On October 1st, 1965 an armed group kidnapped six senior army generals, killed them and dumped their bodies. This was the culmination of almost 20 years (from 1945 beginning of the Indonesian revolution against the Dutch) of economic, political and ideological instability in the country. The PKI (Indonesian Communist Party) was blamed for the murders and the military, under direction of Suharto (then Commander of the Army Strategic Reserve) initiated a period of mass genocide and imprisonment of PKI members and sympathisers.
The main issue for the victims of the 1965-66 genocide is revealed when trying to declare who is responsible. How can a victim find justice for a crime when the perpetrator and the vast majority of society don’t believe a crime was committed? At best we can identify the main actors involved and the role they played.
Firstly, the Indonesian military, is the only actor who played a direct and indirect role. Despite not being scrutinised in the film, it undoubtedly had the most direct role to play in the genocide. The minimal amount of investigations that have occurred, have attributed the majority of the killings to the military and its members. However, as seen with Anwar and his fellow killers, whose role was entirely direct, the military was involved in igniting low socio-economic, uneducated youths into killing and thus played an indirect role.
Secondly, one must examine the genocide through its context. Set against the backdrop of the Cold War and the US government’s obsessive policy of containment and domino theory (as one state in a region came under Communism, others would too) Western governments had a huge (although technically indirect) role to play.
The British government assisted the Indonesians with propaganda, finances and operations. The Australian government (an Indonesian neighbour) also assisted with propaganda. But in its own league of involvement was the US government. It provided the Suharto’s forces with weapons and finances, and a CIA list of Communist names who were to never be from again.
The USA playing a role in mass-killings in developing nations is definitely not an unheard of phenomenon (e.g. Chile 1973, again against the Left: socialist Allende), however it does help explain the politics that have prevented this awful chapter of history from being more heavily scrutinised.
Victims of violence or discrimination in the developing (2nd/3rd world) must almost exclusively rely on Western pressure on their own governments in order to receive apologies, compensation or justice, however, when the (arguably) World’s hegemon, (arguably) European hegemon, and (arguably) regional Hegemon were all involved in the deaths of 1 million people, and the illegal imprisonment of hundreds of thousands more its unlikely they will be pushing for scrutiny of the issue.
Meanwhile, in Indonesian, the Suharto regime collapsed in 1998 yet little has happened since, despite media restrictions being lifted. In 2004 textbooks were published that did not describe the events of 1965 as a response to an attempted Communist coup and huge backlash ensued. All the textbooks were destroyed.
Much of the acceptance of the events of 1965 has to do with Indonesia’s economic development following the ascension of Suharto. The changing nature of history would blame Sukarno (elected President 1959) and communism for Indonesia’s economic problems. Admittedly, Sukarno was far too concerned with the ideological journey of Indonesia and spent little time implementing economic policy. Meanwhile, other strongly contributing factors are ignored, including that Indonesia had been a Western colony (by definition economically abused), had only 15 years earlier completed a revolution and was suffering under a huge uneducated, agriculture-dependant population.
There exists a trickle down effect, which is what one sees with Anwar and his group. The secret to government honesty is a majority middle class who have education but also possess a social conscience. The lower class are frequently uneducated, without financial power and therefore voiceless, meanwhile the upper class frequently dwell there through abuse of the lower class and rarely want to share their position. In Indonesia, the uneducated, lower class made up the majority of victims of 1965-66 and in a cruel twist, now even believe that Suharto rescued them from the evils of communism. Meanwhile, the upper class (best friends of Capitalism) benefited greatly from the events of 1965 and thus no one is examining history.
The main issue with “The Act of Killing” is that, while it brings attention to the genocide, the blame is misdirected. Even the results of Josh Oppenheimer’s experiment and Anwar’s emotion journey, the final breakdown and vomiting, are doubtfully honest reactions. One must remember, Anwar clearly thinks of himself as quite a star in his own way and is aware the whole time he is on camera.
However, naturally, they are easy targets, so deluded by their own government’s propaganda that they will happily talk about the endless, gruesome murders they committed. One must almost admire the ability of Suharto and the army to implement their regime with no backlash. Through outrageously excessive force they have implemented a legitimate political regime and Indonesia is now considered, positively, a regional power and symbol of stability.
This however is the most confronting aspect of the film, even the director seems to consider Suharto’s power legitimate. And we are feeling outrage toward Anwar but none for the US government or the military or even the Dutch who used and abused the Indonesian nation, leaving them weak to such widespread violence.
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