| Abstrak/Abstract |
The 1965 Tragedy refers to a political episode within the Indonesian history, during which hundreds of thousands of people were massacred due to their alleged relation to communism, as well as a period of structural repressions that followed. Human rights advocates and democracy activists believe that dealing with the Tragedy has never been more imperative for Indonesians. Yet reconciliation over the 1965 Tragedy remains a no-show despite a growing dealing with the past initiatives in Indonesia. Several efforts to initiate public discussion on the 1965 Tragedy have met strong suspicions from opposition groups, who would then label such initiative as a movement to bring back neo-communism in the country. How can we explain the rocky road towards reconciliation in post-1965 Indonesia? This paper argues that reconciliation should be firstly understood as a “re-negotiation” of how we remember (and forget) our violent past. Since the act of remembering (and forgetting) is very political, an analysis on the possibility of reconciliation over a violent past should start with exploring the politics of memory itself—how the different and, sometimes, conflicting layers of justification inform, support, or even provide a basis for actors’ acts of remembering and forgetting, thus shaping their perceptions and expectations on reconciliation. At this point, the state narrative about the 1965 Tragedy cannot be treated as a mere “fabricated propaganda” since it somehow managed to build on the already-existing conflict formation between the communists and their political opponents, while the victim narratives are actually more plural than previously imagined. Reconciliation thus cannot be seen as a linear endeavor. Instead it should be seen as a constructed process and, at times, a contested and negotiated one. |
