Wijaya Herlambang. Kekerasan Budaya Pasca 1965: Bagaimana Orde Baru Melegitimasi Anti-Komunisme melalui Sastra dan Film [Violence Culture Post-1965: How the New Order Legitimized Anti-Communism through Literature and Film]. Tanggerang: Marjin Kiri, 2013. 334 pp.

• Main Author: Wirawan, Yerry
• Format: text
• Published: Archīum Ateneo 2014
• Online Access: https://archium.ateneo.edu/stjgs/vol2/iss2/8; https://archium.ateneo.edu/context/stjgs/article/1059/viewcontent/ST_202.2_208_20Book_20review_20__20Wirawan.pdf
• Institution: Ateneo De Manila University

Excerpt: Although there have been a number of notable studies on the cultural conflict of 1964–1965 in Indonesia between the Left artististic group Lembaga Kebudajaan Rakjat (Institution of People’s Culture, Lekra), and the liberal Manifes Kebudajaan (Cultural manifesto), which supported the idea of “universal humanism” (see Keith Foulcher, “A Survey of Events Surrounding Manikebu: The Struggle for Cultural and Intellectual Freedom in Indonesian Literature,” Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 125(4, 1969): 429–65; Harry Aveling,“ Indonesian Writers and the Left Before 1965,” Review of Indonesian and Malaysian Affairs 4[1–2, 1970]: 1–7), Herlambang introduces a fresh discussion to the subject along with critical engagement of historical sources. !e book explores the role of cultural work produced by anti-Communist artists with the support of Western organizations, which was, unfortunately, used to justify the violence of the anti-Communist purges that followed the failed political coup in 1965.