Culture, the Path to Reconciliation

ANTARA FOTO/ARIF FIRMANSYAH

A group of elementary school students visit the Pancasila Sakti Monument on Oct. 2, 2018 in Lubang Buaya, Jakarta. The school trip was held to coincide with Pancasila Sanctity Day, which is celebrated in remembrance of the heroes of the Indonesian National Revolution.

The 30 Sept. 1965 Movement, or G30S, remains a painful event for the Indonesian nation.

The pain is felt not only by the families of the victims of the events leading up to and during the incident, but also by victims of the post-G30S period. All attempts to open the way towards reconciliation have been met with pros and cons. Since the 1998 Reformasi (reform) movement, efforts at reconciliation have pursued a political course, including through the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), the international court and other, more political means. However, the more intense the endeavor, societal conflicts have grown even stronger.

An event called “Silaturahmi Nasional” (national welcome) was one of these attempts, and intended to provide a meeting platform for the descendants of the parties involved in the G30S incident as well as the Darul Islam/Indonesian Islamic Army (DI/TII). In reality, however, these attempts have produced no concrete results. The public has become increasingly polarized on the issue.

Towards the path to reconciliation

Nonetheless, at the public and grassroots levels, a variety of cultural approaches towards reconciliation are in progress. The victims have gathered together and forgiven each other. Reconciliation has also been achieved through the cultural practices of the individuals involved.

A community founded by young members of the Santri Society for Social Advocacy (Syarikat) in Yogyakarta initiated in 2005 a forum for the families of former female political detainees of the 1965 incident. Syarikat is essentially a youth arm of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU). Through this initiative, the families of these former female political detainees based in Yogyakarta later joined Kiprah Perempuan (women’s progress; Kiper), a cultural space for expression.

Kper provides not only space for expression, but also a room for sharing sessions as a form of trauma therapy. These sessions also allow participants to share their personal stories to relieve their burdens from the ingrained social, cultural and political stigmas they have experienced. People of different generations encourage each other in this room, which was originally built to facilitate gatherings between former female political detainees. The room now hosts regular meetings. Kiper also offers financial assistance to help former female detainees who were detained for other reasons.

Kiper later formed a theatrical group, Teater Tamara. The name “Tamara” is an acronym derived from “tak mudah menyerah ” (don’t give up easily), inspired by the unrelenting determination of former female detainees. Teater Tamara became a space for former detainees to channel their grief and grievances through art, and thereby recover their hopes and spirit to lead new lives. The theatrical group also gave new meaning to their lives. The members help each other forces by lifting each other’s spirits: that their lives still hold promise and hope for the future.

The families of former female detainees have also formed a choir group, Dialita, of former 1965 female detainees and their families. The group’s name is an acronym for “di atas lima puluh tahun”, (above 50 years). Its members refer to themselves as “survivors of 1965”.

Dialita was formed to provide a space for sharing and mutual empowerment to former female detainees and their families. The choir group’s establishment was also intended help its members relinquish the grievances and resentment they held towards the state, which had imprisoned them for almost 14 years. Dialita is also inextricably tied to its members’ aim to preserve history through the songs and other materials they created while in detention. Some songs were composed in the Bukit Duri, Salemba, Ambarawa and Plantungan detention centers.

The choir group thus strives to preserve these collective memories by recording the songs so they are not lost to time.

Under the great pressure of their curtailed freedoms while they were in detention, the women found expression for their daily lives by writing song lyrics. As they were prohibited from having their own writing materials, they preserved their memories of certain events orally through songs that they sung repeatedly. Doing so helped them learn the songs by heart, as well as helped relieve the longing they felt for their families while buoying their spirits to avoid being driven to despair. The choir group thus strives to preserve these collective memories by recording the songs so they are not lost to time.

ANTARA FOTO/Setpres/Laily Rachev

President Joko Widodo (second left) accompanied by Indonesian Military (TNI) commander Gen. Gatot Nurmantyo (left) and a number of TNI officers and soldiers, together with the National Police and the public, watch the Pengkhianatan G 30 S/PKI film in the indoor tennis court of the Bogor Suryakencana 061 military command post (Korem) headquarters, West Java, on Friday (29/9/2017) night.

The Dialita members have tracked down at least 20 songs that were written by the 1965 female detainees. Many more still remain to be recorded, amid the women’s fading memories with the passage of time. Some of the songs that have been recovered and recorded include “Salam Harapan (Greetings of Hope)”, ”Relakan (Let It Go)”, “Ujian (The Test)” and “Lagu untuk Anakku (A Song for My Children)”.

Valuing reconciliation

With these two channels of communication that the former detainees have established, if we want to achieve true reconciliation, we must be able to change our mindset, according to Degung Santikarma (2003). This also involves how we interpret history with regard to ourselves and our neighbors.

Paving the path to reconciliation certainly requires magnanimity in being honest with ourselves, the capacity for forgiving ourselves and opening our hearts to those who have been an “enemy” to all people. It is here that fear sometimes emerges amongst us as a nation to speak honestly about ourselves and forgive others. Vengeance cannot be allowed to fester and control what we do. This chain must be broken if we want to prepare the future generations so they are freed from living in the ruins of humanity.

In fact, families of the victims of the G30S genocide have accepted the incident as an undeniable historical fact. Tragedy is to struggle for a fate that cannot be attained. The tragedy will never disappear, because the incident will always be remembered (Nani Sutojo, 2000). Yet, they don’t want to stay stuck in the tragic event. As Amelia Ahmad Yani (2010) said, fear, grief and pain were still felt, but these feelings had been buried deep. The wounds have healed, each in their own way.

We must be able to refer to history, however bitter and dark it may be, to face the present-day challenges and look towards the distant future.

Cultural reconciliation is the main path of transformation towards awareness for mutual forgiveness over the historical incident as a reality of the past to head forward to the future. We should be able to forgive and accept all that happened as a bitter reality of history. We must be able to refer to history, however bitter and dark it may be, to face the present-day challenges and look towards the distant future.

The cultural path is therefore a better alternative than the political route that often finds it still difficult to reach mutual acceptance and even reopens old wounds. The cultural path offers an alternative towards mutual appreciation without hurting each other. Hopefully in the future, we will be a nation capable of cultivating togetherness and mutual assistance, instead of one that continues to harbor historical resentment.

KOMPAS/PRAYOGI DWI SULISTYO

Amurwani Dwi Lestariningsih

Amurwani Dwi Lestariningsih, Doctoral student of history, University of Indonesia humanities department (FIB-UI); Head of the Education and Culture Ministry Employee Education and Training Center; Researcher, Female Political Detainees at Plantungan Camp