Under Duress: Suppressing and Recovering Memories of the Indonesian Sixties

From October 1965, the Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia, or PKI) and its followers were brutally repressed after the party’s alleged involvement in a coup attempt. Approximately half a million party members and sympathizers were killed, and hundreds of thousands of them were impr...

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Main Author: Hearman, Vannessa
Format: text
Published: Archīum Ateneo 2013
Online Access:https://archium.ateneo.edu/stjgs/vol1/iss1/2
https://archium.ateneo.edu/context/stjgs/article/1028/viewcontent/STJGS_201.1_202_20Article_20__20Hearman.pdf
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spelling ph-ateneo-arc.stjgs-10282024-10-20T14:18:02Z Under Duress: Suppressing and Recovering Memories of the Indonesian Sixties Hearman, Vannessa From October 1965, the Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia, or PKI) and its followers were brutally repressed after the party’s alleged involvement in a coup attempt. Approximately half a million party members and sympathizers were killed, and hundreds of thousands of them were imprisoned for varying lengths of time. This paper examines how collective memory and a sense of identity were shaped under the conditions of repression and silence that the Suharto regime (1966–1998) imposed on former political prisoners in Indonesia. The survival strategies employed by some former political prisoners, such as assuming new names and new lives, helped obscure the past. In attempting to reconstruct the 1960s as a period of political activism, an obstacle for the researcher has also been the respondents’ difficulties in remembering, as those performing the act of remembering were accustomed to denying and downplaying their political past. At the same time, the regime’s persecution of this group has fostered a community united by a common grievance, and created the outlines of a shared collective memory. Based on research conducted in Indonesia, I reflect on the challenges for oral historians in analyzing memories that have long been suppressed. 2013-02-28T08:00:00Z text application/pdf https://archium.ateneo.edu/stjgs/vol1/iss1/2 https://archium.ateneo.edu/context/stjgs/article/1028/viewcontent/STJGS_201.1_202_20Article_20__20Hearman.pdf Social Transformations Journal of the Global South Archīum Ateneo
institution Ateneo De Manila University
building Ateneo De Manila University Library
continent Asia
country Philippines
Philippines
content_provider Ateneo De Manila University Library
collection archium.Ateneo Institutional Repository
description From October 1965, the Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia, or PKI) and its followers were brutally repressed after the party’s alleged involvement in a coup attempt. Approximately half a million party members and sympathizers were killed, and hundreds of thousands of them were imprisoned for varying lengths of time. This paper examines how collective memory and a sense of identity were shaped under the conditions of repression and silence that the Suharto regime (1966–1998) imposed on former political prisoners in Indonesia. The survival strategies employed by some former political prisoners, such as assuming new names and new lives, helped obscure the past. In attempting to reconstruct the 1960s as a period of political activism, an obstacle for the researcher has also been the respondents’ difficulties in remembering, as those performing the act of remembering were accustomed to denying and downplaying their political past. At the same time, the regime’s persecution of this group has fostered a community united by a common grievance, and created the outlines of a shared collective memory. Based on research conducted in Indonesia, I reflect on the challenges for oral historians in analyzing memories that have long been suppressed.
format text
author Hearman, Vannessa
spellingShingle Hearman, Vannessa
Under Duress: Suppressing and Recovering Memories of the Indonesian Sixties
author_facet Hearman, Vannessa
author_sort Hearman, Vannessa
title Under Duress: Suppressing and Recovering Memories of the Indonesian Sixties
title_short Under Duress: Suppressing and Recovering Memories of the Indonesian Sixties
title_full Under Duress: Suppressing and Recovering Memories of the Indonesian Sixties
title_fullStr Under Duress: Suppressing and Recovering Memories of the Indonesian Sixties
title_full_unstemmed Under Duress: Suppressing and Recovering Memories of the Indonesian Sixties
title_sort under duress: suppressing and recovering memories of the indonesian sixties
publisher Archīum Ateneo
publishDate 2013
url https://archium.ateneo.edu/stjgs/vol1/iss1/2
https://archium.ateneo.edu/context/stjgs/article/1028/viewcontent/STJGS_201.1_202_20Article_20__20Hearman.pdf
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