of those who say that they wish to make the general public aware of the real history, the history that they want people to remember is one that justifies grudges and violence.
The “history” displayed in Arifin C. Noer’s film is one example. Its exposition is limited to the violence that a certain “other” group committed on figures representing the nation – not to mention the sadistic violence all over the place that were made up without any historical foundation.
Do I wish to say that violence never happened? No! However, we need to be wary of certain historical expositions that normalize grudges, extreme bullying and discrimination. Such exposition will eventually make spirals of violence seem real and should be made as life goals. When the Legal Aid Foundation (LBH) was besieged by people from various mass organizations, I was coincidentally inside the building and saw how the besiegers incessantly lashed out against us with terrible expressions of hatred, including saying that we should not live in Indonesia and that they would kill us all.
What was the point of carelessly shouting such cruel and inhumane words at us, who they barely knew? There seems to be no other reason than hatred itself. Hatred that has no objects other than made-up ghosts. However, it is also a form of hatred continuously maintained through the understanding that history was an era when we were victims of violence and, consequently, history must move forward as a form of vengeance that is completely paid off.
We can understand such a mindset because it is how history is often remembered. Nevertheless, we need to have another reason to remember history apart from anger and malice. Violence will spiral and harassment will continue as long as they are the only things we remember from our past.
GEGER RIYANTO
Essayist, Sociological Researcher, Teaches Social Philosophy and Constructivism at the University of Indonesia